Nothing more needs to be said. It is definitely a sad day.

I am quite excited about WWDC, if I had prepared enough ahead of time I could have actually gone this year, but alas I have not and I will be watching the live blogs like many others. I do have a few thoughts as to what we will see.

I'm sure that we will see the next iPhone. I'm pretty sure it will be much like the Engadget iPhone that has been shown already. It'll be available in both Black and White. My guess is that it will also be available in 32GB and 64GB models. The iPhone 3GS 16GB will become the $99 model; and it will be the black model.

I'm not sure when the next iPhone will be available; I tend to think it'll be around the 20th or so. This will give time for the phone to be able to get to the stores as well as allow developers to get their applications to be submitted, approved and in the store before the phone is available.

The second thing we'll see is a new build of Xcode for something new, what, nobody is 100% sure. Some are suggesting a revamped AppleTV. Xcode could allow the other iPhone OS devices to be used as a remote (even more than it is now).

I'm almost sure that we will also see a demonstration of some new applications from many of the developers that will really show off iPhone OS 4.0, which has already been announced.

What I would like to see released is the iPad 4.0 beta software. I don't know if this will be released, yet this would be a nice surprise for those who would like to test iPhone OS 4.0's additional features on their iPads.

I'm not sure what else is going to be seen at WWDC this year. There are a few other rumors, including Safari 5 with more HTML 5, Free Mobile Me for everybody, iTunes Cloud/Re-launched LaLa service and who knows what else… let me know what you think we'll see tomorrow.

Apple's 'Magical' device known as the iPad is now available for pre-order in the United States. Along with the actual iPad, the accessories are also now able to be pre-ordered.

Apple is doing something a bit different with the iPad. They are treating the device much like any desktop or laptop Mac. When you go to the iPad Pre-order page you are presented with each of the six different iPad choices (as shown below).

Once you select your specific iPad you are presented with a page that asks which accessories you would like to purchase along with your iPad. The accessories you can add with your iPad are:

The iPad Dock, the iPad Case, iPad Dock to VGA Connector, iPad Keyboard Dock, iPad 10W USB power adapter, and Apple Wireless bluetooth Keyboard. Now the most peculiar part of this is that there are of different ship times for a few of the accessories.

The iPad Dock, Case and iPad Dock to VGA Connector are all slated to ship by April 3rd, while the iPad Keyboard Dock is schedule to ship in Mid April and the iPad 10W USB power adapter are slated to be available in Late April.

The Apple Wireless bluetooth keyboard, which will work with the iPad, is available now from the Apple Store.

Here are the links for each of the accessories individually.

There is, however, a missing accessory. The missing accessory is the iPad Camera import dock adapter. The Camera Connector appears on the iPad Specifciations page, but it does not appear anywhere within the store. This can be a problem for some who want to be able fill up their 8GB SD cards with RAW pictures and immediately offload them to their 64GB iPad for storage.

Apple also has pricing for Apple care for the iPad. If you purchase Apple Care you will receive support not just for the iPad itself, but also the accessories, iTunes, iWork for iPad, the iPad OS and wireless networking issues. The length of the iPad Apple care is for up to two years, meaning the initial year and one additional year. This is where Apple is making the iPad more like an iPod than a Mac

If you wish to pre-order your iPad now, use any of the links below or visit the Apple Online Store.

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The Wifi + 3G models will be shipping 'Late April' according to the Apple Store.

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Images sources Apple.com

Here are the highlights of the Apple iPad event from January 27th, 2010.

Apple Event: 01-27-10: The iPad

iPod update: "Sold our 250 Millionth iPod".

Retail Store: 284 Retail stores worldwide. Holiday Quarter, over 50 Million visitors

App Store: over 140,000 applications in the App Store 3 Billionth Application download within around 18 months

Apple was started in 1976 34 Years later, 15.6 Billion in Revenue Over $50 Billion a year company.

Revenue is from iPods, iPhones and Macs. Apple is a Mobile Devices company.

Apple stacks up, largest mobile devices company in the world. Larger than Sony's Mobile devices, Bigger than Samsung's mobile devices, By revenue, bigger than Nokia.

Apple invented first laptop. It came with TFT screen.

Apple reinvented the phone with the iPhone.

Devices between Phones and Macs must be far better at some things.

Browsing the Web Email Photos Watching Video Enjoying Music collection Playing Games Reading eBooks

Some thought a Netbook. "Problem is that Netbooks aren't better at anything". "They're just cheap laptops".

iPad: very thin Customize your own background Browse the web. Best Browsing experience you've ever had. Albums are shown as stacks of photos. Flip through them

Built-in calendar Built-in Address book Maps that works with "Google's backend".

iTunes Youtube, including in high-def "Awesome to watch movies"

Much more intimate than a laptop and more capable than a smartphone.

Demo

Maps: includes street view

0.5" thin 1.5 pounds 9.7 inch IPS display Full capacitive multi-touch 1GHz Apple A4 Chip. Memory, I/O, Processor, Graphics all in one chip. 16GB - 64GB Flash storage Wifi 802.11N Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR Speaker, Microphone, 30-pin connector, Accelerometer, and Compass 10 hours of Battery life. Over a month of standby

Enviornemntally Arsenic-free BFR-free Mercury-Free PVC-free system Highly Recyclable

iBooks:

"Stand on [Amazon's] shoulders and go beyond that" Bookshelf (looks like Delicious library) Portrait will show both pages iBooks Store: Fully integrated with iBooks Rest of the 'publishers' starting on the 27th of January, 2010. 'New' badge shows which items are new. Tapping left goes back, right goes to next page Five fonts to choose from Baskerville, Cochin, Palatino, Times new Roman and Verdana. All come with the ability to change font sizes. Epub Format, most popular open book format in the world.

iWork

Keynote: Runs in landscape orientation can arrange slides in groups Pages:

Text only in landscape mode auto-wrap around images, even when moving image

Numbers:

Multiple keyboards available Forms can manipulate tables

Three completely new applications Each $9.99 compatible with iWork Mac versions Easily Connect to projectors

WiFi + 3G Two Data Plans:

250MB of data per month $14.99 Unlimited data $29.99 per month Breakthrough deal with AT&T Free Use of Wifi Hotspots for iPad Wifi + 3G Activated on iPad pre-pay, No contract - cancel anytime

International deals by June - July iPad 3G models are unlocked Uses new GSM Micro SIMs

Pricing:

Wifi 16GB $499 Wifi 32GB $599 Wifi 64GB $699

Wifi+3G 16GB $629 Wifi+3G 32GB $729 Wifi+3G 64GB $829

Worldwide availability 60 days Wifi + 3G models in 90 days Accessories:

Dock. Picture Frame with slideshow Keyboard dock. Full size mechanical keyboard Cover: Protection for iPad, stand for stepping and stand for watching movie

This is a Rant from Jason Calacanis. Thing thing to remember about what he says is that he states that fanboys are the ones who think Apple can do no wrong. There are plenty of us that think Apple is a great company, makes innovative products and is pushing the market. Yet, we're the ones who are also willing to criticize Apple when they make a mistake.

I've only had my new iPhone 3GS for a few hours yet I have found the biggest improvement; the new Camera. Below is a comparison of both the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS cameras.

Both pictures were taken from the same distance from the keyboard. I used both of my ultra-compact iPhone power adapters along with my old iPod Mini as a stand. The second one is so much clearer because of the auto-focus and higher pixel camera. The auto-focus is such a nice feature. I still need to try the video though.

These two stories appeared in my RSS Feed this morning:

So How many were sold? Was it 750,000 or was it a million? Can we get a straight answer from Apple and it's carrier partners or is that too much to ask?

So Apple announced an entire refresh of their Desktop line. Everything from the Mac Minis, to the Mac Pros, and even some other peripherals like Time Machine, Airport Extreme and new keyboards.

With this, I'm debating on whether to get a new Mac Mini to use as a server, media center, or development machine. Or whether I should get the Apple Server Maintenance for the copy of Server I already have.

I'm leaning towards the Server Maintenance, therefore I don't have to plop down $500 for each version of OS X Server that is released in the next 3 years. Since I can always buy a new machine later, since I have to have the Apple Server Maintenance before the next version of Server (which is 10.6) arrives. I'm not sure when that day will be, which is why I'm leaning towards the maintenance program.

I'm not 100% sure what to do, but I guess I'll sit and think about it for a bit before actually acting.

This is just a quick rant on how Mobile me is definitely not something that most users who want schedule backups, that actually work, to be using. Why, well I have SuperDuper! all set to backup my Documents, Photos, and Amazon purchased music every two hours, since I know it won't change that often.

While this SHOULD work, it is still syncing it's initial attempt to copy those items. Now, granted, there are 8200 items, and it does total to just over 4GB, but still, the initial sync should have been completed by now. I did this about 24 hours ago, and it's still not done, this is just too fucking ridiculous for me.

I'll probably post over at macgasm a more extensive rant/review of Mobile me, but that will be forthcoming. I want to see how long this initial backup and several syncs end up working in the long run. So, if you're looking for an affordable backup solution you might want to look at Amazon's S3, if available. It's roughly the same cost and it actually works with JungleDisk for automated backups.

Here's a tale of, is it meant to be or not, at the Oakbrook, IL Apple Store. I woke my sorry ass up at 5 am to be at the Oakbrook Apple store by 6. I actually arrived at 5:45. I was about #35 in line. I figured waiting two hours isn't bad, even three wouldn't be bad. But waiting 6 1/2 hours isn't what I had planned.

The Oakbrook apple store had about 350 people in line at about 10:00 am, with more coming. At exactly 8, they did let in the first 15 people. I, along with everybody else was thinking, cool... 45 minutes to an hour, we'll be out of here. No Dice. It turns out that the Apple store had a "power outage" the night before from the storms that rolled through. Now, this would normally be plausible since we did have some nasty storms roll through. The little thing that gave away Apple's B.S. in the matter is that less than 30 minutes later they changed their story.

It was their Point of Sale server that crashed, and they didn't know how long it would be. Most stores, having a huge pending revenue stream (I figured about $200,000 for the iPhones to be sold that day alone) would go ahead and check their Point of Sale (POS) system when they arrive, just to verify. Even by taking the first person in line and letting them know that they can't leave until after 8, but still, they could go ahead pay for their phone now. No, of course not, that would make sense.

After nobody had left the store after about 45 minutes (8:45 or so), they came out and told us that it was now an activation problem on AT&T's end. People were starting to get irritated. It was a humid, 80 degrees by 8:00 am. So having the sun, heat, and humidity and having to wait longer than anticipated was not what most had in mind. But nobody really complained.

The story changed several times throughout the morning, it's a "nationwide problem", "it's an Apple Only problem, not AT&T", "It's an Activation Server Problem."

At about 10:15 or so, they came back out and said that their POS system was down, but Apple corporate made the Oakbrook store their #1 priority. I already knew it wasn't a "nationwide issue" since I was getting tweets from others at other are stores about getting their phones and heading out the door. Finally, at about 11:00 the first people started trickling out. Their POS System was back up, but activation was taking forever.

So, they had people activate their phones at home, but did not announce this to the crowd at large. I finally left, with my 16GB Black in Hand (Thanks to an Early Birthday gift from the best girlfriend in the world), at 12:15pm or so. A full 6 1/2 hours after initially arriving.

Now, to the stores credit, they did provide water, and still had a ton remaining when I left. The crowd, being as understanding, didn't riot, didn't complain (too much). Overall, it was a good crowd, up in the front anyway. None of the other fanboys and fangirls worried about people leaving to get something to eat, drink, or use the restroom. It was a pretty good crowd. We did however have one woman who managed to jump about 250 spots, just because her friend was further up, so she kept chatting with her, and moving with the crowd, but nobody said anything. Not that any of us really cared, we just wanted our damn phones.

Once inside the Apple Store, everybody was great (the Air Conditioning was really nice). I did send an email to Sjobs@apple.com, about the poor planning, and failure to test their systems before hand. Which, if they would have done at 6AM, probably would have sped the whole process up by 2 hours, and it would not have been as bad. The email has yet to receive a response, as of the writing of this. I sent the email at 9:17AM on 7/11/08.

I didn't attend the launch last year, I went on Saturday and was #4 in line at that point.

Here is the coverage map of the majority of the area that I go, most of it is covered with 3G.

We'll see how well the battery holds up.