Apple's WWDC Unveils iPhone 3.0, OpenCL, Laptop Updates, and More 770
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.
The GS stands for... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The GS stands for... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm gonna buy one and put it next to my Apple II GS. :)
$100 for 16GB?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ouch, that's a costly upgrade, when the same thing in an SD card is roughly $20.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
same thing in an SD card is roughly $20.
I share your view in a sense, but that's an unfair comparison.
... Okay, probably not, but just playing devil's advocate for a bit. :-)
While I'm sure there's a substantial markup, don't forget they have to integrate this memory on the board which takes up valuable PCB real estate. The memory may also even be of better quality (Think solid state hard drives, where faster, more expensive SLC flash might be used).
Regardless, I'm sure it doesn't *really* cost anywhere near $100... but sdcard comparisons are
Re:$100 for 16GB?! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think SD card comparisons are unfair when you consider just about every phone on the planet besides the iPhone offers SD card expansion.
Think "development and setup costs" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:$100 for 16GB?! (Score:4, Informative)
Nope. The 8GB version is only a 3G, not a GS. That means it has the old camera, no compass, etc.
Pretty good deal actually.
I wonder if they'll kill the $100 version when they run out of stock, or keep it for the market share.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
(What Would Rufus Xavier Sarsparilla Do?)
Macbook pro (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Macbook pro (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Macbook pro (Score:5, Funny)
But at least we know its an Apple SD card reader so it must be better!
Of course it is. It ejects the cards by itself with a cute little motor and a soothing chime. Not like those primitive SD readers you find on PC clones.
Also it goes to 11.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
MagSafe power port
Gigabit Ethernet port
One FireWire 800 port (up to 800 Mbps)
Three USB 2.0 ports (up to 480 Mbps)
Mini DisplayPort
Audio line in
Audio line out
ExpressCard/34 slot
Kensington lock slot
Buy a third party product for your card reading needs.My Sony Cybershot 10.3 MP Carl Zeiss model has video out an
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're telling me that an SD slot can fit on my cell phone, but not on my MacBook? That the MacBook is just so chock-full of goodness that adding an SD slot would just be "too much"?
Who are you shitting?
It looks to me like someone at Apple thought they could coast for another few quarters, and then there was a little bit of excitement over the Pre and suddenly Apple is trying to make it look like they're really doing something.
If Apple wants to do something exciting, let them come out with a full-size, exp
Re:Macbook pro (Score:4, Funny)
Lacist!
Front Camera (Score:4, Insightful)
See yourself in Apple logo - take picture (Score:5, Informative)
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:No video conferencing then? (Score:4, Funny)
Only a 3 megapixel camera? Decent lens? Light source for indoor? 480/320 screen? lame
Fixed that for you
Re:Front Camera (Score:4, Informative)
no phone in the history of the universe has had a front facing video camera
Except almost every other freaking 3G phone ever made.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Most carriers don't want front facing cameras because then people will start asking for video conferencing and that goes against the philosophy of "If the customer buys a data plan, it must be as hard to use and crappy as possible to drive them back to the insanely profitable SMS and MMS instead". Video Conferencing doesn't qualify, it uses way too many bits unless you really work hard to make it near unusable.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
no phone in the history of the universe has had a front facing video camera
You are wrong: Nokia N82 [nokia.com] has both a 5Mpixel camera at back and a 352x288 front cam specifically for video calls.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe tone down the hyperbole? The Samsung z500 that I bought in 2006 had one already (and it was used already, no idea how old the model is).
The camera was total crap of course and I still don't see the point of mobile video calls, but that's beside the point: front facing video cameras have been done for quite a while.
Re:Front Camera (Score:4, Informative)
Nokia N Series [nokia.com]
Nokia 5800, two cameras on this baby [nokia.com]
The Sept 2006 released Nokia N95 which has two cameras and a tilt sensor [wikipedia.org]
The 2006 E63 [wikipedia.org]
Sony Ericsson
The 2006 P990 [wikipedia.org]
2006 Sony Ericsson with a full VGA Camera on the front [wikipedia.org]
CyberShot phone! [wikipedia.org]
Motorola
The Razor [wikipedia.org]
Your right obiviously no one has put a video camera in the front of a phone along with one in the back so users can take decent phones with one and make video calls with the other. Thats crazyness! My nokia 5800 will let me choose which camera (back or front) to use to take video/photos and which camera to use for calling, its certainly a new innovative feature.
Re:Front Camera (Score:4, Funny)
Comrade, we need your documents detailing when was the last time your RDF passed inspection.
No Phone In The Universe. EVER.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The software should not be a problem, nor should the camera. The idea is simple, and they know it. They may have just been against having two cameras, or AT&T wasn't prepared to deal with streaming video chats and Apple wasn't ready to deal with increasing the price.
Or maybe they just thought about how much it would be used.... when was the last time you did a video phone call with your cell? The whole usage scenario screams "awkward". Unlike your screen which sits in front of you, that's not where y
Re:Front Camera (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple lives on cockiness and fanboy hive-mind reality isolation. Did you expect any different?
Re:Bashing Competitors (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, I've only made it a quarter of the way through this thing and I've already come to the conclusion that they could have held this conference with no new product/feature announcements and it still would have been a huge success as long as they bashed Microsoft and Windows 7 for most of it.
Apple is hip, and its hip to hate PC!
The only Jobs presentation I've been to was for the unveiling of the NeXT and it already was like that (adjust for Windows/DOS versions).
Since then I've never managed to look at one of those things in whole. It just looks too much like a cultist rally or something.
yeh, too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:yeh, too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:yeh, too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The pokes at AT&T in the WWDC 2009 keynote (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:yeh, too bad... (Score:4, Insightful)
Before the original iPhone launched, the other carriers wouldn't make the investment for things like Visual Voicemail; only AT&T and only with exclusivity.
Now, of course, it's an entirely different story- I'm willing to be that Sprint and Verizon would jump through hoops to get at the iPhone, and I can only imagine the AT&T stock drop the moment the end of exclusivity is announced.
I'm also betting that Verizon has been kicking itself for the past few years...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Barring the fact that Verizon uses CMDA and not GSM for a moment, Verizon would still have to significantly change their operating policies to hope to get the iPhone. As it stands their favorite activity it to neuter any and every phone they offer, so that it only offers a handful of features Verizon approves of. If Verizon got the iPhone, they would be chomping at the bit to disable Bluetooth, turn-by-turn directions, app updates over cellular, etc. This is in stark contrast to how Apple likes to do things
Re:yeh, too bad... (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably because AT&T offered the most money! It's all about money. Apple and AT&T are in business to MAKE MONEY. Private companies want to MAKE MONEY. Every decision they consider and every project they undertake is designed to MAKE MONEY.
Sorry, I'm not picking on you. Just irritated -- people stamp their feet when companies do things they don't like, forgetting of course that these companies are in business to MAKE BLOODY MONEY.
Why do you think Apple is so against replaceable batteries in their phones? Why don't they allow storage cards? It's about MONEY.
Re:yeh, too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
The relationship is: OpenCL is like CUDA, as it achieves the same goals. OpenCL is like OpenGL in that it is an open standard managed by the Khronos group. OpenCL is not a graphics processing language, but it could be used to implement graphics processing languages.
OpenCL is a new techn
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Though your dig against Apple for their slow to come Java updates is not unfounded, Apple won't be controlling OpenCL. You don't even need to read TFA or TFwiki, your parent poster says it.
Precisely. Remember, they didn't "control" Java, either.
Remember when Steve said that OS X was going to be the "best Java platform on the planet"? Well, there may have been some interval in which you could make that case. But if you're trying to run JOGL on a 2008 MacBook, or Eclipse under Java 6, or anything at all under Java 7, you tell me how well it's working out for you.
I've been a Mac user since 1985, and an OS X user since 2000. Still am. But Apple are building a pretty consistent track record o
OS X updates (Score:5, Informative)
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)
$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)
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.
Good update. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not great but good. The $99 phone is the big news the rest of it is just nice. I like the voice controls, compass, and video but nothing is earth shattering. I do think Palm will provide some much needed competition for the iPhone. The difference in a two year contract runs a few hundred dollars and the Pre offers a keyboard which some people really want. If you can not tether on AT&T then it is just a big slap in the face for US customers. I hope Palm/Sprint will enable that feature on the Pre when they see how bent people are at AT&T over it. Now we need Android on some networks besides T-Mobile and we can start seeing a real three way fight.
Re:Good update. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because saving a hundred bucks off the ~$1700 total is such a bargain?
Shake it (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Shake it (Score:5, Funny)
And of course, no non-glossy displays (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What bugged me the most about these when they came out was that all the laptop makers (especially Apple) hyped it as a cool hip new feature when all they did was remove the anti-glare coating from the manufacturing process.
Re:And of course, no non-glossy displays (Score:4, Insightful)
The point isn't the glossy display, it is the 'cheap' glossy displays that reflect like mirrors.
There are lots of LCDs on various other brands of laptops with 'glossy' displays that actually filter the light so they don't blind you or act like a mirror.
The filtered glossy displays cost a few bucks more, but this is Apple, and apparently they don't care about the 'best' hardware anymore.
This is something we became aware of when our techs bought several glossy laptops back in 2005. The higher end displays, like the 1920x1200 units didn't reflect like the cheaper displays, and the difference of using them in bright light is a massive difference.
I feel sorry when sitting next to a Mac user at an airport, even when I'm using a Netbook with a filtered glossy screen with no problems and they are having trouble even seeing their screen.
Sometimes they ask what the trick is, and I have to explain the LCD Gloss finish/cover and Apple uses the cheap crap.
Hardware Encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, encryption of...what, exactly?
Are we talking about the flash drive being encrypted? Are we talking about the iPhone finally supporting PGP?
Re:Hardware Encryption (Score:4, Insightful)
iPhone fine print (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't AT&T let you sign a new contract for a discount on a phone after your 2-year is up?
I know Alltel, Verizon, AND T-Mobile all do.
Maybe Apple's website just isn't setup to do renewals, and you have to go to an AT&T store?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm with ATT and my 2 years is far from being up. The website told me I would get the upgrade pricing. If you're willing to sign another 2 year contract I bet one of their sales people will work with you. Everything is always negotiable.
The Fraud of Tethering (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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.
Or you don't care about tethering (Score:3, Interesting)
Not everybody does.
It's one of the things that has kept me from buying an iPhone so far, but really, it's a nicety. It was *particularly* nice to be able to tether through an old Nokia 6820 while I was on a four month road trip across the US a few years ago, and under those particular circumstance, convenient tethering might remain enough of a compelling feature by itself to outweigh anything else.
But the funny thing is... for most of what I use tethering for *now* (quick email checks, occasional directions
At $99 the 3G is now relatively mainstream (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Why an SD slot, I wonder? (Score:3, Interesting)
Since most higher-level dSLRs use Compact Flash, I'm a bit surprised they didn't include a CF slot on their "pro" line of laptops instead of an SD slot - especially since a CF slot could've served both CF and SD card users.
Re:Why an SD slot, I wonder? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why an SD slot, I wonder? (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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.
Re:To bulky, also old school (Score:4, Informative)
Newer DLSR's are pretty much moving in bulk to SD cards already. CF is already on the way out for pro gear.
No, this is incorrect. Low-end consumer dSLRs are certainly using SD; but those aren't pro gear. Pretty much all the new higher-end cameras from Nikon (D700, D3, D3x), Canon (EOS 5D mark II), Sony (Alpha A900), even Hasselblad (H3DII) are using CF.
The only higher-end cameras I can find that use SD are the Leica Rangefinders - and people might debate whether or not those are "pro" in the usual sense of the word (they are certainly pricey!).
HTML 5 is the big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Snow Leopard URLs now 404 or redirect (Score:4, Informative)
For a little bit there was a new page:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/ [apple.com]
It was pretty light on details and basically had all the same info that was on this PR page that now 404s:
http://www.apple.com/ca/press/2008_06/snow_leopard.html [apple.com]
Here is the original that I gleaned from ars:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8300945231/m/102001262931/p/9 [arstechnica.com]
"SAN FRANCISCO--June 9, 2008--Apple® today previewed Mac OS® X Snow Leopard, which builds on the incredible success of OS X Leopard and is the next major version of the world's most advanced operating system. Rather than focusing primarily on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation. Snow Leopard is optimized for multi-core processors, taps into the vast computing power of graphic processing units (GPUs), enables breakthrough amounts of RAM and features a new, modern media platform with QuickTime® X. Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 and is scheduled to ship in about a year.
"We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world's most advanced operating system."
Snow Leopard delivers unrivaled support for multi-core processors with a new technology code-named "Grand Central," making it easy for developers to create programs that take full advantage of the power of multi-core Macs. Snow Leopard further extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which lets any application tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an open standard. Furthering OS X's lead in 64-bit technology, Snow Leopard raises the software limit on system memory up to a theoretical 16TB of RAM.
Using media technology pioneered in OS X iPhone(TM), Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, which optimizes support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback. Snow Leopard also includes Safari® with the fastest implementation of JavaScript ever, increasing performance by 53 percent, making Web 2.0 applications feel more responsive.*
For the first time, OS X includes native support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 in OS X applications Mail, iCal® and Address Book, making it even easier to integrate Macs into organizations of any size."
iPhone 3.0 software release date (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:the usual BS about 64-bit (Score:4, Informative)
Re:the usual BS about 64-bit (Score:4, Informative)
Yes and no...
If you are in reference to traditional Apple's idea of 64bit, it is all about address space.
However in outside of Apple world, 64bit means several things beyond just address space.
1) 64bit chunks of computations instead of 32bit chunks. So the data being 'computed' is in native 64bit chunks - and in theory could be twice as fast in an optimal pass.
2) 64bit CPU features - more registers, other AMD64/EMT64 features
3) Combined memory read writes, for example in Vista x64 when a 32bit application is reading or writing to RAM the OS can often combine two 32bit read/writes into ONE 64bit read/write, thus speeding up RAM access.
The problem with OS X and 64bit is that it hasn't been a 64bit OS, and the only 64bit features OS X has offered was the 64bit address space instead of all the 64bit features of the CPU.
If the kernel is 'fully' 64bit in Snow Leopard (which it looks NOT to be) it would be faster for OS level operations and application handling. Vista x64 often is much faster than Vista x32 even when running 32bit applications because the OS does take advantage of the 64bit CPUs natively.
So from OS X point of view, 64bit computing has only been about more address space. But in the non-OS X world, from Linux 64bit to Vista 64bit, the OS actually uses other features of the CPU and calculates in full 64bit chunks thus computing more data faster.
You are right that 64bit is not going to be twice as fast as 32bit, just like 32bit wasn't twice as fast as 16bit computing. In fact, most 16bit applications took a slight hit when moving to 32bit processors. It was the 'other' features of the 32bit processors that made them a huge jump, like the pre-emptive scheduler. This is also true of the 32bit to 64bit move.
There are a few 'features' in the 64bit processors, but nothing like the jump from 16bit to 32bit in the x86 timeframe. One feature is the memory access mode (beyond address spacing), but in terms of performance, it is not a big leap.
The best 64bit performance bang is in how 64bit OSes are using the extra 'space' and 'modes' to get things done, like the Vista example of shoving two memory read/writes into one operation and removal of table linking for dealing with File Systems and even kernel level mapping tables that no longer have to link into 32bit spaces and can just natively use a singe 64bit addressing table. These are modest gains, though.
True 64bit optimized applications can jump 50% over the same 32bit application, if they are big data crunching applications, like 3D modeling, photo editors, encoders, etc. Having twice the bits to shove data through the CPU does make a difference, and by a lot depending on the application.
OS X doesn't offer this to its 64bit applications because it thunks the processing and is only giving the application a 64bit address space, so on OS X, a 64bit application will ONLY speed up if it is using more than 4GB of RAM (approx).
PowerPC End of Line killing my PowerBook. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PowerPC End of Line killing my PowerBook. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, that's not correct. Apple stopped selling all G4 Macs in January 2006, when the transition to Intel was complete across all product lines. They have done everything they promised they would do, including provide compatibility with all new OS releases for 3 years. By the time Snow Leopard is released next January, you will have had 4 years of compatibility with all new OS releases, which is even more than they promised.
What's more, you can continue to run Leopard on your Mac for years to come, and will still receive all security and compatibility updates. Apple is not making your old machine obsolete, even though the processor speed and performance of your old machine quite assuredly is (I had a PowerBook G4 from 2003 and it was getting quite long in the tooth).
In short, you'll get 3-4 years of solid use out of your portable computer anyway. 5-6 years if Leopard works fine for you. Why are you complaining? How many PC laptops from 2006 are still usable and are even capable of running Vista or Windows 7?
Depends on how you define "success" (Score:3, Insightful)
looks like another successful WWDC.
Well, that really depends on how you define success. If you think that they succeeded because they made it through mostly unscathed and that it ended and everyone went home, then you're probably right. Their share price even managed to recover to nearly the same value by closing.
However, most people expect more from Apple than a few minor tweaks and "refreshes", especially regarding the iPhone. Their presentation basically restated, bullet by bullet, everything that had been leaked to date. Nothing new or inspiring, and some things that weren't so inspiring (thanks, AT&T, for nothing). There wasn't even a "One More Thing".
No visions for the future. Nothing innovative, inspiring, or even interesting. In all, it was an ordinary, if not downright boring, conference that promised nothing but More of the Same.
3G cheap as chips! (Score:5, Insightful)
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all the rage now.
Gotta get that "OMG I HEARD THIS ON TWITTER 2 SECONDS AGO" reader to see it without scrolling.
Re:Tethering lawsuit? (Score:4, Insightful)
What would be their allegations in such a suit? What agreement has Apple broken? What law has apple violated?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple agreed to the app and it was in the appstore for a day, then pulled it without word.
Under the terms of the App Store program, they can offer or retract an App at will. They're under no obligation to provide an app, or even give a logical reason for withdrawing it. No question it's bad business to not give a reason, but there's no legal issue there.
They killed the nullriver app because AT&T told them to behind the scenes. Collusion and abuse of monopoly power.
The App Store isn't a "monopoly" in the US legal sense. If the App store was the only way to buy an app on 90% of the phones in the US, or if Apple had colluded with Google to prevent an App to be shared on either store, then there might be a
Re:Tethering lawsuit? (Score:4, Informative)
It was removed from the North American App store. In North America the Iphone is exclusive to ATT. ATT does not allow tethering. You will not be able to use the Apple tethering app in North America.
Re:Tethering lawsuit? (Score:5, Interesting)
Correction: In the USA, AT&T is the exclusive provider. In Canada, Rogers and Fido (same company basically) offer the iPhone, officially.
Re:Lots of brain candy for the geeks, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it IS a developer's conference.
Just sayin'.
Re:Lots of brain candy for the geeks, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Let Those Mod Points Fly Apple Crazies! (Score:3, Funny)
Mod the unbeliever straight down to hell!
-1 Troll (Score:5, Informative)
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
AMD's hypertransport was revolutionary, microwave ovens were revolutionary and not all revolutionary ideas have to be popular (see Office 2007's menu system). Taking a 32bit/64bit hybrid OS and making it purely 64bit is evolutionary.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
...introduce a service pack for Leopard priced at 29USD...
It looked like a lot more than a service pack to me.
Apple charges an extremely fair price for OSX, in my opinion. Look at Vista Ultimate, which costs $250 retail for the full version, and $200 retail for the upgrade version.
Apple only charging $30 for the Snow Leopard upgrade seems like an incredible bargain to me.
Re:The whole event was crap. (Score:4, Informative)
Really? The fact they seem to have seriously updated the Finder back end code is good. The faster mail is nice. The full Exchange support is going to be huge for many people.
It's $30. You're not forced to upgrade. You're not being asked for $400 for Business Ultimate Platinum edition.
Just because Apple isn't competing in the $200 netbook category doesn't mean they are screwing up. It means they care about the customer experience.
When did Apple ever release "me too!" products to jump into temporarily hot markets?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The place I think Apple is still blowing it is in the "netbook" space. I will not spend over $1,000 for an Air to just do email and surf the net. In fact I just bought a Dell Mini 12 with Ubuntu for that, and at $500 is much easier on the wallet. No entry here by Apple despite Apple having a Mobile ready OS, unlike bloated Windows (reason why netbooks run XP), which I just do not get. 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. The iPhone can do some basic stuff on the road, but the screen is just not big enough for "surfing" the web, and handling documents etc...
Based on my experience with the Mini 9 and Windows 7 RC compared to the same machine with Ubuntu and XP, I think it's going to take a lot to beat MS in terms of performance on a netbook any time soon.
Re:The whole event was crap. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Very, very far behind. It's not really $99--that's probably no more than a third the total price. You pay the rest off on time as part of your AT&T subscription.
Re:Today's news = sad days for new iphone3g owners (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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)
Re:Today's news = sad days for new iphone3g owners (Score:4, Insightful)
An iPhone is a poor investment. Here's a tip; they'll release a better phone next year, and the 3GS will be worth less.
Re:Today's news = sad days for new iphone3g owners (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
it would be different if they said, "in 1 year, there will be this blah blah blah phone for $199" because that would have given the consumers a chance to decide if they want to go ahead with the massive $199 purchase or wait to get something that is better for the same price.
Yeah, so people like you would hold off on buying a phone for 5 months? Why would Apple do that to themselves? They much rather have you buy a phone in Feb and then the newer one a year later.
Re:Today's news = sad days for new iphone3g owners (Score:5, Funny)
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: (Score:3, Informative)
Any iphone devs have any idea how the new graphics chipset might affect things? Are there going to be GS-specific graphics API calls?
Also I wonder if we'll see 3gs-only games? Obviously it would unwise to do so from a sales perspective, but I wonder if apple will even allow such a thing.
Yes, the GS has OpenGL ES 2.0, which is not backwards compatible with OpenGL ES 1.1. So we'll probably see some GS-only games.
Re:No OpenGL ES 2.0 (Score:4, Insightful)
I have also read the official press release from Apple (not sure if it is already released yet, but it should be soon) and it also mentions OpenGL ES 2.0, so I think you got your upgrade after all :)
Re:No Macbook aluminium in apple store! (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, you can buy the 13.3" MacBook Pro they announced, which adds Firewire 800 and an SD card slot to the MacBook configuration they've dropped. Sadly you will have to pay an extra -$100 for this configuration.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)