So a bunch of anouncements out of the Apple WWDC keynote this morning. Here’s the rundown:

iPhone 3GS

Time to break open the pocketbook. iPhone 3G S will be available in the US on June 19 for a suggested retail price of $199 (16GB) $299 (32GB) at Apple, AT&T, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart. So obviously the capacity has gone up. What else is new?

• It’s supposedly up to twice as fast as the iPhone 3G, with longer battery life.
• 3 MP autofocus camera with video recording
• Hands-free voice control for dialing, working the iPod, and just about anything built into the system
• iPhone OS 3.0 with Cut/Copy/Paste, MMS (end of summer availability), Spotlight Search, landscape keyboard options
• Digital compass
• Remote wipe if you lose the phone

And for those of you who remember that I recently gave a talk on social media and accessibility, Apple has seriously improved the iPhone’s features for those with disabillities.

iPhone 3G S provides new accessibility features including VoiceOver, a screen reader that speaks what appears on the iPhone 3G S display, enabling visually impaired users to make calls, read email, browse web pages, play music and run applications. The new universal Zoom function magnifies the entire screen, and the White on Black feature reverses the colors on screen to provide higher contrast for people with low vision. iPhone 3G S also supports Mono Audio which combines left and right audio channels so that they can be heard in both earbuds for those with hearing loss in one ear.

iPhone 3G

The price on the current iPhone has immediately dropped to $99. It will run iPhone 3.0, which is available via download on June 17 via iTunes.

Snow Leopard

While this is really a great upgrade for developers, it can’t hurt for the rest of us to upgrade too. Especially since the new upgrade will only cost $29!  Oftentimes I’ll skip major upgrade like that because of cost, but at that price – I’m there. Snow Leopard hits stores this September. Engadget has a list of some of the new Snow Leopard features:

• Apple rewrote the Finder, while keeping it mostly the same on the surface, for a bunch of “little benefits.” Tweaks include faster Quick Look previews and Spotlight searches.
• There’s built-in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 support in the OS, including Mail, Calendar and Address Book syncing.
• QuickTime X has a new “modern foundation,” HTTP streaming and a whole new look. Users can record and trim video, and upload to sharing sites like MobileMe and YouTube.
• Snow Leopard has half the footprint of Leopard, amounting to 6GB in savings and 45% faster installs.
• New trackpads can handle handwriting recognition now, and there’s new text selection “AI.” There’s also support for wireless Braille accessories (pictured).
• Safari 4 is available for Windows, Leopard and Tiger, but Snow Leopard adds “Crash Resistance,” which keeps browser and tabs intact even if a plugin crashes — user just refreshes the page. 64-bit version does JavaScript 50% faster.
• All core apps are 64-bit, and performance improvements abound. Mail boasts 85% faster message loads and 90% faster loads, while Time Machine has a 50% faster initial backup time.

Safari 4.0

Safari 4 was released today, and you can download it right now for both Mac and PC. It’s got a bunch of new features and is being billed as incredibly fast.

• Top Sites function: Similar to Chrome, you can see a visual of the sites you browse the most frequently, letting you rely less on bookmarks and toolbars. Markers indicate recent changes to the sites.
• Cover Flow & Full History Search: I guess if it works somewhere, implement it everywhere. You can view your bookmarks and browsing history using the nifty cover flow feature. This is actually handy. Sometimes I won’t remember the name of a site in my countless bookmarks, but I can identify it on site. Added to that, you now search your browsing history.

MacBook Updates

The new 15′ MacBooks have the same non-removable battery (I’m sorry but that’s annoying) as in the current unibody 17-inch option. The battery should last around 5 years and 7 hours per charge. They replaced the ExpressCard slot with an SD-card reader. That’s not a bad idea at all.  The starting price tag is around $1699, which is lower than previous incarnations. (No wonder Microsoft gets in digs at Apple’s prices.)  Prices run between $1699 for the low end to $2299 for the high end. The 17″ unibody MacBook Pro is being discounted *cough* to $2499.

The MacBook Airs have also received a bit of a refresh and a price cut to $1499 and $1799, depending on the configuration. It’s a $700 discount. Still too steep for me, but definitely an improvement.

That’s the major announcements from what I’ve read across the web this afternoon. I have to admit that as much as I love my MacBook Pro (non-unibody, 1 year old), I’m sort of feeling a little apathetic towards Apple. Even the commercials are getting to me. Backlash, maybe?

What do you think of the new announcements?

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by Michelle Lentz

Today, Facebook launched real-time notifications within Facebook Chat. As of today, when you’re online with Facebook Chat, notifications will appear automatically and in real-time abouve the Chat bar as pop-up alerts.

The Notification pop-ups will let you know when you’ve been tagged in a photo, someone has written on your wall, and so on  – it’s everything you’d normally see by clicking the Notifications icon.

The Facebook blog notes that this will be a great feature to speed up Facebook-gaming:

A common use of notifications with applications on Facebook is for multi-player gaming. For example, when you’re playing a game and take your turn, your opponent receives a notification so they know to take their turn. The immediate notifications can help you play a game faster.

If you find this annoying, you can turn it off. Click that Notifications icon and you’ll find that you can click the X near the notification and turn off that type of notifier. If you weren’t aware, you can do this with a lot of things in your feed as well. I hide just about every quiz my friends take.

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Sites: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

by Michelle Lentz

Yesterday, the LinkedIn blog announced some aesthetic changes for the professional networking site. These are all mostly subtle changes, but they do make a big difference. In particular, these things make a huge difference in the ease-of-use category. It’s now easy to find things we didn’t even know existed before.

First off, they’ve enclosed the important profile information in a blue box on your profile. This calls attention to that information as well as making it easier to find.

Next, they’ve made it easier to take action on other people’s profiles. If someone is not a connection, you’ll see a box like this:

If they are in your network, you’ll see this:

It really does make things easier. My favorite additions are the ability to print to either your printer or PDF, or download the contact information (if in your network). These options were always there, but rather well hidden. When you’re using LinkedIn as an introductory resume, it’s a nice option for your potential employer to be able to print or save your information. I also like the easy to find suggestions/links for sending messages, recommendations, forwarding profiles (I’ve always had trouble finding that one), and getting introduced.

The final upgrade doesn’t affect everyone. But for those of you out there who haven’t completed your LinkedIn profiles, this might be a help. Not only does the new dialog box let you know your percent complete, but it also lets you know what you still need to do, the percentage associated with each step and the percentage associated each.

Overall, I think the new upgrades are useful. They upgrade the look and feel of the site and make doing things in LinkedIn a lot easier for folks who aren’t accessing it every day.

What do you think of the new upgrades? Will they help you improve your profile? Will you use them? Is there anything else LinkedIn should change?

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