Andy's Blog

Post-Keynote Impressions

I have seen this sentiment also on the internerd, but I think that I am also feeling a little bit of post-Keynote blues. Granted, part of that is because I didn't make it into the main hall for the speech, but that isn't the only reason. On the whole, Steve's Keynote was very well done, and Apple did make a lot of significant announcements for the company. However, for your average Mac user, the announcements were less significant.

I say this because there were basically three new things announced:

1. new iLife
2. new iWork
3. mew Intel-based Macs

While Apple wanted the Intel-based Macs to be the big blowout annoucement of the show, for current Mac users, it is really sortof a non-starter. I mean, the new iMac and PowerBook are just macs. They look like Macs on the outside. When you use them, you are using a Mac. Aside from MagLock on the new MacBook Pro, they don't really have any new features. So, the only difference is the supposed massive performance gains.

But here is the deal with that -- for the first year of so, the performance of these new machines is going to kindof suck. Because Apple brought them to market early, there is still quite a bit of software that hasn't been made native. So, all of that software has to run in emulation (and based upon my impressions on the show floor -- it is slow. Not slow like VirtualPC, but not exactly zippy).

For the software that is native to Intel, I'm guessing that the vast majority was simply ported to Intel, not optimized for Intel. At the compiler level, the switch to Intel from PowerPC is a fairly dramatic one. And Apple has spent the last 5 years or so, optimizing the heck out of Mac OS X for the PowerPC. So, it is going to take a little bit of a while for Apple's tools (especially the compiler and libraries), become as optimal on the x86 architecture as they were on PowerPC.

So, given all of that, the biggest announcement of the show is really iLife, which I think is going to have a significant impact on how mere mortals share their lives online. And while that is good and all, I guess I was just hoping for something more. A little more earth-shaking, ground-breaking, "we're Apple, and we're moving the industry in a new direction".

-Andy.

Technorati Tags: Apple, MWSF, Macintosh, iLife, Steve Jobs, Intel

Posted by andyr at January 12, 2006 09:14 AM