Frankly we like to see a little more hardware at events but the 17 inch MacBook was pretty close to our description last week.  The $50 matte version should make people both happy and sad - as wil lthe internal long life battery.  We'd be lying if we said we didn't want one...with 8Gb (will we be able to up our smaller MacBooks to 8Gb)?   No Mini or iMac however was rough.  We have a feeling they are coming.

iLife and iWork are both looking pretty exciting.   iWork.com is pretty close to what we envisaged.  There were lots of gray areas where we missed some stuff but we think we got the major gist of it across.  GarageBand learn-to-play is exactly what we had heard.  And the Magic hint?  Cool transitions in iWork.  They are Fun!

iTunes.  The end of the DRM era.  Now we don't have to visit Amazon (but probably will continue for the dealz).  Amazon still beats Apple on price but iTunes is more convenient.

Apple Stock isn't really reacting (update - whoops - it is tanking).

Overall however, we were left....wanting...although the Macrumorslive (best feed out there)  getting hacked was entertaining.  And obviously we have an Apple Mac hardware event coming up.

We'll put up Apple's videos as they become available.  What did you think?

These applications look pretty exciting.  Check out the guided tours on Apple's homepage.  iPhoto '09 and iMovie '09

So far so good. Don't go home yet!

As we've been saying over and over (and over) again, Apple is set to end the era of DRM music.  We've been hearing it will be at Macworld but we're now getting confirmation both from our sources and from CNet that it is going to happen.  This is turning out to be one heckuva Macworld keynote.  Even without Stevo, it looks like Apple wants to go out with a bang.

Apple has a history of royally screwing over its partners.   We mean this in the best possible way because we can't wait for AT&T to get theirs.  Their latest shenanigans? AT&T is winding down their EDGE service to get people to move to 3G.  According to OpenForBusiness:

Cell phones, like other wireless communications devices, have certain radio bands they communicate on. While previously the company had been primarily relying on the 850 MHz band that offers a more robust signal, including superior indoor reception, company technicians confirmed to OFB that transmitters for the 2G signal used by the original iPhone and most other handsets, including most AT&T offered BlackBerry and RAZR models, have been shifted to the weaker 1900 MHz band in some areas.

This shift has resulted in customers past their 30-day return policy, but still with relatively new phones, finding themselves stuck with equipment no longer able to pick up signals properly in previously strong coverage areas, even though the equipment itself is without defect.

Update: Ahhhh...So the Web page renderer for Safari and the one that Apple makes available to other apps registers differently.  Thanks for helping solving that mystery.

Uh, oh.  You remember that Google Easter Egg we mentioned earlier today?  The one that allows you to browse within the app.  Well, we got to, you know - thinking (for once) about this little browsing within the Google Mobile App thing (with some guidance from a commenter).  Guess what.  You aren't using Mobile Safari - as far as we (an broswer detection pages we checked) can tell.  Does Google have their own WebKit based browser built into the Google Mobile App?

Or might Google be using Safari's Webkit engine and throwing off the browser detection scripts.  We're sure someone out there is smart enough to help out.

Mobile Safari on the left vs. Google's iPhone browser on the right.  The browser detection plugin sees different versions of Safari for each browser.  Theoretically, they should be giving the same browser versions if Google's Mobile App is using Mobile Safari to render pages.

Got to love those Googlers...

We aren't head over heels for this one like Giz but it is still a great use of the iPhone's "senses". iSteam.

The New Year was supposed to bring with it the new, easy to use, SIM unlocking tool for iPhone.   Dubbed YellowSn0w by its developers, it appears to have a few hiccups.  Hopefully by my next trip to Europe, they'll have this sorted out.

Image courtesy

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch says that 3 independent sources have confirmed that Apple is getting ready to build an iPad type of large iPod touch device.  Specs given are sparse but they anticipate a 7-9 inch display. 

The August release time frame coincides with Apple's yearly iPod refresh.  This would also give the PA Semi sufficient time to have turned out a ARM Cortex class processor.