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So Apple finally announced their tablet and a lot of people seem underwhelmed. It’s basically just a huge iPod Touch that still doesn’t do multitasking or Flash and doesn’t have a camera. However none of that will stop me from buying one. Call me an Apple fanboy but I’m really excited for this product. I’ve been pondering getting an e-reader and over Christmas I nearly bought one, boy am I glad I didn’t!

While it probably isn’t as good for reading as e-ink based readers, the iPad does a lot more for the money you put down. I think it’ll be a great laptop replacement for holidays but also just a general ‘carry everywhere’ device. I’m also glad it runs iPhone apps and I’m looking forward to it getting some of it’s own dedicated apps to take advantage of the new OS elements, screen space and processor speed.

Now if they’d just announced the shipping date and UK prices, note to Apple: you can’t state that something is available at an “unbelievable price” and then not state the price.

If you’re in anyway technologically inclined you probably know there’s an Apple event scheduled for tomorrow in which everyone assumes there’s an iTablet/iSlate/Canvas/Mac Touch being announced. I’m cautiously optimistic that it’s gonna be a doozy but also slightly worried that it’s just going to be a huge iPhone and not run a proper OS. For me a tablet would need to be able to run multiple programs and have file access, which if it’s in anyway iPhoneish the tablet OS likely won’t do. Of course everyone can sit around and speculate till the cows come home but nobody will really know anything until 7PM tomorrow night. Expect the internet to be floooooooooded.

Oh crappity crap! Being the helpful soul I am, I thought I’d charge Tim’s iPhone for him while he sleeps but since I don’t have a wall charger I plugged it into my MacBook Pro. I knew it’d start syncing but I thought it’d recognize it was a different computer and ask if I wanted to continue. IT DID NOT! Once I realized this I yanked out the cable to cancel the sync, then checked to see if anything had been deleted. All his photos seem to be gone and ones he’s taken with the iPhone some of them are just all black now. I really hope he has a recent backup :/

Could this be the first time in a long time that an Apple product refresh is actually ushered in with surprise? Normally every millimetre of new product has been viewed in high resolution due to ‘leaks’ at Apple HQ but if this post is true then it seems there’s new MacBooks and iMacs incoming as well as a new Mighty Mouse and keyboard gadget. Shall be interesting to see if it’s true.

I got Snow Leopard last week from the lovely people at the Apple Store, Amazon f*cked up and told me they wouldn’t be able to deliver until the 2nd of September. Really the changes aren’t all that noticeable, the new Exposé features are pretty cool and it runs much more stable.

A lot of people have been whining that this should’ve been free since it’s really just a fix but look at it this way: Leopard was good, it was hardly broken. Vista is horrible and those poor people have been stuck with it for years, and now they have to pay £150 to upgrade to 7 while you only had to pay £25.

I call that a good deal.

…should be popping through my doorslot on Friday morning courtesy of Amazon Prime.

According to a couple of “leaked” rumors (you just know it’s Microsoft wanting to gauge the reception of the prices before announcing them) the Zune HD is going to be considerably cheaper than the iPod Touch. The 16GB version will come in at $220, $79 cheaper than a same size iPod. $290 is what you’ll need for a 32GB Zune, while a 32GB iPod Touch would set you back $400.

They both have pretty much the same features just now, tho it’s not clear whether the Zune will do “apps” as well as music/video, but normally Apple refreshes the iPod line in September so by the time the Zune actually comes out there could be a very different picture.

I hope Microsoft does well with the Zune HD, no really I do. It’s also had a good interface and software on the devices, it’s just the devices have been kinda fugly till now. Also, the more competition Apple sees from Microsoft, the more they will continue to push themselves.

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The latest rumors to come out regarding Apple (cos you know there’s GOT to be a rumor about Apple going at all times) is that iTunes 9 will support Blu-Ray and therefore there are Blu-Ray drives coming to future Macs. Hooray! I care not.

The part of the rumor I DO care about is that there’s going to be a social networking aspect to iTunes. By the sounds of it (and really this is what I want) it will allow you to “share” songs on Twitter, Facebook etc. Recommending songs to friends? Sign me up. However my guess is that it’ll link back to iTunes Store for buying the songs therefore Apple is upping it’s profits.

Also it sounds like some kind of Last.FM integration is coming judging by this page at MacNN. I really hope scrobbling could be built into iTunes now as it’s annoying having to have the Last.FM app going seperately

Team 17 has released Worms for the iPhone! I’m excited for it but a couple reviews on the App Store say it doesn’t run so well on the 3G, but runs fine on the 3GS. Since I have an out of date, super uncool 3G I’m not sure how it’ll run. So to that end I’ll be waiting a couple days before I purchase it to see how other 3G users get on.

Apple just finished up their keynote for WWDC and everything was pretty much as expected. Snow Leopard was shown on, iPhone OS 3.0 was shown off and a new iPhone was revealed.

First up, Snow Leopard. I can’t WAIT for thism and thankfully I don’t have to wait much longer. Apple announced Snow Leopard is coming in September for $29(!) for Leopard users. $29! I thought it was gonna be much more than that so that was a nice surprise. What I’ve seen of SL has me really excited. A new Finder, everything is faster, more efficient, new Quicktime. I can’t wait to get my mitts on it.

While I think iPhone OS 3.0 is good, I don’t think Apple needed to show us the same stuff twice for us to get it. We saw pretty much everything they showed off back in March so this whole section of the keynote was incredibly dull. One cool thing: a car sharing/rental app that finds the cars for you and then allows you to unlock it using the iPhone. That was pretty cool.

New iPhone, exciting yes? No. It looks identical to the current model on the outside, but has some nice features inside. Video recording and editing, upgraded camera with autofocus, voice control. All lovely features yes? So why am I disappointed? Apparently it’s come out that AT&T wanna charge “mid-contract” people $499 for the new iPhone. Frankly that’s ridiculous, but I don’t know who to be more annoyed at, Apple or AT&T. Apple have released the update which doesn’t really improve on the 3G in a massive way and expect people who went out and bought the 3G to pay $500 for a small upgrade? Uncool. Or AT&T who have probably made their subsidized money back from the first year of the contract but won’t let people upgrade for the ‘new’ price.

Either way it’s prolly good for me since I’m moving to Canada in 2010 and don’t wanna be stuck paying a UK phone bill for a phone I’m not using!