WWDC Post Conference Thoughts

As everyone predicted the iPhone was the major focus of this year’s WWDC keynote. My prediction of Apple spending a great deal of time on 3rd party developers was true as well. It is crystal clear at this point that the iPhone/Touch is truly a platform. Its future is greater than any other smartphone on the market today. Really in a league of its own. The iPhone focus was so intense, Apple’s new OS announcements were pushed out of the spotlight to an afternoon session. Clearly, Apple is throwing a tremendous amount of resources at the iPhone platform. The keynote was all about creating the most compelling case possible regarding 1) iPhone Enterprise capability 2) iPhone SDK components and 3) End user features. Never before have I seen such an overt attempt by Apple to reach out to the Enterprise and Development communities individually or at the same time.

Additional observations:

The stand out feature with long term potential is Apple’s Core Location. Core Location allows applications to take advantage of an iPhone users whereabouts. With the new iPhone, location content will be determined by wifi, cell or GPS. The potential of leveraging a user’s location is unlimited. Examples include applications that can deliver new content based on where you’re located and social networking applications.

Sega’s gaming demonstration was fascinating. The iPhone IS a game console. It won’t replace the Gameboy anytime soon, but mobile gaming on a phone has been reinvented.

I appreciate Apple’s attempt to minimize power and processor consumption by disabling applications running in the background. The big unanswered question, until the keynote was, how does an application in the background alert the user if it is disabled. Apple’s answer is a background service that provides a push notification service that sends all application messages through Apple and then to the device. This feature won’t be available until September and there are lots of unanswered questions related to how it will work, but we now have more clarity on how developers should plan on alerting users of application events when they are in the background. Got that all you Instant Messenger developers?

I was disappointed by the uninspiring end user features. End user features were barely covered and not demoed. The end user features are hardly the focus of the development team at this point as Apple has bigger fish to fry in terms of adoption. The features announced are welcome, but hardly inspiring. Perhaps seeing the enhancements will help create more enthusiasm. Not much to speak of with the limited coverage at the event. I want my copy and paste functionality!

The keynote covered more details on the App Store. Of note, businesses will have the ability to push applications to business owned iPhones. This was yet another example of Apple bending over backwards for the enterprise environment.

Apple’s new MobileMe is a very attractive service It replaces the aging Dot Mac service with a new set of features and experiences (more remains the same than changes). The last time Dot Mac was upgraded, the results were hardly impressive and failed to keep up with other mail vendors such as Google. If Apple’s implementation is as good as the demo, Apple will finally position itself with a strong web platform for email, calendar and contacts. It will also provide non enterprise Blackberry users with a justification for leaving Blackberry.

"As Is" Apple TV Destined to Fail

Apple TV has been out for more than x. Its success is a question. It suffers from the lack of integration with existing DVR products whether it be Cable or Dish. It’s a device that sits on the side playing second. Consumers want integration. On my Tivo, Amazon movies are integrated with my TV based content. Pictures and music from my PC are also accessible on my Tivo using the same Tivo driven menu platform. I’m a tech guy and I don’t have much tolerance for remembering that I use one device for TV viewing and another device for pictures, downloads and music. There’s long been talk about maturing Apple TV as a DVR product, but that’s no easy task. Apple would need to rely on Cable Cards technology within the cable industry and as Tivo (and its customer base) knows that’s not been easy. Unless the Apple TV has a path to become a DVR or some kind of couch web surfing device (at a minimum) it is destined to become a relic.

Pre WWDC Thoughts

Here are a few quick thoughts related to what we might hear and see on Monday.

Focus areas will clearly be: Leopard install base, kudos to developers for creating Leopard apps, iPhone.

While I'm eager to see if the new iPhone has a front side camera, GPS and improved battery life, I'm much more excited about the new line of applications from both Apple and 3rd parties. Apple will certainly add more software functionality. There are many opportunities to improve the experience and from early SDK hints we know these are coming. Search and other features are logical features over time for Apple to provide. The 3rd party market will show the real gems. Apple will do everything in its power to highlight the amazing work 3rd parties have already done to leverage the platform. Breaking out of the web application space to local and more power applications will take the device in all new directions. I would really like to see the iPhone, and touch for that matter, extend the desktop even more. Examples include streaming music and video to the device from my central iTunes library and accessing documents remotely from my Mac desktop.

Working Parental Controls Must Be Priority

My son is old enough to navigate the web on his own. He's has his own environment with a customized desktop image (his pick, of course) and custom links (that I've approved). Perfect for him and a great use of parental controls. Until recently he's never wanted to spend so much time on the computer where I needed to control is usage in a day. Leopard provides a way to lock down the hours of usage as well as the duration of time during the usage period. Sound great so far, right? After creating those settings, I started noticing that my son was on for more that the designated amount of time. I noticed he could login during hours he shouldn't be able to. Leopard was telling him he could next login at 12:00 AM when the time should have been 8 AM. Apparently these were known issues that have been corrected with 10.5.3. Apple should realize that Parental Controls working correctly are essential. I trust Apple to be a secure and reliable product when it come to security, but even more important to know that it's secure for my children. Parental Control fixes must be a priority that are rolled out as soon as they are available. Safety of children on the Internet should not be based on a release cycle.