Not sure where the time has gone, but summer seems to be in full and unrelenting force! In the time since I've last updated the blog, the almighty iPhone has usurped everything Macintosh and pushed back 10.5 (Leopard) until October. Of course, the Apple geeks (myself included, of course), got a bit of a teaser in June during the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference. In truth, 'twas a bit of a disappointment given that very little new was unveiled.

I'm certainly looking forward to Leopard--don't get me wrong! However, what about those super-duper-top-secret features oft-hinted about? Methinks you'll find them somewhere at your local AT&T shop!

What am I most looking forward to in this new release? Without a doubt, it's the server version of Leopard. (As if my citizenship in Geekdom were ever in doubt, the fact that Leopard Server makes my heart beat faster certainly puts that to rest.) Oh, Leopard Server could finally be the answer to the somewhat anemic Mac-based productivity offerings. At long last we'll see cross platform, server based iCal calendars and (apparently) a contact server of some sort.

If Apple delivers on its Leopard Server hype, we'll see an affordable, per-user-license-free server that could rival Exchange. Perhaps that's a bit much to hope for in a first release, but I've often thought Exchange way overdoes its core functionality with Outlook being one of the more byzantine applications that's supposed to increase productivity. (The Bionic Cat is not a huge fan of Outlook. How many places can Microsoft find to hide preferences anyway?)

At any rate, here's what makes my heart go pit-a-pat most in this upcoming release:

• iCal Server
• Directory (address book server)
• Out of office notifications on server (about time!)
• Wide area Bonjour (no more third party workarounds to share iTunes, iPhoto, etc. over VPN)

I'm anxiously awaiting October to start playing with all the new loveliness that Leopard Server (cl)aims to be!

Cheers,
Stephen