It seemed that a disproportionate amount of time at this week’s Apple Special Event was spend on the new ‘Events‘ feature in iPhoto ’08. Now, while I personally do not use iPhoto, other than for some iLife and iWork integration, and to order an occasional picture book, it seems like a rather mature application.
I am not complaining about the usefulness of Events, they certainly are. But what I do complain about is that Apple tries “Sell its customers for stupid” to use an old German expression, meaning, they act as if we, the customers are stupid, and do not realize that this grand new feature is really rather simple. While more convenient than Albums, it does not add new functionality. It seems to me that you can do everything with Albums that you can do with Events. The only difference is, that albums only appear in the left overview, whereas Events appear in the main window. Events are created automatically, Albums are not. But that saves only one step. Not a big deal, in my opinion. If the tons of albums Steve referred to are too much, then you can group them into folders, e.g., all birthday parties, all weddings, all vacations, and so forth. Can Events be grouped?
Again, I think these Events are rather nice, but I do not think it is justified to spend 5 minutes of the keynote on it and tout it as the best thing since sliced bread. It is completely unjustified to describe this as “dramatically enhancing iPhoto” or as putting it on a “whole new level”.
Please, Apple, focus on real news, if there are any, and if there are not, then make them happen. This year has seen weigh to few real Mac news, and I am getting frustrated by it. Since I switched to the Mac 2.5 years ago, I have really come to love the Mac. I tell everyone who asks and also those who do not, that switching to the Mac has been one of the best decisions in my life. I do not leave out an opportunity trying to convert Windows users. I am still not leaving out any opportunity to convert Windows-Folks to the true operating system; I just convinced my parents to switch. But some of my initial excitation has worn off, especially by the recent relative lack of innovation at Apple, so I personally find it harder to advertise Apple as wholeheartedly as I did a year ago.