The TeleInterActive Lifestyle

It looks as though the rumor mills were right on and I was dead wrong. The 3G iPhone is coming to 22 countries on July 11, with 8GB model being $199 worldwide, and the 16GB model going for $299. Some conflicting guesses, but no apparent mention of a 32GB iPhone 3G. The 8GB and 16GB iPhone 3G are on the store for preorder.

Dot-Mac is being replaced in July by mobileME and me.com. Current dot-Mac users will be migrated to mobileMe and can choose to retain their mac.com address or get a me.com address. The big news is real-time push synchronization from/to/among all MS Windows, Apple MacOSX, iPhone (and iTouch I assume) NATIVE APPLICATIONS and browsers including Firefox2+, IE7 and Safari (Camino, Opera, OmniWeb, others???). The mobileMe news is on the store, but the link to upgrading for dot-Mac users is broken.

The WWDC is a developers' conference, and the news and the majority of the keynote was about developers and their applications: how to build, how to distribute, how to charge or not. For iPhone developers, the background ping/notification service looks to be the big news.

I'm actually more interested in how the iPhone2 applications will work on current iPhones than I am in the 3G iPhone, but it looks good. And if the apps work fine on my current iPhone, I'll be content to wait to upgrade the hardware until the inevitable mid-year corrections take place (32GB, 64GB, more The iPhone software update page talks about things like GPS - so will my guess that first generation iPhones will be able to turn GPS on as well prove to be correct? If not, then the software update page is confusing. Will v2 apps work with 2G phones?

There was no mention of handwriting recognition on the iPhone, but there are full enterprise applications email attachment reading for both iWorks08 and MS Office, but no direct mention of OpenOffice.org/NeoOffice nor of ODF support. The eReader site still says that they're investigating iPhone support. /sigh No mention of copy/paste/drag/drop support in iPhone2 software either. /SIGH

But there will be search for contacts - it's on the web site picture anyway. GPS and more inclusive VPN support are welcome features too.

And yes, 10.6 is coming soon, with emphasis on security, stability & reliability, and its name is indeed Snow Leopard.

Update: There's a important message to dot-Mac users in my inbox ;-)

Dear .Mac member:

Today Apple announced a new Internet service called MobileMe - taking the best of .Mac and adding a host of new features. As a current .Mac member, your account will be automatically upgraded to MobileMe in July. For a closer look, watch the MobileMe Guided Tour and read below for an overview of your new service.

Mac integration you know and love. With MobileMe, you'll continue to enjoy features that take advantage of seamless integration with Mac OS X and iLife - Back to My Mac; access to your iDisk in the Finder; Mac-to-Mac syncing of Dock items, preferences, and more; iWeb site publishing; and photo and movie sharing directly from iPhoto '08 and iMovie '08.

New web applications for when you're away from your Mac. MobileMe features a suite of web applications at www.me.com that have the familiar look and feel of the applications on your Mac. Because these web applications stay in sync with your Mac and other devices, you'll have the same information wherever you go. Here's what you'll find at me.com:

Mail, the anchor of the new suite, is even better with a refined interface.

Contacts has a new three-pane interface, contact groups, maps integration, search, and photo support.

Calendar is a brand-new web application that feels just like iCal, featuring multiple calendars, click-and-drag event creation, and more.

Gallery lets you manage your collection of shared photos and movies from anywhere. You can now upload photos, rearrange their order, and set sharing preferences, all from a browser.

iDisk now has the familiar look of the Mac OS X Finder. It features drag-and-drop filing and an easy new way to share large documents, by sending an email with a link for downloading the file.

Account lets you manage settings such as storage allocation.

To use the new web applications, make sure you have one of these browsers: Safari 3, Internet Explorer 7, or Firefox 2 or later.

Push email. Push contacts. Push calendar. In addition to Mac-to-Mac syncing, MobileMe now keeps your iPhone, your iPod touch, and even a PC in sync. MobileMe pushes new contacts, calendar items, and bookmarks to your Mac or PC, and over the air to your iPhone or iPod touch. For example, if you add a calendar event on the web, the change will automatically be pushed to your Mac and iPhone. New email will be pushed to your iPhone in seconds, eliminating the need to check for messages manually.

As a MobileMe subscriber, you can continue to use your mac.com address for email. You will also be issued a me.com address with the same user name that you can use if you prefer. The choice is yours.

Double the online storage. To give you plenty of space for your email, photos, and other files, MobileMe doubles your storage from 10GB to 20GB for an individual subscription.

We'll be sure to update you when the new service goes live. In the meantime, if you have any questions about the upcoming transition from .Mac to MobileMe, please visit the MobileMe FAQ.

Sincerely,

The MobileMe Team
-- from email, 2008 June 9 12:48:26 PDT