WWDC 2006 Thoughts

Another Jobs keynote in the can, this time courtesy of WWDC. I thought I’d save some time and post some of my thoughts to the blog, instead of repeating myself to everyone who asks, “So, what’d ya think?”

• Xserve. After installing an Xserve G5 at work a couple years I was unimpressed. The rack installation was a pain, speed was meh and the lack of any video output whatsoever was a real treat. In hindsight I thought I would have been better served if I had just user a PowerMac.

  The new Intel Xserve looks to fix a lot of those drawbacks. It’s got DVI/VGA out and also a serial console connection. The lights out stuff looks cool, bringing managability more on par with servers from HP, IBM, et al. The quad Xeon cores don’t hurt either. I don’t know about the rack installation gear but I feel better about purchasing an Xserve in the future.

• Leopard Server. Network-wide Spotlight search–nice. I’ve been waiting for this since Spotlight was announced with Tiger. I’ve got a 2TB Xserve RAID that’s just dying to be indexed. Now users will be able to search the server and other workstation storage from the Spotlight interface on their desktops.

  Looks like Apple is stuffing in some nice workgroup features into Leopard Server as well. Improvements to the email server and iChat server, plus now a wiki, podcasting and a group calendar server. For a company not yet hooked on Exchange/Microsoft this is now a viable option.

• Mac Pros. Cool, I guess. More important as a milestone, marking the end of the PowerPC era. Altogether, compared to similarly equipped PCs, the prices look competitive. Still missing some key Universal apps (namely Adobe products), so until those products become available the Mac Pros aren’t yet a viable option. Along with Mark, I’d like to see a budget single-CPU version for people that don’t need the power, but want the expandability and already have a nice monitor.

• Leopard stuff. Time Machine, very slick. And so important. Backups are something that most power users find a chore, let alone your average/newbie computer user. As more and more life content gets stored digitally on your computer backups are no longer an option. Time Machine looks like a winner.

  Mail.app continues to improve, but it’s the todo functionality along with iCal and CalDAV which have me excited. Great for workgroups in combination with Server, but also since CalDAV is standard that means no more .Mac needed for real calendar synchronization across multiple platforms.

  iChat with tabs. About time, but I stick with Adium. The video and audio recording features are cool, though. The digital media integration throughout OSX continues to leave competitors behind.

  Dev stuff. Dashcode, Spotlight improvements, Core Animation… looks cool, only a developer knows for sure. 64-bit: never hurts, bring on the speed.

  Spaces: Virtual desktops–amazing innovation… ummm. Whatever. Dashboard is still not a killer feature for me (the Dictionary is the only thing I’d miss were it gone.)

• Final thoughts. All this typing is tiring. (Ben, you got a lot of catching up to do!) I’m glad to see the transition to Intel is complete. Nothing terribly exciting about the new hardware. I’m still waiting to see the Merom MacBook(Pro)s arriving with the heat issues hopefully solved. I’m hearing we might see those in September.

  Leopard, from first glance, looks like a solid upgrade. Moreso than Tiger, certainly. Will have a better idea when it gets closer to release and those Top Secret Features are revealed. The Spotlight and Mail/CalDAV stuff will be more of an impetus for upgrading my desktop people (many of them still run Panther, never saw a need to change.) I’m also glad the OSX versions are spacing out a bit more, easier on the wallet.

And I really need to get to MacWorld in January. Catch the Jobs fevah up close and personal.