Steve-less Macworld Keynote: What came out of it

This year’s Macworld keynote is the last Apple will present. They have updated 3 products. No incredible mind-boggling announcement here. First the new 17 in. MacBook Pro. It has a non-removable battery which I have thought to be really bad because pro’s are the ones most likely to buy multiple batteries to carry around with them during long trips. Apple backs their choice by saying that most people don’t buy second batteries, but on the flipside, pro’s aren’t most people. The battery lasts 7 hours with the discrete graphics, and 8 with the integrated one, which is very high. Apple also claims the battery will last 1000 charges, and last 5 years. The resolution is 1900×1200 which is incredible. Another crazy new feature is the 8 GB of RAM max. It’s the first time I have seen a notebook support that much RAM. The MBP starts at 2799$. For the basic configuration you get: 2.66 Ghz processor, 320 GB hard drive, 4 GB of RAM, and an option for a 256 GB SSD drive. If you need more, there still is a build to order configuration where you can tweak every aspect of your MacBook Pro. Next are both iLife ‘09 and iWork ‘09. I will not dive in too deep into the details, iLife ‘09 is full of great new little features in every application. You can check out the Guided Tour video on Apple’s website for more. iWork ‘09 is also full of new features, you can try it for yourself by navigating to the Apple website and downloading the 30 day trial. Next are some small iTunes announcements. Songs will be available for 0.69$, 0.99$ (standard price), and 1.29$. Phil Schiller made sure to tell people that there will be more 0.69$ songs in the catalog than 1.29$ ones. Another announcement is that all the iTunes catalog will be DRM-free by the end of the year, which is excellent. Last, but not least, iPhone 3G users will be able to download songs not only over WiFi, but also over the 3G network, which is also a nice new feature to get people buying more songs. Overall, this Macworld keynote has been very average compared to the other years. Some disappointments for me include the lack of a new Mac Mini, and no demo of Snow Leopard. But Macworld isn’t just about Apple’s keynote, it is much more about the little developers in the small booths that have cool little products for the Mac.

iPhone 2.0.2, my experience with it

Apple has released a while ago the iPhone 3G, and with it came the 2.0 firmware also available for older iPhones. I upgraded my iPhone and jail broke it with PwnageTool. First thing I did (as everyone else) was rush and download all the apps I could cram into my phone that were available in the App Store. Then, the bad news caught up with the excitement, the 2.0 firmware was crashing like crazy. Every time I would open an app, the app wouldn’t want to load up or the whole phone would re-boot, all by itself. So, I thought that a restore would bring the phone back up and running in good shape as it always was before this buggy update. The phone would behave for a couple days than came back to the crashes and buggy behavior. This really frustrated me because I have grown to know that the iphone firmware updates were always success after success and would always bring new features and more stability that have a suitcase jam-packed with bugs and crashes and frustration. Then came the 2.0.2 update, which really relived my iPhone experience. It brought back the stability of the other iPhone firmware updates, with all the applications the App Store delivered with it. Of course, there are still some bugs here and there, but overall the experience has gotten much better and the OS much more stable and usable. That is what apple is all about!

3G iPhone in june?

All the rumors say that the next generation iPhone, with 3G networking, will be presented at WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference), then released a little time after. The rumors sites all seem to speculate that the 3G iPhone will include a GPS, which would be great side to side with the current maps application which kind of acts similarly as a GPS (it is able to find your location by the touch of one button). The design also is due to be changed. A black and rounded corner iPhone is what is in the talks. I personally have a current generation iPhone and will not upgrade to the new version when it comes out because of obvious financial reasons. If you happen to have a current generation iPhone, will you upgrade or not, why or why not? Even if you don’t have an iPhone, why are you choosing to buy this new one or why not? Why did you hold off on not buying the iPhone that is currently out in he stores? What are the features you’ve been waiting for?