WWDC: Apple's iPhone 4 Is A Killer, But Where's The Mac?

If there’s one lesson to be learned at WWDC 2010, it’s that the iPhone operating system is Apple’s top banana and Mac OS developers are apparently also-rans in the Age of Apps.

Kicking off the Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the slick new iPhone 4 but uttered nary a word about OS X and its developer ecosystem. Instead, it was all iOS 4 -- Apple’s new name for the operating system it previously called the iPhone OS -- all the time.

Apple partners like Symantec’s Mike Romo were happy to see Jobs in fine form during his opening keynote, but were also left wondering if the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer and electronics maker really believes that the PC is on the verge of becoming a niche platform.

’It seems to me that at the least this indicates that we won’t see a new Mac OS until next year, possibly next summer at the next WWDC,’ said Romo, who is product manager for Norton for Mac products at Symantec.

’A lot of the Mac developers are really concerned that there aren’t a lot of OS X sessions at WWDC,’ he said. ’It seems like everything’s iOS now. But maybe that’s the story in this post-PC world. People aren’t worried about computing, they’re worried about communicating and sharing and that sort of thing.’

For Romo, Apple’s near-exclusive emphasis on the iOS that drives its iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices makes for ’an uncomfortable transition for people who grew up in the PC paradigm.’

’But when you have a phone doing more than a laptop could do even a few years ago, maybe that’s the way it is,’ he added.

As for the iPhone 4, Romo said he ’couldn’t be more excited about the phone.’

’This really was one of the best keynotes I’ve been to in a long time,’ he said. ’I really do feel like it’s a new device. Jobs passed off FaceTime with a joke about Star Trek, but really, there’s no joke about a feature like that.’

John Eaton, co-founder of San Francisco-based system integrator Eaton & Associates, wasn’t as excited about FaceTime, the iPhone 4’s real-time video chatting that only works on WiFi.

’The video conferencing is an interesting feature, but I think it will really need to be available over the 3G network before it can widely be used,’ he said. But Eaton said the customers he serves will be intrigued by some business-friendly additions made to Apple’s fourth-generation smartphone.

’I think the higher performance, longer battery life and multitasking are all important upgrades for the business users. I still don’t plan to read books on it or watch movies, but my kids already watch TV shows on their iPhones,’ he said.

The iPhone 4 hardware, based on Apple’s own ARM-based A4 central processor, ’seems phenomenal,’ said Michael Oh, founder of Tech Superpowers, a Boston-based Apple reseller and professional Mac support shop.

’The Retina Display is significant both because of the quality, but also if you consider that the processor is upscaling all of the graphics from old apps and interfaces on the fly. The A4 must be pretty potent,’ he said.

David Doyle, vice president of sales at Apple reseller partner Simply Computing, called the iPhone 4 "brilliantly planned and executed."

"Apple has once again answered the call of, 'What's Apple going to do now that other smartphones are catching up to or even surpassing Apple's iPhone?'" Doyle said.

Next: Enterprise Improvements?

Romo said it wasn’t clear yet what Apple had done to meet what it characterized as enterprise user requests for better data security and device manageability on the new iPhone. In his keynote, Jobs alluded to making those improvements without specifying as to how they were done.

’I haven’t seen any of the enterprise stuff yet,’ Romo said following Monday morning’s keynote. ’I don’t know whether these are Apple-only solutions or if you can make your own kit. But going by history, it’s usually Apple’s way or the highway.’

The Symantec executive said that despite some quibbles, his overall impression of the event was positive, particularly regarding the strong performance by Jobs following his illness and liver transplant in 2009, as well as Apple’s on-point messaging as a brand.

’This was the first keynote in a long time where Jobs did the whole thing, so it gave you some real confidence and inspiration,’ Romo said.

The Apple CEO prowled the Moscone Center stage for the better part of two hours Monday, delighting some 5,000 Apple employees, developers and media with an engaging style and even some clever quips when a demo Jobs was running from his own iPhone 4 didn’t work because too many in the audience were connected to the local wireless network.

’I think having Google around put a little fire in his belly. I felt like he was saying, ’Yeah, there might be other people who have good technology, but we have an emotional story as well,’’ Romo said.

’I’ve never seen him have more fun at a keynote. It was really charming, as if he was scolding the class to turn off their WiFi.’

Tech Superpowers’ Oh believed that Jobs could have actually gone after Google’s competing Android mobile operating system in more detail.

’I'm surprised that there wasn't any discussion about any features other than the things already covered in the iOS presentation before,’ he said.

’Apple's clearly not playing the Google Android ’feature game’ but they will start falling behind on significant things, like wireless syncing of content and online data storage and access, now that everyone has an iPad and iPhone.’

Some larger issues remain for Apple’s developer community, Romo said, despite Jobs’ insistence that working with Apple was as easy as understanding just two basic standards -- HTML 5 and the App Store.

’He referred to both HTML 5 and the App Store as ’platforms,’ which is kind of scary. The App Store is a curated marketplace,’ Romo said.

’And look, there’s still a tension between the established developer community and sort of these kids who make these little games apps. A lot of the apps I have on my iPhone I’ve used just a couple of times, but there’s only a very few I use regularly.

’It’s still hard for the bigger developers to see the percentages in investing to play in that kind of potentially risky, low-return world.’