Apple's big week: the good, the bad, the ugly

The secrecy...

... is because apple usually puts the videos of the WWDC sessions on ADC for about a $1000...

go figure

Flash *IS* Bad

What you, and every other donkey who's short-stroking it over the lack of Flash on the iPhone seems to forget, is that Adobe can't even get Flash to run properly on a fucking MAC let alone the iPhone. I have a 2GHz dual core G5 PowerMac and 2.6GHz dual core MacBook Pro and they both run Flash like geriatric shite. The MacBook Pro fares slightly better, presumably due to whatever scant Intel optimisations that have made it over from the Windows version, but if I boot the MacBook Pro into Windows XP I get almost double the frame rate on the same hardware.

The best thing I ever did was disabling Flash in Safari; I got a responsive browser back.

If a 2.6GHz dual core struggles with Flash, what hope has even the latest 600MHz processor in the new iPhone? People should try thinking about this and *understanding* it before they start demanding Flash on the iPhone as though it's simply Apple's petulance that's keeping it from appearing.

@AC

Why unlock your Iphone and then move to Verizon?. Surely the point would be to unlock it so you could use it on the network you choose? OK you lose visual voicemail but that's really not been proven to be any sort of killer app.

However with my T-mobile sim only £15/month contract I've got unlimited data and tethering via bluetooth. Why on earth would I want to spend an extra £35/month for two years for a locked phone and unlimited Wifi?

flash

Jobs for once is totally correct, flash is too slow to run decently on these devices. They can't make it run anything like on in a MAC making it run without killing the phone must be too much for the duffers at Adobe

No OpenCL for most ATI-based Macs

Add to the ugly the fact that Apple's OpenCL implementation supports lots of nVidia GPUs but just two recent ATI models, so most "best" Mac configurations are unsupported, including many of the towers. First gen Mac Pros have no officially supported upgrade paths (there is some ATI card which has 32/64bit EFI support and has been tested to run well on these). Several one year or less Mac models are out of the equation, too. There's been no clarification about the possibility of more drivers becoming available later or this being it.

The same goes for hardware-accelerated h.264 decoding: nVidia-only.

It's all about the money stupid

Rik, there is no business case for maintaining PPC support for Apple. Since they adopted Intel chips and have been able to sell gear at prices comparable to industry PC's they have sold loads of them to *new* users (I'm one of them). It's true that 3.5 years is a less than the mean length of ownership for Mac users but this was the case for Leopard as well - didn't that drop G4 support? As for the new features - they are largely architecture specific and while it would be possible to provide GCD for PPC, why bother for the couple of percent of installs? Processing and RAM hungry customers probably already run Xeon machines. Plus, think of the software writers - despite the blurb X-Code won't spit out cross-platform optimised code. So Adobe, etc. will only be targetting x86. And what MS marketing bonanza? Apple outshines Microsoft on all the shiny new Intel features - you have to buy the 64-bit version of Windows and the software to run on it specially if you want it and as for OpenCL, go jump.

With OS X for ARM on the iPhone (and the possibility of other ARM devices) Apple has two different architectures to support and I imagine supporting the next generation ARM cores will take a bit of work.

As for the deal with AT&T my guess is that the income sharing has worked well enough for Apple so far: Apple prefers exclusive contracts. Given the size of US networks any HSPA deployment is going to take a while but the majority of the customers will be happy with reasonable city, motorway and airport coverage. Verizon won't make sense until they have a large LTE base and that is going to take longer than AT&T's upgrade. Once data tarriffs reach European levels profit-sharing won't make sense and Apple go back to selling directly to the customer.

It makes me sick that I have defend Apple from a Fanboi's criticism. Yes, it wasn't the best WWDC but it didn't need to be.

Oh too ...

They should sack off O2 as well, worst network by far. For people who are thinking of buying an iPhone now, wayyy past the initial launch, mystery and neophilism things like what the service is like matter more. They should butter up Vodaphone again, who are at least reliable.

Let's not forget O2 embarrassed themselves too...

...with their ridiculous pricing for the 3G S, their overpriced, under-bandwidthed tethering scheme and their lack of an affordable upgrade scheme for current iPhone contract holders.

Big Phone

is the boyfriend gone to seed, the one you don't want to be seen with at a party, the one who doesn't care about what others think, the one who abuses old friends.

Same goes for Apple, really.

kinda bad

I expected a bit more from new iPhone... if I ignore software ver3 which will work on 3G, you really don't get much in 3GS (faster processor, more memory, compass ?? wtf, voice control which could be part of 3G with new headset, video recording which should be part of firmware for 3G)

I'm very sorry to say that but Apple is NOT driving innovation in smartphones this year, here is what they could include but didn't

1. OLED display

2. good battery life (talk time did not change a bit)

3. camera flash

4. good quality camera (i am not talking about 3MP but seriously quality like new NOKIA phones)

5. solar charging

6. connect-less charging (PRE style)

7. NEW DESIGN

8. microSD (i really did not expect this from Apple)

Get Rid of O2

The biggest mistake that Apple made with the iPhone in the UK is giving the reseller rights to O2. I would have bought one if it had been available on 3 or T Mobile. What is the point of a device that is made for Internet, music and video and then giving the contract to a network that has such ridiculous terms and conditions. For example, there is a limited unlimited data allowance that amounts to about 200Mb per month on PAYG and an excessive use policy that allows them to cancel the service if they think you are going over it. Streaming is not allowed! Tethering is not allowed unless you are on contract and pay more! This kills it completely for me and I know a lot of other people who feel the same way and won't buy one because of it.

Compare that with 3 or T-Mobile. You pay a certain sum per month and you get your data with no restrictions. For example 3 Gb mobile broadband on 3 PAYG is £15, 7Gb is £25. No restrictions on tethering or streaming. Why can't O2 do this?

I hope Apple does something about this because they have lost a LOT OF SALES in the UK because of it.

I think we are talking at cross purposes

I think you have misunderstood what I am referring to. If you check out 3's MOBILE BROADBAND ADD-ON ,( not the "Internet Add On", this is restricted to mobile use only), you will find that you can get 1Gb PAYG using either a dongle or a mobile phone as a modem for £10, 3 Gb for £15 and 7 Gb for £25. You can also get 15 Gb for £15 on Contract. There are no restrictions on tethering on this. It is designed for BROADBAND use. I am writing this using a Netbook tethered to a SE W595 mobile using this service and have been using it for about 6 months. You may need to change your contract.

Now back to my original point; Why can't O2 do this? An iPhone is designed for streaming, downloading etc. O2's terms and conditions cripple it. Giving the reseller rights to them is in my opinion, insanity.

Evolution in a Recession.

Why waste shock and awe on a broke public in a free fall downturn?

Steve Jobs could spend the next year dead for tax reasons, then arrive miraculously reincarnated to sweep the fanbois and grrrrls into ecstasy with all singing all dancing toys.

So why do it now when they're all watching their hard earned turn to crap?

Apple have addressed some of their largest critical issues and left what wasn't broken alone.

Only the piss poor AT&T situation remains and I assume even Apple got stiffed with a longer contract than they should have settled for. Human after all then.....

Having upgraded my Macs every 3 years on average it comes as no shock that my trusty G5 iMac will not be changing it's spots along with it's Mac Pro replacement.

I'm not in awe of laptops how ever long their batteries last or how cheap (read less expensive) they get.

So even this rabid Windows dodger can happily let Apple get on with hyping the not very different to last month's offerings and patiently wait for Snow Leopard to be bugfixed.

After all it's what they do best.

Why Paris? She takes up valuable column inches too without having to do anything different either. It's only who's column it is that varies.

on PPC

The best Mac's are the one you made yourself. The ones you can upgrade without a mortgage.

viva la Hack

Windows 7

"Windows 7 won't be running on a 3 or 4 year old PC either"

I'm running that W7 Ultimate RC on a bottom of the barrel, old-gen Sempron and integrated graphics.

It runs _fantastically_.

PowerPC support

Isn't dropping PowerPC processor support a large part of the point of Snow Leopard? Cleaning up the code for the future and contributing to the 6GB reduction in required disk space? I'm sure when Snow Leopard was first talked about a year ago, the lack of PPC support was a _feature_. A selling point almost.

@PowerPC support

Martin, you are of course entirely correct. Those that assumed that Snow Leopard would be supported on PPC processors were optimistic and misguided at best. Its been over 4 years since the Intel announcement and 3 years since the last PPC based mac was sold by the time Snow Leopard is available. Apple drop support for certain processors with *every* new release. It was exactly the same with Apple's transition from 68k to PPC.

As for the "I thought Apple were telling us how Green they are?" Don't you know that if you buy an new Mac from an Apple store, they take your old PC *whatever the brand* and recycle it *for free*. That's green. Do you know of any other PC manufacturer that does this? retiring old machines and trying to encourage you to buy newer green machines is a fairly green move too.

It' nice to see no-one complain about the pricing. Those that have asked why Tiger users cannot 'benefit' from the low upgrade costs have obviously sat down and thought about it.