| The Patience of Jobs | | Date Created: 15 Aug, 2006, 12:02 PM |
 After my last blog entry, where I penned some rant-like thoughts on the variety of post-WWDC reviews, I did a podcast with my other podcasting half, Anthony Caruana.
There it gave me the chance to verbalise some of my ideas about the Keynote and the directions Apple is heading in the short term. By short term, I mean in the lead up to the next Keynote thus scheduled, that of January's MacWorld.
Now I would be very surprised if we don't see and hear another Jobs-led formal presentation in between, perhaps featuring a music/video event and associated hardware such as a 6G iPod or another set of accessories.
There is the Paris Expo next month where we might see a new Apple product, or at least an update of an existing one, such as faster, newer-chipped MacBooks. But essentially, these European expos are reworks of the US-based events with perhaps one or two updates. Although it must be noted that the iMac G5 was announced by Phil Schiller at Paris, while Steve Jobs was being managed for his pancreatic cancer. |
| I'm wondering out aloud if Leopard will be released pre-MacWorld in January. I think I'm correct in saying that both Panther and Tiger iterations were made for sale in October 2003, for the former, and the latter in April, 2005. It' may now be two years further on when Leopard's released, such that the product cycle has slowed as Jobs said it would. (See the cycle from th WWDC Keynote, below) |
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Those less enamoured of the feature updates appearing in these respective versions have coined the phrase, "the annual Apple tax", but the time between its application has now stretched out to two years.
Moreover, many of the embellishments have occurred under the hood so to speak, so that each update (Jaguar ->Panther->Tiger) has seen the same Apple hardware increase in relative speed. I don't know that the same can be said for Windows updates.
Of course, at some point, an old Mac becomes an old Mac and one has to jump through hoops to get the latest OS to install, but it can be done. We're running an old bubble iMac with Panther and it's humming along quite nicely, as long as we don't fill its 6GB hard drive close to the brim.
Is it possible Leopard will be released prior to MacWorld? While I'd like to get it into my hands early, without resorting to the Bit Torrented previews now appearing (as it did for Tiger in 2004), it seems unlikely.
This year's WWDC was pushed back very late in the year, perhaps so as to give developers as rich a working Leopard as feasible, while still keeping some features close to the chest (vest? where did that term come from?). In previous years, WWDC has been in May or July, giving developers much more leadup time to prepare their wares for the next OS X update release in October or the northern Spring of the next year.
With new coding tools, and OS implementations like Core Animation, it would seem shortsighted to limit the amount of time for developers to integrate these tools and others not seen during the Keynote, into third party software. So an October release of Leopard seems unlikely.
More likely is a January Macworld with Leopard in all its glory, with a huge swag of new and updated Apple software, and an even larger array of Leopard-primed third party software up for demoing on stage at Moscone.
We can already expect a significant update to iWork which will take advantage of new Leopard features, and make the likes of Powerpoint seem very quaint. iWeb and the other iLife apps will no doubt receive significant updates, bringing more "glue" to the Mac, making it easier to turn your Mac into a powerful information gathering and storing system, easily able to share with others via iChat and Mail.
Who you calling beleaguered?
For those of us around Apple long enough to remember when it was referred to as "beleaguered", a term now used more often when referring to Microsoft and perhaps soon enough, Dell, the transformation of Apple back to innovative market leader has been a long time coming.
It must have felt even longer to Steve Jobs, who spent a decade in the wilderness, overseeing Next then Pixar, one unsuccessful and the other mightily successful, before being able to return to his first passion, personal computing and by definition, Apple.
That he has assembled a team around him at Apple who could follow, and instigate his vision, as well as augment and extend it, is not up for question. (How that team rewarded itself is, however, and that's another series of questions entirely).
This has been a slow, strictly planned business, I'd suggest, but one where there was sufficient flexibility of thought so as to see what's happening around them, and to act upon it, sooner rather than later.
Apple didn't invent podcasting, but once it saw it as a feasible endeavour, where its own tools were used for unexpected purposes, it switched quickly. It eschewed corporate blogging as not in keeping with its desire for keeping its innovations close to its chest, and will likely continue to do so, to judge from the temper of the WWDC keynote and its Top Secret attributions.
Apple is also moving along with knowledge sharing tools, as previewed in Leopard, and which various websites suggest will be included in iWeb 2, as part of iLife 07.
Time Machine, the splashiest of the preview of 10 shown last week, took as its cue the research showing how few people back up daily, and the miniscule number who do it automatically despite the tools, like Backup 3, being there to do it for you.
Rather than drag the horse to the water and make it drink, Apple is going to acknowledge our human fallibility and laziness, and with the right tools - Time Machine and a large external drive - do the grunt work for us.
While some may argue that Time Machine has been done before in Windows, few will argue that anyone can do it better and with the human user in mind in the way Apple can.
And if you look at Time Machine more closely, you will likely see the future Finder replacement prototype embedded in there, something a long time coming.
Indeed, there is a new Apple developing, a more aggressive yet maturing Apple, willing to take on the monopolist OS head on, taunt it, ask you to compare its features, and further enhance its users' acknowledgement that Apple "gets" how humans wish to use computers - with the least intrusion and maximum elicitation of the creative process. Something far beyond a "good enough" computer experience.
It takes time to reach this position with technology. So many things we take for granted have taken years if not decades to catch, after first being denied access to mainstream users.
The telephone was mocked at its initial release as not being essential to business; cellphones were expensive toys for those with a James Bond fantasy life; the phonograph of Edison's had huge scorn heaped on it especially from musicians who thought it would put them out of business; and of course any mode of transport can have its history traced via opposition to its availability to the masses at the expense of jobs lost to previous technologies.
Steve Jobs has been patiently waiting, watching the iPod laughed at and mocked when released almost five years ago. (Does that hint at an iPod announcement this October?)
He has watched as the Mac almost went under in the mid-90s; and he watched when on his return to Apple market share declined, and he was roasted even by his ardent developer community for sleeping with the enemy, Intel.
But when he told us last year that, as per the rumours, OS X had been in parallel development on Intel chips, you just knew his patience might turn out to be his greatest virtue.
It's one thing to have a vision, after all. It's another to have the patience and persistence to see it through. And it will be rewarded with increasing numbers of Windows Switchers and Dumpers.
The Kool-Aid hasn't tasted this sweet in a long time. |
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