Special: WWDC 2005 Keynote Coverage
Apple/Intel Rumors “It’s True”
It’s official – in the future, Macs will use Intel processors – and x86-class at that. Steve Jobs cited IBM’s 3GHz and portable blunders as some of the reasons. The transition appears to be rather straightforward, as XCode 2.1 (also announced today) will make it easy to have a modern version of “fat binaries”, software that can run on both processors.
Steve Jobs also said that OS X has been running on Intel hardware for more than 2 years, and was even running his demos on a Pentium 4 (3.6GHz) today. Both Office and Photoshop were demoed and appeared to run at decent speeds. The first Intel-based Macs are expected to be announced in about a year, and the transition complete in two years.
Podcasting
As mentioned earlier, the next version of iTunes will support podcasting. Podcast subscriptions, downloads, and management will be built right into iTunes. Part of the process was demoed today, with Adam Curry’s podcast as the example. Curry coined the term “podcasting”. There are over 8000 podcasts, and the number is expected to grow. Apple also plans to offer its own podcast to talk about the newest songs on iTunes every week.
QuickTime 7
QuickTime has had over one billion copies shipped, and now Windows users can check out the latest version. QuickTime 7 for Windows is available, or at least a preview version.
Mac OS X
With Tiger out for little more than a month, two million copies are expected to be shipped by the end of the week, and talk of a new version has already started. Mac OS X 10.5, to be called “Leopard” will be available about the same time as Microsoft’s Windows Longhorn.
Stats
Some other statistics include that 16 million iPods have been sold in the last quarter, giving it a 75% marketshare in the MP3 player market. On the iTunes Music Store, 430 million songs have been sold, giving it 82% marketshare in May. There are 109 Apple Stores worldwide, with over one million visitors a week.
And, as this is the Worldwide Developers Conference, there were more than 400 Apple Design Award entrees, and half a million Apple Developer Connection members.
Reporter’s Notebook
This is just the minute-by-minute list of the keynote…
2:08 PM EDT: Keynote ending…
2:06 PM EDT: Steve’s back – Apple’s 3rd big transition – “It’s not gonna happen overnight. We’re making AWESOME machines right now…When we meet again here next year, we will have products with Intel processors entering the market.” Next year: Leopard. “The soul of a Mac is its operating system.”
2:05 PM EDT: 1996 “Intel Toasted” ad shown
1:58 PM EDT: Otellini is telling a timeline story about Intel’s founding, Apple’s founding; Jobs and Otellini joke “They set fire to our bunny person!”
1:57 PM EDT: Steve Jobs compares Apple employees to Intel engineers
1:56 PM EDT: Paul Otellini, Intel President & CEO, takes stage “he’d never give up on Apple, like IBM has”
1:55 PM EDT: Bruce Chizen, Adobe CEO, jokes his mom thinks he works for Apple
1:51 PM EDT: Roz Ho, General Manager of Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit onstage
1:50 PM EDT: Word and Excel PPC binary on Intel – seems to work well
1:49 PM EDT: $999 for transfer kit (for select and premier ADC members, includes 3.6GHz P4, OS X for Intel; available in 2 weeks)
1:49 PM EDT: Photoshop CS2 with all the plugins translated and run on Intel-Mac without speed decrease
1:48 PM EDT: Rosetta allows PPC apps to run on Intel; dynamic binary translation, transparent to users; “Fast (enough)”
1:38 PM EDT: Cocoa apps will run easily; XCode 2.1 will help and is available TODAY
1:35 PM EDT: June 2006: First Mac with Intel processor
1:34 PM EDT: Jobs is running his demo on Intel right now
1:33 PM EDT: Mac OS X has been running on Intel for 2 years (Steve’s using a P4 3.6GHz)
1:32 PM EDT: “I stood up two years ago and promised this (3.0G PowerMac), and we haven’t been able to deliver.”
1:30 PM EDT: Transitions – (talks about 1994-1996: 68k to PowerPC; 2001-2003: OS 9 to OS X) no future based on PPC (no 3GHz), Intel offers increased performance, reduced power consumption, complete by WWDC ’07
1:29 PM EDT: Jobs brings up a slide “It’s true”
1:28 PM EDT: Next release of OS X will be called Leopard
1:26 PM EDT: There are 5 major versions of OS X
1:26 PM EDT: Let’s have a look at Apple stories in RSS – a lot are Intel rumors
1:23 PM EDT: 2 million copies of Tiger shipped
1:21 PM EDT: Macs had 10% growth previously, 40% in last quarter
1:20 PM EDT: Jobs talks up Tiger, 1 billion copies of QuickTime shipped, QT 7 for Windows preview available today
1:20 PM EDT: Mac Growth Rate healthy
1:15 PM EDT: Apple will build Podcasting support into iTunes, subscribe, download; Adam Curry podcast demoed
1:13 PM EDT: 16 million iPods sold, 76% marketshare; 430 million songs sold, 82% marketshare in May; Podcasting exploding (TiVo/”Wayne’s World” for radio); 8000 podcasts and growing.
1:08 PM EDT: Apple Retail Stores – 109 worldwide, 1 million visitors a week
1:05 PM EDT: 400+ Apple Design Award entrees, more than 500,000 ADC members
1:05 PM EDT: Jobs does usual introduction (welcome, stats, etc).
1:01 PM EDT: People are heading into the hall…
1:00 PM EDT: Keynote scheduled to begin