Snow Leopard due September

Phil Schiller has today confirmed at the WWDC 09 that OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard, will be released in September. Priced as a $29 upgrade for 10.5 Leopard users ($49 family pack) there are no details yet on the price for Intel 10.4 Tiger users.

Here are some of the highlights mentioned at the WWDC:

• 45% faster installation, and a 6Gb immediate space saving for Leopard users
• Handwriting recognition from Macbook trackpads
• Improved crash resistance in Safari when running on Snow Leopard
• Improved Stacks and Expose
• Quicktime X
• 64bit mode for all major system apps
• Grand Central and Open CL
• Microsoft Exchange Support

Quite a list of improvements, and a $29 upgrade price for Leopard users is a no-brainer. I just hope the initial release is a bit less flaky than 10.5.0.

MobileMe – what .Mac should have been

The last major announcement of the WWDC was the new MobileMe service, replacing .Mac from July. Offering a web interface to mail, calendars and contacts with a familiar Mac app appearance, the impressive thing about this is the ability to synchronise or push information across iPhone, iPod, Mac (ical, mail, address book) and Windows Outlook. Syncing of photo’s is also supported, and Apple describes this as ‘Exchange for the rest of us’. Storage of 20Gb is included. Priced at $99 a year it looks like a much better service than .Mac, and should do much to revive Apple’s flagging web service. More information here.

iPhone 3G: from $199

One of the biggest surprises of the WWDC keynote was the price of the 3G iPhone. Starting at $199 for the 8Mb version, with the 16Mb at $299. With the same 3.5 inch screen and a plastic back, new features include GPS and a flush headphone socket. 3G talk time is stated as 5 hours, with 5-6 hours of web browsing, 7 hours of video playback, 24 hours of audio playback and 300 hours standby. The 8Mb version is black, 16Mb is available in black or white. There’s a 3D rotating view here.

The new version will be available from 11th July in 22 countries, increasing to 70 countries over the coming months. From the Apple spec page:

Size and weight

Height: 4.5 inches (115.5 mm)

Width: 2.4 inches (62.1 mm)

Depth: 0.48 inch (12.3 mm)

Weight: 4.7 ounces (133 grams)

Color

• 8GB model: Black
• 16GB model: Black or white

Capacity

• 8GB or 16GB flash drive

Cellular and wireless

• UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz)
• GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
• Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)
• Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR

GPS

• Assisted GPS

Camera and photos

• 2.0 megapixel camera
• Photo geotagging

New Apple product rumours gain pace

It’s that time of year when anticipation of the Apple WWDC starts to grow. We already know that iPhone firmware V2 will be released in June, and now the much rumoured aluminium refresh of the Macbook has had its credibility boosted. MacRumors.com has some images found on a .Mac web page that show an aluminium Macbook as well as a redesigned Macbook pro. The Macbook looks much more expensive than the current range, so how will Apple separate the two price points in terms of spec? The graphics chip alone doesn’t seem like a big enough difference to justify the price jump so what other treats are in store for the Macbook Pro?