Back to the Mac

Apple did yet another event yesterday, Back to the Mac. The video is available streaming via Apple’s website and iTunes. If you downloaded the podcast version via iTunes, redownload it. The first video is botched, won’t work on iOS devices.

So let’s get to it.

1. Steve Jobs opened up the keynote, but handed it off to Tim Cook right off the bat to talk about sales. Marketshare, blah blah, Steam & Autodesk, blah blah, Shanghai store, blah blah. Next please.

2. Job’s back to introduce iLife 11, as expected. Phil went on stage to show off iPhoto 11. Nothing too drastic. Full screen mode for events is great, presumably a transition towards touch-based UI of future Macs. It made the UI a bit more similar towards the photo app on the iPad. A bunch of new slideshow themes, great, but I expect they’re going to be overused fairly quickly as everybody is using the same templates. Email and Facebook integration inside iPhoto is great too. Hopefully Apple will allow iPhoto to upload higher res photo to Facebook. Previously, iPhoto is stuck at lower than VGA res photo for Facebook uploads. Book creation is neat, but I have never done/ordered one. Interestingly enough, there’s a Letterpress documentary built-in into iPhoto. Nice, but really?

3. iMovie 11. Randy is up. New features are:
-Improved audio editing. More granular control over fade-in/out and audio levels. Very neat, not needing to deal with Garage Band. Audio effects is also a nice touch.
-The new video effects are awesome, especially the freeze frame effect. Wow, I can’t wait to play with this.
-Movie trailers. Basically themes that present videos like movie trailers. Simply awesome. It can make plain videos into amazing videos, with just a couple of clicks. I truly can’t wait to get my hands on this. People that got bored watching this demo don’t know what they’re watching. Imo iMovie is the killer app on the Mac. You cannot simply do the same thing with any other app on any platform with the same ease of use.
Really, iMovie 11 alone is probably worth the price of the iLife bundle. Super awesome.

4. Garage Band 11. A product manager called Xander is up. Who is he again? Ah who cares.
-Groove matching. This is probably one awesome feature that you could only find in pro apps in the past. It basically syncs up all tracks to match into a single track’s rhythm in 1 click. Amazing! I probably would hardly use Garage Band, but this is just too cool.
-Flextime. Uh, yeah, you can lengthen or shorten a clip. I mean really, if you think about it, with this and groove matching, you don’t really have to know how to play music anymore, just like some of the artists out there. LOL.
-More lessons.
Garage Band is one of those apps that most people wouldn’t know what it is, but those that do will love it.

5. iLife 11, $50. And yeah, I ordered it already.

6. Facetime, on the Mac. Yeah, move aside iChat, the new meme is Facetime. It’s strange that Apple did this in the first place instead of building on top of iChat, but I guess there’s gotta be a technical reason, especially on iOS. Seems to work great as it auto-detects the rotation on the iOS devices. Interesting enough, Apple doesn’t call the camera on Macs as iSight anymore. It’s Facetime camera. so peeps, learn the new meme.

7. Mac OS X Lion. Yup, the next OS X, 10.7. The idea is taking some ideas from iOS back to the Mac. Touchscreen iMac? Steve said no way. LOL. He’s right though. Touch screen on a vertical screen is weird, and doesn’t work. Just look at those touch screen PCs by HP. I’m guessing the magic trackpad will have a bit more focus in the near future.
App store for the Mac. A lot of people started to be leery about this, thinking Mac will be as closed as iOS for apps. I don’t think that will be the case, but we’ll see. Some nice features for the regular consumers would be auto-updates for all apps and licenses of apps for ALL your Macs. Yeah, see that Microsoft?
Craig is up for demo.
Launch pad. Well, it’s iOS home screen on the Mac. Not too thrilled about it. It’s the same as iOS, including folders. You know what it is? A full screen Start menu. LOL.
Full screen view is pretty neat. Unlike Windows, looks like Full-screen in Lion removes the menu bar too. I guess devs have to re-engineer their apps.
Mission Control. Huh? Yeah, it’s unlike Apple having a feature named “Mission Control.” It seems silly. It’s basically expose 2.0. Oh, and the Magic Mouse sucks. Even Craig is having a hardtime swiping here and there. Should’ve used that Magic Trackpad.
OS X Lion, Summer 2011. Heck, I’m not even on Snow Leopard yet, still on Leopard.

8. One More Thing. Macbook + iPad? Yeah, new Macbook Air. The leaked pictures are true.
-13.3″, 2 USB ports, SD card slot, SSD only (good!), full size keyboard (but not backlit anymore, boo), 1440×900 screen res, Core 2 Duo (Steve re-emphasize that this is a fast processor, probably to ease users since everybody is expecting the Core i3 at least), GeForce 320m, 7 hours battery life, 30 days (!) stand-by time.
-11.6″ version. Yeah, the rumors were true too. 1366×768 screen res, 5 hours battery life, but no SD card slot (boo!).
Prices? Apple is going aggressive here. $999 gets you 11.6″ with 64GB, 1.4GHz CPU, 2GB RAM. Wait, 2GB RAM? Yeah, Apple cut off a corner there. Good thing is, unlike the previous Macbook Air, you can order BTO to 4GB RAM for another $100. Downside, it’s BTO only as the RAM is soldered to the motherboard, so you cannot upgrade the RAM yourself. The 13.3″ starts at $1299 with 1.86GHz and 128GB, and same 2GB RAM. Apple is going to rake in a lot of $100 4GB upgrade.
One weird thing is a microphone on the side of the Macbook Air. WTF? I don’t understand the logic. Wouldn’t it be better to place that near the camera? And how does the 30-day stand-by time works? Hibernation? But it’s instant-on? Huh?

Oh, of course, the obligatory documentary by Jony Ive. I think he should voice all documentary videos about anything. LOL.

Having the iPad, I don’t really see a need for these ultra-portable laptops anymore, but boy, it’s Apple, and I’m still drooling over it. LOL.

Overall, great keynote. I’m really surprised how a lot of people are “disappointed” and/or got bored with this. Apple has always demo iLife apps on every new version, and nobody ever got bored before. I guess it’s just a trend to hate anything Apple. It’s the “cool” thing to do. iLife allows normal people to make great photo slideshows and videos. I love it, and I think iLife 11 is another awesome update. The catch is, it requires Snow Leopard, and I’m still using Leopard. GRRRR! So I have to shell out $29 for SL too. Oh, and I’m not looking forward towards re-formatting my iMac.

Well, that’s it, my rundown on Apple’s latest event. No pro apps updates. No Verizon iPhone. We’ll see what’s more to come before the holidays.

 

Apple 2010 September Music Event

So, yeah, something happened yesterday. Apple did their annual September music event to release new iPods. The keynote was available live, streaming for SL and iOS users. Yeah, Snow Leopard. I had to use my iPad to watch it. 🙄

Anyway, I’m just going through the keynote chronologically.

1. Updates on retail stores. Blah blah blah, nice stores. Update on iOS, blah blah, revolution, blah, blah, Google you suck, blah, blah, apps. Next.

2. iOS updates. Take home note is that 4.1 is coming next week with bug-fixes, and will feature HDR photo taking capabilities. I hope this feature will be available for the 3GS too, as we 3GS users have been gimped from iMovie already. New to 4.1 is Game Center, and Epic is showing their new game, powered by Unreal Engine 3, running on an iPhone. Pretty amazing, considering it’s running on a phone. Nintendo and Sony, be very wary. Hardware on mobile phones are advancing much more rapidly than the hardware on Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. iPad users will have to wait longer for iOS 4.2, coming in November, and it will feature wireless printing and AirPlay (AirTunes part deux), in addition to all iOS4 features.

Jobs demoed 4.2 on his iPad, showing the same old stuff such as “multi-tasking” (I rather call it task switching), threaded mail, folders, etc. One thin I notice in the 4.2 Safari browser on Job’s iPad, the “multiple tab” button seems to show a number now (can be handy to show you how many tabs are opened), and the “plus” icon is now an arrow “send to” icon.

3. Finally, the new iPods. Apple decided to renew all the iPod lineup (except the classic).
-First, the shuffle. The main complaint of the 3G shuffle is the fact that it has no buttons. Well, 4G shuffle brings back the buttons. So it looks like the 2G again, except that it’s square. Meh. At least Apple recognize that going obsessively minimalist doesn’t always work. It has all the voice over features from the 3G. 5 colors, 2GB, $50.

-Second: the nano. All the rumors were true. The 6G nano is square, has a clip, and uses a touch screen. It’s so small that it’s only a tad bigger than the shuffle. Sounds cool, right? Well, Jobs kept saying how it’s better, but he obviously skipped the features that are gone from the previous nanos. First, it’s a smaller and lower res screen than even the 3G nano. The video camera is obviously gone. Oh, and guess what, no video playback. Yeah, talk about going backwards. Also based on the demo screens, looks like the playback feature will mimic iOS, meaning no shuffle-by-album. The kicker? It still carry the same price as the previous nano: $150 for 8GB and $180 for 16GB. So, do you want to pay the same price and get less? Apple thinks so. We’ll see how the market responds. Pretty disappointing imo, and not even as much color options as the 4G/5G nano.

-Third: the Touch. Freakishly thin. It has the high res “retina” LED display, although Jobs conveniently didn’t say whether it’s the same IPS display as the iPhone 4 or not. My guess is that it’s not, and it won’t have oleophobic coating either. Looks like Apple really wants to make sure that the iPhone holds its value over the Touch. The new Touch will sport the A4 chip, although whether it runs as fast (or faster) than the iPhone 4 is not yet known. Gyroscope is included, and also a front facing camera for facetime. Rear camera is also added with HD (720p) video recording. The rumors are pretty much spot on. The pricing is a bit odd, with 8GB for $230, and jumps to 32GB for $300, and 64GB for $400. I guess Apple want to keep their good margin, not willing to reach the $199 price point, nor do a 16GB version.

Funny how Jobs demoed the nano, but not the new Touch. Also funny that Jobs went through the new iPods fairly quick, only halfway through the whole keynote. So what’s next?

4. iTunes. New iTunes 10, new icon, slightly updated UI, and Ping. Yeah, Microsoft has bing, and Apple now has Ping. It’s social networking inside iTunes. Errr, sure, that’s assuming that your friends are also using iTunes. Nobody I know uses or buy music from iTunes. They use bittorrent. 😛 At best, Ping is probably just going to be a niche amongst hip Apple/iTunes users.

5. One more thing/hobby, a 2nd gen Apple TV. Super tiny, just HDMI and optical out (no component), ethernet, wifi. No purchases, just rentals. Err, yeah, not sure if that’s what people actually want (hint: bittorrent). HD movies is $5. Sure, it’s HD, but Red Box DVD rental is just $1 per day (bittorrent is free). At least the new Apple TV supports Netflix streaming, so Netflix users don’t have to spend more money. TV shows rental is 99c. Err, sure, they’re cheap enough, but I already have Netflix, and spending more money just doesn’t jive with me (again, bittorrent is free). You can stream content from Youtube (interesting since Google is doing Google TV), Flickr (alas, no Picasa, Facebook, or other online photo storage support), and mobileME. You can still stream from a Mac/PC running iTunes. No Apple, I want to be able to stream my own videos form a simple NAS/Windows Home Server. 😦 In addition, there’s still also the codec support issue. I’ll stick with my HTPC running XBMC.

The new Apple TV is going to be just $99, shipping in a month. So, who’s Apple competing with this new Apple TV? The obvious one is Roku, a netflix client at a similar price point. The upcoming contenders are Google TV boxes and boxee box. Add on top of this, a lot of devices and even TVs today have a netflix client built-in already, and some also offer youtube/Amazon video capability. It seems that the market feels too crowded for the wrong reasons.

…and that’s it. The keynote re-run cut off the Cold Play music.

So, what’s my take on the new iPods? How was my prediction?
1. iPod shuffle
Well, I only got the price right, 2GB for $50. Apple usually is pretty strong headed in terms of the design choice they did (button-less shuffle), so I wasn’t expecting they would go back to the 2G design. But I guess consumers win this time.

2. iPod nano
I did better this time, due to the leaked cases pictures. New form factor, touch screen, no camera, and same price points. One should question the value of the new nano. Sure, it’s smaller, but you’re basically paying the same amount of money for less (no camera, smaller screen, no video, presumably no shuffle-by-album). Also, the competitors are way cheaper than Apple now. Just for example, Sony’s entry level E-series MP3 player can be had for less than $100, and you’ll get 16GB! Previously, Apple has a reason to retain the higher price point with the video camera. I don’t know if the consumers are willing to shell out twice the money just to get something smaller (with less features to boot). Imo the only reason Apple could do this is simply because they owned the MP3 player market. iPod as a name has become the Kleenex of MP3 player. This also shows that a standalone MP3 player as a device is a dead end. There’s almost nothing else to innovate (to the point that Apple added a camera on last gen nano). Now the only way to go is backward, I guess. Disappointing. However, it is still tempting to get one just for the cute/collectible factor. I mean I have bought pretty much all generations of iPod nanos (all of them, 1G to 5G). I mean gotta catch ’em all, right? 😀

3. iPod Touch.
Most of my guesses hit the mark: retina display, facetime, front face and rear camera. I just didn’t expect Apple to completely replace the lower end with an 8GB version of the same generation (instead of using the 3rd gen Touch). The surprise is HD video recording. Sounds awesome right? You gotta wonder though, that new Touch is even thinner. How the heck Apple did it, considering that even the 3GS camera is too thick for the 2G/3G Touch. Well, looking at the spec, you’ll see the ugly side. Yeah, the new Touch can record 720p video, but it’s obviously a cheapo crappy sensor, as its picture taking ability is only 960×720 resolution. That is not even 1MP. I mean come one, find a dumbphone/cheap digicam that still do less than 1MP picture. Extremely pathetic. This is yet another Apple’s obsession with thinness, sacrificing feature. I rather have a thicker Touch with the 3GS camera in it. I guess Apple just want to make sure they have more stuff to roll out for September 2011. Still, it’s a good buy, especially 32GB for $300. Plus you can do facetime, and it’s iOS. There’s virtually no competition here, yet. Heck, Sony is still selling their 16GB X series for $300. The only contender is the ZuneHD, which is due for an upgrade too. Rumor is MS is going to do a Winpho7 Zune HD without the phone, but the bar is already set fairly high, with the Touch having Facetime, HD video recording, and retina display.

Oh, how about the iPod Classic? Jobs didn’t even mention it at all, but it’s still alive, 160GB, same price $250. Yeah, Apple is the only player in town here, so they see it they they don’t need to do anything.

In the end, the MP3 player is dying. Everybody is using their cellphones as their MP3 players. We already see this as Apple is now very confused on what to do with the nano. Heck, ever since I have an iPhone, I hardly use any of my iPods anymore. The only surviving market will be the low end cheapo MP3 player, and the “PDA” replacement like the iPod Touch, where it’s turning into a mini computer at the $200+ price points, where people is expecting more than just an MP3 player.

How about the Apple TV? Well, my kind of content is J-dorama and Tokusatsu, with Anime sprinkled all around. No content providers in the US, including Apple, offer those, so my only source is fansubs. The most common codecs use in fansubs are Xvid + .avi, or H.264 + .mkv. Neither of those are supported by Apple TV (or any Apple iDevices). So far my solution is a plain Windows HTPC with XBMC. The new Apple TV would be an interesting Netflix client though, and for people that like to rent movies. As for the 99c TV shows, well, it can be pretty expensive if you like watching TV shows. Paying $10 per month for hulu plus may be a better deal, unless you hate ads. Apple TV could’ve been more. Apple could’ve been more aggressive (apps). But I guess they have to play nice with the studios and network providers. Oh well, I’m not interested in it anyway unless Apple added more stuff later on. It seems nice to be able to stream videos from my iPad/iPhone to the Apple TV.

So there you go, my impression/rant of Apple’s 2010 September event. Will I get any of those new iPods. Well, the new nano is interesting for collecting sake. The new Touch is interesting also, as I cannot have iMovie on my 3GS. But I dunno. I rather save my money for a Canon S95. My guess is the big seller will be the new Touch as it finally has camera. People had been lusting over a camera, and the 3rd gen Touch disappointed. Now those people will get this new Touch. Also, there are people that don’t or cannot get an iPhone, so the iPod Touch is the obvious gateway for the app store. To be honest, I don’t think the shuffle and nano will sell much, especially at those prices.

 

Apple iPod rumor

So, here we go again. September, and various tech blogs posting Apple’s invitation and various rumors. I’ll chime in with my own 2 cents.
The biggest rumor is a new Apple TV, dubbed iTV, which is rumored to be an iOS powered set-top box for $99. I don’t know. Sure, with Google TV, Apple probably feel they need to pay more attention to the Apple TV. Thing is, Apple’s invitation shows a guitar. A new iTV imo would be very significant to warrant a focus on itself, and a guitar kinda tells me the focus in tomorrow’s event will be music/iPods. Apple has a tendency to hold smaller events at a more frequent basis nowadays, so we could still see iTV next month or something.

Now let’s get to the focus of music.

1. iTunes
The rumors are saying iTunes X (iTunes 10) with longer music samples (up to 1 minutes from 30 seconds). Another rumors would be 99cents TV-show rental. I don’t know. I don’t think any of those would be significant. What people would want by now is ability to stream their music collection from the cloud. What I want is wifi syncing for iPad.

2. iPod shuffle
I don’t think anything will change. You can’t really do anything more to a button-less piece of metal. Currently, Apple is selling the 2GB for $60, 4GB for $80, and special 4GB edition for $100. I don’t think this can get any cheaper, although a $50 price point would be possible. I do think we will see new colors like the nano, just like the trend on previous shuffle. My guesses (along with new colors):
-Price drop across the board: 2GB for $50, 4GB for $70.
-2GB gone, replaced by 4GB for $60, leaving a better gap for the iPod nano price points.
I’m going with the first guess. Funny thing is, usually you can kinda make an educated guess based on the pricing of the refurbished iPods. However, I don’t see the shuffle being available refurbished.

3. iPod nano
The big rumor is a re-design tot a smaller square shape with maybe a clip ala the shuffle on the back, based on pictures of cases. Apple had put the nano in a weird spot by putting a video camera in it last year. It would be odd, although not impossible, for Apple to regress and take out a big feature. Then again, the guitar picture on the invitation mean a focus on music, and Apple’s smart marketing can spin things be saying that they are focusing on music. So, in addition to the form factor change, a bigger rumor would be that the face of the new nano would be touch-screen, something that I had thought about last year. If this is the case, then Apple would have to re-invent the software, unless they can squeeze down iOS, eliminating everything other than the iPod functions.
Some people argued that Apple wouldn’t change the nano’s form factor that radically. Well, remember the iPod mini? Apple replaced that with the nano just after 2 iterations. If you look at the nano history, we are at that 2-year point with the current design (4G and 5G). The only question is the camera, as at that smaller size, something got to go. Or, Apple could simply have another lineup. In any case, the pictures of the new form factor case are too significant to ignore. I think Apple would ditch the camera (remember, there’s still the iPod Touch), spinning it as re-focusing the nano for music.

So, my guess is that the new iPod nano will have the new form factor, touch screen, with a new UI with the menus revolving ala coverflow. I just hope Apple is not skimping the software (like shuffle by album, which is still ironically missing in iOS). Price wise, it depends on how aggressive Apple want to be. They could just keep the same price points ($150 for 8GB, and $180 for 16GB), or something more aggressive like $100 for 8GB and $150 for 16GB (justifying the loss of the camera, while leaving a better breather room for iPod Touch pricing).

4. Lastly, the iPod Touch.
The iPod Touch is becoming the most important iPod for Apple, as it’s the gateway to the profitable app store. With the last year’s Touch not getting anything worthwhile (other than the upgraded internals), I think this year’s Touch will be receive a significant update. iOS 4 will be the first obvious feature, complete with a rehash of folders and multi-tasking. Another obvious feature would be a front-facing camera for Facetime. Apple already stated during the iPhone 4 announcement that there will be tons of Facetime devices by the end of 2010. The feature being added to the Touch is pretty clear.

So, what else. The form factor doesn’t seem to change much based on the leaked case pictures, definitely not the iPhone 4 design, Those pictures also show a hole on the back, probably for a back-facing camera, although I don’t think it will the the same camera as the iPhone 4. I’m guessing it’s going to be the 3GS’ camera, 3MP and VGA video recording, thus giving a better excuse to take out the camera from the nano. I do hope for iMovie to be compatible with this iPod Touch as it’s likely it will have the same A4 chip and RAM as the iPhone 4. I mean this could be a true flip competitor, having a video camera with editing and uploading capability on the device itself (if Apple can put the 720p camera in the Touch, then yeah, the flip is dead).

As for the screen, I’m guessing the new Touch will also get the retina upgrade. However, I don’t think it will be cheap, thus Apple will still keep the 3G Touch for the lower price point, just like their strategy with the iPhone.
So, my prediction:
We will see the 4G Touch sporting front facing camera + Facetime, back facing camera (3GS style), iOS 4, A4 chip, and retina display, and keeping the same price points. $300 for 32GB, $400 for 64GB. The body material, however, will not be as sleek as the iPhone 4, probably to keep the cost down. I mean $300 for the retina display sounds too good to be true. The current 3G Touch will sport 16GB and hold the $199 price point, still being touted as a gaming device.

5. The iPod Classic.
Ah, yeah, the iPod Classic. The iPod that is now at an extremely odd place. It didn’t receive anything other than capacity upgrade last year. Unless Toshiba managed to make a higher capacity hard-drive at the same form factor, the 160GB capacity is kinda maxed out. Thing is, there is virtually no competition anymore in this space. MS gave up on their hard-drive based Zune. Apple is the only player in town. They could just keep it the way it is. Or maybe just a price drop, $200 for the same 160GB. Or, they could scarp the iPod classic altogether as the money making machine is the app store. I’m going to go with a simple price drop, $199 for 160GB.
I do wish for Apple to transition the Classic to flash memory, with the same form factor but unibody aluminum case. But obviously the flash memory price is the problem.

There you go, my predictions for tomorrow’s Apple event. The best part is, apparently Apple is going to do a livestream of the event, something that they have not done for a long time. I will also be following Engadget’s and gdgt’s live blogging.

 

WWDC 2010 Impression

The video streaming is up on Apple’s site.
I’ll be going through the keynote chronologically, and provide my 2 cents.

1. The iPad.
Blah blah sales blah blah magical blah blah 2 million blah blah. Blah. The mash-up video of iPad releases in different countries was pretty neat though. Oh, and a jab on Google ads. But next please.

2. iBooks.
Highlights, notes, and the big one, native PDF reader! Finally. Not out now though, “later this month.”

3. App store.
Blah blah HTML 5 blah open blah. Approval process, etc. Sounds like Jobs just rehashing his script from D8. Netflix for iPhone, meh (yeah, tell that to AT&T. Say bye-bye to your 200MB data cap). Farm Ville for iPhone, meh. Guitar Hero, meh. Blah blah 5 billion blah blah 1 billion blah. We know what we are waiting for, so next.

4. iPhone.
Blah blah market share blah blah iPhone > Android, and obvious jab at google. For a newcomer, Android is actually pretty amazing getting those market shares. Steve should pay more attention.
Next, Steve was talking about each year’s iPhones. Before 2007, wireless carriers were in control of the phones. Well, they still do Steve. Your iPhone is still locked to AT&T, and the draconian bandwidth cap made things worse.

5. iPhone 4.

Finally, the real deal. All those leaked pictures and stolen iPhone is true. Rectangle design, flat edges, even thinner than the 3GS, thinnest smartphone on the planet, front facing camera, micro SIM, LED flash, noise cancellation mic. The last one reminds me of the Nexus One. 😉 The interesting part is the stainless steel trim, which doubles as antenna too. Scratch resistant glass front and back, which is nice as this means you don’t need a case. Really, I never use a case for a phone until the 3GS due to the highly scratchable plastic back. Glad Apple turned this around with glass on the iPhone 4.
Retina display… a fancy term for high res screen. The 326ppi is phenomenal though, as it’s even more than most regular laser printing. Yeah, a screen with higher res than print. That’s pretty awesome. Steve is showing how the retina display is better on text and photos, but the low res streaming video made it impossible to tell the difference.
Loading New York Times, and… the wifi issue. You will hear this often in the next couple of days. Even my local news is already discussing it. LOL. Even Jimmy Fallon made a joke out of it.

So, retina display in short: 3.5″ 960×640 res screen with IPS tech LCD (which is used on the iPad)
Steve Jobs is really doing an awesome job marketing his product. During the iPad announcement, he made it like the larger display is better. Now he made it like having this high res screen on the palm of your hand is better. Masterful!

iPhone 4 uses A4, and better battery life than the 3GS. That’s amazing, considering the faster processor and the higher res screen. Jobs didn’t mention the clockspeed though. iPad runs the A4 at 1GHz. Rumor says iPhone 4 runs it at 800MHz.

The biggest, and also the most disappointing announcement, is quad-band HSDPA. This is the first phone to have quad-band HSDPA (and FCC tests revealed that it’s actually penta-band HSDPA). Nobody has this before. Previous iPhone 3G/3GS only have tri-band HSDPA. Douchebag companies like HTC even opted to only put dual-band HSDPA on some of their phones, making them only usable in Europe and Asia for 3G. So, this is a good thing, right? Well, the advertised spec of the quad-band HSDPA frequencies are 850/900/1900/2100. AT&T 3G uses 850 band. The only other GSM carrier in the US, T-Mobile, uses 1700 band for 3G. So despite having quad-band HSDPA, the iPhone 4 still doesn’t support T-Mobile 3G. Penta-band? Even more disappointing, the 5th band revealed by FCC is not 1700 band, but 800 band, used in Japan by NTT Docomo. Yeah, it sucks, so iPhone is still stuck with AT&T in the US. 😦

Next, a gyroscope. 6-axis motion sensing. Hey Sony, call your lawyers. LOL. Hopefully this will result in amazing games and even better virtual reality apps. Jobs demoed jenga app, and it’s pretty neat.

Next, the camera. Apple seems to be serious in this, and Jobs stated megapixel is not everything. iPhone 4 has 5MP camera. Not that amazing as other phones are pushing 8MP and up, but the iPhone 4 uses backlit sensor, probably the first on cellphones. Backlit sensor is getting more popular in digicams, used in recent Sony and Nikon compact digicams, allowing them to capture more light in low-light conditions. Also, Jobs said the pixel size is still the same as the 3GS, despite having more megapixel. So hopefully this means that iPhone 4 pictures would be great. Obviously, one feature is not mentioned, the lens. Oh well, I guess Apple will start using better glass on iPhone 5. As for LED flash, I’m not too amused with LED flash. My old dumbphone, SE K550i has dual LED flash, and it’s not that great. A Xenon flash would be better.

The camera also records 720p video. Nothing new, but 30fps 720p is pretty cool. A lot of other phones can record 720p, but at lower framerate (24fps). Oh, and iMovie for iPhone! Wow, pretty cool. (Hey Apple, how about iPhoto for the iPad?) iMovie for iPhone is ground breaking. I mean really, when was the last time you edit your videos on your phone? Not just cutting, but complete with transitions and themes and music! I love iMovie on the Mac, and iMovie for the iPhone looks just awesome. This is true innovation! I mean, I’m speechless. Wow. It’s just amazing you can edit your movie, complete with music and transition, and export it in HD, all on a phone! It’s… amazing! Of course, the question is, will Apple made iMovie available for the 3GS? I mean the 3GS can only record SD VGA videos, but it sure is nice to have that editing capability. If not, than phoey, forcing people to get the iPhone 4.
Edit: looks like it’s iPhone 4 only. 😦 Boo!

Before Steve going to his next point, the wifi issue took its toll. He said there’s ~500 wifi access points in the room, and he wanted people to shut them off, or no demo. I was following some live-blogging during this, and I saw everybody paused. LOL. But in the end, people continued. I know gdgt continued their live blogging. I have a feeling Steve Jobs will put more restrictions on future Apple events to prevent stuff like this.

6. iPhone OS 4 becomes iOS 4, with metal fonts. Err… okay…. More rehashing of iPhone OS 4… I meant iOS 4 features (multitasking, folders, unified inbox, etc), something we already knew from the previous event. *yawn One thing I want to point out though, folders on the dock = Start menu on the iPhone. 😉 The circle is complete, and Bill Gates rolled. Speaking of Microsoft, bing search! Another jab at Google.

Next, iBooks. Wait, we went through this before. *yawn The new stuff are that this is for the iPhone and iPod Touch, buy once and read on all devices, sync bookmarks and notes. Jobs said it doesn’t get any better than text on the iPhone 4 screen. Wait the minute Steve, I thought you said the iPad is better for eBooks. I’m confused. 😛

Next, iAds. *sigh. Blah blah emotion blah blah. Another yawn. We went through this before already. Jobs showed a Nissan iAd.

7. One more thing. Video chat with Johnny Ive (Jobs was definitely pissed off about the wifi issue). Apple called it, FaceTime. Huh? Yeah, instead of the obvious iChat, it’s FaceTime. Doesn’t make sense imo. The catch, it’s iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 at first, and wifi only in 2010. Yeah, good luck seeing this over AT&T’s 3G with their 200MB cap. Even Steve said “wireless providers (need) to get ready for the future,” clearly a jab to AT&T. Now, video chat is not new. Nokia and SE have shipped tons phones with front facing camera. But have you actually seen anybody do a video chat with those? Not me. They’re bragging rights, but nobody uses them. Nobody knows how to use them, and what apps that utilize them. So why FaceTime is a big deal then? It streamlines video chat, building it into the existing phone app. Well, Jobs also said it’s going to be an open standard (which is why he was confident that there will be 10s of millions of FaceTime devices), and one of the protocol supported is SIP, which means a lot of existing chat apps should be able to utilize this feature.

8. iPhone 4 details. Available in black and white. 16GB: $199. 32GB: $299. And, a newcomer, 8GB 3GS for $99. Yeah, that’s actually new, as the 3GS were previously only available in 16GB and 32GB flavor. Oh, by the way, Apple is putting the current 3GS on clearance. The 16GB 3GS is only $149, and the 32GB 3GS is only $199. The 32GB 3GS for $199 is quite a nice deal, especially if you don’t think you’ll need all the fancy features of iPhone 4.

iPhone 4 will ship on June 24th, and pre-orders starts on June 15th. I hope there will not be a supply issue like the iPad. Japan will get the iPhone at the same time as the US, not surprising considering the recent rave of Apple products in Japan’s media and dorama. For Asian countries, the next ones will be Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, getting iPhone 4 in July. This is a very fast rollout, and one of rare occasions where US gets a phone first before Asia. 😀 I mean compare this to Sony Ericsson, which still has not shipped the X10 in the US, and the douchebag HTC, which won’t release the Legend and Desire in the US. Screw you HTC!

iPod Touch will receive iOS 4 for free, probably because Apple wants everybody clicking on the iAds. iPhone 3G won’t get some features like multi-tasking, as expected.

So yeah, quite enjoyable keynote as usual. Apple is really a master in marketing. The special feature video about the iPhone 4 is even more mesmerizing. I mean I couldn’t care less about 720p video recording, video chat, and what not, but seeing the feature video, I’m drooling for the iPhone 4. Apple is just that good in making their stuff looks really tasty and delicious, making it extremely hard to resist.

A quick brief:
iPhone4:
-3.5″ 960×640 res IPS LCD screen
-quad-band HSDPA 850/900/1900/2100, 802.11n
-front facing camera with FaceTime video chat
-5MP camera with backlit sensor and 720p video recording, coupled with $5 iMovie app
-scratch resistant glass front and back
-black and white. 16GB: $199, 32GB: $299. Unsubsidized prices: 16GB: $599, 32GB: $699
-still locked with AT&T in the US, coupled with the new 200MB/2GB capped data plans

What’s missing from this WWDC? No mention of Mac OS X, ever. Yeah, quite disheartening that a conference for developers completely skipped the main OS itself, but it seems Apple is shifting their focus to iOS. No mention of Macs either, not even sales numbers, which something that Jobs usually mentioned. No updates on Mac pro. Nothing. Even Safari 5 was released the same day, silently, without any mention during WWDC.

I… might get the iPhone 4. 🙂 Like I said, it’s hard to resist Apple’s goodness, especially for a gadget freak like me. LOL. The unsubsidized price is quite steep though. I was hoping for Apple to really give the Nexus One a run for its money by pricing the iPhone 4 starting at $499, but I guess flash memory prices are still expensive.

So, what’s next? Steve Jobs said 10s of millions of FaceTime devices. I’m guessing the next iPod Touch would get a front facing camera. I mean it uses wifi, so shouldn’t be a problem.

There you go, another entertaining and masterful Steve Jobs keynote. His keynotes are definitely worth watching, and re-watching. His presentation skills is just top notch and his delivery is masterful. Good job Apple. Google, please drop the price of your Nexus One. $450 would be nice.

 

iPhone 4

In before the analyst.
Well, watching various live blogging on WWDC 2010, one thing really captured my attention that nobody seemed to pay attention too. iPhone 4 have quad-band HSDPA! That means both AT&T and T-Mobile. So T-Mobile is getting iPhone 4! Or better, unlocked!

Edit: Well, so much for that. The spec for the iPhone 4 is up, and not 1700 HSDPA band. The quad-band is 850/900/1900/2100.

😦

 

WWDC 2010 Prediction

My prediction for WWDC 2010:
1. 10.6.4 & Safari 5
2. iPhone OS 4.0
3. New Mac pro & Mac mini server
4. New freemium MobileME
5. iPhone HD

 

iPhone 3GS Impression

Well, tomorrow is WWDC 2010, and the 4th gen iPhone is expected to be announced. I guess it’s a good time to write up my impression of the iPhone 3GS.

So, what made me bought the iPhone 3GS in the first place? If you read my tweets and blog postings of the past, I always criticize the iPhone for being locked to AT&T in the US. Yes, the iPhone 3GS is the first phone I bought that is locked. All of my previous phones were unlocked phones. Why the change of heart? Well, it occurred during the Apple Special Event in September 2009, where Apple introduced the 3rd gen iPod Touch, sans the expected camera. I was so ready to purchase that iPod Touch if it had a camera, but it did not. So I was so upset that I decided to just get the full experience with the iPhone 3GS instead. Yeah, I’m so vain. 😛

Turn out, having an iPhone really change my digital life. I think it is, and still, the phone with the best user experience. I’m going to go through the devices I brought with me all the time. In the beginning, I always carry a dumbphone, a music player (portable CD player, MD, Sony Walkman, etc), a PDA, and a video player (Cowon). Yes, a PDA, remember those? LOL. I always have my Handspring Palm OS PDA with me. At this point, there were times where I even carried multiple audio players. The iPod changed that, being the best music player imo. At least now I’m sticking to 1 audio player. But then I wanted more on my phone. I want to be able to take pictures with it. I bought a Sony Ericsson Cybershot phone (the K550i). It has a decent 2MP auto-focus camera. Being an SE phone, it has a decent music player software on it, so I thought I would be able to use the phone as a music player too. That didn’t pan out, as the experience on the iPod is way better. On the PDA side, I upgraded to the Palm Tungsten E. I also tried to use it as an audio player, but it never worked out. So there I was, still carrying at least 3 devices with me at all times.

Then came the iPod Touch, and the app store. It blew the Palm OS PDA away. I immediately recycled the Tungsten E the minute the iTunes app store opened as the apps that I needed on the Palm OS are available on for the iPhone OS too. It’s also an iPod, and a video player. So, my carry-on devices went down as now I have consolidated the music player, video player, and the PDA with the iPod Touch. But then I wanted to do more on my phone since I started doing tweeter and using google maps. Yeah, the K550i is only an EDGE phone, but it has google maps and tweeter apps. However, the experience is very poor due to the slow data connection, the small screen, and the fact you have to use the phone’s keypad to navigate. My next phone was the Nokia E51. It has 3G, wifi, larger screen, and Symbian, a smartphone OS. Google maps experience is way better thanks to the larger screen. Twitter experience is better too thanks to the larger screen and faster data. Using more and more of the smartphone feature, I feel the phone is extremely limited in terms of usability, and I always wished the screen was larger. Even worse, the camera of the E51 doesn’t have auto-focus, so in the end I was still carrying my old K550i for taking pictures. In the end, I was still carrying at least 3 devices.

The iPhone 3GS changed everything. It has an auto-focus camera, smartphone OS with the apps I use, and it’s an iPod too. Having the 3GS allowed me to just carry one device that does everything. 🙂 The only catch is, now I’m on contract with AT&T. Before, I was always on prepaid, only spent about $25 every 3 months. Now I have to spend ~$75 every month, but at least I have unlimited data (I don’t plan to fall into AT&T’s trap of the 2GB cap).

So, how’s the iPhone? It’s just great. Actually, I wasn’t really surprised as I’ve been using the iPod Touch, but the constant data connectivity really changes the way you use the apps. The experience using the iPhone is just great. The maps app is extremely useful, and the constant data connectivity made it highly usable. The camera is great. Sure, there are other Nokia/SE phones having better cameras out there, but the integration with the apps on the phone made it much easier and usable to use the camera and upload the pics quickly to places like Facebook/twitter. The various Twitter apps (I use Echofon myself) are a ton more usable than on phones with keypads due to the multi-touch screen. Coupled with various location-based apps, social networking apps, mobile Safari, etc, it really changed the way you’re interacting with a phone. Imo it’s phenomenal.

Sure, smartphones are not new. There are Palm OS, Symbian, and Windows Mobile. But the iPhone is the first one that actually makes every feature that it has highly usable. Example, taking picture and uploading it to tweeter. I can do this already with my K550i, but the experience is extremely poor. No difference on the E51. Doing the same activity is a breeze on the iPhone. Maps, email, I can go on and on. You just cannot beat the iPhone experience, yet. It’s not until recently that we see the competitors are turning around. Android OS 2.2, Symbian^3, Windows Phone 7, etc. Things will be very exciting.

Now, why didn’t I go with Android? During that time, the latest Android phone on the market was T-Mobile’s myTouch 3G, aka HTC Dream, using Android 1.5. I played with it, and although it’s a decent phone (and also brought a new paradigm of touch-screen UI and apps to those coming from dumbphones), the overall experience is not up to the iPhone’s level yet. Everything is laggy. This experience is consistence across the various Android devices I tried (the motorola Cliq, and the Droid). I have a friend with a Droid, and when we’re trying to add each other as friends on Facebook, it was a breeze for me on my iPhone while she was having a hard time (mainly due to the laggy and unresponsive UI). Obviously things have improved today with Android 2.2, but seeing how no devices other than the Nexus One are guaranteed to receive 2.2, I was glad that I went with the iPhone 3GS.

Tomorrow, iPhone OS 4.0 will be introduced, and it will increase the usability of the iPhone 3GS even further, with multi-tasking, better mail app, and folders. As for tethering, I gave up. Obviously AT&T doesn’t want anybody to tether. We’ll see what will happen tomorrow, or maybe I’ll get the Nexus One (I hope Google drop the N1 price tomorrow).