2 weeks later WWDC recap:
Since the entire conference was under NDA (Non-Discloser Agreement), I can’t really go into specifics about most of the stuff that was talked about. Unless Apple’s already made it public…
Overall, Apple seems really healthy. I must not be alone in that assessment since Apple’s stock just posted a new 52-week high. Moving to IBM chips is long overdue and the performance of the new G5s is going to be mind-blowing. The thing they didn’t and couldn’t mention during Jobs’ keynote was how poorly the current G4s did against the P4s. Once the G5s are released, it’ll be interesting to see Mac vs. Mac benchmarks. I expect we’ll see speed increases of at least double over the previous generation of G4s. Because of IBMs resources, these chips are only going to get better. The days of Apple being hamstrung by Motorola’s lethargic semiconductor division are over.
G5
The G5 boxes are beautiful. The front and back grills are not just cosmetic and the internal fans are subtly visible from the front. The side door is not hinged, and instead comes completely off. The door itself feels great. Bruce has been talking for years about building a computer case out of CPU heatsinks, in a lot of ways, Apple just did. Besides the multiple fans and ‘cooling zones’, the case itself should help to disperse heat.
The handles are not going to be fun to hold for any length of time. These are big boxes, heavier and taller than the current towers they’ll be replacing.
Panther
Panther is going to be another huge step forward but there are still a number of kinks to work out. As much as I’d like to, I won’t be running this fulltime until much closer to the final release. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s definitely faster, the interface is improved and a lot of issues with Jaguar seem to have been fixed. The Finder however, is not so great so far. I find myself frequently feeling lost when working with multiple windows and resenting the amount of space the sidebar takes up. Partly I probably just need to get used to it, but there are things I hope get fixed.
The best feature by far is Expose, which is really a radical evolution of the way people interact with computer windows. It kind of reminds me of the memory computers from Minority Report, only practical and easy to understand. This feature will become immediately useful as soon as it’s out.
Multi-user login switching is just very, very cool. The cube spin is gratuitous and completely perfect. I’m probably going to keep a presentation user account on my machine so I can quickly give demonstrations without having to clean anything up.
Font Book
Font Book has gotten a little press, partly about how it will be grabbing the market away from several small companies who make font managers. I think it’s got more to do with Apple identifying a very important area that was being underserved. Over the past year I’ve started to writing several essays about how the font-management situation in OS X was a disaster. There were three main players, the venerable Suitcase from Extensis, Font Reserve and Font Agent Pro. I’ve tried all three, and they’ve all got tons of room for improvement.
I first saw Font Reserve 1.0 at MacWorld Boston years ago and bought a copy on the spot. It was the ultimate tool for type geeks and came with tens of thousands of pre-defined classifications for various fonts. On OS 9, the browser worked well but I never felt it was easy enough to use to recommend to any designers I work with. Font Reserve was fantastic at managing massive font libraries but the interface was always somewhat amateurish and there certain bugs which never got fixed. The application’s transition to OS X was clunky and the interface unfortunately seemed to get worse.
Suitcase probably had the best interface of the set, but it’s very clumsy when managing large font libraries. This seems to be the most popular of the current choices, but it’s still buggy and Extensis’ engineering solutions usually involve bundling something (Font Doctor) or buying someone. Point of fact; Extensis just bought Diamondsoft, publisher of Font Reserve. Hopefully they’ll be able to bring their two technologies together and merge their strengths instead of their weaknesses.
Font Agent Pro is the one most likely to be hurt by Apple’s decision. They’re a small company, making the transition from Shareware. Their application probably had the most robust backend, but it’s interface was just horrible. I watched several people struggle to try and use it, but each version failed to address the huge usability hurdles and instead built upon those and tried to make bad decisions work. Hopefully they’ll focus on the font-repair utility side of their product which was fantastic.
iChat
iChatAV just totally works. Lila’s grandmothers are already benefiting since she’s much better at video chat than she is at the phone. Biggest bummer is that video only works with G3s 600Mhz or faster and our home iBook was too slow. The iSight is a really beautiful gadget and a nice convenience though it probably can and will be much smaller in the future.
Two best hidden features of iChat:
- One-Way Video Chat: Control-click on anyone in the buddy-list or Rendezvous list to send a one-way video chat. The receiving person will be able to view the video and send audio. Unfortunately this still doesn’t work with sub-600Mhz G3 macs.
- The iSight can be used to generate new buddy icons. Click on the icon, choose Edit Picture and then click use Video Snapshot.
I’m not certain, but the codec appears to be a modified flavor of the H.263 Video Codec called Apple VC H.263.
If you don’t have an AOL or .Mac account, you can get a free.mac account or a free AOL Instant Messenger account. For AOL, click ‘Get a Screen Name’ in the yellowish box on the right. This is how millions of pre-teens get around AOL’s parental controls.
The WWDC’s 802.11b network was overloaded and it was difficult to get a DHCP lease. The 802.11g network generally seemed to work, but the 12 and 17 inch PowerBooks were still far outnumbered by 15 inch Titaniums and iBooks of various sizes–none of which could use the 802.11g network yet. (There were a few people seemed to have PCMCIA wireless cards hanging out of their Titaniums). The most annoying part was that connectivity was severely hampered by a number of people setting up ad-hoc computer-to-computer networks on the same channels as the official networks. It’s amazing that so many alpha-geeks can be so clueless about wireless networking.
During the conference I noticed that instead of talking with strangers about the weather, as people are wont to do, attendees would talk to each other about the wireless network. Still a brief chat about the air, just a bit more specific. In describing what was happening with the network, I referred to the air as mud. Later I realized that was probably a painting metaphor used to describe the sludgy mess resulting from poor color mixing or the mess at the bottom of a brush cleaning jar. Most everyone besides Bruce probably thought I was talking about dirty water. Which I guess still applies.
I got to meet a few people I’ve read or talked with. Derrick Story, who I published my article earlier this year, is actually taller than me. So was Craig Hockenberry from IconFactory. I met Steven Frank from Panic Inc. briefly, but he was busy trying to get one of his many PDAs to bridge his laptop to an outside network so we didn’t talk long. Somehow I thought he’d be older, which is probably a compliment. (I saw Steven fiddling with some device or another several times, he really is obsessed). Adam Wilt knew who I was, which shocked me. Considering how much of my video knowledge grew from articles he’s written, it was really great to get to spend time talking with him. I also got to spend a lot of individual time with the Final Cut Pro team, got some really valuable feedback and learned a lot.
