World of Apple

Last week at WWDC attending developers were treated to what Apple is calling a “near-final” developer preview of Mac OS X Snow Leopard which will ship to consumers in September 2009. Several of the features demonstrated during the keynote such a Dock Exposé are not in build 10A380 which was given to developers.

Very little has changed since the earlier builds of Snow Leopard which have all been covered in detail by World of Apple in the past.

Below is a series of screenshots (and bonus video) highlighting some of the minor adjustments made in the latest build of Mac OS X Snow Leopard build 10A380.

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Last week photos of both the 13-inch MacBook Pro unboxing and take-apart were posted as well as photos depicting the unboxing of an iPhone 3GS.

As with most new products iFixit was first on the scene to pull it apart, in particular the site notes that the battery is easily removed once the bottom plate is removed and that an inserted SD-card sticks out just under half way from the slot.

Both Engadget and Gizmodo posted galleries of the unboxing which remains very similar to the previous 13-inch MacBook.

Finally photos of an iPhone 3GS unboxing turned up online long before the official release on June 19th, the images which have now been removed were posted on the Chinese version of Engadget.

Images reproduced below.

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Apple has announced via press release that the Safari 4 browser which was released officially at the WWDC 2009 keynote has been downloaded more than 11 million times in just three days. Of those 11 million downloads six million can be attributed to Windows based downloads.

“Safari 4 is an incredible success on Mac and Windows with more than 11 million downloads in the first three days,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Safari users love the incredible speed and innovative features like Top Sites, Full History Search and Cover Flow.”

Every year at WWDC in San Francisco Apple celebrates great Mac and iPhone applications with an Oscar like award ceremony. This year was no different, a team of 65 engineers judge the applications to decide on a just a handful of winners.

The ADA hosts, Apple director of Software Technology Evangelism John Geleynse and Apple senior director of developers relations, Shaan Pruden, presented awards in numerous categories.

In the Mac OS X Developer Showcase category the highlighted applications were Versions by Pico and Sofa, Things by Cultured Code, Billings from Marketcircle and BoinxTV from Boinx. The Best Mac OS X Student Product award was given to Fontcase by Pieter Omvlee.

In the iPhone Developer Showcase applications Tweetie by atebits, Topple by ngmoco, MLB At Bat by MLB.com, and Postage by Rogue Sheep were all highlighted. The best iPhone Student App went to Elias Pietil for Wooden Labyrinth 3D. This year a new category best iPhone OS 3.0 Beta App was awarded to Intermap Technologies for Accuterra.

Congratulations to all the winners.

With so many announcements being made by Apple at the WWDC 2009 keynote some smaller items are often overlooked. Now the initial hype has died down these tidbits can be looked into further.

Apple has posted a web page covering several features of Mac OS Snow Leopard, some of these were discussed during the keynote but many are unknown as some were not even present in previous builds of the operating system due for release in September.

Also the presence of ZFS in Mac OS X Snow Leopard server appears to have vanished, it was initially listed as a major new feature of Snow Leopard server.

During the keynote Scott Forstall demonstrated the use of Geolocation to enable iPhone and MobileMe users to find their iPhone anywhere in the world via the “Find My iPhone” feature. But Apple didn’t mention that it intends to release an iDisk app which will enable iPhone users to view and share files stored on their MobileMe iDisk’s.

Despite the iPhone 3GS being identical in appearance to the iPhone 3G one little piece of information on the Apple website states that the screen now has a fingerprint resistant oleophobic coating.

Finally Apple appears to have sacrificed a digital audio port on the 13-inch MacBook Pro to allow for the new FireWire 800 port and SD card slot.

Apple has posted a stream of the the WWDC 2009 keynote stream to it’s website.

The event saw the unveiling of the iPhone 3GS as well as a new lineup of MacBook Pro notebooks. iPhone OS 3.0 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard were also demonstrated in detail.

Photos from today’s WWDC 2009 keynote presentation where Apple executives Phil Schiller, Bertrand Serlet and Scott Forstall introduced and demonstrated multiple products.

Today’s announcements included the introduction of the iPhone 3GS available on June 19, a new iPhone price-point and a preview of iPhone OS 3.0 which will be released on June 17. Mac OS X Snow Leopard was also demoed and will be available for $29 in September. Safari 4 is now also available to the public.

Apple also refreshed the entire lineup of notebooks moving the 13-inch model into the MacBook Pro range and adding SD card slots to some models.

Apple today updated the aluminum unibody MacBook Pro line to include 13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch models featuring Apple’s innovative built-in battery for up to 40 percent longer battery life. Each MacBook Pro includes an LED-backlit display with greater color intensity, the innovative glass Multi-Touch trackpad, an illuminated keyboard, an SD card or ExpressCard slot, a FireWire 800 port and state of the art NVIDIA graphics. Starting at just $1,199, the MacBook Pro line is more affordable than ever, with some models up to $300 less than the previous generation. The industry’s greenest notebook lineup, every Mac notebook achieves EPEAT Gold status and meets Energy Star 5.0 requirements, setting a new standard for environmentally friendly notebook design.

“Across the line, all of our new MacBook Pro models now include Apple’s innovative built-in battery for up to seven hours of battery life, while staying just as thin and light as before,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Starting at just $1,199, the aluminum unibody MacBook Pro is more affordable than ever and sets a new standard for environmentally friendly notebook design.”

The new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models include Apple’s innovative built-in notebook battery for up to seven hours of wireless productivity on a single charge without adding thickness, weight or cost, the built-in battery delivers up to 1,000 recharges before it reaches 80 percent of its original capacity.

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro includes a seven hour built-in battery, an SD card slot, a FireWire 800 port, an illuminated keyboard and an improved LED-backlit display with 60 percent greater color gamut. Featuring the powerful NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is available in two models: one with a 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive priced at $1,199, and another with a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive priced at $1,499.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro now features a seven hour built-in battery, an SD card slot, an improved LED-backlit display with 60 percent greater color gamut and 4GB of RAM across the line at an entry price $300 less than before. The new 15-inch MacBook Pro is available in three models: a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 250GB hard drive and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics for a new entry price of $1,699; a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 320GB hard drive, and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT graphics for $1,999; and a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 500GB hard drive, and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT graphics for $2,299.

The 17-inch MacBook Pro, which includes an eight hour built-in battery, an ExpressCard slot, a brilliant LED-backlit display, 4GB of RAM and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT graphics, has been updated to include a faster 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a larger 500GB hard drive for $2,499, which is $300 less than before.

All MacBook Pro notebooks can now have up to 8GB of RAM, up to a 500GB hard drive or up to a 256GB solid state drive. The 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models can also be upgraded to a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. All MacBook Pro systems include a next generation, industry-standard Mini DisplayPort to connect with the 24-inch Apple LED Cinema Display.

The MacBook Air is available in two models starting with the new entry price of $1,499 for a 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 120GB hard drive and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics, and a 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 128GB solid state drive and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics for $1,799.

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro, 15-inch MacBook Pro, 17-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are now available through the Apple Store.

Apple today unveiled Mac OS X Snow Leopard, an even more powerful and refined version of the world’s most advanced operating system and the foundation for future Mac innovation. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies, out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange and new accessibility features. Snow Leopard will ship as an upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard users in September 2009 for $29.

“We’ve built on the success of Leopard and created an even better experience for our users from installation to shutdown,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Apple engineers have made hundreds of improvements so with Snow Leopard your system is going to feel faster, more responsive and even more reliable than before.”

To create Snow Leopard, Apple engineers focused on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system, refining 90 percent of the more than 1,000 projects in Mac OS X. 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 Exposé 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. Snow Leopard also includes an all new QuickTime X, with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video to YouTube, MobileMe or iTunes. Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 6GB of drive space once installed.

For the first time, system applications including Finder, Mail, iCal, iChat and Safari are 64-bit and Snow Leopard’s support for 64-bit processors makes use of large amounts of RAM, increases performance, and improves security while remaining compatible with 32-bit applications. Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) provides a revolutionary new way for software to take advantage of multicore processors. GCD is integrated throughout Snow Leopard, from new system-wide APIs to high-level frameworks and programming language extensions, improving responsiveness across the system. OpenCL, a C-based open standard, allows developers to tap the incredible power of the graphics processing unit for tasks that go beyond graphics.

Snow Leopard builds support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 right into Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal so you can use these applications to send and receive email, create and respond to meeting invitations, and search and manage your contacts with global address lists. Exchange information works seamlessly within Snow Leopard so users can take advantage of OS X only features such as fast Spotlight searches and Quick Look previews. Snow Leopard is the only desktop operating system with out of the box support for Exchange 2007 and businesses of any size will find it easier to integrate Macs into their organization.

Every Mac includes innovative features and technologies for users with special needs, and Snow Leopard adds groundbreaking new features that make the Mac experience even more accessible to those with a vision impairment. Apple’s Multi-Touch trackpad is now integrated with the VoiceOver screen reader so users can hear and navigate different parts of a window or the desktop by moving a single finger around the trackpad as if it were the screen. Snow Leopard also introduces built-in support for wireless bluetooth braille displays and the connection of multiple braille displays simultaneously to one Mac.

Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard in September 2009 for $29.

During today’s WWDC keynote Apple introduced the new iPhone 3GS, the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet, packed with incredible new features including improved speed and performance—up to twice as fast as iPhone 3G—with longer battery life, a high-quality 3 megapixel autofocus camera, easy to use video recording and hands free voice control. iPhone 3GS includes the new iPhone OS 3.0, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system with over 100 new features such as Cut, Copy and Paste, MMS, Spotlight Search, landscape keyboard and more. iPhone 3GS customers get access to more than 50,000 applications from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, the largest application store in the world where customers have already downloaded over one billion apps. iPhone 3GS offers twice the capacity for the same price with a 16GB model for just $199 and a new 32GB model for just $299. And beginning today, iPhone 3G is available at the breakthrough price of just $99 for the 8GB model—a huge milestone for the high end smartphone market.

“iPhone 3GS is the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet and we think people will love the incredible new features including autofocus camera, video recording and the freedom of voice control,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of WorldWide Product Marketing. “And with a breakthrough price of $99, we are thrilled to get iPhone 3G into the hands of even more users who want them.”

iPhone 3GS offers incredible speed and performance, on average up to twice as fast as iPhone 3G, so you can render web pages quicker and launch applications faster. iPhone 3GS takes advantage of the OpenGL ES 2.0 standard for stunning high-quality 3D graphics, making mobile gaming and other graphic intense applications better than ever. iPhone 3GS is not only faster, but with longer battery life you can watch more videos, listen to more music, browse the Internet or keep using your favorite apps even longer. The new iPhone 3GS also supports 7.2 Mbps HSDPA for faster networking speeds.

iPhone 3GS features a new 3 megapixel autofocus camera that takes amazing pictures and video, making it easier than ever to capture, edit and share those moments instantly with family and friends. The new autofocus camera adjusts focus, exposure, color and contrast for the best possible image and includes an automatic macro focus for extra close up shots. With the new “tap to focus” feature, you simply touch the display to select an object or area of interest and the camera automatically re-adjusts focus and exposure. You can record incredible high-quality video clips and edit them right on your iPhone 3GS by simply trimming the start and stop points. With iPhone 3GS you can send photos and video by email or MMS and post them to MobileMe or YouTube with just one tap.

The voice control feature in iPhone 3GS offers hands free operation for both iPhone and iPod functions. Simply speak the appropriate commands into the built-in microphone or headset microphone to dial by name or number. With voice control you can play your favorite music by artist, album or playlist and activate the Genius feature by saying “play more songs like this.” You can also tell iPhone to pause the music, play the next track, turn on shuffle or ask, “What’s playing right now?”

iPhone 3GS features a new built-in digital compass for instant navigation. The Compass app shows you which way you are headed and rotates as you change direction. You can orient yourself to true north or magnetic north, and iPhone’s built-in GPS automatically displays the coordinates of your current location. The new built-in digital compass is also integrated within Maps, so it automatically orients any map to the direction you are facing.

iPhone 3GS provides new accessibility features including VoiceOver, a screen reader that speaks what appears on the iPhone 3GS display, enabling visually impaired users to make calls, read email, browse web pages, play music and run applications. The new universal Zoom function magnifies the entire screen, and the White on Black feature reverses the colors on screen to provide higher contrast for people with low vision. iPhone 3GS also supports Mono Audio which combines left and right audio channels so that they can be heard in both earbuds for those with hearing loss in one ear.

Phone 3G S will be available in the US on June 19 for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model and just $299 (US) for the new 32GB model in both Apple and AT&T’s retail and online stores. iPhone 3GS will be available in the UK on June 19 with pricing available later.