I have been a bit radio silent for the past couple of weeks and wanted to chime in on all the WWDC stuff. As this is belated, most things have already been said/written so this post will only contain a few points that I haven’t heard already.
Lion
- Mail is worth the 30 bucks alone. (Yes, I heard Marco say this on his 5by5 podcast, but it seriously needs to be reiterated. Both Mail and 5by5 are fantastic resources underutilized by the Mac using masses.)
- They have inverted two-finger scrolling to better reflect iOS. This makes sense, but will no doubt mess with users.
iOS
- I wonder if the social integration would have been or included Facebook if not for the Ping fiasco.
- Please let there be a way to mute notifications at night while still leaving volume for the alarm.
iCloud
- Many have lamented on the lack of sharing capabilities. I think it’s premature to assume this won’t happen by launch or within the next year. I also think the name “Photo Stream” would work well to describe socially shared photos.
- Many people have noted the lack of the word “sync” during the iCloud introduction. While some have chalked this up as a strategy to distance iCloud from previous lackluster efforts, I suspect the omission was metaphoric. “Sync” implies copies. That any given file has multiple versions that have to be updated in different locations. This may be accurate, but that’s not how Apple wants normal people see iCloud. Instead they want users to think of any given contact, photo, or song as a singular thing that iCloud makes accessible to any number of devices. Put another way: iCloud does not keep multiple documents the same, it keeps the same document on multiple devices.
Reaction
I found the widely varying response to this WWDC very telling. Some where overwhelmed with information and news while others reported the event as either hum-ho or disappointing. I suspect the former reflects people who actually understand Apple and its industries where as those in the latter were just waiting for an iPhone 5.
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