WWDC 09 Thoughts and
Announcements- June 9, 2009
It’s that
time of year again. Everybody is anticipating what Apple will announce, many
rumors are posted and everyone is just waiting for the day to come to verify
crazy rumors. Year after year many new products have come at this meeting. What
did we get this year? A new iPhone 3G S, iPhone 3G price cut to $99, more about
iPhone update 3.0, updated Macbooks and MacBook Pros, and more information
about Apple’s forthcoming operating system Snow Leopard.
We also got
more info about iPhone update 3.0 at WWDC. The new iPhone 3.0 gives iPhone 3G
and 2G owners copy and paste, MMS (not available immediately with AT&T
later in the summer), a new search that searches apps and messages, a landscape
keyboard, and voice memos.
The leaks
were correct. A new iPhone was announced, and the “old” iPhone 3G had a price
cut. The new iPhone 3G now has a low $99 price point, which should increase
demand by 100% analysts say. A new iPhone 3G S was announced (the S stands for
speed). The new iPhone 3G S now features a new camera that features a 3
megapixel camera with autofocus, and video recording. You can also edit the
video you capture on the iPhone 3G S right on your phone. The iPhone 3G S now
also features voice control which has been standard on many phones for many
years. Sadly this feature is not available for current iPhone 3G users. The
voice control allows you to say “call home,” and it will call it for you. Also
new on the iPhone 3G S is a compass application which is also not available on
the iPhone 3G. Finally for Mobile Me users you get a new feature called Find My
Phone which allows you to send a message to the phone saying “return it to so
and so.” The battery life and the speed of the phone has also been improved on
this version. This includes 2 hours more talk time on the 2G network, 4 more
hours of internet browsing on Wi-Fi, audio playback for 6 more hours, and video
playback for 3 more hours. The iPhone 3G S launches on June 19th.
The 16 GB model will be $199, while the 32 GB will be $299. These prices are
only for people who have upgrade pricing, but for people who don’t will qualify
for an “early” upgrade price, and the prices are $399 for the 16GB, and $499
for the 32GB.
The Macbook
line was updated again. The only Macbook is now just the plastic Macbook. The
aluminum Macbook was changed over to the pro line. The Macbooks also received
hardware updates. The Macbook Air starts now at $1499 with a 1.86 Ghz Intel
Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, 120GB SATA drive (runs at 4200 rpm), and
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics. The 13 inch MacBook aluminum is now the 13 inch
MacBook Pro. It features a lower price of $1199 with a new SD card slot,
Firewire 800, and a new 7 hour non removable battery. The 15 inch Macbook Pro
starts at $1699 with a new 7 hour non removable battery, and the new SD card
slot.
Apple also
gave us a glimpse of Snow Leopard which is scheduled to be released during
September of this year. The 10.6 upgrade will only cost $29 for a single user
upgrade, and $49 for a family upgrade. It now has Exchange support, faster
install, less space needed for the install, faster apps, 64 bit apps, and the
new Safari 4. Apple quotes “Users will notice a more responsive Finder; Mail
that loads messages 85 percent faster and conducts searches up to 90 percent
faster; Time Machine with up to 50 percent faster initial backup; a Dock with
Expose integration; a 64-bit version of Safari 4 that boosts the performance of
the Nitro JavaScript engine by up to 50 percent and is resistant to crashes
caused by plug-ins.” Also shown at WWDC was the new Quicktime X. The new
Quicktime X features visual chapters, capture of audio and video streams, GPU
acceleration, and live streaming. Safari 4 was also released today to both OS X
and Windows.
Well that
concludes this year’s WWDC. The new price of the iPhone 3G will be enticing to
many people, and will probably attract a lot more people to AT&T and
iPhone. The iPhone 3G S is a little step up, not revolutionary. iPhone 3.0 will
also finally bring what many people have been waiting for, MMS and copy and
paste. OS X 10.6 will only be $29, though only because it’s just a refined OS
X. It’s not really revolutionary. This year’s WWDC were just refinements, it
wasn’t a big step up like in other WWDCs.