Apple WWDC 2009

[Drunken Savior]

iPhone 3GS News
-Camera is now 3.0 Megapixels (up from the 2.0 MP), has autofocus (and tap to focus/white balance), auto white balance, auto exposure, and video recording (30 fps).
-Better Battery Life
-Video Editor
-Voice Commands
-Supports the 7.2 Mbps HSDPA standard
-Magnetometer (compass)
-$199 for 16GB model, $299 for 32 GB model

iPhone 3G News
-Price is now $99 for the 8GB model.

iPhone OS 3.0 News
-Available June 17th
-Still free for iPhone users, $9.99 for iPod Touch owners
-MMS from virtually every carrier but ATT (WTF? -DS)
-Tethering from virtually every carrier but ATT (WTSFL!?* -DS)
-Safari handles JavaScript 3x faster along with HTTP streaming audio & video, auto-fill, and HTML 5 support

iPhone App Announcements
-Turn by Turn Car GPS app by TomTom, a window suction cup mount also available that has a speaker/mic built in to issue requests as well as amplify the audio for directions.
-ScrollMotion's Iceberg Book Store, this is a Kindle competitor that'll offer over 1,000,000 books for download at launch, including textbooks by Houton Mifflin, Harcourt and McGraw Hill, as well as 50 magazines and 170 daily newspapers.
-AirStrip, Get excited, doctors! This app lets you stream a patients EKG over 3G, which is downright nuts. You can also zoom in and replay "cardiac events," which are the kind of events you never want to have.
-Star Defense, from ngmoco, it's a tower defense game that looks a lot like Super Mario Galaxy. It's available right now for $5.99.
-Pasco, this is an app for doing science experiments. (I'm interested in this -DS)
-ZipCar, the ZipCar app lets you find nearby ZipCar lots, see what cars are available there and make reservations. Even cooler? Once you book your car, you can unlock it using your iPhone.
-Line 6, This app lets you plug in your guitar and change its sound as if it was plugged into different amps. You can make an electric sound acoustic, design your own guitar based on pickups, pickup configuration, body type and other factors, or make it sound tuned all on the iPhone.

[SOURCE]

Snow Leopard

Originally Posted by http://i.gizmodo.com/5283157/everything-you-need-to-know-about-snow-leopard

Snow Leopard, otherwise known as OS X 10.6, was first announced at last year's WWDC, and we got a pretty comprehensive rundown of what to expect: serious 64-bit support; the ability to really use multi-core processors with Grand Central; GPGPU processing (that's graphics card processing, in English) with OpenCL; and more under-the-hood upgrades. There've been plenty of rumors since then, but here's the official word:

WHAT'S NEW:

FASTER PERFORMANCE

• Much of the codebase has been rewritten, for speed increases system-wide.

• Installation is 45% faster, which is considerate, I guess.

• General optimizations abound: opening JPEGs, for example, is now twice as fast in Preview. PDFs are 1.5x faster. Some of this could be down to the new 64-bit, multi-threaded underpinnings; mostly, though, it's just plain old software tweaking.

• Same goes for Mail: it's about twice as fast to launch, search and move messages.

• Installing Snow Leopard actually saves space: you'll get back 6GB of hard drive space over Leopard 10.5. Successive versions of OS X are usually faster, yeah, but much smaller? That's new.

SAFARI 4

• Javascript performance, which is basically the core issue in the browser wars nowadays, is up by 50%. Browsing as a whole is faster, and Safari 4 passes the Acid3 CSS test at 100%. It gets Coverflow (for history browsing), just like virtually every other part of OS X. "Fastest in the World", they say. In addition, Safari 4 now has "crash resistance", meaning Chrome-like threaded processes, so a single crashed tab doesn't take down the entire browser. More here.

MICROSOFT EXCHANGE SUPPORT

• According to our own Mark Wilson, "it looks like it should look." That means seamless integration with Mail, Contacts and iCal. The implementation looks fairly complete, and most importantly, it's standard in Snow Leopard—not part of a separate app suite.

QUICKTIME 10

• QT gets a new interface, looks like the iTunes video player. Hardware acceleration for video playback, too. You can do some quick video editing as well, like in older versions of Quicktime Pro, except with an iMovie-style visual timeline. It's very pretty, and a welcome improvement of the ultra-limited editing powers of previous QTs. This, of course, is now standard. Oh right, and there' a new, vaguely menacing icon.

NEW DOCK, EXPOSE

• It's a lot like regular Exposé, except it can be controlled from the dock, and offers more in the way of interactivity, i.e., dragging content between previewed windows. App grouping is now managed by from the dock icons. Nothing revolutionary, but it's nice to see tighter Exposé integration. I see little hints of Windows 7's awesome new taskbar, maybe?

• Sorta related, but not worthy of its own heading: you can magnify some icons in Finder, and preview video in thumbnails.

64-BIT, GPGPU, AND MULTI-CORE SUPPORT:

• 64 whole bits: All native OS X apps, like Mail, Quicktime, Finder, and Safari, are fully coded for 64-bit compatibility. This shouldn't have a massive effect on performance, but it's an inevitable progression, and a positive one. Previously.

• Multi-core support, i.e. Grand Central: We knew this was coming, but it bears repeating: the whole OS has been optimized to use all those fancy multi-core processors in your MacBooks and iMacs. This includes core apps. The API, which will allow developers to tap into Grand Central, which is essentially the software brain of the OS X multi-core engine, will expand support to third-party apps. Previously.

• GPGPU acceleration: Not much new here, but Snow Leopard will support GPU acceleration in non-graphics apps, when appropriate. Again, previously.

HOW MUCH, AND WHEN?

• Well, this is a hell of a surprise, but it fits with Apple's vision of Snow Leopard as a stopgap product: $29 to upgrade from Leopard, down from their regular $129 upgrade price. $49 for a family pack. It comes out in September, before Windows 7, and a developer preview is available from today. Anyone who buys a new Mac from June 8th can upgrade for a nominal $10 handling fee.

13-Inch Macbook Pro

Originally Posted by http://i.gizmodo.com/5283283/13+inch-macbook-pro-arrives-and-macbook-air-gets-a-price-cut

Apple just announced a spec bump for their 13-inch MacBook that brings it into MacBook Pro territory, and the MacBook Air got a whopping $700 price drop.

The 13-inch MBP gets the backlit keyboard, SD card slot and the option to be loaded with up to 8GB of RAM, just like its new big brothers.

Furthermore, the MacBook Air's base price just got dropped down to $1,499. It'll be $1799 with a 256GB SSD, which is $700 cheaper than before.

15-Inch Macbook Pro

Originally Posted by http://i.gizmodo.com/5283256/new-15+inch-macbook-pro-features-7+hour-battery-life-and-sd-card-slot

Apple just announced new MacBook Pro models with the same upgraded, 7-hour battery life as the 17-inch MacBook Pro, a bump in memory, processor, and storage, as well as an SD-card slot. Most importantly, they'll be shipping today. Yes!

Apple promises the battery will last 5 years or 1,000 recharges in the same body we've come to know and love, which is pretty important since it's non-removable. Along with the battery come upgrades across the board.

The base model features a 3.06 GHz Dual Core Intel processor, 4GB of memory, a 250GB 5400rpm HDD, and an upgraded display (Apple claims it has 60% more color gamut) all at $1,699—$300 less than the current model. If you want to upgrade to a 2.66GHz proc with a 320GB hard drive, that'll run you $1,999, while the 2.8GHz model with a 500GB hard drive will hit at $2,299. The latter two models will be packing Apple's dual Nvidia graphics chips, the 9400M and 9600M (256MB and 512MB, respectively), while the cheapest model has merely one 9400M. All the MacBook Pros can be upgraded to 8GB of memory and a 500GB 7200rpm hard drive or a 256GB SSD.

The 15-inch Pro still won't have an ExpressCard slot—you'll have to bump up to the 17-inch model if you want that. On the plus side, Apple just dropped the price of the 17-inch model (which is otherwise unchanged) to $2,499, a $200 cut. The SD card should stick out a bit from the Pro's body, but that's absolutely a sacrifice we're willing to make.

* What the Sweet Fuck, Lord!?

[Alucard]

I'd like one of each please. pm me for an address to send them to.

[Joe Redifer]

The new OS sounds promising, especially since it is so cheap. $50? Nice. But what happened to Quicktime 8 and 9? Of course this means all new versions of Final Cut Studio and the like to be fully compatible with the new OS. *sigh*

[Drunken Savior]

Originally Posted by Joe Redifer

The new OS sounds promising, especially since it is so cheap. $50? Nice.

That's the family pack price. $29 is the single upgrade price.

[Joe Redifer]

I never bothered with 10.5. I have 10.4 so that upgrade price does not apply to me. 10.5 looked like ass and my system was and still is working just fine so I said "screw it!". I really hope the Dock isn't as lame-looking in 10.6 as it was in 10.5.

[Drunken Savior]

Originally Posted by Joe Redifer

I never bothered with 10.5. I have 10.4 so that upgrade price does not apply to me. 10.5 looked like ass and my system was and still is working just fine so I said "screw it!". I really hope the Dock isn't as lame-looking in 10.6 as it was in 10.5.

I just changed the appearance of my dock.

[Reality]

Ah dang. The new Macbook pros are what I wanted from the start with my current Macbook. Thats Apple for ya.

[Alucard]

Heres some more indepth info on the new iphone, and a cool table comparison with the previous model.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/08/i...e-of-the-tape/

Pictures and stuff of the gps stuff

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/08/a...ion-to-iphone/


And this is actually my favourite feature-

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/08/a...ating-service/

one of the most impressive is the new "Find My iPhone" service to help you locate your lost phone. While complete details are still a bit light, the service will apparently let you login into your MobileMe account and instantly show your iPhone on a map, and even send a message to the phone and force it to play a sound whether it's in silent mode or not. As if that wasn't enough, you can also use the Remote Wipe feature to erase all the data on the iPhone from afar and restore it to the factory settings. We guess the electric shock will have to wait for for iPhone 4.0.

btw I'm plugging the site for those links. Been going to it for years. Has awesome tech news all the time.

[Joe Redifer]

You can do that? Post pic!

[Drunken Savior]

I didn't like the transparent view. Since I'm more of an Earth tones guy, I went for a wooden look.



You can find the original png files and replace them, but Dock Manager will handle all your choices and manage them pretty well.

[calintz]

i removed my dock altogether - i just like the dock with floating icons: http://itiz.in/xlpx

in anycase, interesting on the au apple site, the upgrade from leopard to snow leopard is $14.95...!

[Drunken Savior]

You know, getting the old iPhone 3G for $99 is pretty awesome. You don't get video recording (without unlocking it), and you don't get a compass...but for $99, it's still an amazing deal. Probably the best smartphone you can get for that price.

[Seraph]

I think iPhone pricing is more or less factored into the plan. Thats why the iPod Touch, which offers a lot less non-phone functionality, still remains pricey. I remember the big price drop they had a while ago where they were boasting the new $199 price point while neglecting to mention the new carrier plans increased (which ended up costing more than ever before lol)

The biggest hurdle with the iPhone, at least with me, is the forced plans. I don't want to switch carriers and their bare minimum plan is way more than I wan't to pay a month. They could give me the phone free and I still wouldn't bite.

Now if there was a way to get an iPhone and unlock it so that I could just use the iPod functions of it that would be awesome. $100 for a 16GB iPod Touch +Camera and GPS?