WWDC and the future of APPLE - Page 7

Indeed. This is something they have to get right the first time. QuickTime is one of *THE* crown jewels of the Mac... consider the fact that it came over from OS9 to OS X almost untouched. Is there *ANY* other chunk of major code or technology that can say that? I don't think so. QT is quite possibly the one single most important strategic weapon in Apple's technological arsenal, and I don't think I'm exaggerating.

I don't think you're exaggerating at all. QT is the engine in which Apple builds such nifty applications. I don't think Final Cut Pro can really add the necessary changes for the future without a new healthy QT update.

I definitely see QT breaking out and becoming more of a "must have" technology. I see it perhaps being used in other devices like STB and mobile devices. I would be happy with WWDC is only two products really shine. One is Tiger the other is QT.

If QT7 is a monster that I hope. Then WWDC 2004 sets off the "Big Bang" of new apps and technology coming to our platform. Usher in Mac multimedia 21st century style.

So much hype. I'll be so disappointed if we don't get a sneak peak of QT7 at WWDC now.

Hopefully QT7 = rewrite. Hopefully, it'll come with Tiger as a major feature. And hopefully, H264 will be done and it'll be part of QT7 when Tiger ships.

I'd pay for Tiger *JUST* to get QT7...just like I paid for Panther for Exposé.

QT 7 should works with older OS X version too, or else it will limits itself (and all the applications depend on it) to just 10.4, and developers won't use it. Our application, for example, required support of 10.2 and above, asking users to upgrade to 10.4 in order to use it will not be realistics. But I think this is probably the time to drop OS 9 support.

When Apple goes from Java 1.3 to 1.4, which is a rewrite from Carbon to Cocoa, it lets both of them exists. The QuickTime for Java rewrite that completely change the framework, also lets the API stays but deprecated. I think this will be the same for QT 7.

I think you're confusing forward and backward compatibility...

Backwards compatibility: 10.4 will include QT6 libraries such that older QT API apps will still work.

Forwards compatibility: QT7 will most likely *not* work on 10.2, and only *maybe* on 10.3. Apps written to a new QT7 API will *require* 10.4.

I think this is completely reasonable.

New/massively updated apps using the new APIs (probably) require an OS upgrade. Old apps still work on the new OS version.

The only people left out are those that want the new apps, but don't want to upgrade the OS. Well, they have a choice to make.

As for the hype: there isn't any. This is all complete speculation. Nobody knows what QT7 will look like, when it will come out, or what it will include. We *suspect* that it will be a reentrant, threadsafe version, which will require a substantial rewrite from the ground up. Add in the desire to ditch the old OS 9 memory code, and it becomes a whole new product. Also add in the borderline necessity in making a Cocoa (or at least OO) API, and it suddenly is a huge task. These are things we suspect will be in there, and that we'd *like* to see... but nobody knows if they'll be in there, and especially not when.

Anyone getting their hopes up for WWDC/QT7 is either too young to have gone through this circus enough times to get jaded, or too naive to learn from previous years.

AFAIK, Apple won't have a satellite broadcast of WWDC on Monday so the stores won't carry it. Maybe a Webcast? Could Apple intro any new HW if there won't be a store event? Does this mean no G5 iMacs at WWDC?

I checked the Apple store online today and you can get a 20" iMac shipped same biz day.

I've been trying to properly express that sentence for years now.

My hopes up, but only because by maintaining reasonable expectations, I am seldom let down.

It's likely (but not certain) that we'll see a preview of QT7 in the keynote with a public beta available immediately or in a few months. Then, it'll be at least another 6 months before the final. And that's if we're lucky. But still, this will be enough to entertain me. Like I need QT7 to enjoy life or earn a living.

Yeah, thats really upsetting. I have a sat dish ready to go

6 months before the final? Does that mean
no Tiger for the next 6 months? If QT7 isn't one of 10.4's major features, it would be disappointing.

I don't understand how a new iMac could be introduced without a broadcast.
That's throwing away millions of dollars of free press around the world.

What's Quicktime TV and the xServe for, if not times like this?

the people who watch these things know about their release the second it is announced anyway and most dont need convincing. its usually only a couple thousand people anyway, not much.

it saves apple money to just tape it and post it as a on demand stream later the same day

So why have they broadcasted them dozens of times before? Apple suddenly can't afford the cost?

Right. We were tuned in to last years WWDC and recorded it to a few tapes for some friends. I'd love to sit at work watching it live this year... \

im talking the live streams. the keynotes/special events are always satelite fed. whether or not the coordinates are made public is another thing. a couple years ago WWDC keynote was a private satelite feed.

it all depends on the year. either way, every single time one of these comes around people get all bent out of shape. apple announced it very close to the actual day. just way and see. if nothing is announced expect an on demand stream late afternoon from apple

There is two ways to look at no announcement (so far) of sat feed of SJ keynote

glass half empty crowd: says if it was a big announcement they would
have billboarded this event live on QT and Sat weeks in advance.

glass half full crowd: says SJ want to shock the world with new stuff
and will wait till close to the date to announce QT and sat co-ordinates

I'm with the latter crowd as I cannot see SJ coming out to address a couple
of thousand developers and show ''Tiger'' and a sub 2ghz iMac. He realizes
that it is his LACK of public appearances that make his addresses such
a media event.
btw last time I looked Sat transponder time on C band was only $18,000 an hour so they can probably afford it

pps Thanks Kormac77 always the most interesting read on any Mac fourm

Now, how do you know this or the Q71/79 stuff? is this inside info or speculation as well?

So there won't be a QT 7 for Windows? Apple might as well take QT out back and shoot it in the head.

If it works with Windows, it should work with anything north of OS 9.

You have technical data to back that assertion up?

There's 'should work' and there's 'should work without an unreasonable amount of excess work and maintenance'.

Uh, no. Early versions of OS X were missing fairly basic functionality at the system level. CoreAudio, for example, still wasn't done when Panther shipped, which is why there's been such a delay getting non-Apple music apps ported. In Apple's defense, it's not at all easy to get time-critical code running on a preemptive kernel, and it's obviously taken much longer than they thought it would to get OS X solid as a next-generation multimedia architecture.

Windows limped through the same building-up phase with NT 3 and 4, and to a lesser extent 2000. 2000 and XP should be capable of handling QT 7. Everything else will probably be orphaned along with earlier OS X's and MacOS, and for the same reasons.

I'm with Kickaha on this; I see 10.2 support going away, unless something funny happens. I'd view 10.3 support as very likely indeed.

As for the dark side, keep in mind iTMS only works with Win 2K and XP. I would expect the same for QT 7.

And Amorph is dead on, as usual: Win95, 98, ME, etc didn't exactly have a memory model that was compatible with OS9, so they had to port the OS9 memory management system over lock stock and barrel.

Now, with OS X and WinXP having much closer memory models, an OSX native QT7 would map much more closely to WinXP, eliminating the need to port the cruft over.

Voila, one clean codebase with minimal underlying platform dependent tweaks. (Oh, and guess what - it'd port really easily to Linux too...)

Oh yeah. Compared to streaming solutions we've looked at, $18K is cheap. I'm holding out on a late announcement on the sat coords though. [crosses fingers]

i think this is a GREAT point...Apple could really benefit from a strong port of QT to linux. (as could linux users) If QT7 is in fact what we all think and want it to be, I would not be surprised at all if WWDC included an introduction to QT for linux. That could really be a nail in the coffin for WM, and another move to help unite the clans against the evil empire...or something.

apple has already made small steps towards making *nixers happy, like including a full dev suite, apache, X11 and POSIX, etc. Now if they released QT for linux, including the QT dev packages, I can see a lot of people getting excited.

my2cents...

Might as well uncross them.

WWDC is a paid-event that developers pay up to thousands to attend. The Keynote is one of the highlights... they've gotta give the poor devs *something* to make them feel special.

Unless something major happens, the keynote will be broadcast taped after it is over.

No.

XCode 1.5 is the most important part of WWDC hands down. People keep missing this announcement and keep focusing on hardware... remember last year how a lot of hardware announcements happened around the month of june... but only 2 happened at WWDC... 2 that really surrounded developers. I wouldn't be the least bit suprised if jobs didn't announce any hardware, except maybe a g5 iMac to show developers that apple is serious about 64bit programming. All these mac users seem to think now (because of last years WWDC) that it is another Macworld, IT ISN'T! This is for D.E.V.E.L.O.P.E.R.S!

QuickTime 7 is important and most definitely will be announced. All these products are for different events for apple... how about SIGRAPH!? They always announce products there, How about Paris Mac World!? They usually announce a thing or 2 there. Or gee, how about do what they have been doing, and announce a product whenever they feel like it. Jobs admitted last year they are trying to get away from big even announcements because it ties them down to only a few places a year to announce. A video device has NO interest to developers unless it has an SDK to go with it.

I'm going to WWDC, I would seriously be pissed if all apple did was announce hardware at the keynote. I am a developer, I don't pay all of the money to go there just to hear apple talk about hardware. After each developer paying 1,600 door charge, they don't want to waste their time with what apple can do on any day of the week. An announcement of Tiger, XCode 1.5, Quicktime 7, maybe an iMac g5 and displays. Perhaps even an iPod, but that is stretching it.

I will demand my money back if all apple talks about is hardware announcements at WWDC.

Xcode 1.5 is going to be the most important piece to you for the next few months.

QT7 will be the most important piece to Apple for the next few years of strategy in the marketplace.

emig, i don't think the Keynote is the key part of WWDC as far as developers are concerned, but all the confrences. the keynote of course shuold touch on developers, but also on Apple as a company and it's direction, meaning products

Exactly, the keynote is more of a 'state of the mac' and pep talk. Yes we all know what the "D" stands for in WWDC. But the "D" doesn't preclude hardware announcements...

No Stevenote today is about only the people in the room. It's about positioning Apple in the industry and the world. The Stevenote is Apple's way of saying that it is still viable, that there's a future for the platform and that the future is exciting. Steve is the one person who can do that, so he is going to talk about all the good news he can muster - hardware, software, music store downloads, iPod sales. ALL of those things are of interest to developers because they prove that Apple is still going to exist in six months.

It's not a coding workshop, and Avie Tevanian isn't giving the keynote. It's a revival meeting. Steve has understood that for years.

You're right it isn't, but completely ignoring what developers are there for (and the ones that basically funded the whole thing) is not the way WWDC works.

I'm not disagreeing that announcing exciting news is great. But to spend the whole time announcing new hardware isn't what the keynote has or ever will be about. I was mainly referring to all the people debating the video part of this thread and Kormac77's announcement list. It isn't going to happen at WWDC. Look at Sigraph... not here for this announcement if it happens.

Yes things developers care about will be announced. But why would a movie store matter?

Get what I'm saying? They need to talk about SOMETHING that is about development. IE XCode... Kormac didn't even mention XCode.

Uh that's exactly what WWDC is... a coding workshop. That's why the developers pay 1600 dollars for a ticket. To learn new technologies on apple hardware.

I'm not denying that the keynote is a "revival meeting", it is. But again, announce something that has to do with developers, don't spend the whole time talking about hardware. That isn't what the devs are there for.

Exactly.

As Kickaha (or someone else) said, a huge chunk of the Classic Mac OS is stuck in QT itself to make it cross platform. They should be able to make this speculative new version of QT far less redundant, far more portable and platform agnostic -- and consider how good a lot of these former NeXT people are at exactly that. Apple can demonstrate how to make *good* cross-platform frameworks for developers like Adobe.

QuickTime is of especially keen interest to developers, and if anything, a new, overhauled QuickTime would bring more cheers than a new Xcode. There are alternatives to Xcode, but currently QuickTime is the only game around and it's an understatement to say that dealing with it is... unpleasant.

But QT is much more than a developer's tool. Yes, developers will care about it. But the difference between QT and Xcode is that Xcode is merely a tool; QT is a platform. It's a platform that can be deployed across various operating systems, and any number of devices. A Java-enabled QT can only make this more true. Consider the newest foothold Linux has gained: Smartphones, which overwhelmingly run Java as well. A QT which runs quick and lean on OS X, Windows XP, Linux, smartphones, cameras, etc. is rich with long-term implications in a way that no other Apple technology can claim. This is even more true when you consider that MS has been weakest in challenging QuickTime, and also in moving into the handheld space.

Fortunately, Apple has one team on Xcode and another on QT, so it's not going to be one or the other. Also, an all-new QT will necessarily go through a long beta phase, and it might even require revisions at the kernel level, whereas a new Xcode could be released at WWDC. (And personally, I hope so, because I've stuck with Project Builder up to this point: I've been waiting for Xcode to stop being so flaky.)

Nice summary Amorph.

QT is the key to alot of Apple's future in ALL platforms: Windows, Linux, phones Palm? .... WinCE? .... iTunes is a great example of a cross-platform, on-the-web interface, but it isn't the creation to delivery app that will be required by DEVELOPERS for the digital hub.

As a matter of fact if the keynote is just on QT and one new hardware device, I'd be very happy .... okay, Xcode update is important too.

Go kormac.

I wasn't saying QT wasn't important... I was saying video hardware that everyone keeps talking about would be.

Although I didn't realize how important QT was or could be. That is extremely interesting and I'm sure a lot of developers would be interested in it... I mean pretty much all thursday and friday is stuff like that.

I just wanted to illustrate that XCode is important. Right now apple is getting their ass kicked by everyone as far as IDEs. Add some damn code sense to Objective-C... its time, its not hard. I have heard rumors that it will be in 1.5... but we'll see. I know Microsoft charges for their IDE but VS6 and VS.net blow XCode away...

My only point was they need to talk about something "developerish"... if they ignored that completely, it would be a slap in the face.

The WWDC keynote isn't, and has never been, explicitly "developerish".

This is true for nearly any convention, conference or tradeshow. Keynotes typically address the big picture, with visionary speakers talking about the near and distant future. They are typically fun and relatively uninformative. Sometimes they serve merely as entertaining icebreakers. Rarely do they have technical speakers who address directly any of the topics covered in the smaller seminars or talks.

Obviously you weren't at WWDC in 01... 100% strictly development.

I guess the announcement and release of an all LCD display line-up was 100% strictly development