During the analyst call following Apple’s Q1 earning announcement hosted by Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, someone asked the question that is in every Mac user’s mind. What happened to iLife and iWork 07. The response was “Stay tuned…”.
It is obvious that Apple is only weeks or months away from announcing the updates. Of course, that means that, as many expect, these updated products will use new Leopard features, since we are less than three months away from the introduction of Apple’s latest OS, which is still scheduled for this Spring, despite rumors to the contrary.
The question, of course, is what new Leopard features are so important that they require Apple to sync the releases of the OS and their applications. Many will probably point out that the new Core Animation API is a good fit for iMovie and that most applications can benefit from Image Kit as well as the new Core Text API. That is true. However, my gut feeling is that there is something more.
I believe that Apple will include in Leopard some new functionality that will require major changes to existing applications. By releasing updated applications that make use of this new functionality and demonstrate its potential, Apple will force independent developers to adopt this technology.
So, what could that technology be? My first thought was resolution independence. That new feature will require almost all developers to revisit their applications and it is clear to me that quick adoption of this technology is important to Apple in order to maintain the current public perception that Apple is ahead in the OS wars. Is that enough to justify delaying iWork and iLife? Probably not. The new applications will probably use some additional, unannounced features to generate excitement.
This should not come as a surprise. My perception at last WWDC was that while the new announced Leopard features were cool, they were mostly self-serving. If Apple really listened to developers they would have set different priorities like enhancing support for web services in Cocoa instead of developing the Core Animation API. This means that from my point of view, Apple mainly defines the future of Mac OS X based on their own requirements with little regard for developer requests. There are many examples that illustrate this situation like lack of support for Quicktime-Java or abandoning the Objective-C/Java bridge despite the opposition of many third-party developers. Even Java/SWT support, despite being very important for developers, is still deficient despite countless promises to bridge the existing gap with other platforms.
That does not mean that developing for the Mac OS X isn’t fun. Hey, I love the platform and I will do my best to attend WWDC again this year. In fact, I am quite sure that I will enjoy playing with many of the new APIs as well as with XCode 3.0. However, I would like Apple to listen more closely to third party developers. Most of the developer community requests come from the fact that while OS X offers some amazing APIs, it lags in other areas. Developers expect Apple to introduce great innovations but also to work on the missing pieces in order to deliver a complete, balanced development platform. We do know that Apple does not have infinite resources and that difficult choices need to be made, but not listening carefully to developers does not seem to be the best long term strategy.
Short term however, Apple is brewing the perfect storm. With new applications exploiting the new features of Leopard, they should be able to wow the Macintosh community in a way that Microsoft has been unable to do with Vista. Releasing new versions of their applications allows Apple to demonstrate the value of the new APIs to end-users as well as to developers. That is very clever.
On April 15, Apple will host a special event at NAB. This is a show for professionals. I would not expect any iWork or iLife announcements at the show. However, many expect Apple to announce and demonstrate an updated version of Final Cut Pro. Will that product suite also depend on the release of Leopard? That seems unlikely. Professionals do not upgrade their OS as quickly as consumers. Will Apple unveil new information about the new OS? Once again, probably not, after all, Steve Jobs usually does not demonstrate professional Apple software and I doubt that someone else will be responsible for hyping the upgrade. We will therefore probably have to keep waiting, probably until June, much in the same way that we have been waiting for official updates on the iPhone since its announcement three months ago at MacWorld. That will keep us excited for the next couple of months.
March 26th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
[…] Il se base sur une note d’Huibert Aalbers (ils pourraient pas choisir des nom plus simples ?) qui conclu (comme beaucoup avant lui) que le retard de Leopard ne peut être du qu’à une nouveauté essentielle dans Leopard : Donc, quelle technologie cela peut-il bien-être ? Ma première pensée fut la résolution indépendante. Cette nouveauté nécessite que tous les développeurs revoient leurs applications et il est clair que l’adoption de cette technologie est importante pour Apple afin de maintenir la perception actuelle qu’Apple est à la tête de la guerre de OS. Est-ce que cela justifie le retard d’iWork et iLife ? Probablement pas. Les nouvelles applications utiliserons certainement d’autres nouveautés/technologies qui n’ont pas encore été annoncées, qui déchaînerait les passions. […]
March 28th, 2007 at 11:20 am
[…] O Infinite Loop, citando Huibert Aalbers acha que uma das secret features do Leopard poderá ser uma nova interface 3D, o que, a meu ver, faz muito sentido. […]