Category: WWDC

As the Dust Settles, What Has Happened Since Yesterday (update)

We all know that the new iPhone is going to have GPS, but what we know now is that TomTom already has iPhone navigation software ready to be released with the App Store. I’m not sure what Garmin is going to think about this, with its Nuvifone coming and its killer app being the GPS capabilities, I would assume Garmin isn’t too happy that their biggest GPS competitor is going to be teaming up with its biggest cell phone competitor to build a GPS phone
Engadget
Update:

“Lafargue confirmed that there was a version of TomTom software running on the iPhone but he does not know if they will ever actually ship the product. You would think that the major reason for not shipping would be the clause in the SDK agreement that states “applications may not be designed or marketed for real time route guidance,” but Lafargue insisted that is not a problem. He believes that Apple is only “trying to protect itself” (from litigation presumably) so the verbiage in the SDK would not be an obstacle.”-Gizmodo

The data plan for the iPhone 3G is going to be $30 a month now, apparently the faster data means AT&T feels that they need to charge more for data. We also now know that the iPhone 3G will no longer be activated at home, instead it is going to be activated in store, which will take about 10-15 minutes. AT&T has also decided to drop the GoPhone plan for the iPhone completely.
Gizmodo

Apple has also announced Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, there is no firm release date (although the products home page says it is scheduled for release in about a year) yet but there is some information about what it will include.

  • No new features, instead Apple will streamline OSX and enhance performance
  • Dramatically reduced footprint, so more hard drive space for you
  • “Out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007
  • Grand Central – This will make “all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimizing it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors
  • More 64-bit support for accommodating more amounts of memory (up to 16TB)
  • Quicktime X – for more efficient media playback
  • Fastest implementatioin of JavaScript to date
  • OpenCL – “making it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit”

Apple

We also learn that it is likely that Apple will still be making a profit, even with the new $199 price point. When the first iPhone came out a teardown analysis came to the conclusion that the iPhone cost Apple about $170 in parts. David Carey, president of Portelligent says that the iPhone 3G may cost Apple only $100 in parts.
EETimes

MobileMe Guided Tour

WWDC 2008 Keynote Address Video

iPhone 3G Ad

So, What Happened at the WWDC ’08 Keynote?

…what, you don’t already know? If not, here’s a run down (just incase you weren’t hitting F5 like mad on Engadget).

Apps shown off by 3rd party developers:

  • Super Monkey Ball
  • Ebay
  • Loopt
  • Typepad
  • Associated Press
  • Enigmo
  • Cro-Mag Rally
  • Band
  • MLB.com
  • Modality Medical Learning App
  • Medial App from MIMvista
  • God of War-like game from Digital Legends Entertainment

-10.6 Snow Leopard will be talked about with developers “after lunch”
-Apple Push Notification Apps (a way to do notifications without having the app open
-Bulk Delete and Move for Mail
-Contact Search
-Full iWork Support
-PowerPoint Support
-Calculator Now has Scientific Mode
-Save images from emails
-Software update free for all iPhone owners
-Software update will be $9.95 for iPod Touch owners
-Software update available in “early July”
-If an application is 10MB or less it will be downloadable from iTunes, Wifi, and cellular network
-If an application is over 10MB it will be downloadable from iTunes and Wifi

MobileMe “Exchange for the rest of us,” a replacement for .mac

  • Push email, contacts, and calendar
  • rich email client
  • new web galleries
  • new calendar app
  • 60 day trial
  • 20GB of storage
  • $99 per year

iPhone 3G

  • Solid metal buttons
  • Flush headphone jack
  • improved audio
  • Better batter (up to 10 hours of talk time, 6 hours browsing, 7 hours video, 24 hours audio
  • GPS (which will only be turned on when asked for by an application, to save battery life)
  • Launching in 70 countries
  • 8GB black model for $199 with 2 year contract
  • 16GB black or white model for $299 with 2 year contract
  • Available in stores on July 11

Overall this was a pretty good keynote, even though the only thing you are able to get today is MobileMe. It wasn’t as gang busters and many wanted it to be but it was a solid keynote.

Pictures of the iPhone’s new back after the jump

Continue reading So, What Happened at the WWDC ’08 Keynote?

WWDC ’08 Keynote In 5 Hours

The Steve Jobs keynote at WWDC is today and will start in about 5 hours. In the meantime though you can look through my Rumor Roundup post, you can install the ReloadEvery extension for Firefox to automate the reloading of live blogs in your browser, you can follow MacRumors or Me on Twitter for live updates (I might be doing live updates, it depends on the stability of Twitter and the boom! worthyness of the announcements), check out Twistori’s WWDC page, or you can load up your browser with one of the following pages for live updates:

And of course I’ll be blogging about the interesting announcments at some time today or tomorrow here on this blog (just like my Twitter account it depends on the boom! worthyness of the announcement).

Right now I’m predicting a 3G iPhone with a better battery and a subsidy for new subscribers, available on June 29th. I’m also predicting some mention of OS X 10.6. I also think that we will see more information about the App Store, which won’t be available until the 29th alongside the 3G iPhone.

(If you want to know how I’m going to be getting updates it will be a combination of MacRumor’s Twitter messages, iPhone Alley’s live audio stream, and Engadgets live blog).

Published
Categorized as Apple, WWDC

WWDC ’08 Rumor Roundup

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on these rumors because I don’t really believe a lot of them, so instead I’m going to link to information about them.

(after each rumor I’ll say believe if I believe it, I may contradict myself, when you click through, but what is listed here is what I believe now, my views may have changed since I wrote the post)

3G iPhone shown at WWDC (believe)

iTablet
 OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (believe)
 iPhone and iPod Touch Firmware 2.0 Available Immediately
.mac turns into Mobile Me
16:9 MacBook and MacBook Pro LED Screens
Aluminum MacBook with Multi-Touch
New MacBook Pro Design
Developer Focused Mac

I plan on continually updating this post as new rumors come out, linking to them of course. So, check back periodically to see all of the new rumors that come about.

iPhone Apps Available on Monday

“A source at a software company that has been working on a native iPhone application tells us the company is getting ready to launch that application on Monday, which could also imply that Apple’s App Store will be up and running that day.” –Tom Krazit, Cnet

The App Store is (from all we know) the only way to get legitimate iPhone and iPod Touch applications on devices. But, another interesting thing is that many rumor sites are expecting the 3G iPhone 2.0 to be ready on Monday as well.

The 3G iPhone is expected to have GPS and, of course, 3G cellular networking.

I don’t know what to think about all of this, if we don’t see the new iPhone with firmware 2.0 we will certainly see it shortly afterward. It’s a strange situation in which it sure seems like there isn’t anything that could happen at WWDC that someone hadn’t already predicted. It seems that Apple dealing with all of the cellular carriers has opened up a huge crack in the unleaking ship that it Apple Inc. It seems that now there are too many points at which information on new iPhone developments could leak out of the company to bloggers or other news outlets.

I do think we will probably at least get a glimpse of the new 3G iPhone and hopefully we will also get to update our current iPhones to 2.0 but other than that I think it will be a relatively boring keynote (it was a little hard to say, but I said it).

Analysts Say 3G iPhone at WWDC and MacBook Refresh

Citi analysts Richard Gardner and Yeechang Lee are predicting that the 3G iPhone will be announced at the WWDC keynote in San Francisco. I do believe this to be true but I have to clarify something that no one has been able to get right. Steve Jobs has NEVER said that there would be a 3G iPhone this year. When announcing the iPhone in the UK he did answer a question saying that they may see a 3G iPhone this year but only if they could get the battery life that they wanted out of the phone… Ahh, it feels good to clear that up, especially since huge names like Engadget and Gizmodo have been getting this wrong.

The analysts are also predicting a refresh in the MacBook line, which sounds very promising since the leak a little while ago when the images of products showed up on a .Mac web page. They are also predicting that the iPods will have some changes, not much explained here but I would guess they mean pricing, which I don’t think will happen.

Shawn Wu an American Technology Research analyst says that the current iPhone 2.5G iPhone will see a “minor casing change” and a drop in price somewhere between $299 and $349. I do think the price change is a possibility but I don’t really know what he means by “minor casing change,” what could Apple do? change the material they use to frame the glass screen? Other than that I don’t really see anything they could change.

PC World

Apple Confirms Dates For WWDC 2008

Apple sent out an email yesterday confirming the dates for the World Wide Developers Conference, the dates are June 9-13.

The image that is included has become a bit of a mystery, the image (which is shown above) shows two Golden Gate Bridges going in two different directions. There has been a lot of speculation as to what this means, some people have said that they think it refers to the two development paths, Mac development and iPhone/iPod Touch development.

I take on a different theory thinking that Apple may be splitting the developers of the iPhone/iPod Touch into two groups, those that pay the minimum fee of $99 to build applications and those who spend much more money and are able to build applications that follow different guidelines than those who pay the minimum. Maybe some developers will be able to pay $499 and will be able to develop applications that can run in the background.

The only people who really know the answer to this mystery are sitting in Cupertino right now and I’m sure they won’t be leaking the secret to anyone so for the rest of us, we’ll have to wait until WWDC to find out.

World Wide Developers Conference