Mar 00 Viewpoint
Volume Number: 16
Issue Number: 3
Column Tag: Viewpoint
by Nick DeMello
This May, Apple is hosting it's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose
California. Promoting development solutions for Macintosh is essential to Apple's
survival. Apple makes their money by selling Macintosh, but people only buy
Macintosh to make use of those solutions. Apple isn't in the business of creating and
selling word processing programs, browsers, compilers, games, tools like Photoshop,
Premiere, Eudora, FileMaker, Excel and the next great and unknown product that some
is building in his basement right now. But Apple wouldn't be able to sell very many
Macs if those solutions didn't exist and weren't continuing to be developed for
Macintosh. WWDC is the one week a year when Apple calls together as many developers
as they can and makes their pitch as to why people should develop for Macintosh.
The convention will be broken into at least five tracks of related presentations and
workshops. The first of these tracks will focus on the Mac OS. This core OS is one of the
most important parts of Macintosh. This year the focus will be on Mac OS X. Expect
presentations on just about every part of Mac OS X: the Darwin Core, Quartz imaging
model, Aqua interface, Cocoa application framework, and Carbon compliance for
migrating older applications. For years Apple has taken heat about the core of their
system lacking such essential features a true multitasking and protected memory, this
year they'll finally be able to deliver those as well as some truly innovative and
fundamental new technologies that will provide some compelling reasons for
developers to target Macintosh.
Track two is a digital media track that will include QuickTime, OpenGL, and (not sure
why this one is in Digital Media) Java. Over the last couple of years, Apple has
extended their definition of "developer" in the same way the entire industry has. At one
point providing solutions on the Macintosh meant you were a programmer, but today
content creators and media developers are a growing portion of the folks bringing
products to the Macintosh platform. DVD movies and Streaming Media Channels are
almost as compelling a reason to buy Macintosh as traditional software. Expect to see
sessions focused on preparing, manipulating, and delivering rich digital media with
these technologies. The message in this track is that Macintosh is the definitive
platform for digitial media content and application development and delivery.
Apple is a hardware company. The hardware track promises to give us a developers
perspective on Apple's current hardware technologies (including AltiVec and AirPort),
interface standards like FireWire and USB, and a look behind the curtain at what's in
the works for the next year. Apple will make arguments for why the hardware
component of Macintosh gives it a substantial edge over other platforms now and in the
next year. They will provide reasons to locate your cpu or graphics intensive
applications on Macintosh, as well try and outline opportunities to develop third party
accessories to expand and support Macintosh. The explosion of USB devices and
potential of FireWire based products for the Macintosh is pretty good demonstration of
the effectiveness of these arguments from last year.
The Network and Security track gives some insight into how Apple sees the Macintosh
platform supporting a new generation of applications. Apple's Sherlock 2, QuickTime
TV, iDisk, and KidSafe are showcases of how the new Mac OS can allow desktop
applications to work transparently with internet resources. The powerful new
security, multi-user, and encryption features of the Mac OS coupled with new kinds of
connectivity through the Sherlock interface, Streaming QuickTime, AppleShare IP
(and Client SDK), NSL, AppleScript TCP/IP, and others mean Macintosh hosted
applications can offer some great functionality for e-commerce, communications, and
network based computing. While many of these technologies are not new, developer's
haven't brought many related applications to market yet. Apple's promotion of iTools
and now a WWDC track dedicated to Network and Security seems to indicate their intent
jump start development in this area and stand behind the technologies they've
developed for it. Personally, I think these technologies are likely to result in some of
the most exciting new products for Macintosh and am looking forward to these sessions.
But it's the last track that really caught my eye: Tools. Apple has apparently devoted an
entire conference track to developer resources where they will reveal "Apple's tools
strategy and the future of development tools on Mac OS." On one hand Apple doesn't have
a very good track record with regard to developer resources, I have to look at this
announcement through skepticism colored by Bedrock, a lack of any printed API
documentation, and charging developers $195 a pop to talk to Apple. On the other hand,
the last few years have seen Apple make some bold and effective moves with regard to
product design, development schedules, market position, advertising, and distribution.
I'm hoping we're going to see a well thought out and long term developer resources plan
that is just as innovative and successful. I'm hoping Apple plan's to make building
Macintosh applications as easy as they've made using Macintosh and that the fifth track
will be the most compelling reason yet to develop for Macintosh.