Mac OS X Leopard at WWDC: What's a Web Worker to Love?
It’s Stevenote time again, and that means that the Mac faithful gather round their liveblogging screens to happily swim in the fruity Kool Aid. This time it’s the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, CA.
The big news was a deeper preview of Leopard (Mac OS X) than we have seen before. The slides boast 300 new features. But he’s probably counting the reflective “floor” of the dock as a feature. Not going to do a whole lot for your billing rate, is it? So what did Steve Jobs say to his flock that will make a difference to those of us who earn our livings based on our digital lifestyles?
Leopard is still shipping in October for $129. What’s more than eye candy and really interesting for web workers:
The new Finder will have a beefed up sidebar for easier cataloging of searches and items. If you have a .Mac account, you can search the contents of other Macs linked to your account. This is helpful, provided you have that .Mac account. Will this be the feature that finally makes the service worth $99 per year? Will .Mac finally get past the performance issues that have made it painful to use? Maybe. In Tiger (OS X 10.4) you could enter keywords to quickly search for files in an iTunes-like window. Leopard incorporates more of the iTunes interface into the Finder by adding Cover Flow, with a visual flip-book of files. This can be handy, provided it’s snappy.
Quick Look lets you preview multi-page documents without launching their respective applications. Interesting. It will remain to be seen what non-Apple, non-Microsoft applications can use this technology. Anything that saves times is good for the web worker.
Spaces is a wonderful web worker feature. When your work life and your personal life happen on the same computer in the same room, Spaces is how you can “leave” the office at the end of the day. Virtual desktops is nothing new, even for Mac OS X. But now the functionality is built in to the operating system.
Mail and iCal are still the biggest web worker disappointments from Apple. So much potential not fully realized. We live and die by our email, and Apple somehow thinks we spend our day designing postcards of our last vacation to send to Grandma? Serious web workers are probably going to stick to Thunderbird or Gmail. The improvements to these productivity apps are so superficial in Leopard, they weren’t even worth mentioning in today’s presentation.
The big news in iChat, for those of us who would get bored of changing silly backdrops after 5 minutes, is the ability to show a file such as a presentation or video in an iChat session. Back when Leopard was first previewed, there was talk of a remote control feature. From the Google cached page:
Share and share alike
Remote control takes on a whole new meaning with iChat in Leopard. Thanks to iChat Screen Sharing, you and your buddy can observe and control a single desktop via iChat, making it a cinch to collaborate with colleagues, browse the Web with a friend, or pick the perfect plane seats with your spouse. Share your own desktop or share your buddy’s – you both have complete control at all times. And when you start a Screen Sharing session, iChat automatically initiates an audio chat so you can talk things through while you’re at it.
This paragraph is completely missing from the current preview page. Too bad. Showing a one-way demo is not nearly as interesting as real-time file collaboration.
Steve Jobs is famous for saving the biggest announcements for a last “one more thing.” Safari sees version 3, available as a beta download now. Inline searching and tabbed browsing aren’t exactly cutting edge nowadays. The news here is that the Apple browser is now available for Windows. It’s all for the sake of the iPhone, which will work on the Windows platform and therefore must “talk” to a browser. You didn’t seriously think it would sync bookmarks with Internet Explorer 7, did you? So Safari for Windows it is. If you’re not planning to buy an iPhone, is there a good reason to ditch Firefox for Safari?
Speak of iPhone, the much anticipated mobile device is not as closed to 3rd party developers as originally thought. Developers can write “Web 2.0″ applications for the iPhone as they would for the browser that appear to run as fully realized applications on the phone. Time will tell just how creative and productivity-minded these 3rd party apps will be.
What do you think…is this an operating system worth waiting another 4 months for?
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“…is this an operating system worth waiting another 4 months for…” Or what? Stomp your foot in protest?
OS X tiger is completely modern, serviceable operating system with UNIX underpinnings and stability. I warrant even power users haven’t outpaced it’s technology, yet. What is 4 months wait for an update: nothing. I’d rather wait 4 years than backslide into Microsoft products.
I think $129 is a little steep for the number of useful new features. The new Finder is still an underachiever IMHO. Improving it shouldn’t count as a feature, it’s more like obligation. Maybe the greatest advance is under the hood, the 64-bit code base and Core Animation. But, regardless of how lackluster it seems to me, I’ll still cough up the cash and upgrade my system when October comes. That’s just the kind of nut I am.
Your comments don’t make the new release sound very exciting. Now that you mention it does seem strange that Mail, iCal and Safari are such losers and probably represent at least 1/3 of my computing time. They also seem like pretty low-hanging fruit but maybe that’s for the next release. Like most I expect my other programs on OS X are mostly from Microsoft and Adobe. The only Apple software I use on OS X is iTunes and iPhoto for personal stuff.
The multiple desktop option could be interesting but for me it would have to work in conjuction with other software contexts like Google, WordPress and Dreamweaver.
Good practical review of what’s coming. Thanks.
Didn’t see the Keynote, but I’ve been watching the new feature videos on the Apple site.
The fact that “windows reflecting on the floor” was highlighted as an exciting new feature of the Operating System seemed a little lame.
Spaces is useful but, as you said, nothing new. I’ve been using VirtueDesktops.
Time machine seems like a nice way to handle the ever so important detail of data backup.
I like the folders in the dock. Again, nothing new, but seems like a nice implementation that will help to keep the desktop clutter free.
As far as waiting 4 months. No problem. OSX Tiger is working great for me right now.
@Johndoe: OS X is not competing with MS/Vista here. It’s competing with itself. Is what we’ve seen so far worth $129 and the hassle of upgrading? I’m not convinced yet.
For screen sharing, it looks like the description is now more closely tied to the Finder rather than iChat. Seems like it’s being pitched as a combination of remote desktop and VNC.
From the Apple site:
With shared computers automatically displayed in the sidebar, it’s far easier to find or access files on any computer in your house, whether Mac or PC. All it takes is a click. But here’s where things get really interesting. By clicking on a connected Mac, you can see and control that computer (if authorized, of course) as if you were sitting in front of it. You can even search all the computers in the house to find what you’re looking for.
Yes i think its worth waiting for. And if i really have to answer why is because it will work unlike Vista Ultima which i do own and try to run dual booting with xp. Only reason im even in vista it seems to see if something else i like works. Just bought a brand new macbook pro with santa rosa 2.4 and i can’t be more happier or proud. And ID and EA announcing that they are gonna jump on apple’s bandwagon with games why wouldn’t we switch. Only flaw i seen reall y with anything we got with osx was safari. I’m running the new 3.0 now and hopes it doesn’t crash and seems to work great so far. I was planning on building another gaming machine in 6 months and since i seen ID on stage with jobs lol why should i bother. I’m just waiting on ddr3 to become mainstream and new chip architecture for my next gaming machine. Microsoft only offers me randomness and a usually unstable OS. Microsoft is going to be backed into a corner and if it doesn’t watch it will get a sucker punch for being the sucker.
Kool-aide drinkers? KOOL-AIDE DRINKERS?!?
You musy have us confused with Republicans or the Windows faithful.
Our shit works.
I think the highlighted Mail features that recognize dates and addresses and integrate with iCal and the Address book look useful. There is certainly nothing like that in the current Mail. Plus having to-do lists, notes, RSS feeds, and a more versatile side bar all look pretty productive to me. Of course, I may be unaware of what would be useful to a web worker, since I am not one :-)
This years WWDC was probably the most lack lusture one.. I was expecting a new line of iMac.. i dont like the current Briefcase form factor models. As for Leopard for the common user every feature counts.. yeah the price could have been $99. Steve are you listening…? :)