WWDC Keynote
It’s 9:59 AM, and I’m sitting in the back, waiting for stuff to start.
I’ll fill this in with notes as I go.
10:02: Steve takes the stage. “So much great stuff today, we may need
to take a stretch break.”
Updates:
- Airport Extreme is in sync with
the final spec. - 25 months since Apple opened first store. 58 are open now, 17m
visitors. Chicago (coming this weekend), SF, and Tokyo stores coming
soon. - iPod; days away from shipping 1 millionth iPod
- iTunes music store has been up for 8 weeks; sold 5m songs in that
time. - Safari: 5m downloads. In beta for 6 months. Declaring Safari 1.0
today; it will be on the web in a few hours. Safari SDK to come
out today, as well.
10:10: Jaguar is over for developers; Panther preview today. A big
silver X, no spots. 100 amazing new features. Some of the interop
stuff:
- X11 bundled in
- NFS file locking
- FreeBSD 5.0
- Better SMB
- IPSec-based VPN
- Active Directory
New Finder. Old one was computer-centric. New one is user-centric:
- Left-hand spot for favorites, kind of like a shelf. This appears
in the open and save dialogs, too. - Fast search technology.
- Labels
- Dynamic network browsing (Unix & Windows servers)
- Dynamic search–results are updated as you type.
10:18: New iDisk:
- Automatic two-way syncing of files.
- “Local folder
that syncs”.
10:20: Expose:
- Multitasking leads to a lot of windows open, and it’s a big
hassle. - He opens a bunch of apps; activates Expose, and everything shrinks
dynamically, arranged nicely. - You can mouse over each mini-window, and
it shows the title. Very snappy. You can do it for one app, or for all
your windows. And of course, you can do it in slo-mo. - You can also make all the windows fly away
10:25: File Vault
- Encrypts and decrypts files in the home directory on-the-fly.
10:26: New mail
- Faster
- Safari HTML
- Addresses are objects
- View and manage by threads
10:29: Built in Fax
- Every print-panel has a fax button
10:31: Pixlet; breakthrough QuickTime codec.
- Studio-grade quality
- wavelet-based (Pixlet = Pixar + Wavelet)
- 48 bits per pixel source data
- no interframe compression
- no noticeable visual artifacts
10:34: Preview; major work done on this.
- Fastest PDF reader in the world.
- 28 seconds to scroll through a 978 page document.
- search is very fast
(Panther also has on-the-fly PostScript to PDF; can share any printer
as a PostScript printer)
10:39: Fast user switching
- Can’t do this justice–wait for the webcast!
10:41: FontBook; font organization, preview, and search.
10:42: iChat AV
- Audio chat
- Video chat; Video conferencing for the rest of us
- Zero set up or configuration
- Locate people by buddy name
- Works with any firewire camera/camcorder
- Audio chat works OK with 56k modem
- Need broadband for Video
- Beta (times out Dec 31) coming today for Panther and Jaguar
(will be $29 when it ships; free if you have Panther) - iSight–$149… unless you are here
is the hardware companion for iChat AV (30fps, full motion
vide at 640×480, F/2.8, dual element mike, firewire for AV and power;
screen-based mounting system even clips onto portables)
(you’ll have to wait for the webcast for the demos; there’s a nice
little surprise call from a certain Visiting Professor (VP) at UCLA).
10:56: Panther will be $129, and will ship by end of year.
(Wait for the webcast for a little fun with the competition.)
|
***whew*** |
11:01: Xcode; new stuff in Developer tools
- Fast compiles (GCC 3.3) 101,391 lines of code: 377 seconds for
Xcode, 223 seconds for CW. Still not as fast as CW, unless you use
distributed builds (think zilla) - Linking is no more. Only links shit needed to launch the app.
- Predictive compiling while you type (I’m not sure which one of us
is high…) - Edit and continue
- Incredible search capabilities.
Chris Espinosa (Apple Employee #8) joins him on stage for a demo. Be
sure to watch this part of the webcast.
11:12: One more thing… A funny thing happened on the Apple web site.
- Many reactions: too good to be true; it’s not true; it’s
brilliant marketing - Apple code word: premature specification
- It was a mistake, and it is true: the World’s Fastest Personal
Computer
The Chip:
- Turned to IBM several years ago to make the coolest CPU: the
G5 - 64-bit
- Runs existing 32-bit apps no problem.
- up to 2GHz
- 1 GHz Front side bus
The architecture:
- 12-unit core (215 in-flight instructions; G4 can do 16)
- 2 FPUs
- Massive branch prediction logic
- 130 nanometer process
- 58 million transistors
- 300mm wafers
Dr. John E. Kelly, III (Senior VP, Technology Group) from IBM joins
him on stage:
- “6-7 atomic layers in the gate.”
- “a roadmap that’s gonna knock your socks off”
The systems:
- G5 system controller; one of the world’s fastest ASICS
- Memory: 400MHz 128-bit DDR (6.GB/s); entire contents of a DVD in
one second - AGP 8X PRO
- 133MHz PCI-X
- Serial ATA
- Optical digital audio
The products:
- up to 8GB RAM
- New enclosures. Slick; all aluminum
- Computer-controlled cooling; 9 fans, but quiet: 35 dBA for typical
usage - 3 models: 1.6GHz $1999; 1.8GHz $2399 ; 2×2.0 GHz $2999 (comparable
Dell is $4031); shipping in August
(see the webcast for benchmarks, including cool stuff from Adobe and
Wolfram)
The future:
- 3GHz in 12 months
Closing remarks:
- First 6 months of the year: 12″, 17″ PowerBook; Safari, Keynote, FCP4, iPod,
iTunes 4, Panther, iSight, Xcode, PowerMac G5 - And now, a bunch of sessions to learn about all this stuff!