Not quite as world changing as Y Combinator’s list of 30 startup ideas they would fund, Merlin Mann comes up with three iPhone Apps he would totally buy. The three apps are all great ideas, but the real gold is in the comments.

Yesterday was the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2008, basically a gigantic geekfest for Mac OS X and iPhone OS. The over 150 technical presentations and hands-on labs were great for the thousands of Mac engineers, but what everyone really cared about was Steve Jobs’ keynote address.

Biggest reveals (although no surprises): iPhone 3G, App Store, and MobileMe.

The iPhone 3G is the new version of the iPhone, twice as fast and half as expensive (but more on that in a bit). It operates on 3G (duh), making its internet connection about twice as fast as old iPhones running on EDGE. Other hardware updates are a slimmer body, flush headphone jack, longer battery life, and….drum roll please…GPS. (Run and hide, lil GPS manufacturers.)

Much more significant, however, is the new software: App Store and MobileMe. From The New York Times “Why the Boring iPhone Software Stuff Matters”:

The most important battle here isn’t between the iPhone and the latest from Samsung or Nokia. The fighting now is over what will become the dominant platform for mobile computing. In that fight, Apple is competing with Microsoft, Symbian, Google’s Android, Palm and R.I.M.

If Apple can rise above its formidable competition, we will remember the impact of the SDK long after the 2008 iPhone looks as ancient as the 2002 10-gigabyte iPod.

As cool as the iPhone 3G seems, it is inevitably going to become obsolete. How Apple will remain competitive, and really gain market share, is through the iPhone platform. This platform includes the AppStore and related iPhone SDK (basically, the programming language and software store for the iPhone), but also the MobileMe service. By enabling users to EASILY, SEAMLESSLY, and SILENTLY track emails, contacts, and files across all of their internet devices, Apple is making the use of any other services just dumb.

Moreover, it is important to note that the MobileMe service comes free for anyone purchasing an iPhone 3G. This really softens the blow from the fact that while the iPhone itself is dropping to $199, the phone plan will cost an extra $120 a year (the data plan is rising from $20/month to $30/month). I am not convinced MobileMe is really worth $120 a year*, but it at least is not a terrible value.

* MobileMe is, for the most part, a pay version of Gmail and its ilk. The difference is that you can use the iPhone’s built-in Mail and Calendar applications, rather than having to open Safari and log into Gmail. And mozy.com will get you 2 GB of backup for free, or unlimited backup for $60 a year.

PS - The next OS X will be called Snow Leopard. How original.

Inspired by Helder Luis’s perfect iPhone ringtone, Eric Meyer gives us the really perfect ringtone. Lovely people may recognize it from a certain children’s show:

Rewind Kindly - Inspired by Be Kind Rewind, Austin based Filmmaking Frenzy is putting on a contest for people to “complete an up-to-five-minute, homemade, low-budget remake of a popular hollywood film”. Much love to Star Wars.

The Appeal of the MacBook Air - John Gruber proselytizes for the MacBook Air a bit more, comparing it to a sexy convertible coupe (not unlike the iPod Mini or Nano). I pretty much agree with Gruber, and am still surprised that there is a strong group of people who foresee the MacBook Air failing. Would I buy it? No. But it is a good machine for a lot of people besides me. (Then again, this is a lot more than $50 we’re talking about; analogies only go so far.)

Things I have learned from mostly linkblogging for more than 10 years - Ben Tesch has been speaking to my heart lately with all of his ideas.

It makes sense that a video post and a photo post and an audio post look different, but why is there only one type of text post? Why is a Tweet handled in the same way as a 2,000-word essay? Where is the book or movie review type? Jason has done this kind of stuff for years, and had to manage entire multiple blogs just to do it. Why can’t I take a feed, create a new post template specifically for it, and plug the feed into it? And if I can, why is it so difficult?

Alltop.com - Like popurls.com except organized by topic. Click a topic and find the newest stories from at least thirty related sites. For example, click Science and get the top stories from New Scientist, Nature, New York Times, ABC, and more. Or in their own words:

We help you explore your passions by collecting stories from “all the top” sites on the web. We’ve grouped these collections—”aggregations”—into individual Alltop sites based on topics such as celebrity gossip, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, and Macintosh. At each Alltop site, we display the latest five stories from thirty or more sites on a single page.

Floating cigarette - The secret behind a good magic trick is making it remain amazing, even if you know how it is done.

Bottom line, all web apps suck - Not to bite the hand that feeds me…Matt Haughey brings up some good points, and strikes up a good conversation (see the comments). And I love Wordpress, but even it falls prey to some of Haughey’s complaints.

How camera lenses are made - A piece from the Discovery Channel’s “How It’s Made”. Not the best bit the show’s ever had, but who knew it took six weeks to make one lens? Shenanigans.

Sitepoint CSS Reference - I am such a dork.

USB 3G modems don’t fit with MacBook Air - One of the smallest USB 3G modems out now won’t fit in the custom MacBook Air USB port. Not much of a surprise, but who cares? Air users shouldn’t have to attach plastic tumors to get cellular broadband.

MacBook Air Craft - That’s one solution…

For Sale: Pink Upholstered Vagina Chair - Man, I love Craigslist sometimes. Who’s up for a trip to California?

Books that make you dumb - Take the top ten most popular books at every college, compare it to the average SAT/ACT scores for those colleges, and bango presto! A descending list of books that make you dumb. The Bible is pretty average, but The Holy Bible could use some Princeton Review courses.

To end: Kate Beaton’s History Project - Twenty comics about different historical figures or cultural themes. Like the Professor Brothers, but static. Educated humor has never been so hilarious.

Making the waves today is a roundup of MacBook Air reviews by all the big names: Steve Pogue at the New York Times, Edward Baig at USA Today, Steven Levy at Newsweek, and Walt Mossberg at The Wall Street Journal. Initial assessments have been mixed, with comments of awe in terms of the MacBook Air’s design, and disappointment with its features. Overall, though, people seem to be optimistically giving Apple the benefit of the doubt. (No one wants to be “That Guy” who bashed the Air only to have it sell like hotcakes. Or like iPhones.)

Basically, the MacBook Air has a number of pros and cons:

Pros: thinner than Karen Carpenter, 13.3″ screen, practically weightless (or: 3 lbs), five and a bit hours of battery life, powerful (up to 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, which is a lot for an ultraportable), integrated webcam, and cool (figuratively and literally)

Cons: low resolution LCD (1280 x 1024 is almost too low these days), up to 80 GB hard drive, irreplaceable battery (unless you hand $130 over to Apple and let them do it), no optical drive, one USB port, no ethernet port, no cellular broadband, no wireless USB

Just looking at the features, it is easy to see that thinness is the MacBook Air’s platform. The processor and screen size get a nice boost compared to other ultraportables, but what really sets it apart is its width. Everything else is, feature-wise, a negative for the Air. Based on this, the Air is irrelevant at worst, or a secondary machine at best.

However, judging by feature matrices sucks. As Charles Miller says,

A feature matrix says: “Here is what everyone else is doing. To be competitive you must do the same.” Where’s the differentiation? Where’s the innovation in doing exactly what everyone else does, ticking the boxes, shaving off one or two points in each row so you get the green tick?

More specifically, feature matrices suck because they are so general. As far as the matrices is concerned, each feature is as important as the next. This is inane, as some features are clearly more crucial than others, and this breakdown clearly differs from person to person. Irregardless of any weighted listings, that most feature matrices neglect to even mention the operating system points to something being obviously broken. (OS X is such a unique beast that choosing between it and Windows is a necessity before shopping for a computer.)

Unfortunately, with a $1,799 base price, it is difficult to look past the features. At that price — the same as 15″ MacBook Pro — I want a competitive primary machine, not an elegant secondary machine. Honestly, the Air strikes me as an overpriced internet appliance, not a full-fledged MacBook. And perhaps that’s on purpose. With Steve Job noting the Air’s complementing other appliances like Time Capsule and Apple TV, it may well have been designed to be one piece of a set.

So what bothers me is not the MacBook Air’s features, which are perfect for a good number of people (students, heavy travelers, gadget mavens). My problem is that the Air is stunted, needing a number of (often costly) external additions if you really want to customize it to suit your needs. Moreover, these add-ons negate its selling point: svelte thinness and portability.

I am in love with the MacBook Air in theory, but am not swayed by its initial implementation. By the time the first refresh is released, Apple should be able to fit at least a 160 GB hard drive in there, bump up the battery life and screen resolution, integrate cellular broadband and wireless USB, and maybe even drop the price a little. At the same time, houses and campuses and cities should all have ubiquitous WiFi, Netflix and the iTunes Movie Store will have significant share of movie rentals, and CD/DVD-installed software will be a thing of the past.

Then I’ll really be in love.

OMG MACBOOK AIR (.mov, direct link)

Preorder yours now.

Geeking out aside: Really, Apple? You chide other companies for making sacrifices (weaker processors, smaller screens), then introduce a laptop with no optical drive and mono audio (among other deficiencies)? Granted, these and other things left out (like a user-replaceable battery) seem more important than they are, and will only be a nuisance for many. Still, hypocrisy is hypocrisy.

Then again: .16 to .76 inches thin! OMG!

I’ve said it before, and I shall say it again: Apple Trailers is pretty much the love of my life. A boatload of trailers were just added, inspiring me to present the following collection of sweet trailers. There are so many wonderful looking movies being released, it is difficult to not post every single one of them, but for the reader’s sake, I’ll keep it reasonable.

Of the ones below, let me just say that In Bruges is bound to be hilarious, Teeth is ridiculous, Youth Without Youth will no doubt reaffirm Coppola’s power as a director, Persepolis is thankfully animated, The Band’s Visit might be this year’s “#1 Movie That I Regret Not Seeing” on account of it oh-so-assuredly not being released anywhere near me, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly looks to be as gorgeous visually as it is uplifting emotionally.

In Bruges - Bruges (pronounced “broozh”), the most well-preserved medieval city in the whole of Belgium, is a welcoming destination for travellers from all over the world. But for hit men Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson), it could be their final destination; a difficult job has resulted in the pair being ordered right before Christmas by their London boss Harry (two-time Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes) to go and cool their heels in the storybook Flemish city for a couple of weeks. Very much out of place amidst the gothic architecture, canals, and cobbled streets, the two hit men fill their days living the lives of tourists.

Teeth - TEETH tells the story of High school student Dawn (Jess Weixler) works hard at suppressing her budding sexuality by being the local chastity group’s most active participant. Her task is made even more difficult by her bad boy stepbrother Brad’s (John Hensley) increasingly provocative behavior at home. A stranger to her own body, innocent Dawn discovers she has a toothed vagina when she becomes the object of violence. As she struggles to comprehend her anatomical uniqueness, Dawn experiences both the pitfalls and the power of being a living example of the vagina dentata myth.

Youth Without Youth - Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth stars Tim Roth as Dominic Matei, and aging professor of linguistics who survives a cataclysmic event to find his youth miraculously restored. Dominic’s physical rejuvenation is matched by a highly evolved intellect, which attracts the attention of Nazi scientists, forcing him into exile.

Persepolis - Based on the comic by Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis is the poignant story of a young girl in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It is through the eyes of precocious and outspoken nine year old Marjane that we see a people’s hopes dashed as fundamentalists take power - forcing the veil on women and imprisoning thousands. Clever and fearless, she outsmarts the “social guardians” and discovers punk, ABBA and Iron Maiden.

The Band’s Visit - Once, not long ago, a small Egyptian Police band arrived in Israel. They came to play at an initiation ceremony but, due to bureaucracy, bad luck, or for whatever reason, they were left stranded at the airport. They tried to manage on their own, only to find themselves in a desolate, almost forgotten, small Israeli town, somewhere in the heart of the desert. A lost band in a lost town.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY is the remarkable true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), a successful and charismatic editor-in-chief of French Elle, who believes he is living his life to its absolute fullest when a sudden stroke leaves him in a life-altered state. While the physical challenges of Bauby’s fate leave him with little hope for the future, he begins to discover how his life’s passions, his rich memories and his newfound imagination can help him achieve a life without boundaries.

And so on and so on and so on.

A glossary:

iTunes - a music jukebox program with built-in music store (iTunes Music Store) developed by Apple. Since the iPod gained an outrageous lead in popularity over other MP3 players, iTunes has become similarly popular.

Digital rights management (DRM) - a system of digital theft prevention that severely limits the usability of whatever the DRM is on. In this case, because of DRM, music bought through iTunes can (to simplify things) only be played on the computer on which the music was purchased, and the owner’s iPod.

Steve Jobs - CEO of Apple and sexiest man in the computer biz.

Back in February, Steve Jobs posted his Thoughts on Music, calling for labels to abolish DRMs entirely. DRM systems are too restrictive and too fragile to ever be truly viable, Ridding the world of DRms is “clearly the best alternative for consumers,” Jobs says, “and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.” Some thought Jobs was talking out of his ass, but it seems he really meant it.

Starting in May, Apple will offer DRM-free music from EMI through iTunes. Single songs will sell for $1.29 (30 cents more than the usual $0.99), and be completely DRM-free. Moreover, every DRM-free track will have twice the sound-quality as the 99 cent DRM tracks. According to CNet, “Full albums in DRM-free form can be bought at the same price as standard iTunes albums.”

Thirty cents is a small price to pay for unrestricted music that has twice the sound quality as everything else iTunes offers, but it is a relatively large increase compared to the 99 cents customers are used to paying, and a few (significant) obstacles. Assuming most of the people who use iTunes have an iPod, the lack of a DRM won’t matter to most users. Who cares about being able to play the song on any device if all you use are authorized devices? Those wanting higher-quality sound might jump on the bandwagon, but I have a feeling they go elsewhere for their music. Most of the iTunes library remains at a lower sound quality, and it doesn’t make sense for users to buy just their EMI music through iTunes.

Another notch in the cons column comes from the fact that, although the objective sound quality is doubled, the songs won’t sound twice as good. For many, myself included, the jump from 128 kbps to 256 kbps is imperceptible. This in mind, what incentive does a consumer have to upgrade? iPod users do not need DRM-free music, audiophiles do not use the iTunes Music Store anyway, and everyone else might not even notice the sound difference.

Hopefully, the above does not turn out to be true, and this does not turn into a way for EMI to “prove” that consumers are perfectly happy with DRM. Ideally, sales will go up, and EMI (and the other labels) will finally see DRM-free music as capable of being profitable. In other words, the labels will see that selling music online without restrictions does not result in rampant piracy and a total collapse of the music industry. Of course, labels could also see any success as consumers simply wanting higher quality music. But, fingers crossed.