YAHHH! The iPad was Announced today.
Unless you’ve been under a rock, you know that the Apple had a big announcement today. They announced their tablet device… the iPad.
Before we get to my opinions, let’s start with what we know:
- 9.7″ Screen
- 1/2 thick, 1.5 lbs
- 10 Hours of battery life with 1 month of standby
- 16 – 64 gigabytes of flash storage
- Accelerometer and Compass – (GPS?)
- Speaker and Microphone
- WiFi N, Bluetooth
- 3G optional
This device runs a modified iPhone OS. It will run most of the current iPhone apps out of the box. For most apps it will run iPhone apps in native resolution or “doubled” resolution.
They announced an “iBookstore” to purchase books for the device.
They announced a version of iWork specifically for the iPad. Each app (Numbers, Pages, Keynote) will be $9.99.
Pricing: 16GB – $499, 32GB – $599, 64GB – $699 w/o 3G (Add $130 for 3G)
No camera, no multi-tasking, no phone capabilities that we know of.
My Opinion:
WWDC 2009 Keynote Recap
Three thumbs up for Apple!
BOOO for AT&T!
Today was the highly anticipated WWDC (apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference) keynote. Rumors have been focusing on the iPhone, but in just the first half of the keynote speech, they WOW’d us in true apple form with some interesting announcements.
Wow, I just got finished watching TWiT’s feed and commentary on the WWDC Keynote speech. WOW. A lot of very exciting things coming down the apple pipeline. I took some notes while watching/listening to the cast.
The most anticipated announcement is that the new iPhone will be available on June 19th. It is known as the 3GS. With the S for SPEED 
. Some of the new features are 3 megapixel with video and autofocus, faster speed 7.2 megabit, and a compass. WOW 32GB for $299 and 16GB for $199 and the old 3G at 8GB will be available for $99.
The following is a bullet list of what was announced.
MacBook Pro’s
- all MacBook Pro’s have been refreshed
- battery life extended
- non-replaceable battery
- 13″ Unibody MacBook now a Pro
- – Firewire added to the 13″ unibody
Quicktime New
- iMovie like editing
OSX Snow Leopard
- Available in September
- 64 Bit
- 16 Billion Gigabyte Memory ceiling
- Multi core support more efficient
- $29 upgrade $49 family pack upgrade (not confirmed, but that would rock)
- $129 Standard buy (not the upgrade)
- Exchange support in ical, mail, address book, etc (great for business users)
- Snow Leopard will be available for all intel mac
iPhone
- 50,000 apps in the app store
- 40,000,000 iPhones and iPod touches sold
- in 9 months of the app store, 1 billion apps downloaded
iPhone OS 3.0
- more than 100 new features
- cut, copy and paste
- landscape keyboard in all applications
- mms added
- AT&T will support mms later this summer LOL
- message search
- spotlight – search across the phone
- iTunes rent and purchase movies and audiobooks from iPhone
- Parental control on apps and movies etc
- Tethering USB AND Bluetooth
- – AT&T not supported yet BOOO
- support for streaming video and audio HTTP
- autofill
- HTML 5
- robust language support (over 30 languages)
- Find my iphone (??) available to mobile me…
- – it will show you on a web browser where your iphone is NICE
- – if completely lost you can erase all data on the phone
- support for peer to peer gaming over bluetooth
- hardware protocol support for external devices
- push notifications
- turn by turn using core location
- free for iPhone – $9.95 for iPod touch
- Available June 17 (devs get it today)
iPhone Hardware
- iPhone 3GS (S for Speed for the most powerful, fastest one ever)
- same design as 3G
- OpenGL|ES 2.0 support
- 7.2 megabit HSPDA
- 3 megapixel autofocus camera
- – tap to focus
- – low light sensitivity
- VIDEO
- – 30fps 640×480
- – autofocus
- voice control
- – control things like ipod (“play more songs like this”)
- digital compass
- hardware encryption
- improved battery
- Pricing: $199 16 GB and $299 32 GB plus $99 for the 8GB 3G (non-S)
- Availability: June 19th, 2009
Wow, kudos APPLE! The boo for AT&T is that the MMS and Tethering “is coming” LOL
MSI Wind still here… OSX, Crunchbang, & Windows 7
Filed under: Hardware, Projects, Software, Two Thumbs Up
SO… I did not take back the MSI Wind. My friend Jed and my wife talked me out of it. Jed’s argument was “Why?”. Then my wife said, “It’s only 350 bux”.
I decided to play with it some more and install some OS’s on it….. Read more
Picked up MSI Wind More to come
I picked up an MSI Wind today. I needed a more portable solution than my Macbook Pro 17″. (I still plan to get the unibody one when it comes out) I still plan to get a Vaio P-Series at some point, you just can’t beat the screen res and size of that thing.
I started playing around with it, am working on putting OSX on it. I was going to go the MSIWindOSX86.iso method but I like clean installs. So, I am working on methodology that allows me to do full vanilla updates etc.
If it doesn’t frustrate the hell out of me, I’ll do a write up and video on what I did
If it doesn’t work well enough, linux baby!
Sony VAIO P Series Quick Preview
Today, Trazoc and I went into a Sony Style store at Ceasar’s Palace to get a quick preview of the P series netbook from Sony. This is a straight upload of the quick video I took. (Was not sure if it was ok to shoot in the store LOL)
It was a bit larger than I expected. However, it still is a pretty insane device. I played around a bit with the “instant on” feature that brought up the PSP/PS3 like media bar, it was not “instant” but it was fast. It’s definitely running a version of Linux in this mode. When I brought up the web, it had the good ol’ x-windows X and then clearly an X version of FireFox. One other note about the media bar, the interface was not as clean aesthetically and font wise as I have come to expect from Sony products.
It seemed slightly sluggish with Vista running on it. I did not get the full specs of the one I was playing with. It did not feel like it was running with the SSD drive.
All in all, it was a nice machine. I am not sure now if I am going to RUSH out and get one, we’ll have to see what the final product is like when it’s released. It might be something worth waiting until the second generation for.
It’s thicker than a Macbook Air. Just FYI.
Axiotron Announces the ModBook Pro
The Modbook on display at Macworld 2009
Talk about getting a graphic chubby!
For quite awhile I’ve seen the Modbook as a very tantalizing device, but I couldn’t see it as something that could be my sole computer. Sure, I would be able to draw and design directly on the screen, but if I needed to type something, I’d have to drag out an external keyboard. (Right now I have the reverse situation going with my Macbook and an external Wacom tablet) This device, however, is said to support the pen AND touch capabilities. Of course I’d have to see if this thing has a touch keyboard and how well it types, but it would be very sweet if it did.
About the only other caveats I have are the fact that this isn’t an official Apple product and therefore would have some hoops to leap through for maintainence and repairs. Axiotron has made a lot of noise about how they have The Woz in their employ now, but unless he’s doing all the repairs himself at a very fast pace, it doesn’t assuage my concerns much. This second is the price tag. Five thousand is a hefty price for something I’d be carrying around with me everywhere and therefore prone to gravity and the elements. Then I’d have to go with one of Joe’s Sony netbooks.
SONY UNVEILS WORLD’S LIGHTEST 8-INCH NOTEBOOK
WOW! This gave me a CHUBBY!
I have not been huge on this whole “netbook” craze. But, I have to admit this device looks insane!
The highlights:
- 1600 x 768, LED backlit 8-inch ultra-wide display (diagonal)
- weighs just 1.4 pounds and is small enough to slip into a jacket pocket
- built-in wireless WAN 3G Mobile Broadband, 802.11n wi-fi and Bluetooth
- real-time GPS functionality
- pricing starts at about $900
- available in February
Some of the Technical Specifications:
- Intel Processor @ 1.33 Ghz
- 2GB RAM
- 128 GB SSD
- 8″ XBRITE-ECO Display @ 1600×768
- Mobile Intel GMA500 Graphics
- 2 USB, 1 Memory Stick Duo, 1 SD
- Windows Vista Home Premium
It’s OS is Vista. Not a big fan, but for the functionality, we can forgive them if it works well. The screen resolution alone on this thing is incredible. Read more
Macbook Pro (early 2008) – Hard Drive install
When I first received my Macbook Pro 17″, I knew that it’s hard drive would be inadequate for my needs. So I decided to put a 500 Gb hard drive in it.
This video shows how I put a Hitatchi 5K500 in my 2008 Macbook Pro 17″. For information on the drive I used, you can go to it’s product page by clicking HERE.
These drives can be purchased from various online retail outlets.
I am assuming this will work with various other drives. Just be sure it’s 2.5″ SATA for Laptops. I had originally placed a 320 Gb Western Digital drive that I purchased from Best Buy.
This procedure also works on the early 2008 Macbook Pro 15″. (I took the 320 Gb from this laptop and placed it in Kumeelyun’s 15″.
MacBook Pro (2008) – Upgrading memory & Apple Hardware Test
Upgrading the memory from 2GB to 4GB on a MacBook Pro 17″ then Starting the Apple Hardware Test to test the memory.
Macbook Pro 17″ (2008) Unboxing
We just got a MacBook Pro from the Apple Store and decided to share the unboxing with you.