New version of the app wall at WWDC

I'm actually driving up to San Francisco this afternoon for WWDC (and if you're there already, be sure to make an appointment to see us sometime this week!), but one of the things that I hope to get a chance to check out is the famous "app wall," a real-time view of apps being downloaded from the App Store. This year they've tweaked the setup a little bit, as you can see in the video from Mashable above. Last year, the app icons just rippled, but this year, they drop down and organize themselves into colors, creating an awesome effect of seeing what apps are going out through the App Store.

And the hardware behind the setup is even more amazing than it looks: apparently they've got 30 Mac Pros running this thing -- data is fed from the App Store into an XML feed, which gets passed off to an OpenCL kernel, while Quartz Composer renders the final output. That's a serious setup for something just shown at one conference a year! But it sure is cool.

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Source: http://mashable.com/2010/06/08/apple-hyperwall-app/

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I'm actually driving up to San Francisco this afternoon for WWDC (and if you're there already, be sure to make an appointment to see us...

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JedixJarf

This video makes me sick... Get someone who knows how to operate a camera lol

June 08 2010 at 9:25 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

INOHOman

Next time get someone to shoot the video that is not suffering from Parkinsons. A most annoying video.

June 08 2010 at 8:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jeff

Does anyone else think 30 Mac Pro towers is a bit excessive for this? I bet it could be done with just a few, and even then it is probably limited by the number of video cards and displays they can plug in.

June 08 2010 at 8:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Jeff's comment

Bastian Nutzinger

Yeah, thought about that aswell.
30 Mac Pros seems like a lot of processing power just to shove some pixels around...
Altough I have to admit that a resolution of 11,520 x 6,000 pixels or 70 Megapixels is nothing to be ashamed of :)

June 09 2010 at 5:23 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Parel

Please don't you ever use a camera again!

June 08 2010 at 6:41 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Adnium

Do you think they approve apps based on which ones make the Hyperwall most aesthetically pleasing?

June 08 2010 at 6:09 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Doc Rock

This is awesome even with The Zapruder film shakiness of the documenter.

I wanna make one using all iPads.

June 08 2010 at 5:17 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

CitySlicker

This is proof that owning a video camera doesn't make you a cameraman.

June 08 2010 at 5:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Raj

Whoever took this video made me motion-sick.

Nice wall, would it be too much to ask for someone to just sit and take the video with slow zooms and pans?

June 08 2010 at 5:06 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to Raj's comment

Brett

Not to mention he was probably pissing everyone off.

"Hey buddy, we're all trying to view this thing, stop going back and forth in front of everyone!"

June 08 2010 at 5:10 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Archion

He was most likely still in the throes of his "Jobsgasm" from yesterday, geeks can be a bit jumpy for a while afterwards.

That setup is f'n sweet though, do want.

June 08 2010 at 5:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mak

Actually, the wall is always set up at 1 Infinite Loop.
I got a close look when I visited a friend for lunch.

June 08 2010 at 5:05 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply