Apple WWDC fanboy-dom
2006-08-07 10:10:01
I'm all anxious about WWDC. I'm most interested in Leopard (OS X 10.5) announcements and the Mac Pro.
Leopard: I really hope they turn virtualization into an OS feature. How great would it be to be able to run a little Linux VM and one or two Windows applications right out of the box? Also, spotlight just blows. They should fix it or remove it. If they remove it, maybe google will finally release google desktop for OS X.
Mac Pro: the other nerds at work who run Intel workstations (Ubuntu) endlessly tease me about my slow G5. I've got no upgrade path to fight back until the Intel workstation is released. I hope the Mac Pro is fast.
Jon Gruber (Daring Fireball) has a bunch of WWDC predictions. I'm a big fan of his articles, and I agree with much of this one. However, he takes a little dig at the old "striped" interface decorations in OS 10.0 and 10.1 (X.0 and X.1?), calling them goofy and ugly. What about brushed metal? How can that possibly be considered any less goofy, ugly or childish? I'm hoping they make a universal control in Leopard to set the skin of applications. Let people with no taste make their UI look ugly if they want: let the rest of us have plain, elegant austere windows.
Regarding the Apple Phone: it would be really great if Apple brought focused design and simplicity to the wireless communication device. To me, that means making a phone that is great at making phone calls, and explicitly not an iPod. Adding a phone to an iPod or vice versa ruins the simplicity and elegance of both. (Not there there are any simple and elegant phones these days. How I miss my Nokia 8800!) What I would like to see from Apple in the wireless space:
- A dedicated push email device. Like a blackberry, but no phone BS. Think Nano form factor. But no iTunes.
- A dedicated phone: with big physical keys: 0-9, #, *. Maybe with push email. No iTunes. Please. Think nano form factor again, but maybe clamshell (fold nano in half.)