WWDC: Application Overview

Yesterday, I, like many people, was sucked into Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field. All I can say is that once I came back to Earth, I was blown away by all the new features of Leopard, and quite dismayed to learn that I had lost my hat somewhere along the way.

By now every Apple site in the entire blogosphere has had some type of WWDC coverage, so I will try not bore you with information that you have already heard. There were many things announced in the time that Steve Jobs was on stage, so I will just try and do a little summary of the things announced related to Mac Apps, and maybe give my thoughts on a few of them.

Third Party Development on the iPhone?
Yes Sir! Not in the form of actual application that you would install on your iPhone, but in the form of Web 2.0 apps. Which would work fine, since the iPhone will have a full featured version of Safari and not just the “mobile” Internet. I have mixed feelings about this. Even though web applications will open up the avenues of development for many more people, I think that more powerful applications could be created if actual applications were allowed on the iPhone. Though once the webcast comes out, and I can see the demo that they showed during the Keynote, maybe I will change my mind.

Leopard Features Galore!
With Leopard prepared to drop in October, Steve Jobs showed a feature complete beta of Leopard during the Keynote, and even gave the developers a copy to take home. Almost all of Apple’s applications (that aren’t a part of iLife ‘06, where is ‘07 anyway?) saw an updated version to be shipped in Leopard. Most of them were debuted at Macworld 2007, but there were a few new things that were added:

Mail: Mail got quite a huge boost as well. There are the features we knew about like to-dos, and notes, but there were a few new ones announced. First, Mail now does RSS! This is a feature that I’m not sure I can see myself using, as I already use a dedicated RSS reader, but we’ll see. Second, Mail can now automatically pick out special data such as an address or date/time. Then it allows you to add it to Address Book or iCal right within the window! This is a feature that I can definitely see myself using, and looks to be very convenient. And last, Mail now has a much simpler set-up process. It is only one step. All you have to do is enter your current email address and password, and let Mail do the rest. When I read this I thought “finally!” This is something I have wished for, as I have multiple accounts and hate having to set up each one in Mail, because it can take so long to get right.

Quick Look: Quick Look allows you to look inside of an file to see what it is, without actually having to launch an application. All the Finder icons now also have a preview picture on them, instead of one unified icon for every file of that type. I consider Quick Look a more a part of the Finder, as the job of Quick Look is to make it so that you don’t actually have to open up an application. A few applications and plug-ins have been able to do this in the past, but of course, they are never as good as Apple’s own solution.

Finder: I won’t go into too much detail with the Finder as so much has changed, but there are a few things I would like to touch on. Firstly, is the new iTunes-esque interface. The sidebar and CoverFlow aspects are now identical to iTunes, but geared toward the Finder. People have been wanting a Finder update for a while now, and they have finally got it. I myself can’t wait to take the new Finder out for a spin. The interface is a breath of fresh air in what had been the same for so long. Do you like the new interface? The other thing that I wanted to touch on is the new Spotlight. Yes, I could have put Spotlight as its own paragraph, but I think that it is more relevant to the Finder. You can now use Boolean logic ( “and, or, not,”) to narrow down your searches. You can also search for quotes, absolute dates etc. This brings more power and usefulness to Spotlight overall, and I think I will be able to get more use out of it now.

DVD Player: Even though DVD Player didn’t get any floor time during Steve Jobs’ Keynote, it saw a very substantial update. As Apple’s website says “DVD Player in Leopard probably boasts more features than the DVD player in your home entertainment system. And you don’t have to leave your Mac to enjoy it.” The most significant update to DVD Player is a brand new interface. From the pictures, it is much more black, and has more substance to it than just the controller. You can now Zoom into your video to get rid of the letter-boxing with the added sliders. I am usually not bothered that much by the letter-boxing, but I know a lot of people who will get a lot of use from this feature.

Next is the scrubber. If you miss something, you can use the scrubber (or slider) to scroll back, and get instant video feed back of what is happening on screen. More than once I have found myself trying to skip to an exact moment on a DVD holding down the fast-forward/re-wind buttons, and I’m sure you have too. The next new feature is the Image Bar. From what I have read on Apple’s Website, it is a place where you can “Archive and re-visit your favorite moments over and over.” I believe this is pretty much video bookmarking. You can add a bookmark to your DVD so later you can just come back, click on the thumbnail, and be right at that exact moment you wanted to save earlier. This could come in handy for say, if multiple people are watching a DVD. You can just save where you left off, so that when the next person watches it, you can start watching again from where you were. No longer will you be trying to remember “now where did I leave off?”

The last major update to DVD Player that Apple’s site mentions is the Clip Editor. You can “create video snippets from and DVD and set key points you can re visit later. Yes, I did say these would be brief, but please bear with me. If I miss-understood what any of those features mean, please sound-off in the comments.

Safari: Out of all of the applications that were updated/released yesterday, Safari is the only one I know of that everyone can go out and download right now. Safari 3 (beta) is out now, and has a few really cool features. You can now re-arrange the tabs in Safari. This is something that has been built into FireFox for a while and now has come to Safari. A big feature that a lot of people have been wanting is the ability to save sessions. You people can now stop your wanting. With Safari’s sessions, you can open the last closed window, and even re-open all of the windows from your last session. Also introduced into Safari is Spell Check. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that Safari had Spell Check until now. Oh, and did I mention that it is available for Windows as well?

So there you have it. Those are the major apps that were updated that we hadn’t really got much, or any information on in the past. Other applications that saw updates as well were:

PhotoBooth - PhotoBooth now does Video! Use any photo/video from Library as back-drop; Burst mode.
iChat - Tabbed Chats; Multiple Logins; Invisibility; Record Audio/Video chats; SMS Forwarding.
iCal - Inline Inspector; re-deigned interface (take that Windows Calendar!); CalDav (see who’s free, reserve meeting rooms etc.)
Dashboard - .Mac widget syncing; Movie Widget (buy tickets, watch trailers and see showtimes).
Boot Camp - “Fast OS switching”; pre-installed drivers.
Front Row - Apple TV-esque interface.
Time Machine - Back-up wirelessly; encrypt backup; attach a drive, let Time Machine take care of everything else.

Another app-related thing that was touched on is games. EA Games announced on stage that they will be bringing 4 major titles over to OS X starting in July. Command and Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need For Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix are all set to be available. They demoed a version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which looked pretty good in my opinion.

That is all that I have for now. Did I miss anything? Are there any other updates that you think should be included? I based all of the above off of what is on Apple’s website, and what I con-gleamed from the other various Apple websites around the web. I haven’t watched the webcast yet, as it hasn’t been put up as of my writing this post, but when it does, I will update it with any relative information. In August, they are set to release two of their popular sporting games, John Madden Football and Tiger Woods Golf. These two games will be released simultaneously with their PC counter-parts.

What was your favorite announcement of Steve Jobs’ WWDC Keynote 2007?

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