Well, as the owner of a shiny, new 13" MacBook Pro I was a little surprised to read that Apple had dropped the hard drive spec from what they had on the previous, MacBook. Rather than the faster 3Gbps eSATA drives they previously used, they introduced 1.5Gbps drives.

In response to some comments by customers, they've released a firmware update to support the faster eSATA specification.

MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7 addresses an issue reported by a small number of customers using drives based on the SATA 3Gbps specification with the June 2009 MacBook Pro.  While this update allows drives to use transfer rates greater than 1.5Gbps, Apple has not qualified or offered these drives for Mac notebooks and their use is unsupported.

Did you catch the last sentence - this is a firmware update to support hard drives that they won't support.

I sense confusion in The Force.

Even the most ardent Apple supporter would consider this ridiculous. When the iPhone, running Version 3.0, is connected to a Bluetooth speaker, like the neat little Sony Ericsson MBS-100 I'm playing with, there is no way to control the volume. The speaker lacks a volume control and Apple has chosen to not support controlling the volume with the A2DP Bluetooth Profile.

I guess that in one respect there is a volume control - the on and off switch - but to not be able to change the volume from the iPhone is a royal pain in the butt. Apple is working, as far as I can tell, within the A2DP specification (you can read it here) but are offering little other than the bare minimum.

Roll on iPhone 3.0.1

Now that iPhone 3.0 has been released I thought it would be pertinent to look at what's happening in carrier land and to play with a couple of the new features.

Carriers

In Australia we effectively have three major carriers; Telstra, Optus and the newly created VHA that's being formed through the merger of Three and Vodafone.

VHA
VHA has announced that the new iPhone 3G S will be sold through Three stores in Australia. This is significant locally as Three was never an official carrier for the iPhone 3G although they did offer a $300 rebate for any customers bringing a unlocked iPhone 3G to their network.

Vodafone has also announced that you can register interest in the iPhone 3G S here.

At this stage there's no announcement on whether tethering will cost extra but given that Three has actively encouraged the use of phones as modems I don't expect them to charge customers for the privilege.

Optus
Optus hasn't officially released pricing on their site but have sent a press release that states that tethering ("iPhone as a Modem" in Optus-speak) will cost extra. We're looking at $9.95 per month.

In my view, this is ridiculous. Many iPhone users on the Optus network don't use their entire data allowance now. Why they can't use this for tethering is a matter of some conjecture with managing their network capability through charging structures probably the most likely explanation. However, this is very easily overcome by downloading the appropriate profile from this site. The easiest thing to do is visit that address with Safari on your iPhone.

If you're interested in an iPhone 3G S through Optus you can register your interest here.

Telstra
Telstra has been conspicuously quiet on the iPhone 3.0 front. A look at their iPhone website reveals no new information - not even an acknowledgment that there's a new iPhone or an operating system update.

I wouldn't expect to offer different pricing for tethered traffic as they already charge an arm and leg for their service compared to the other local carriers.

Find My iPhone and MobileMe
The value of Apple's MobileMe service has been questionable - until now. The introduction of the "Find my iPhone" services adds significant value to MobileMe.

Firstly, if you lose your iPhone you can use MobileMe to locate the handset. Enabling the service on the iPhone is a little tricky to find (Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts and Calendars > MobileMe >Find my iPhone).

Then. visit www.me.com and go to Settings. Form there, it's an easy thing to locate your phone. If the phone isn't precisely locatable via its GPS receiver then it position relative to carrier transmission towers is provided.

You can also get the iPhone to display a message or make a sound - even when the phone is on silent.

If your phone is truly lost then you can remotely wipe its contents.

When Snow Leopard Server is released later this year, I'm hoping to see a corporatised version of this service for businesses that have deployed a fleet of iPhones.

In today's Green Guide, the IT and TV supplement in Australia's best daily news paper - The Age, I have a story on creating your own website.

Titled, "Mastering your own Domain" it tells you about such technological wonders as DNS, IP Addresses, domain registrars and webservers.

You can read all about it by clicking here.

Much is made of Apple design excellence and their innovativeness. However, I suspect that when we look back on 2009, we'll see this as the year when Apple consolidated its technology, focussing on stability and refinement rather that adding stack of new features of marginal value.

iPhone 3.0 and iPhone 3G S

Outwardly, the iPhone 3G S looks almost identical to its predecessor, the iPhone 3G. Other than some changed decals the body is the same. The changes that have been made to the hardware include a faster processor, improved graphics performance and a much needed increase in camera capability with more megapixels and the ability record video and do some basic video editing. In other words, the new hardware is, to a great degree, catching up to market that has moved on over the last year and some evolutionary improvements on the software front.

In fact, a close look at the iPhone OS reveals many subtle changes that improve the user experience hugely without being the sorts of "sexy" features that grab headlines. For example, the font used to display email is clearer. When sending a SMS, the progress bar has been shifted to the top of the screen and doesn't take up nearly as much space as it used to. Also, messages that aren't sent can be more easily resent.

The ability to search inboxes and the introduction of Spotlight to search the entire contents of the phone is a great benefit as well. As I use the notes field in the address book, this is a great boon as it makes it easy to find specific contacts. However, there's still room for improvement with messaging as different email accounts still have separate inboxes. As soon as Apple or some third party introduces a unified inbox for ALL messaging, they'll have my money.

Notebooks

Since the aluminium PowerBook G4, Apple's outward notebook design has only changed marginally. Even the introduction of the revolutionary Unibody manufacturing process has resulted in only incremental outward change. I would argue that although there are many benefits to the Unibody process (environmental benefits, slightly lighter bodies, increased strength) that benefits to end users are incremental.

The new MacBook Pro's introduced last week (designated as the mid-2009 MacBook Pros in Apple's support documents) represent refinement on the models introduced earlier this year. The addition of an SD slot to the 13" and 15" models and return of Firewire to the 13" product line represent a response to customer demands. Again, this is evolution but no revolution.

Snow Leopard

September 2009 will see the release of Snow Leopard, the latest incarnation of Apple's OS X operating system. The summary version of what Snow Leopard will bring is a bit like the superhero, The Atom. It's going to be fast, powerful and small. According to this informative article by David Pogue

And sure enough, Snow Leopard really is faster--and smaller. Yes, smaller: The OS occupies only half the disk space of the previous version, saving you a cool 6 gigabytes. That's a first in the history of OS upgrades.

Apple says that everything is faster, too: Snow Leopard installation is 45 percent faster, shutting down is 75 percent faster, waking up 50 percent faster, 55 percent faster joining Wi-Fi networks, and so on. (These are all Apple's measurements, and they're all "up to," but still.)

In other words, Snow Leopard is all about doing everything you do today. You'll just do it better. Again, evolution and not revolution.

Why consolidate?

I have a strong suspicion that Apple's strategy is based around the future of its enigmatic leader Steve Jobs. For least ten years, Apple's fortunes have been strongly tied to the fortunes of Jobs. When his health was questioned the stock price suffered, disproportionately in my view. Over the last few months, Jobs has been absent due to ill health and the need for him to take some time to get himself healthy. What we've seen is that the company has continued to operate successfully and develop new and improved products.

I don't think there's any surprise that Apple has been in product consolidation mode over the time when Steve Jobs' health has been in question. In fact, when one considers the long-term future of Apple it's clear that this year is incredibly important. I doubt that Jobs has been 100% hands-off this year but providing opportunities for his other executives to stand up has shown that for Apple there is life after Jobs.

Apple's next test will be whether its able to successfully conceptualise, develop and commercialise a new product. For example, without Jobs, can the Apple TV move from a "hobby" project to a commercially viable powerhouse like the iPhone? Is there someone in the management team with the force of will Jobs is reputed to have that can create something new. Only time will tell.

However, I'm certain that 2009 will be seen as the year Apple consolidated its product lines and market position. Perhaps, 2010 will be the year of Something Big. Maybe Something Big will be Jobs' "one more thing".

Now that I've had my new 13" MacBook Pro running for a couple of days I've discovered a couple of things and thought they'd be worth sharing.

New sound drivers and output hardware

Many Mac users take the easy way when migrating from one computer to the next. Use an application like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone your old system to an external hard drive and then either clone that back to your new system or use the Migration Assistant to bring all your user data and applications across. As the transfer to my new MacBook Prowas done for me from the by the crew at the local Apple store I suspect they used the first approach - cloning.

All looked fine until I went to check out the latest edition of the Australian Macworld podcast. At that stage I discovered that I had no sound and that the computer didn't recognise the existence of any sound output devices. Strange, as the MacBook Pro made the customary start-up "bong" when booting up. That made me pretty certain that I didn't have a hardware problem.

After some searching (not surprisingly, there wasn't much help online as the unit is so new) I decided to reinstall the operating system using the "Archive and Install" mode and also using the option that lets me retain all my personal settings and applications.

An hour later and all was well. I now have sound and any settings that I need to find are in a folder called "Previous System".

Power Output from USB and Firewire

I have a bunch of external hard drives in the office at the moment and thought I'd try some out with the 13" MacBook Pro. Well, thus far powered drives seem OK but smaller bus-powered units aren't working. I've tried a couple and they just connect and disconnect. I've tried multiple cables and different drives without success.

I won't name the brands in question yet and I have several other drives to try out but at this stage it seems that external drives that are meant to get their power purely from the USB or Firewire bus are a problem.

In case you weren't aware, I use a Mac. Typically, I replace my notebook at about this time every year. There are times when I buy from a retailer, other times I use the "Refurbished Mac" link on Apple's online store and other times I use Apple's media program where ex-demo/review units are sold off. This time, I went retail.

A few weeks ago, Apple opened its latest Australian store in Doncaster. This isn't too far from my home and, as I happened to be going there, I walked into the Apple store and purchased a beautiful new 13" MacBook. This was the top of the range MacBook (other than built to order options). That was Friday 5 June 2009. Sure, I knew that Apple's annual developer-fest WWDC was a few days away but that's a software event and the focus was sure to be the new iPhone software and probably some new iPhone hardware.

However, pulling the sort of sleight of hand Apple is renowned for, the notebook product line was revamped with my three-day old MacBook scrapped from the product range. To add insult to injury, the replacement 13" MacBook Pro had a faster processor, twice as much RAM, FW800, better battery life and, something I've been bemoaning for years, an SD slot. Oh, and it was a couple of hundred dollars cheaper.

On Wednesday 10 June I contacted the government's consumer advocacy body and asked if I had any official recourse for either a free upgrade or a partial refund for the price difference. I wasn't expecting any satisfaction but by this stage the first vestiges of this blog post were brewing in my mind so I thought I'd go through the sort of process anyone else would try in my situation. The advice I received (very promptly I might add, less that 24 hours after my email inquiry) said that unless the sales person made allusion to this being the current product for some time I would not be entitled to any compensation or a free upgrade. No surprises there but I figure that it's free to ask.

So, today, eight days after my original purchase I walked back into the Apple store in Doncaster with my MacBook, the box (complete with all the bits and pieces) and my receipt. Not 30 seconds after I was spotted by a salesperson I was asked if I was a recent purchaser after a replacement. I said yes and within a few minutes the deed was done. No questions, begging, tears, anger or anything. Just a straight swap because, in the saleperson's words "it's the fair thing to do". My credit card is also being credited for the difference created by the drop in price.

Just to make things even better, they transferred the entire contents of my eight-day old MacBook to the new MacBook Pro. I had some errands to run so I left it all with them and less than two hours later they rang me to say it was done.

Why would Apple Do This?

Apple has a 14 day no questions asked returns policy. When I looked at my receipt I assumed that was only for DOA units but it covers any customer wanting to return their purchase. I don't know if all Apple resellers do the same thing but it seems to be Apple store policy. This raises the service bar pretty high.

Now, I know that a lot of people will say that this is just another fan-boy story, espousing Apple's greatness. They'll inevitably rabbit on about how Apple's products are over-priced and the purchasers are just blind loyalists or folk that are more interested in style than substance. Well, sure, that might be true of some Apple purchasers. I know that I can walk into a generic PC store and buy similar hardware at a lower price. But I don't know of too many resellers that would do for their customers what Apple did for me.