Steve Jobs just left the stage as keynote speaker at the WWDC convention in San Francisco. Big announcements:
Safari on Windows!
Full Safari Engine on iPhone
The first item is huge for me. As a web developer, I’ve been hacking sites to work on IE for years now. Safari being release on Windows is a big deal. If the folks at Microsoft don’t think that’s something for them to worry about, just look at iTunes. I’m sure Apple will bundle Safari with iTunes to aid distribution.
The iPhone is another funny thing. Most websites people want to go to anymore are Web 2.0ish. That’s been a problem for those of us using Windows Mobile 5.0 phones. The built in browser is about IE 4.0 in features, so the things you need when you’re mobile (like google maps) just don’t work very well.
There were other features that really stood out as well. Time Machine will be a great feature. Just the other day, one of our designer’s hard drive crashed. He’s notorious for not backing up his stuff, and sure enough, he lost everything.
Built-in Core animation also looks amazing. The pictures of this can’t do it justice.
Also, the new Finder wil look like iTunes. It will allow users to browse files using Cover Flow, the UI concept that works so well in iTunes. Users will be able to preview files of nearly any type without opening the application they run in!
The new Dock is also awesome. It will utilize a stack concept so open files and apps can be ‘grouped’.
This is a real attack on Windows. It’s been 6 years since Microsoft released a new OS, and before the year’s end, it will be old news. It’s funny to see pictures of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates together. I can only imagine the pictures are doctored. These guys are after each other’s throat.
I feel funny writing about all of this. I was completely Anti-Mac for a long time. Only recently (last 3 months) have I made the Mac switch. I’m in the market for a new computer, and I was considering selling out for a Vista machine.
Now, I’m waiting until October.
P.S. – Thanks to MacRumors for the pics!
