Danny Gorog11 June 2007, 10:48 PM
Lots of announcements from Apple's worldwide developer conference today but the BIG news is Safari for Windows, reboot-free Boot Camp and developer support for iPhone (well, sort of!)
With Apple it's all about the future, what's coming right around the bend. Today's WWDC let us inch ever closer to the corner and get a feel for what is about to run us over (come October anyway).
But sometimes Apple also throws out a curve ball, and today was no exception with the release of Safari for Windows!
I know, just typing that sounds weird but it is true. Or, as John Gruber from Daring Fireball says, 'More Iced Water for People in Hell'. I guess Apple is now expert in Windows development, with the most widely used Windows application -- over 500 million iTunes downloads and counting. Apple also released a public beta of Safari 3.0 for Mac.
For Apple fans there is much to be excited about with the upcoming release of Leopard.
Steve previewed ten new features, ranging from a new Finder, Dock and Desktop (with the much anticipated 'Stacks' feature) to Quick Look (a utility to view, play and read files without actually opening the application).
Other features like Spaces (multiple workspaces), updated Mail (now with integrated to-dos and notes) and iChat were also revisited.
Boot Camp's killer feature: hibernation
As we knew before today's WWDC, Boot Camp (which enables Macs with Intel processors to run Windows) will ship as part of Leopard but Apple is making it even easier to switch between OSs by adding an option in the Apple menu that lets you 'Restart in Windows'.
Rather than fully shutting-down your computer, this commands actually puts your Mac in 'safe sleep' mode so that when you return to the Mac OS you'll be right where you were.
An equivalent command has also been added to the system tray in Windows, which invokes Windows' hibernation mode.
The end result? The ability to switch between OSs without rebooting either OS -- arguably a much better solution than virtualisation such as Parallels or VMware, which saps CPU power to run two operating systems at once. (Virtualisation is a great solution if you really need to run Mac OS X and Windows software at the same time, but Boot Camp will now provide better performance without the reboot penalty.)
And one last thing...
Steve's 'One Last Thing' trick was to talk up 3rd party software development for the iPhone. Most developers were expecting a full-blown SDK however Apple are taking a gentler approach and supporting developers via web 2.0 AJAX applications running in Safari.
Web 2.0 applications can access iPhone's services, including making phone calls, sending emails and displaying location through the built-in Google Maps application.