Thoughts On The 2007 WWDC Keynote

Steve… Steve… Steve… Are my expectations just too high? I was severely underwhelmed by the keynote of this year’s WWDC. I was hoping for much much more. Leopard features that are out of this world, maybe some new hardware and a demo of the iPhone perhaps. I got none.

Don’t get me wrong. The Leopard features you showed us was good. It’s enough to ensure that I will upgrade to Leopard as soon as it hits the stores. Hopefully I also have enough money for some new hardware.

In order to make this a more positive article (not that I’m an Apple apologist, rather I just like looking at the brighter side of things), let me tell you what I liked.

Let’s start with Leopard features that I liked.

New Desktop

I love the 3D dock and the semi-transparent menu bar. I think this does well in making sure that it goes with whatever desktop image you choose. Like what Steve said, most Mac users change the desktop picture once they get their Macs. The dock and menu bar should go well with anything.

Stacks is awesome. I love the fan view. The grid is ok but fan is better for me. At least it looks better. As for Steve saying that it’s an app launcher, well it can be but a seemingly primitive one. I don’t think this will dislodge Quicksilver from my essential apps.

New Finder

Finally, Finder gets a revamp. It now looks more like iTunes than the previous Finder. Lots of good things. Coverflow integrated to it, eye candy rocks. Collapsible side menus. Better searches and the ability to have pre-programmed searches.

iChat

I like chatting. Whether it be text, audio or video. I think IM clients and communication technology in general has done so much in making this world much smaller. It brings family and friends closer regardless of location.

The best feature I like in Leopard’s iChat is the ability to show or present something to your chat mate. Whether it be a photo slideshow or a keynote presentation, you don’t have to be there to share things. That’s awesome. Think of all the traveling that will be cut. It’s almost like being there.

Other features that have long been overdue in iChat are tabbed chats and invisibility. A host of other features are also included.

Oh, the part in the Keynote when Phil showed Steve Ballmers pic during the iChat was priceless.

Time Machine

As part of the 90% or so of people who don’t regularly back-up this is a feature that is welcome. Although this isn’t new as Steve showed it before.

As for the other parts of the Keynote, I liked the parts wherein EA and ID committed to bringing more games to the Mac. I can now play Command & Conquer once again. That’s when I get my Intel Mac.

Oh, Steve using a Windows machine, hell has frozen over. I never thought I’d see it. Especially not in a Keynote.

The iPhone demo was dull.

Safari as the iPhone SDK, I’m still undecided if this was a brilliant move or not. Aaron our chief tech guy here in b5 has posted his thoughts on this.

The biggest disappointment of the night for me was the lack of hardware announcements. I was hoping for an ultraportable and maybe some new displays.

Out of a scale of 10, this keynote is probably a 3 or 4. Steve, I live in Manila and when you were giving the keynote it was 1 a.m. here. I could have used the sleep ya’ know. I should have slept and just watched the keynote after I woke up.

Watch the keynote here.