Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The (Apple) Empire Strikes Back...

Apple has had their developer conference, and has delivered what everyone was expecting (which was a fair bit), plus a bit more to compensate for the over-zealous early advertising.

And so, i hear you ask, (No, I'm not standing at your door, listening to you mutter to yourself because you think this particular ferret may have finally 'lost it'. I'm just guessing. Legal Note: You may not in fact actually ask this question at all. The Publisher waives all liability to any losses, physical or otherwise that may have occurred due to misinterpretation of the abovementioned statement.) (to continue from above) what happened?

In a few short words, quite a lot. Just not all of it would be particularly interesting to you. The biggest thing that everyone was looking for was the new June 26 iPhone 3GS. It is not quite an overhaul, but more an answer to what users have been demanding for ages. Things like:

  • Autofocus camera
    • At last, real photos, kind of. It's now also 3 megapixel
  • Video Recording
    • Also useful, and something my old Motorazr V6 has been doing for a long time...
  • It's faster
    • Useful. As always, there is no such thing as a too fast processor. And the iPhone's was getting pretty far from that imaginary boundary, if you get my drift
  • It's battery lasts longer
    • Not just useful, it's about bloody time. The battery wasn't pathetic, but as with everything else about the iPhone, it wasn't as good as some of it's competitors
  • Voice Control
    • Useful. Sort of. I've never run into a situation when i thought "I wish i had set up Voice Control". And i don't think i'm going to yet. Still, the voice control even extends into the iPod functions and everything. Cool.
  • A Compass
    • A Compass? You mean one of those spinny things. Yes, the iPhone has a compass, but it's not just about telling which way north is, (which you can do with any analog watch), but enabling far better Google Maps, and thanks to TomTom, turn-by-turn satnav. Yay!
  • Lower prices
    • Always good, especially when they cut old model prices too!


As always, there is still a considerable list of stuff that isn't there. Anything from user-replaceable batteries (when Hell freezes over) to USB Storage support is still missing. Oh well, it's still good.


Now to less important news, and because i'm lazy i'm going to let my good friends over at Crave do the work for this bit:

  • MacBook range revamped
  • iPhone 3.0 software
  • OS X update
  • Safari 4
  • and some other useless stuff
  • see here: http://tinyurl.com/Crave-WWDC
Anyway, that's it for my WWDC coverage, but have a look around Crave for more info (they are disturbingly interested in the WWDC coverage game)...

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