WWDC 2010 Thread - Let's talk some APPLE!!!

[QuadCityImages]

This is why the Apple vs Android battle benefits all. If things like the Droid/Milestone hadn't come out with pixel densities in the 250dpi area, who knows if Apple would have felt the need to do such a large leap in resolution over the 3GS. And now that Apple has leapfrogged every Android handset, display-wise, hardware companies are going to have to come up with an even higher res display on whatever the next hot Android phone is. Benefit: consumers.

For those of us in the US, I would say the most noticeably absent news was anything good about carriers. Sure, AT&T will let you upgrade early, but that's probably just because if they make you wait until your contract is up in say, October, Android will probably have a 2ghz, 10 megapixel camera, 1280x720 resolution phone for sale. Especially with their recent limits on bandwidth (no 3G video chat on AT&T, probably ever) I think that Apple's choice of exclusive US carrier is hurting them a lot more than any alleged phone-stealing tomfoolery.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Safari reader is seriously awesome.

How did you get it to work?

[Hack&Lube]

http://gizmodo.com/5557458/watch-the...ynote-meltdown

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

How did you get it to work?

Shift-Apple-R

And in typical half-baked Apple fashion when it comes to Safari, it’s not a button that can be added to the tool bar.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Flames0910

is there really any contest? all kinds of sleek sexy vrs HTC-brand ugly.


i was thinking leverage to get a better deal. or will telus just tell me to take a flying leap?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I prefer the HTC's industrial design. Both however, have GUIs and icons I don't find particularily attractive. I'm very picky about icons. I don't like how most icons are always a bit cartoony.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Shift-Apple-R

And in typical half-baked Apple fashion when it comes to Safari, it’s not a button that can be added to the tool bar.

I figured it out... it's actually a button that appears inside the address bar.

[kyuusei]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Well, in a word....Disappointing.

No Apple TV, no OS X update/preview, no Safari 5, nothing at ALL on iTunes, Apple still out to lunch on their Mobile Me approach.

iPhone 4 will be nice I guess.

WWDC lasts all week. Patience.

I'm liking the iPhone. Nothing really surprising about it though. I like the design, although the white is just weird. A little surprised there's no 64 gig one, and that the price points still correlate to the same HD sizes as before. (I know, I know the phone is updated....)

I hear the 3GS drops to $99 though. Would love to see Rogers let people upgrade early a la AT&T, but I don't have hope.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

I figured it out... it's actually a button that appears inside the address bar.

Heh...so usable I didn’t even see it...Apple’s HCI work is getting sloppier all the time.

I love how one button (the forward page button) will grey in and out to indicate usability based on current page, but the Reader view “button” : #1 doesn’t look like a button, and #2, appears and disappears on its own.

Shoddy

Edit: It’s damn quick though...

[Azure]

Originally Posted by QuadCityImages

This is why the Apple vs Android battle benefits all. If things like the Droid/Milestone hadn't come out with pixel densities in the 250dpi area, who knows if Apple would have felt the need to do such a large leap in resolution over the 3GS. And now that Apple has leapfrogged every Android handset, display-wise, hardware companies are going to have to come up with an even higher res display on whatever the next hot Android phone is. Benefit: consumers.

For those of us in the US, I would say the most noticeably absent news was anything good about carriers. Sure, AT&T will let you upgrade early, but that's probably just because if they make you wait until your contract is up in say, October, Android will probably have a 2ghz, 10 megapixel camera, 1280x720 resolution phone for sale. Especially with their recent limits on bandwidth (no 3G video chat on AT&T, probably ever) I think that Apple's choice of exclusive US carrier is hurting them a lot more than any alleged phone-stealing tomfoolery.

I think Apple signed that contract at the time thinking it will benefit them, but now they regret it but they can't opt out because AT&T would sue.

AT&T on the other hand probably signed the smartest contract ever. Too bad for the consumer though.

[Azure]

And again, I don't prefer or like the 'closed' Apple system, but man they run and impressive company.

Far as I'm concerned today was pure win. The new iPhone is pure win. Very impressive all around.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by kyuusei

WWDC lasts all week. Patience.

I'm liking the iPhone. Nothing really surprising about it though. I like the design, although the white is just weird. A little surprised there's no 64 gig one, and that the price points still correlate to the same HD sizes as before. (I know, I know the phone is updated....)

I hear the 3GS drops to $99 though. Would love to see Rogers let people upgrade early a la AT&T, but I don't have hope.

Don't forget, Rogers let people with a 3G upgrade to the 3GS last year when it came out. I don't see why they won't this time around, too.

It was a pretty sweet deal. I upgraded from 3G to 3GS for $199, and then sold my used 3G for $400.

[sclitheroe]

Looking at the iPhone, the thing that I think impresses me the most is that they managed to leap frog (or catch up, depending on your opinion) most of the phone competition, while not marginalizing or deprecating the capabilities of the iPad. The fact that the phone has the same processor, with the same amount of RAM, and a screen resolution approaching that of the iPad gives Apple a really, really strong presence in the mobile space. Heck, even the published battery run times are on par with the iPad, which is mostly battery on the inside to begin with.

This really contrasts with the state of the Blackberry and Android platforms - we’ve debated whether the Android space is fragmented, and whether that’s an issue, but either way, the homogeneity of Apple’s mobile offerings is striking both as a consumer and as a developer. You are basically free at this point to choose on form factor alone, knowing you are getting the same tech and broad capabilities in either the iPhone or the iPad.

[kyuusei]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Don't forget, Rogers let people with a 3G upgrade to the 3GS last year when it came out. I don't see why they won't this time around, too.

It was a pretty sweet deal. I upgraded from 3G to 3GS for $199, and then sold my used 3G for $400.

The problem is they say I can't upgrade to a smartphone yet - which is ######ed, I've never even had one (including an iPhone). So unless they let regular customers upgrade (which they used to, before this two-year smartphone policy), I'm out.

[QuadCityImages]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Looking at the iPhone, the thing that I think impresses me the most is that they managed to leap frog (or catch up, depending on your opinion) most of the phone competition, while not marginalizing or deprecating the capabilities of the iPad.

I think that the one area which no one can deny they've blown past Android or anyone else in this device is the display. However, by showing the side-by-side comparison with the 163 pixels per inch old iPhone, to me that does a little damage to the iPad's 132 ppi display's perceived quality. Its kind of like the fact that staring at my Droid's 265 ppi display caused me to finally upgrade my PC monitor... People are going to asking where the Retina screens are for their larger devices.

[User Name]

hmmm, anyone know if Fido did the 3g-3gs subsidized price last year? I hope they do it for the 3gs-4g this year, the gf wants to buy my 3gs.

[algernon]

Originally Posted by kyuusei

The problem is they say I can't upgrade to a smartphone yet - which is ######ed, I've never even had one (including an iPhone). So unless they let regular customers upgrade (which they used to, before this two-year smartphone policy), I'm out.

Step 1: Phone Rogers.
Step 2: In a shrill, agitated voice yell "RETENTIONS!" "RETENTIONS!" over and over until you get someone on the phone who can actually do something.
Step 3: Quote HotHotHeat's plan from here, as though you are pissed off that your 'buddy' gets the good plan, and whyTF aren't you?
step 4: Mention that you'll take advantage of your Hardware Upgrade at this time. (They wouldn't want to lose your business, after all that work, would they?)

The squeaky wheel approach has worked for me well in the past. You just need to get through to retentions to have anything done.

[photon]

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/n...5-showcase.ars

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by photon

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/n...5-showcase.ars

I read that earlier. I don't get what he's going on about. I can go to that site just fine in Firefox... nothing works, mind you, but that's because HTML5 isn't supported in FF yet (which is why even Google doesn't allow FF or IE to access their YouTube HTML5 beta).

Regardless, the page loads without any message telling me I have to use Safari. It's just a page showcasing Safari's support for HTML5. Last time I checked, companies were under no obligation to actively promote a competitor's product.

What I find confusing, is first he says Apple is killing the web by including Safari-specific elements... then he goes on to explain how browser-specific elements are important for the future of the Web.

Edit: Also... here's his big complaint:

Some of the language on the showcase page is misleading, and the message that it displays to non-Safari users is detrimental to the long-term goals of the HTML5 standards effort. Telling users that they need one specific browser in order to view HTML5 content downplays the availability of HTML5 support in other modern browsers and wrongly inflates the perception that HTML5 is fragmented. It's also troubling because it sets a bad example for third-party Web developers regarding best practices for browser detection.

And here's what Apple actually has written on the page in plain sight:

The demos below show how the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser, new Macs, and new Apple mobile devices all support the capabilities of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. Not all browsers offer this support. But soon other modern browsers will take advantage of these same web standards — and the amazing things they enable web designers to do.

I think this guy is just reaching. Either that, or he's trying to balance out all the press from yesterday's iPhone announcement so that he doesn't get called a fanboy (all non-Apple tech sites do this).


Edit: I'm just editing this to say that the page wasn't loading properly for me when I read this article. I was only getting the text without any elements, so I couldn't see what the writer was actually talking about. I know people are still going to quote this post anyway, but at least I've explained why I couldn't understand what the writer was talking about. If anyone's actually read this far into the post, that is.

[FanIn80]

Hey, it turns out that FF is allowed into the Google YouTube HTML5 beta (finally). For the longest time, it was only Safari or Chrome since they were the only two browsers that supported HTML5.

Now, you can download a special version of Firefox with some extra plugins installed that will allow you to view the videos. Only the ones encoded with WebM (a Google property), though... not the industry standard h.264 versions.

Supported Browsers
We support browsers that support both the video tag in HTML5 and either the h.264 video codec or the WebM format (with VP8 codec). These include:

* Firefox (WebM enabled version available here)
* Google Chrome (h.264 supported now, WebM enabled version available here)
* Opera (WebM enabled version available here)
* Apple Safari (h.264, version 4+)
* Microsoft Internet Explorer with Google Chrome Frame installed (Get Google Chrome Frame)

http://www.youtube.com/html5


Edit: Someone should really create a thread about h.264 vs WebM. I'm interested in figuring out why Google thinks we need a whole new video codec. How much of this is really just about not siding with Apple on something? At which point do the end-users themselves wind up paying the price for these companies not being able to work together on something? I'm not creating it, though. I don't have time to piss around with that kind of drama anymore.

[photon]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

I read that earlier. I don't get what he's going on about. I can go to that site just fine in Firefox... nothing works, mind you, but that's because HTML5 isn't supported in FF yet (which is why even Google doesn't allow FF or IE to access their YouTube HTML5 beta).

Actually FF does support HTML5.

Google does allow FF to access their YouTube HTML5 beta, but you have to use get the FF with WebM support (it isn't in the main build yet).

The reason FF didn't work with YouTube's HTML5 beta wasn't because it doesn't support it, but because FF is open source and free and they don't have a license to include the code to decode H.264 codec (or rather they don't want to have a license, kind of goes against the whole point of free software and is also the whole point of WebM).

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Regardless, the page loads without any message telling me I have to use Safari. It's just a page showcasing Safari's support for HTML5. Last time I checked, companies were under no obligation to actively promote a competitor's product.

Edit: This is the only text that appears on that page in Firefox:

Also, he says the page "pops up a message telling users they have to download Safari in order to view the page." I don't know which version of FF he's using, because I don't get that message at all.

Whenever you click on one of the sites it gives the popup that you have to download Safari.

As he says in the article, it's not the having a HTML5 showcase that's the issue, it's implying that you need Safari to view it.

It's the contrast that's interesting to me because while on one hand you have a software organization like Mozilla who are consistent with their message and decisions, while on the other hand you have Apple who will appeal to open and open source when it wins them brownie points but then will tell users with a straight face that they need Safari to view HTML5.

I don't have a problem with either position, but trying to take both is hypocritical.. and if someone wants to do that that's fine too, I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to do it, but when they do they'll get called on it (which is what this is doing, it's not like ars is an anti-apple blog).