The New Apple OS

Apple® today announced that Mac OS® X Leopard will go on sale Friday, October 26 at 6:00 p.m. at Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, and that Apple's online store is now accepting pre-orders.

“Leopard, the sixth major release of Mac OS X, is the best upgrade we’ve ever released,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And everyone gets the ‘Ultimate’ version, packed with all the new innovative features, for just $129.”

Yeah yeah yeah, OK. This is fine and dandy but have you guys seen the new keyboard from Apple? And yes it is just called "the keyboard." No fancy name like the iBoard or the iType. Just "keyboard."

I'm not a mac user but I am going to head out and grab one of them at my earliest convenience.

 

The Apple iPhone

I just read on MacWorld that the new Apple iPhone is NOT going to be open to 3rd party software applications. However, Jason Miller from WebProNews, says that the new iPhone will be web 2.0 ready and capable of running third-party applications by the time it ships at the end of the month. Apparently Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, reversed a previous decision to lock developers out of the iPhone.

An interesting tid-bit about the iPhone is that you need to have an iTunes account to setup the phone. What if you don't want an iTunes account? I guess your out of luck with a resounding, "No soup for you."

Not having seen the new iPhone in person, there is one thing that I am curious about. In the world of smart phones and qwerty keyboards, how is the iPhone going to stack up against the existing thumb board phones already available. Being an satisfied owner of a Motorola Q, I don't think that I could live without that little keyboard. I guess we will see when the iPhone actually hits the market.

 

iTunes Plus

Apple has just unveiled the new iTunes Plus. For you iPodders out there, iTunes Plus offers new features like DRM-free songs for only $1.29 each. Apple's CEO Steve Jobs was quoted saying, "We expect more than half of the songs on iTunes will be offered in iTunes Plus versions by the end of this year."

The downloadable tracks will be available as high quality 256 kbps in the AAC format. The cost of these new DRM-free tracks is about 30 cents more than the protected versions. I wonder if Metallica will be on board with this?