Notes From The Last MacWorld January 6, 2009

 

Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, did a yeoman’s job today in delivering the final MacWorld keynote, even if the announcements themselves weren’t so exciting. Here’s the the highlights via The Weiner’s twitstream for your edification:

 

– iLife refresh. I’m liking the new GarageBand/iTunes option to buy “artist lessons” from established musicians for $4.99.
– iLife still free on new machines. Upgrade is $79, family pack is $99 to upgrade. Shipping late Jan.
– Keynote remote – 99 cent app that lets you use your iPhone as a Keynote presentation remote. Neat.
– 17″ MBP unibody enclosure at last. 6.6 lbs?! That’s huge.
– $50 anti-glare option – thanks for the kick in the pants for all of us early MBP adopters.
– New battery type – longest lasting ever – I am hoping they sell them for the 15″ model so I can get one. Up to 8 hours of work time, 1000 recharges! That’s double today’s model.
– Non-removable – so much for getting one for my 15 inch.
– One more thing is iTunes – 0.69, 99 and 1.29 pricing and more DRM free stuff. Allegedly by end of Q1 ALL 10 M songs on iTunes will be DRM free.
– New Cheezburger iPhone app allows you to view AND make LOLs on the go.
– 3G downloading from iTunes and App Store working as intended.

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Windows 7 Going Full Steam Ahead December 3, 2008

 Microsoft is trying to put Vista behind them as quickly as possible.  Or are they?  

 

 The Redmond, Washington-based megacorp just announced that the first beta for  Windows 7 will begin on January 13, 2009.  This would seem to indicate that soon  V**** will be merely an unhappy memory, like Windows Me.  But what is really under  the hood of this “new” operating system?

 

 According to the Computerworld blogosphere, not much.  The current build runs as  slowly as Vista – that is to say 40% slower than Windows XP.  It is just as much as a  resource hog, if not worse.  Finally, 7 has a freshly muddled Graphical User  Interface, as if you hadn’t just come to terms with the GUI-upending Vista. And don’t give the “it’s still a beta” story.  From a kernel perspective, it’s not.  What it is Vista Mk 2. 

 

Bottom Line: absolutely dying for a new OS? Get yourself a nice pretty Snow Leopard.