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Comments: 770 +-   Apple's WWDC Unveils iPhone 3.0, OpenCL, Laptop Updates, and More on Monday June 08 2009, @02:21PM

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday June 08 2009, @02:21PM
from the one-more-thing dept.
apple
business
technology
Lots of big news from WWDC today including updates to almost all of Apple's laptops. They added a 13-inch version to the MacBook Pro line, updated the MacBook Air, and added a few new ports to some of the machines including an SD slot and firewire 800 port. Software updates saw Safari 4 launched, OS X updates including threading changes, Exchange support to mail, calendar, and address book, and OpenCL a new open graphics standard. The iPhone got quite a bit of love in 3.0, much of it just confirming older news. Cut, copy, and paste, shake to undo, developer APIs, Cocoa Touch support for text, landscape mode updates, spotlight, and MMS all made the bullet list. You will now also be able to rent and purchase movies directly from your iPhone. Other new features in 3.0 include the much debated tethering ability, allowing you to use your iPhone as a cellular modem (unfortunately there was no mention of AT&T actually supporting this feature, a wonder there wasn't a riot), integrated TomTom GPS navigation, and game features galore. New functionality also allows you to locate your iPhone via MobileMe, play a sound to help you locate it (regardless if it is set to silent), and even wipe your data remotely. The New iPhone hardware updates, "3GS", adds a 3 megapixel auto-focus camera, voice interfaces, twice the processing power, and hardware encryption. The 3GS comes in 16GB ($199) and 32GB ($299), pushing the 3G (which they are keeping on the market) to $99. Lots of other small updates amidst the bustle, looks like another successful WWDC.
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  • The GS stands for... (Score:5, Funny)

    by craenor (623901) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:23PM (#28254605) Homepage
    "Get Some" which Apple execs were rumored to have yelled at rival Palm execs while squeezing their junk.

  • Macbook pro (Score:4, Interesting)

    by aereinha (1462049) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:26PM (#28254643)
    Gained sd card reader...lost the express card slot. I want the express card slot back.

    • Re:Macbook pro (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CrackedButter (646746) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:39PM (#28254893) Homepage Journal

      Yeah that sucks, what the hell is wrong with Apple, why not keep the two of them as options. Now the only expansion comes from a single FW800 port. This is where Windows laptops do it better, they give you the card reading slots, and the Express slot. Apple did the right thing with the 13" but went backwards with the 15", not even bothering to update the 17" with them both, where its size would have allowed it! A CF reader would have been better for the Pro shooters. I'd rather have this than the inclusive price drop.

      But at least we know its an Apple SD card reader so it must be better! I wonder if it can read the other 3 card formats that are the same size like windows laptops, seriously sucks hard if it is just SD. Why bother.

  • Front Camera (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bicx (1042846) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:26PM (#28254653)
    Come on. Not just for video chat, but for ordinary photos. For those of you who have ever tried to take a picture of yourself with friends using an iPhone, you know my pain.

    • See yourself in Apple logo - take picture (Score:5, Informative)

      by _Shorty-dammit (555739) on Monday June 08 2009, @03:17PM (#28255653)

      Taking a picture of yourself with the iPhone is easy. When you can see yourself in the reflection of the Apple logo, take your picture. Works just fine and dandy.

        • Re:Front Camera (Score:5, Insightful)

          by pohl (872) on Monday June 08 2009, @03:25PM (#28255829) Homepage

          I personally think that such a feature sounds great at first, but people will quickly become disenchanted with it. First and foremost, because where you hold a phone to view the screen will give you a particularly unflattering angle of yourself: up your nose. Even relatively fit people are going to look like they have a double-chin when they're looking down at their phone. Ever notice all the myspace kiddies that take pics of themselves from a high angle? People say they want video chat on a phone, but I say "be careful what you ask for; you might get it".

  • Bashing Competitors (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bicx (1042846) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:27PM (#28254665)
    Has Apple been this abrasive to their competitors during the keynotes before? It was a little tacky IMO

  • yeh, too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by inerlogic (695302) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:29PM (#28254683) Homepage
    they're still married to AT&T....

    • Re:yeh, too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Darkness404 (1287218) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:33PM (#28254771)
      Not only that but it seemed like "Oh we are releasing a new feature! (not on AT&T)". I mean, just look at it MMS is going to be on every phone (but not AT&T that will be later in the summer) You also get tethering that really works (not on AT&T), etc.

      • Re:yeh, too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by caerwyn (38056) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:56PM (#28255195)

        I can't really believe that Apple is any happier about that situation than its customers are. I'm wondering if we're seeing the beginning of the end of that exclusivity.

    • Re:yeh, too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MBCook (132727) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Monday June 08 2009, @03:03PM (#28255393) Homepage

      I liked how AT&T got booed twice. Once for no tethering, once for no MMS until July (or whatever).

      I love my iPhone, but it's amazing that after basically saving AT&T from irrelevance, they still don't get it. How hard could it POSSIBLY BE to have MMS support available on day 1? Only every other phone on their network supports it.

  • OpenCL != OpenGL (Score:5, Informative)

    by adam.dorsey (957024) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:29PM (#28254703)

    FTA: and OpenCL a new open graphics standard

    Not quite. [wikipedia.org]
    ...a framework for writing programs that execute across heterogeneous platforms consisting of CPUs, GPUs, and other processors.

    OpenCL is like CUDA, but supposed to be more open along the lines of OpenGL, hence the name. The same guys who manage OpenGL (Khronos) manage OpenCL as well. You could probably use it to do graphics, but that would be stupid.

  • OS X updates (Score:5, Informative)

    by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:30PM (#28254705)

    Software updates saw Safari 4 launched, OS X updates including threading changes, Exchange support to mail, calendar, and address book, and OpenCL a new open graphics standard.

    To be clear, the updates to OS X referred to are features of OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) which will ship in September and cost $29. It is not an update to 10.5 and is not yet available outside of developer previews.

    • Re:OS X updates (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hattig (47930) on Monday June 08 2009, @03:13PM (#28255583) Journal

      $29 isn't a bad price.

      2007 : Vista and Mac OS X Leopard launch. Vista users talk about the high ongoing cost of Mac OS X upgrades because they occur every 18 months. Mac users say the trend is for longer gaps between OS launches, and that XP->Vista was uncharacteristically long.

      30 months later: Windows 7 and Snow Leopard launch at roughly the same time. Snow Leopard costs $29 to upgrade ($129 new). Windows 7 Home Premium: $260 (rumoured). Linux: Still free.

  • Security on auto-locate feature? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Turken (139591) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:31PM (#28254725)

    I hope there's good security on the auto-locate feature. Aside from the obvious "prank" of remotely wiping someone's iphone, I can also see this being abused for such things as spying on people's locations, or perhaps less invasive but more annoying... a "loved one" forcing your phone to ring when you already set it to silent for a meeting or movie.

  • Shake it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jargoone (166102) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:31PM (#28254731)

    Am I the only one who hates the shake interface for any action at all? Half the time I don't shake it hard enough, so I have to do it again. And for something like undo, it takes your eyes off what you're trying to do... or undo. I realize there are limited inputs on a device with few hard buttons, but hope there's an alternate way.

  • Can't Apple produce 15" or 13" laptops without that damn glossy display? These mirrors mounted on laptops get really annoying, and I'm not the only one who thinks that non-glossy displays are superior to their allegedly cheaper glossy displays.

    One more guy who's looking for a used MBP on ebay.

  • Hardware Encryption (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SpottedKuh (855161) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:32PM (#28254755)

    Umm, encryption of...what, exactly?

    Are we talking about the flash drive being encrypted? Are we talking about the iPhone finally supporting PGP?

  • iPhone fine print (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2009, @02:33PM (#28254773)
    Requires new two-year AT&T wireless service contract, sold separately to qualified customers; credit check required; must be 18 or older. For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB). (from http://www.apple.com/iphone/buy/ [apple.com]) Kudos for the new corporate aftertaste and giant spanking to current customers!

  • The Fraud of Tethering (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard (633989) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:37PM (#28254847)

    Other new features in 3.0 include the much debated tethering ability, allowing you to use your iPhone as a cellular modem (unfortunately there was no mention of AT&T actually supporting this feature, a wonder there wasn't a riot)

    Considering that the iPhone itself is really a small form-factor computer with communication abilities built in, the line has already been so blurred between phone and computer that I can't see how that fact that another computer can also access the Internet through the connection is all that different. Especially since you, the customer are paying to have the ability to transfer a given number of bits per month. Why should it even matter -- except to anal companies like AT&T who what to sell you capacity and then prevent you from actually using it -- the eventual destination of those bits? How it tethering even different from storing the downloaded data in an iPhone and transferring it later to another device?

    Answer: It isn't!

    The same for VoIP. It's all just bits being sent and received. Now create a business model that acknowledges this axiom.

    • Re:The Fraud of Tethering (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AdmiralXyz (1378985) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:56PM (#28255211)

      How it tethering even different from storing the downloaded data in an iPhone and transferring it later to another device?

      Right or wrong, the answer that AT&T would give is that you're not going to use nearly as much data on an iPhone as you would on a laptop. Yes, they're converging, but we're still quite a ways from the point where people are going to be downloading torrents to watch on their phones, or even using a great deal of bandwidth on everyday internet applications, because phones are short-use devices. I'm not saying I agree with it, but the decision to disallow tethering is a pragmatic one based on the fact that it would almost certainly increase AT&T's network load by a huge margin, considering the number of people who already own iPhones, and people are already complaining about the crappy speeds of their network as it is. You can't have it both ways.

  • At $99 the 3G is now relatively mainstream (Score:5, Interesting)

    by toppavak (943659) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:41PM (#28254915)
    There's always been a bit of a gap between the $100 (low cost) and the $200 (high cost) smartphones, the Pearl vs the 8820 in blackberry land, for example. With a $99 pricetag the 3G (hardware, at least, the data contract is still damned expensive)is now in line with all of the low-end smartphones currently on the market. With Apple taking a 30% cut on app sales plus a share of the AT&T contract price, it makes sense to push the cost of last generation's hardware down. As much as I and probably a lot of others would love to see a more open platform (Android or Linux, for example) gain ground in the mobile space, this will make it a lot harder to establish a sizable marketshare for the platforms that are more recently emerging into the market.

    Still, Android has a shot to build (and surpass) the app library of the iPhone by moving bottom up in terms of price-point. A large number of low to midrange phones running Android could give the platform the customer base it needs to support a large development community which would in turn help build the platform's maturity eventually leading to advanced smartphones with a large and diverse assortment of apps available. This would be almost the reverse of how the iPhone platform grew: starting out as a premium hardware and service, now working down to cheaper hardware to leverage growing revenue streams from a large app library and contracts from the installed (and growing) base. Philosophically and practically (monoculture is typically a bad thing) I would love to see Android succeed on a large scale in the marketplace but as much as I often disagree with Apple's stylistic choices and UI design I have to give kudos for how well they've executed the iPhone and app store as a business.

  • HTML 5 is the big deal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WiiVault (1039946) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:56PM (#28255193)
    Seeing Apple jump on board with HTML 5 and especially the video/audio tags is huge. If Apple is right that they own 65% of mobile browsing; having them stay up to date with standards is huge and ought to set the tone for others.

  • iPhone 3.0 software release date (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pathological liar (659969) on Monday June 08 2009, @03:11PM (#28255545)

    The iPhone 3.0 software release date has been given as June 17th although apparently paid developers can get the GM copy now.

    You'd think a detail like that could have found its way into the summary somewhere...

  • the usual BS about 64-bit (Score:5, Informative)

    by stevenj (9583) <stevenj@alum.mHO ... minus herbivore> on Monday June 08 2009, @03:17PM (#28255663) Homepage
    I was dismayed to see this old canard in Apple's MacOS Snow Leopard technology summary [apple.com]

    64-bit computing [...] enables computers to process twice the number of instructions per clock cycle, which can dramatically speed up numeric calculations and other tasks.

    Haven't people learned by now that this is total BS? 64-bit addressing is independent of instructions per cycle, bus width, or anything like that. (Of course, newer 64-bit systems may be happen to be faster for other, unrelated reasons.) The old "64-bit is twice as fast as 32-bit" is a line of hooey that has been sold to the public for years now (I recall it gaining prominence when Intel started promoting its Itanium plans), but I thought it was finally dying out.

  • PowerPC End of Line killing my PowerBook. (Score:5, Informative)

    by geogaia (1315109) on Monday June 08 2009, @03:18PM (#28255679)
    Another Apple tradition gone by the wayside: Apple has long supported their older hardware better than most PC makers. (I still visit classrooms quite happily running Mac OS 8 on old PowerPC hardware, for example.) But the new Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) will be the first that will not run on PowerPC Macs. That makes my barely-out-of warranty PowerBook G4 end of line as far as Apple is concerned. I'm not alone in this--I don't know how many million PPC Macs are still running, but Apple was selling them new three years ago. I'm more than a little annoyed. No doubt soon I won't be able to get Apple OS security patches, updates to iLife and iTunes, etc. It's almost like running Windows XP. Fortunately, it's still Mach *nix based, and as long as FOSS developers check their code against the PPC compilers, I can still get current versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.

  • 3G cheap as chips! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by YourExperiment (1081089) on Monday June 08 2009, @03:59PM (#28256453)

    Wow, I can get a 3G for $99? I'll take one! Oh wait, I have to pay how much on the contract?

    I do wish the media would stop parroting these utterly irrelevant "costs" for mobile devices straight from the press release, as if it was true or something.

    • Re:Lots of brain candy for the geeks, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2009, @02:38PM (#28254881)

      Well, it IS a developer's conference.

      Just sayin'.

    • Re:Lots of brain candy for the geeks, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cowscows (103644) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:45PM (#28254993) Journal

      If your biggest problem is that your latest product upgrade isn't as exciting as the initial launch of said product, well that's not such a bad place to be.

      Apple has consistently released new iPods for years, but not every one was a giant step over the last. And people complained that the change wasn't that exciting. But they kept selling truckloads of the little things, and they'll probably keep selling iPhones as well.

      I don't know what sort of huge innovations you were expecting. Apple has spent a lot of effort in creating the iPhone as a platform, served by the app store. They're not going to release something so incredibly different that it fractures that platform "eco-system". They're going to be very careful about releasing hardware that will result in apps that aren't backwards compatible with the phones already out there.

    • There is always something better just over the horizon. If you are a big Jobs devotee then you should have known better than to buy something just before WWDC. That is a MASSIVE NERD FAIL.

      • Re:Today's news = sad days for new iphone3g owners (Score:5, Insightful)

        by je ne sais quoi (987177) on Monday June 08 2009, @03:13PM (#28255579)

        you should have known better than to buy something just before WWDC

        He purchased the phone in February! That's 4-5 months ago. He didn't get "screwed" out of a better phone, he's just bitching that his phone is now last years model. But hey, unreasonable bitching never stopped slashdotters, so while we're wishing for an upgrade discount, why stop at 4-5 months, why not more? Shit, I bought my mac desktop 5 years ago and they've upgraded it since then 3-4 times including changing processors AND operating systems on me, why shouldn't I get an upgrade discount on that? By the GP's logic, Apple should never update their products because people keep buying their existing products. Sorry dude, welcome to the world of electronics, they get upgraded on a yearly or bi-yearly basis and the very minute you buy your product, there is a finite probability you will wake up tomorrow and it will be out of date.

    • Re:Today's news = sad days for new iphone3g owners (Score:5, Informative)

      by whisper_jeff (680366) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:57PM (#28255235)
      You're seriously complaining that the tech toy you bought went down in price and was replaced by a newer, better model? Have you never bought a computer before? Some might think I'm being a troll, but seriously, this is nothing new to tech products across the board - tech toy is released, sells, goes down in price and is replaced by better model, rinse and repeat until the model is phased out. Nothing new.

    • Re:Today's news = sad days for new iphone3g owners (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2009, @03:15PM (#28255627)

      I'd be pissed off to man. I started looking for my first computer when Intel released the 486/DX33. I'm STILL looking and waiting. Then came the DX/2 models, then PCI, then x4, then the Pentium. I came really close around the time of the FDIV bug. Things were looking good, the P75 and 90 were pigs, MMX did not have application support and it was going to be a while for the P2 and Cyrix had gone under. AMD screwed it up with the 686 and my wait started all over again. As soon as they stop getting faster and the price stops going down, I will eventually get a computer.

    • Re:Why an SD slot, I wonder? (Score:4, Informative)

      by WiiVault (1039946) on Monday June 08 2009, @02:54PM (#28255139)
      CF slots are too bulky for Apple's design. Atleast thats my guess.

    • Re:Why an SD slot, I wonder? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AtomicDog (168155) on Monday June 08 2009, @03:56PM (#28256399) Homepage

      I, too, don't understand why Apple decided to replace the ExpressCard slot with an SD slot on a supposedly pro-level notebook.

      The ExpressCard slot provided the only high-speed expansion option on Apple's notebooks. Maybe I'd understand this move if there was a docking station available that added other expansion options, but there isn't.

      I do a lot of photography and often shoot gigabytes of raw photos in a single shoot with my dSLR (which uses CF, not SD). Yeah, the sort of work the MacBook Pro is supposed to be aimed at. Besides that, I also do a lot of work with large disk images for the IT work I do.

      Doing such work on my aging MBP is a joy because I have an ExpressCard Serial ATA adapter that lets me use external hard drives without the limitations and overhead of USB, FireWire or ethernet. If I wanted, I could also use the card to connect to an external RAID enclosure at SATA II speeds.

      What good are the performance increases with the CPU, memory, graphics, etc if the only expansion option that provided the quickest data transfer speeds is now gone? Disk i/o will be an even worse bottleneck for me on a new MBP than my old one. No thanks.

      I was looking to upgrade my 2.5 year old MBP with a newer model, but I refuse to do so until Apple brings back an ExpressCard slot or something better.

      • Re:Why an SD slot, I wonder? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by c_forq (924234) <forquerc+slash@gmail.com> on Monday June 08 2009, @09:45PM (#28260651)

        I, too, don't understand why Apple decided to replace the ExpressCard slot with an SD slot on a supposedly pro-level notebook.

        They explained it clearly in the keynote. Less then 1% of users used ExpressCard. Over 90% of users owned cameras that use SD cards. Most users don't like using USB to hook up their cameras. ExpressCard is still available on the 17" MacBook Pro, because they acknowledge there are professional uses for it.

    • -1 Troll (Score:5, Informative)

      by javacowboy (222023) on Monday June 08 2009, @03:03PM (#28255387) Homepage

      Excuse me?

      1) Apple spent maybe a minute bashing Windows. Since OS X is a competitor to Windows, this makes sense.
      2) Snow Leopard is not a service pack. It has new features, some of which are revolutionary such as a 64-bit kernel, exchange support, OpenCL, Grand Central and dramatic performance improvements. http://www.apple.com/macosx/ [apple.com]
      3) Perhaps they took out the express slot because not enough of their customers wanted it. I have a MacBook Pro and never saw the use for it.
      4) The batteries now have way more battery life, which isn't "worsening" the battery situation in my book. Perhaps you're referring to the fact that the battery is not removable? I don't see that as a major issue. How often does a MacBook Pro user replace their battery?
      5) How did Apple "rip everyone off"? Apple is pricing their notebooks more aggressive *and* improving the hardware.
      6) Vista was badly received and Microsoft built Windows 7 on top of it. That was their point. I can't say whether or not Vista sucks, since I haven't used it that much.
      7) How is Apple "the biggest troll on the planet" for making fun of Microsoft for less than a minute? Other companies do the same things to their competitors.
      8) How does less than a minute of making fun of one of their competitors "turn off the enterprise crowd"? Oh, I forgot. All of your friends must comprise 100% of the "enterprise crowd". Maybe features like Grand Central Station, OpenCL, 64-bitness and Exchange Support, not to mention remote wipe and encryption will win the enterprise crowd. After all, you don't get enterprise accounts by selling vapourware. Apple knows this.

      • Re:The whole event was crap. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by amabbi (570009) on Monday June 08 2009, @03:08PM (#28255491)

        Just do not fully understand Apple's poo-pooing the netbook space. I see a Netbook as a supplement to my bigger system, that I prefer not to carry.

        Netbooks don't have the profit margins that Apple desires. Simple as that.

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