WWDC 2009 Roundup

Apple’s WWDC 2009 is underway and it opened with the keynote speech which featured some new Apple stuff. Below is a roundup of the notable items.

WWDC 2009 - Image courtesy of Apple

New MacBook Pro Lineup

I don’t think anyone saw this coming. At least not for this event. Apple just revamped it’s MacBook Pro line. Releasing an all new 15 inch MacBook Pro which now sports a similar battery to the 17 inch. Promising battery life of up to 7 hours. Another notable thing is the swapping out of the express slot with a SD card reader.

Another thing is that the MacBook Aluminum is now rebranded as the 13 inch MacBook Pro. It shares similar specs to it’s 15″ brother. The 13 inch model also now comes with a FW800 port.

What’s also outrageous (in a good way) is that the MacBook Pros prices have been reduced significantly. The 13″ starts at $1199 while the 15″ starts at $1699.

The white polycarbonate MacBook now remains as the only MacBook model available.

MacBook Air updated

Apple also updated MacBook Air models. The new entry level MacBook Air sports a 1.86 Ghz Core 2 Duo processor with a 120GB Hard drive while the higher end model has a 2.13 Ghz Core 2 Duo processor and a 128GB Solid State Drive. The 1.86 Ghz’s price starts at $1,499 while the 2.13 Ghz is priced at $1,799. Making both of them easily the most bang-for-buck MacBook Airs yet.

Snow Leopard

A preview of Snow Leopard was demoed during the keynote. What can I say except that I’m really excited to upgrade to Snow Leopard. Apple is also making it available to exisitng Leopard users for a low low $29 for a single user license and $49 for a Family Pack. Beat that Windows!

There are a lot of great features that come with Snow Leopard, such as a rewritten Finder, Expose controls via the dock and the new Quicktime X.

However with all of these refinements I think the most important of which is Exchange support. Sure, not all will agree but I think it’s the most important feature because it now allows Macs to really compete and penetrate the corporate market. Companies rely on Microsoft Exchange for their corporate communication needs and now the Mac can play with them. That means IT companies can now adopt Macs for some if not all of their users. That will significantly help improve market share for Apple.

iPhone 3G S and iPhone 3.0 OS

The iPhone and the iPhone 3.0 OS were the most anticipated announcements of the keynote. Apple previewed the new OS which I must say is getting better all the time. I can’t believe people are actually clapping and shouting with the announcement of the copy and past feature and MMS. It’s something that people have been really clamoring for. However true to Apple form, they won’t do something unless they can do it right. I think their version of copy and paste is good and will work really well with the iPhone interface.

The 3.0 software boasts of a 100 new features. I mentioned copy and paste, other notable features are spotlight search, new Safari, landscape version of the keyboard, better parental controls, the ability to record and send audio, voice control app, etc.

What I really liked was the “Find My iPhone” feature. This is available to iPhone users who are Mobile Me subscribers as well. In the event that you lose your iPhone, you can login to Mobile Me and send your iPhone a message. It will also tell you where your iPhone is. If in fact it has been stolen and not just misplaced, you can send it a command to erase all of your data. Some people are saying that there might be a privacy issue and that people can use it to track you without your knowledge, but this technology has already been embedded in most phones sold in the US which have built-in GPS chips to help authorities track people in case of emergencies. So this is not something that’s exclusive to the iPhone.

Some very cool demos were shown during the keynote albeit there were some malfunctions or mishaps that occured. I love medical app from AirStrip CC which allows doctors to monitor patients with a remote sensor. It feeds the iPhone the relevant data of the patient and can alert doctors when certain parameters are reached. I’ve always been a proponent of better technologies for health and medical services. This looks to really be a promising one.

All in all the WWDC keynore was great. Steve didn’t make an appearance though but it’s ok. It shows that Apple can exist and put on a good show even if he’s not there. It would have been better though but the other guys at Apple still did a good job.