The amazing life and chronicles of Christian BS.
Well that is slightly overstating it I think. My life is neither amazing nor chronicle-worthy. All this is, is the blog or rather blog-shaped blackboard of my mind. I cast (in case it may have escaped your notice) a very harsh eye on both everyone and everything around me, which gives me the right to have a good old rant which you shall no doubt find here.
Round-up of WWDC Stevenotes
Well, it must be said. WWDC this year was a let-down. Whilst some new features (not products) were introduced, there was not a lot of innovation present; the factor that sets Apple apart from all its rivals. I shall take a gander at the products announced in turn:
• OS 10.6 - Snow Leopard
Sorry, only mentioned, no information to share. All we know is that is focuses mainly on reducing the footprint of Mac OS X, and optimising its performance. All the other information is strictly under an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). Thanks for building up the suspense, Steve.
• MobileMe
I must say that although I have always been keen on investing in a .Mac account, I most likely would not have done so given the opportunity partially beciase I was never amazed by what it offered: 10GB of online storage, which was up from100MB; a fancy @mac.com email address with full IMAP capabilities, and online back-up (the limits of which I do not know), and photo and film galleries online which could be viewed in all manners of epilleptic fit-inducing styles. Now however, my attitude toward said service, under the new name MobileMe, has changed. I must have it at all costs.
• iPhone 2.0/1.2
Very nice software update, bringing several improvements such as a scientific calculator in landscape mode, the ability to save images from websites, portrait video playing, a separate contact application (rumoured), much more international support (including character recognition for Chinese), a new iTunes icon (a pair of beamed quavers à la desktop application icon as opposed to a downward icon), parental controls, MobileMe “push” email, (which pushes the email to your iPhone as soon as it arrives at your e-mail’s server and last but certainly not least is The App Store. A novel way of distributing 3rd party applications through a built in application which is just like the iTunes application. If features genres (like the Apple downloads section), and also variable pricing, determined by the developer, 70%of which goes to the developer.
• iPhone3G
Well, no big surprises here, this was the only product really which had been predicted since rumours first came out of the dates for WWDC 08. As the product name somewhat subtly suggests, this phone features 3G. This will enable download speeds almost as fast as conventional Wi-Fi. Consequentley, it will also allow for faster downloads from The App Store, but not blisteringly fast, hence the 10MB limit for apps downloaded over EDGE/3G. The rest will have to be done via iTunes on a computer.
Oh, and one more thing…
GPS. iPhone3G has GPS. I had never really sought this in a product I wanted, but I understand just how important it is today; now that American TV has rendered society as a whole dead, we are no longer able to read maps unlike our cousins of yesteryear.The only thing that I dislike about iPhone3G is the curved black plastic back. Plastic being the important word there. Why? Let’s have a look:A) It scratches more easilyB) It looks cheap. One of the reasons I love the iphone that I have it the beautiful anodised aluminium back. It looks professional, more refined and quite frankly, more expensive.
In my opening paragraph, I stated that I was somewhat disappointed with the announcements, yet so far I have not indicated as to why. Well now I think would be a good time to answer this question. Why am I disappointed? Because I already knew most of this. I already knew about iPhone having 3G and GPS. I already knew about the rebranded .Mac, and it’s name “MobileMe”, oh, and that the website was me.com. I already knew the name of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and that it focused more on optimisation than innovation. I already knew about iPhone firmware 1.2. Except for the execution of these new features (not products), for example the beautiful interface of the MobileMe web applications, and slick blue pin in he map of iPhone3G, there was nothing new.All I wish for future Apple events, is tighter security. Yes, I know, hark who’s talking, but with Steve Jobs on stage unveiling his new technological marvels, nothing is better than a good surprise.
Sent from my iPhone
