Nik Gomez

Apple WWDC 2007 Keynote

Of course anything that happens regarding Steve Jobs will make the tech blogs, but yesterday was a big day in the life of a newly converted Mac user. It was the start of WWDC, and as usual, Jobs gave his keynote as an opening act. Also as usual, there were massive rumors circulating both forums and blogs alike, some rumors came true, other fell back into the “save for next Apple event” pile. Here are some of the things announced today and my take left along side of them:

Mac OS X Leopard

• Desktop: We have a new dock and semi-transparent top bar. The new dock is definitely nice with the Stacks feature, but listing a semi-transparent bar as a feature? What’s up with that? If Jobs would have skipped the bar and focused solely on the dock, I would be much more pleased. Either way, the new dock is a definite improvement. It’s a step in the left direction.
• Finder: This is where I am most excited for Leopard. The finder has a whole new way of browsing through the files and folders located all around your hard drive. New icons that mimic the file/folder contents, new Cover Flow view, and and improved searching with Spotlight all excite me. I believe that Core Animation will be integrated somehow into the new Finder features which would make this new explorer even prettier.
• Time Machine: Nothing really new, but Time Machine looks nice. Admittedly, it is just a backup program with a pretty GUI, but what’s wrong with that? Having it integrated into my OS is very welcome.
• Spaces: Again, nothing new, but this is probably my second favorite feature coming to Leopard. This makes it OK for those of us who can’t fit four screens on our desks. It looks like it will have very intuitive integration into everyday use, and with the rapid increases in RAM size and decrease in prices, more programs are going to be open more of the time. One screen can’t really handle that without something like Spaces.
• iChat: A few new things make this simple text/audio/video chatting program even more appealing. You can now show your the people who you are chatting with your presentations, slideshows, or other things not pertaining to your face. Nice new features, nothing shocking though.
• Boot Camp: We all knew that Boot Camp would be integrated into Leopard, and although we were hoping that Apple would make it into a Parallels/VMware killer of sorts, Jobs presented it as a complementary product to these two others. The new Boot Camp will allow quick switching between your different virtual machines. Small update.
• Front Row: It will look like Apple TV, that’s nice… I guess. I don’t really use Front Row right now, maybe I will next year at college. This new interface doesn’t affect me too much.

iPhone

• 3rd Party Apps: No SDK, only web apps. Apple needs to learn that, although first-party limitations have worked thus far, competitors are coming in on all sides. Seeing as Apple is entering into a brand new market that already seems saturated with carriers and phone makers, being locked into the Cingular/AT&T contract sucks big time. Only web apps really hinders the capabilities for others to develop kick-ass applications.
• Size Issues: The picture of the iPhone has changed on the Apple website (which has also received a redesign). What is odd is that it now seems MUCH smaller than before. It turns out that after the old and new images are compared and the new one is vertially stretched, they match exactly. This is some shady imaging on Apple’s part. It looks like Andre the Giant’s hand holding the iPhone where as before it was Mini-Me’s.

Other/Misc.

• Safari 3 for Windows: I get the point of releasing an Apple browser for Windows. It can be used as yet another point of entry for Apple. It’s too bad that their product sucks. Mac users don’t even use Safari, why would Windows users. If Windows users are to use any browser other than IE (which sucks equally to Safari), they will either use Firefox or Opera. Apple still has a ways to go with this browser. They might want to focus on getting a home-court advantage before going to the visitor’s side.

  Update: Wired has done benchmarks on Safari 3, Firefox 2, and IE 7. Guess what? Apple lied. Safari is slower than both…

• Games: Another “why?” to me. Now that Parallels is making strides in virtualization with Windows and the integration of gaming on Macs using the Windows OS, why keep producing games for Macs? I don’t think it makes sense on a developer’s side. It makes perfect sense for Apple, but not for EA.

New iPhone ads are simple in true Apple style

I will confess, although I am no Apple-fanboy (yet), their commercials and advertising practices are truly impressive. If I owned a business, I would kidnap every person on their PR and marketing teams. Like many, I was very disturbed by the iPhone ads that were recently shown of about a million famous people saying “hello?”; they were annoying, repetitive, and didn’t tell me anything about this supposedly revolutionary device. Now, after seeing the new iPhone ads, I’m glad that Apple has returned to their minimalistic style.

These new ads are very basic in nature. What do they show? How to work the device. Through clever workflow ideas (Calamari) they display the ways that the iPhone can easily switch from and to each different function in-between sessions. The narrator is soothing, the music appropriate, and the visual part is as simple as it can get: a hand holding an iPhone. Then again, it does have one level of complexity at times; its that damn second hand.

That second hand is going to be a big problem for Apple. The fact that the iPod is completely functional is one hand is amazing (but this attribute is repeatable). June 29th is the launch date according to these commercials. Continue reading…

Creative Zen Stone proves the Shuffle is crap

Take a good look at that image. Now realize that this 1GB flash media player costs only $40. Seeing the word Zen branded on these little devices tells you that they are part of the Creative Zen line of a wide variety of media players. And like many of Creative’s products, it does what Apple’s products do at a drastically reduced price. Apple’s Shuffle, which does the exact same functions (play music files randomly w/o an LCD screen), costs $80 (double the Zen Stone).

The Zen Stone exemplifies my main problems with Apple’s products and their pricing schemes. Apple is able to charge ridiculous prices for ordinary products employing technology that has been available for years. There is no use trying to deny that their marketing and PR departments are probably the best in the world, but I still don’t think that their products justify their prices. Paying more for an inferior product isn’t cool, though it might be fashionable.

EMI takes first steps for DRM-free music on iTunes

It is official: EMI is going to offer its library of music on iTunes without DRM. For those who don’t know, DRM is what prevents you from doing whatever you like with your music (ie. using something other than an iPod). DRM stands for Digital Rights Managements. DRM is applied to every file you buy in iTunes, every song you download in Rhapsody, basically it’s everywhere. It’s also crippling your free usage of what you pay for.

After Steve Jobs’ blaming the record industry for DRM saying that he’s all for DRM-free music, but not taking any personal responsibility for the problem, the major record label EMI has published a press release stating that it will be offering higher quality, DRM-free music on the iTunes Music Store. Here is a great summary of the points made today (by Gizmodo): Continue reading…