Oh S!

Now that AT&T has said what it would cost to upgrade iPhone or iPhone 3G to the iPhone 3G S, we know now what the “S” is for.

Apple's web browser Safari 4, which Apple bills as the "The World’s Fastest & Most Innovative Browser".

Current iPhone owners that want an upgrade to the iPhone 3G S will shelling out $199-$499 depending where they are on their service contract with AT&T. Don’t you hate it when a the price is subsidized? It was nice to see that AT&T published a price to buy the iPhone G S without a contract or commitment, the 16GB iPhone 3G S is $599 and the 32GB iPhone 3G S is $699. I am one of those commitmentphobes that see a long term contract as an unwritten agreement that you are willing to give up good service and customer service.

When the new iPhone OS on the 3 G S will finally have the missing “Cut, Copy & Paste”. Not having CC&P is like driving to the beach and realizing you didn’t pack the luggage.

The zoom and 3 megapixel upgrade to the camera and the video function are refinements that the iPhone needed, although they could have bumped it to 6 megapixel. Other additions include OpenGL ES 2.0 graphic engine, longer battery life and Digital Compass for the GPS lovers. If you are using the iPhone for work related tasks, than the speed alone might make you consider the upgrade to the S model. In the end the ones that will go for the  iUpgrade not matter the cost are probably the ones that live by the motto “he who dies with the most toys wins”.

Apple also unleased the Snow Leopard in the OS X and OS X server with lots of small improvements and speed increases, yet was able to take up less real estate on the user’s hard drive. The upgrade path up to OS X Snow Leopard should have fewer hiccups than most upgrade take on.

Speed appeared to be the theme for Apple at the Apple WWDC. Safari 4 was released and Apple claims this release is “The Fastest & Most Innovative Browser”.  I have loaded Safari 4 on my MacBook Pro and Vista laptop and have found the claim may correct. The Vista version did take a little longer the first time I fired it up. The redendering on some websites appear to be dead on, even on sloppy CSS coded websites. The Safari 4 is a free download, so give it a try and see what kind of  mileage you get.

Android Adoption Drive in Q3

On the other side of the globe in Taipei there was Comptex trade show where Acer showed off a new netbook that runs on Google’s Android OS. There will not be a huge price drop in this unit because Acer is shipping the unit as a dual boat with Microsoft Windows XP. Acer says this model will hit the streets in the third quarter of 2009.  While shoppers have the option of giving up Windows for Linux and saving anywhere from $50 to $100 per computer, most still go for the Microsoft option. Perhaps Google’s name recognition will be all it takes to move more users into the open source camp.