WWDC Keynote Report--Photos and "Jaguar"
Jaguar sounds (and looks!) absolutely fabulous. New features and new technology will abound when Jaguar is released in late summer according to Apple's CEO Steve Jobs. The Finder will finally get spring-loaded folders which pop open when the cursor or an object is dragged over a folder. Apple is collaborating with AOL to incorporate iChat, Apple's new AIM-compatible instant messaging software, which will be integrated with Mail and OS X's Address Book.
The Quartz Extreme graphics will use OpenGL for both 3D and 2D on the graphics card, finally accelerating 2D graphics off the CPU. But, and here's the bad news, the Rage 128 graphics card will not cut it. The supported cards are nVidia: GeForce2MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 Ti, GeForce4 or GeForce4MX and ATI: any AGP Radeon card. 32MB VRAM is recommended for optimum performance. This seems to leave out all PowerBooks but the 667/550 Titaniums and the latest Rev. D Titanium released a week ago.
Here is the list of some of Jaguar's many innovative new features from Apple's press release:
* iChat, Apple’s new AIM-compatible instant messaging software that is built into Mac OS X and integrated with the new Mail and Address Book applications;
* QuickTime® 6, the first complete solution for industry standard MPEG-4 video and AAC audio streaming;
* Rendezvous, Apple’s proposed new industry standard for automatic discovery of computers, devices, and services on IP networks (i.e., Ethernet, AirPort®);
* Address Book, Apple’s new system-wide database for managing contact information;
* Finder™, now enhanced with spring-loaded folders and new instant searching;
* Sherlock® 3, Apple’s all-new Internet search and services tool;
* Quartz™ Extreme, the hardware accelerated Quartz graphics and compositing engine;
* UNIX Tools, the latest UNIX advancements including FreeBSD 4.4 updates, the new GCC 3 compiler, IPv6 and IPSec; and
* Windows Support, for increased compatibility with Windows networks with SMB browsing and sharing as well as built-in PPTP VPN security.
Here are some of Brian Nakamoto's photos of the WWDC 2002.
And here is Brian's full, on-scene report of the keynote:
T-Minus 10 Minutes
The doors opened to let the Apple developers into the large San Jose McEnery Convention Center hall. They stampeded for the coveted seats near the keynote stage set below a giant screen between two giant Apple logos lit white. Flashes from digital cameras joined those from the media and Apple VIPs. Computer-to-Computer AirPort networks appeared immediately as people jockeyed to establish the most creative AirPort network name. A deep male voice announced that everyone should turn off cell phones. I observed that Evian was back as Steve’s water of choice and pondered if their stylish new Nomad bottle was designed with Steve in mind.
Eulogy
The lights went dark, an image of a cathedral interior appeared on the giant screen and Toccata and Fugue in D Minor blasted over the sound system. A spotlight shone down on a casket as it rose from the darkened stage amidst maroon and crimson lights. (Artificial smoke was the only creepy effect missing.) Steve Jobs entered, wearing his trademark black, and opened the casket to exhume a large Mac OS 9 box. The audience laughed and applauded. Steve read a eulogy for Mac OS 9 to more laughs and then placed a rose on the casket as it descended downward. An image of a tombstone that read R.I.P. Mac OS 9 1998 – 2002 appeared on screen and Steve asked for a mock moment of silence as he declared Mac OS 9 officially dead.
Focus On OS X
Steve decreed that all developers should focus on Mac OS X and his slides showed why:
- Apple projects 5 million OS X users in 1 year
- There are already 3,030 applications for OS X
Steve thanked developers, re-emphasized that it’s time to drop 9 and cited iPhoto and office:mac v.X as examples of applications that run exclusively on OS X.
What’s Next
In one word: Jaguar. The codename for the next major version of Mac OS X, Steve announced that Jaguar (he pronounced “Jag-wire”) would be out late this summer. He also mentioned that there would probably be one point release before Jaguar.
The media sighed a collective “huh?” and chuckles when Steve emphasized that (presumably) the developers are all under NDA. (This reporter did not sign a Non Disclosure Agreement.) He then invited Phil Schiller to the stage.
Phil On Unix, Windows & Education
Phil reviewed some of Apple’s areas of focus. He began with Unix, pointing out that Apple is the largest vendor of Unix desktops. This fact and Phil’s ensuing list of Unix goodies slated for Jaguar drew cheers from the developers:
- Free BSD v4.4
- GCC 3
- IPv6, IPSec (“Where else do you get applause for IPSec?” Phil wondered out loud)
- CUPS
- “Open Directory” (LDAP)
- Kerberos
- More terminal features
For people moving to Mac from Windows:
- SMB browsing & sharing services
- VPN (PPTP) – Phil made what I perceived as a Freudian slip when he referred to Microsoft’s technology as an industry standard.
- Active Directory support
- Better Exchange support
For education:
- Workgroup management
- Simple Finder
- NetInstall, NetBoot
- Universal Access
- Printer sharing (USB printer)
Phil handed the stage back to Steve who quickly turned it over to Avie Tevanian for an overview of tools.
Avie On Tools like top
Avie stated that Apple primarily has C-based language developers: Cocoa, Unix apps, and Carbon. These developers have different needs for different styles so Apple is working on improving the following developer tool related areas:
- C++ compliance (by moving to GCC 3 from GCC 2)
- Code generation
- Project Builder
- Compile time
For compile time, Avie said that Apple is good with Cocoa code compilation. He ventured that the GCC community (Unix apps) doesn’t really seem to care about compile time. Then admitted that Carbon compiling time is currently unacceptable and making progress but won’t be entirely ready by Jaguar. Avie invited Ted Goldstein, VP Developer Tools, who he hired in January to work on developer tools and address the issues he overviewed. Ted related that Carbon compiling time on Jaguar is 6x better than what it is now but they probably have another 6x to go. He also thinks that Apple can get help from the free software community. Then Avie emphasized that Ted is the guy that is making all of the improvements—but—he’s the new guy so don’t blame him. After Ted left the stage, Avie continued on with his thoughts on how to make a better X app:
- Ditch CFM, go native (OS 9 is dead)
o Use dual binaries for backward compatibility
o CFM apps don’t get full access to all OS X APIs
o Speed
- Drop legacy APIs
o Use core graphics instead of QuickDraw
o Don’t use OpenTransport emulation
- Embrace new technologies
o VM, multithreading, symmetric multiprocessing—but use them carefully
o Sheets, Quartz…
- Use the file system carefully
o Be careful when you do reads and writes
o They’re okay with local disk but not over network
o OS X is multi-user so be careful of permissions
o Lots of users have their home directory on network
o It’s not a pure HFS world anymore; people use NFS and SMB (Avie noted that it sounds like blasphemy but it’s what customers want.)
- Use performance tools
o For all the negatives, our tools are really good:
o Trace tools, performance tools…
Avie said that he always runs top to make a judgment on how good an app is. He asked the developers to help him out a little bit with his small requests and then turned the stage back over to Steve.
10 Jaguar Features
Steve took the stage to “get interactive” with ten features forthcoming in Jaguar.
Finder
- Spring loaded folders
- Integrated search
- Multithreaded
- Automatic thumbnails
- Services
Ken demoed the Finder’s new find command that lives as a text entry field in the Finder window toolbar. The search results appeared quickly and the found item’s path was shown at the bottom of the Finder window. He made advanced queries by accessing the Find command that revealed search criteria options reminiscent of the pre-Sherlock days. He finished his demo by using spring-loaded folders in all views, including column view.
Sherlock III
To answer the question raised by the Finder demo, What happened to Sherlock?, Sherlock III was the next Jaguar feature discussed. Ken began by asking Sherlock III the original Sherlock demo question of Why is the sky blue? Sherlock III returned the same answer as if to show that classic Sherlock’s functionality remains with a subtly updated interface. Then he showed what Sherlock III could do via new or improved Internet channels:
- Image search – He searched for a picture and Sherlock returned an iPhoto like selection of images
- News – He pointed out that news is now rendered in Sherlock rather than going to an outside browser
- AppleCare – He scrolled through Apple Knowledgebase documents
- Stock – Quotes and graphs were rendered like news
- Yellow Pages – He found directions that were also rendered in Sherlock III
(The Sherlock III demo reminded me of Watson, a third party OS X utility that Phil had previously pined about.)
QuickTime 6
Steve moved onto QuickTime 6 that he said would be fully integrated into Jaguar. QuickTime 6 brings:
- MPEG-4 video
- AAC audio invented by Dolby labs and used by the pros
- Instant on streaming
- QuickTime Broadcaster
Steve brought out Frank Casanova who re-hashed some of his QuickTime Live presentation. Frank reiterated that QuickTime is the basis for the MPEG-4 standard. He then started his demo of AAC by stating the first step they did was to buy a CD from which he pulled a raw AIFF track (Five For Fighting’s Superman) and the same track encoded at 128Kbps AAC. He switched between the two versions and they were indistinguishable. He pulled up a 64Kbps AAC file of the same track and it was still hard to discern any difference! Frank moved onto video by bringing up a music video from Train’s Drops of Jupiter at 6Mbps from a DVD and 4Mbps in MPEG-4. As with the audio demonstration, there was no noticeable difference. He then opened a version of the music video clip at 770Kbps, suitable for broadband, and there was hardly any compromise from the DVD quality video! Still intent on demonstrating QuickTime 6’s power, Frank changed to a streaming Lord of The Rings inspired music video of Enya’s May It Be to demonstrate what Steve meant by “instant on streaming.” He started the stream, stopped it and skipped around with no buffering wait at all. He topped it off by scrubbing through the streaming music video seamlessly!
Universal Access
Ken returned to demo the enhanced Universal Access, which is controlled via a preference pane in OS X:
- Zooming
- Screen reader
- Full keyboard access
- Visual notification
- Developer APIs
Ken went over the preference pane to show the screen flashing to get the attention of somebody that might have poor hearing. He then showed no-compromise screen zooming to one of Frank’s QuickTime movies for the visually impaired. Finally, he enabled the screen reader that brings text to speech to nearly all on screen text. Steve chimed in that Apple is in the market for good text to speech voice technology after the familiar Victoria voice was used.
Quartz Extreme
Compositing, transparency, blending, shading, read the slide describing Quartz as we know it. Steve stated that Quartz Extreme adds 2D + 3D + Video hardware acceleration by OpenGL. It requires AGP 2x and 32 MB. He spent a minute to explain up front (as if referring to a class action lawsuit against Apple about absent OS X OpenGL acceleration on older hardware) that Quartz Extreme is not possible on Rage 128 and earlier but all new iMacs support it. Ken came out to play a Santana DVD that he minimized using the genie effect in slow motion. Not a frame was dropped. He then stacked a semi transparent terminal window over the playing DVD followed by a semi transparent rotating OpenGL object. The transparency was true and seamless while the DVD continued to play smoothly beneath the layers. For the Quartz Extreme grand finale, they used a Cocoa application created in one week to do high-end video scene composition. The audience was impressed and Steve suggested that Apple is at least 2 years or more ahead of the other guys.
Ink
Having spoken about being ahead, Steve unveiled Ink. “You’d think that hundreds of millions of dollars would get us something,” lamenting John Sculley’s Newton PDA project from which the Inkwell natural handwriting recognition technology was born. Inkwell fully integrates with anything that accepts text input. There’s no training required. Ken showed the Ink preference pane and then wrote, in his own handwriting in Text Edit. His writing appeared in the center of the screen against a light yellow kindergarten ruled paper like background. When he was done, the properly formatted text appeared in Text Edit. He did the same in Photoshop 7 and amused the crowd by launching top by scribing top in the Terminal.
Rendezvous
As if Ink weren’t cool enough, Steve announced that Apple is proposing Rendezvous as a new open industry standard for auto discovery of computers and peripherals:
- Dynamic discovery for IP networks
- Zero configuration
- File and USB printer sharing
- Developer APIs for computers and devices
Steve fired up iTunes and began playing music on his desktop Mac. Then somebody named Jeff walked to a black leather lazy boy on stage and opened his PowerBook. Automatically, iTunes on Steve’s desktop showed Jeff’s playlist and Steve switched to a track on Jeff’s PowerBook. Steve made a point that he’s not making a copy but sharing Jeff’s music. When Jeff’s put his PowerBook to sleep, the music stopped. When he woke his PowerBook, his playlist came back on Steve’s iTunes. Steve asked the developers to imagine the possibilities.
Mail
I wonder if Steve noticed that his Mail icon slide had 1.0 instead of the new version that is going to ship with Jaguar:
- Intelligent spam filtering – Steve was really big on the spam filtering as he noted that Apple took pattern recognition technology from another R&D project and applied it to spam filterting
- Sophisticated rules
- Auto merged mailboxes
- Cross-mailbox searching
- Color highlighting
- Highlighting message threads
- QuickTime
- CRAM MD-5, Kerberos
- VPN
Ken explained that Mail’s spam filtering uses latent semantic mapping that learns based on what you tell it is junk or not junk. In training mode, you see every message flagged as junk. Once you’re confident that it’s accurate, Mail can automatically move all junk email into a spam folder.
Address Book
Steve clarified that Jaguar’s Address Book is not related to the existing Address Book in 10.1:
- System wide database
- Instant searching
- Smart editing
- Bluetooth, Caller ID and SMS
- Developer APIs
Address Book ties in with Mail and other applications. It will sync with Palms and Bluetooth devices such as phones. It has full group and LDAP support.
iChat
Steve proclaimed that instant messaging would be built into Jaguar. Specifically, iChat works with AOL Instant Messaging or AIM that is officially compatible and “blessed” by AOL. iChat will let you know when somebody is online in Mail and can generate and automatic local buddy list with Rendezvous. Steve provided the example that people can bring their PowerBooks to a meeting and instantly share files (via drag and drop) and chat. Buddies are stored in the Address Book and you can use your Mac.com screen name so you don’t have to be some cryptic AIM address. The chat mode of iChat reminded me of pop-up video and even made the trademark “bloop” sound.
Metal For The Rest Of Us
As almost an aside, Steve and Ken showed that the Metal interface used in Apple’s applications would be built into the all of the Cocoa and Carbon frameworks of Jaguar. Ken did a quick example where he used Interface Builder to instantly switch Calculator’s interface to be Metal.
Jaguar Server
Steve said Apple has been hard at work on Mac OS X Server and Jaguar will bring the following enhancements:
- Headless operation
- NetInstall, NetBoot
- OpenDirectory (LDAP)
- Server optimized JVM
- Disk, print and email quotas
- Python, fast CGI, TCL, Ruby
Steve then teased everyone by showing a slide of Apple’s first dedicated rack mounted server for which he said that he couldn’t give any details. He suggested that we would all learn more on May 14!
One Last Thing…
Steve put up a slide of a Jaguar themed CD jewel case and the audience held their breathe and burst into applause when he revealed that developers would receive a developer preview of Jaguar at the conference. The developer preview contained two client CDs, two tools CDs and two server CDs.
Steve concluded his approximately 1 hour and 45 minute keynote by emphasizing that the developer preview is pre-release and not even alpha. Then he made one final appeal that it’s confidential, under NDA and top secret. Jaguar won’t be ready for consumer desktops until “late summer”.
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