by Playfuls Staff |
7th August 2006
Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference that started today will apparently be the host of a surprising and clear shot at Microsoft’s next-generation OS Vista. This is probably how Steve Jobs is hoping to attract attention on his Macintosh alternative, Leopard OS.[more]
The WWDS is usually held in late spring, but this year’s Mac-related event is special due to the big announcements that are expected during the one-week show.
Definitely, a key presentation at WWDC is about the up-grade Apple plans for its OS, which is dubbed Leopard. It will probably be announced by Steve Jobs himself.
But the surprise comes when we find out that PR managers at Apple are thinking to get attention by naming Leopard…Windows Vista 2.0! An occasional photographer actually captured this breaking news from Moscone Center, where WWDC is organized.
The photos posted on Flikr.com also reveal how Apple is welcoming its visitors: “You've come to the right platform”. Apparently this platform is also making a daring step into the 64-bit processing, which is much closer now after the Intel-Apple alliance from last year.
Last year’s shifting from IBM processors from Intel processors was certainly one of the biggest announcements made by Apple in its recent period. This is why we should expect the completion of this shifting at WWDC, with Steve Jobs indicating Power Mac desktops and Xservers, the last remaining products without Intel inside, to include Santa Clara-produced chips.
This shift, which is nearly complete, has helped propel Mac sales, which grew nearly 20 percent to $1.9 billion in the most recent quarter. "It'll mean they've turned around the entire line in nine months and not one year," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for the NPD Group, a research firm.
Details about WMware’s virtualization technology are also expected to rise during this week.
VMware, announced a new product that will enable Intel-based Macs to run x86 operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, NetWare and Solaris, in virtual machines at the same time as Mac OS X. VMware will demo the product today during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2006 in San Francisco.
“We are excited to bring our desktop platform product to Apple Macs. The demand for this has been unbelievable and it is clearly front and centre for Mac users,” said Diane Greene, president of VMware. “VMware is in the business of providing the most advanced and robust virtualization platforms as well as phenomenal add-on functionality that leverages our virtualization platform. This announcement brings our desktop platform and add-on capabilities to Mac users, and it will allow them to run a wide variety of operating systems without rebooting. Mac users who also use the PC will be able to use this product to consolidate onto the Mac.”
The new Mac product is based on VMware’s robust and advanced virtualization technology, shipping for more than seven years and used by more than four million people today. Moving forward, virtual machines created with any of VMware’s products will run on Intel-based Macs and, similarly, non-Mac OS X virtual machines created with the new product will run on the latest versions of other VMware platform products.
Along with the expected new desktop Mac, WWDC is likely to feature demos of the revised Adobe Creative Suite designed to run native on Intel Macs. This is almost required given that higher-end Macs will target design professionals, many of whom have put off their own Intel transition until Universal versions of the major design applications are available.
Many Apple watchers also think the company will announce plans to move the MacBook Pro to the notebook version of the Core 2 Duo, code-named Merom. The Merom chips will start appearing in August, with the first systems expected to ship toward the end of the month.
Leopard will likely incorporate an updated version of Boot Camp, making it easier to use. It may even make it possible to run both the Mac and Microsoft Windows operating systems at the same time, instead of having to reboot the computer, analysts said.
Such a move could help increase Mac sales even more because people would be more willing to switch to a Mac if it could run all the software applications they're used to.
"If they could run Windows at the same time, it'd be a big boon and cause a lot of users to switch," said Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research. "It would make them consider the Mac more seriously than before."
Tim Bajarin, founder of research firm Creative Strategies, said he believes Leopard will be much better than Windows Vista, the new operating system due from Microsoft, that has run into delays and isn't expected to be released until early next year.
Speculation about new iPods has been floating around for months, including rumors about production and design delays. While the prevailing sentiment seems to be that a successor to the video iPod is weeks or months away, there have been some recent suggestions that a souped-up iPod Nano might be released. And there are the ever-present (and still very much unconfirmed) rumors of an iPod/cell phone combo.
