I didn’t find much of interest reading the WWDC keynote today… I’m not a developer and most of the Leopard features are a rehash of what we already knew or not so grand. ZFS has been a no-show so far. And Safari on Windows? Yawn. Now a Windows port of iPhoto – that would have been exciting. Or how about a .Mac photo and video sharing YouTube/Flickr mashup.
However, in the aftermath of the keynote and the apple.com site refresh, at least one interesting nugget has turned up. Front Row, under Leopard, gets a makeover:
When you summon Front Row in Leopard, you’re greeted by an elegant interface much like the one on Apple TV. Finding and enjoying whatever you wish couldn’t be simpler. Just click the Apple Remote (included with most Macs) to step through the options: music, movies, TV shows, and photos. You can even view slideshows of iPhoto albums on other computers in the house.
Makes perfect sense to me. I’d suggest Microsoft do something similar in merging their Media Center experience and Xbox 360 blades… but without the banner ads currently plastered all over my console.
In other Apple digital media news, there’s noise once again that they may offer movie rentals later this year. As I said last month, I’m much more interested in rentals versus purchases… and I’m sure I’m not the only one. While Apple’s evaluating alternatives, I’d like to suggest an all-you–can-eat music subscription too. Thank you in advance.