Steve Jobs is one of the premier names in computing. Almost no one else in the business world, perhaps Warren Buffet or Alan Greenspan, have demonstrated Jobs’ EF Hutton-like ability to freeze a room … no, freeze an industry in its tracks to listen when he speaks. On Monday, Jobs was the keynote speaker of Apple Computer’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Apple shareholders, the tech industry, and the financial world in general dutifully paid mind to the man who seems to have never surrendered his wunderkind status. The Steve Jobs playbook calls for occasions like this one to tantalize the tech world with bold predictions and revolutionary product introduction. This Monday, though, elicited response that’s been somewhat less than enthusiastic. I believe this is due to disappointed expectations of wonderment rather than a substandard presentation.
I take umbrage at the negativity thrown his way. For starters, Jobs is physically frail, you know – with the battling cancer and all! It was his first public appearance in months. For this alone, I applaud him. Believe it or not, a man with cancer is more important than his stature in the computer world. Leander Keahy, of Wired Magazine, seemed to want more energy from Jobs and was unimpressed with Jobs having to present with “lieutenants” for the presentation. I don’t know the specifics of Steve Jobs decision to have co-presenters, but I believe he’s earned the right to present any way he’d like.
The story of the presentation was the preview of the Leopard, heir apparent to the Mac OS X. The Leopard’s emphasis seems more towards improvement upon Apple’s platform than outright innovation. For techies who get excited about what’s under the hood, the Leopard brings native 64-bit support and core animation; hence it doubles as Santa Claus.
The Leopard also features the “Time Machine”, for lost file restoration – that’s as little as one file and not the whole shebang or anything, which I think is pretty cool. Personally, my experiences with file restoration have not been pretty, and the ability to pinpoint single file restoration would be welcome indeed.
Apple, through Leopard, also shows some class. Instead of doing no evil, Apple actively does good with its product, not its PR, for Leopard is disabled friendly. This serves as an example to you, me, everybody. In our schools and hospitals and public buildings, our society makes room for the handicapped by building ramps, allotting convenient parking, etc. This is the right thing to do, not the easy thing to do. I don’t believe that developing better text-reading, Braille support features, or closed captioning is a cutthroat play for gross market share. But it is the right thing to do, or more precisely, a good thing to do – because the decision to include the handicapped is one that Apple chose to make, but not one they had to make. Serious, kudos.
It’s funny that some in-the-know message boards hint that Leopard, which is supposed to be a Vista-killing OS, might not be this envisioned killer and can thusly be considered a disappointment. Well, you know what? I don’t believe that an OS that makes room for the disabled has its heart set on killing anything. Instead I understand that Leopard will have some search enhancements, email capability expansion, better security and an “Enhanced Boot Camp” which will enable Windows to run natively on Intel-based Macs. That’s pretty impressive and if there’s anything we should kill in an age of technological marvel - it’s the “kill” this and that attitude. When did geeks become steakheads anyway?
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