Yager’s exclusive scoops from WWDC

news
Jun 10, 20083 mins

Getting quoted in the WWDC keynote (does it still count if Steve doesn’t do it?) earned me a fleeting flyspeck of fame, enough to pull in an offer from my favorite Mac rumor site. That’s not really my line, but I’m one paycheck away from an unsubsidized MobileMe personal blog (I am “throwchange@me.com”). I’ve got to keep my options open, so by way of audition, here’s some exclusive scoop from WWDC 08:

Phil, I love you, man. This iPhone’s for you. 3G is an Apple trademark that doesn’t mean what you think it does. It’s a show of Steve’s devotion to Phil Schiller. While out partying with Steve and the gang one night, Phil, on a dare, downed a towering glass of brew in three gulps. 3G is the nickname for this stunt and the man who performs it.

[ But seriously! Learn more about making the iPhone fit in the enterprise in our special report. ]

Top o’ the World, Ma! The wireless carriers in 70 countries whose contracts to carry iPhone 3G are “signed and sealed” (says Steve) haven’t gotten to the rider that makes them subsidiaries of AT&T.

Snow Leopard has only one new feature. The new killer feature in Snow Leopard is that the 700+ new features added in Leopard have been removed.

Can you spare 32 bits, please, sir? Apple is quietly offering free Core Duo iMacs to developers who will commit to developing 32-bit software for three more months. Developers are quietly turning Apple down.

How can I sleep with all this blinking? Apple showed a prototype of MacBook Air built with an AMD Radeon GPU alongside Intel’s integrated graphics. Intel wouldn’t permit performance demonstrations with the GPU active. However, Apple did show that using the GPU solely to blink the colon in the menu bar clock caused battery life to jump to nine hours.

Another cheap shot at Intel integrated graphics? Okay, try this. At a demo table, I saw Sega’s Super Monkey Ball running smoothly, full screen, on a MacBook. When I picked up the iPhone 3G lying face down next to it, I saw my hand on the MacBook’s display.

There’s no crying in piracy! Breaking with prior policy, this year, those who grow irate in their demand that Apple replace “lost,” “stolen” or “unreadable” Developer Preview discs can obtain replacements. To make sure they’re not lost a second time, the discs will be imaged to a USB flash drive that’s surgically stapled to the inner thigh.

Hey baby, hey baby, hey. If you’re looking to dine and drink for free in San Francisco tonight, just flash your MacBook Pro. MacBook Air users will start a bidding war for Wi-Fi access to your DVD drive. Be warned, though. Don’t show off your fully charged battery unless you’re prepared to use it. All of it.

The @me awards. With Apple’s new domain opening to members soon — remember, .Mac names carry over–the race is on to reserve user names that sound rude, suggestive or silly suffixed with the domain name. I’ll get you started:

everybodystalkin@me.com (Nilssen)

areyoulookin@me.com (Deniro)

throwthebook@me.com (hosts copyrighted media)

have@me.com (she fences)

mymomyells@me.com (teenage girl)

shethrewherself@me.com (contrite hubby)

Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week, dark Tuesday for my real job.