TechCrunch » WWDC09

Apple's WWDC keynote: now 100% more Quicktimey

Devin Coldewey — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:41:03 +0000

If you want to be aware of the huge avalanche of Apple news that hit today but don’t want to read through the dozen or so posts we had on it, just sit back, relax, and let it all unfold in real time. Listen closely when they announce the compass, you might be able to hear the cry of orgasmic pleasure emitted by a particularly excitable Apple fan. Kind of weird. I’m not judging, just… well, yeah, I’m judging him. Come on.

Anyway, Here’s the site and here’s the stream.

WWDC 2009: Apple gets serious

John Biggs — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:40:03 +0000

So we got the big reveal: a new iPhone, some hidden tricks in Snow Leopard and the iPhone OS, a lot of rumor run-up and, most importantly, a Jobs-less keynote. In the end we saw another incremental keynote, a session of chest-beating (Palm’s “18 Pre apps in its app store” slide got quite a chuckle and I heard a man audibly orgasm when he heard about the compass app) and announcements that rehashed what we already know and confirmed rumors.

The takeaway here is that the old Apple way of doing business is unchanged under the current regime although, as evidenced by a few extemporaneous remarks by the presenters and some technical failure, Jobs’ absence made everyone let down their guard a little. Again, these guys were preaching to the converted. Everyone in the room clapped to almost everything, something you rarely hear at other events of this nature. They goofed a little during a few presentations and goofed off a little between slides, but on the whole it was a well-oiled machine.

As for the products, none of the announcements were groundbreaking. Snow Leopard does not change Leopard cosmetically (the big changes aren’t plainly visible, unlike Leopard) but adds a few features including Exchange support and a more powerful search and processing engine to Leopard, making it a contender for the business desktop. This flows directly into iPhone 3.0 which adds search, voice commands, and video (when applicable) to the iPhone package. We saw the certification of both platforms – the iPhone and the Mac laptop/desktop line – as mature business environments. Encryption, for example, on the iPhone will convince the folks in IT allow the CEO to carry his iPhone around the world with him.

What is extremely clear is that this WWDC was about business. Games were well-represented but all of the upgrades to each platform are a move to head Windows 7 off at the pass. At $29 the upgrade is basically free when compared to similar upgrade paths between Tiger and Leopard and XP to Win7 or Vista.

The 3G S is harder to place in a business context, but it fits. It’s faster and has better battery life and the business and medical apps we saw were quite impressive. By creating an iPhone that promises encryption and turn-by-turn directions – a phone that can get you to the bar and then remotely self-destruct when you leave it in the booth.

So this was the business show. It might not have been as exciting as we would have liked but this time around Apple aimed squarely at the cubicle and, more importantly, Windows 7.

Apple's 3G S tour now live UPDATED

John Biggs — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:25:59 +0000

Go over and watch it, if you are so inclined. No pressure. I know this has been a long day. Also, the new commercial appears after the jump. If you’re not doing anything else this evening give it a look. Otherwise it will be here when you wake.

Want an iPhone 3G S? Already have an iPhone 3G? Be prepared to pay $700 to upgrade [Updated]

Nicholas Deleon — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:54:19 +0000

Better read the fine print, friends. Apple said today that the iPhone 3G S costs $199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB). But that’s the price only for new AT&T customers. The price if you’re already an AT&T customer and/or are upgrading from an iPhone 3G? Try $699 (32GB), $599 (16GB), and $499 (8GB). To quote Peter Ha: “HOLY SHIT.”

I think I speak for most of the Internet when I say that price is 100 percent ridiculous. How many iPhone 3G’s are floating around out there? And how many of those will be upgraded to the new iPhone 3G S?

I don’t know who’s to blame, Apple or AT&T, but I cannot wait to see them try to spin this news.

UPDATE So this is what AT&T tells us:

An iPhone 3G customer in most cases can early upgrade at $399 [16GB] or $499 [32GB].

You’ll note that that’s still several hundred dollars more than what Joe Smoe would have to pay, right off the street, if he doesn’t already have an AT&T account.

And what does “early upgrade” mean? Or “most cases”? The joys of dealing with AT&T!

My recommendation would be to call AT&T yourself to see what you’re looking at.

Getting to know Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL, and your 64-bit OS

Devin Coldewey — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:40:39 +0000

Apple’s Snow Leopard update for OS X is a major update, despite the fact that it doesn’t tout “300 new features” like the last one. For $29, there’s no reason to expect anything but bugfixes, but in fact this is probably the most important OS X update for years. While Leopard essentially completed the OS, which was in need of completing since it was introduced, Snow Leopard pushes it into the future.

The technologies being introduced in Snow Leopard are for making your mac leaner, faster, and more capable of pretty much everything you already do. So let’s just recap what exactly these very abstract-sounding features are in case you need to explain it to a clueless friend or family member.

Fully 64-bit
This is probably the most technical one, and the hardest to grasp. It has to do with the maximum amount of information that can be handled at once by your computer’s processor. Now, it should be noted that we’ve had 64-bit capable CPUs for a long time, but our OSes have been 32-bit until relatively recently, and 64-bit is only now starting to become a consumer standard. All macs since they switched to Intel can run Snow Leopard, so the architecture they’ve built clearly depends on that hardware. If you’re looking for a more technical explanation, check out Apple’s.

So what differences will you actually see? Well, of the three technologies being discussed here, you’ll see this one the least. It will save you a lot of space; applications have been packaged with compatibility for 64-bit and 32-bit for a long time now, and along with the other streamlining they’ve done in Snow Leopard, it should reduce the actual size of those apps by more than half in many cases. Beyond that it should have few visible consequences to the lay user. But 64-bit allows for better, faster, and more advanced computing and must not be discounted as just another number.

OpenCL
One thing we cover a lot here at CrunchGear is graphics cards and improving technology in that area. It usually applies to PC Gamers, but the same cards power your Photoshop effects, resize your videos, and make Exposé all smooth on OS X. And they are extremely powerful; the first card clocked at over 1GHz just came out, and their architecture means they are far more suited for high-intensity parallel calculations than a normal CPU.

Recently on PCs, there has been a push, primarily with NVIDIA’s CUDA technology, to utilize that capability by releasing new drivers and building applications that take advantage of the power of the cards. OpenCL is essentially Apple’s CUDA.

OpenCL was put together with the help of major graphics and development companies as an open standard for using the GPU in normal computing tasks. By creating a shared standard and working with the people who actually provide the hardware and make the software, they’re opening up GPU acceleration for many more things in the OS. Video enhancement, better and more pervasive interface effects, much faster tasks like encoding video, resizing pictures, editing photos… and that’s just a start. OpenCL means that developers can now, to paraphrase an inaccurate but apt phrase, “use the whole brain.”

You’ll notice OpenCL in the form of a smoother-running, better-looking OS, HD video playback improvement, and a plethora of other graphic-related things.

Grand Central Dispatch
Another thing we cover a lot on CG but often doesn’t apply to Apple users is the CPU arms race. As AMD and Intel have clashed over the years, the competition has resulted in a huge increase in the raw speed of our processors. But we’re approaching a point where to continue doing what we’ve been doing to increase the speed would literally violate physical laws. What to do, aside from more science? Multiple cores, all operating at once. It’s not quite as specialized parallel computing as a video card does, but it’s along the same lines.

Dual-core processors have been widely available for a couple years, and now quad-cores are creeping down in price as well. And who can say of the future that we won’t be using eight, sixteen, or thirty two cores? The CPU companies have demonstrated and are working on all of these things.

But applications written for the lowest common denominator (single-core machines, still common) are unable to take advantage of these cores. I see it myself with my little CPU monitor: sometimes one of the cores is at 100% usage and one is at 0%. Boo! I paid for the privilege, and now half my apps won’t even use my whole processor? Well, I guess I can’t blame them since it’s a relatively new technology and most APIs and languages aren’t optimized for splitting an application into multiple CPU streams. This is where Grand Central Dispatch comes in.

Grand Central Dispatch isn’t a user feature, it’s a development feature. It’s a huge set of APIs, language extensions, and a whole new object-oriented framework: tools for developers to make all apps totally multi-core-capable, as quickly and easily as possible. You’ll see this in the form of most of your applications starting faster and running better. You’ll also see it in the form of heat, as when both cores are active it’s going to be burning your lap up. I use SMCFanControl and you should too.

What else?

Well, aside from these big three techs, you’ve got:

Quicktime X, which makes videos a little more seamless and hopefully supports more formats out of the box. It’s already hardware-accelerated and now will use ColorSync as well; let’s hope that’s a benefit.
Exchange support, which is nice.
In-Dock Exposé lets you cruise the windows of individual applications &mdsah; actually reminds me of the Windows 7 taskbar scrub.

Cocoa Finder means Finder will be more responsive and have less delays in displaying lots of icons and minor tasks
Faster install — okay, it was never slow to begin with really, but thanks!
Safari 4 Final for those of you who like that sort of thing.

So there you have it. It’s a lot of stuff to be getting for $29, in fact I would have gladly paid $100 for this real update (I skipped Leopard), since it makes your Mac into much more of a future-proof machine. Seriously, though, they’re going to get a lot hotter. You heard it here first.

WWDC 2009 Keynote recap

John Biggs — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:17:31 +0000

Here is our WWDC recap in living HTML.

9:51 AM: John Biggs
9:51 AM: John Biggs
9:57 AM: John Biggs Out in the line. The Apple guy who just walked by was counting folks and passed us at 476 or so.
10:06 AM: John Biggs So we’ve got live video of the line. If you have anything you want to know specifically, other than the obvious WHERE IS MY IFONE! Tweet @johnbiggs and I’ll try to respond.
10:17 AM: John Biggs
10:18 AM: John Biggs
10:18 AM: John Biggs Waiting for press registration
10:20 AM: John Biggs @johnbiggs What device are you recording the live feed on? Answer: Ustream on an iPhone
10:34 AM: John Biggs Hopefully you’re watching greg ask people what they think of the pre
10:34 AM: MDM Looking forward to CrunchGear’s coverage. Can’t wait for iPhone 3.0 update.
10:34 AM: Giovanni It is possible to see the conference in streaming on my Iphone?
10:34 AM: Dan Should I have audio?
10:34 AM: Daddy-O The Ustream app on the iPhone is only a viewer. How do you get the app that sends video to Ustream?
10:35 AM: John Biggs Re video question. We can’t stream video. Verboten
10:36 AM: John Biggs Dasorryddyo it’s an unlocked iPhone.
10:52 AM: John Biggs Sorry. Testing email. Still sitting on the floor waiting.
10:52 AM: John Biggs How is the stream?
10:53 AM: DannyD Ustream is great, but it is just so choppy. I´m from Germany and the stream is interrupted about every other second… is it my Connection or the iPhone`s that is “crap”
10:53 AM: Kirill Just wanted to say thanks for doing this guys.
10:53 AM: Ross Will you be streaming live inside?
11:00 AM: John Biggs No, Ross
11:20 AM: John Biggs hopefully the stream is better
11:21 AM: Rick Woot! girls in bikinis rock
11:21 AM: Juan Snyman The keynote begins in about 2 hours and 40 minutes, right? Why are you guys there so early.
11:22 AM: John Biggs No idea re live stream and we are this early for you guys
11:36 AM: John Biggs
11:36 AM: John Biggs
11:36 AM: John Biggs There is the new QuickTime Logo.
11:37 AM: John Biggs
11:38 AM: John Biggs
11:38 AM: John Biggs the old logo
11:38 AM: John Biggs
11:38 AM: John Biggs new one
11:40 AM: mapplemike Can’t wait to see what they say at WWDC. Apple employees are the biggest junkies of them all.
11:40 AM: bgertzfield According to the weirdo walking the WWDC line, I am male number 776. The nice lady behind me is female number 43!
11:40 AM: John Biggs Hey guys – we’re outside the keynote room right now w/ folks from Phonescoop, Laptop, Engadget; everyone’s here. Sorry the live feed went down, not a whole lot we can do about that.
11:41 AM: John Biggs Vincent Nguyen just took a horrible picture of me, as I thought it was video. Thanks, Vincent.
11:42 AM: Monik (etiole.com) why has the video gone off air?
11:42 AM: John Biggs Limited WiFi, No 3G. Simply not enough bandwidth. Plus – they’ll eat our face if we stream inside.
11:48 AM: John Biggs We’ve got power! Power is rare here. It’s like soil in waterworld.
11:49 AM: John Biggs We’re about 90% sure there’s no power inside. There *does* seem to be WiFi – which is incredible. Great chance that the WiFi will die as soon as we get inside, be it by apple’s doing or the weight of a million geeks all trying their damnedest to liveblog
11:51 AM: John Biggs
11:51 AM: John Biggs I wish John Biggs would hold my laptop for me while I typed:-(
11:52 AM: John Biggs Apple store is down. Everybody panic!
11:54 AM: John Biggs We’re still in line. The mood is generally light, everyone’s drinkin’ the Odwallas and eatin’ the scones Apple provided. If you need something to do, go prep your bingo cards: www.crunchgear.com
11:56 AM: Greg Kumparak The past 10 liveblog snippets have all been a lie. I didnt realize I was logged in as Biggs.
11:59 AM: Greg Kumparak Surprisingly, the room doesn’t smell too bad yet. It is a big room, though.
12:00 PM: Greg Kumparak
12:00 PM: Greg Kumparak There are probably around 150 media folk waiting outside the keynote room. There’s no obvious line. There never is, really. It’s just a big pile of madness.
12:01 PM: Greg Kumparak If you missed it in the earlier live broadcast, the first line dwellers had been here since 3 am.
12:02 PM: @michaelowens The first person in line got there at 5:30p the night before, actually.
12:02 PM: Greg Kumparak Yeesh. Missed’em. Way to go, 5:30pm trooper. Hope you enjoy the show.
12:04 PM: @iAppTime So will you be recording the keynote live on the Ustream?
12:05 PM: Greg Kumparak Unfortunately not; Apple nixed that from the start, and reiterated that it was disallowed when we were getting our badges.
12:13 PM: Greg Kumparak Looks like broadcast guys get to go in first, then the rest of media, then general WWDC goers.
12:13 PM: Dip Greg are people out there betting on Steve Jobs making an appearance?
12:14 PM: Greg Kumparak Lots of debates about that, as is to be expected.
12:15 PM: Greg Kumparak It seems like at least 50% of the people here are sick. Awesome.
12:16 PM: Jim No video but live blog will continue right?
12:17 PM: Greg Kumparak Absolutely – as long as we can keep a connection up, we’ll keep updating the feed.
12:17 PM: Greg Kumparak Besides the new looking Quicktime logo, we’re not noticing anything too surprising on the banners.
12:18 PM: Greg Kumparak Mentions of 64 bit stuff alongside snow leopard, an OpenOCL logo
12:20 PM: Dip Wonder how many people out there in Moscone are carrying the “pre”? Do you see any among those who are near you?
12:20 PM: Greg Kumparak Its only media around us, so it’s a Pre/iPhone bananza.
12:24 PM: Greg Kumparak If you’re wondering, it’s starting to smell horrible.
12:25 PM: Greg Kumparak Everyone’s starting to get cranky.
12:27 PM: Greg Kumparak
12:27 PM: Greg Kumparak That logo to the lower left of “Mac” – we’re not familiar with it. Anyone ever seen it?
12:27 PM: Greg Kumparak It reads “GCD”, and looks like a stoplight.
12:28 PM: Ender is it the new OSX Grand Central?
12:28 PM: Tim “Getting Crap Done”… must be an Apple implementation of the GTD.
12:29 PM: Capt Crunch What happens when a bunch of Apple fanboys get cranky?
12:29 PM: Greg Kumparak They start using windows mobile
12:31 PM: JP Macrumors says the logo is for multithreading”Threading has left the station.
Grand Central Dispatch”
12:32 PM: Greg Kumparak Seems like half the people here have iPhones; then blackberry, then pre/android handsets throughout.
12:33 PM: Greg Kumparak There are a good number of those special Google I/O HTC Magics
12:33 PM: Greg Kumparak Line is moving! We’re heading in!
12:36 PM: Greg Kumparak we’re in. still milling toward our seat
12:38 PM: Greg Kumparak We’ve been seated. We’re stage left. pics coming in now.
12:39 PM: Greg Kumparak
12:39 PM: Greg Kumparak
12:40 PM: Greg Kumparak Funky house music is blaring
12:40 PM: Matt Psst… that’s stage right
12:41 PM: Greg Kumparak Nonsense – this is an Apple event. Anything is possible. Its a wonderful land of imagination!
12:42 PM: Greg Kumparak Male to female ratio is about 50:1 at last count.
12:42 PM: Satish ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG!
12:43 PM: Greg Kumparak Man, you guys are missing out on the funkiest house music on the planet. I’m considering bailing on this whole live blogging nonsense and starting an impromptu rave in the back.
12:45 PM: Greg Kumparak
12:46 PM: Freiteez shazam the song so we can see what it is
12:46 PM: Greg Kumparak We tried; alas, the murmur is a bit too intense.
12:49 PM: MG Howdy
12:49 PM: Greg Kumparak MG Hammer, ladies and gentlemen.
12:51 PM: Greg Kumparak We’re just gettin’ ourselves prepped, folks – main show starts in 9 minutes.
12:52 PM: Greg Kumparak Shazam continues to fail to identify the lovely beats. That’s too bad, really – it’s decent stuff.
12:53 PM: Greg Kumparak No john mayer yet. It’s funky bass beats all the way down, folks.
12:53 PM: Greg Kumparak
12:53 PM: MG And no Coldplay yet
12:53 PM: Greg Kumparak Sideways journalists using their laptops.
12:54 PM: MG Nice Greg, crotch shot?
12:54 PM: Greg Kumparak @MG: That’s all Biggs’ doing.
12:56 PM: Greg Kumparak “Good morning ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to the WWDC 2009 conference!”
12:57 PM: Greg Kumparak “At this time, as a courtesy to speakers on stage and fellow attendees, please turn off all cell phones and paging devices”
12:57 PM: Greg Kumparak Turn off your paging devices, people. Also, stop carrying pagers.
12:57 PM: MG @greg that was one of the best parts of The Hangover
12:58 PM: TD765 are they playing Dave Matthews Band
12:58 PM: Satish Thanks for ruining the movie guys.
12:58 PM: Greg Kumparak Music update: The Submarines – You, Me & The Bourgeoisie
12:59 PM: Greg Kumparak Spoiler: The Hangover features guys drinking alcoholic beverages
1:00 PM: Greg Kumparak It’s now time for the show to begin. No sign of anyone on stage yet.
1:00 PM: Greg Kumparak Lights are down
1:00 PM: Greg Kumparak The audience goes bonkers.
1:01 PM: Greg Kumparak The music.. continues.
1:01 PM: Greg Kumparak Song’s over – it’s time!c
1:01 PM: Greg Kumparak New PC/Mac ad.
1:01 PM: Greg Kumparak Hodgeman: “Welcome to WWDC!”
1:01 PM: Greg Kumparak “I wanted to be the first to wish you a week.. with..some innovation, but not too much”
1:01 PM: Greg Kumparak Doing another take:
1:02 PM: Greg Kumparak “Okay, hear me out: You’ve sold millions of iPhone apps. isnt that enough? Slow it down”
1:02 PM: Greg Kumparak Another take:
1:02 PM: Greg Kumparak “*raspberries sound*”
1:02 PM: Greg Kumparak “Hello, I’m a mac. What PC is trying to say: Have a great conference”
1:02 PM: Greg Kumparak Audience, again, goes bonkers
1:02 PM: Greg Kumparak Phil Schiller is on stage
1:03 PM: Greg Kumparak “Welcome to the 2009 WWDC. We have an amazing week planned for you. It’s incredible, for all of you — i mean all of you”
1:03 PM: Greg Kumparak “Can’t you feel the love in this room?”
1:03 PM: Greg Kumparak In 2007, OS X users were at 25 million .
1:04 PM: Greg Kumparak In 2009, it’s at 75 million.
1:04 PM: Greg Kumparak It took 7 years to get to 25
1:04 PM: Greg Kumparak but only 2 to triple it.
1:04 PM: Greg Kumparak “We will continue to give you technologies so you can build the best applications”
1:05 PM: Greg Kumparak Talking about the unibody macbook line
1:06 PM: Greg Kumparak “It let us create a laptop thats sturdier, packed with features, and amazingly thin”
1:06 PM: Greg Kumparak Recapping the roll out of unibody to the MB/MBP lines.
1:06 PM: Greg Kumparak “Even though we have a huge lead over anybodyelse in the laptop business, we dont want to stop”
1:06 PM: Greg Kumparak Brand new 15-inch MBP
1:06 PM: Greg Kumparak Just introduced.
1:06 PM: Greg Kumparak Built on Unibody
1:06 PM: Greg Kumparak Built-in Battery
1:06 PM: Greg Kumparak Up to 7 hours of battery life
1:07 PM: John Biggs
1:07 PM: Greg Kumparak (2 hours more than before)
1:07 PM: Greg Kumparak More environmentally friendly.
1:07 PM: Greg Kumparak Old batteries would get about 300 recharges before they started to wear down
1:07 PM: Greg Kumparak The new ones get 1,000 full recharge cycles
1:07 PM: Greg Kumparak Generally, that’s 5 years of life.
1:07 PM: John Biggs
1:07 PM: Greg Kumparak “Most customers will never need to change the battery in their laptop”, as it’ll last longer than their MBP’s specs will.
1:08 PM: John Biggs
1:08 PM: Greg Kumparak The new 15″ is just as thin and just as light as the old one.
1:08 PM: Greg Kumparak “Nicest display we’ve ever put in a notebook”
1:08 PM: John Biggs
1:08 PM: Greg Kumparak Something different: New port
1:08 PM: Greg Kumparak No express card slot
1:08 PM: Greg Kumparak SD Card slot!
1:08 PM: Greg Kumparak They’ve replaced the expresscard slot with SD.
1:09 PM: Greg Kumparak “Most of our customers use digital cameras – of course, you can plug it in. But customers like the convenience of popping in a card”, goes on to say SD is standard now.
1:09 PM: Greg Kumparak Fastest notebook Apple has ever made
1:09 PM: Greg Kumparak Up to 3.06 ghz dual core, 6 MB L2 Cache
1:09 PM: Greg Kumparak Up to 8 Gigs up 1066 Mhz DDR3
1:09 PM: Greg Kumparak Up to 500GB on a spinning disc
1:09 PM: Greg Kumparak or 256 GB on a Solid state drive
1:10 PM: Greg Kumparak $1699
1:10 PM: Greg Kumparak Starting price of the new 15″ MBP: $1699.
1:10 PM: John Biggs
1:10 PM: Greg Kumparak $1699 with 2.53 ghz, 4gb of ram, 250gb drive, 9400m, sd slot
1:10 PM: Greg Kumparak $1999 = 2.6 ghz 4gb DDR3 320gb hdd, 9400m + 9600m GT, SD slot
1:11 PM: Greg Kumparak $2299 – 2.8 Ghz, 4gb DDR3, 500gb HDD, 9400m + 9600m GT, SD card slot
1:11 PM: Greg Kumparak They’re also updating the 17″
Goes up to 2.8 ghz
1:11 PM: Greg Kumparak 4GB DDR
1:11 PM: Greg Kumparak 500Gb drive
1:11 PM: Greg Kumparak 9400m/9600M GT
1:11 PM: Greg Kumparak $2499 ($300 price drop)
1:11 PM: Greg Kumparak Shipping today.
1:11 PM: Greg Kumparak Both the 15″ and the revised 17″
1:12 PM: Greg Kumparak They’re now talking about the 13″ macbook
1:12 PM: Greg Kumparak Revised model
1:12 PM: Greg Kumparak 7 hours of battery life (2 hours more than before)
1:12 PM: Greg Kumparak Built in battery
1:12 PM: John Biggs
1:12 PM: Greg Kumparak Same “Incredible, new, vivid color display”
1:12 PM: Greg Kumparak Same SD card slot
1:12 PM: Greg Kumparak The macbook didn’t have an expresscard slot before, so it was a bit of a squeeze
1:13 PM: Greg Kumparak “What other things could we add to just make it a Macbook Pro?”
1:13 PM: Greg Kumparak Up to 8GB of ram.
1:13 PM: Greg Kumparak Backlit keyboard!
1:13 PM: Greg Kumparak And a firewire 800 port!
1:13 PM: Greg Kumparak 13″ Macbook is now a Macbook Pro.
1:13 PM: Greg Kumparak $1199.
1:14 PM: Greg Kumparak The new 13″ Macbook (now a Pro model) will be $1199.
1:14 PM: Greg Kumparak Base model is $1199, 2.25 ghz 2GB DDR3, 9400m Graphics, 160GB hdd, Sd card slot
1:14 PM: Greg Kumparak $1499: 2.53 ghz, 4 gigs of ddr3, 9400m, sd card slot
1:14 PM: Greg Kumparak Available today.
1:15 PM: John Biggs
1:15 PM: John Biggs
1:15 PM: Greg Kumparak They’re also updating the Macbook Air
1:15 PM: Greg Kumparak 1.86 ghz for $1499
1:15 PM: Greg Kumparak $300 price drop
1:16 PM: Greg Kumparak Higher end MB Air: 2.13 ghz with a 128GB solid state drive, $1799
1:16 PM: Greg Kumparak (Thats a $700 price drop)
1:16 PM: Greg Kumparak Every Macbook, Macbook Pro, and Air meets energy star requirement V5 – which isn’t even standard till summer.
1:16 PM: Greg Kumparak “The world’s greenest lineup of notebooks”
1:17 PM: John Biggs
1:17 PM: Greg Kumparak They’re moving on to OS X
1:17 PM: John Biggs
1:17 PM: Greg Kumparak Someone else entered the stage; I missed the name, but I believe it was Bertrand Sertlet
1:17 PM: Greg Kumparak Discussing OS X’s merits.
1:18 PM: Greg Kumparak How great it is, how great reviews have been.
1:18 PM: Greg Kumparak Says “What a contrast”, with Windows Vista logo on the screen.
1:18 PM: Greg Kumparak “Even with Windows 7, you have all the same technologies: DLLs, the registry, disk defragging. Users should never have to know about that.”
1:18 PM: Greg Kumparak Just made a jab at UAC hassles in Windows Vista/7
1:19 PM: Greg Kumparak “Our challenge was to build a better Leopard”
1:19 PM: John Biggs
1:20 PM: John Biggs
1:20 PM: Greg Kumparak Brief mention of Exchange support in Snow Leopard.
1:20 PM: John Biggs
1:20 PM: John Biggs
1:20 PM: Greg Kumparak “We love the way the finder is in Leopard – so we didn’t change a thing. At least, not the user interface”
1:20 PM: Greg Kumparak Finder has been rewritten in Cocoa:
1:20 PM: Greg Kumparak Listing differences quickly
1:20 PM: Greg Kumparak Faster icon drawing
Faster trash emptying
1:20 PM: Greg Kumparak New disc eject manager
1:21 PM: Greg Kumparak “My desktop now has a little too much clutter. We’ve had expose.. so we built expose into the dock”
1:21 PM: Greg Kumparak (Meh)
1:21 PM: Greg Kumparak The installation process has been sped up by 45%.
1:22 PM: Greg Kumparak Updating to Snow Leopard will actually save you 6GB of space, thanks to compression technologies
1:22 PM: Greg Kumparak They’re discussing text selection in PDFs; it’s now handled much more logically.
1:23 PM: Greg Kumparak People clap, because people are strange.
1:23 PM: Greg Kumparak Mail has been sped up across the board
1:23 PM: John Biggs
1:23 PM: Greg Kumparak Now on to discussing Safari
1:24 PM: Greg Kumparak Final version of Safari 4 will ship today for Leopard, Tiger, and Windows XP/Vista
1:24 PM: Greg Kumparak Benchmarking Safari’s javascript
1:24 PM: Greg Kumparak Safari 4 Javascript is around 8x faster than IE 8′s
1:24 PM: Greg Kumparak 100/100 on the Acid3 test
1:24 PM: Greg Kumparak Showing IE8′s score: 21/100
1:25 PM: Greg Kumparak “Crash resistance”
1:25 PM: Greg Kumparak “The #1 reason for crashes is actually plugins” If your plugin crashes in Safari 4, it’s no problem
1:25 PM: John Biggs
1:25 PM: Greg Kumparak they’ve seperated plugins into a seperate process
1:25 PM: John Biggs
1:26 PM: John Biggs
1:26 PM: Greg Kumparak If a plugin fails, it’ll just load the “Plugin not found” graphic and keep ticking.
1:26 PM: Greg Kumparak New version of Quicktime
1:26 PM: Greg Kumparak “Quicktime X”
1:26 PM: Greg Kumparak Modern Foundation
1:26 PM: Greg Kumparak Hardware acceleration
Color Sync
1:26 PM: Greg Kumparak HTTP Streaming
1:26 PM: Greg Kumparak New UI for Quicktime
1:27 PM: Greg Kumparak Looks very similar to the preview window.
1:27 PM: Greg Kumparak If you pull the mouse away, the border and all play controls fade away
1:27 PM: Greg Kumparak so it’s purely video, floating along.
1:27 PM: Greg Kumparak Craig Federighi is on stage, VP of Mac OS Engineering.
1:27 PM: John Biggs
1:27 PM: John Biggs
1:27 PM: Greg Kumparak That’s the new, new quicktime Logo.
1:28 PM: Greg Kumparak Talking about stacks:
Stacks have scrolling support, and you can jump into folders directly within stacks
1:28 PM: Greg Kumparak Thumbnail sizes can now be magnified on the fly in finder.
1:28 PM: Greg Kumparak You can page through PDFs right on the thumbnail
1:28 PM: Greg Kumparak You can preview videos right within the thumbnail
1:29 PM: Greg Kumparak Thumbnail view just became usable, hurray!
1:29 PM: Greg Kumparak Back on to discussing Dock Expose
1:29 PM: Greg Kumparak Wow, that’s actually really nifty
1:29 PM: Greg Kumparak If you click and hold any application icon on your dock
1:29 PM: Greg Kumparak it’ll expose just those windows
1:30 PM: Greg Kumparak For example, click and hold safari icon: BAM. All your safari windows, expose’d.
1:30 PM: John Biggs
1:30 PM: Greg Kumparak That includes drag and drop support; you can drag a movie file to the mail icon, and all of your mail windows will line up, allowing you to drag directly to the right one.
1:30 PM: Greg Kumparak Demonstrating Safari 4′s speed.
1:31 PM: Greg Kumparak It does indeed seem incredibly fast.
1:32 PM: Greg Kumparak Demonstrating coverflow view of History, with spotlight search.
1:32 PM: Greg Kumparak Demonstrating QuickTime X again.
1:33 PM: Greg Kumparak Once again showing that the border, titlebar, and controls fade away when the mouse is pulled away.
1:33 PM: Greg Kumparak You can now trim/share videos directly within QuickTime.
1:33 PM: Greg Kumparak You can scrub smoothly to find the begin/end point, hit the trim button , then share to iTunes/MobileMe/YouTube.
1:34 PM: Greg Kumparak Bertrand is back on stage.
1:34 PM: Greg Kumparak Discussing the new technologies available to macs.
1:35 PM: Greg Kumparak Recapping RAM enhancements, Intel CPU enhancements, the new GPUs
1:35 PM: Greg Kumparak “To take advantage of this, you need the right software”
1:35 PM: Greg Kumparak “First – 64 bit. Take advantage of lots and lots of memory. in 32 bit, it has an inherent limit of 4gb. in 64 bit, you’re limited to 16 billion gigabytes.”
1:36 PM: Greg Kumparak Discussing how they’re moving more and more towards 64 bit; all major Apple applications are 64 bit in snow leopard.
1:36 PM: John Biggs I made the ScribbleLive window longer. Feel free to refresh.
1:37 PM: Greg Kumparak Discussing how to take advantage of multi CPU cores and threading.
1:37 PM: Greg Kumparak “Grand Central Dispatch”
1:37 PM: John Biggs
1:37 PM: Greg Kumparak “Its built in support for multicore, across all of Snow Leopard”
1:37 PM: Greg Kumparak Language Extension, Multicore engine, object oriented frame work, new system-wide APIs, new Tools (to tune your program)
1:37 PM: John Biggs
1:38 PM: Greg Kumparak Every time he says “Threads”, I think he’s saying “Freds”
1:38 PM: Greg Kumparak Discussing OpenCL support.
1:38 PM: John Biggs
1:39 PM: Greg Kumparak “We want to move beyond [OpenGL].”
1:39 PM: Greg Kumparak “For that, we’ve built OpenCL”
1:39 PM: Greg Kumparak Open CL Features: Hardware Abstraction, C-based language, Automatic optimization, Numerical Accuracy.
1:39 PM: Greg Kumparak (That last one meaning it can be used for scientific computing)
1:40 PM: Greg Kumparak Partners: Samsung, Nvidia, EA, Texas Instruments, Nokia, Qualcomm, Intel, QNX, Freescale, many more.
1:40 PM: Greg Kumparak Recapping the 3 major technologies in Snow Leopard: 64-bit across the board, Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL
1:40 PM: Greg Kumparak Moving on to business users – Exchange support coming up
1:41 PM: Greg Kumparak “We’ve decided to build exchange support in snow leopard into Mail, iCal, and address book”
1:41 PM: Greg Kumparak “You fill in your email address and password – and you’re set, across all 3 apps”
1:41 PM: Greg Kumparak They’re about to demo Exchange.
1:42 PM: John Biggs Autodiscovery of Exchange servers.
1:42 PM: John Biggs Exchange sync is seamless.
1:43 PM: John Biggs Spotlight searches Exchange data and you can QuickLook MS Office files right in emails – whether or not you have MS Office installed.
1:43 PM: John Biggs Good move towards business users. Invitations work in iCal and in Email. See everything in context.
1:44 PM: John Biggs Schedule meetings by dragging contacts into calendar
1:44 PM: John Biggs Room availability info now works.
1:44 PM: John Biggs Checks for available meeting times in certain rooms.
1:44 PM: John Biggs Automatic rescheduling if the meeting room is being used.
1:45 PM: John Biggs This is aimed straight at business users.
1:46 PM: John Biggs All intel Macs can run Snow Leopard.
1:46 PM: John Biggs Snow Leopard costs $29 for Leopard users.
1:47 PM: John Biggs Family pack for $49
1:47 PM: John Biggs Available this September
1:47 PM: John Biggs Today they have a near final Dev Preview
1:47 PM: John Biggs
1:47 PM: John Biggs
1:48 PM: John Biggs
1:48 PM: Greg Kumparak iPhone time!
1:48 PM: John Biggs iPhone time
1:48 PM: Greg Kumparak Over 1,000,000 downloads of the SDK
1:48 PM: Greg Kumparak There are now over 50,000 apps in the App Store.
1:49 PM: Greg Kumparak “We have already sold over 40 million iPhones and iPod Touches”
1:49 PM: Greg Kumparak Discussing the April 23rd/1 billion downloads landmark.
1:49 PM: Greg Kumparak “Thank you to our customers – but especially, thank you to the developers”
1:50 PM: Greg Kumparak Showing an iPhone developer video
1:50 PM: Greg Kumparak Opens up to a major city; looks like Tokyo.
Shibuya, I believe
1:50 PM: Greg Kumparak Panning through multiple developers, telling tales of their experiences with the iPhone.
1:51 PM: John Biggs Dizzy Bee guy travels and makes games
1:51 PM: John Biggs
1:52 PM: John Biggs
1:52 PM: Greg Kumparak Still more experiences; MLB.com guy telling of seeing a ton of people download their MLB.com app right as an Apple commercial featuring it airs
1:53 PM: Greg Kumparak (It’s still the video, by the way)
1:53 PM: John Biggs
1:55 PM: Greg Kumparak Video’s over.
1:55 PM: John Biggs Owe the amazing years to Developers
1:55 PM: John Biggs iPhone OS 3.0
1:55 PM: Greg Kumparak Over 100 new features in iPhone os 3.0
1:55 PM: Greg Kumparak Recapping Cut/Copy/Paste
1:56 PM: Greg Kumparak Cut, copy, paste: Works across apps, undo support, developer APIs – still mostly a recap.
1:56 PM: Greg Kumparak Now recapping Landscape support in first-party apps
1:57 PM: Greg Kumparak Recapping MMS
1:57 PM: John Biggs
1:57 PM: Greg Kumparak Support for sending Photos, contacts, audio files, etc over the cell network
1:57 PM: John Biggs
1:58 PM: Greg Kumparak 24 carriers will support iphone MMS at launch
1:58 PM: Greg Kumparak Recapping search now: Search throughout contacts, calendars, notes, email, etc
1:58 PM: Greg Kumparak “The great part about searching your email:” not just local messages, but messages that are back on your mail server.
1:58 PM: Greg Kumparak Spotlight page recap: One page, searches across the phone.
1:59 PM: Greg Kumparak Confirms movie rentals/purchases from the phone.
1:59 PM: Greg Kumparak You can also purchase tv shows/audio books/etc on the go.
1:59 PM: Greg Kumparak “And because we care deeply about education: Support for iTunes U, right on the phone”
2:00 PM: Greg Kumparak Parental Controls:
2:00 PM: John Biggs
2:00 PM: Greg Kumparak In addition to controls we already support, such as youtube/safari support, we’ve added other items:
2:00 PM: Greg Kumparak You can now filter by movie/tv-show content via parental controls.
2:00 PM: Greg Kumparak You can now limit app usage by age ratings.
2:00 PM: Greg Kumparak Tethering:
2:01 PM: Greg Kumparak Tethering works w/ Mac/PC, USB or Bluetooth
2:01 PM: Greg Kumparak “It is a seamless experience – once it’s on, there’s no need for tethering software on your computer”
2:01 PM: John Biggs
2:01 PM: Greg Kumparak “Like MMS, it requires carrier support. 22 carriers at launch. Telefonica, TIM, Rogers, more”
2:02 PM: John Biggs
2:02 PM: Greg Kumparak Aaaand no mention of AT&T.
2:02 PM: Greg Kumparak Audience groans.
2:02 PM: John Biggs
2:02 PM: John Biggs
2:02 PM: John Biggs
2:02 PM: Greg Kumparak Safari Mobile: Javascript is now 3x faster
2:02 PM: John Biggs
2:02 PM: Greg Kumparak Support for HTTP streaming audio/video
2:03 PM: Greg Kumparak It automatically picks the proper quality based off your connection
2:03 PM: Greg Kumparak And works through firewalls, as it’s HTTP>
2:03 PM: Greg Kumparak Discussing password autofill
2:03 PM: Greg Kumparak Safari can now autofill forms for you based on what’s in your contacts.
2:04 PM: Greg Kumparak Safari 4 recap: Performance upgrades, HTTP streaming, Auto fill, hTML 5.
2:04 PM: John Biggs
2:04 PM: John Biggs
2:04 PM: Greg Kumparak New language support is OS 3.0:
2:04 PM: Greg Kumparak Hebrew, Arabic, Greek
2:04 PM: Greg Kumparak Korean, and Thai
2:04 PM: Greg Kumparak “We now support more than 30 languages”
2:05 PM: John Biggs
2:05 PM: Greg Kumparak Discussing find my iPhone feature
2:05 PM: Greg Kumparak “If you’ve ever lost or misplaced your phone, it can be tramatic”
2:05 PM: Greg Kumparak Hah!
2:05 PM: Greg Kumparak Rolling to a video
2:05 PM: Greg Kumparak It’s the 30 rock crew!
2:06 PM: Greg Kumparak Liz Lemon has lost a phone w/ her nudie pics
2:07 PM: John Biggs FindMyIphone: MobileMe Service
2:07 PM: John Biggs Lose your iphone, it’ll show you on a map where it is.
2:07 PM: John Biggs Send your phone a message via landline
2:07 PM: John Biggs Alert sound plays whether phone is on silent or not
2:08 PM: John Biggs Send remote wipe command if it’s lost or stolen
2:09 PM: John Biggs In app purchase. Financial transactions within the app.
2:09 PM: John Biggs Renew magazine subscriptions. Sell additional game packs in games.
2:09 PM: John Biggs Free apps remain free. No bait and switch.
2:09 PM: John Biggs
2:09 PM: John Biggs Peer-to-peer game connectivity.
2:10 PM: John Biggs
2:10 PM: John Biggs No pairing needed
2:10 PM: John Biggs Accessories – Opening up hardware accessory devs
2:11 PM: John Biggs Software apps that talk right to accessories. 1-touch-blood glucose monitor.
2:11 PM: John Biggs Maps
2:11 PM: John Biggs Embed google maps right into your applications
2:12 PM: John Biggs Custom map apps
2:12 PM: John Biggs Turn by turn direction applications
2:12 PM: John Biggs Push notifications
2:12 PM: John Biggs Generic push notification service.
2:13 PM: John Biggs push numeric badges, messages, and alert sounds
2:13 PM: John Biggs Some devs are coming up who have already used iPhone 3.0
2:13 PM: John Biggs GameLoft’s Mark Hickey is coming up
2:14 PM: John Biggs Asphalt 5
2:14 PM: John Biggs Gameloft
2:14 PM: John Biggs Buggati, BMW, Audi cars
2:14 PM: John Biggs Play iPod music inside games.
2:15 PM: John Biggs New controls and graphics. Console quality games.
2:16 PM: John Biggs In game voice chat. Content packs – racetracks and cars
2:16 PM: John Biggs
2:17 PM: John Biggs Medical community flocking to iPhone
2:17 PM: John Biggs
2:18 PM: John Biggs
2:18 PM: John Biggs
2:18 PM: John Biggs See patient’s vital signs on an app
2:18 PM: John Biggs Real-time data straight out of iPhone
2:18 PM: John Biggs
2:18 PM: John Biggs
2:19 PM: John Biggs
2:19 PM: John Biggs Airstrip critical care is getting FDA approval shortly.
2:20 PM: John Biggs
2:20 PM: John Biggs ScrollMotion is now on stage
2:21 PM: John Biggs They’ve partnered with a ton of magazine and book publishers
2:21 PM: John Biggs They’re now demonstrating the “In App Bookshelf” and the “Iceberg Store”
2:21 PM: John Biggs in which you can purchase books right within the App.
2:22 PM: John Biggs For Students: Copy/Paste right from a book, allowing you to email quotes directly
2:22 PM: John Biggs along w/ the bibliographic info.
2:22 PM: John Biggs Text books coming to the app store via Iceberg reader.
2:22 PM: John Biggs Now on stage: TomTom
2:24 PM: John Biggs Demonstrating TomTom turn-by-turn nav
2:25 PM: John Biggs Showing off a TomTom branded iPhone holder
2:25 PM: John Biggs “Thanks to the accessory framework, we can enhance your GPS signal”
2:25 PM: John Biggs Plus a built in speaker/mic for the sake of handsfree
2:25 PM: John Biggs “And yes, we’ll play your music over the car stereo”
2:27 PM: john
2:28 PM: John Biggs Demonstrating Star Defense
2:28 PM: John Biggs Next up: NGMoco
2:28 PM: John Biggs
2:29 PM: John Biggs PASCO teaching tools
2:31 PM: John Biggs spark application.
2:31 PM: John Biggs PASCO science experiments for kids – sensors that connect to iPhone
2:33 PM: John Biggs Do science anytime anywhere.
2:33 PM: John Biggs Demonstrated – but failed – on a pressure measurement.
2:33 PM: John Biggs ZipCar
2:34 PM: john
2:35 PM: John Biggs ZipCar icon instantly finds and reserves a zipcar
2:35 PM: John Biggs Sorry this is so boring, guys.
2:36 PM: John Biggs You reserve cars right on the iPhone, add cars to favorites. You can then press the horn icon on the iPhone and the zipcar will beep at you.
2:36 PM: John Biggs Once you come up to the car you tap unlock to unlock it.
2:37 PM: John Biggs Shows available zipcars nearby
2:37 PM: John Biggs YAY. Final demo. Line 6 and Planet Waves
2:37 PM: John Biggs Control your guitar and your amp from your iPhone
2:37 PM: John Biggs Bringing out a guitar
2:38 PM: John Biggs No mention of Flash
2:38 PM: John Biggs MIDI Mobilizer
2:38 PM: John Biggs Directly connect and iPhone to a Line 6 amp and guitar
2:39 PM: John Biggs Kind of like automatic pedals
2:39 PM: John Biggs Adjust parameters on the fly – gain, etc.
2:39 PM: John Biggs Acoustic twelve string
2:40 PM: John Biggs VariX guitar – move pick-ups and body style from the screen.
2:40 PM: John Biggs Change tuning virtually.
2:40 PM: John Biggs Rig Remote software. Veta amp has guitar models built-in. You tap a button to select the sound model.
2:40 PM: greg Wuhoh. This demo failed too. These folks aren’t having too much luck
2:41 PM: John Biggs Looks like we’re hitting the end of demos
2:42 PM: John Biggs End of iPhone OS 3.0
2:42 PM: John Biggs Free for iPhone customers – original and iPhone 3G
2:42 PM: John Biggs $9.95 for iPod touch customers
2:42 PM: John Biggs Available June 17 worldwide
2:43 PM: John Biggs Devs get GM seed for iPhone 3.0
2:43 PM: John Biggs Calls of action: go to iTunes Connect and assign a parental control age rating for your app. Download the 3.0 seed. Submit an update.
2:44 PM: John Biggs Phil Schiller back up on stage.
2:44 PM: John Biggs iPhone 3G is a hit
2:44 PM: John Biggs Phone that changed phones forever. Changes who people thing about phones.
2:46 PM: John Biggs Nokia Ovi store, Palm, all have no apps.
2:46 PM: John Biggs iPhone 3GS!!!!
2:46 PM: John Biggs iPhone 3Gs SPEED
2:46 PM: John Biggs s stands for Speed
2:46 PM: John Biggs Same great design
2:47 PM: John Biggs Really fast iPhone
2:47 PM: John Biggs 2.4 x faster to play games
2:47 PM: John Biggs 3.6x faster
2:48 PM: John Biggs 3x faster javascript
2:48 PM: John Biggs OPEN GL|ES 2.0
2:48 PM: John Biggs 7.2 Mbps HSDPA
2:48 PM: john
2:48 PM: greg Roughly 2x faster over all
2:48 PM: John Biggs Brand new camera
2:49 PM: John Biggs 3 megapixel autofocus camera
2:49 PM: john
2:50 PM: John Biggs Tap to focus. Tap on items to focus on stuff. Tap on house – focus on house. Tap on flower – focus on flower.
2:50 PM: John Biggs Images coming
2:50 PM: John Biggs Auto macro
2:50 PM: John Biggs Also captures video
2:51 PM: John Biggs Still or Movie
2:52 PM: John Biggs edit video with a tap of your finger. share from iPhone – send MMS, send email, send YouTube, MobileMe
2:53 PM: John Biggs Most popular video camera
2:53 PM: greg 30 FPS VGA, auto lighting, auto focus,
2:54 PM: John Biggs dial friends and family with voice
2:56 PM: John Biggs Hold down home button
2:57 PM: John Biggs “Play songs by the killers.”
2:57 PM: John Biggs Genius playlist control
2:57 PM: John Biggs Built in digital compass
2:57 PM: John Biggs some guy just screamed
2:57 PM: John Biggs compass app
2:57 PM: John Biggs Built in Nike+ support
2:57 PM: John Biggs Hardware encryption on the data
2:57 PM: greg The wwdc network just melted. Compass confirmed. map auto orients.
Nike plus support.
2:57 PM: greg Hardware encryption: when you wipe, it’s instant.
Sent from my iPhone
2:57 PM: john
2:58 PM: John Biggs Instant wipe with encryption
2:58 PM: John Biggs Improved battery life
2:58 PM: John Biggs 9 hours internet surfing 30 hours of music listening
2:58 PM: John Biggs Greenest iPhone yet
2:58 PM: greg
Sent from my iPhone
2:58 PM: John Biggs No images for now, guys. Our network is getting saturated.
2:59 PM: John Biggs iPhone 3G – price
2:59 PM: John Biggs $199
2:59 PM: John Biggs 16GB version
2:59 PM: John Biggs $299 for 32GB version
2:59 PM: John Biggs AT&T prices – new and qualifying customers
3:00 PM: John Biggs Black and white
3:00 PM: John Biggs WE WANT TO REACH EVEN MORE CUSTOMERS
3:00 PM: John Biggs Keep iPhone 3G at $99
3:00 PM: John Biggs WHOMP
3:00 PM: John Biggs High end smartphone for $99
3:01 PM: John Biggs Starts today. New iPhone 3G on sale today for $99 (8GB)
3:01 PM: John Biggs iPhone 3GS available June 19
3:01 PM: John Biggs US canada france germany switzerland
3:01 PM: John Biggs July 09 roll out rest of world
3:01 PM: John Biggs 80 countries
3:02 PM: John Biggs showing new ad
3:03 PM: John Biggs WWDC BINGO WIN
3:04 PM: John Biggs 11 minutes of battery life
3:04 PM: John Biggs left on my MacBook Pro
3:04 PM: John Biggs Thanking all the teams
3:04 PM: John Biggs June 19 should be in UK, Dave
3:04 PM: Dave Bondy Why no 3GS in the UK on June 19! What game are Apple / O2 playing?
3:05 PM: John Biggs I just didn’t get to type it
3:05 PM: John Biggs NO ONE MORE THING
3:05 PM: John Biggs
3:05 PM: John Biggs ok, guys. thanks for tuning in.
3:05 PM: John Biggs No Jobs

iPhone 3.0 available on June 17 worldwide

Peter Ha — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:44:43 +0000

Woohoo! I should probably take my borked iPhone 3G into the Apple store before June 17th so I can get my free upgrade to 3.0. The OS upgrade will be free for iPhone and iPhone 3G owners. As always, Touch owners will have to pony up $10.

iPhone 3.0: What You Need to Know

Peter Ha — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:05:55 +0000

We’ve known about 3.0 for some time and today Apple revealed a few more nuggets to get you excited about the upcoming OS upgrade on the iPhone.

Cut, Copy, Paste: Works across apps, undo support, developer APIs.

MMS: Support for sending Photos, contacts, audio files, etc over the cell network. 24 carriers will support iphone MMS at launch.

Search: Search throughout contacts, calendars, notes, email, etc. “The great part about searching your email:” not just local messages, but messages that are back on your mail server. In other words: One-page searches across the phone.

iTunes: Movie rentals/purchases from the iPhone are confirmed. You can also purchase tv shows/audio books/etc on the go. “And because we care deeply about education: Support for iTunes U, right on the phone.”

Parental Controls: In addition to controls we already support, such as youtube/safari support, we’ve added other items: You can now filter by movie/tv-show content via parental controls. You can now limit app usage by age ratings.

Tethering: Tethering works w/ Mac/PC, USB or Bluetooth. “It is a seamless experience – once it’s on, there’s no need for tethering software on your computer.” “Like MMS, it requires carrier support. 22 carriers at launch. Telefonica, TIM, Rogers, more.” Doesn’t look like AT&T will support tethering.

Safari Mobile: Javascript is now 3x faster. Support for HTTP streaming audio/video. It automatically picks the proper quality based off your connection. And works through firewalls, as it’s HTTP>. Safari can now autofill forms for you based on what’s in your contacts. Safari 4 recap: Performance upgrades, HTTP streaming, Auto fill, HTML 5.

New language support in OS 3.0: Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Korean, and Thai. The iPhone now supports over 30 languages.

Find My iPhone: As MobileMe service if your iPhone is ever lost FMI will show you where it is on a map by sending your phone a message via landline. An alert sound plays whether phone is on silent or not. Send remote wipe command if it’s lost or stolen.

In App Purchases: Renew magazine subscriptions. Sell additional game packs in games. Free apps remain free. No bait and switch.

Accessories: Software apps that talk right to accessories, like the 1-touch-blood glucose monitor. Apple has really opened up to third-party accessory manufacturers.

Maps: Embed Google maps right into your applications. Custom map apps. Turn by turn direction applications.

Push notifications: Generic push notification service. Push numeric badges, messages, and alert sounds.

3.0 release date: Woohoo! I should probably take my borked iPhone 3G into the Apple store before June 17th so I can get my free upgrade to 3.0. The OS upgrade will be free for iPhone and iPhone 3G owners. As always, Touch owners will have to pony up $10.

OS X Snow Leopard: September and for $29

Matt Burns — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:58:14 +0000

Goodness, that’s cheap. Apple is releasing OS X Snow Leopard this September for only $29. Yeah, $29, but only for Leopard users. Users of older versions of OS X will have to pony up $129 for the full update though. Even at the full price, it sure beats the hell out of whatever Windows 7 turns out to be: $399, $499? Hopefully Microsoft is taking notes but probably not.

SAN FRANCISCO, June 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today unveiled Mac OS(R) X Snow Leopard(TM), an even more powerful and refined version of the world’s most advanced operating system and the foundation for future Mac(R) innovation. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies, out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange and new accessibility features. Snow Leopard will ship as an upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard users in September 2009 for $29.

“We’ve built on the success of Leopard and created an even better experience for our users from installation to shutdown,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Apple engineers have made hundreds of improvements so with Snow Leopard your system is going to feel faster, more responsive and even more reliable than before.”

To create Snow Leopard, Apple engineers focused on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system, refining 90 percent of the more than 1,000 projects in Mac OS X. Users will notice a more responsive Finder(TM); Mail that loads messages 85 percent faster and conducts searches up to 90 percent faster;* Time Machine(R) with up to 50 percent faster initial backup;* a Dock with Expose integration; a 64-bit version of Safari(R) 4 that boosts the performance of the Nitro JavaScript engine by up to 50 percent** and is resistant to crashes caused by plug-ins. Snow Leopard also includes an all new QuickTime(R) X, with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video to YouTube, MobileMe(TM) or iTunes(R). Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 6GB of drive space once installed.

For the first time, system applications including Finder, Mail, iCal(R), iChat(R) and Safari are 64-bit and Snow Leopard’s support for 64-bit processors makes use of large amounts of RAM, increases performance, and improves security while remaining compatible with 32-bit applications. Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) provides a revolutionary new way for software to take advantage of multicore processors. GCD is integrated throughout Snow Leopard, from new system-wide APIs to high-level frameworks and programming language extensions, improving responsiveness across the system. OpenCL, a C-based open standard, allows developers to tap the incredible power of the graphics processing unit for tasks that go beyond graphics.

Snow Leopard builds support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 right into Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal so you can use these applications to send and receive email, create and respond to meeting invitations, and search and manage your contacts with global address lists. Exchange information works seamlessly within Snow Leopard so users can take advantage of OS X only features such as fast Spotlight(TM) searches and Quick Look previews. Snow Leopard is the only desktop operating system with out of the box support for Exchange 2007 and businesses of any size will find it easier to integrate Macs into their organization.

Every Mac includes innovative features and technologies for users with special needs, and Snow Leopard adds groundbreaking new features that make the Mac experience even more accessible to those with a vision impairment. Apple’s Multi-Touch(TM) trackpad is now integrated with the VoiceOver screen reader so users can hear and navigate different parts of a window or the desktop by moving a single finger around the trackpad as if it were the screen. Snow Leopard also introduces built-in support for wireless bluetooth braille displays and the connection of multiple braille displays simultaneously to one Mac.

Pricing & Availability

Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard in September 2009 through the Apple Store(R) (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The Snow Leopard single user license will be available for a suggested retail price of $29 (US) and the Snow Leopard Family Pack, a single household, five-user license, will be available for a suggested price of $49 (US). For Tiger(R) users with an Intel-based Mac, the Mac Box Set includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife(R) ’09 and iWork(R) ’09 and will be available for a suggested price of $169 (US) and a Family Pack is available for a suggested price of $229 (US).

The Mac OS X Snow Leopard Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller between June 8, 2009 and the end of the program on December 26, 2009, for a product plus shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Users must request their Up-To-Date upgrade within 90 days of purchase or by December 26, 2009, whichever comes first. For more information please visit www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate. Snow Leopard requires a minimum of 1GB of RAM and is designed to run on any Mac computer with an Intel processor. Full system requirements can be found at www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs.

*Testing conducted by Apple in May 2009 comparing prerelease Mac OS X Snow Leopard v10.6 with shipping Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7 using shipping MacBook(R) 2.0 GHz systems with 2GB of RAM and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M (256MB) and shipping generation iMac(R) 2.66 GHz systems with 2GB of RAM and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M (256MB).

**Testing conducted by Apple in May 2009 comparing 64-bit Safari 4 to 32-bit Safari 4 on prerelease Mac OS X Snow Leopard v10.6. Performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection and other factors. All testing conducted on an iMac 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system running Mac OS X Snow Leopard, with 2GB of RAM. JavaScript benchmark based on the SunSpider JavaScript Performance test.

Safari 4 final available today: Now ‘crash resistant’ à la Google Chrome

Nicholas Deleon — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:39:56 +0000

And what else did Apple unveil today, hmm? How about the final version of Safari 4! Yup, it should be available to download today at some point.

Apple’s touting Safari 4′s Javascript performance, something that shouldn’t surprise those of you running WebKit. Apple says it’s eight times faster than IE8′s Javascript engine, and also passes the Acid3 test at 100/100. IE8′s score? 21/100.

The biggest news, though, is that, like Google Chrome, Safari 4 now hands each plugin off to its own process. So if you’re watching a YouTube video and the Flash plugin crashes, only that tab will crash and not the whole browser. God that makes me happy.

That is all.

Apple upgrades the 13-inch MacBook to Pro status

Peter Ha — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:23:34 +0000

Apple just introduced a revised 13-inch MacBook at WWDC that now joins the Pro line of notebooks. It starts at $1199 and comes with a built-in battery with seven hours of juice, an SD card slot, up to 8GB of RAM, a backlit keyboard and FireWire 800.

Base model is $1199, 2.25 GHz, 2GB DDR3, 9400m Graphics, 160GB HDD, and an SD card slot.

The next model up starts at $1499 and comes with a 2.53 GHz proc, 4GB of DDR3, 9400m Graphics card, and an SD card slot.

SAN FRANCISCO, June 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today updated the aluminum unibody MacBook(R) Pro line to include 13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch models featuring Apple’s innovative built-in battery for up to 40 percent longer battery life. Each MacBook Pro includes an LED-backlit display with greater color intensity, the innovative glass Multi-Touch(TM) trackpad, an illuminated keyboard, an SD card or ExpressCard slot, a FireWire(R) 800 port and state of the art NVIDIA graphics. Starting at just $1,199, the MacBook Pro line is more affordable than ever, with some models up to $300 less than the previous generation. The industry’s greenest notebook lineup, every Mac(R) notebook achieves EPEAT* Gold status and meets Energy Star 5.0 requirements, setting a new standard for environmentally friendly notebook design.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090608/SF28883)

“Across the line, all of our new MacBook Pro models now include Apple’s innovative built-in battery for up to seven hours of battery life, while staying just as thin and light as before,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Starting at just $1,199, the aluminum unibody MacBook Pro is more affordable than ever and sets a new standard for environmentally friendly notebook design.”

The new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models include Apple’s innovative built-in notebook battery for up to seven hours of wireless productivity on a single charge without adding thickness, weight or cost. Using Adaptive Charging and advanced chemistry first introduced with the 17-inch MacBook Pro earlier this year, the built-in battery delivers up to 1,000 recharges before it reaches 80 percent of its original capacity–nearly three times the lifespan of conventional batteries.** The longer battery lifespan equals fewer depleted batteries and less waste.

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is a significant upgrade at a lower price than the original aluminum MacBook it replaces. With the same sleek and durable design popular with consumers, students and professionals, all 13-inch MacBook Pro models now include a seven hour built-in battery, an SD card slot, a FireWire 800 port, an illuminated keyboard and an improved LED-backlit display with 60 percent greater color gamut. Featuring the powerful NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is available in two models: one with a 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive priced at $1,199, and another with a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive priced at $1,499.

The perfect balance of performance and portability, the 15-inch MacBook Pro now features a seven hour built-in battery, an SD card slot, an improved LED-backlit display with 60 percent greater color gamut and 4GB of RAM across the line at an entry price $300 less than before. The new 15-inch MacBook Pro is available in three models: a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 250GB hard drive and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics for a new entry price of $1,699; a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 320GB hard drive, and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT graphics for $1,999; and a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 500GB hard drive, and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT graphics for $2,299.

The 17-inch MacBook Pro, which includes an eight hour built-in battery, an ExpressCard slot, a brilliant LED-backlit display, 4GB of RAM and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT graphics, has been updated to include a faster 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a larger 500GB hard drive for $2,499, which is $300 less than before.

All MacBook Pro systems feature Apple’s revolutionary aluminum unibody design and for the first time can be upgraded with up to 8GB of RAM, and up to a 500GB hard drive or up to a 256GB solid state drive. The 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models can also be upgraded to a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. All MacBook Pro systems include a next generation, industry-standard Mini DisplayPort to connect with the 24-inch Apple LED Cinema Display.

Apple today also updated the incredibly thin and light MacBook Air(R), making it more powerful and more affordable. Measuring just 0.16 to 0.76-inches thin and weighing just three pounds, the MacBook Air is available in two models starting with the new entry price of $1,499 for a 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 120GB hard drive and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics, and a 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 128GB solid state drive and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics for $1,799.

Every Mac notebook achieves EPEAT Gold status and meets Energy Star 5.0 requirements, setting a new standard for environmentally friendly notebook design. Each unibody enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and comes standard with energy efficient LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. All MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models contain no brominated flame retardants and use internal cables and components that are PVC-free. The built-in battery design results in less waste and depleted batteries can be replaced for $129 or $179, which includes installation and disposal of your old battery in an environmentally responsible manner.

Every MacBook Pro comes with Apple’s innovative iLife(R) ’09 featuring iPhoto(R) for managing photos, iMovie(R) for making movies and GarageBand(R) for creating and learning to play music. Every Mac also runs Leopard(R), the world’s most advanced operating system, featuring Time Machine(R), an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac; Spaces(R), an intuitive feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; Mail with easy setup and elegant, personalized stationery; and iChat(R), the most advanced video chat.

Pricing & Availability

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro, 15-inch MacBook Pro, 17-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are now available through the Apple Store(R) (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. Mac OS(R) X Snow Leopard(TM) will be shipping in September 2009, and any new Mac system purchased without Snow Leopard from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller between June 8, 2009 and the end of the program on December 26, 2009, is eligible for the Mac OS X Snow Leopard Up-To-Date upgrade package available for a product plus shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Users must request their Up-To-Date upgrade within 90 days of purchase or by December 26, 2009, or whichever comes first. For more information please visit www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate.

The 2.26 GHz, 13-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,199 (US), includes:

13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display;
2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
160GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive(R) with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme(R) 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight(R) video camera;
two USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
SD card slot;
one audio line in/out port, supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
built-in, 58WHr lithium polymer battery; and
60 Watt MagSafe(R) Power Adapter.
The 2.53 GHz, 13-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US), includes:

13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display;
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
250GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight video camera;
two USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
SD card slot;
one audio line in/out port, supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
built-in, 58WHr lithium polymer battery; and
60 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
Build-to-order options for the MacBook Pro include the ability to upgrade to 8GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, a 250GB 5400 rpm, 320GB 5400 rpm or 500GB 5400 rpm hard drive, a 128GB or 256GB solid state drive, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare(R) Protection Plan.

The 2.53 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,699 (US), includes:

15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
250GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight video camera;
two USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port;
SD card slot;
one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
built-in, 73WHr lithium polymer battery; and
60 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
The 2.66 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US), includes:

15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;
2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 256MB GDDR3 video memory;
320GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight video camera;
two USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port;
SD card slot;
one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
built-in, 73WHr lithium polymer battery; and
85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
The 2.8 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,299 (US), includes:

15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;
2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3 video memory;
500GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight video camera;
two USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port;
SD card slot;
one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
built-in, 73WHr lithium polymer battery; and
85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
Build-to-order options for the 15-inch MacBook Pro include a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, the ability to upgrade to 8GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, a 320GB 5400 rpm, 320GB 7200 rpm, 500GB 5400 rpm, or 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB or 256GB solid state drive, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

The 2.8 GHz, 17-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

17-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1920 x 1200, glossy display;
2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3 video memory;
500GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight video camera;
three USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
built-in, 95WHr lithium polymer battery; and
85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
Build-to-order options for the 17-inch MacBook Pro include a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 8GB 1066 MHz DDR 3 memory, 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB or 256GB solid state drive, anti-glare display for $50 (US), Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

*EPEAT is an independent organization that helps customers compare the environmental performance of notebooks and desktops. Products meeting all of the 23 required criteria and at least 75 percent of the optional criteria are recognized as EPEAT Gold products. The EPEAT program was conceived by the US EPA and is based on IEEE 1680 standard for Environmental Assessment of Personal Computer Products. For more information visit www.epeat.net.

**A properly maintained MacBook Pro battery is designed to retain 80 percent or more of its original capacity during a lifespan of up to 1,000 recharge cycles. Battery life and charge cycles vary by use and settings. For more information visit www.apple.com/macbookpro/battery.

Apple updates 15-inch MacBook Pro at WWDC 2009

Nicholas Deleon — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:15:53 +0000

Quick and dirty: Apple just announced an updated 15-inch MacBook Pro at WWDC, with prices starting at $1,699. It’s the same unibody design that’s proven to be so popular, but this time with much improved battery life (it lasts about two hours longer than before, and can withstand about three times as many charges as before). Oh, and there’s a built-in SD Card slot.

The staring specs:

• 2.54GHz Core 2 Duo

• 250GB HDD

• Nvidia 9400m graphics thingy

Apple also updated the MacBook Air. Big news here is the $700 (!) price drop for the high-end model—2.13GHz, 128GB SSD for $1,799—and a $300 drop for the low end—1.86GHz for $1,499.

SAN FRANCISCO, June 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today updated the aluminum unibody MacBook(R) Pro line to include 13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch models featuring Apple’s innovative built-in battery for up to 40 percent longer battery life. Each MacBook Pro includes an LED-backlit display with greater color intensity, the innovative glass Multi-Touch(TM) trackpad, an illuminated keyboard, an SD card or ExpressCard slot, a FireWire(R) 800 port and state of the art NVIDIA graphics. Starting at just $1,199, the MacBook Pro line is more affordable than ever, with some models up to $300 less than the previous generation. The industry’s greenest notebook lineup, every Mac(R) notebook achieves EPEAT* Gold status and meets Energy Star 5.0 requirements, setting a new standard for environmentally friendly notebook design.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090608/SF28883)

“Across the line, all of our new MacBook Pro models now include Apple’s innovative built-in battery for up to seven hours of battery life, while staying just as thin and light as before,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Starting at just $1,199, the aluminum unibody MacBook Pro is more affordable than ever and sets a new standard for environmentally friendly notebook design.”

The new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models include Apple’s innovative built-in notebook battery for up to seven hours of wireless productivity on a single charge without adding thickness, weight or cost. Using Adaptive Charging and advanced chemistry first introduced with the 17-inch MacBook Pro earlier this year, the built-in battery delivers up to 1,000 recharges before it reaches 80 percent of its original capacity–nearly three times the lifespan of conventional batteries.** The longer battery lifespan equals fewer depleted batteries and less waste.

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is a significant upgrade at a lower price than the original aluminum MacBook it replaces. With the same sleek and durable design popular with consumers, students and professionals, all 13-inch MacBook Pro models now include a seven hour built-in battery, an SD card slot, a FireWire 800 port, an illuminated keyboard and an improved LED-backlit display with 60 percent greater color gamut. Featuring the powerful NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is available in two models: one with a 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive priced at $1,199, and another with a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive priced at $1,499.

The perfect balance of performance and portability, the 15-inch MacBook Pro now features a seven hour built-in battery, an SD card slot, an improved LED-backlit display with 60 percent greater color gamut and 4GB of RAM across the line at an entry price $300 less than before. The new 15-inch MacBook Pro is available in three models: a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 250GB hard drive and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics for a new entry price of $1,699; a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 320GB hard drive, and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT graphics for $1,999; and a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 500GB hard drive, and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT graphics for $2,299.

The 17-inch MacBook Pro, which includes an eight hour built-in battery, an ExpressCard slot, a brilliant LED-backlit display, 4GB of RAM and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT graphics, has been updated to include a faster 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a larger 500GB hard drive for $2,499, which is $300 less than before.

All MacBook Pro systems feature Apple’s revolutionary aluminum unibody design and for the first time can be upgraded with up to 8GB of RAM, and up to a 500GB hard drive or up to a 256GB solid state drive. The 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models can also be upgraded to a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. All MacBook Pro systems include a next generation, industry-standard Mini DisplayPort to connect with the 24-inch Apple LED Cinema Display.

Apple today also updated the incredibly thin and light MacBook Air(R), making it more powerful and more affordable. Measuring just 0.16 to 0.76-inches thin and weighing just three pounds, the MacBook Air is available in two models starting with the new entry price of $1,499 for a 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 120GB hard drive and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics, and a 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 128GB solid state drive and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics for $1,799.

Every Mac notebook achieves EPEAT Gold status and meets Energy Star 5.0 requirements, setting a new standard for environmentally friendly notebook design. Each unibody enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and comes standard with energy efficient LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. All MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models contain no brominated flame retardants and use internal cables and components that are PVC-free. The built-in battery design results in less waste and depleted batteries can be replaced for $129 or $179, which includes installation and disposal of your old battery in an environmentally responsible manner.

Every MacBook Pro comes with Apple’s innovative iLife(R) ’09 featuring iPhoto(R) for managing photos, iMovie(R) for making movies and GarageBand(R) for creating and learning to play music. Every Mac also runs Leopard(R), the world’s most advanced operating system, featuring Time Machine(R), an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac; Spaces(R), an intuitive feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; Mail with easy setup and elegant, personalized stationery; and iChat(R), the most advanced video chat.

Pricing & Availability

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro, 15-inch MacBook Pro, 17-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are now available through the Apple Store(R) (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. Mac OS(R) X Snow Leopard(TM) will be shipping in September 2009, and any new Mac system purchased without Snow Leopard from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller between June 8, 2009 and the end of the program on December 26, 2009, is eligible for the Mac OS X Snow Leopard Up-To-Date upgrade package available for a product plus shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Users must request their Up-To-Date upgrade within 90 days of purchase or by December 26, 2009, or whichever comes first. For more information please visit www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate.

The 2.26 GHz, 13-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,199 (US), includes:

13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display;
2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
160GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive(R) with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme(R) 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight(R) video camera;
two USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
SD card slot;
one audio line in/out port, supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
built-in, 58WHr lithium polymer battery; and
60 Watt MagSafe(R) Power Adapter.
The 2.53 GHz, 13-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US), includes:

13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display;
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
250GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight video camera;
two USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
SD card slot;
one audio line in/out port, supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
built-in, 58WHr lithium polymer battery; and
60 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
Build-to-order options for the MacBook Pro include the ability to upgrade to 8GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, a 250GB 5400 rpm, 320GB 5400 rpm or 500GB 5400 rpm hard drive, a 128GB or 256GB solid state drive, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare(R) Protection Plan.

The 2.53 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,699 (US), includes:

15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
250GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight video camera;
two USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port;
SD card slot;
one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
built-in, 73WHr lithium polymer battery; and
60 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
The 2.66 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US), includes:

15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;
2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 256MB GDDR3 video memory;
320GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight video camera;
two USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port;
SD card slot;
one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
built-in, 73WHr lithium polymer battery; and
85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
The 2.8 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,299 (US), includes:

15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;
2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3 video memory;
500GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight video camera;
two USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port;
SD card slot;
one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
built-in, 73WHr lithium polymer battery; and
85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
Build-to-order options for the 15-inch MacBook Pro include a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, the ability to upgrade to 8GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, a 320GB 5400 rpm, 320GB 7200 rpm, 500GB 5400 rpm, or 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB or 256GB solid state drive, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

The 2.8 GHz, 17-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

17-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1920 x 1200, glossy display;
2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3 video memory;
500GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight video camera;
three USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
built-in, 95WHr lithium polymer battery; and
85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
Build-to-order options for the 17-inch MacBook Pro include a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 8GB 1066 MHz DDR 3 memory, 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB or 256GB solid state drive, anti-glare display for $50 (US), Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

*EPEAT is an independent organization that helps customers compare the environmental performance of notebooks and desktops. Products meeting all of the 23 required criteria and at least 75 percent of the optional criteria are recognized as EPEAT Gold products. The EPEAT program was conceived by the US EPA and is based on IEEE 1680 standard for Environmental Assessment of Personal Computer Products. For more information visit www.epeat.net.

**A properly maintained MacBook Pro battery is designed to retain 80 percent or more of its original capacity during a lifespan of up to 1,000 recharge cycles. Battery life and charge cycles vary by use and settings. For more information visit www.apple.com/macbookpro/battery.

WWDC 2009 CrunchGear Liveblog

John Biggs — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:00:55 +0000

We’re here in Moscone and ready to rock. Watch this space for upcoming coverage and live streaming from the convention center. What will we see from Apple? An iPhone 3GS? A tablet? Steve?

Follow along with WWDC Bingo.

http://embed.scribblelive.com/5/0/1/1/

Apple Store is down, act surprised

Matt Burns — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:57:15 +0000

*gasp* The Apple Store is down before today’s WWDC keynote!!!!!!! Must…have…new…iPhone.

WWDC 2009: Apple's Quicktime has a new logo!

Nicholas Deleon — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:51:56 +0000

Apple’s Quicktime has a new logo, and it’s very silvery!

This photo comes to us by way of either John or Greg, who are currently in San Francisco for WWDC.

Remember: the keynote starts at 1pm EDT.

See you in Hell, old logo:

Pre-WWDC 2009: BeeJive 3.0 to launch by next week

Greg Kumparak — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:10:11 +0000

Jeez. Here I am sitting at E3 2009, a full week before Apple’s WWDC event, yet news from the latter has already started trickling in.

We probably could have assumed as much, but we just got word that BeeJive is planning to launch version 3.0 of their popular iPhone IM application just in the time for next week’s festivities. The fact that it’s coming and is a “significant upgrade” is about all we know for sure at this point, though it’s probably safe to assume two things: it’ll be a free update (as past releases have been), and it’ll make use of background notifications and other iPhone OS 3.0 specific goodies.

Expect more details on this soon.