June 29th, 2004

Just finished watching the keynote stream – and its way better then the typed keynote updates on the web.
From a consumer standpoint, I understand how some people might not see it as much – but from a developer standpoint im sitting here drooling and itching to get my hands on the new sdks.

I guess it is a developer conference afterall, it would get boring if they released new laptops or powermacs or other gadgets at every conference.

Seems the developers of Konfabulator arnt too happy about Dashboard which was previewed at WWDC and will be included in the next release of OS X.

I dont get it, why are they chucking a shit? I guess its because it does seem similar to their idea and it may look like apple has just ripped it off without giving them any credit – but who cares?

Its called COMPETITION people, its what drives new ideas and challenges us to do better. The developers of Konfabulator have a much more mature product and its already got A LOT of widgets available for it, so why dont they use that to their advantage and take it to the next level before Tiger comes out?

Im sure there are lots of features they could add to it to make it even better.

I dont understand the legal side of this, im guessing there isnt much that can be done and i havnt heard of any patent on ‘widget’ or anything (not that ive looked). If developers want to cover their butts – im sure there are ways to do it, but in the end is it really worth it?

Personally id take it as a huge compliment and move on. Thats it.

Note to Apple – feel free to rip off my ideas

Inspired by this news item on macnn.com

Theres three brand spanking new displays, 20 / 23 and 30 inch
More info here

The 30inch apparently needs some new kind of display card and a G5 to run it though – woah $$$$$$.

There was also a few tiger updates announced including:

Spotlight
Find anything, anywhere on your computer in no time flat.
Click Me
QuickTime Demo

iChat AV
Video-conference with 3 other people. Audio conference with 10 other people
Click Me

Safari RSS
Browse RSS feeds and search through them in Safari
Click Me
QuickTime Demo

Dashboard
Open fast access widgets with a press of a button.
Click Me
QuickTime Demo

Automator
Automate manual, repetetive tasks with point and click simplicity.
Click Me

Xcode 2.0
Not much was said about this
Click Me

There was also some new developer related stuff announced including Core
Image, Core Audio, and the use of H.264/AVC codec in quicktime.

My Thoughts – Stop here if you don’t want to read my rants
Spotlight:
Personally I think this will be good, seems similar to Launchbar which I actually bought a license for and use every day, but im not sure if it can be used to launch apps or just do searches.

iChat AV:
Finally! Multi person video chat

Safari RSS:
A good thing too – I see myself using this a lot.

DashBoard:
Hrmmm, not sure about this. Personally I cant see myself using it, except maybe for poping up a calendar or something. Looks very similar to an existing product – Konfabulator – , which I
found to be annoying after using it for a while especially on a 12inch powerbook screen. Hopefully there is a developer API for this *fngers crossed*

Automator:
Nice – I want to play with this.

Xcode 2.0:
Probably the thing im looking forward to the most. Keeps getting better.

Ok, ill stop now