As expected, the buzz after Steve Jobs keynote speech at Monday’s World Wide Developers Conference, is huge. On stage, in his classic jeans and turtleneck, charismatic Jobs announced that Apple’s Safari Web browser would be available for Windows-based PCs (a beta version is now public) and that this will have implications for the iPhone that goes on sale June 29. He also presented new features of the company’s Leopard version of the OS X operating system.
But, hands at heart, weren’t the expectations higher? There were rumors about a partnership with Google and a new iPod. Apple’s stocks went down significantly after the speech. In New York Times John Markoff quotes analysts saying Jobs was “pretty underwhelming” and showing that he’s “actually mortal”: “In recent years, Apple’s chief executive has refined product announcements into an art form that leaves his audience cheering and then rushing to a store. Wall Street has come to hope that each new event will create a new iPod-style billion-dollar market,” Markoff writes.
Many, many tech-reporters and analysts write about this – see Techmeme for full coverage. The main thing now is the bugs discovered in Safari for Windows. Tor Larholm at larholm.com found two within hours after the speech. David Maynor at Errata Security found six. At Aviv.raffon.net you can follow some of the crashes hands on.
At Good Morning Silicon Valley Chris Myers also writes about the hunt for bugs: The intense beta scrutiny going on will lead to a better Safari for Windows in full release, but it could also lead some to avoid downloading the product entirely, he concludes.
Of course it’s a smart move from Apple to take help from the developer community in making Apple Safari for Windows better. That’s the whole idea with Web 2.0 – collaborating, sharing, co-developing through the Web. The question is how much Apple loses in PR when reporting about bugs is about all you read after the conference.
By Tina Magnergard Bjers and John Furrier
PS. Another good read is Larry Dignans future-oriented analysis on economies and search engines at BetweenTheLines.
Silicon Valley Technology Blog - John Furrier 