Jobs faced a very tough audience this past Monday as he delivered his keynote speech to over 5000 attendees at Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference. With the previous announcement of the iPhone and the delay for Leopard, everyone was wondering what Jobs would pull out of his box of tricks this time.

Sadly enough, this WWDC wasn’t quite as exciting as we’d been led to believe. At last year’s conference, I was thrilled with several of these features and spent a week in hands-on sessions learning about the technologies. Therefore, most of this was a repeat for me. I had still held out hope for the “secret” features to be announced. There were a few new features announced, but nothing that blew me away like I was expecting. However, Leopard is a huge release and should thrive for several years. It will really shine once we start seeing applications that are Leopard-only. The possibilities are simply amazing. Let’s discuss some of the finer points of Leopard.

Multicore Support

This is a major improvement for all Intel Mac users. Even first generation Macbook users and all the early Intel adopters should see performance gains in Leopard. Tiger was designed to run on one-core processors, which was fine at the time. However, all Intel Macs have at least 2 cores, with the high-end “Ocho” Mac Pro having 8 all together. Can you see the reasoning here? With Leopard optimized to make the best use of all those cores, and new ways for developers to further improve their programs (read more about NSOperation and NSOperationQueue ), Leopard should see a significant performance improvement.

Safari 3 for Windows

I’m not sure if Safari 3 for Windows is a “secret” feature of Leopard or not. I’m actually using the beta on Windows right now to write this article and so far it has behaved itself rather nicely. The attention to detail in making Safari for Windows just like Safari on Mac is incredible. Even the contextual menu (right-click) gives you the same options, such as “Save Image to Desktop”. I mean, that’s just crazy.

Boot Camp

Most were hoping for Jobs to announce some amazing virtualization technology built right in to Leopard. I’m rather glad that this approach wasn’t taken for a few reasons. First, there are already two options on the market today: Parallels and VMWare. Parallels has proven they are dedicated to providing new features and constantly improving the software. I love Apple, but if they incorporated virtualization into Leopard, the updates would be few and far between when compared to Parallels. Just check out Parallels new 3.0 release to get what I mean.

What Jobs did tell us is that Boot Camp will allow you to switch between Windows and Leopard faster. Quick example: If you’re in Leopard and need to switch to Windows, be sure to use the “Restart in Windows” option from the Apple Menu. This will place Leopard into a hibernating state and, if you’ve previously used Windows, should start Windows from where you left off. This will make the process much more relatable to “Suspending” a virtual machine in Parallels.

New Desktop

The redesigned Desktop is touted as the number one feature for Leopard. However, I don’t see anything revolutionary or amazing about it.

• The Menu Bar has a new look. It’s very comparable to the trashy-translucent taskbar in Vista. I’m not excited, but I’ll put my concerns aside until I see it in person.
• The Dock has seen a facelift. Your icons now sit on a silver background that reflects any window behind it, making it look 3D. Might look cool, but is that really a feature?
• No blue background. I’m very sad. For me, the Mac experience has always included a new, cool Aqua background with every major release. Jobs explicitly stated that no one ever uses these and it’s a waste of time. I like them Steve!
• Anyone else notice that the hard drive icon wasn’t on the Desktop. Very minimalist look.
• Stacks. I’m actually fairly excited about this new feature. Basically, it’s a way to organize your files and preview the contents in a cool new way, without opening a Finder window. This was originally rumored to be included in Panther, then in Tiger, and now in Leopard. Nice to see it finally made it in. All the demos show the stacks being used in the Dock. I wonder if we’ll be able to use them other places. I love the concept, but won’t use it that much if I have to use them only in the Dock.

EA Games

Not really a feature of Leopard itself, but an important announcement for the Mac anyway. Traditionally, game titles were released for console and PC and then ported over to Mac several months later, if at all. EA announced during the keynote that they are committed to delivering new titles to the Mac alongside the console and PC releases. As time progresses, the Mac should shun its reputation as the “non-gaming” platform.

Core Animation

Remember when I said we would are going to see some awesome applications that are built as Leopard-only? The main reason for that is this technology right here. Core Animation let’s developers create very fluid, interactive, and attractive interfaces with ease. There were several demos of the technology at WWDC last year and I’m sure it’s a main focus this year as well. A quick example was given in Monday’s keynote. If you’ve ever seen the AppleTV intro movie, you’re on the right track. Very cool applications will follow.

Improved Developer Tools

The mac is only as strong as its developers and Apple realizes this. So with Leopard, developers get a XCode 3, sporting tons of new features including refactoring (even in nib files) and function collapsing, XRay for seeing exactly what your app is doing at any time, DTrace, Dashcode for creating widgets, and Interface Builder 3. All of those mentioned are huge updates and improvements, and XRay and Dashcode are new applications all together. XRay will make performance tuning your applications so much easier. I love you Apple!

Back to my Mac

Dot Mac didn’t see any other improvements besides this one feature as far as I can tell. Basically, you enable a setting on all your Macs and those computers talk with the dot Mac service. Then, if you’re on the road with your laptop and realize that you need something off any of your other computers, you fire up the Finder and they appear in the sidebar for you. Works just like you’re on your home network. Details haven’t been released about the service working with firewalls or routers. I’d imagine an Airport Base Station update might introduce this functionality at a later time.

New Finder

I think everyone was hoping for a new Finder. I personally feel disappointed however. The Finder does have a new interface, but then again, it’s not new. It’s just iTunes for your files. Coverflow in the Finder looks remotely useful, but I’m not sure just how much I’ll use it. The overall appearance seems a little drab, especially if you’re already not a fan of the iTunes 7 look. That look will be everywhere in Leopard. No hiding. It will find you. Also of note is a report that the new Finder is the first one to be scrapped and written in Cocoa. And because of the multitude of updates to Cocoa, including multicore and 64-bit support, performance is drastically improved. At least that part is welcome.

Spaces

Spaces is just Apple’s incarnation of a virtual desktop manager. Granted it’s a very nice one, but still nothing that wasn’t available before Leopard (see Virtue). Spaces will allow you to group application windows in “spaces” so you can better organize screen clutter. It’s a natural extension to Expose and should be very useful.

Quick Look

This new technology is everywhere in Leopard. If you are in the new Finder and want to quickly preview a Word, Excel, PDF, or some other common file, just tap the spacebar and a black translucent window pops up letting you scroll through the document with ease. It will even let you preview pictures and movies in full screen mode. Which raises the question: Will full-screen mode be enabled without Quicktime Pro in Leopard?

Quick Look is a plug-in architecture so developers can easily add support for their applications, just like Spotlight plugins were everywhere after Tiger’s release. This will also allow these documents to work with the Finder’s Cover Flow view. Therefore if OminGroup releases a Quick Look plugin for OmniOutliner, you will be able to quickly preview the file without opening OmniOutlier from right within the Finder and also be able to scroll through the document in Cover Flow view. Pretty cool stuff.

Time Machine

If you haven’t heard of Time Machine by now, you’ve lived in a hole my friend. Basically, this is Apple’s very pretty way of dealing with backup software. You attach an external disc, Leopard asks if you want to enable Time Machine, and from there you’re all set. If you’re ever missing a file, start Time Machine and you get this spacial 3D view of your files and once you locate the old file, you just “recover” it to the present. Very easy representation and should be accessible to more users as well.

Front Row and DVD Player

These weren’t talked about in the keynote, but are mentioned on the Apple website. Front Row is now like the AppleTV interface. I’m not quite as excited because I find the current Front Row interface to be superior to the one in the AppleTV, but that’s the update. DVD player also sports more HUD style windows and several new features for bookmarking playback and more.

Parental Controls

Parental controls have been beefed up in Leopard as well. Now Leopard can filter out websites based on content and parents can set time limits on the computer. The time limits can be based on usage, say a one hour limit, and also for times the child can use the computer. Useful for setting bedtimes and such. I’m not sure if Vista has anything like this or not.

Photo Booth

If you read the fine print, Photo Booth has seen some updates as well. There are more effects to use on your pictures, backdrops, “burst” pictures, and Photo Booth now does video too. The “burst” pictures are a quick series of 4 pictures in succession which can be made into an animation. And the fact that Photo Booth does video is just cool. Applying all those effects to your video in a snap will be even more fun at parties!

iChat

iChat has seen some major updates, many of those mentioned above in Photo Booth. Backdrops, like sitting in front of a green-screen, are a touted feature. Photo Booth effects are now supported in iChat as well as tabbed chats to clean up window clutter. iChat Theater is a new technology that lets you share photos, presentations and more in a video chat, just like if you were giving a Keynote presentation in person. Also of note is the following text from the Apple website: “Chat works with AIM, the largest instant messaging community in the U.S. You and your buddies can be either AIM or .Mac users. Text, audio, and video chat whether your buddies use a Mac or PC. Sign in with your AIM account and all your buddies appear in your iChat buddy list”. Does the Tiger version of iChat support video and audio chats with PC users? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t and this is a very welcome feature!

Conclusion

There are several other features that I didn’t discuss, such as the new Mail and iCal. You can read more on all the features in Leopard here. The Apple website has finally seen a facelift and looks fairly impressive, so check that out as well. If you’re interested, the WWDC keynote is available online and there are several videos and images showing the new applications and features available in Leopard.

Let me know your impressions about Leopard. With only a few months until the release, we are in the final stretch.