I was able to watch the live stream for the “Back to the Mac” event on October 20 on my iPad at my desk. Apple’s stream of live h.264 video that was solid and beautiful when scaled full-screen (I’m guessing that it is 864×480). But that was just the delivery, I’m concerned about the meat.
iLife ’11
The iLife update looks solid. I think they’re making good progress in iPhoto, iMovie, and Garage Band. But nothing too spectacular or groundbreaking. I do find it interesting that I’ve been doing the things manually that they’ve added as features to the updated products. In iPhoto ’06 I had keywords set up for every family member and would tag them in each photo so I could find them easily. They added Faces in iPhoto ’09 to automate that. Then in iPhote ’11 they upgraded full-screen, which I spent most of my time in previously. Great progression of the products.
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion
The thing I’m most interested in is the updates to the core operating system: Mac OS X 10.7, Lion. Here’s my thoughts after just seeing the demo. We’ll all have to wait until summer 2011 to try it out ourselves.
- Fullscreen apps. I think it’s a good idea. Many applications are already used full-screen (iPhoto, FinalCut Pro, etc) so it makes sense to provide developers with the API to build it in. And many applications do it well on both platforms. I really like how Google Chrome works in windows. The biggest issue I have is how to get out or interact with your other programs once you’re in full-screen. I’ll discuss that in-depth next.As a side note, I think it’s interesting that there used to be the thought that Windows software wanted to be full screen all the time. And the advantage to Mac was that you were able to move and position your windows around more freely. But, good ideas are good ideas, regardless of their origin.
- Much more multi-touch. I really don’t like the choice of multi-touch for so many actions. At all. Here’s why:
- Multi-touch actions are difficult to remember. This is the problem that’s showing up on the iPad. There’s no visual reminder of how to perform certain actions, so people get lost. My basic question is: is a person switching from Windows going to know how to get out of full-screen? I’m not saying it can’t work, I’m just predicting there’s going to be a lot of confused customers.
- It’s hard to do on desktop hardware. During the demo the camera clearly showed the PRODUCT MANAGER struggling to do the three-finger swipe with a magic mouse. Granted, it will be much easier to do on notebooks, which are dominating the market. But there’s still a bunch of iMacs that get sold every quarter. And what about people who may have dexterity issues?
- You have to use the included Apple hardware. Currently, there are no third-party mice that support gestures. So if you want to use your ergonomic, 9000 dpi, gamer mouse, you gotta get the magic pad (which I’ve heard is awkward also).
- App Store: good idea, we’ll have to see about the implementation. The biggest question is going to be what the review process is like. Will there be content restrictions? Will they require hardware and software compatibility testing? We’ll see. I think it’ll be a boon for a large majority of developers, but there will be a very vocal minority that won’t like it at all. I’m bullish on it.
- WFT? Why isn’t facetime integrated with iChat?
MacBook Air
Sweet! I think they’re up against the laws of physics with these things. They were able to get it thinner, but were only able to drop the 13 inch version by .1 pounds. There’s just not much more you can shave off and still have a keyboard. $999 is a killer entry point. Killer.
And, this is the software restore/install disc:
Killer.
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