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WWDC Roundup


Alex Oughton

Steve Jobs has just finished his WWDC keynote, and so it's time for InsanelyMac's roundup of the biggest Apple news from this year's conference!

 

Gaming

 

EA have announced that they are to return to publishing games for the Mac. Command and Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need For Speed Carbon, and Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix will be released for the Mac in July, with Madden 08 and Tiger Woods 08 also due for release. EA have announced that future games will see simultaneous releases for the Mac with their PC versions.

 

Leopard

 

Apple announced several as-yet unseen interface enhancements for Leopard, including a new dock and menu bar. The Finder has also been updated with an iTunes-esque sidebar and coverflow mode. Improved integration with .mac brings the "Back To My Mac" feature, allowing .mac subscribers to send files to their Mac from any Internet-connected Mac. "Stacks" was also introduced, bringing a new method for file and application organisation.

 

Check out a summary of Leopard's new features here.

 

iPhone Release Date, And Developer Tools

 

Apple announced that the iPhone would be released on June 29th in the United States. It was also announced that third-party developers would be able to develop limited applications for the iPhone, which would run within the mobile version of Safari.

 

Safari For Windows

 

Perhaps the biggest and most surprising announcement, Safari is being released for Windows XP and Vista systems. Citing their expertise with bringing iTunes to millions of Windows users, Apple believes it has a fair shot at the PC browser market, and hopes to offer PC users another glimpse into the benefits of Apple software.

 

Both Mac and Windows users can take part in the Safari 3 Beta, free of charge.


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Well all i can say is, that was disappointing

This is the first major update that I've been around for as a mac fan and I got to say im disappointed. I just expected something WOW (lol). Transparency and stack just seem like something they could have added on a minor update. I can't believe I got all excited about this.

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EA Games Announcement: I was excited to see EA is going to play a bigger role in Mac gaming. Popular titles such as Need for Speed Carbon will be ported to Macs in July, and new games will be released side-by-side with Windows games in the Fall. My biggest worry is that, like most last-minute ports, NFS Carbon will perform crappy under OS X. When a game finally transitions to another platform after its initial success in stores on other platforms (PC, PS2, PS3, X-Box, etc), the honest truth is that programmers don't put much effort into it. Why bother when you've already made most of your money, and on top of that, have only (at most) 5% of the PC marketshare to buy it?

 

New Finder: To anybody who feels it looks way too much like iTunes: I couldn't agree more! In what must be the greatest lack of creativity in Apple software design ever, they've essentially brought us an exact clone of iTunes, Cover Flow and all. This departs from Steve Jobs's firm conviction that programs must have distinct functions and distinct uses. If a "play" button was slapped onto the Finder, it really would be iTunes! We all would've been happy with tabbed browsing and a sidebar revamp. This is total overkill.

 

Virtualization in Leopard: Big, big disappointment. Actually, the most disappointing part of the keynote. People expected a plethora of "Leopard secrets" to be revealed, including some info on how Leopard might be able to make use of an advanced version of Boot Camp to run Windows programs natively. Jobs's grand solution: Buy Parallels! Needless to say, Apple is riding on the soft cushion of third-party development, feeling to need to enter the virtualization market itself.

 

iPhone's 3rd Party Development: Another huge disappointment. Although 3rd party developers can't write full-blown apps for the iPhone, Jobs said they can write AJAX web pages that interact with the iPhone's built-in services. This is supposedly for security reasons. Great, so what's to stop somebody from writing a malicious site with AJAX code that taps into your iPhone's contact info and selling your home # and address to advertising firms? Nothing!

 

One More Thing: Safari on Windows seemed to be the only ace Steve had up his sleeve. After blabbering about Leopard features that have been well-known for almost a year, this came as a surprise. However, after toying with Safari in Windows, it seems more like a novelty. Without surprise, Safari works best by far in OS X. I'd still prefer Firefox, even IE7, to Safari when it comes to Windows.

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Apple is a vertically integrated company and it doesn't surprise that they want to keep almost everything on the iphone to be done by them from the hardware to the software.

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Good God guys, why the the whining? {censored}. It is a developers conference for God's sakes, NOT a full blown keynote for brand new stuff. The gaming annoucement is the biggest thing in software for Mac in years. I mean how many games have come out this year with EA on them? Take that and from July on, Macs have all those games, if not most of them, on with PC gamers. With this how many MORE companies will follow? Do you people not see this could be the moment that gaming is not only PC/Windows based? BIG/HUGE news and whining? *shakes head*

 

I have been hearing all the whining about "I want to hear about Leopard, I am disappointed!" Well now we hear all this, yes rehashes but new stuff and think about the stuff we haven't heard of? We got our Leopard news, be happy!

 

iPhone? I don't care.

 

To me, no disappointment at all. The gaming is such a huge thing, I think most don't really get it. Leopard was shown to us and it rocks. iPhone redone and shown again, but we knew that was coming. All and all, great stuff. I think the "new stuff" will come later on. I think many need to be patient and see the great stuff that was announced.

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EA Games Announcement: I was excited to see EA is going to play a bigger role in Mac gaming. Popular titles such as Need for Speed Carbon will be ported to Macs in July, and new games will be released side-by-side with Windows games in the Fall. My biggest worry is that, like most last-minute ports, NFS Carbon will perform crappy under OS X. When a game finally transitions to another platform after its initial success in stores on other platforms (PC, PS2, PS3, X-Box, etc), the honest truth is that programmers don't put much effort into it. Why bother when you've already made most of your money, and on top of that, have only (at most) 5% of the PC marketshare to buy it?

If you check the other thread about Cider here @ Insanely, apparently people have it running already and it works quite well.

( http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=51151 )

 

I know I have Madden 06 with Cider and the frame rates aren't an issue.

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Eh, everybody's entitled to their own opinions. With radical change comes either people who like it or people who despise it.

 

Jobs: "We decided not to do a blue-pattern wallpaper for Leopard because nobody's uses it. We found that everybody uses their digital photos."

 

Eh. But I mean really... come on. Apple's blue wallpapers are iconic. I find Tiger's default wallpaper to be one of the most beautiful ever made. If I get sick of a wallpaper, I always use the Tiger Aqua one because it's easy on the eyes and yet not too simplistic.

 

Headrush: I looked up "Cider," which is what you said his method of running NFS Carbon uses. Check this out:

 

http://www.transgaming.com/

 

More detailed info: http://new.marketwire.com/2.0/release.do?id=741042

 

Apparently all the new games coming to Mac from EA are powered on Cider. This barely constitutes as "porting," but what the heck... if it works, it works! :hysterical:

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Well using that method, NFS Carbon actually ran in OS X. It ran pretty crappy though, even with all settings set to minimum. It runs pretty bad in Vista though too, come to think of it.

 

Either EA will actually do a better job at using Cider, or my hardware just sucks. I think it's the latter. :)

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Well using that method, NFS Carbon actually ran in OS X. It ran pretty crappy though, even with all settings set to minimum. It runs pretty bad in Vista though too, come to think of it.

 

Either EA will actually do a better job at using Cider, or my hardware just sucks. I think it's the latter. :)

More than likely your video card.

 

Ya I knew they were using Cider, we mentioned it in another thread earlier tonight. ;-)

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Yes, little bit disappointed, here too.Especially for lack news about resolution independence stuff.. :huh:

Then the new dock stylish format remember me the old 3D LookingGlass Project of Sun on JavaPlatform..doesn't it??!!

..or I am supposed to be too much tired? :)

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The iTunes finder layout I think is something I'll end up using a lot. I would have liked it to look less iTunesey, but the functionality is good. I like the quick access to saved searches, and finding file types. Expands on spotlight in a useful way. Coverflow/quickview are good too, provided they are quick which they appear to be. I normally have left apps open (eg word etc) and just closed the document, so launch times are minimal.

 

Well, people complained about tiger, as in all they changed was "crappy new search thing and dashboard widgets as if that's important" but Tiger overall was a good step forward, and i think Leopard is too.

 

Apple lately have improved each version of OSX, keeping most of the good stuff from the old version. Vista is, compared to XP, very different, things in different spots. It's better I think, but for existing XP users it's very confusing. (not speaking of myself, but other users i've seen... ie the control panel re-arrange.) I don't think any Tiger users (even my mum) would get lost in leopard.

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I expected the keynote to be much more technical, rather than just plain "last-year repetitory" zero-information talk.

 

Safari on windows? Not that new in my opinion - what has iTunes been using for rendering the Store content for couple of years already? Isn't that webkit?

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Gaming

 

EA have announced that they are to return to publishing games for the Mac. Command and Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need For Speed Carbon, and Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix will be released for the Mac in July, with Madden 08 and Tiger Woods 08 also due for release. EA have announced that future games will see simultaneous releases for the Mac with their PC versions.

 

That'll make my dual boot more redundant.hehe..

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finder_spotlight20070611.jpg

 

Guys, I don't feel so good... I *pukes* oh my sweet lord.

 

Hey kids, let's play "count the GUI styles that don't match!"

 

1) Dark text on dark background. Say goodbye to your vision.

2) Transparency. Hmm and after flaming Vista so much? Heh... at least M$'s is legible.

3) Aqua button color. Wow, wait... Aqua still exists somewhere? Musta been a mistake.

4) Grey spotlight. Everything else looks weird, so this might as well too...

 

Let's just hope that by "near feature complete," Apple didn't mean the GUI was near complete. They seriously need to do some major layoffs and firing in Cupertino's graphics department.

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finder_spotlight20070611.jpg

 

Guys, I don't feel so good... I *pukes* oh my sweet lord.

 

Hey kids, let's play "count the GUI styles that don't match!"

 

1) Dark text on dark background. Say goodbye to your vision.

2) Transparency. Hmm and after flaming Vista so much? Heh... at least M$'s is legible.

3) Aqua button color. Wow, wait... Aqua still exists somewhere? Musta been a mistake.

4) Grey spotlight. Everything else looks weird, so this might as well too...

 

Let's just hope that by "near feature complete," Apple didn't mean the GUI was near complete. They seriously need to do some major layoffs and firing in Cupertino's graphics department.

:)

 

Well... I kinda like the interface. Although it is a bit inconsistent.

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:)

 

Well... I kinda like the interface. Although it is a bit inconsistent.

its more constantly inconsistent, i just cant get over the idea of applying itunes to the whole OS

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Good God guys, why the the whining? {censored}. It is a developers conference for God's sakes, NOT a full blown keynote for brand new stuff. The gaming annoucement is the biggest thing in software for Mac in years. I mean how many games have come out this year with EA on them? Take that and from July on, Macs have all those games, if not most of them, on with PC gamers. With this how many MORE companies will follow? Do you people not see this could be the moment that gaming is not only PC/Windows based? BIG/HUGE news and whining? *shakes head*

 

EA reverting back to Mac after they abandonded it itn the first place. Hmmm... what's the catch.

 

I'll tell why EA are porting Windows game back to Mac.

a.) It's easier now since they use the same CPU's. So much code is interchangabel

b.) Since consoles are eating away games sales from traditional PC games they need to expand (back) into their old market otherwise those ppl working on "PC-games" end up on the streets.

 

The way I see it: Console developpers are not the same as PC-game developper. I'm sure that in even a big company like EA which develops for both PC and consoles, there's much competition from both camps. And it's clear that if the PC developpers can't expand their market they get fired.

 

I have been hearing all the whining about "I want to hear about Leopard, I am disappointed!" Well now we hear all this, yes rehashes but new stuff and think about the stuff we haven't heard of? We got our Leopard news, be happy!

 

I am happy for Apple. For us it means that again LESS hackintosh-HW will be compatible with the new version. Because it's clear that the hackers have tremendous problems keeping up. If I see how well 10.4.5 worked and how awfull 10.4.6 goes. And the trouble kept increasing with every newer release. Things become more messy and messy on the hacks. No it's a dead end for us.

 

For that I'm NOT happy.

 

Hell, I can't even "try" Safari 3 beta because it won't install on my 10.4.7 (upgraded from a 10.4.5-base) although the version.plist is changed to 10.4.99. It should work... Photoshop Beta worked that way.

Nah.

 

iPhone? I don't care.

 

Yeah. It's designed for American yuppies. Doesn't even work in the rest o/t world.

I might start looking at that Prada-phone though ;-)

 

 

To me, no disappointment at all. The gaming is such a huge thing, I think most don't really get it. Leopard was shown to us and it rocks. iPhone redone and shown again, but we knew that was coming. All and all, great stuff. I think the "new stuff" will come later on. I think many need to be patient and see the great stuff that was announced.

 

Naaah. It's going way too fast. They bring out new stuff to confuse us. M$ confuses us so we won't look at OSX. Apple does it to confuse us so we won't turn away to Windows. For now I'm gonna stick with what I have. And if gradually more stuff doesn't work then I'll remove OSX from the hack and keep using Vista. At least that works perfect with my hack-ware.

 

Cheers

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I agree the pc gaming market is going to hell, but gaming coming to Mac, even if they are coming "back" is huge.

 

No offense, complaining your HACK doesn't work is lame man. I used a hack, then I got the real thing. You can't gripe at Leopard because you can't run stuff on your Hack. Kind of silly since you, me, and every other Hack user was never suppose to run OS X on anything but a Mac. Hack is what it is H A C K! It was meant for fun and to see what the OS was without commitment to Apple. If you really want to go forward with OS X you got two options:

 

Get a new Hack that is fully compatible and you should run 10.4.9 just fine and hopefully Leopard.

Get a real Mac.

 

Again griping at an avancement that henders Hacks is silly, no offense.

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Yeah. It's designed for American yuppies. Doesn't even work in the rest o/t world

so why would you stereotype americans like that? do you think we are all drowning in enough money to buy an iphone. were not all stuck up ok. and if we are yuppies then what are you, a stuck up euro?

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