The Cat Convention

It’s been two weeks since Steve Jobs came on stage in front of the media and gave us a short rundown on what they’ve been cooking up for the Mac. It’s probably time I get this off my chest.

I was underwhelmed. Underwhelmed but hopeful.

I shouldn’t expect much in the way of announcements for OS X Server or under the hood improvements in OS X… yet. This was clearly a speech aimed at the consumer and let’s face it, they may not be ready to talk about those hidden improvements yet. I get it. I’m fine with it. Really. Deep breath.

iLife 11

This was perhaps the most underwhelming portion of the event. Normally I love the iLife suite and I’m happy to plunk down the money in a heartbeat. This time I just didn’t see the point. iWeb and iDVD did not receive any love at all. I can understand iDVD getting lost in the shuffle, but iWeb needs a little bit of attention. I know people who still use that one, man. iWeb is also an important selling point for people who are looking at a Mac for the first time.

The improvements in iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband do seem quite nice but I do not make enough use of these tools to get all that jazzed. I manage photos with Aperture 3 and edit video with Final Cut. I do work on family home videos with iMovie but I haven’t felt that iMovie 09 was missing anything. GarageBand… ugh… let’s just say that program is a complete mystery to me anyway.

My wife might get a little more excited about iPhoto. Frankly though, I doubt she cares.

Underwhelming. I’m sure I’ll buy it anyway.

Thinking back on this it would seem that Apple threw a lot of resources at the iOS business and let iLife ride. Hopefully they won’t give iWork the same treatment. I’m quietly wishing for some competition from iWork in the Office apps arena because Office 2011 for Mac sucks bad. There’s a clear opportunity there. Let’s hope Apple takes it.

OS X Lion

This was the most exciting portion of the presentation to me. Yet when it became clear where they were headed I started to cringe. I wanted the rumors of iOS integration to be false. I really did. I was hoping this was one last vestige where OS X could be the strong and powerful operating system that I was used to running.

As the demonstrations began I started to panic. No, really. Then I took a deep breath and remembered that Apple has invested a tremendous amount of funds in OS X Server and the architecture in general. I had to put aside the silly hysteria and accept that the iOS stuff coming back into the operating system makes sense from a halo effect perspective.

As long as they do not replace the operating system with iOS I’m quite okie. I actually do not see myself using the home screens on my Macs, but we’ll see.

Mac App Store

I’m pretty excited about this. I think this is a huge development for small developers and users alike. It’s a win. I also think it’ll be interesting to see Apple’s applications carved out of bundles.

There’s not much else to say about this. It’s a win all around. I don’t think anyone disagrees on that.

FaceTime

What a neat little app. It’s simple. It’s clean. It works well.

It duplicates effort.

Why isn’t it part of iChat? I suspect we’ve not seen the last chess move on this one.

Macbook Air

Wow. What an awesome feat of engineering. This is clearly where Apple wants to take the laptops. Fast, mobile, durable and no moving parts. I suspect we’d already be there if there wasn’t a flash memory shortage.

One More Thing…

I’m intrigued by the reports surfacing today regarding iOS 4.2 and how it appears to link your Apple ID with MobileMe. That is very, very interesting. It bears much watching.

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Greetings fellow implementers and users…

I know many of you out there have implemented Apple products like iCal, iPhones and iPads within Exchange 2007 and 2010 organizations. I’m seeking information on a very specific problem that rears its ugly head on occasion.

Have any of you witnessed a “meeting hijack” problem with your device? Namely, you are an attendee on a meeting and suddenly you find yourself the organizer. Usually you find this out when you send a decline for whatever reason.

I’m trying to reproduce this issue in a lab environment to document the problem but we’re having a hell of a time pulling the data together. If any of you have data to share, please do so in the comments. Thanks!

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AFP548.com has posted part 2 of their interesting guide on implementing z-push on Snow Leopard Server to fool your ActiveSync devices into thinking they’re communicating with an Exchange Server.  I want to try this very badly, but limited resources prevent that at the current time.

If you’ve gotten this working and can speak about the experience, we’d love to hear from you!

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AFP548.com has posted a very intriguing article on setting up the open source product z-push to implement Exchange ActiveSync on your Snow Leopard server.  This provides Exchange-style push mail for your iPhone after you trick the device into thinking it’s an Exchange server.

Part 2 of the article even claims that they will provide info on how to perform remote device wipe.

I’ve not personally tried these steps yet, but perhaps I shall one day soon.  Proceed with caution and if you get this working, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Now this enterprise stuff is getting very, very interesting…

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Businesses are infatuated with calendaring.  The proliferation of mobile devices has contributed to the love affair.  Getting your calendars to work right and work well for you and your business can sometimes be a challenge.

One facet of calendaring is delegation.  Some setups get this right, maybe get it wrong.  Most of the time it’s wrong just because it’s misunderstood.  Okay, yeah, I know, that’s the Exchange world.  We’re not going to talk about that.  We’re here to talk about OS X Server and iCal.  iCal Server on Snow Leopard supports the concept of delegation.  Fortunately, the iCal client on Snow Leopard also supports delegation.  Apple has boiled it down to two simple permissions: read and/or write.  That’s enough for most people.  If you’re an all-Mac shop and no one is trying to do delegation with an iPhone, you can stop reading here.

If you are, however, a heavy user of delegation functions, you may be surprised to find the lack of delegation options in the CalDAV setup on the iPhone.  Not to fear, we can solve that for you.  The iPhone CalDAV client actually does support delegation with iCal server.  It’s just not readily apparent.

Let’s say we’re trying to set up delegation with my manager, Joe Schmoe.  I’ve already set up our desktop iCal clients with the necessary permissions for delegation.  Joe Schmoe has allowed write access to his calendar as per the screenshot here.

It’s quite simple to add delegation to my iCal client, but what if I need to be able to write to Joe’s calendar with my iPhone?  Simple enough.  First, go to the Settings icon and click it.  Click “Mail, Contacts, Calendars.”  We’ll assume you’ve already added your own CalDAV account here for the iCal server.  Let’s add another one.  On this new CalDAV account, configure it just like you would configure for your own account.  Use your login and password just like your regular CalDAV account.  I would suggest you change the “description” to something a little more appropriate like “Joe’s calendar.”

After configuring the account, click “Next.”  Assuming you set up your account and password correctly you’ll get back to the main calendars screen.  Now here’s the trick to make this work.  Click on the account again and go into the configuration.  Click the “Advanced Settings” button near the bottom.  What you want to do is change the “Account URL” to the short name of the user.  In this case, Joe’s short name is “jschmoe.”  I’ll change it there.  Be sure to leave the rest of the URL intact.

Once you’ve made the change, click the left arrow to head back to the main configuration and once more to get back to the main account screens.  Congratulations, you’ve now set up delegate access to your manager’s calendar.  Now all you have to do to view the calendar is go to the Calendar icon like you normally would.  Joe’s calendar will show there.  You can select it by itself and write events to the calendar if you wish.  That’s it!

If your manager isn’t lazy like my fictional one you could also have him keep “Write” unchecked in the original account delegation setup.  That will provide read-only access to his calendar when you’re on the go.  Of course, if you’re adept and using “invite” and the availability window you may not need to use delegation at all.

There you have it!

Also, one last plug.  If you’re really interested in helping to make the calendar as functional and ubiquitous as email, please consider joining CalConnect.  CalConnect is a consortium devoted to the standardization of all things related to calendars.  They’re doing great work and I’m sure they would love the help.

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