Time is flying by as usual and it is time to give you my take on what’s up at Apple. This is easy since they are doing so well. I’ve been writing about Apple in one way or another since the early nineties. Back then I was writing a paper newsletter once or twice a year.

Snow Leopard has been great for me. The only hassle was that quite a few things broke and weren’t fixed for a few weeks. Apple had said Snow Leopard in September and all the developers thought that meant September 30. Apple got crazy and introduced Snow Leopard on August 28. How rude!

The main thing to know about Snow Leopard if you haven’t upgraded yet is that (1) it makes your machine noticeably faster and (2) the screen pops and dazzles in a way Leopard doesn’t. Apple rewrote the Finder in Cocoa and put the full horsepower of their core graphics engine under it. Now windows pop like you’ve never seen them. As soon as you install Snow Leopard there’s no going back. It’s too lush and enjoyable — and did I say fast!

Then in September we had the new iPod touch and iPod nano. I covered them in my last post, so will skip those here. I still think the Nano makes a fantastic Christmas gift for anyone who likes music or gadgets the least bit. The iPod touch is for all those people who can’t do iPhone due to contracts, crumby reception or exhorbitant data plan charges. iPhone-less college students are perfect mates for the iPod touch because wi-fi runs rampant on a college campus and money isn’t all that plentiful in most cases when you are a student.

Then came a *mightier* Mac mini upgrade, a fast, battery-laden $995 white Macbook with everything but firewire and a crazily ginormous iMac 27. Apple rocks! They do not let up. They drive the tech world.

I only have two tiny complaints at the moment. I wish Apple had knocked Mac prices down a little more somewhere to increase Mac marketshare. But if they did, they could not wow us as well with things like the 7-hour battery life of the white Macbook. Second, where’s my iPad? Lots of people have shiny little netbooks and I want a mini-tablet as an alternative. Lots of Apple owners *had to* go out and buy netbook PCs. Since I have a Macbook Air, I held the line. I highly recommend Apple’s video about the new iMac – there’s a lot of Apple’s amazing industrial designer, Jonathan Ive, on there.

Windows 7 is here. As an after thought, I’ll mention the big W from the North country. I haven’t seen a screen with Windows 7 on it. I go by my tech reading. What I see is that Windows 7 is a great boon to Microsoft’s bottom line. Since a lot of the good things about it are already in OS X, Mac lovers need not be concerned. We know who the innovator is between Apple and Microsoft. Since there is an incredible inertia in favor of Windows, Apple will have to hustle. Glad of that.

We are disappointed with Apple’s decision to leave the camera out on the iPod touch. On the other hand the 64gb model looks pretty nice. The little nanos with video cam, microphone and fm radio look like great Christmas gifts this year.

Lots of goodies in iTunes 9 – finally better design so you can find what you want faster and a wishlist! Being able to organize your iPhone and iPod touch apps in iTunes looks really good.

Couldn’t resist this pic. I’ve got iTunes 9 running and both iPhone and iPod touch running OS 3.1.

Photo compliments of Gizmodo.

It’s about time for an Apple update. The Expo is well behind us now and new Macs have been recently released. We know that iPhone 3.0 will be out by July. Here are the recent high points and things to look forward to.

The Return of Steve Jobs? At Apple’s Annual Meeting on Feb 25th, spokes people seemed to hint that Steve was returning and was in communication on a regular basis with Apple’s board and key execs.

My take is that Steve’s health situation is serious enough that we can’t count on him to fully recover. In fact, he may not make it. But, he can afford the best medical care and is making his health priority one. He has a lot to live for. If his health is good at all, he’ll be champing at the bit to get back full-time to Apple. I sure hope he comes back soon.

iPhone Update. The iPhone is still unrivaled and is moving smartly towards a dominant position in the mobile market. All I know is that:

There are iPhones everywhere I go.

There are bajillions of iPhone apps and some of them are quite good like Tweetie, Evernote, Fieldrunner and Todo.

Apple keeps improving it – they are finally releasing cut-copy-paste.

I love my iPhone. A new, faster, more capacious (32gb) iPhone with a better camera is rumored for release in June or July.

Here’s the competition in order of strength: Blackberry, Palm Pre, Google’s Android phones like the G1, Nokia, Windows Mobile phones. Palm Pre looks hot but pre-release, so Palm has a lot to prove. The Blackberry Storm, released in November, was a disappointment. The first Android phone, the G1, is OK but development of the platform has been disappointing to observers like engadget and gdgt. Nokia’s Symbian platform lags technically even though Nokia dominates the smartphone market.

Mac Update. Yay for the upgrade of the Mac mini. The updates of the iMac and Mac Pro were good but mostly speed bumps with decent pricing. A lot of people hoped for even lower prices to suit the economy but that didn’t happen. I look at that as a sign of strength on Apple’s part.

New iPod Shuffle. I do like the new iPod Shuffle, by the way. What I like is the introduction of additional functionality via voice feedback. This innovation opens up a whole new avenue for gadget-human interaction. I hear it is well-implemented too. Multiple playlists are now supported.

Rumors of a mini-tablet or 10-inch notebook. I vote for the mini-tablet but since it is a new form factor am afraid the odds favor a smaller version of the macbook air that somehow manages to be cheaper. Not sure that is possible. Maybe it will be more like a small version of the Macbook. What I want is something the size and weight of the Kindle for $800 or less — hopefully less. Rumors have it that a device like this might possibly appear between August and October. Or maybe a netbooklike device will come out. I’m happy with my full-sized Macbook Air, so am not netbook-inclined.

Apple Keeps on Rocking. The Apple innovation machine continues to delight. The rumor sites had the outlines, but didn’t do the 4G nano justice like the photo above does. The new nanos have the same size screen in a vertical orientation. But the built-in accelerometer allows you to turn sideways to view content horizontally. Vertical is a better orientation for the basics and horizontal gives you a wide screen when you need it.

Shake your groove thing. Shake your nano to shuffle the songs. Voice record with the microphone built into the headphones. Those headphones let you adjust volume and go to next or previous song. The improved headphone controls work on both the 4G nano and 2G iPod touch.

New Menu: Now you press and hold the center button to navigate around your nano.

Feather weight. The 4G nano, an impulse buy at $149 for 8gb, weighs 1.3 oz. That may be why these things end up going into the laundry. Be careful.

2G iPod touch. We expect more of the touch because it is truly a handheld computer. New are external volume control buttons, built-in speaker and the ability to use a microphone input via Apple’s new headphones. Nike ipod integrationfor tracking your workouts. The genius feature (see below). An $80 – $100 price drop!

Genius Feature. iTunes 8 brings smarts (“genius”) to iTunes and the new crop of iPods. The scenario is you hear a song you love and want to hear more songs like that right now. Just press the center button and have your built-in genius create a playlist for you. How well it works is yet to be determined but they’ve sure got my attention!