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Apple's WWDC Unveils iPhone 3.0, OpenCL, Laptop Updates, and More
Lots of big news from WWDC today including updates to almost all of Apple's laptops. They added a 13-inch version to the MacBook Pro line, updated the MacBook Air, and added a few new ports to some of the machines including an SD slot and firewire 800 port. Software updates saw Safari 4 launched, OS X updates including threading changes, Exchange support to mail, calendar, and address book, and OpenCL a new open graphics standard. The iPhone got quite a bit of love in 3.0, much of it just confirming older news. Cut, copy, and paste, shake to undo, developer APIs, Cocoa Touch support for text, landscape mode updates, spotlight, and MMS all made the bullet list. You will now also be able to rent and purchase movies directly from your iPhone. Other new features in 3.0 include the much debated tethering ability, allowing you to use your iPhone as a cellular modem (unfortunately there was no mention of AT&T actually supporting this feature, a wonder there wasn't a riot), integrated TomTom GPS navigation, and game features galore. New functionality also allows you to locate your iPhone via MobileMe, play a sound to help you locate it (regardless if it is set to silent), and even wipe your data remotely. The New iPhone hardware updates, "3GS", adds a 3 megapixel auto-focus camera, voice interfaces, twice the processing power, and hardware encryption. The 3GS comes in 16GB ($199) and 32GB ($299), pushing the 3G (which they are keeping on the market) to $99. Lots of other small updates amidst the bustle, looks like another successful WWDC.
Has Apple been this abrasive to their competitors during the keynotes before? It was a little tacky IMO
they're still married to AT&T....
Am I the only one who hates the shake interface for any action at all? Half the time I don't shake it hard enough, so I have to do it again. And for something like undo, it takes your eyes off what you're trying to do... or undo. I realize there are limited inputs on a device with few hard buttons, but hope there's an alternate way.
Can't Apple produce 15" or 13" laptops without that damn glossy display? These mirrors mounted on laptops get really annoying, and I'm not the only one who thinks that non-glossy displays are superior to their allegedly cheaper glossy displays.
One more guy who's looking for a used MBP on ebay.
Considering that the iPhone itself is really a small form-factor computer with communication abilities built in, the line has already been so blurred between phone and computer that I can't see how that fact that another computer can also access the Internet through the connection is all that different. Especially since you, the customer are paying to have the ability to transfer a given number of bits per month. Why should it even matter -- except to anal companies like AT&T who what to sell you capacity and then prevent you from actually using it -- the eventual destination of those bits? How it tethering even different from storing the downloaded data in an iPhone and transferring it later to another device?
Answer: It isn't!
The same for VoIP. It's all just bits being sent and received. Now create a business model that acknowledges this axiom.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Well, it IS a developer's conference.
Just sayin'.
Ouch, that's a costly upgrade, when the same thing in an SD card is roughly $20.
There is always something better just over the horizon. If you are a big Jobs devotee then you should have known better than to buy something just before WWDC. That is a MASSIVE NERD FAIL.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Seeing Apple jump on board with HTML 5 and especially the video/audio tags is huge. If Apple is right that they own 65% of mobile browsing; having them stay up to date with standards is huge and ought to set the tone for others.
Just do not fully understand Apple's poo-pooing the netbook space. I see a Netbook as a supplement to my bigger system, that I prefer not to carry.
Netbooks don't have the profit margins that Apple desires. Simple as that.
He purchased the phone in February! That's 4-5 months ago. He didn't get "screwed" out of a better phone, he's just bitching that his phone is now last years model. But hey, unreasonable bitching never stopped slashdotters, so while we're wishing for an upgrade discount, why stop at 4-5 months, why not more? Shit, I bought my mac desktop 5 years ago and they've upgraded it since then 3-4 times including changing processors AND operating systems on me, why shouldn't I get an upgrade discount on that? By the GP's logic, Apple should never update their products because people keep buying their existing products. Sorry dude, welcome to the world of electronics, they get upgraded on a yearly or bi-yearly basis and the very minute you buy your product, there is a finite probability you will wake up tomorrow and it will be out of date.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
$29 isn't a bad price.
2007 : Vista and Mac OS X Leopard launch. Vista users talk about the high ongoing cost of Mac OS X upgrades because they occur every 18 months. Mac users say the trend is for longer gaps between OS launches, and that XP->Vista was uncharacteristically long.
30 months later: Windows 7 and Snow Leopard launch at roughly the same time. Snow Leopard costs $29 to upgrade ($129 new). Windows 7 Home Premium: $260 (rumoured). Linux: Still free.
The $99 phone is the big news the rest of it is just nice.
Because saving a hundred bucks off the ~$1700 total is such a bargain?
This guy's the limit!
Wow, I can get a 3G for $99? I'll take one! Oh wait, I have to pay how much on the contract?
I do wish the media would stop parroting these utterly irrelevant "costs" for mobile devices straight from the press release, as if it was true or something.