Real Kato Blog: 2010 April

So a brief interlude between all the lunch reviews and American Idol recaps... there are a few tidbits in the tech world that I need to comment on today.

Amy's iPad 3G arrived today. I'll post unboxing photos and a full overview of it later this weekend. As I noted in my Facebook status: the FedEx guy asked me, "What is this thing? We've had THOUSANDS of them being delivered today." For all the naysayers who figured it would bomb... there's a web site with a running tally of the estimated number of iPads online. As of this moment: over 1.1 million. Some estimates have Apple selling 7 million in 2010.

Meanwhile, Microsoft this week admitted that it would not be releasing its rumored "Courier" device. This thing made a splash a while back when the oh-so-reliable "We Buy Stolen Prototypes" Gizmodo web site claimed that Courier was a real device, in the "late prototype" stage of development. The basis for this was a completely artificial marketing concept video. My guess is that "Courier" had never gone much past the drawing board before Microsoft's developers realized there was no way they'd ever deliver such a device.

And also meanwhile, today HP announced that they were ceasing development on their "Slate" tablet device. Remember this? Microsoftians were certain that this vaporware product, hyped by Steve Ballmer, would easily trump the iPad. Microsoft likes to talk about how they were pioneers in tablet computing... funny how that never translated into any decent products.

I hope this is a lesson for people who are so quickly dismissive of Apple: there is an immense amount of engineering effort that goes into an Apple product, and it's really not easy for other companies to copy them, much less surpass them. Next time Apple comes up with a groundbreaking new device, and you start listing reasons why you'd rather stick with your outdated Creative Nomad MP3 player, your Palm Treo, or your Dell netbook... maybe you'll look back on this week's events and you'll open your mind just a bit.

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Posted by Ken in: techwatch

New MacBook Pro Lineup Announced Today

Tuesday, 2010 April 13 - 10:29 am

The skinny:

13" MacBook Pro:

Prices unchanged at $1199/$1499
CPU speed bumped from 2.26/2.53 GHz to 2.40/2.66 GHz; still Core2 Duo.
Standard RAM is 4GB on all models (previous low-end model was 2GB).
Standard hard drive lineup up from 160/250 GB to 250/320GB.
GPU is now GeForce 320M instead of GeForce 9400M (Apple says it's up to 80% faster)
Headphone port now supports iPhone headset
Battery life up from 7 hours to 10 hours

15" MacBook Pro:

Prices lineup went from $1699/$1999/$2299 to $1799/$1999/$2199
CPU options were 2.53/2.66 GHz Core2 Duo; now 2.4/2.53 GHz Core i5 or 2.66GHz Corei7
Standard hard drive lineup up from 250/320/500 GB to 320/500/500 GB
GPU is now IntelHD+GeForce GT 330M, instead of GeForce 9400M+9600M; auto-switches on the fly
New optional high-res 1680x1050 display
Headphone port now supports iPhone headset
Built-in subwoofer
Battery life up from 7 hours to 8-9 hours

17" MacBook Pro:

Prices dropped from $2499 to $2299
CPU options were 2.8/3.06GHz Core 2 Duo; now 2.53/2.66 GHz Core i7
GPU is now IntelHD+GeForce GT 330M, instead of GeForce 9400M+9600M; auto-switches on the fly
Headphone port now supports iPhone headset
Built-in subwoofer
Battery life up from 7 hours to 8-9 hours

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Posted by Ken in: techwatch

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