WWDC Keynote play-by-play:
10:00 Keynote starts with PC guy introduction.
10:01 Phil Schiller comes on and gives some basic stats about Apple developers.
10:05 Will tell us about Mac, iPhone and iPod Touch today. Starting with the Mac.
10:08 New MacBook Pro announced. 15 inch screen, unibody, built-in battery with 7-hour/5 year life. Includes an SD card slot as well. New, better display.
10:10 3.06 GHz dual-core processor, up to 8GB RAM, 500GB HD or 256GB SSD.
10:11 Low end will be $1,699, mid-range will be $1,999, high-end will be $2,299.
10:12 New 17-inch model also, for $2,499.
10:13 MacBook Pros available today.
10:14 New MacBooks. New 13-inch display. Same 7-hour batter and an SD card slot. Adds a Firewire 800 port!
10:15 This 13-inch MacBook is now also called a MacBook Pro and starts at $1,199 going up to $1,499 with options. Available today.
10:15 New MacBook Air. Price drop to $1,499, with $1,799 option. Processor now at 1.86 or 2.13GHz. $1,799 inlcudes 128GB SSD drive.
10:20 Now summing up Snow Leopard.
10:24 All about refinements. Finder re-written faster and less clutter. Installs faster. Less space taken up with OS. Drawing Chinese characters.
10:25 Safari 4 live today. Available for Tiger, Leopard and Windows. Allows a plug-in to crash without crashing the browser. Faster JavaScript.
10:27 New QuickTime X. Faster, color correction, HTTP streaming.
10:28 Demoing new features of Snow Leopard: Stacks now scrollable, subfolders inside of Stacks. Looks like lots of improvements to Finder QuickView and viewing images and videos in the Finder.
10:30 Improvements to Expose. Now in the Dock, better window organization, can work inside a window while still in Expose mode.
10:35 Safari 4: Search within text of pages in your history.
10:37 Talking about Snow Leopard being 64-bit and using multiple threads to take advantage of multiple processors (Grand Central Dispatch).
10:41 Mail, iCal and Address Book all support Microsoft Exchange, even things like meeting invitations. Requires Exchange server 2007.
10:46 Snow Leopard will cost $29! Family pack for $49.
10:47 Near-final developer preview available today. Will ship in September.
10:49 Now talking about the iPhone.
10:56 Highlighting new features of iPhone 3.0: copy and paste, shake to undo, landscape mode in Mail, Notes and IM. Also MMS (later this summer for AT&T), search calendars, notes and mail, rent and buy movies.
11:02 Tethering your iPhone to your Mac is now supported. You can use the iPhone to connect your Mac to the Internet. But AT&T in the U.S. will NOT support it.
11:05 Safari on the iPhone will support HTML 5.
11:06 Find My iPhone will be a new MobileMe service. It will allow you to locate your iPhone from any Web browser. You can send your iPhone a message, too. You can also send a remote wipe command.
11:10 Now talking about in-app purchases. Only allowed in paid apps, so free apps can’t trick you into paying.
11:11 Apps can now connect to external devices via dock or Bluetooth. Apps can now connect peer-to-peer. Developers can now access Google maps in their apps.
11:12 Push notifications can send alerts, sounds and change icon badges.
11:15 Game and app demos that use the new features.
11:24 TomTom showing off turn-by-turn directions app. Uses text-to-speech and will be out this summer.
11:40 Lots of other demos: scientific sensors, zipcar app, guitar controller, etc.
11:43 iPhone OS 3.0 comes out June 17.
11:44 Free for iPhone users, $9.99 for iPod Touch users.
11:47 New iPhone.
11:48 iPhone 3GS with new internal parts, but same form.
11:49 New 3MB auto-focus camera.
11:51 iPhone Camera will now record video too. 3fps, 640×480. Can edit videos on the iPhone. Can send to YouTube, MobileMe and over MMS.
11:54 Support for voice dialing and voice commands.
11:55 Digital compass.
11:57 Now iPhone supports data encryption.
11:58 New battery gives 9 hours of network, 10 hours of video, 30 hours of music and 12 hours of 2g talk time (5 hours at 3g).
11:59 New iPhone ships with iPhone 3.0 and 16GB for $199. $299 for 32GB version. Existing 8GB iPhone 3G will be $99.
12:01 iPhone 3GS available June 19 in US, UK, Canada and others. Other countries a week or more later.
12:05 That’s it!
Apple released iTunes version 8.2 this week. The main purpose of this new version is to support the iPhone OS 3.0 which has been available to developers for a while, but is expected to be released to all iPhone users later this month. A new minor upgrade to QuickTime was also released to work with iTunes 8.2.
Next week is the Apple WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) in San Francisco. The conference kicks off on Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific with Phillip Schiller’s keynote address. Schiller is Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing. It is almost certain that anything Apple has to announce for the week will be announced at this keynote.
Apple doesn’t usually stream audio or video of these events anymore, but MacMost will be reporting up-to-the-minute news at MacMost.com that morning.
It looks very likely that there will be a new iPhone handset as well as the new OS this month. Reports point to iPhone stock running low and plenty of mentions of a new device coming this month. Rumors mention an improved camera with video capability, more memory size choices and an built-in compass.
The line-in input on your Mac isn't meant for a microphone. Instead, you'll need a USB audio interface. Learn about them and what type of microphone is used to make MacMost Now.
With new information about the Zune HD coming this fall from Microsoft, it is obvious that the new device is targeting the iPod Touch. But will it measure up? Not likely.
While the Zune HD will feature a touch screen and Touch-like interface, it really won’t be too different from existing Zunes. If Microsoft believes that the success of the iPod Touch has to do with the touch screen, they are mistaken. It has to do with apps. Plain and simple.
The iPod Touch is a device for someone that wants an iPhone, but without the phone. And the app store is the reason this demand exists. Microsoft will surely not have an app store, at least not when this new Zune is released. And even when they do get around to creating one, it will be more like the Xbox marketplace than the app store.
What’s the difference? Well, if you own an Xbox you know that the marketplace has tons of games and video content. But what goes there is strictly controlled by Microsoft and they only let a few things through, about one game per week the last time I checked.
Contrast that to the app store that has dozens, if not hundreds of apps added each day. There are tons of junk apps, but also lots of innovative ones. Many apps are created by individuals with no budget. Things like that don’t find their way into the Xbox marketplace.
So for those that want a cooler, newer Zune, the new Zune HD will be welcome. But don’t think it will compete with the iPod Touch.
Apple announced their 2009 back-to-school promotion, which gets students and teachers up to $100 off a new Mac plus a sizable rebate off a new iPod if purchased at the same time. Buying an iPod Touch would get you $229 back, while smaller rebates are given for Nanos and Shuffles. There were rumors of an iPhone rebate as well, but nothing along those lines has been announced.
The white MacBook has new specifications starting this week, including modest bumps in processor and memory speed and hard drive size. The price is still $999 in the U.S., although Apple increased the price slightly in the U.K.
News from various sources points to Steve Jobs’ return to Apple happening as planned. He is reported as being in good health and energetic. We may see him return to his normal role as CEO of Apple by the end of June.
With Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference coming up in a few weeks, rumors seem to be centered around new iPhone hardware. The WWDC should include lots of information about the iPhone OS 3.0 release, as promised by Apple in June, and also Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, which is known to be in advanced stages. So the rumor mill has to pick juicer speculation, and a new iPhone seems to be the target. Rumors range from simply having slightly better specs to including things like a video-capable camera, compass and a faster processor.
The release of the iPhone OS 3.0 should bring a whole new set of third-party apps that take advantage of new OS features like the ability for apps to use push notification and communicate with external devices. There are also rumors that the iPod Touch may be getting an upgrade and will finally get a camera to match the iPhone.
What could be a more important story to Apple’s bottom line is that Walmart is planning to create Apple sections in its stores. This will be part of an effort by Walmart to expand its electronics section to fill the gap now that Circuit City is gone. It will make it easier for people far away from Apple stores to get iPhones and iPods, and they may eventually sells Macs there as well.
Apple released a major update to Mac OS X Leopard this week with 10.5.7. It is now available to all Leopard users via Software Update. While weighing in at between 200 and 600MB, the update really only features bug fixes, optimizations, and support for new hardware. There are no major new features. Even so, almost every area of Mac OS X and many Apple-made applications were affected by the update.
Mac OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard, got one step closer to release this week as well, with Apple announcing to developers that its API is now complete, allowing developers to finish updates and new software for Snow Leopard without fear that it will change much before release. Apple is expected to show off a near-completed Snow Leopard at the World Wide Developers Conference in June. Speculation is for a public release of Mac OS X 10.6 perhaps in August.
Apple also seems to be taking steps to reduce its iPhone inventory by allowing sales of the iPhone 3G on its Web site as well as in stores. Rumors point to new iPhone hardware, though perhaps just a modest update in specifications, this summer.
Lots of rumors floating around about Apple purchasing Electronic Arts or perhaps coming out with a game console of some sort. So what if they did? What would it be like?
Well, first of all, lets differentiate between console and handheld. Apple already has a great handheld gaming device: the iPod Touch (and iPhone, too, of course). The only problem with it is the price. $229 for a Touch places it way above the $130 Nintendo DS Lite. But if you factor in the iPod and video capabilities of the Touch, it probably has more bang for the buck.
So what about a console — a device to hook into your TV and use game controllers?
Apple has something that looks like a console already — the Apple TV. But it isn’t. It just plays music and video.
But wait a minute, it does have a wireless bluetooth remote. And it does have some advanced graphics stuff in it to enable it to play back video. A Nvidia GeForce 7300 last time I checked. And it has a hard drive. And it is connected to the Internet. And you can purchase things on it. It is even high definition, which is better than we can say of the Wii.
The Apple TV has inside what it would take to me a game console, though a processor, memory and GPU boost wouldn’t hurt in a new version.
So what would it take, really, to make the Apple TV into a gaming console? Well, a software update that allowed you to purchase and run games. And a new “remote” that was a game controller.
But what about the games? Well, if Apple TV is really running Mac OS X anyway, then there are plenty of Mac/PC games available. But the PC gaming industry has been over this many times. PC games, which require a mouse, keyboard and high-resolution computer monitor just don’t work well in a console setting with a controller and TV set.
But what it does mean is that the developer community already exists for an Apple TV game console. As we saw with the iPhone, developers are ready to spring into action as long as Apple provides a way for them to get onto the device and make money.
So here’s how I think Apple will do it. First, there will be a new version of the Apple TV. Just a bump in capability, nothing to write home about. But then it will be revealed that this new Apple TV is capable of playing games. Remember when they did this with the iPod 5G?
We’ll have things like Monopoly, Scrabble, Texas Hold’em, etc. Casual games.
These first games will use the little bluetooth remote, but soon Apple will come out with a game-controller-like remote featuring accelerometers. Look for it to have fewer buttons than the Xbox and PS3 controllers, or even the Wii.
Then, after there are 20-30 games available, we’ll start to notice that some of the new ones are racing games and shooters. The little Apple TV will be shown to be comparable at least to the Wii, and perhaps the Xbox 360 in capabilities.
Then Apple will announce the Apple TV app store. Developers will be able to make games and sell them through Apple. Within a year, there will be 10 times as many games on the Apple TV as all the other consoles combined. Most will be crap. Most will be less than $5. But those crap $5 games will sell a lot of Apple TVs.
Now some people may note that developers can already make games for the Xbox and Wii. So why haven’t those consoles filled in this role? Because developers really can’t make games for them. Microsoft and Nintendo strictly control the release of new games. A small developer with little budget doesn’t stand a chance of getting on those platforms. Apple TV will stand alone and become the closest thing to an open gaming platform.
Of course, there are a lot so ifs and maybes here. But it is fun to speculate.
