No Real News at Apple's WWDC

Well, that's that. So, did we see any revelations, any big stuff, in the Apple (AAPL) WWDC keynote yesterday?

I don't think so, but let's review:

Leopard on target for an October release. Knew that.

Leopard is cool and graphical and stuff. Knew that.

iPhone is out June 29. Knew that.

iPhone is out at at 6pm on June 29. Didn't know that, so will stay off roads.

Apple is letting developers do some more work building apps for iPhone. Knew that.

Apple is releasing a version of its Safari browser for Windows. Didn't know that, and I wish Steve would have poked a real stick in Bill's eye instead last week at D, but I guess we'll have to settle for the software version.

Matter of fact, about the only interesting part came at 11:22 of the Jobsnote:

11:22 am Head of Apple iPhone software had some trouble typing with the iPhone on-screen keyboard

The stock was briefly trading up, post-keynote, so apparently the absence of news isn't troubling people. Maybe there was some concern that Jobs would fall into the orchestra pit. Whew, didn't happen.

[Update] Valleywag has a good look at what was announced in the WWDC and its materiality.

Comments

[Jon T]

Who's in a sulk then?

What about new Desktop with stacks, 64 bit, 5 versions same $129 price, new Finder, QuickLook, iChat Theatre and effects, Time Machine working with Quicklook and CoverFlow, version 3 of Safari and a Winodws version - twice as fast as Internet Explorer, iPhone programming with Web2 and Ajax, etc etc.

Trouble is, you have allowed yourself to fall into the trap of believing every Jobs Keynote will contain a new blockbuster like iPhone, or iPod or next next version of OS X.

And that's plain stupid.

This is a great consolidation and all round improvement and implementation of many features which will all become exceeding important. Wait and see - if you aren't too vision-challenged.

[Tom B]

Some key points: 1) one expects (at least I expect) decent performance from 10.5 (unlike Vista) 2) MSFtThas pretty much dropped the ball on usable 64 bit computing, so far-- so this is probably a BIG DEAL to developers.

[Tom B]

Actually, the EA game thing is huge. Macs have always been decent game machines, but have suffered from fewer titles due to lower marketshare vs Windows. Getting more games would remove one more barrier for potential "switchers".

[batesje]

That "5 versions same $129 price" thing was a joke and a dig at Windows Vista. Safari on Windows (for free) not only lets Windows developers make apps for the iPhone, but also provides Windows users with another browser that is vastly more secure than IE. The thing Steve didn't emphasize enough is that 10.5 will work on any computer running 10.4.x without upgrading the processor or adding more memory - unlike Windows Vista vs Windows XP.