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.
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.
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.
iPhone fine print (Score:5, Informative)
Re:$79 Touch (Score:1, Informative)
That $99 price is WITH a contract.
Also, the 8GB iPhone 3G was $199 while the 8GB iPod touch 2G was $229.
Re:Front Camera (Score:2, Informative)
Uh.
How about my Nokia N82? Or the N71 I had before that?
What about the el-cheapo LG I had before then?
Pretty much every 3g phone has a front facing video camera (albeit most of them are 320x200 - 640x400).
Re:$79 Touch (Score:3, Informative)
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:Why an SD slot, I wonder? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Front Camera (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Front Camera (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Today's news = sad days for new iphone3g owners (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Today's news = sad days for new iphone3g owners (Score:0, Informative)
New to buying Apple products? Consult: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/ [macrumors.com]
Old Apple consumer getting ready to buy a new Apple product? Consult: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/ [macrumors.com]
Analyst/Gypsy Fortune Teller (their almost the same thing) guessing what products Apple is likely to release soon? Consult: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/ [macrumors.com]
-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.
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."
Re:How does the GS look to game devs? (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: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:The whole event was crap. (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.
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.
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.
PowerPC End of Line killing my PowerBook. (Score:5, Informative)
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:Front Camera (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: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:Front Camera (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:OpenCL != OpenGL (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 technology, only having been announced at the end of 2008. So far, apart from Apple, only Nvidia is close to releasing OpenCL drivers.
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:The GS stands for... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm gonna buy one and put it next to my Apple II GS. :)
Was that a joke? Some of us actually HAVE working Apple IIGS machines.
Too bad the comparatively low-res iPhone (competing phones are at WVGA resolution) is still much higher-res than an Apple IIGS.
I'm _still_ looking for a TransWarp GS accelerator board for my GS ... I'd like to get it beyond the default max of 2.8mHz. Maybe some day I'll find one on eBay. *sigh*
Re:Good update. (Score:1, Informative)
It's good to bring up the TCO including monthly fees, but it would be good to compare that to other cell phone plans in order to be fair.
Any other random phone might cost you $0 + $45/mo x 24 months = $1080. So even if the TCO of the iPhone is $1700-$99, it's only $521 (32%) more for the Internet access, built-in iPod everywhere you go without carrying two devices, etc. over two years. This assumes you'd have a cell phone no matter what.
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!).
Re:Macbook pro (Score:3, Informative)
the express card slot is slightly less worthless... I can think of only a single purpose for it (that is not duplicated by the firewire port, firewire does nearly everything for expansion purposes), a 3G card
eSATA is the other big one. It's faster than FireWire (even FW800) and on OS X supports SMART monitoring so you can get warnings before your drive fails.
Re:Java on Macs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why an SD slot, I wonder? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:the usual BS about 64-bit (Score:4, Informative)
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:And of course, no non-glossy displays (Score:3, Informative)
32-bit is with alpha.
You're right. 24 is good, 18 is what they are.
Re:And of course, no non-glossy displays (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Why buy used? There are other options [macworld.com] for anti-glare screens.
AT&T has confirmed tethering will be offered (Score:3, Informative)
They just didn't have an announcement ready.
See the engadget article, while brief confirms its availability http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/08/atandt-well-offer-tethering-on-the-iphone/ [engadget.com]
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).
Re:-1 Troll (Score:2, Informative)
2) Snow Leopard is not a service pack.
Even their own marketing calls it "fine tuning". Apple senior execs called it a refinement of Leopard, or words to that effect. It's a service pack.
... took out the express slot because not enough of their customers wanted it. I...never saw the use for it
It's a pro slot, used by pros, to connect pro kit - usually high end audio, video and storage. Remind me of the branding of this product again... oh yeah, pro!
How often does a MacBook Pro user replace their battery?
In my case, after just over a year - and that following recommended charge/discharge practices. Apple kindly sent me a replacement, as the first was an explosion risk. It died a little over a year later. My experience is not unusual for a Powerbook battery. The lack of easy access to replace the cell cheaply with a non-oem part is a strong disincentive.
Apple is pricing their notebooks more aggressive *and* improving the hardware
Apple is reducing the price of entry. It's arguable they are NOT improving the hardware (beyond normal Moore's Law) for the same price at the mid and high end prices. Cf express card loss, FW400 loss, discrete gfx loss. And even in their Pro line, they charging $30 for a lead to let you connect to any external display - not even a free HDMI slot. Last but not least, still offering only 2 USB slots, on the 15" models is a joke - especially as there's no express slot now. Use an external mouse, and now you can't plug in your external drive, as there's no spare slot for power. Use a mouse and a external card reader, and you're SOL to do anything else. I wanted to buy a MBP from this upgrade cycle. I won't - instead staying with a Powerbook G4 that's alot slower, but offers so much more in terms of usability. My hope is that APPL will correct some of these decisions in the next cycle. It's unlikely we'll go back to discrete batteries any time soon, but hopefully get what many users want - connectivity options.
Re:iPhone fine print (Score:3, Informative)
These are numbers i got from apple.com as I went through the upgrade process - I am an existing AT&T customer with an old (first gen) iPhone.
Re:OS X updates (Score:3, Informative)
To further clarify your clarification. Safari 4 for OS X was released today for OS X 10.5. It popped up on my Software update app.
Re:Why an SD slot, I wonder? (Score:3, Informative)
CF is being phased out. Most of the new DSLRs coming out are using SDHC. As usual, Apple is dropping support for old formats, which inevitably ticks some people off.
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?