Macbook, You've Been A Great Friend

You were a great friend.  To many of us.  Isn't that right, people?

After the WWDC 2009 keynote, you were left without a companion in the Macbook lineup.  Just you with your white plastic case but very powerful system inside.  Why just last week, Macworld had you pegged as the faster Macbook than your former teammates, those unibody Macbooks with their aluminum case and LED screens.  

But it was you who has been there with us every step of the way, going back to the G3 days.  Then G4.  Now Intel.  You put us through school.  Launched blogs and careers.  Heck, you've probably made those two-man developer teams rich who developed their awesome iPhone apps on you.  You did it all.  There was nothing you couldn't do.

Now, it looks like Apple is prepping you for retirement.  These are going to be the last generation or two of Mac users, switchers, and thousands of school children who will get to know you.  You continue to take good care of them, you hear?  

Look, I'll make sure folks remember you.  I'll keep on telling them stories about your glory years.  And don't mind those 'Softie commercials.  You rock and you put those Vista PCs to shame.  And I don't know what Tim (or Steve) is going to replace you with but you sure left a big shoe to fill.  

I know you can't talk about it.  We know all about that tablet.  But who knows, maybe you'll be around in limited capacity since the kids'll need you to take them through the challenges of the 21st Century.  

Anyway, chin up and head high.  You're still the best, Macbook. 

iPhone 3.0 - Innovative or Mere Playing Catch up

If you're like me, you couldn't be at the WWDC and spent the morning following five or six live blogs providing updates from San Francisco.  And with each update, the more excited I got.  

New Macbooks.  Sales figures (40 million iPhone and iPod Touch users).  Snow Leopard and iPhone 3.0.  And finally, iPhone 3G S.  I had trouble containing my excitement.  Oh, and three cups of coffee didn't help the situation.  

Now hours later, with time to digest the data and allow the reality distortion field to wear off a bit (I'm sure Steve was near by projecting his legendary RDF), I have to ask myself this question.  Did what we see today revolutionary or evolutionary?  Or worse, was Apple merely catching up with features that has been available to the mobile market but has managed to implement them more elegantly and user-friendly?

I can't shake the feeling that there's been a reinventing of the wheel or simply making the wheel easier to use.  Don't make sense?  More at Onxo Gadgets.

Review: Wattpad ebook reader

We're starting to generate some reviews and app analysis. But I'm focusing more on creative contents, ebooks, and games.

The first one I'm reviewing is Wattpad, an ebook file sharing site, that has created an iPhone app for iPhone and iPod users to gain access to its library.

I use Wattpad along with eReader, Stanza, and the Kindle app daily but I especially like the free material that is being shared for readers.

More Wattpad review at Mobile Goodness

WWDC Thoughts

I've waited a whole day to weigh in on the announcements from the WWDC. I've made some notes but I'm not about to weigh in just yet.

For some reason, this is very different. This is a very different beast up at Cupertino. Maybe it's because there is no Steve. But it's more.

Just a few quick notes here:

• Phandroid wondered if the $99 iPhone 3G was an attempt to clear out the stock. No. It's not. I've wondered about that myself but this is Apple going for the kill. The iPhone is the one to beat. And here's what amazing about the competition (except maybe Android): they're trying to beat the iPhone with smartphones. Folks, the iPhone and iPod Touch are a part of mobile computing platform (iTablet will be too when it's finally released). The iPhone just happens to be a handheld computer that makes phone calls.

• Moving the 13" Macbooks up to the Pro league. It's been talked about as a mini Pro but who would have thought that Apple would give the unibody Macbooks the pro designation. Apple is gearing the Macbook Pros for the corporate market. Don't ever say that Apple doesn't have a corporate business plan. This is it.

• And speaking of the business plan from Apple, Snow Leopard (which I'll call SL) coming in at $29 when Microsoft will likely charge hundreds. Look for PC and Mac commercials driving this point home to users and businesses.

• SL with Exchange support - good biz plan even if you have to sleep with the enemy. Business is business. Now about the other optimization such as getting back 6GB of hard drive space after installing SL, multi-core CPU optimization, and using the GPL to help along with traditional computing tasks are just the thing that Apple can lay claim to its base and switchers.

• Price drops on the Apple portable lines. Maybe it's the economy but Apple has said that it will offer no umbrella room for which its competitors can compete. When that statement was made a few financial quarters ago, I thought Apple execs were only talking about the iPhone. They meant the Macs in the PC market as well.

• The refreshed iPhone 3G S and the current iPhone 3G along with the features from iPhone 3.0. Let's be honest. Apple has just caught up with the folks who think of themselves as iPhone competitors with features such as cut/copy/paste. Pre has it (beating Apple by a couple of weeks), Blackberries, WM devices, and Android has it. Now Apple has it. I can think of a few other features that Apple had been playing catch up but Apple has caught up in that sense. However, iPhone 3.0, multi-touch, 50K of apps in the store, the elegant hardware designs, prices really has these competitors in a bind. We'll get into how Apple has really put a hurt on the market and analyze its main competitors' technology, positions in the market, and how they can try to deal with the new iPhones. Seriously, does anyone see a 32GB competitor on the market?

So just a few thoughts. Please come back later tonight and the next few days after we've had a chance to catch our collective breathes and see where things stand with Apple's mobile offerings. One thought I want to leave you with before this post ends.

iPod Touch. What will Apple do to keep folks coming back to the Touch? How will Apple put even more distance between the Touch and the Zune HD that will certainly gain a lot of media and blog attention?

Note: This was a longer WWDC keynote than ones in the past or the Macworld keynotes. After the endless demos, I thought to myself "this is it. No new iPhone hardware announcement today".

Another Note: I like to think that Apple has continue its tradition of bring out hardware when it thinks it is ready. Obviously, the iPhone 3G S is ready for prime time but you have to wonder if the Pre has anything to do with this. Past iPhone releases took place at the end of June or early July. June 19th is less than two weeks ahead of schedule but still...I wonder...well, competition is good I suppose.

Third Note: Make your coffee or hot chocolate. Pull up the blanket (it's cold tonight, that's why) and enjoy the video of WWDC keynote 2009 courtesy of Apple.

On Android: G1 Gets Onscreen Keyboard

Over at On Android, I've updated my user experience with Cupcake and I focused on the onscreen keyboard.

Go on over and see if the new Android OS has made things better for G1 users and how it compares to the iPhone's input scheme.

Pre: Needs Redesign?

I think this picture from Engadget says it all. It's from their post from a Sprint store that started selling both Palm and Sprint's savior, Pre.

I'm going to reserve judgment until I get a chance to visit a Sprint store and hold one in my hand but if nearly every review out there indicates problem with the hardware, basically the cheap feel of the case, and wholesale complaint about the keyboard, I'm going to go on the limb here and say that an iPhone or traditional Palm PDA form factor is in the works. I've read a couple of posts about a WebOS Centro as well.

As you know, Palm is now loaded with a bunch of former Apple executives and engineers. Maybe the Pre's design is what the iPhone could have been and Jobs simply dismissed it. Now, the Pre's design is a push of of those ideas that Apple rejected.

Now, only the WWDC. Maybe we'll see something about the iPhone. Maybe we won't. I still very happy with the iPhone and all that it can do. It's still much better than anything out there though the Pre's iPhone features have made it a very close competitor. We'll see if Apple (or Jobs) put some more distance between the iPhone platform and its competitors.

On the whole though, Palm's Pre design may need work especially when Blackberry folks are trashing the keyboard and more people are beginning to come around to the excellent virtual keyboard on the iPhone. In trying to make the Pre small and easy to fit into the user's pocket, Palm might have created a design error. We'll know in the coming days whether this is nearly as big an issue for users as it was for reviewers.

Pre Reviewed But Walt Says Wait Until You See iPhone 3.0

Walt Mossberg does indeed know that Pre (going on sale this Saturday) is being pit against the current iPhone and it has a lot of folks excited. But next week, Apple may finally show us if there is anything else in iPhone 3.0 that they've kept from the public. There's been a lot of speculations about unannounced features and hardware additions.

Walt seems to believe that Apple will be surprising us at the WWDC or whenever new iPhones are announced. In fact, he seems to believe that claim strongly. Over on Onxo, we've summarize the current reviews (most came online in the last few minutes) and the Pre is probably the device most people will look to if the iPhone doesn't exist. So just in case you're wondering, based on the reviews, the Pre is pretty good but the iPhone is still the go-to mobile device.

Here's are some perceived advantages the Pre may have over the iPhone: physical keyboard, WebOS, background apps, Synergy, removable battery. Now, I did say "perceived". I rather like the iPhone's intuitive and smart virtual keyboard. I wouldn't mind having a removable battery on the iPhone though.

As for the other perceived advantages, well, it's a matter of personal preference and we still don't know if the iPhone 3.0 will address those issues - I'm particularly looking forward to the search function. And I don't want to go into the advantages the current iPhone over Pre and its other competitors. You know what they are. No need to go into that. Too many to address (and most of them may be subjective).

We'll know next week or the coming weeks what how Apple intend to answer the Pre.

Via AllThingsD, Engadget