July 11 can't come soon enough. We now know that as the day when the oft-rumored iPhone 3G will land in US stores. Revealed earlier today during Steve Jobs' keynote address at the Apple WWDC, the iPhone 3G could very well turn the mobile phone market on its head with its laundry list of features and incredible price point. Here's a breakdown of the new device:
• 3G cellular network resulting in much faster download speeds compared to EDGE.
• GPS integrated with maps. Location-based software will redefine how we interact on the go, and Apple wants to be at the forefront.
• Enterprise support for push email, calendar, and contacts with Microsoft Exchange.
• MobileMe replaces Apple's .mac service as a personal version of Exchange, supporting push email, calendar, and contacts.
• Other miscellaneous details: iPhone 2.0 firmware, 300 hours of standby battery life, 8-10 hours of 2G talk battery life, 5 hours of 3G talk battery life, 7 hours of video battery life, 24 hours of audio battery life, all plastic back.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the new iPhone is its price: the 8GB model will cost only $199 with a contract, while a 16GB model will be available for $299. Having just picked up a Nokia N82 last week for almost double the price of an 8GB iPhone 3G, you'd better believe that sucker is getting returned for Apple's new hotness. Sure the camera is a downgrade, but at that price who cares? It makes you wonder how Nokia and other premium handset makers will adapt their pricing model, now that Apple is packing most of their features into a phone that generally costs about half the price. In the end, no one but the consumer benefits the most.
Mac OS X users found a nice surprise in Software Update this morning in the form of Apple's Safari 3.1 browser. Tech enthusiasts have been reading about the substantial performance increase that Safari 3.1 includes for several weeks (see Further Reading), but until now weren't able to experience it themselves without running the nightly builds of WebKit, the rendering engine that powers Safari.
Keep on reading for the full list of changes, and information about the Windows version.
Ars Technica posted an interesting piece today looking at the past, present, and future of PC file systems. If you're an operating system junkie or just like to know a bit more about how your computer stores your completely legal files, it's definitely worth a read. Here's a small excerpt:
As operating systems have matured, more and more features have been added to their file systems. More metadata options are one such improvement, but there have been others, such as the ability to index files for faster searches, new storage designs that reduce file fragmentation, and more robust error-correction abilities. One of the biggest advances in file systems has been the addition of journaling, which keeps a log of changes that the computer is about to make to each file. This means that if the computer crashes or the power goes out halfway through the file operation, it will be able to check the log and either finish or abandon the operation quickly without corrupting the file. This makes restarting the computer much faster, as the operating system doesn't have to scan the entire file system to find out if anything is out of sync.
Thank goodness for journaling. Remember the good old days when you'd improperly shut down your machine, and it would take 10 extra minutes at the next startup to check your files for errors? You can thank journaling for never having to deal with that again. In fact, I don't even properly shut down my computer anymore - I just pull the power plug. Thanks journaling!
Apple held a small press event today to outline its plans for the popular iPhone, which launched last summer and has since sold millions of units. Along with announcements sure to please developers like the Cocoa Touch programming environment and a full iPhone emulator for debug purposes, Apple announced several features that will make the iPhone a much more appealing device for corporate users. Until now, the iPhone's business capabilities were rather limited when compared to a Blackberry or Windows Mobile device, but that's all about to change.
