This is the first Apple event I’m not really interested in. WWDC (dub-dub) has become Apple’s launch pad for the next version of their iOS and OS X (and now watch OS). There have been several hardware announcements at dub-dub which were very exciting, such as the retina MacBook Pro and the radically redesigned MacPro, but last year had nothing hardware-wise, and this year is looking the same. The Wall Street Journal is reporting no Apple TV, and just about every system short of the Mac Pro has been updated in the last 12 months. I doubt that a new type of product would be announced so soon after the watch, and certainly not at a developers conference.
So far, the rumors and banners point to updates to OS X, version 11, iOS 9, the first real OS for the Apple Watch, and a music subscription service. Ho-hum… I’m *very* happy with OS X 10.10 and iOS 8. Is there room for improvement? Of course! Is there going to be anything radical? Probably not. This is one of the real challenges of creating an OS update on a yearly schedule… it’s hard to do anything truly different in that amount of time.
The rumored music service actually bothers me on many levels. First and foremost, it’s the return of DRM. I currently like the fact that if I buy a song on iTunes, I can play it in one of my transcription programs. If I want to pull it into a video, that’s no problem. With the subscription service, it’s back to the bad old days of songs being locked into the players. Also, unless Apple ups their game to lossless, I’m not going to be terribly interested. I feel like the subscription services are starting to really hurt the music industry, as artists are getting even less and less for their work. Check out this article on Rolling Stone for more info http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-new-economics-of-the-music-industry-20111025
What is ironic is that Microsofts Windows 10 (or WinX as I like to call it) is starting to be VERY interesting. The latest beta of WinX is very stable and very cool. Microsoft has realized that they have to do a better job with Windows, and it shows. WinX is the most OS X like version of Windows that I’ve seen. Plus, Microsoft is putting a lot of focus on being able to deploy WinX and be more developer / administrator friendly. The latest PowerShell has a ton of features that make dealing with large numbers of computers easier. I don’t see Apple trying to really push beyond what is in the basic Unix system.
Well, tomorrow should be interesting, but not for the usual reasons!
Same Scheidt, Different Day 