I am just back in my hotel room, from the WWDC keynote. As soon as I post this update I will start installing Leopard. So far, all I can say is that I was somewhat disappointed, even though I did not have many expectations. All those stories about 3D interfaces and multi-touch screens always seemed totally fake to me. However, having attended WWDC last year, I know that Apple has been hard at work improving Cocoa in many ways. I really expected them to use those APIs in many more ways. Of course Apple mentioned 300 new features, we still have to learn about the remaining 290 so no all hope is lost.
One more thing, since most of the interesting stuff in Leopard is buried in APIs for developers, end-users will not realize the true power of the new OS until applications are written to use the new functionality. During the presentation it became evident that Steve Jobs was using an unreleased version of Keynote. Also, the fact that Leopard is able to render Excel files in Quick Look clearly points to a new spreadsheet application. It is evident that Apple is prepared to update most of it’s consumer software as soon as the new OS is updated. Apple is getting ready for a very strong shopping season.