WWDC07: Bust or Boon?

Many, many developers are pissed that Apple decided to drop Carbon from the 64-bit path it was previously on (as they said it was last year). We're hoping Apple changes their mind and continues to support Carbon for many years.

I agree it will be more and more difficult for both Apple and Windows to come up with revolutionary new features with the current hardware(screen/mouse/keyboard). Revolutions in OSs will come from software/hardware combo's like the iPhone.

What bothers me is that they don't care about fixing inconveniences almost everybody knows and agrees about. For instance, when will Apple finally make their windows resizable on all sides? ..

Sure, that kind of improvements don't make people switch but lot's of current users would benefit from it.

I have been to many WWDC's (I think since 2000?) lol anyways this was the best WWDC so far. Sure the keynote was not "Groundbreaking" but like everyone said, this is WWDC not MacWorld. All the good stuff was afterwards all under NDA....
There were so many new people there this year, some had NO idea what OS X can do and what kind of development tools are available (for free with every mac!).
I predict a huge increase in software development for OS X. Just from talking with all of the 1st time attendees they were all impressed with the development tools and power of 10.5, also most of them are either independent or working for a very small company with very little overhead. Even though OS X has a very small market share in the world, a small company can still make a good profit from their OS X only software :)

Personally I am more interested in the enterprise part of things.... I think Leopard iCal and Mail (server) is ready for enterprise use. If BlackBerry's BES server supported CalDav I would dump exchange tomorrow.....

I agree that WWDC is primarily a developer conference but unfortunately due to all the buzz Apple has been generating of late with their consumer products, the media and non developers have been paying lots of attention to WWDC for the past couple of years. I keep having to remind myself of three things when I watch these keynotes (1) this is not MacWorld (2) This is not one of those special events that Apple usually do in the Fall (3)Don't expect any major upgrades to hardware or software until the Fall. Oh and one more thing the iPhone seemed to have pushed everything back a bit.

I do think that the features in Leopard are pretty cool and look forward to playing around with them in the Fall. I am also looking forward to seeing what the developers will do with Core Animation and some of the other technologies mentioned. Oh and 64 bits come on folks you gotta love that perhaps that's why iWork and iLife is taking so long. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is converting them to 64 bit apps to run on that 64 bit OS. BTW Paul T can be a royal thorn in the side sometimes in this case he was a bit annoying. He admits that MS copied OS X for Vista now he's saying Apple copied Vista? In so far as Vista copied OS X I guess he has a point there. Can you copy back something that was already yours to begin with? OK I'll give him the grass wallpaper and the file preview and large icons but until I get my hand on Leopard and see how this is implemented for myself not much to say there.

No way.

If WWDC was a dev conference, why even talk about the "no Devs here" Iphone?

No, developing webapplications that can be accessed on a server is NOT developing Iphone applications.

So, why discuss the Iphone when you know full well that there's nothing for devs there?

I think people would have been disappointed if he said Leopard coud read your thoughts.
To tell you the truth, as long as leopard has some options (and please, grid view+coverflow along with cover flow+list view), it'll be awesome!
Although I wish they did introduce a few upgrades to the MacPro, so it could be configured to function better as a gaming rig. =D

Evolutionary is the word. At the "D" conference, Jobs said you can't radically change the the user interface. Users wouldn't stand for it. One step at a time.

Add coverflow to the Finder now. Add coverflow to iLife and iWork in the fall. Then announce a new tablet-like touch-screen input device to replace the mouse at MacWorld that lets you manipulate all these coverflow apps like you can with the iPhone. Then, in a year or two, replace the keyboard.

Dan:

It's still a conference, so press releases make perfect sense. Not every developer is able to attend. Features such as Spaces, iChat, etc., while they are user-centric features, they still affect developers.

Bringing up game companies to herald a return to gaming on the Mac...well, it will hopefully encourage other game *developers* to come back to the platform.

Apple had better post the 9A466 image to ADC soon or several of us paid and in good standing Select members will bolt. To give 5,000 or so people access to the image while the other 90,000 or so of us have to sit at home on our thumbs is just plain stupid. WWDC is over already. Post the thing!

Also, if it's all about networking... why doesn't Apple get off their duffs and open a dev discussion forum where the other 90,000 of us can talk amongst ourselves about pre-release dev topics? It's not THAT hard folks!

Slevin -- your VW analogy is flawed, because whereas racecar drivers won't use or care about the hybrid features of a new VW car, end-users DO care about and will use the features Jobs talked about at the WWDC keynote.