Real Kato Blog: Apple Watch: WWDC Results, Tiger Preview

Well, as it turns out, the rumor mill was mostly right this time around. Here's the wrap-up.

The various Mac-centric rumor sites were dead-on with a number of predictions, including the new display lineup (20", 23", and a beautiful but staggeringly huge 30"). I'm a bit disappointed that price cuts weren't announced; you could hear a bit of Apple-elitism in Steve Jobs when he said, in talking about the quality of the panels, that competitors use the panels that Apple rejects. And yes, those flat-panel screens are gorgeous; it's just hard to justify spending $1300 on a 20" LCD when I can get a 21" CRT for something like $200.

The mixed buzz about new iMacs turned out to be telling, too... while no new iMacs were announced, apparently Apple meant to announce something. The on-line Apple store has an announcement that the iMac product line is being discontinued, with no replacement until September. That's a pretty big goof in their production management; I mean, I understand not wanting to build up excess iMac inventory in preparation for a new product rollout, but a two- to three-month gap? Yikes. I wonder whose head is rolling over this one. This bit of news triggered some panic selling on Wall Street, but the stock recovered somewhat as people realized that a supply-based shortage really isn't bad news, and the loss of iMac sales will be tempered by the lower inventory write-downs needed when the new iMac is introduced.

As for Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger": there indeed was Dashboard, as foretold. Arlo Rose was pissed, but in thinking about this, his similar-looking Konfabulator environment isn't really all that novel an idea. As many have already pointed out, Apple's own desk accessories from waaaay back were the genesis of this whole thing anyway. And as usual, Apple has provided an implementation with more finesse and style. Arlo, instead of complaining, why not (a) accept that you might have to deal with competition, (b) make the product free for end users and sell an IDE to developers instead, and (c) make your product novel and compelling enough that people still want it?

Automator, which some thought would be called "Pipeline", was also there as expected. (There is a picture of a Mafia-esque robot with a pipe for this thing... perhaps "Pipeline" was an internal code name.) Looks pretty well-done, though I'll have to try it out to see. AppleScript in Mac OS 9 was limited by the scope of the applications' script dictionaries; I expect Automator might have the same limitations until developers get on the stick.

iChatAV added video conferencing, which is a logical development. But did you see how cool it looked, with its angled displays and reflections off the simulated table surface? This is a great example of Apple leveraging its Quartz technology, and doing it to make a useful visual metaphor. (I'm amazed at how people look at something like Sun's Project Looking Glass and think that their illegible translucent 3D windows are actually usable. Yes, the technology looks cool, but it doesn't help me.)

With a nod to us bloggers, Apple is adding an RSS newsreader to Safari. RSS is an interesting phenomenon; it's the Web boiled down to its essence, minus all the ads and flash animation and pop-ups. Web advertisers and portal sites might be getting a bit nervous about RSS.

There are two new display technologies called CoreImage and CoreVideo. People aren't excited about them yet because they don't know what they'll do with them, but believe me, this will be pretty huge, just as Quartz was. These technologies use the graphics card to accelerate image manipulation and video processing, similar to how Apple did QuickTime 2D acceleration a long time ago. With these toolkits, real-time filters and manipulations can be added to any application. While of course we expect Adobe to take advantage of this in Photoshop, look for Apple to lead the way in showing us how this will be useful. Dashboard gives us a hint of what's possible; plunking down a new widget makes a little wave in the screen, as the widget lands. How about distorting an icon slightly when we pick it up, as visual feedback? Applying sepia-tone to older items? Applying transition filters when changing contexts? All without bogging down the CPU? Hmm.

Finally, there's Spotlight, which is in line with my prediction about Apple moving away from the desktop metaphor and towards iTunes-like search. (Steve Jobs even mentioned iTunes when talking about search technology.) This is clearly the direction Apple wants to go, and a shot across Microsoft Longhorn's bow. Will Redmond be able to show anything that works better than this?

Like Panther, I'm not sure folks will see this as a must-have upgrade right away, but as Dashboard widgets and Spotlight plug-ins become more prevalent, folks will migrate over eventually.

I think Apple had multiple motives in previewing Tiger early. Of course, they'd like to see developers get on board with the new technologies quickly. But I think this is partly to take away some of Microsoft's thunder. In all likelihood, by the time Longhorn makes it out, it'll seem like a mishmash of copycat technologies.

Again.

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