Today has been a very exciting day for the Apple community.  Lots of announcements and even some disappointments.  All of the news have already been covered by a number of blogs and news sites.  I will just list of the major items of interest.

This week is the World Wild Developers Conference (WWDC).  Apple Inc. hosts this conference annually in San Francisco.  Most of the announcements came during the keynote address by Steve Jobs at the opening session of WWDC.   Here some of the things we learned.

1. Mac OS X Leopard: several previously undisclosed features.  Here’s a condensed list of these features.  Engadget has a post with greater detail as well as coverage of the entire keynote address.

A. Leopard will deliver a revamped Finder.  This is something Mac users have wanted for some time.  One of the most noticeable changes will be the Cover Flow style browsing of files and folders.
B.  A new updated, polished and unified look of the user interface.
C.  Built-in tools to keep the desktop organized.  A downloads folder to store all of the things downloaded through the browser.
D. Quick view. An easy way to preview files without opening them.  It even features a full screen preview.
E.  Boot Camp will be native in Leopard.  You will no longer need to restart your computer run Windows.  It won’t be work the same way the Parallels runs Windows alongside OS X, but it will be a much easier process.

2. Safari 3.0 beta: Apple released a public beta of Safari 3, which is part of Leopard.  However, the bigger news is that Safari is now available on Windows.

3. iPhone:  Apple has opened up a door for third-party applications on the iPhone.  Develops will be able to write web based applications using Web 2.0 compatible code and AJAX.  For more details hop over to Engadget.

Steve Jobs announced that EA Games will release its games on the Mac.  Among the first will be Madden and Tiger Woods 08, which will come in August.  Other games such as C&C, Battlefield 2142 and NFS Carbon are on their way too.

In addition to these announcements, Apple has also revamped its web site to match the look and feel of Leopard.  Head over to apple.com and see the new look and while you’re there download a copy of Safari 3.0 beta.

By the way, Apple has posted a Quicktime video of the keynote address from WWDC.

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Happy surfing!

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Firefox 2.0

Firefox is a great alternative web browser for Mac users.  I suggest that any computer user have at least 2 web browsers installed.  The Mac comes with Safari, which works fine for most web sites an average user would visit.  Occasionally, though you may come across a site that refuses to display properly in Safari.  In cases like these it is handy to have another browser such as Firefox available for backup.

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