I will be going home to Kansas City for the 4th of July, so I will be taking lots of pictures with the iPhone. I will post those pictures to my MobileMe Gallery, which I have a link to in my blogroll.

Thank you all for baring with me while I’ve been absent from posting. I have so many things to talk about such as a move in with my boyfriend coming soon, Justin‘s graduation and gallery, my visit home on mother’s day weekend, how much I love working for Apple, and so much more.

I have lots of ideas of what I would like to do with my blog from reviews of music, movies, and new recipes I try to general blips of what’s going on (harder for me to keep up here.) I really want to make this a better site than what I’ve been doing, just need to get into it and make it a daily habit. Once I get it to there I need your support in spreading my site to everyone you know!! Lots of thanks to Justin for getting my domain and getting me going, he’s what got me here.

Until next time,

Micheal

The first and most anticipated update was the Mac Mini. The only change on the physical appearance is on the back. Apple has removed the DVI output and exchanged it for a mini DVI output as well as a mini Display output. They also exchanged the Firewire 400 for a Firewire 800 and added one more USB port for a total of five. The new unit has a speed increase, new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card (which we first saw on the MacBook and MacBook Pro), now handles up to 4GB of memory, larger HDD options, and now even more energy efficient. The starting price remains at $599.

The next update is the iMac, everyone’s favorite All-in-One desktop computer. The updated iMac has “Twice the memory and twice the storage” for the same price. There is now only one 20in option, and now two 24in options. The 20in starts at $1199 and the 24in models range from $1499 to $2199 starting price. The $1499 iMac will get you an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 2.66GHz, 4GB memory, 640GB HDD, the usual Super Drive, and the new 9400M graphics card. A mini Display port has also been added, and the Firewire 400 exchanged for a Firewire 800.

The top of the line Mac Pro now starts $300 cheaper, has Intels new Xeon “Nehalem” processor chip, a redesigned interior, and has the new mini Display output, in addition to a standard DVI output. Even though $300 is a lot off, the Pro still starts off at $2499, no display included. There is simply too much about the Mac Pro for me to list off, so visit Apple’s Mac Pro site to learn more.

The smaller updates include the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule, a new keyboard, and a speed bump to the 15in MacBook Pro. The two wireless devices now have dual band support, allowing them to use both the faster N network and slower G network simultaneously, keeping faster devices at top speed even when slower devices are on the network. It also adds a new “Guest Network” feature, allowing your friends access to the internet without access to your network. The default wired keyboard now is much more like the wireless keyboard, no numeric keypad. The wired keyboard with the numeric pad is still available and there is no price difference. The top 15in MacBook Pro and starting 17in MacBook Pro now have a starting speed at 2.66GHz.

You can see that there are many updates to Apple’s computer and accessory products, much of them were anticipated, some were a surprise.

Today the much anticipated iPhone 3G launched. All AT&T stores have sold out, but majority of Apple stores still have stock. Apple has had a rough past two days with updates. First was launching MobileMe, which still isn’t fully operational, and it’s slow. The second glich has been the iPhone 3G activations. This has caused the “15 minute in store purchase-activate-leave happy” idea to become a 45+ minute nightmare. Some people had no phone to use until iTunes activation was back up! As we all know, Apple is quick at fixing issues, and they had the activations back up and going. Some might say that there wasn’t as much hype for this phone, but I think there’s even more. Apple is having to “cap” the lines so that they can close for the night. They have plenty of phones in stock, but the lines are too long to help everyone tonight. They are closing at midnight and will re-open at 8am again to start selling. I bet that most people that don’t get one tonight because of time will stay in line overnight, creating a second day of line waiting for the new iPhone. I believe this will be the highest selling phone ever! I will unfortunately not be able to purchase one in the near future, I have too many financial obligations like a new apartment and needing furniture. I will have to do with my first generation iPhone for a while longer. Maybe a birthday present to myself, haha.

The other update is MobileMe, which has taken much longer than expected. Apple is migrating almost everything that was .Mac to the new MobileMe. The biggest difference is the online experience. They have made the online experience feel much like the native application that runs on your computer from the hard drive. Once it is complete, I can see myself using it often. I am already using MobileMe for syncing. With the new software on my iphone, it allows my contacts, calendars, and bookmarks to remain in sync with my phone, my computer, and the online site. I was nervous at first to start the MobileMe sync on my phone because it erased my contacts before syncing. I was afraid that it would lose all my contacts. But I knew that I had my phone backed up, so it was all good. It worked seamlessly. After the success with my contacts, I turned on syncing with my calendar. Same success. I love it! I can now have my phone and my computer in sync with each other without physically plugging the iPhone in! It’s great.

When Justin gets back to Columbia, I will be all over his new iPhone 3G. I want to compare the speeds of the two to see if the difference is worth purchasing the new one and paying more per month. I’m sure it will be.