Veering away from tradition of having the events on Tuesdays, Apple’s September music event is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept 9, 2009. The venue is yet to be announced but according to the Digital Daily it’s sure to push through.

Apple’s September event is usually a music centered event. Last year saw the launch of iTunes 8 with the Genius feature, the 4th Gen iPod Nano a.k.a Nanochromatic, the 2nd gen iPod Touch. What will Apple pull out of it’s proverbial magic hat this year and will it’s number 1 magician be the one to perform its tricks?

Rumors are circulating that this year will bring us a new for of “Digital Album” dubbed Cocktail. This is apparently a collaboration between Apple and the music labels to entice more people to buy the whole album rather than just individual songs. This will help music labels make more money with bulk sales rather than just individual songs. The album will include lyrics, notes and photos plus other interactive goodies.

Of course we can’t have a new format without new hardware. Next generation iPod Nanos and iPod Touch are reportedly set to make their debut. With both of them reported to get cameras. There have been leaked photos (true or not) of the iPod Touch with the cameras.

A camera for the iPod Touch would be sweet. I’ve played around with the iPhone 3GS’ photo app and the tap to focus is niiicceee.

While most of us are awaiting the launch or the Apple Tablet/NetBook or whatever you want to call it, don’t hold your breath. The reports say it won’t be coming out this month. It’s more of a 2010 product.

Products are good but what excites me the most is the chance that Steve might actually do the keynote. It’s a good time for him to do this since, one, he’s back at work full time and this will be a good way to show people that he’s back on top. Two, this is a much shorter keynote and should be less stressful than a regular keynote should it should make for a good comeback.

Well, with a little over a couple of weeks till September 9th, Apple hopefuls are now giddy once again. Will it be an early Christmas for us? We’ll see.

Post from: EveryJoe

September Apple Event A Go

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.

Post from: EveryJoe

WWDC 2009 Roundup

Here’s a quote from the review

iWork ‘09 makes many of the already user-friendly features from last year’s version even easier. While there is some learning curve to get up and running for former Microsoft Office users, iWork ‘09 offers an extremely intuitive interface and has plenty of advanced time-saving features to make it a worthy replacement for the much more pricey Microsoft solution. The lack of an integrated business-level e-mail client is still a disappointment, but Apple’s included Mail program pre-installed on Macs will suffice in most cases. Though iWork.com is a welcome addition for sharing iWork files online, we would have liked a more collaborative online solution, but we expect this is probably slated for future versions.

Read the full review here.

Post from: EveryJoe

Cnet Reviews iWork09

I was following the keynote last night via Gizmodo and MacRumors (before the site was hacked). I was only getting the text update and the images provided by Gizmodo. At that time I was a bit underwhelmed. This morning though when I got up, I watched the streaming video of the keynote. I must say that my opinion changed.

Phil Schiller is no Steve Jobs but I think he did ok. Not spectacular but I wasn’t bored to death. That had a lot to do with the products that they presented.

The heart of the keynote was the software. iLife 09 and iWork 09 in particular. I must say, from the keynote they did a wonderful job. I love how Apple uses technology that’s already available but pieces it together in a way that makes you just say, wow!

iPhoto’s new features includes Faces, a facial recognition algorithm that allows you to tag people in your photos and from that it will look at your other photos and look for the people you’ve already tagged and ask you to confirm if that’s indeed them. If it is, it can group photos according to the person.

Another feature is Places which uses geotagging to group photos according to where you took them.

iMovie 09 also sports wonderful new features.

iWork 09 is also updated. Pages haas been given a new full screen feature. This has been done before by other software but Apple recognized it’s usefulness and adapted it as well.

Numbers got updates as well and improved sorting and other features to make using spreadsheets better.

Keynote got some new transitions, new ways to build slide animations as well as a new remote application for the iPod Touch and the iPhone that will allow you to control your presentations via your device.

So the software was the focus this year and it’s really great once I saw it. I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

The third thing they talked about was the new 17″ MacBook Pro sporting the new unibody design. What makes this baby standout is the fact that it doesn’t have the removable battery. Instead it has a new built-in battery which is specially designed for the MacBook Pro. Apple says because of this, it has been able to design a battery that will last 8 hours on a single charge and can be charged for 1000 times. This battery has a typical life span of 5 years. More than double the industry standard.

Another option for the 17 is a $50 anti-glare option. This is a feature that most pros have been clamoring for.

Apple’s “One More Thing” for this keynote is the announcement that iTunes is going DRM free. Yahoo! It is abandoning the single pricing scheme though. Apple will be pricing songs in three price points. 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29.

Apple is also opening up it’s iTunes Store to 3G network. A feature previously unavailable. iPhone users can now access the same store via 3G. Allowing users to download songs wherever and whenever.

However in my opinion the biggest show stopper of the keynote was neither software or hardware. It was Tony Bennett. A fitting closer to a great MacWorld tradition.

All in all it was a good keynote. Not great. But it was ok enough. I will surely miss MacWorld Keynotes, a ritual of mine for the past several years.

Post from: EveryJoe

MacWorld 09

2009 will mark the last year that Apple will participate in the annual MacWorld conference. To add insult to injury Steve Jobs won’t be delivering the keynote.

This marks an end of an era. While the reason they state might be valid such as reaching more customers through their retail stores and online, MacWorld is still an event unlike any other.

The conspiracy theorist inside of me is speculating that Steve Jobs just hasn’t found a suitable replacement to give the keynote. He just doesn’t see himself doing it for a long time so it’s better to quit while you’re on top so to speak.

Whatever it is, it’s a sad day. I guess I won’t be staying up till 3 a.m. during MacWorld.

Read the post here.

Post from: EveryJoe

Apple’s Final MacWorld