MORE WWDC NEWS
by David Graham graham@apple.com
Swarming the San Jose Convention Center last week were some of
the principal players involved in Apple's Rhapsody, the developers
who plan to turn its possibilities into sophisticated software.
Most of the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) action was on
the second floor of the San Jose Convention Center, where a long
sunlit corridor linked the darkened conference rooms. On a gray
couch, two attendees exchanged impressions in rapid Japanese.
By a concrete pillar, a guy in a blue shirt talked Java to a guy
in a black shirt.
Participants were dressed for comfort--not a suit in sight, nary
a necktie, often not even a collar on the shirt. Some wore shorts,
taking advantage of San Jose's warm microclimate.
This year not many T-shirts made statements, but we saw a few.
"Eat Right, Exercise, Die Anyway," said one. Another advised,
"Talk Is Cheap Until You Hire a Lawyer." Metrowerks and BBEdit
were visible among the few branded T-shirts.
The mood was cheerful. This was a gathering of people who make
things happen, and they seemed pleased by the story that was unfolding
here. Audiences were impressed by the stability of the demonstrated
software.
"I've been to 14 sessions and I've yet to see a single demo fail
or crash," said one participant.
Movers and Shakers
We talked to some attendees to see what they were thinking.
Atmospheric researcher: When it comes to computers, Richard H. Winkler has seen it all.
An electrical engineer by training, Winkler ("Wink" to his colleagues)
learned to program on a TX0, an experimental computer built at
Lincoln Labs back in the 1950s. The TX0 was the first computer
built with transistors.
These days, Winkler uses something much more powerful, namely
a Power Macintosh 9500/132 running IGOR Pro III, a scientific
graphing and data-analysis application from WaveMetrics in Lake
Oswego, Oregon. Winkler uses his system for atmospheric research
at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Aeronomy
Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.
"I came to WWDC to learn about Rhapsody because we're a big Mac
shop. There are 120 people in our group, and we have 140 Macs," said Winkler, who had just arrived in San Jose from a field mission
involving high-altitude aircraft in the skies over Alaska. And
how did he like California? "Too many people for me," he said
with a twinkle. "I'm just a country boy at heart." Yeah right,
a country boy with a Power Macintosh.
RAID engineer: Ron Searls has been coming to the WWDC since 1988. Searls is
vice president of engineering at Conley Corporation, a Cambridge,
Massachusetts, firm noted for its RAID storage management solutions
for the Mac OS. Searls was glad that Steve Jobs is back. "Jobs
has always been a very good motivator," he said, adding that he
was also impressed by Senior Vice President of Software Engineering
Avie Tevanian ("a very dynamic speaker").
Ron Searls believes in Apple's recovery. "It's worth sticking
with the platform. They seem to know what they're doing now." Spoken like a man with three Macs on his desk.
Meeting a maker of Meeting Maker: When we caught up with Greg Casey, he was leaning back against
a pillar in the main lobby of the San Jose Convention Center.
Casey is a software developer at ON Technology Corporation, the
Raleigh, North Carolina, firm that keeps our lives on schedule
with Meeting Maker.
Greg Casey used to work in The Other environment until a friend
turned him on to the Mac OS. "I fell in love right away," recalled
Casey, who started developing for the Macintosh three years ago.
Casey thought one of the most significant things in Gil Amelio's
keynote was the announcement that the Yellow Box will be running
on the Mac OS. "You can go ahead and start programming for the
Yellow Box API, and you don't have to worry about customers having
to move to Rhapsody to use your application." In the meantime,
he's working to make sure you can access your schedule on the
web. Just what we all need.
Sleepless in San Jose: This was Tim Pedone's first time at the WWDC. "I was so excited,
I didn't sleep the night before," admitted Pedone, an engineer
with Jostens Learning Corporation, the maker of A+dvantage-Worldware
based in San Diego, California. Pedone was pumped by the news
that the Yellow Box would run on the Mac OS: "It'll save us a
lot of time and effort," he said. And that, after all, is what
the Mac is all about.
Press Reaction
Press coverage of the conference reflected a general optimism
among the participants.
- San Jose Mercury News: "At Apple's annual conference for developers, held in San Jose," Jodi Mardesich reported, "developers applauded when they saw that
Rhapsody, which Apple executives called a 'work in progress,'
looks similar to today's Macintosh. ... Developers also generally
praised Apple's plans to give the software applications they create
for Rhapsody a much larger market to sell into, including personal
computers running Microsoft Windows, as well as the older Mac
OS operating system."
- Wired News: "When Apple Computer unveiled its new operating system, Rhapsody,
at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference on Tuesday, Mac
software developers were pleasantly surprised. At the core of
that generally positive response ... was the unveiling of Apple's
new software development environment, code-named 'Yellow Box,'
a cross-platform set of application program interfaces that will
let programmers write their applications once and run them on
a variety of systems."
- MacUser: Writers Andrew Gore and Jeff Pittelkau reported, "We actually
overheard developers, as they left the keynote, arguing over which
was more exciting, the surprisingly robust and stable Mac OS 8
release that will be shipping in a matter of weeks, or the potential
that Rhapsody might hold for the Mac's future."
- Apple Directions: Technical editor Gregg Williams wrote, "If there was anything
different about the 1997 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference,
I couldn't tell it. The usual assortment of developers were milling
about before the Opening Keynote session, the presentation stage
was, if anything, even more opulent than usual, and Hall 1 of
the San Jose Convention Center was almost filled to capacity.
... I think I will remember it as the day that I realized that
Apple was back on its way to greatness, once again."
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by Kris Newby kris@newbytech.com
Though it was billed as a "fireside chat with Steve Jobs," the
grand finale of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference had more
of the electric feel of a rock concert. When the doors to the
main hall of the San Jose Convention Center opened early Friday
morning, guys sporting ponytails and black T-shirts ran down the
aisles to grab the front-row seats. As the auditorium surged toward
capacity, you could feel the anticipation. Suddenly, out of a
cloud of "stage fog," Steve Jobs emerged, walking across the stage
in patched jeans that looked old enough to have been purchased
around the 1984 Macintosh debut. After a standing ovation that
seemed to go on forever, Jobs got down to the business of fielding
questions from the audience and doing what he does best--articulating
the Apple vision. It only took a couple of minutes to realize
that Jobs has obviously wielded quite a bit of influence in the
reworking of Apple's technology and marketing directions. Here
are highlights of some of the questions Jobs answered during this
session:
Why develop for the Rhapsody OS?
An enthusiastic Jobs told developers that with Rhapsody tools,
they'll be able to develop applications five to ten times more
quickly than they can today--and even more exciting, they'll be
able to develop solutions they can't build anywhere else. Software
development is all about managing complexity, and Rhapsody tools
will let developers do that better than any other platform. Jobs
compared traditional software development to assembling the scaffolding
needed to build a skyscraper: After the scaffolding reaches about
26 stories, it collapses under its own weight. Because Rhapsody
is object-oriented, and its object-based features stand on their
own, developers can essentially start building a skyscraper at
floor 26, without worrying about the complexity beneath them.
With the Rhapsody platform, developers will be able to reach new
heights.
Why was OpenDoc discontinued?
After listing three reasons why OpenDoc was discontinued--Java
is a technically superior alternative, it fits in better with
Apple's current OS strategy, and there's more adoption momentum
for Java--Jobs apologized for "putting a bullet in the head of
some Apple projects," but talked about the urgent need for Apple
to focus on doing fewer things better. "Focus means having to
say 'No,' and that means that you may piss people off."
Will Apple lose its differentiation with all this openness and
standardization?
According to Jobs, Apple shouldn't strive to be different just
to be different: It needs to be better--in fact, MUCH better than
the competition. Apple will be able to succeed with just a few
carefully chosen leading-edge technologies. Jobs talked about
how there are still plenty of opportunities to create great products
from established technologies. Apple, for example, is well positioned
to revolutionize network management, just as it revolutionized
the PC user experience.
Why isn't Apple running TV ads?
"Apple shouldn't be on TV this year," said Jobs. He believes that
bad public relations is driving consumers' purchasing decisions,
and Apple needs to concentrate on regaining profitability before
sinking large amounts of money into TV ads. Apple is, however,
running print ads in a broad spectrum of publications. These ads
focus on Apple's product strengths.
What are some solution "holes" that Apple developers can fill?
Jobs believes that the best approach to developing new products
is to start with a target customer experience, then work backward
to find a technology to fill that need. He stressed that Rhapsody
represents a real opportunity to leapfrog established products,
because of its ease of development and fast cross-platform deployment.
Here are a few untapped product opportunities that he mentioned:
- Office suites, since Microsoft hasn't committed to the Rhapsody
platform yet
- An easy, plug-and-play network management and backup solution
for "mortals"
- A better e-mail solution that helps users intelligently handle
large volumes of e-mail
- Great presentation and spreadsheet products, such as those put
out by Lighthouse, an 18-person software company recently purchased
by Sun Microsystems
Why isn't the U.S. Justice Department doing anything about the
Microsoft/Intel monopoly?
Earning probably his biggest laugh of the morning, Jobs said he
doesn't expect the government to break up these monopolies, because
"the government is a monopoly itself." He then added, "The day
Wozniak and I started Apple, IBM was more powerful than Microsoft
and Intel combined. Don't freak out about Microsoft. Every good
product in this industry was created by a few people who really
cared about making something wonderful for themselves." Jobs went
on to say that there's still plenty of room in the market for
quality products, and he mentioned e-mail and spreadsheets as
potential product areas where there is still lots of room for
improvement.
What should Apple do about all the negative press coverage?
According to Jobs, Apple should ignore it and continue with its
current plan. Apple's new strategy is well under way, but it will
be some time before the press sees visible results. Jobs also
said, "The seeds for change have been planted. The senior management
team has been rearchitected, and I have a lot of confidence that
we'll start seeing positive results by the end of the year."
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MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES
At last week's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), Apple discussed
several new sales initiatives and developer comarketing opportunities
for the education market.
First, Apple is moving to a more proactive model for selling products
into the North American higher education market. Previously, Apple
sold about 90 percent of its higher education products through
campus retail stores. Now Apple is moving to the "sales agent" model that has worked so well in the K-12 market. With this new
plan, sales agents will sell Apple hardware along with a variety
third-party software, providing customers with a one-stop-shopping
solution. Sales agents will be assigned specific territories and
the number of representatives focused on this market will increase
from about 35 to 120.
This shift in selling tactics provides education developers with
many more opportunities to partner with Apple sales representatives,
to participate in demos with key education decision makers, and
to participate in sales to larger purchasers of Apple hardware.
Apple anticipates that its new higher education sale representatives
will be chosen by June 15.
Another lucrative comarketing opportunity that is available to
both higher education and K-12 software developers is the Apple
Education Series--bundles of third-party education software sold
along with many Apple education systems. With these bundles, participating
developers benefit from Apple publicity and widespread distribution,
and Apple benefits from compelling software bundles that help
sell hardware. For example, in the next few months, these new
bundles will be released:
- An entry-level web development kit for higher education
- A middle-school learning bundle
- A K-3 reading and language arts bundle
Apple periodically looks for "best-of-breed" software for these
bundles, and the best way to hear about these "calls for software" is to subscribe to the Education Solution Provider (ESP) newsletter
that is sent to all ESP program members. To join this program,
call 1-800-469-9523 or send an e-mail request for a membership
form to esp.program@apple.com.
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Macworld UK magazine (circulation 36,000) includes a cover-mounted demo CD-ROM
with each month's issue, and Macworld UK is always looking to
fill it with new demos and time-limited trial software products.
Software companies that want to show off their products on this
CD should send an e-mail request to the Macworld UK editor, Simon Jary, at editor@uk.macworld.com. You can take a look at Macworld UK online at this site:
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PC Europa, a market research firm that specializes in the European
personal computer channel, has just published a database on European
channel distributors. It contains distributor sales breakdowns,
e-mail addresses, 1996 sales figures, 1997 forecasts, product
lists, and staff details on Europe's top 800 distributors. The
database is available in floppy disk and hardcopy formats. For
pricing and ordering details, see this web site:
Here are some other PC Europa databases that you might find useful:
- PC Retailers In Europe--The Channel
- Dealers & VARS In Europe--The Top 500
- Computer Press In Europe--The Top 800
You can find out more about these reports from this web site:
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PRODUCT AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS
During last week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), developers
witnessed some encouraging progress on Apple's upcoming Rhapsody
operating system. Here are some conference highlights:
- At the WWDC hands-on lab, about 500 third-party Mac OS applications,
extensions, and control panels were tested on Rhapsody's Blue
Box Mac OS compatibility layer, and among these, only five failed
to run because of bugs in the Blue Box. (One of the applications
that failed was a game, Missile Command, that was written in 1984.)
- During the last day of the conference, Guerrino De Luca, Apple's
executive vice president of marketing, demonstrated the full Rhapsody
workspace and desktop running on a PowerPC processor-based Macintosh
computer. He said that this engineering feat was accomplished
only three days before.
- De Luca also said that the Rhapsody team had QuickTime up and
running in the Yellow Box development environment on the same
day.
- Interest in Rhapsody appeared be to running high, with 4,500 webcast
viewers tuning into the WWDC keynote speeches on Tuesday, and
3,500 webcast viewers watching various other sessions during the
first four days of the conference.
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For those of you who didn't attend the WWDC, Apple will soon be
releasing many of the resources introduced at the conference through
the Apple Developer World web site and the Apple Developer mailing.
A concise written overview of the Rhapsody operating system and
roadmap, which includes many of the graphics used during the WWDC
sessions, can be viewed at these web sites:
The actual session slides will be viewable from this web site:
If you are a member of the Macintosh Developer Program or if you
subscribe to the Apple Developer Mailing, then you'll receive
the white paper, "Apple's New Development Platform: Code-Named
'Yellow Box' in the July mailing. Members will also receive the
WWDC '97 Presentation CD.
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OTHER DEVELOPER NEWS
Here are a couple of developer comments about the WWDC, gleaned
from the Semper.fi Internet mailing list.
Greg Anderson greg@afs.com said: "I know there are still many skeptical Mac developers out
there--and with good reason, given Apple's recent history--but
I was impressed with the demos at the show, and especially with
the cross-platform positioning Rhapsody has been given. Frederic
Bonnard gave a compelling talk about this on Friday that would
not have been different by one word if I had written it. I can
speak from personal knowledge when I say that even an application
as complex as page layout uses EXACTLY the same source code on
Mach, Win/32, and Rhapsody. NO #ifdefs (except for Print and Page
Layout extensions that must be disabled in the Win/32 version).
"It's clear that the Rhapsody team is delivering. The time to
catch the wave is now, unless you truly believe that Apple will
be out of business before Rhapsody reaches the market. I don't,
which is why my apps are all ready to go."
William Shipley wjs@omnigroup.com, president of Omni Development said: ñI just got back from WWDC
and let me say, as a once-NeXT developer, I could not be more
pleased.
"Imagine if you will, someone saying, 'Hey, how would you like
an API you can write to that will allow you to deploy on both
Macs and Windows with the exact same source code, with no licensing
fees?'
"You'd pretty much program to that API no matter how bad it was,
wouldn't you, just to get to the entire market?
"But, wait, it gets better. What if that same API was truly object-oriented,
unlike the current Mac or Windows APIs? What if everyone who used
it said it was the best API ever?
"What if programming to this new API meant your programs would
run on System 7 as well as on a new, more robust kernel? What
if you got to keep your current Mac look and feel on this new
kernel? And keep HFS?
"What if, suddenly, no one had any real reason to write to stinky
Windows APIs?
IT'S ALL TRUE.
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Apple just announced a new technical support option for owners
of Apple hardware and software products, called Apple Support
Line (ASL). Since April 1, 1996, Apple has offered customers both
a one-year limited hardware warranty and 90 days of complimentary
up-and-running technical support on their Apple products. ASL,
a one-year renewable support contract available directly from
Apple and from participating authorized Apple resellers, allows
customers to continue to receive up-and-running support from Apple
after their 90 days of complimentary support have expired.
The majority of customers purchasing Apple products benefit from
having access to up-and-running support when they first purchase
their computer or peripheral product. That is, new customers find
it very useful to be able to call Apple for some basic assistance:
for help configuring their new computer, installing or reinstalling
system software, troubleshooting a problem they've run into, or
checking for compatibility with productivity or utility software.
After the first 90 days or so, most customers don't require this
type of assistance. But for those that do, Apple wants to be able
to assist them.
Apple introduced the 90-day support policy more than a year ago.
Although customers who purchased products manufactured after April
1, 1996, received a brochure with their product explaining the
90-day complimentary support period, Apple has been lenient about
enforcing this policy, giving customers time to adjust to the
change. Apple also did not have alternative programs in place,
at that time, for those customers who desired additional up-and-running
support. Now, with a program in place to assist such customers,
Apple will begin enforcing this policy.
For more details on this support change, read the full press release:
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The prize-winning Apple ads that were created for the Apple Dreams
contest are now posted to Apple's web site, along with entry essays
detailing the entrants' innovative use of their Mac OS computers.
The winners from the 15-years-and-under category are wonderful!
Here's where to find the contest web site:
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UniPrise Systems, based in Irvine, California, has announced that
it will deliver the first ODBC-compliant database access language
(DAL) ñmiddlewareî to fully support and integrate with Apple's
next-generation Rhapsody operating system when Rhapsody ships
in 1998. The announcement represents UniPrise's continued commitment
to Apple's platform and the next logical evolution of the Access/DAL
product family. Today, Access/DAL Version 2 allows Windows and
Macintosh clients--including 32-bit Windows and Macintosh clients--running
SQL applications to access as many as 11 relational databases
on 10 different server platforms.
For more details, read the AppleJedi article posted at this web
site:
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Apple just announced the formation of a Newton subsidiary that
will focus on the computing and communications needs of corporate
mobile users. In conjunction with its licensees, value-added resellers,
and systems integrators, the new company will provide customers
with market-driven products and technologies, based on the award-winning
Newton operating system.
The new company, to be named at a later date, will be led by a
CEO to be named and a newly appointed Chief Operating Officer
Sandy Benett. Benett was previously vice president of the Newton
Systems Group and has been responsible for managing the group
for the past few years.
The subsidiary will focus on developing products as well as licensable
technologies targeted at meeting the needs of mobile users in
corporate markets--initially concentrating on health care, sales
force automation, and field service industries. The company will
provide platform technologies, including the Newton operating
system, development tools, APIs, and documentation to enable the
development of products for such markets.
Products built on the Newton operating system include the MessagePad
2000 handheld computer and the eMate 300 mobile computer for the
education market.
The subsidiary will continue to support, sell, and market the
current MessagePad 2000 in the retail channel and deliver the
MessagePad 2000 and follow-on products to corporate markets. Apple
will continue to support, sell, and market the eMate family of
portable computer products into the education community based
on technology delivered by the new company.
Current Newton licensees include Schlumberger, Sharp, Digital
Ocean, and Harris Corporation. Technology allies include ARM Limited,
Digital Equipment Corporation, Paragraph International, and Cirrus
Logic.
Apple expects the transition to be completed by June 30, 1997.
The organization will remain based in Northern California.
For additional details, see the complete press release at:
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NEW SOFTWARE RELEASES
This software allows you to connect one or several eMate devices
to a Mac OS computer and transfer information between eMate devices
and the computer simultaneously. You can download this software
from this web site:
This software updates Newton Connection Utilities version 1.0b6
for Mac OS to the final release, version 1.0. This software is
only for MessagePad 2000 and eMate 300 customers who received
the 1.0b6 release.
To get this software, go to:
then click on "Apple software and updates" and find the software
by looking for it alphabetically--it's listed as "NCU 1.0 Updater
info" and "NCU 1.0 Updater.img". (We're sorry for the bothersome
instructions, but we can't seem to access it any other way.)
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WEB-BYTES--Pointers to More News and Software
Gil Amelio, Apple's CEO, is going to speak at Stanford University
on June 19 at 8:00 A.M., and all San Francisco Bay Area "Apple
EvangeListas" are invited to attend. Guy Kawasaki has negotiated
a special $28 deal for Apple EvangeListas (the same as the Stanford
alumni price). Be sure to wear your EvangeLista polo shirts, or
anything else with an Apple logo. You may register by phone and
pay with a credit card at 415-725-0691.
Color It! Software Giveaway
MacReview, the full-time ñwebzineî covering the world of Macintosh
software, is giving away a copy of MicroFrontier's Color It! 3.2.
Color It! 3.2 is a full-featured 32-bit image editing and painting
application that features powerful painting tools, Photoshop plug-in
support, advanced masking, one-step extruding and drop shadows,
web-safe color palettes, and much more. To enter this free giveaway
(and to check out this site for its advertising potential), visit
MacReview's web site:
PDN/PIX Digital Photography Contest
Multimedia developers many be interested in participating in this
contest, which has a deadline of August 1, 1997. For contest guidelines,
see this web site:
QuickDraw GX Discussion Group
To subscribe to the GX-TALK discussion group, send e-mail to gx-talk-request@aimed.org. Leave the subject line blank, and type the following command
as the first (and only) line of the message body:
New MacAddict Troubleshooting Web Site
MacAddict magazine is proud to announce a brand new web site,
Practical Mac. Hosted by MacAddict associate editor David Reynolds,
Practical Mac is the ultimate Macintosh reference. The site focuses
on troubleshooting tips and hints; it also provides instruction
on common tasks, such as setting up a basic AppleTalk or Ethernet
network or restoring an old photo. Can't remember what key combination
you need for zapping PRAM? Not sure why you'd want to or when
you should? Come to Practical Mac to find out!
Correction on Delivery of Yellow Box for Mac OS
Here is a correction by Gregg Williams, of the Apple Developer
Group: "In the recent Apple Developer News supplement titled 'The
WWDC '97 Keynote: A Personal Account,' I mistakenly reported that
Yellow Box for Mac OS functionality is due in mid-1998 with the
release of Allegro. Unfortunately, I misinterpreted the statement
that was made at WWDC--namely, that Allegro will be the first
version of the Mac OS that WILL BE ABLE TO run the Yellow Box
for Mac OS. Apple has made no announcement regarding the time
frame in which Yellow Box for the Mac OS will be available. I
apologize for the error."
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If you have any suggestions or comments regarding Apple Developer
News, we'd like to hear from you. You can send an e-mail to
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To provide feedback on the technologies discussed in this issue,
send e- mail to the appropriate contact:
Copyright © 1997 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.
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