Though I'm not at WWDC right now (wish I could be, but it wasn't in the cards), like everyone else I had my predictions about what Steve would roll out on Monday. Of course, just because I didn't post them publicly but only in email exchanges with friends doesn't mean I can't go back over them now. I've covered them in the order I had them listed on my scorecard. It's the Mac developer WWDC prediction honor system!
ZFS filesystem I put this at the top of my list, not because of desire, need, or relevance, but because Sun's CEO Jonathan "May The Schwartz Be With You" Schwartz said so. Upon further investigation, as well as a complete smackdown from Apple, this doesn't make much sense right now anyway. Sounds like ZFS is more of an enterprise filesystem anyway. It might make sense to include read-only support for it, like NTFS, for compatibility, but little else. Score: 0 for 1
Finder redone in Cocoa I had said "[b]ig improvements in the remote filesystem mounting area, including clean sleep and wake. Google's MacFuse integrated for things like r/w FTP mounts and SSHfs. Core Animation used all over the place, including innovative things like piles." Piles (now "Stacks") has been on the radar for a few years following some patent applications, so I pretty much expected them. I didn't see Cover Flow coming, though. Score: 1 for 2
.Mac now backed by Google I still think this might be coming. Steve's even gone on record (though I can't find it right now) as saying .Mac needs a kick in the pants. My predictions were mac.com email, now with GBs of storage, geo-redundant, S3-like HTTPS WebDAV iDisk, and Google Calendars integration with Leopard Server. Score: 1 for 3
iPhone opened up for widget development I based this on the leaked iPhone sales material. Steve came pretty close, though I didn't see Safari on Windows coming. It all makes sense, though. Though I can sympathize with the general frustration with the way they were presented, being a hybrid Cocoa/web app developer/sysadmin, it fits right into where I'd like to be. Though, I'd sure want to see my app in action on an iPhone rather than just in a web browser, just for peace of mind. Although I'm sure Apple wouldn't have a problem with this, I know my wife does. Score: 2 of 4
Boot Camp allows OS-in-window and app-in-window compatibility Not quite, though it was nice to see Steve give props to both VMware and Parallels for doing this. I do like the nice touch of Boot Camp being able to safe sleep both OSs to allow quicker rebooting and restoration of alternating systems. Though I, like John Gruber, noticed that they removed the mention of this for now. Score: 2 of 5
Hardware: something will be coming Guess not. My guess was use of a large iMac as a TV. I think I was drunk when I thought of this, though, as that makes little sense with Apple TV. I was grasping at straws. Score: 2 of 6
Central, signed software updates Perhaps this was my wishful thinking after getting to know Software Update Server on Tiger Server a bit better lately. I was expecting a way to tie into this for developers, but that it would be a bit slow and cumbersome to get your company involved and only really appeal to large firms like Adobe or Microsoft. Dear God would it be nice to be free of Microsoft AutoUpdate! But alas, even a crappy rumor appears to be untrue as well. Score: 2 of 7
On top of all of these, I was a little disappointed at the list of new Leopard features. While they are cool, I think Steve should have followed the advice "actions speak louder than words". After hyping some major secret features back in January, then delaying Leopard, then rehashing about half of last year's already-revealed features (albeit with noticeable improvement), I'm kind of glad I didn't pay to see it in person this week.
While I'm missing the hanging out with my fellow developers, the parties, and the hands-on workshops, WWDC just didn't strike the right amount of value with me this year. I think I would have been pretty pissed sitting there, watching Steve and Phil talk over iChat with backgrounds, even if it was kind of funny.
Anyone else who didn't go not too upset? And anyone who's there feeling let down?
