Or, as AppleInsider put it:

Prior to Snow Leopard, the unlimited user version of Mac OS X Server cost $999; that’s what the unlimited user version now costs with the Mac mini server thrown in for free.

I’m not deluding myself into believing that small businesses that currently run Windows are going to race out to buy Mac Minis to replace their servers. But for small businesses that are on the fence or leaning toward Macs, this could be a game changer.

1. Only a developer would care about (which makes sense consider the venue, but still); and
2. We already knew

To be more precise, the first hour of the keynote was spent on iPhone 2.0, the upgrade to the software of the iPhone and iPod Touch. Some interesting third-party applications were previewed, but nothing show-stopping. We did learn that the iPhone will support the viewing of Microsoft Office documents. That’s about all I took away from the first hour as a business user.

The new product announcements arrived about an hour into the keynote. They went pretty much according to the script too. Let’s take a look:

3G iPhone

There were plenty of (often contradictory) rumors swirling about the 3G iPhone. So what does the new iPhone have?

• 3G for faster downloads
• GPS
• More battery life
• A thinner body
• A lower price (16GB for $299, 8 GB for $199)

Apple has posted the full specifications for the new iPhone on its website. If you took all of the rumored improvements and new features (with one exception), you would basically have the 3G iPhone. The one thing missing was a video camera for video iChat, but that rumor didn’t have a lot of credibility behind it. The new iPhones are nice, but I am not overcome with jealousy and feelings of obsoleteness yet.

MobileMe

MobileMe replaces the venerable and much-maligned .Mac service. MobileMe brings with it new web applications called Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Gallery, and iDisk. Each does pretty much what you would expect based on the name. MobileMe also brings with it push email, contacts, and calendar to the iPhone. Apart from MobileMe, the only way to get the push experience on your iPhone is to use Microsoft Exchange. MobileMe brings push down into the realm of home users. I am hopeful that a future release of Mac OS X Server will allow for push service to iPhones without using either Microsoft Exchange or a me.com email address.

A handful of resourceful people were able to figure out most of this last week. But it’s still nice to get the official word from Apple and see the demo. The announcement wasn’t all happiness though. With the transition to MobileMe, Apple will be removing its iCard service and web access to Safari bookmarks. I did not use the bookmark feature, but I often used the .Mac iCards because I found them much nicer (read: less tacky) than many of the other services out there. At least I get to keep my mac.com email address.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Rumors of a new version of Mac OS X surfaced in the last few days before the keynote. Snow Leopard would mark a departure from Apple’s stated intention to move to a longer release cycle (early versions of Mac OS X were released on almost a yearly basis). Leopard was released last, suggesting that 10.6 would not arrive until late-2009 or early-2010. To my dismay, the keynote came and went without any mention of Snow Leopard. But my disappointment was short-lived. Soon after the keynote Apple confirmed Snow Leopard and released some basic information about this new version of Mac OS X. The press release was followed up with a full-blown preview page with, well, just about the same information (but prettier!).

The press release mentions two new features worth talking about. First, Snow Leopard will include Microsoft Exchange 2007 support in Mail, Address Book, and iCal. This probably shouldn’t be a surprise considering the forthcoming Exchange support in iPhone. But I was still surprised. Second, Safari will include the “fastest implementation of Javascript ever.” Apple may be referring to the recently-announced Squirrelfish Javascript engine for Safari. Javascript speed seems to be one of the new benchmarks by which browsers are judged (with good reason in the age of Web 2.0 applications). But the real reason to check is Squirrelfish is its really cool logo (which longtime readers should know is of major concern here at Apple Briefs).

Apple plans to release Snow Leopard in about a year (suggesting a later release date than the rumors had predicted).

iPhone

The next version of the iPhone should be arriving soon. Everyone agrees that the new iPhone will be 3G (meaning faster internet access), but that’s about all they can agree on. If you pay attention to all the rumors, the new iPhone is supposed to have a larger screen and a smaller screen, be thicker and thinner, have better battery life and worse battery life, have GPS (or not), and have a video camera (or not). Is Apple coming out with more than one model or are most of the rumors wildly off base? The latter is almost always true with Apple rumors, but we expect to find out for sure very soon.

We’re also anxiously waiting for the software upgrade that will allow third-party applications to run on iPhones. This is no rumor, but we don’t know yet when the new software will be available. The latest word is that we should expect it sometime late June or early July.

.Mac

An upgrade to .Mac has been talked about for quite some time. It’s easy to see why. The main thing that .Mac has going for it is iLife integration. But that appeals to only a small portion of Mac users, and it’s certainly of little use to business users. With the release of the 10.5.3 update, the prospect of a .Mac upgrade became more likely. Current rumors suggest that .Mac will be renamed to Me (with at least some parts of the service called Mobile Me) and sport many new features, including better online mail, calendar, and address book management. The new service may also have “push” email to iPhones much like the previously-announced Microsoft Exchange functionality that should arrive in the iPhone software upgrade. If the rumors are true, it would make .Mac a much more attractive service for small business owners.

OS X version 10.6

Catching many by surprise are the rumors that a preview version of Mac OS X 10.6 being distributed to developers at WWDC. If the rumors are true, the new version will be called Snow Leopard and will focus on performance and stability rather than features. It sounds more like a Service Pack in Windows-land, but there are technical reasons why Apple would need a major release (10.x) to pull off all the changes the new version is rumored to include. It’s all speculation at this point, but you can read more about it over at Ars.

• Finder and Quick Look
• Dock and Stacks
• Spaces, Exposé and Dashboard
• System Preferences
• Odds and Ends

I tend to use a variety of browsers – some Safari, some OmniWeb, and a very, very little Firefox. I use Firefox on Windows because it’s not Internet Explorer. On the Mac, though, Firefox just didn’t feel right. That is, until now. One of the most noticeable new features of Firefox 3.0 beta 3 is that it sports a more Mac-like appearance. It’s like Safari, with curves.

Firefox 2

Firefox 3

Safari 3

Firefox 3.0 beta 3 sports much more than a new skin, though. There are tons of new features. A few of the most significant ones (to me) are:

Download Manager. There is a new download manager that supports resumable downloads. This could be a boon for people who do some downloading, but not enough to justify buying something like Speed Download. This is a case of Firefox playing feature catch-up with Safari.

Bookmark Management. You now save bookmarks using a star button in the location bar. One click adds a bookmark. Two clicks lets you file and tag the bookmark. I would happily show you a preview, but the word is that the interface is likely to change from now until the final version.

Auto-Complete. The location bar auto-complete feature now lets you type either part of a url, the title of a web page, or a bookmark tag to get a list of results.

Smart Places. A smart places folder lists your favorite sites, recently bookmarked sites, and recently tagged sites.

Of course, there is a lot more to Firefox 3.0 beta 3 than what I have listed here. Many of the features, like the security features and coding improvements (to improve reliability and lower memory usage) won’t be immediately obvious but are equally important in the long run. Don’t be embarrassed, though. I know you just want to use it for the robots.

Remember, Firefox 3.0 beta 3 is beta software. If you use Firefox for work, you might want to stick with version 2. Users have reported problems with a few sites, including some of the major email providers like Yahoo, Windows Live Mail, and Gmail. But if you’re like me and have to be on the cutting edge, take a look at Firefox 3.0 beta 3 to see where browsers are headed.

The 10.5.2 update also appears to break Linotype FontExplorer X. I am a big fan of FontExplorer X, so this is a real disappointment. I also own FontAgent Pro, but I find (the free) FontExplorer X to be much easier to use and much faster. Hopefully a fix will be released soon.

The big news for 10.5.2 is that Apple turned back the clock on a couple of changes in Leopard. In 10.5.2, users now have the option to use the pre-Leopard List View when accessing a folder in the Dock. Leopard replaced the List View with Stacks, which only supported Fan and Grid view. The 10.5.2 update also reduced the translucency of the menu bar and menus and provides an option to turn off translucency altogether.

For all the press Microsoft has gotten lately over users “upgrading” from Vista to Windows XP, this has to be a little bit of a black eye for Apple. Steve Jobs has a reputation for being somewhat dictatorial when it comes to the design of Mac OS X interface. It’s nice to see Apple listen to their users when enough voices cry out together on one (or, in this case, two) issue(s).