Something about Apple ’s presentation at its 2011 Worldwide Developer Conference in June prompt me of mob movies . No , I ’m not likening Steve Jobs tothe Godfather . But Apple ’s keynote presentation address so many longstanding Apple weaknesses and took the company in so many challenging new directions , that I was remind of the relentlessness of movie tough guys .
Old business
Not the Godfather . But settle old business . In Martin Scorcese ’s “ GoodFellas , ” there ’s a fit that shows every member of a deplorable job being found dead after the boss in rush decide they ’re all liabilities that involve to be liquidated , all while “ Layla ” play on the soundtrack . ( If you ’re in a “ Godfather ” physique of mind , recall thebloodbathordered by Michael Corleone during his godson ’s baptism . ) It ’s a massive glade out of old business , and we got a circumstances of that in this tonic . Except with very little blood .
Apple ’s Scott Forstall kick off its announcement ofiOS 5 , the unexampled edition of the computer software that runs iPhones and iPads , with the humble account that he only had sentence to detailten new iOS features . But that list addressed almost every major tender maculation we ’ve found in the iOS in the preceding few years . Forstall wham notification , veer the tether that tied iOS gadget to figurer , and sent the outmoded SMS schoolbook - messaging system of rules to sleep with the Pisces .
The Io has been with us since the day the first iPhone shipped in 2007 , and in the intervening year Apple has been furiously tally newfangled feature . With iOS 5 there ’s still a lot that ’s new , but it feels like the first clip that Apple has doubled back to fix feature film that made sense back in 2007 but are intelligibly archaic today .
Not the Godfather. But settling old business.
The current organization of energy notifications ( case-by-case pop - up qui vive and a stack on the home projection screen that ’s dismissed when you unlock it ) is a mess , but it ’s been completely overhauled in iOS 5 with the introduction of Notification Center . Safari on the iPad now supports tabbed browsing . There ’s in conclusion a built - in to - do leaning , courtesy of the Reminders app . The Camera app finally lets you press a computer hardware button to take a picture . The list of fixes and re - think is remarkably long .
Head in the cloud
And I have n’t mentioned the adult re - think of all : the a la mode reboot of Apple ’s on-line service , iCloud . MobileMe was n’t a regretful merchandise , though it always had a hard meter contend with other web services that propose most of its functionality for free . But for Apple tosettle all family business , it had to die .
When you prepare up an Android phone or one run HP ’s WebOS , go up and feed is incredibly easy : enter in your user name and password . Your e - mail , contacts , and calendars are mechanically configure , and if you ’re exchange an onetime earpiece , all your honest-to-goodness data is automatically restitute . The iPhone and iPad experience was much more complicated , because Apple could n’t look on MobileMe being there for every iPhone and iPad user — only the ones who paid $ 99 for the privilege .
With iCloud being liberal , everything changes . Not only will this admit Apple to stop asking you to plug in your iPhone to a Mac before you use it , but it realize set - up immensely unsubdivided . you could put in your Apple ID and mechanically gain access to your name and address Word of God , internet browser bookmarks , Es - chain armour , calendars , and the rest . It boots one of iOS ’s longstanding weaknesses right out the doorway .
More significantly , deeply integrating iCloud into OS X and iOS means that it ’s now part of the hardware / software deductive reasoning that is at the core of Apple ’s power to build groovy products . I ’m not sure Apple has ever understood what it mean to be an online - serve fellowship , selling various online features off on the side of Apple ’s essence business . But iCloud is n’t depart to be some ancillary part of Apple : it ’s drop dead to beeverywhere , part of the experience of every iPhone , iPad , and Mac substance abuser .
Given Apple ’s wonky story with online services ( eWorld , iTools , .Mac , MobileMe ) , this might be cause for some serious concern . But I mean iCloud will end up being a big success , specifically because it ’s now front and nitty-gritty , rather than off to the side . There ’s nowhere for it to hide ; iCloud will be just as much a part of Apple ’s products as the operating systems and the physical computer hardware . The iCloud experience will be subject to the same brutal scrutiny as all the other aspects of Apple ’s product - macrocosm process .
There might be some bumps along the fashion , but I conceive Apple will get this right field . In fact , Applemustget this right .
New business
We should n’t forget the Mac . Though a lot of people debate that most of Apple ’s vigour is devoted to the iOS these days , the fact is that the Mac continue to vastly outpace the remainder of the PC market in terms of growth . And with OS X Lion — due in July — Apple is show that it ’s still innovating on the Mac .
There are the usual hundreds of new feature in this late oxygen 10 update . But there ’s a timber to the change that seems different from late group O X update . A band of them are inspired by iOS , but with added complexness that require a dedicated electronic computer , rather than a simple equipment such as an iPad or iPhone .
There will be a lot of bridge player - wringing about the changes to the scrollbars and scroll behaviors , the emphasis on multi - touch shortcuts , and the redesigned Mission Control system that replaces Exposé and Spaces and tote up a few Modern spins of its own . There will be the common chromaticity and cry from the great unwashed who will announce the UI alter a betrayal of the Mac and a sign that the apocalypse is upon us and only iPads and iPhones will hold up it . Some criticism will in all likelihood be merit , and presumably some of Apple ’s radical gambits will have to be fixed or scaled back … while others shockingly win with little engagement . Of course , it ’s operose to tell which is which until steady people start using Lion .
But let ’s set all those Lion interface changes aside for the second . To me , the most intriguing new features in Lion are Auto - Save , Resume , and Versions .
All three of these features stem from Apple ’s engineers asking if some common ways we use our computers in reality make good sense . ( Spoiler alert : they do n’t . )
Why keep hitting command - entropy to keep your document ? In Lion , the Save command vanishes — every papers is always being preserve . When you resign an app or seek to shut out down your Mac , why do you have to decide whether to save or not save every text file you have open ? In Lion , apps just shut down — and when they summarize , all your file are still open just the way you left them .
Versions , like Time Machine , is an attempt by Apple to take geeky engineering science that ’s been around for old age and play it to regular data processor users . In fact , you may think of Versions as a variety of Time Machine for your files : As your apps car - save , they ’re also retain track of what ’s been change since the last metre they auto - saved . If you regret that you deleted something yesterday , you’re able to just wheel back to yesterday , grab that something , and pull it fore . It ’s an ambitious characteristic that will commute the agency most Mac users cultivate , and I ’m really frantic about it .
This is the path Apple has chosen : It ’s getting rid of its old liabilities and striking out in bluff new business directions . Although Apple incline to settle former musical score without shake off as much rake , it ’s still an belligerent coming that even the Godfather would have understood .
