WWDC Keynote and pundit thoughts.

Posted on June 11th, 2008 by phiber811, under John, main.

Within the Mac Modding community, and the Mac Nerd news community I’ve read several articles so far that were slamming the WWDC keynote. Its run the gamut from people being pissed that Apple has “forgotten the Mac,” to people complaining about there not being enough about Mac OSX, to the iPod getting left out. Oh, and there was lambasting over there not being “one more thing,” the fact that Mac OS 10.6 is called “snow leopard” and so on. In essence, the sentiment was stated as feeling ripped off.

My reply to all of this is simple. Quit whining, grow up, and get over it.

Allow me to elaborate. Steve Jobs promised you round about nothing. Nada. Zilch. Steve was in no way required to even have a keynote speech. He’s not obligated to give you “one more thing,” nor is he required to dedicate any of his time on stage to anything other than that which he wants to. Hell, the man could come out with a banjo and sing two hours of John denver tunes rewritten to be about AppleScript, and it would be entirely his prerogative.

So what if WWDC’s keynote was all about the iphone. Its only recently that WWDC has warranted any such thing. With the amount of public darling that Apple has to contend with, steve jobs farts in a stiff wind, and the nerd news machine is trying to figure out what it means. Hello? Maybe he just farted.

Now, lets address that which did and didn’t happen at the keynote, and my thoughts as to why.

Apple had a sold out venue for WWDC this year. Thats the first time ever. Let me say that again. For the first time in history, apple has sold out the World Wide Developers Conference. What does that tell you about development for Apple hardware and software? That we’ve got more devs working third party than ever before. That alone is impressive.

Then lets notice that Apple had separate tracks for the desktop Mac OS and the iPhone OS. Both Mac OSX, but unique to their hardware. Notice that Apple has without telling the entire world, gone and turned OSX into a legitimate portable OS that people WANT to develop for. Thats impressive as well.

So, why was the Keynote all about the iPhone? It wasn’t. It was about software development for the version of Mac OSX that the iPhone runs. So too with the iPod Touch. Why was it all about showing off software development? Big hint. They keynote was at WWDC! It was a keynote for developers! Not for the nerd news, and not for the average joe consumer. Sure, they announced the iPhone and MobileMe. They knew it would give the end users something to talk about. But the majority about mobile OS development tells the developers that Apple is serious about this as a platform. It tells the public that there are amazing things in store. And by doing a developer oriented keynote, it tells the nerd news that Apple will not put on a big show and cater to “what the peoples want” in order to get headlines. They’re going to gear towards the correct audience.

So, why didn’t Apple talk about 10.6 very much? Because they didn’t want to. What have they got up their sleeves? They don’t have to tell you. They can do whatever they want. And if history is any indicator, what they told us on Monday is barely the tip of the iceberg.

Now, lets address Snow Leopard. What’s in a name? In this case, very little. The cat names were Apple internal project designations. Apple has always used names like this on an internal scale. However, the nerd news picked up on “tiger” and “leopard” and such, and the names stuck. And as far as Snow Leopard? Okay. Sure. Current Mac OS is Leopard. Many people also call it Space Kitty because of the default graphics. I’d guess that would make Snow Leopard “Frozen Space Kitty.” And, for the record, if you think Snow Leopard is bad, lets take a moment to remember some other internal apple product names, that are a hell of a lot worse.

Mac OS 8.6: Horatio
Mac OS10.2.7 for the PMac G5: Smeagol
Quicktime Early Dev: Road Pizza
iWork 07: Garlic
PMac 6100: Piltdown Man
Pbook 3400C: Hooper
newton Messagepad keyboard: Bazooka
Apple OneScanner: Moosehead

And thats just a couple. Many times, devices got names like Q98 or M68. The fact that apple cares enough to give us a cat to call the OS is pure icing, since other than being named after a cat, it’ll more realistically be called Mac OS X 10.6. To wit, quit whining about cat names.

Finally, lets roll the rest of it together. The rest of it being that there were no new machines other than the iphone, nothing got speed bumped or entirely redesigned, the ipod didn’t get any real stage time, etc. In order of my listing:

No, Apple did not promise you any new boxes. They dropped the MacBook Air on you in January at MWSF, a Consumer and corporate trade show, which was in fact, the correct venue to do so. Also, during the 2008 calendar year, they’ve updated the Xserve, the MacPro, the MacBook, and the iMac. They also released an N-Compliant Airport Express. So far, I see plenty of of updating and new product movement. Sure, its not high profile, but apple is not required to make everything a high profile event.

No, nothing got speed bumped, they just hit up the iMac’s recently. Currently the product line is pretty well diverse, so mucking about with it would have been more of a hassle than not. They’ll get around to it in their own sweet time. Good things come to those who wait. Be patient and Apple will bring the Awesome.

The poor iPod. Its so lonely in iPod land. No mention at all. Whatever. In first quarter 08 financials, apple noted that they had sold 22,121,000 ipods during the quarter. for second quarter, their numbers were 10,644,000. Thats 32,765,000. Yes, thats almost 33 million ipods. Let that sink in. 33 million. That works out to pretty much an ipod for every man woman and child in Canada. Its 3 million shy of an ipod for every man, woman and child in California, in 2 fiscal quarters.

Now, the last time I checked, Companies always put money into development, but they don’t start heavily revising their product line until their current product hits market saturation and sales begin to decline. Then they hit the market with a revised product line, and the cycle starts over. Bearing that in mind, ipod sales are pretty strong. People like and want ipods. Therefore, since the product line isn’t broken, there’s no need to fix it.

Now also bear in mind that the WWDC Keynote figured heavily in terms of software development for their portable device OS. Maybe I missed it but that includes the iPod touch. And if you think that Apple isn’t planning to work more of the iphone/touch features into the rest of the iPod product line over time, you’re not paying attention. The WWDC Keynote was all about software and OS development for the iPhone and the iPod.

Now, bearing all this in mind, Steve’s keynote speech makes perfect sense to me. It contained targeted info, for a targeted audience, with candy for the kids sprinkled in here and there. Was I disappointed? No. Did I get what I expected? Yes. Was it impressive? I thought so.

And yes, before I forget, Mobile Me. Watch that space. Closely. Carefully. Pay attention. Apple has. Google’s online features? Microsoft’s talk of web based subscription based applications? The proliferation of web based email, the decentralization of data across multiple machines and devices? Having all of your data be cohesive across those multiple devices? Yes. Apple’s been paying attention. Lots of attention. And they’ve got a master plan for keeping you organized, on the go, and connected. This isn’t the .mac of current, or the iTools of old. Apple has a vision of the future, and they’re just starting to give us a taste. MobileMe? Cant wait, roll over my .mac account now. Show me what I’ve been missing, and give me a reason to love what you’ve got to offer. Go ahead Apple, win me over with cold filtered awesomeness.

In short, if you hated the keynote, and felt ripped off, then you’re most likely in the category of people it wasn’t targeted at. if you saw Steve “Bring The Awesome” and the awesome wasn’t the iPhone, then you’re totally in the keynote crosshairs. Not that this will stop a million tech writers from filing a million articles about “what the new ipod means.” It wont. It just means that Apple is still as good as ever at hiding things in plain sight.

Pay attention to the future. Steve showed you on Monday. It may not be here right now, and it may not be a phone, but its coming. And we’ll see it soon enough.