I had to watch the Keynote in an overflow room and didn’t even see the beginning, although I got in line at 7 in the morning. Students don’t pay, so they don’t deserve good treatment!?

There are hidden features in Leopard? I didn’t see them. I had the feeling that the Keynote was a copy of last years Keynote. So, there is a new unified UI and a new Dock? Did anyone with a sense of taste look at it? It’s ugly! I really hope that this isn’t the final look in Leopard!

I’m under a stupid NDA so I really can’t talk about the other sessions of the day, but there isn’t much to tell ether. They already told us the same stuff last year. But wait, there is a difference: iPhone. Does really every speaker has to mention the iPhone? Is this a line in the contract with Apple? Oh and btw, websites are full featured iPhone applications. Steve said so, so it has to be true.

It seems Apple lost it’s love for student developers. At first they canceled Student Sunday and I just learned that we aren’t allowed into the Keynote this year. We have to go to an extra overflow room and watch the keynote on a big screen. What’s next? Students aren’t allowed into popular sessions?

I also just got my badge, bag and t-shirt. This year the shirt reads “WWDC07″ on the front and “Power to the programmers.” on the back.

I only got about 4 hours of sleep today because my subconscious decided that’s more than enough for me. Great. So I got up to early, bought a tripple grande latte at a nearby Starbucks, went for a walk and shoot some pictures of the Moscone Center. The weather is very confortable at the moment. It’s very sunny and it has the right temperature. Not too cold, not too warm.

I had planed to meet some people form a social networking site, but this didn’t work out. At the moment I’m back at the hotel and waiting for my medicine to kick in: I have a terrible headache. Perhaps I should sleep for an hour or two?

Some random comments about my flights with Delta Air Lines:

_Both flights were delayed. The intercontinental for about 1 hour and the domestic for over 2 1/2 hours. In both cases they boarded one hour prior to departure. It’s pretty boring to sit in an airplane that is docked at the gate.
_The interior of Delta planes looks old. They have oldish looking blue leather seats and no in-seat entertainment program. On the domestic flight the entertainment program was displayed with an old beamer that used RGB-lamps (do they have a special name?). I didn’t watch the entertainment program. They showed three movies and neither of them looked interesting. I enjoyed listening to the first audiobook of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Richard Wagners The flying dutchmen and The Rhinegold on my iPod.
_The seats weren’t very clean. The seat pockets were filled with stuff that people left in there from other flights.
_The vegi meal was boring (rice, beans, salad), but they served ice-cream on the intercontinental flight.
_Delta Stewardesses aren’t very young. A lot of them were around forty to fifty.
_The intercontinental flight was pretty empty. I had the three middle seats for myself, but lying on three seats wasn’t as very confortable as hoped.

Conclusion: The flight was very very cheap and I didn’t crashland, but I’ll probably choose an other airline next time.

I arrived at the hotel at 2:30 in the morning. My flights weren’t very enjoyable, but I arrived safe in San Francisco. More on both topics later. I need a coffee!!!

I’m at the airport in Vienna and I can get free WiFi here - sweet. I’m already trough all the security checkpoints and my flight will depart in about an hour. First stop of my journey will be Atlanta, where I’ll board a flight to SFO.

sf_weather_widget

Originally uploaded by aquarius4792

It looks like I’m going to enjoy the weather in SF. My weather widget promises temperatures between 18 to 21 degrees in the next couple of days and I doubt it will be as sticky as currently in Vienna. I just can’t bear the current weather. I’ve been suffering from headache all week long.

I’ll be staying at the Pickwick Hotel this year. This is the same hotel as last year. It wasn’t great, the interior is old, but every thing was clean and the location is perfect. The conference center is only a 5 minute walk away, market street and a shopping center are right around the corner.

The Pickwick Hotel in Google Street View.

In one week Steve Jobs will hit the stage in Moscone Center and here are my WWDC07 Keynote predictions:

_Leopard
__ new Finder
__ overhauled UI (Goodbye Brushed Metal, I won’t miss you)
__ iPhone Integration
__ new iLife and iWork Suites using CA-Technologies.

_Hardware
__ New redesigned MacBook Pro with LED screen and SSD-BTO-Option.
__ iPhone SDK: create iPhone Widgets directly in DashCode.

In general it’s a very bad idea to pour a cup of steaming coffee over a MBP, but as it turns out it is an even worse idea to take it to the Vienna-based Apple Reseller McShark for repair. Almost four weeks ago I took my book to the shop and the repair is still pending. At first it took them over 2 weeks to tell me what the exact costs would be and since then I’m told that 1) we have to wait for the parts to arrive (a new keyboard and new memory) 2) the keyboard arrived but the memory takes a bit longer 3) Apple shipped the wrong keyboard, an international one and not the german one 4) we repaired everything but there is a defect cable and we’ll have to wait for Apple to ship it. And so on. I’ll probably write down the whole story when I finally have my MBP. I just hope I get it before I leave for WWDC.