snow leopard
Mothership Revelations (or WWDC Coverage)
June 09, 2008 Filed in: Apple | Tech Stuff
The WWDC keynote presentation has come and gone, and
I think we can all agree that there is such a thing
as too many software demonstrations! Other than that,
here is the new stuff for today.
The new iPhone features Internet access over WiFi, EDGE, or 3G now, resulting in web pages rendering roughly twice as fast on the new model. For enterprise customers, Exchange support has been added, and businesses can even internally develop and distribute custom applications for iPhone. App Store for third-pary applications will launch soon, and the keynote featured many applications that will be available at launch.
I'm not going to cover every demonstrated application in detail, but we saw some games, a couple medical applications, a music creation tool, location-based apps, TypePad and eBay clients, and a couple news and video applications. Prices ranged from free to $9.99. In addition to application support, Apple is providing a way for these apps to give you notifications without extraneous background processes through a push notification service.
The biggest news here is arguably the price. When it was released, the iPhone cost $499 to $599. Now the two models cost $199 to $299.
MobileMe replaces [dot] Mac. It retains the same price point but adds a few new features and doubles iDisk storage. Webmail, calendars, iDisk, contacts, and image galleries have all received nice web-interface facelifts (with contacts and calendars new to the suite of tools), and information edited here is automatically synced to any Mac, PC, iPhone, or iPod touch set up with the service. Likewise, editing info on any of those devices causes it to be synced with the others.
According to MobileMe's transition FAQ, [dot] Mac subscribers will transition to MobileMe at no additional charge, and anyone with a mac.com email address or webpage will be able to keep using the same address for the foreseeable future. In all, MobileMe looks like a nice upgrade, but I'll miss typing "[dot] Mac."
Personally, I think the Exchange support is going to be a big selling point. Speaking of selling, I wonder if Apple will retain the $129 price-point for Snow Leopard or if it will see a smaller upgrade price due to its less-ambitious feature set.
That covers it for today, but we'll probably see some more Apple-related announcements over the next several days.
iPhone3G
Take pretty much any complaint against the the original iPhone – too expensive, no Exchange support, no third-party applications, no GPS, no 3G networking – and they've been addressed in the new version. Additionally, the software upgrades will be available to current iPhone users for free.
The new iPhone features Internet access over WiFi, EDGE, or 3G now, resulting in web pages rendering roughly twice as fast on the new model. For enterprise customers, Exchange support has been added, and businesses can even internally develop and distribute custom applications for iPhone. App Store for third-pary applications will launch soon, and the keynote featured many applications that will be available at launch.
I'm not going to cover every demonstrated application in detail, but we saw some games, a couple medical applications, a music creation tool, location-based apps, TypePad and eBay clients, and a couple news and video applications. Prices ranged from free to $9.99. In addition to application support, Apple is providing a way for these apps to give you notifications without extraneous background processes through a push notification service.
The biggest news here is arguably the price. When it was released, the iPhone cost $499 to $599. Now the two models cost $199 to $299.
MobileMe
I have to get this off my chest: that font reminds me of Windows Me. There, I've said it. Now let's move on.
MobileMe replaces [dot] Mac. It retains the same price point but adds a few new features and doubles iDisk storage. Webmail, calendars, iDisk, contacts, and image galleries have all received nice web-interface facelifts (with contacts and calendars new to the suite of tools), and information edited here is automatically synced to any Mac, PC, iPhone, or iPod touch set up with the service. Likewise, editing info on any of those devices causes it to be synced with the others.
According to MobileMe's transition FAQ, [dot] Mac subscribers will transition to MobileMe at no additional charge, and anyone with a mac.com email address or webpage will be able to keep using the same address for the foreseeable future. In all, MobileMe looks like a nice upgrade, but I'll miss typing "[dot] Mac."
SnowLeopard
Mac OS X 10.6 will be a departure from Apple's OS strategy of the past few years. Instead of showcasing a handful of impressive new features, Snow Leopard's development seems to be focused squarely "under the hood." It's all about making Mac OS X run better and more stable than ever. Little info about Snow Leopard has trickled out so far, but here's a snippet from an Apple press release:Rather than focusing primarily on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation. Snow Leopard is optimized for multi-core processors, taps into the vast computing power of graphic processing units (GPUs), enables breakthrough amounts of RAM and features a new, modern media platform with QuickTime® X. Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 and is scheduled to ship in about a year.
Personally, I think the Exchange support is going to be a big selling point. Speaking of selling, I wonder if Apple will retain the $129 price-point for Snow Leopard or if it will see a smaller upgrade price due to its less-ambitious feature set.
That covers it for today, but we'll probably see some more Apple-related announcements over the next several days.