WWDC : My Thoughts

So, most of you know that Apple held their annual "World Wide Developers Conference" this week of June 8th, and like usual they kicked it off with a keynote presentation announcing all of their new products and announcement. Let me share some of my thoughts on these new products.

1| I'll start with the MacBook Pros. As many of you already know, I have the 13" aluminum unibody MacBook (not Pro) which I bought last November. Don't get me wrong, I love my notebook, but I feel that Apple has screwed over all of the customers who bought this certain MacBook. First off, Apple decided to drop the FireWire on my model of MacBook. That was the only complaint I ever had about my MacBook because my Canon MiniDV camcorder runs through FireWire. The fact that Apple would suddenly decide to put FireWire in their notebooks, after they decided not to in the previous model is ridiculous. Now I know all technology will eventually be out-dated and that you can't always have the latest and greatest, but there is no reason to do something like this to people who paid over $1000 for a laptop. Also, since there is no possible way to convert FireWire to any of the other ports on the MacBook, it leaves me in the dust with my camcorder. I love Apple, but that was one of the stupid decisions they have ever made.

2| Now for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. I am really excited about this one. Since Leopard has been even better than I expected, Snow Leopard will probably blow my mind. All of the new features coming out are great, and very useful. I think my favorite feature of it is Expose in the Dock. I am a huge Expose fan because I always have open more than 3 applications at a time. Now on my mouse, I have set the middle scroll ball button to activate the Expose which shows the desktop, and the side buttons to activate the all application Expose. I would love to be able to access the one application Expose as well, and since that is going to be built into the Dock makes me very happy. I also really like the file dragging feature through Expose. Another couple features I like are, the new QuickTime, the fact that on installation it frees up 6GB of storage on the hard drive, and the 45% faster installation. It blows my mind that Apple is releasing the update to Snow Leopard for only 29 USD.

3| Let's talk about that new iPhone. Overall, the iPhone 3Gs is not that different than the 3G. Sure, it has a couple new features, but shouldn't those have been added a long time ago? Video is great to have on your phone, but almost every cell phone now has video capabilities. Also, voice control? This is something all cell phones have and there is no excuse why Apple didn't put this in to even the original iPhone. The compass is a cool feature but not everybody needs a compass. You don't see sailors on their ships with an iPhone in your hand do you? The design of the new iPhone stayed the same as before which I think is a big no no. Apple is always talking about innovation, so why did they just keep it the same? A matte backing would be great in my opinion. I know that the hard plastic was a huge success but I honestly don't think Apple has been thinking too well lately. The price for a new iPhone with a new contract is the same as the 3G was except there is no longer an 8GB model, instead there is are 16 and a 32GB models which is very smart. There is definitely a reason why the upgrade price is so expensive, but I don't think many 3G users are going to upgrade because of that.

Well, that pretty much sums it up. Over all, this wasn't the most exciting WWDC. It had it's ups and more downs. I don't know, I just hope Steve Jobs comes back soon. I hope I didn't bore you guys too much and kudos to you if you actually read all this.

Thats all for now,

Brandon K