Briefly: Mossberg provides early iPhone review, WWDC "underwhelming"

[AppleInsider]

The Wall Street Journal's well-known technology writer Walt Mossberg has already received his iPhone and has weighed in with some early opinions. Also, at least one analyst has called this year's World Wide Developers Conference a mild disappointment for investors, and Apple's Leopard site has revealed more about the new OS than was shown onstage.

Walt Mossberg comments on iPhone at forum

Speaking at The Chronicle of Higher Education's Presidents Forum in Washington, D.C., the journalist revealed that he had just received his sample of the Apple handset the same day. A quick public display of the device in his pocket had been enough to draw admiration from the crowd, according to one report.

Mossberg was comparatively guarded about the iPhone, saying he would reserve final judgment on the device until prolonged use had given a clearer impression.

"I can already see some things I don’t like about it," he told the audience. "[But] I see some other things that I do like a lot about it."

For him, the real focus in coming weeks would be gauging the use of a touchscreen for typing, which eliminates the tactile feedback that some demand for messaging. The predictive typing and correction work "a little better" than expected, he said, but the small amount of time spent with the finished phone was "not a very fair test" and would need more supporting evidence to verify Apple's claims about its ease of use.

Still, Mossberg has already said the iPhone would promise a real improvement over current cellphone technology because of its full Mac OS X groundwork rather than using mobile-only code.

It will succeed "not because it’s better or necessarily better than your Blackberry," he said, "but this [phone] runs a real computer operating system."

WWDC disappoints analyst

Gene Munster of financial analyst group PiperJaffray remarked that the keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs was a "little bit underwhelming" for financial experts keeping track of the company's product introductions, observing in an interview with MarketWatch that the event "wasn't much of a surprise" for regular followers of Apple's progress.

Investors frequently expect major new introductions at Apple's rare formal presentations, he said, but few of these were delivered in the Monday speech. It instead covered familiar territory with a few conspicuous additions.

While most attention has centered on the surprise news of Safari for Windows, which Munster agreed would be a "Trojan horse" similar to iTunes, the real focus was said to be on the integration of Boot Camp into Mac OS X Leopard. Including the Windows dual-boot support provided integration with the non-Mac world that wasn't possible in the past, he noted.

A second highlight for the analyst was Jobs' figure of 500 million iTunes downloads, which Munster said would point to as many as 200 million iTunes jukebox users instead of the 130 million PiperJaffray has estimated in the past.

Leopard site reveals extra features for Boot Camp, no ZFS

Regardless of the impact of the Jobs presentation, a few noteworthy enhancements in Mac OS X Leopard have been revealed through Apple's pages describing the software.

Significantly, in addition to Jobs' revelation Boot Camp will no longer require a separate driver CD, the dual-boot technology will include a menu option in each OS to restart in the other -- an option that will freeze the system state for each OS before rebooting, letting users pick up where they last ended rather than relaunch all their programs.

The new version of Front Row is also a near-match for the Apple TV interface, adding top 10 lists from the iTunes store as well as quicker access to TV shows and podcasts.

Other important changes include backdrop and video capture support in Photo Booth, better full-screen modes and a timeline navigator in DVD Player, and a macro recording function for Automator.

Absent, however, was Sun's ZFS file system. Company chief Jonathan Schwartz had touted that the file structure would be included, but no mention has so far been spotted in Apple's mainstream or developer feature lists.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Bageljoey]

Thats a bit of a bummer. You expect Mossberg to say "I love it! I'll fill you in on the details in my article." not, "well, its too early to say, I'll give it some time..."

[tundraboy]

Mossberg is in danger of being dismissed as an Apple fanboy so he had to throttle things back a little I guess.

[aplnub]

He is playing it up for all it is worth. He comes off as a pompous butt at times. This way he gets more readers on his article.

After seeing what I have seen, I couldn't imagine how you could say anything negative other than, where's the plastic clip case that makes my blackberry a ninja weapon.

[Delfoniq]

Couldn't help but agree 100% with Gene Munster...Safari for WinXP is an excellent move by Apple and a real breath of fresh air to Windows users who until now have been doomed to use the slow and more importantly unsafe IE. His statement describes my sentiments exactly -- Safari will be a very effective "Trojan horse" maybe even more so than iTunes -- think about it, it makes sense it appeals to more people than music downloading. I have been using it for about 10 minutes and I already noticed its blazing speed and intuitive UI....More to come, maybe Mac OS X 'on the fly' (e.g., see Knoppix, etc) ? The people over in Redmond should be really panicking .

[ebrunn]

Another person that gives his initial reaction using the keypad. Give the thing a damn change first. More than a damn hour.

[britwithgoodteeth]

Originally Posted by aplnub

After seeing what I have seen, I couldn't imagine how you could say anything negative other than, where's the plastic clip case that makes my blackberry a ninja weapon.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by Delfoniq

Couldn't help but agree 100% with Gene Munster...Safari for WinXP is an excellent move by Apple and a real breath of fresh air to Windows users who until now have been doomed to use the slow and more importantly unsafe IE. His statement describes my sentiments exactly -- Safari will be a very effective "Trojan horse" maybe even more so than iTunes -- think about it, it makes sense it appeals to more people than music downloading. I have been using it for about 10 minutes and I already noticed its blazing speed and intuitive UI....More to come, maybe Mac OS X 'on the fly' (e.g., see Knoppix, etc) ? The people over in Redmond should be really panicking .

The most important things people use today are phones and email. Steve is right to focus on those things for Windows (and Mac) users.

[Delfoniq]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

The most important things people use today are phones and email. Steve is right to focus on those things for Windows (and Mac) users.

Exactly! I am sure more apps for Windows will appear soon. Safari is pretty smooth, and it's only a beta . Strong statement for Apple. How about Mail for Windows following that, or even iChat? Next up maybe Front Row for Windows (Windows Media Center sucks -- slow and unstable), and also the very cool new Finder with the Cover Flow view. Can't wait to see the total number of downloads today for the Safari beta .

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by aplnub

He is playing it up for all it is worth. He comes off as a pompous butt at times.

I agree. The guy is good. But he's so full of himself (in a somewhat passive-aggressive way, of course).

I prefer Pogue -- smarter, infinitely more humorous, and a tad self-deprecating, to boot.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by ebrunn

Another person that gives his initial reaction using the keypad. Give the thing a damn change first. More than a damn hour.

Angry are we? You talk like someone who has tried it.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by Delfoniq

Exactly! I am sure more apps for Windows will appear soon. Safari is pretty smooth, and it's only a beta . Strong statement for Apple. How about Mail for Windows following that, or even iChat? Next up maybe Front Row for Windows (Windows Media Center sucks -- slow and unstable), and also the very cool new Finder with the Cover Flow view. Can't wait to see the total number of downloads today for the Safari beta .

A few of us here on these boards have been saying iChat for windows is a guaranteed certainty, well not a few, maybe a couple

[aplnub]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

I agree. The guy is good. But he's so full of himself (in a somewhat passive-aggressive way, of course).

I prefer Pogue -- smarter, infinitely more humorous, and a tad self-deprecating, to boot.

You are definitely using the words I couldn't get out of my head. Good job. I don't really care for the dude after watching the D5 pod cast. He was totally rude to that lady with him. You could tell he wanted to be on Gates and Jobs level, and I have a better chance of that happening and that is not saying much.

It's too bad we need those famous people to get the Mac free publicity but I think now he can turn it down.

[Louzer]

Originally Posted by Delfoniq

Couldn't help but agree 100% with Gene Munster...Safari for WinXP is an excellent move by Apple and a real breath of fresh air to Windows users who until now have been doomed to use the slow and more importantly unsafe IE. His statement describes my sentiments exactly -- Safari will be a very effective "Trojan horse" maybe even more so than iTunes -- think about it, it makes sense it appeals to more people than music downloading. I have been using it for about 10 minutes and I already noticed its blazing speed and intuitive UI....More to come, maybe Mac OS X 'on the fly' (e.g., see Knoppix, etc) ? The people over in Redmond should be really panicking .

Right. Because Windows users had no other choices but IE. Finally an alternative for Windows users! We mac users have been so lucky, to have choices like OmniWeb, Safari, Firefox, Camino, iCab, etc. Now the Windows users can finally use something other than IE!

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by aplnub

He was totally rude to that lady with him.

Yeah, I agree. Her name is Katie Boehret, and she seems really nice (altho her reviews are OK).

But he projects the sense that she doesn't quite rise to his level of stroke-the-beard gravitas!

[auxio]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Significantly, in addition to Jobs' revelation Boot Camp will no longer require a separate driver CD, the dual-boot technology will include a menu option in each OS to restart in the other -- an option that will freeze the system state for each OS before rebooting, letting users pick up where they last ended rather than relaunch all their programs.

Hmm, not quite the quick switch I was hoping for (ie. as fast as putting the computer to sleep and awaking it again), but still better than how Bootcamp currently works. I'll have to try it and see.

[physguy]

Originally Posted by auxio

Hmm, not quite the quick switch I was hoping for (ie. as fast as putting the computer to sleep and awaking it again), but still better than how Bootcamp currently works. I'll have to try it and see.

Actually this sounds like exactly what they are doing. When you put the MacBook to sleep now a file (/var/vm/sleepimage) equal in size to your RAM is written out. This is read in on wake. Sounds like there will now be two files and you choose which one to load. Pretty nice.

[Brian Green]

I was hoping to see something with the ZFS file system.

By the way, does the new Finder interest all of you who shout FTFF? I have a feeling I'll be using it mainly in Cover Flow.

Of all the keynotes I've seen Steve give, this one didn't have much RDF. The whole "One More Thing" and then a "One Last Thing" wasn't cool. He's a far better spokesman than that. It kinda felt like he was off his A-Game.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by Brian Green

The whole "One More Thing" and then a "One Last Thing" wasn't cool. He's a far better spokesman than that. It kinda felt like he was off his A-Game.

It's possible they may have had some problems and had to drop some announcements... you're right I think we were all a bit underwhelmed.

[GregAlexander]

Originally Posted by tundraboy

Mossberg is in danger of being dismissed as an Apple fanboy so he had to throttle things back a little I guess.

I was actually wondering if Apple would WANT some bad reviews. There's been a lot of hype and high expectation.

Okay... I don't really mean BAD reviews - I mean really clear, realistic reviews saying what it does great and what it doesn't do (and what it does badly). Then again, I've always preferred those kinds of reviews

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Significantly, in addition to Jobs' revelation Boot Camp will no longer require a separate driver CD, the dual-boot technology will include a menu option in each OS to restart in the other -- an option that will freeze the system state for each OS before rebooting, letting users pick up where they last ended rather than relaunch all their programs.

That sounds excellent. Especially if you combine it with flash ram disks in future Macs - you could switch between OSes at very high speed.

The other unmentioned thing so far seems to be full-screen Quicktime. Steve demoed a quick view of a quicktime film and made it full screen - something which we can't do at the moment unless we have Quicktime Pro.

[Brian Green]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

It's possible they may have had some problems and had to drop some announcements... you're right I think we were all a bit underwhelmed.

That might bring clarity to what we all saw. If there were features that were scrubbed at the last minute before the keynote, I could understand how even Steve would be off his A-game. Something just wasn't right. I'd like to think that there are more interesting features than the ten listed out of the 300. I know that most are under the hood and won't be recognized by us mere mortals, but I'd like to think that there's more to Leopard than what we saw. Most of what was saw was already revealed to us in the last keynote about Leopard, so it felt like all Steve was doing was telling us what we'd already known.

I wish he'd have picked ten things we didn't already know about.

The new Safari beta seems to be working well for me though.

[Techslacker]

I'm beginning to think that people just have their hopes too high or something.

This, I think, was the first that I wasn't able to follow along live while the show was going on. I've followed tons in the past and typically come away so-so with alot of what Apple does. This time I'm reading through what they covered and find myself rather excited about Leopard and what's happening elsewhere in Apple. Maybe the delivery is the problem.

Anyways for those getting excited about Safari for Windows. There are plenty of good browsers for Windows already...don't kid yourself. I'm thrilled to see Safari for Windows though having said that. I'm a crossplatform guy and this gives me one more option to keeping things consistent.

Now to clear things up a bit...don't believe for a second that Safari for Windows has anything to do with trying to simply provide a better browser for Windows users. iPhone is the key. The writing is on the wall. I'm going to speculate that there are going to be some services provided at a later date that will require Safari so that desktop and iphone experiences can remain the same. There was the whole 3rd party developement via Safari so this isn't really rocketscience to deduce. Now of course this is where Safari for Windows becomes a trojan horse which is via iPhone. Brilliant move by Apple.

All in all I really liked what I read about. There are still areas where Vista shines but there are certainly areas where OSX will shine as well. Now I just need some way to generate the funds to buy a new laptop to run these beasts.

[petermac]

Originally Posted by

Absent, however, was Sun's ZFS file system. Company chief Jonathan Schwartz had touted that the file structure would be included, but no mention has so far been spotted in Apple's mainstream or developer feature lists.[c

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ][/c]

Has ZFS been "Steved" because he didn't get to announce it, or it just wasn't ready for prime time yet?

[GregAlexander]

Originally Posted by Brian Green

If there were features that were scrubbed at the last minute before the keynote, I could understand how even Steve would be off his A-game. Something just wasn't right.

I keep thinking the new iMac, but I feel like I'm stuck on that. I was watching the WWDC (much better to watch than read!) and asking 2 questions
1) could this new interface lend itself to touch screen iMac use?
2) could this new interface work on the AppleTV or iPhone
(those self-created widgets cut from webpages look ideal for AppleTV & iPhone!)

Originally Posted by Brian Green

I wish he'd have picked ten things we didn't already know about.

Yes... the question is - why didn't he?

[hobBIT]

Resolution independence? Would have been nice to see a demo of that.

Well, Leopard is delayed for a reason: it's not finished yet. It might be feature complete now, but many of the features are probably still too buggy to demo live on strage to an audience which expects to be dazzled.

And it could very well be that those features are tied strongly to new hardware. If the feature's buggy and this feature is a main selling point for the new hardware - then there's no point in introducing that new hardware just yet.

[mr O]

I'm really surprised not to witness an Address Book update

It should have:

1/ at least Coverflow

2/ an integrated Google Maps feature

3/ an easy way to add tags to your contacts (eg. hot and cold contacts)

[mono]

Originally Posted by Techslacker

Now to clear things up a bit...don't believe for a second that Safari for Windows has anything to do with trying to simply provide a better browser for Windows users. iPhone is the key. The writing is on the wall. I'm going to speculate that there are going to be some services provided at a later date that will require Safari so that desktop and iphone experiences can remain the same. There was the whole 3rd party developement via Safari so this isn't really rocketscience to deduce. Now of course this is where Safari for Windows becomes a trojan horse which is via iPhone. Brilliant move by Apple.

I was feeling distinctly ho-hum about the whole thing until Safari 3.0 came up. My thoughts were yours exactly. Apps for iPhone via Safari 3.0. Apps you can then also use on your Mac and... your Windows PC. Brilliance.

[Louzer]

Originally Posted by Techslacker

I'm beginning to think that people just have their hopes too high or something.

I agree. This was exactly what I was expecting from a developer conference keynote. No new hardware is no problem to me.

Originally Posted by Brian Green

By the way, does the new Finder interest all of you who shout FTFF? I have a feeling I'll be using it mainly in Cover Flow.

It won't stop me until we find out whether they've actually fixed it, or are they just slapping more make-up to cover up the imperfections.

Originally Posted by hobBIT

Resolution independence? Would have been nice to see a demo of that.

Has resolution independence actually be stated by Apple to be in Leopard? I don't recall ever hearing that, just lot's of speculation that it will be included.

[Shintocam]

Originally Posted by Louzer

I agree. This was exactly what I was expecting from a developer conference keynote. No new hardware is no problem to me.

I agree for the most part, but what I found disappointing was that the Apple Store went down, and then after the keynote - no new hardware announcements, there were no apparent changes on the store. Why shut it down? I think they were getting people's hopes up with that....

[Shintocam]

Originally Posted by ebrunn

Another person that gives his initial reaction using the keypad. Give the thing a damn change first. More than a damn hour.

I see you are using the iPhone's predictive typing there.....

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by Shintocam

I agree for the most part, but what I found disappointing was that the Apple Store went down, and then after the keynote - no new hardware announcements, there were no apparent changes on the store. Why shut it down? I think they were getting people's hopes up with that....

The store (US at least) got a complete makeover with a new menu bar, new graphics and new side boxes as did much of the rest of the Apple site. Gone is the OSX 10.1 style tab bar they've had since 2001.

Generally you can't do that kind of change without taking a site offline unlike changing SKUs for new products which they do when there's new stuff. I've no idea why they take the site down to change products. That is totally mad and if I'd coded a site like that for one of my clients they'd sack me.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by Louzer

It won't stop me until we find out whether they've actually fixed it, or are they just slapping more make-up to cover up the imperfections.

At least every window gets the same makeup now although it remains to be seen yet if it's lipstick on a pig.

[Shintocam]

Originally Posted by aegisdesign

The store (US at least) got a complete makeover with a new menu bar, new graphics and new side boxes as did much of the rest of the Apple site. Gone is the OSX 10.1 style tab bar they've had since 2001.

Generally you can't do that kind of change without taking a site offline unlike changing SKUs for new products which they do when there's new stuff. I've no idea why they take the site down to change products. That is totally mad and if I'd coded a site like that for one of my clients they'd sack me.

Hmmm....Dunno - the Canadian EduStore seems to look exactly the same to me but I may be missing something.... Never really went on the regular store so can't say if it is different or not. At least that would explain it for most of the sites.

EDIT: Ah yes - just compared the Canadian store (non-edu) to the US store (non-edu) and I see the difference. Well I can understand then why they took down the US store but not the Canadian one.

[mr O]

I'm confused with the new dock. It looks great if positioned on the bottom of the screen, with all the icons "standing" on top of it. But what if you decide to put your dock vertically (on the left side of the screen)?

[digitalclips]

I suspect to get Leo out on ship date, and this is a huge disappointment to Steve, some major 'top secret' elements have been pushed to 10.5.1. This probably why Steve came across as unenthusiastic compared to his norm.

Plus I was hoping to see a huge upgrade for iWorks. Again maybe 10.5.1 for that too

[digitalclips]

Originally Posted by mr O

I'm confused with the new dock. It looks great if positioned on the bottom of the screen, with all the icons "standing" on top of it. But what if you decide to put your dock vertically (on the left side of the screen)?

Steve showed that too, what's to be confused about?

[mr O]

Originally Posted by digitalclips

Steve showed that too, what's to be confused about?

I wasn't there (and the webcast is bonkers as usual)

But I'm sure it must feel like an open door (as opposed to the horizontal table lay out).

[mr O]

Originally Posted by digitalclips

I suspect to get Leo out on ship date, and this is a huge disappointment to Steve, some major 'top secret' elements have been pushed to 10.5.1. This probably why Steve came across as unenthusiastic compared to his norm. Plus I was hoping to see a huge upgrade for iWorks. Again maybe 10.5.1 for that too

You might be right. iLife wasn't upgraded either. iCal has got a low profile intro on the (beautifull) new web site and Addressbook isn't mentionned at all. Expect great things when iCal meets Addressbook. And vice versa …

[lfmorrison]

Originally Posted by ebrunn

Another person that gives his initial reaction using the keypad. Give the thing a damn change first. More than a damn hour.

If you actually read the whole paragraph, you'd have noticed that Mossberg already said he planned to give it a little more time before releasing his final word.

Right after describing about how Mossberg initially felt about the onscreen typing feature, we read, '...(he said) the small amount of time spent with the finished phone was "not a very fair test" and would need more supporting evidence...'

[curtegg]

Disappointing preview of leopard. Especially disappointed with no appearance of zfs.

I'll stick with my 6 year old g4 system for another year (not bother with leopard upgrade and delay my purchase of h/w).

Sorry, I was planning on upgrading but without zfs I'll wait.