Posted by David Hunter at 10:18 PM ET.
Today was the kickoff of the 2007 Apple World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) and as usual Steve Jobs were there to fire up the troops. Ryan Block at Engadget has the play-by-play complete with pictures, but here’s the net:
- Electronic Arts announced that they will be introducing games for the Mac platform after a long absence. id Software also announced that they would be supporting the Mac. Sheesh, I’m old enough to remember when there were games for the Mac the first time around.
- Jobs demoed a number of the features of Leopard, the next OS X release due in October, as well as the .Mac online service. Very glitzy. Leopard is 64-bit and there were some speed demos too. Best line:
“We’ve got a basic version that will cost $129, we’ve got a Premium Version which will cost $129…” laughter and applause. “We’ve got a business version! $129. Ultimate version! We’re throwing everything into it, it’s $129.” Can’t even hear Steve, too much applause. “We think everyone’s going to buy the ultimate version.”
- A version of the Mac Safari Web browser was announced for Windows with a beta now and the final version due in October with Leopard. Jobs claimed Safari was faster than either Internet Explorer or Firefox, but what really has the pundits pondering is the question of why Apple would bother porting it. One reason may be that it was also announced that Safari would be the third party programming platform for the iPhone. That choice solves some problems for Apple and may broaden the developer base, but it is likely not where many prospective app developers would prefer to run their code.
Wall Street wasn’t overly enthused about the keynote and I’d have to say that what Jobs revealed was interesting but not overwhelming. As for Safari on Windows, “What did he really mean by that?”
