I had the privilege of sitting front and center (7th row) at the keynote for WWDC11.  All was great and exciting through the whole Lion presentation, and then came iOS5.  First on the list was notifications.  Cue punch in the gut.  If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Apple must have a teenage crush on me, because Notification Center looks an awful lot like LockInfo (in some ways).

The twittersphere (at least my small corner of it) has been active with questions about how this affects LockInfo.  In short:

It doesn’t.

Apple finally figured out that you need to do more than show a big blue popup on the lockscreen to provide users with useful information.  What they added is a direct rip off of Peter Hajas’ MobileNotifier (at least he got hired by Apple).  But what is it missing (at least based on early views… I’ll admit I don’t have the developer seed yet):

1. No emails on the lockscreen.  (Redacted… screenshot shows it)
2. No quick previews.
3. No direct replies via integrations with other apps.
4. No status bar icons.
5. No plugin API.
6. No weather (on the lockscreen).
7. No RSS feeds.
8. No Twitter integration.
9. No Facebook integration (coming soon).
10. No favorites quick dial/text/facetime.

It does look pretty though.  No sarcasm, it does look pretty.

Now, let’s slide to unlock iOS5.  Notification Center implements a drop down “info shade” from the status bar in any app (don’t know if you can do it on SpringBoard).  Again, it looks nice, but:

1. No quick previews.
2. No direct replies.
3. etc, etc, etc…

And what about seeing that information on your SpringBoard itself.  Nope, not there. 

So, really, what does this mean to LockInfo… seriously, not much.  I plan to continue to develop and innovate LockInfo and I’ll plan to be at WWDC12 for them to copy me again.