If you sign up as a developer with Apple, you get access to some extra developer stuff. This includes keynotes from guys at Apple who talk about the new technology in product X and how to incorporate it into our (3rd party devs) applications.
This stuff is boring and useless, unless you are a developer. But the keynotes do offer some interesting insight into Apples plans [strike thru]for world domination[/strike thru].
I know it was a long time ago, but here are some of the more interesting things from the WWDC 06 (Mac Pros, Leopard sneak peak) dev keynotes that happened after the SteveNote and the general public tuned out.
Note: These are all in reference to the WWDC 06 version of Leopard. Expect some changes. I probable made a few mistakes so don't spaz out if you see one.
Printing
Preview.app
PDF Kit
Note: This isn't an application but a technology used by apps that handle PDF files
Core Animation
3D Graphics
Imaging
QuickTime
Cameras
Spotlight
Time Machine
This stuff is boring and useless, unless you are a developer. But the keynotes do offer some interesting insight into Apples plans [strike thru]for world domination[/strike thru].
I know it was a long time ago, but here are some of the more interesting things from the WWDC 06 (Mac Pros, Leopard sneak peak) dev keynotes that happened after the SteveNote and the general public tuned out.
Note: These are all in reference to the WWDC 06 version of Leopard. Expect some changes. I probable made a few mistakes so don't spaz out if you see one.
Printing
- Enhanced print dialogs
- Upgraded to CUPS 1.2
Preview.app
- Updated user interface
- Contextual searching
- Improved image editing
PDF Kit
Note: This isn't an application but a technology used by apps that handle PDF files
- New thumbnail view. Supports multiple columns.
- Modify and create PDFs from the thumbnail view
- Reorder pages from the via drag and drop
- Delete pages
- Drag images from the Finder to add a new page displaying that image
Core Animation
- Core Animation is a 2D technology. It can do some 3D effects but it's really a dynamic layering engine (Note: This is why I think this is false)
- Aqua controls are can be animated with Core Animation
Note: My general impression of Core Animation: It is very powerful. This is going to be huge. Core Animation makes it so very easy for devs to add fluid animations to almost any aspect of their app that. Throughout the entire keynote you find Core Animation references and effects everywhere. I expect Leopard to make heavy use of this new technology.
3D Graphics
- Upgrading to OpenGL 2.1
- Quartz Composer improvements
- Custom patches now supported (Note: I don't know what this is, but it was the #1 requested feature so I'll mention it)
- Quartz composition can be set to the desktop background
Imaging
- Core Image now includes RAW processing
- Image Kit (Note: Image Kit is like PDF kit for images)
- Image Browser
- Image View (image viewer show with editor pallet)
QuickTime
- Lots of under-the-hood enhancements
- New H.264 features
- Better encoder performance
- Alpha Video
- The QuickTime browser plug-in has been improved to be more web 2.0 ready (e.g Transparent Mode rendering and JavaScript API enhancements)
Cameras
- Picture Taker Panel
- Integrated with Address Book, Image Kit, System Preferences, etc...
- Public API (allows 3rd party devs to easily use this feature)
- Photo Booth now adds support for third party effects
- QKit API. A pro-grade solution for capturing video
- iChat Theater API
Note: An interesting quote from the keynote, "We're doing a lot with cameras. But when I look at it, I think we're still scratching the surface of what we can do. Cameras to me are a lot like a keyboard or mouse. It's just another input device."
Spotlight
- As you probably already know, you can search other machines on your network with Spotlight
- Quick Look (Note: Quick Look is used in Spotlight as well as the Finder and Time Machine)
- Rich icon preview for almost everything
- Preview an entire document (images, movies, presentations) without opening another app
- Spotlight to Help
- The help menu now contains a search field, type in something, choose a result, and Help Viewer opens the relevant help topic
- Also searches menu items
Time Machine
- Uses Journal HFS+
- Does not backup non-essential files (e.g cache files, temp files, index files) to save space
Note: A nice explanation on how Time Machine works:
The first time Time Machine runs it takes a complete snapshot of you HDD. A background process listens for changes to your files. When a change occurs, an event goes out. Every once in awhile, And I quote, "Right now it's about every hour", this backup process will coherence all these changes and make a new snapshot. It takes anything that hasn't changed and creates hard links to the them, and anything that has changed is copied over. Once a day, all the snapshots from that day are combined so you have one snapshot per entire day.
