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So much for the lines. A buddy of mine just called, saying he waltzed into the Lenox Square Apple Store at 8pm EDT and simply asked for and was handed his iPhone. No camping required, which is a good thing, because his wife threatened legal action if any urban camping was involved in his quest for this gadget

Well, I may have to eat my words. First, ZDnet blogger Mary Jo Foley who covers Microsoft reports rumors of ActiveSync licensing to be announced at any time for the iPhone. That means, for those companies who enable this feature on their Exchange servers, OTA sync would be possible for email and calendars on the iPhone - glory be, hallelulia! I want to see Apple confirm this, but this basically blows away the issues around corporate integration. Second, uber-tech writer from the WSJ Walt Mossberg makes an offhand comment in his video review of the device that Exchange integration is possible “if your IT department cooperates by enabling a setting on the server.” Now he didn’t specifically talk about ActiveSync, and may have simply been referring to the capability of Exchange servers to support outside-the-firewall IMAP, but I am keeping my fingers crossed on iPhone & ActiveSync. Mary Jo reports confirmation in both the Times and WSJ on the issue of Exchange IMAP support, but still stands by her report that Microsoft is licensing ActiveSync for the device. And there is an outside chance the gadget fairy may bless me with one of these for testing. Now I’m interested again.

Tags: active_sync, apple, Gadgets, iphone, Mac, macintosh, microsoft

I think they’ve outdone themselves - the new iPhone (despite the Cisco product by the same name) looks absolutely killer - taking a completely fresh approach to the UI of the mobile phone, and creating a true mashup of relevant technologies. Apple has posted a great walkthrough of the features including their interesting approach to many of these features at http://apple.com/iphone/ - check it out.
Although I need to see it to really understand and confirm, Jobs keynote speech seemed to describe the new phone as less a touchscreen and more of a ‘proximity’ screen - where your gestures, not ham-handed mashing of buttons triggers responses. So from unlocking it (a side to side gesture over an on-screen ’slider’) to zooming in on webpages or images by ‘pinching’ the area of interest, this sounds like an amazing step forward. It’s super slim - 11.6mm thick, about the width of the Uniball pen I carry around. It’s running some flavor of OSX, so development of applications will hopefully be straightforward. And it includes some very tight integration with Cingular (exclusive in the domestic market for some time to come) in regards to a visual form of voice mail - where each message can be accessed independently, rather than the typical wading through obscure menus. And it includes robust Wifi and Bluetooth 2.0, with some very smart widget integration from Google Maps (GPS of some sort active here), to Weather (location aware), to Stock Quotes. No RSS shown, but I suspect that’s probably not hard to pull off either. Anyway, at a price of most other ’smartphones’ like by Verizon PPC6700, this is a strong contender. Too bad it doesn’t include an expansion card slot. My only hesitations here are that although it supports IMAP or POP email, getting to my corporate Exchange server is my top priority, as well as the fact that it’s on Cingular, when I’ve recently moved over to Verizon. I may still be drawn to try this out come June. Price is not bad either, at $499 for the 4gb or $599 for 8gb.

Also announced to day was the shipping date (February) and the final name (Apple TV) of the ITV product mentioned here previously. No big surprises there, although it’s now confirmed to include a hard drive (40gb) as well as 802.11n, the speediest of the current close-to-standard Wifi technologies. These features were both rumored over the last few months.
Not mentioned in the Stevenote was the addition of a new Airport Extreme Base Station, shaped to fit squarely below or above your brand-new Apple TV box. See picture at right. The unit is prices at $179, and includes a USB port for shared devices, as well as a hub to connect other Ethernet devices. Obviously, this is also an 802.11n device. Apple has a new feature built in here to provide extended network storage as well. You can connect an external USB hard drive to your network via the USB port, or attach a USB hub to connect multiple devices. Ideal for network-attached storage of large video, image or music libraries or simply for backups.

Tags: Gadgets, Interactive Television, Mac, macintosh, mashup

Well, it’s back. After initiating a return of my MacBookPro with the defective screen on November 4th, the brand-spanking new replacement made it in record time from Shanghai, arriving today after shipping out yesterday! She looks A-OK - I’ll post impressions shortly…. By the way, I think this makes it two MacBook Pros in my hands in the same time some of my coworkers have been waiting for one to arrive. I guess the ‘expedited order’ since my first was was ruled DOA by the helpful folks at AppleCare actually helped this time.

Tags: Mac, macintosh

That’s the good news. And, I might add, the little wonder arrived at 10:09am today, despite Fedex estimating delivery by Monday at 10:30am. So total turnaround time was 10 business days since I ordered on the day the new Core 2 Duo versions came out, including custom build options. Now on to the bad news…

The machine has an obvious screen defect (as seen at left). I went with the glossy version, and approximately 100 pixels from the right side of the screen is a band roughly 100 pixels wide which is significantly washed out compared to the rest of the screen. It runs from above the top menu bar to the bottom of the display.

Guess I’ll be visiting my friends at the Apple store at Lenox tomorrow. Click here for a gallery of the ritualistic unpacking of the new machine.

Tags: Mac, macintosh

Yes, Virginia, there is a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro.

As those of you who know me well, it has been a painful year for me. When I moved back into the world of ad serving last Fall nearly full time, I needed a PC laptop to access our adserving system (’twas not Mac-friendly).

I have been waiting with baited breath for the first major revision to the Intel MacBook Pros that came out almost eight months ago. That has led me to travel with not one, but two laptops for most of the past year. Oh, my aching back! All that changes next week when my new MacBookPro arrives.

This morning, I was oh so excited to see a notice on TUAW.com that the Mac store had it’s old-skool ‘We’ll be back soon’ message that typically precedes a new product being posted. Lo and behold, shortly after arriving at work I visited Apple.com to see the beautiful news you see in the image above. Fully capable of running Windows via BootCamp or Parallels, this will replace both of my existing laptops. First to retire will be my ancient (4 year old) Titanium Powerbook G4 running at 1Ghz. I’ve been using that laptop for over a year with no functioning ethernet access and miserable battery life, and can’t wait to get my hands on this new machine. Also heading for the backup bin will be the sorely underpowered IBM Thinkpad Tablet I have as well - it’s better in concept than reality. The Core2 version of the MacBook Pro will run at 2.33Ghz, includes 3GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. My back thanks you, Apple.

Tags: Mac, macintosh

So, after suing folks who published ‘rumors’ of upcoming Mac products, his Steveness decided to do some rumor-mongering of his own today with a classic ‘one more thing’ during today’s announcement of iTunes 7 and the new feature films on the ITMS. Flying in the face of the Apple-PR bible, he confirmed the existence of an unreleased product well in advance of release: a Macintosh set-top-box optimized to connect directly to HD tv sets. Codenamed ‘iTV’, (and priced at $299) the new box is due in Q1 2007, and will be 1/2 size of Mac Mini, built-in power supply (no brick!),

• Networking: 802.11, Ethernet (not sure what flavor of 802.11, though)
• USB2
• Video: HDMI connector for the best HD goodness or component RGB
• Audio: Analog via RCA jacks or optical digital

Steve also shows off the UI, a very slick and more 3-D treatment of the existing Front Row interface for the new device and wows the crowd by playing an HD-quality flick. At root, this completes an ecosystem - rather like ITMS and the iPod did for music, you now have a STB device (the iTV), a storefront (Showtime in ITMS/iTunes7), and a portable outlet. If they can bring more content aboard, this has a good chance of taking a strong foothold.

Problems I see - no TV tuner or information on how this might take incoming video from your existing cable or satellite vendor. It’s also unclear if this is going to have a hard drive at all, or provide any kind of DVR features. And I’d worry about the stability of the wireless connection for HD video content (I know my Windows Media Center and 802.11pre-N network struggles with SD at times). I suspect that the lack of a tuner and possibly of a drive are quite intentional - you’re probably less likely to buy flicks and shows on the ITMS if you have free alternatives like ripping content off the cable and saving it to your drive. That sucks. But if this provides access to HD movies, I’m sure I’ll be buying one as soon as it’s available.

Tags: Interactive Television, Mac, macintosh, windows media center

I’m here for meetings this week, training Cartoon Network staff for a project launching later this summer. It is summer as of today (hoo-ah for the solstice), and the weather is lovely. Supposed to become rainy into the weekend, but I’m sure Sam and Amy (who are joining me tomorrow) will have a great time anwyway. Took advantage of the nice evening to walk off dinner (from China Grill) and visit the brand-spanking new Apple store near Central Park. That cube is darn impressive. Coolest thing - 30″ Cinema Display. Lamest thing - no machines running Boot Camp. ‘Still beta” said the hipster store attendant. Come on guys!

Tags: Mac, macintosh, nyc, Photography

Boo-hoo. Rumors that today would herald the announcement of a new consumer MacBook are apparently untrue. I suppose we will all have to be patient. It’s encouraging that there are also expected to be iPod updates. I’m not even going to speculate on those changes, however. I was all jazzed for this today, and wonder if the rumour mill may have actually backfired - causing Apple to delay this release, just to spite the leakers.

Apple Computer’s highly anticipated line of Intel-based MacBook consumer notebooks may not turn up on Tuesday as several online reports and analysts have suggested, AppleInsider has learned. Although Apple reportedly began manufacturing the notebooks over a week ago, sources say the Mac maker is unlikely to unveil the computers until the following week at the earliest. The 13-inch widescreen notebooks will reportedly arrive in tandem with changes to the company’s iPod line.

( via AppleInsider)

Tags: Mac, macintosh, rumours

ThinkSecret is reporting the iBook replacement is coming tomorrow. Now where is my 12″ MacBook Pro? Integrated graphics just don’t cut it IMHO.

sources have nailed down next Tuesday, May 9, as the introduction day for the Intel-based laptop

Tags: Mac, macintosh, rumours

Macworld sits down with Apple’s Sr. Director of Pro Apps Marketing to dispel rumours which were rampant last week that the development of Apple’s flagship pro-image workflow application had fired or reassigned it’s entire staff.

“The reports of Apple reducing their commitment to Aperture are totally false,” Kirk Paulsen, Apple’s Senior Director Pro Applications Marketing, told Macworld. “In fact, we’ve got more people working on Aperture right now than ever before. (Macworld)

Think Secret had reported that the team had been axed after extensive criticism of the first version of the application, but Paulsen says this is not the case at all. Daring Fireball heard from his sources at Apple, the departures were an ugly bit of mismanagement of the original team - and all had left of their own volition. This quote sums up the situation:

Aperture’s current engineering team was assembled before the original team left. Aperture was never without an engineering team, and the product’s future was never in jeopardy. (Daring Fireball)

Tags: journalism, Mac, macintosh, Photography