Apple Announces WWDC 2011 Keynote

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Apple:

Apple CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m. At the keynote, Apple will unveil its next generation software - Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple’s advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch; and iCloud, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering. It is certainly out of the ordinary for Apple to pre-announce exactly what the keynote will be about. As John Gruber says, it is probably due to Apple making sure there are no expectations that there will be any hardware. Gruber is usually correct on these things.

Apple’s Mobile Strategy is to Make the Technology Irrelevant

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Kyle Baxter writes at TightWind:

Google is seeking a controlling position in the smartphone market and all of the benefits it entails. In Leading the Revolution, Gary Hamel wrote that what is not different is not strategic, and he’s right; pursuing the same strategy as Google is a fantastic way to fail. Apple could open iOS to chosen partners and try to compete with Google on their own terms, but that’s precisely the problem. That’s Google’s game, and one Apple will lose. Instead, Apple should try to continually define the industry, rather than control it. This means both creating the mobile industry’s device types (pocket-sized touch screen phone, touch screen tablet) and introducing new features and technologies that set the norm for mobile devices. By doing so, Apple can control the market without needing a monopoly position. Spot on.

WWDC Sells Out In 10 Hours

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As an Apple iOS Developer, I received my email from Apple this morning just like everyone else. Because I happened to be watching Twitter, I saw that WWDC had been announced and conference passes were on sale for about an hour previous. How long did Google I/O take to sell out? How about RIM's Developer conference? Oh right, there isn't one. WebOS? Again, there isn't one I'm aware of. Yes, Apple is doomed because Android is so much of a juggernaut that all of the developers are sure to switch to it, despite the fact that developers are coming to realize that Android users don't want to pay for apps. Come back in 12 months and tell me how that's working out for you.

Trivial Mac App Store Observation

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A few weeks ago, on our anniversary no less, I did this. As a surprise for Steffanie when she got home from the hospital, my family had came to the rescue and bought her a new 15.4" MacBook Pro. Monday night while she was in the NCCU, I turned on her old Mac along with her new Mac and using a spare Firewire 800 cable with Migration Assistant, I moved all of her data over to her new machine. It worked wonderfully. This was my first time using Migration Assistant, not ever having fully trusted it before, I usually manually copied over any data when moving to new machines. Everything worked great. Fast forwarding two days, Steff was home and using her MacBook Pro. She launched Twitterrific for the first time but the Mac App Store login prompt popped up. Not having ever logged into the MAS on this machine, it needed to verify her identity before allowing Twitterrific, a MAS purchased app, to launch. I wasn't aware it would do this, but it makes sense diving the DRM attached to these apps. It surprised me but I thought it was neat.

iPad: The Microwave Oven of Computing

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Matthew Guay at techinch writes:

And then customers bought them, took them home, and something special happened. They realized that reading eBooks or browsing the internet from their couch was nice on a tablet. They found things they would have never thought to do on a computer were fun and simple. Apps that never made sense on computers with keyboards and mice, like GarageBand and finger paint apps and eReaders, suddenly found life on a 9.7″ slate of glass and metal. Flipboard would have never become as popular on a desktop, and who would have thought of Twitter for iPad’s interface without an iPad? People that would have never touched a computer suddenly found ways a computing device could help their lives, and techies that spent 10+ hours a day in front of their glaring monitors could now break away from their hefty PCs easier. Not doing the same old stuff, but new, innovative things that you would have never thought of on a traditional PC with a screen, keyboard, and mouse on a desk. As Marco Arment said, it’s time to move on from office productivity apps; the iPad opens the window for all types of creative, interactive, personal programs. Finally, the term Personal Computer actually makes sense.