Apple WWDC: iOS 5, Lion, iCloud 662
Steve Jobs was on hand today to kick off Apple's WWDC keynote. Lion took the lead, with no surprises except a $29.99 pricetag and a July ship date.
iOS is getting a new "Notification Center"; Twitter is being integrated; he announced a split thumbable keyboard for iPads; wireless syncing; and a native IM system for iOS devices, shipping in the Fall.
iCloud will be free, syncing apps (Mail, Calendar, Contacts and iWork apps) across devices. Photostream is iCloud for pictures. iTunes iCloud will let you re-download your tracks at last, and iTunes Match will let you match your ripped CDs to Apple's copies.
In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)
I skipped Snow Leopard (Score:5, Insightful)
But I will definitely go for Lion at $29. The thing is, how will it be made available to Leopard users? Jobs said it was Mac App Store-only.
(posting non-anon this time)
Re:In other words... (Score:4, Insightful)
As trollish as that looks, I was sort of thinking it too. I didn't realize how far behind the times Apple had gotten, until I saw the list of coming features and thought to myself, "I've had that for years".
Oh how times change (Score:3, Insightful)
2001: Record labels sue my.mp3.com in to oblivion.
2011: Record labels can't wait to suck on the iTunes Cloud teat.
Re:Oh how times change (Score:5, Insightful)
2001: Record labels sue my.mp3.com in to oblivion.
2011: Record labels can't wait to suck on the iTunes Cloud teat.
In between: Some major payment of money from Apple to the record companies.
Re:Maybe some links would be nice? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then why post low-content live-bloggish "articles" here on slashdot? Post an article linking to one or two of those live blogs instead, or even add some sort of editorial commentary to the post.
What was posted, though, I expect to be signed as "Sent from my Android" or similar.
Perhaps one of the biggest advances... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Matching my music with iTunes store? (Score:2, Insightful)
so basically it's exactly like dropbox et al
Re:Give us the betas! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Annnnnd it's a big nothing. (Score:2, Insightful)
I was hoping for some new iphone ... or flash support... or SOMETHING new.
....flash support? hahahahahahahahahahahaha
yeah its screwed up isn't it?
Apple's approach to developers is
1) We get to claim 30% of your revenue
2) You have to live in a box and learn "our way" to stay there
3) We can change the rules at any time
It's almost dystopian, how the hell do they expect to attract developers with these kinds of restrictions?
It has never been more clear that Wonziak did all the work, and Jobs did the marketing, and we all know who ended up running the place.
Seriously, in the early 90's I wrote a lot of software on a 7200 PPC Apple, and loved it, but I just can't get into the new Macs. They feel like the government with all the rules.
Re:In other words... (Score:3, Insightful)
...he introduced the Apple community to . . . OS X Snow Leopard.
OS X Snow Leopard? Who makes that?
Re:Annnnnd it's a big nothing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Putting very mildly indeed, iTunes Match is an important announcement.
Re:Give us the betas! (Score:5, Insightful)
Steve himself pointed out that MobileMe was a misstep. As someone who has cobbled together a cable-based home iTunes network, Gmail (via both a desktop/laptop web browser but also through iPhone's Mail app for notifications, etc.), Flickr & iPhoto, AppleTVs, a 60GB iPod, my wife's iPod Touch, Things for to do lists, etc., etc., etc., the only thing that is not encouraging to me about this is the thought of redoing everything again. But if Apple is actually putting some energy into this (and from the data center pictures, it looks like they are), it's might be too tempting to refuse.
And iTunes Match? Does anyone else find it baffling how they are getting away with this? I mean, for $25 I get legal versions of every single—ahem, questionably procured, shall we say— tracks in my gigantic iTunes library? Did the record companies read the fine print on this? I mean, as a voracious music consumer, I'm NOT complaining... we've all known for a long time that things were going to have to change in regard to digital media and copyright. And say what you will about them, I could see Apple being the company to make it happen. But really... how did they get away with this?
Re:Annnnnd it's a big nothing. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) We get to claim 30% of your revenue
... and we paid out 2.5 billion dollars so far to developers. Also just out: The Apple app store (the one where you can buy apps for Macs only) is the _largest_ seller of PC software! Beating Walmart, Best Buy and anyone else. And can you tell me any other store that lets developers keep 70% of the revenue.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has always been more about making things actually "just work" instead of introducing new things. Before the iPhone you could do all those things and more on Windows Mobile and Symbian phones. Before the iPod there were MP3 players with far more features than the iPod had.
The difference is that Apple takes some existing features, and does them _really_ well. You could browse the web on Windows Mobile, but the experience was pretty painful. The iPhone was the first to make that feature actually useful enough to use all the time. Same with the iPod. I have a little MP3 player from Samsung and I can't for the life of me remember how to use it. It just isn't intuitive.
It is changing a little though. For example the notification system was taken exactly from Android without significantly improving it. And I'm disappointed that there were no changes to the home screen to be more dynamic to allow quick access to certain features (like turning Wifi/bluetooth on/off).
I still think the user experience is better on iOS than Android, but the gap is much smaller than it was just 6 months ago. Apple will have to be a bit more creative to maintain that lead there.
Dear Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome to last year.
Love and kisses,
Android
Really, though all these things are good, but Apple is going for the same thing IBM and Microsoft tried in the 80s and 90s by locking users into a static platform. There's better bells and whistles now, but when Facetime can't connect with anything other than an iOS or OS X device, you'll have to say forget it and go with something more cross platform like Google Voice. Many of the new features advertised already exist in one form or another and the ones that are unique are more 'Huh. Interesting, but not enough to make my buy one'.
Re:Dear Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
You do realize that Apple released the code for FaceTime for others to build it into their clients. And you do realize that several important pieces of the new stuff are also made available to third party developers so they can participate, too? Exactly how is releasing code for others to use locking users into a static platform?
When did Apple release FaceTime? Did this happen today, as yesterday everyone was still waiting??
Re:It looks like this: (Score:3, Insightful)
As for #4, I believe it is "4. Pay the record companies a boat load of cash." which is all they really want. can you blame them?
Re:No install media, no deal (Score:4, Insightful)
Thats ok, my wallet was stuffed with those 500 dollars i saved buying an Asus laptop anyway.
Re:In other words... (Score:3, Insightful)
No you haven't.
This happens every time Apple announces a new product. Someone invariably claims that it's nothing new, because some half-assed crappy version of the idea exists somewhere. Then once the product is actually released, everyone is amazed at what a leap it is.
This goes all the way back to the iPod. "Oooh, an MP3 player. Big deal. I have one of those."
------RM