Category: Technology Author : Steven Hodson Posted: June 8, 2009
Tags : Apple, iphone, leopard, OS X, wwdc
For those of you who haven’t placed themselves under some rock somewhere it is kind of hard to escape the fact that Apple hosted its World Wide Developer Conference today that saw line-ups around a whole city block. As usual the rumors and prognostications have been going strong leading up to this morning’s keynote speech and as expected primed up the troops for their dose of Apple goodness.
So I guess it’s kind of cool that they rebranded the current iPhone as … the iPhone but with a kill the Pre buzz price of $99.00. This of course opened up the way for the announcement every iPhone fan was waiting for – well at least some of what they had been hoping for. Video, Voice Control, Auto focus, and of course the holy grail of the one feature to rule them all – cut and paste. all this goodness that has existed on other smartphones for years for the price of $199 (16GB) or $299 (32GB).
Not to mention that for everywhere else except the US iPhone 3GS (S for speed WooHoo!) users would have MMS and tethering capabilities at some point after the 19th of June. For the AT&T suckers customers – well you’ll just have to wait for some undeclared future point in time.
Now the real interesting point for me was the announcement of Snow Leopard being available for $29.00. For those not familiar with this new release of OS X it is an upgrade to the existing Leopard release of the Apple operating system. For anyone else who is having to get it for the first time it’ll still cost you $149.00 (plus the cost of the Mac computer).
In other words they are issuing a service pack that has some enhancements included and you get to pay for the privilege – wow. I can just image the uproar if Microsoft started charging for their service packs, but then of course everyone knows how evil Microsoft is by selling an operating system that can run on just about any computer configuration on the market.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Twitter love-fest and other such useful real-time ego puffing.
[picture courtesy of Digital Daily]
Jun 8, 2009
But if you add an entire word to the product name, then it's not a service pack, is it?
A family member had a birthday on Saturday, so I bought the family member the low end MacBook for $1299 with a 2 GHz CPU and no SD card. In a possible personal world record, that configuration became obsolete in less than two days, with the $1199 MacBook with an SD card and a faster CPU. I love progress. Oh well, the people who get the new MacBook this month will still have to pay the $29.
Jun 8, 2009
If Snow Leopard is a service pack then so is Windows 7… and how much is Microsoft charging for that?
Jun 8, 2009
@ John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises)
If your family member wants the new model return it and get the new one. Apple has a 14 day return policy.
Jun 8, 2009
The iPhone was a great product, but it had some flaws — features other had that it lacked and competitors exploited. The new 3GS phone and the 3.0 software (which works on all iPhones sold to date) fills in most of those holes and adds new capabilities, like compass and plug in accessories. Exciting? Maybe not. Market impact — huge. Plug in accessories alone will spawn a whole new industry. Apple will soon own mobile healthcare.
If you want excitement, look at the app store: 50,000 to choose from. It's hard to catch a rocket.
Jun 8, 2009
Would it be weird if I professed my love for you?
Just saying.
–Kyle
Jun 8, 2009
@ John B. – Can I be your relative? For my birthday I got some candy and lottery tickets!
Jun 13, 2009
We exchanged today (Saturday), but were unable to avoid the restocking fee. Because of the price cut, however, we're almost even financially – and technically we're better off. (Inability to swap batteries does not impact the use of this particular Mac.)