Wood back panels for iPhone by KILLSPENCER
The Black Veil ($30.00) is really sexy. Can’t decide if I should get this or not.
(Source: gregmelander)
Apple will not be naming their next iteration iPhone 4G simply because I don’t believe it will actually have 4G technology.
But if they don’t release a new anything soon, I’m going to burn this city to the ground.
White iPhone 4 to Ship Early Next Month?
Now I’m worried. If these rumors are true and the mythical white iPhone 4 is finally released in early April, it will launch only two short months ahead of the expected next-generation iPhone. Apple would never schedule flagship releases so close together, so either this year’s iPhone is “just” a spec-bumped iPhone 4 or, worse, the next-generation device is delayed.
Please don’t let it be so, Steve.
Verizon iPhone Commercial
Powerful. And without showing a single shot of the product.
(Source: thedailywhat)
Instead of praising the iPad, critics express their disappointment, because they expected more. They expected a genre buster. They expected something they’d never seen before, something beyond their imagination. Something revolutionary.
They’re disappointed that the iPad is so… well… unsurprising.
Therein, of course, lies the genius.
One of the best essays on why the iPad will be legendary when Apple’s previous attempt—the adorable yet ahead-of-its-time Newton—was not.
Apple iPhone OS 4 Preview Event on April 8th
And… I jizzed in my pants.
Exit Strategy NYC
An iPhone app that tells you where to stand on the New York City subway so you would be optimally positioned near your desired street exit when you disembark. Kottke says this is called prewalking.
I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those things that once you use, you’d wonder how you ever lived without it.
(via Kottke)
WWDC 2009
A favorite time of the year for any Apple fan, WWDC 2009 is currently midway through its five-day schedule of nonstop Mac and iPhone nerdery. The actual conference itself is focused mainly on developers—hence the ‘Developers’ in the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference—and much of it is covered by a non-disclosure agreement, so the only highlight for non-attendees—like yours truly…—is the conference-opening keynote presentation, which historically has served to introduce new software and hardware Apple has been working on to the public.
And this year did not disappoint.
Mac Software
Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” was announced a year ago at WWDC 2008 as a leaner, faster, and more efficient OS update to Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard”. Instead of focusing on new end-user features like past OS X updates, Snow Leopard focuses on “hidden” behind-the-scenes performance enhancements and upgrades which helps Mac developers write better and more efficient applications using newer and faster APIs.
Exciting (oh, hush) new technologies such as Grand Central Dispatch—which provides parallel-programming technology to take advantage of modern multi-core CPUs—and OpenCL—which provides developers access to powerful modern GPU computation—makes up the core of Snow Leopard improvements, which may not sound as flashy or exciting as Stacks, Cover Flow, Time Machine, Spotlight, Dashboard, or Exposé at first blush but vastly rewritten backend software will provide a stronger and more efficient foundation for better software.
And at only $29 for Leopard owners, it’s almost like getting a newer, faster computer for the price of a decent meal.
Of course, with such improvements and enhancements come the inevitable technological march forward, thus excluding my 2003 1GHz PowerMac G4. The PowerPC architecture has been depreciated in favor of Intel’s x86 since WWDC 2005 so it’s not exactly a surprise, but it sucks that half the Macs in my household will not be able to take advantage of the sweet new improvements in Snow Leopard.
Mac Hardware
The hardware side is more exciting, I promise!
The 13″ unibody MacBook was rebranded as the MacBook Pro since improvements have narrowed the gap between the standard MacBook and MacBook Pro lines. I suspect the split Apple notebook lineup had always confused potential customers so the eventual—with the inevitable cancellation of the remaining white polycarbonate MacBook, that is—return to a single line of notebooks is a great idea in my opinion.
The 13″ and 15″ MBPs now have a SD card slot and one FireWire 800 port (which the 13″ unibody MacBook lacked) and the 15″ MBP can now be purchased without a discrete graphics card, which lowers the high-price bar that has traditionally kept customers away from Macs.
The new non-removable battery can apparently run for over seven hours, which is incredibly long for any type of notebook, and the new, faster Intel Core 2 Duo chips are super sweet—2.26 and 2.53GHz for the 13″, 2.53, 2.66, and 2.8GHz for the 15″, and 2.8GHz for the 17″.
Still, not all is happy in Mac-land. People complain about the sealed battery even though Apple promises each battery can get at least a thousand full recharge cycles, lasting an estimated five or more years—which they say is already longer than the average lifespan of a machine. I also don’t like that the 13″ MBP doesn’t have the option of a discrete graphics card—the integrated NVIDIA 9400M is fine, but it just doesn’t cut it for what is supposedly now a “pro” machine. Dropping the ExpressCard slot on the 13″ and 15″ MBPs in favor of the new SD card slot may anger some folks, as does the lack of an SD card slot in the 17″, which does have the ExpressCard slot.
Apple has never been known as a company of multiple choice, so I doubt any of these concerns will be remedied in the foreseeable future. They still haven’t addressed some users’ desire for a non-glossy 13″ and 15″ screen, who’ve been complaining since the original unibody MBPs came out.
iPhone
But most exciting of all are the iPhone updates.
The newly renamed iPhone 3GS is super slick. Cosmetically, little has changed—if at all—from the last-generation iPhone 3G. It still possesses the same glossy polycarbonate back and chrome trim around the glass screen, but the screen now has a new oleophobic coating which repels skin oils. The iPhone 3G remains in the lineup, but only with 8GB of storage at an obscenely inexpensive $99. The 16GB model was probably nixed to prevent sales cannibalization. The new iPhone 3GS comes in at $199 for the 16GB and $299 for the 32GB, an incredible deal compared to last year’s $199/8GB, $299/16GB.
The hardware enhancements are welcomed with open arms. Apple hasn’t released any firm numbers on processor speeds or any other concrete numbers besides the hard drive sizes, but rumors have clocked the new iPhone processor at 600MHz, a full 50% faster than the chip inside the last-generation iPhone 3G, plus double the RAM: 128MB to 256MB. Combined, these two upgrades will make the iPhone 3GS incredibly fast and responsive, even more so than the already good-enough iPhone 3G (which is already far better than the original iPhone).
The magnetic compass and 3-megapixel camera with auto-focus are two really awesome additions. The compass allows Google Maps to rotate the view to match your real-life direction, a feature sorely missed from past implementations of the always north-facing maps. The new camera is apparently tons better thanks to auto-focus where you tap where you want to focus on the screen. It also auto-macros when you want to focus on something really close. I don’t know why more digital cameras don’t allow for tap-to-focus and instead relying on center focusing (or nine-point average focusing on the fancier point-and-shoots).
On software, iPhone 3.0 is what iPhone 1.0 should’ve been. MMS, video recording and editing, voice control, voice memos, cut, copy and paste, phone-wide search, and tethering finally make their way into the iPhone OS. Of all of these, I think I’m most happy for cut, copy and paste and video recording. Recording was technically possible but not enabled in iPhone 2.0 so that’s why I’m categorizing this as a software enhancement.
Numerous other little enhancements provide a better overall experience to the now mature OS. Widescreen keyboards and views are now enabled for more applications; you can turn the iPhone sideways in Messages, Notes, and Mail to activate a widescreen keyboard for better typing and in Stocks for a more detailed stocks view. Safari now has form auto-fill, Mail finally supports Microsoft Exchange, and a new service for MobileMe allows you to remotely locate your iPhone, and optionally wipe its data if it’s in the wrong hands.
But again, not all is amazing and fantastic. Rumors of a front-facing camera (for two-way video chats) were unfounded, the casing is still glossy polycarbonate—contrary to some rumors stating it will be rubberized and textured, and no confirmed specs are released by Apple so we have no real way of knowing what’s really under the hood—at least until iFixit tears it down in one of their famous Apple product teardowns. AT&T is also inexplicably slow on MMS support—coming “in September”—and tethering, whereas carriers in other countries support it right off the bat. They’re also screwing over previous iPhone owners, expecting $200 over the regular, subsidized pricing to upgrade from their already-expensive last-gen iPhones to a new one. Get off AT&T already, Apple. You’re breaking millions of hearts.
Conclusion
All in all, this was an exciting WWDC filled with tons of new announcements and forthcoming products. I’m a little sad that Mac OS X 10.6 won’t have the fabled new “Marble” UI and there’s no sign of ZFS support, or the much-awaited resolution independence of Mac OS X.
But more importantly than anything else, I’m most unhappy about the newly priced $99 8GB iPhone, which I could’ve gotten if not for my recently acquired LG Xenon, which was also around the same price. I’m kicking myself for bad timing. Sigh.
