I have officially managed to finish sorting and editing all of the footage from WWDC. The last video in our series is a chat with Charlie Wood from Spanning Sync. He managed to make it to an early appointment at my hotel on the morning I was leaving, despite having made the most of a large-scale bash the evening before.
If you're not familiar with Spanning Sync, it's an application that provides synchronization between Google Calendar and iCal. The upcoming release, currently in beta, will be adding contact sync as well. Charlie provides a demo in the video, highlighting the contact photo aspect of the feature.
Justin Williams recently posted a guide to using Spanning Sync with his own application, Today. If you're a Today user who's interested in integrating Google Calendar, have a look. And check out my chat with Charlie after the jump.
We heard from TheCodingMonkeyslast week, and there was mention of a joint project with Boinx Software. Being a big fan of Boinx software (iStopMotion, Mousepose, Fotomagico), I couldn't wait to see what they had up their sleeves. The project is called BoinxTV, and it's going to be an invaluable tool for a wide range of video production applications. It allows for on-the-fly camera switching, transitions, lower thirds, graphics, logos, crawlers, graphs, title, you name it. And when you finish a run, you've got a QuickTime movie that requires no post production (unless you really want to). Oliver and Dominik share more about its audience and development in the video after the jump.
If you're interested in hearing more about the beta and staying up-to-date on the current status, check out http://www.boinx.com/boinxtv. I've been asked to emphasize that BoinxTV is pre-release. Many aspects of it, including the UI pictured above, are constantly changing and improving.
Mike Lee (yes, the self-proclaimed world's toughest programmer) has a new project called Tapulous. Last time we spoke with Mike, he was part of Delicious Monster but has since moved his focus to the iPhone. Tapulous includes several prominent names from the jailbreak community (including Polar Bear Farm) and is working on a family of "social iPhone applications." We talk about that ... and Lemurs, of course, but that was at my insistence.
I had a quick chat with Guy Horrocks from Polar Bear Farm on his way out of the Keynote. The video quality is well below our prestigious TUAW standards, and for that I apologize. Regardless, it's a pleasure to talk to a member of a team which has been delivering functionality deemed by many to be missing from the iPhone, such as the contact search that they previewed for us last time we ran into them. They're certainly not complaining that the announcements at the Keynote will nullify that particular application, they've got plenty more to work on.
I got Guy's perspective on moving from the jailbreak scene to "legitimate" iPhone application development, as well as some thoughts on the apps presented in the Keynote. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to demo -- or even talk about -- what they're currently working on. I assume that was out of fear of the World's Toughest Programmer lurking nearby, with whom they're currently in cahoots. Of course, it could have been the NDA.
The guys who comprise 280 North aren't actually working on any Mac applications. I tracked them down because what they are doing -- bringing the quality and usability of the Mac experience to the web -- is remarkable. Their web application, 280 Slides, turns making beautiful, web-based presentations into quick work. It's built on a platform called Cappuccino, using what they've dubbed Objective-J (named for its similarities to Objective-C) -- a library they created which provides a highly useful layer of functionality to standard javascript. According to 280 North, Objective-J provides a web development platform that is more Cocoa-like by removing a lot of the lower-level variables that are the bane of most web developers. Easy cross-browser compatibility, anyone?
2 of the three members of 280 North are former Apple employees, working on the iPhone and iTunes, respectively. They state that 280 Slides isn't so much "Apple-inspired" as it is "good-inspired," but the Keynote resemblance is hard to deny, especially in comparison to other, less-polished web-based presentation apps. 280 Slides is still a work-in-progress, but these guys are coding hard and fast to build what is going to be an excellent application. Check out the video (after the jump) and then take a peek at 280 Slides.
We gave Niclas and Martin from Gravity Applications a chance to talk about their latest (finished) project: Searchlight. It's an exciting application that provides a web interface to your system-wide Spotlight database, allowing any web browser on any platform (including your iPhone) to search, preview and download files from your computer. The chat was fun, but it got even more interesting after the camera stopped rolling and Niclas showed me their next project. I can't reveal it yet, but I can tell you that I've been excited about it ever since and -- because that's a terrible teaser -- I'll tell you that it's quite likely to be a huge step forward in solving some of my most perplexing organization conundrums. I promise to cover it thoroughly when it's released. In the meantime, here's the Gravity team elaborating on Searchlight and their first time at WWDC. Video after the jump.
MacNN is reporting that Apple may be imposing file size and price caps for iPhone/iPod touch applications. According to the post, Apple would be limiting file size of applications to 2GB. Of course, most of the applications will be significantly less than 2GBs.
The post goes on to say that applications that are not free will have pricing tiers between $.99 and $999.99. The higher end of that spectrum will undoubtedly be Enterprise-style applications. MacNN also posted pictures what the AppStore inside of iTunes will look like in addition to images of the upload and pricing tier tools that developers have access to.
How much are you willing to pay for applications on the iPhone/iPod touch? Be sure to take our poll and sound off in the comments!
We speculated before the WWDC Keynote that Mac OS X 10.6 might be Intel-only. Now it looks like (to many a PPC Mac user's chagrin) that rumor might actually be true. MacNN got a copy of the system requirements for Snow Leopard. One of the main changes: "An Intel processor" required.
Some of the other system requirements include:
An internal, external, or shared DVD drive
At least 512 MB of RAM (more is recommended for development)
A built-in display or display connected to an Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer
At least 9GB of disk space available, or 12GB of disk space if you install the developer tools
Keep in mind that these system requirements refer to the Developer Preview handed out at WWDC. Snow Leopard isn't scheduled to ship for a year, and things can change. That being said, it might be time for you PowerPC Mac owners to start saving for a new Mac.
Pat Lee from VMWare sat down with me to share the latest news on the VMWare Fusion 2.0 beta. Among the big new features: the ability to run 10.5 Server as a virtual machine. Check out the interview after the jump, and check out the VMWare blog for some 10-screen virtualization fun. There's a feature demo available on YouTube, and if -- after you've taken all of that in -- you're dying to get in on the beta, head to the public beta release page for more information.
Apple held their 2008 Apple Design Awards at WWDC last night. We love developers. What makes the Mac platform so awesome is the cool applications that these creative developers make. It is with great pleasure that we tell you who won the Apple Design Awards for 2008.
Best Student Runner Up: Flow Best Student Winner: Squirrel
Some of the first pictures of "Snow Leopard," Apple's next version of Mac OS X have started leaking off of developer's Macs. Orchard Spy has some of the very first screenshots, though nothing too exciting is shown.
Just as we suspected, Snow Leopard doesn't show any new features in the Applications or Utilities folders; nor does it show any changes in System Preferences. The only change that may lead to speculation is a new "32-bit" phrase in the System Preferences Title Bar.
The dust has settled from the stampede of announcements from yesterday's WWDC Keynote so it's time to take a look back at our predictions and see how we did!
First, let's take a look at what was released at this year's WWDC:
So, how did we do? Many of the things we predicted did actually come true (to our amazement!). We are extremely pleased with our predictions this year as we guessed everything that was released. All in all, we were 54.5% (6 right, 5 wrong) correct with our predictions. But we were spot on with the .Mac rebranding ("MobileMe"), 10.6 "Snow Leopard" preview, and the iPhone 3G / iPhone 2.0 announcement / delayed release.
After all the excitement and iPhone-ness of yesterday's Keynote, Steve sat down with Jim Goldman of CNBC to talk iPhone. Goldman asked Steve about the conspicious lack of an iPhone intro date for both Russia and China, which are pretty big markets. Steve says that we should look for some announcements later this year on those fronts.
Goldman also asked why Wall Street has such a love/hate relationship with Apple. Steve responding by noting that Apple has had record quarter after record quarter, and Wall Street usually comes out at the right place.
Our favorite little blue bird has been getting a lot of attention on the Apple site, thanks to its upcoming appearance in the new iPhone/iPod App Store. In their blog, Gedeon Maheux of the Iconfactory talks about the native version of Twitterrific for iPhone and iPod touch.
"We feel both excited and privileged to be a part of the new App Store and are committed to bringing our users the best software we can offer," he writes.
According to Ged, the pricing displayed on the site is "for position only": meaning no decisions have been made about pricing yet. Also, expect Twitterrific to work across EDGE, 3G, and WiFi networks.
In related news, Twitter survived the onslaught of WWDC! Hooray! A short service interruption in their data center caught them off guard, but otherwise they were up for 97.3 percent of the day. Twitter received an order of magnitude more traffic yesterday than they do normally.
Here at TUAW HQ we find ourselves watching Mahalo Daily almost everyday. Mahalo has this new thing they do with conferences and special broadcasts where they trim down the video to 60 seconds. So for the folks that don't wish to sit through the almost 2 hour WWDC keynote can just watch a 60 second clip that shows the main points of the keynote.
I have officially managed to finish sorting and editing all of the footage from WWDC. The last video in our series is a chat with Charlie Wood from Spanning Sync. He managed to make it to an early appointment at my hotel on the morning I was leaving, despite having made the most of a large-scale bash the evening before.
Mike Lee (yes, the self-proclaimed world's toughest programmer) has a new project called 
I had a quick chat with Guy Horrocks from 
The guys who comprise 
We gave Niclas and Martin from 
MacNN is 
We 
Pat Lee from VMWare sat down with me to share the latest news on the VMWare Fusion 2.0 beta. Among the big new features: the ability to run 10.5 Server as a virtual machine. Check out the interview after the jump, and check out the 
Apple held their 2008 Apple Design Awards at WWDC last night. We love 
Some of the first pictures of "Snow Leopard," Apple's next version of Mac OS X have started leaking off of developer's Macs. 
The dust has settled from the stampede of announcements from yesterday's WWDC Keynote so it's time to 
Our favorite little blue bird has been getting 
