WWDC '09 keynote postmortem

While I haven't finished watching the entire keynote from yesterday, I have watched the first 45 minutes or so, which was dedicated to the part of Apple that I care most about: The Macintosh. I think that the biggest surprise from yesterday was all of the changes to the MacBooks, specifically how aggressive Apple was on price. For the last couple of years, Apple management has really had things on autopilot when it comes to price. So I am gladdened to see them get aggressive in that area, and I wish they would take the same hatchet to their desktops. ;)

I think that the current lineup of MacBooks is quite strong, and Apple is incredibly well positioned for the back to school selling season. The low-end unibody MacBook Pro, coming in at $1200, appears to be a particularly good value for incoming college freshman. And while it's rare for Apple management to recognize where they have made a mistake, it's good to see them course correct on adding Firewire back to the low-end MacBook Pro. Firewire Target Disk mode is really useful to have when your Mac is having problems.

The other big announcement from yesterday that I'm excited about is Mac OS X Snow Leopard. I was pretty surprised that Apple is going to price it at $29 -- this is definitely a great move, and among other things, means that we'll probably be able to upgrade at the office. That, combined with the fact that Apple is touting tons of little improvements, less disk space usage, and faster performance, has me super excited. Seriously, if you haven't yet, check out Apple's list of enhancements and refinements in Snow Leopard -- I bet there is something on that list that you can't wait to have. Here's a few that will make my life better:

• More reliable disk eject in Finder.
• More reliable iChat connectivity.
• Assign applications to spaces in Dock.
• Faster shutdown and wake-up.
• Redesigned Services menu.
• Safari 4 resistant to crashes.
• Intelligent text selection in Preview.
• Import from scanner in Preview.
• Faster, more responsive Mail.
• Multi-Touch gestures in older Mac models.

All this for only $29? Where can I get in line?

As for the rest of yesterday's announcements, I haven't gone through all of the iPhone stuff yet. The iPhone 3GS looks to be about what I expected (although I thought they'd touch-up the casing a little), but I haven't ordered one. I'm looking forward to enjoying the 3.0 software on my first-gen iPhone, and getting out of contract with AT&T. I may buy a new phone this year, but I don't need to do so right now.

-Andy.