Following a refresh to the MacBook Air lineup, Apple’s Phil Schiller unveiled a revamped MacBook Pro today at WWDC12. The updated machine boasts Intel Ivy Bridge 2.7GHz (turbo boosted up to 3.7GHz), USB 3.0, Nvidia GeForce GT 650m graphics, and 7 hours of battery life.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro spec upgrade costs $1199, while the 15-inch will sell for $1499. The 15-inch is offered in $1799 and $2199 models with beefier quad-core chips. The outwards design of these upgraded MacBook Pros have stayed the same.

“”Nobody turns over their entire line as quickly and completely as we do at Apple. So what’s next? We need to make room on the slide for this.” And Apple is about to announce a completely new and improved MacBook Pro, the next-generation.

““With the MBA, the engineering team did something bold. They reenvisioned the consumer notebook, and were aggressive in embracing new technologies, and discarding legacy technologies. Things we could eventually do without.”

“So what would make a next-generation MacBook Pro?” Schiller asks.

According to Schiller, the next-gen MBP is the most beautiful computer Apple has ever made. It’s thin, its light, it has no optical drive, it’s exactly what the rumors had us believe it would be: a cross between the last MBP and the MacBook Air.

The new MBP is about as thin as the current Air, and weighs under four and a half pounds. And it has a Retina Display.

Noting that everyone tries to copy the MacBook Air, Phil Schiller says they’re updating their ultraportable line.

The MacBook Air will now feature:

• Updated CPU — Ivy Bridge, up to 2.0GHz dual-core i&.
• Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz
• Up to 8GB RAM
• 60% Faster Graphics
• Up to 512GB SSD
• USB 3 Support!
• 720p FaceTime camera
• No retina!

Prices now start at $999 and $1099 for the 11-inch, $1199 and $1499 for the 13-inch

(This story is developing.Check back for updates.)

Image: The Verge

After addressing the crowd about the App Store, Tim Cook has moved onto the next thing to brag about: new MacBooks, OS X updates and iOS 6! But first, Phil Schiller joins the stage.

(This story is developing.Check back for updates.)

Image: Engadget

Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage at WWDC12 and kicked things off with some numbers. The App Store currently boasts 400 million accounts, making it the largest and “most vibrant app ecosystem on the planet.” There are over 650,000 apps in the App Store, and 225,000 are made for the iPad.

Apple has seen a staggering 30 billion App Store downloads since the store’s launch in 2008, and third-party developers have been paid a “mind-boggling” $5 billion.

The App Store is available in 120 countries around the world, and Apple is adding 32 more countries today.

“Nothing makes us happier than to see hundreds of thousands of developers around the world using our hardware and software to share their ideas,” said Tim Cook. “It’s becoming an economy in and of itself.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook has just taken the stage at the Moscone Center in San Francisco to deliver the keynote address, and are we excited.

Over the next hour and a half, Tim Cook is expected to announce some radical new products for Apple, including new Macs and iOS 6. Apple is expected to abandon Google Maps for its own in-house solution. We will also likely hear a release date for OS X Mountain Lion.

Stay tuned for updates, and keep refreshing our home page for the latest scoops from the keynote. We’ll be live-blogging the whole thing over the course of the next 90 minutes, so as soon as something’s announced, you’ll see it on the front page.

What are you most looking forward to Apple announcing today? Let us know in the comments.

In a hysterical change of pace, instead of Apple CEO Tim Cook taking the stage to start the WWDC keynote at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Siri came on the big screen to warm up the crowd instead.

“Hello and welcome to WWDC. I’m Siri, your virtual assistant and today I was asked to warm up the crowd, which should be easy since the high will be 75 degrees,” said Siri.

Here were some more jokes Siri told:

“How many developers does it take to change a lightbulb? None, that’s a hardware problem.”

“Hey, any of you guys been working with ICS or Jelly Bean. Who’s working up these codenames? Ben & Jerry?”

“Seriously, I am excited about the new Samsung. Not the phone, the refrigerator.”

“I love you guys, but it’s hard for me to get emotional. Because my emotions haven’t been coded yet.”

And now Siri is introducing Tim Cook! Awesome!

Image: Engadget

Whether it’s for new products or routine maintenance, Apple’s online store goes down from time to time. Today, for example, the store went down ahead of Apple’s WWDC keynote that’s set to begin within the hour. When the store comes back online, expect new products, like updated MacBook Pros, to show up in Apple’s inventory.

Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes when the Apple online store goes down? Well, even Apple’s own engineers in Cupertino don’t know what new products are coming next.

At every WWDC, Apple dresses up the Moscone Center with beautiful banner graphics to promote their newest software and hardware. Sometimes before the keynote, they keep some banners veiled in black cloth to prevent any keynote spoilers. This year is no exception. So what’s under this year’s black banner? Let us hear your guesses in the comments.

Via: Tim Stevens

Apple is set to launch its 2012 ‘Back to School’ promotion soon, according to the rumor mill this morning. With the purchase of a new iPad, educational customers will be eligible to receive a free $50 iTunes gift card. A new Mac purchase will come with a $100 gift card.

Apple’s WWDC keynote is starting in less than two hours, and the company is expected to unveil iOS 6 and new Mac hardware.

Following those specifications for the new Mac Pro and the new MacBook Pro that we reported on earlier, the specifics for the Retina display MacBook Pro and the new MacBook Airs have now also been leaked. In addition to Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors for all models, highlights include up to 8GB of RAM and up to 512GB of SSD storage for the MacBook Air, and up to 768GB of storage for the MacBook Pro.

With just a few hours to go before Apple kicks off WWDC, some analysts are rushing to make predictions right up till the last few moments. London-based research firm Ovum, for example, delivered a list of three things that its Chief Telecoms Analyst Jan Dawson feels are essential announcements that Apple needs to make during the WWDC keynote later today.

Dawson’s assessment breaks ranks with many other analysts who have insisted that Apple must unveil its own HDTV at the event or sometime later this year but does think Apple needs to bring apps to the TV experience. The remainder of his comments focus on iOS and changes that a wide swath of iPhone and iPad owners, developers, and tech journalists have suggested since Apple released iOS 5 last fall.

It’s a pretty good bet that iPhones and iPads will be responsible for 3G/4G traffic spikes around the Moscone Center in San Francisco this week as Apple developers lucky enough to score a ticket attend WWDC. Beyond this week, however, it seems that iPhone users have a tendency to gobble up a large amount of data – more so than other platforms including Android.

On average, iPhone owners represent about 20% of smartphone customers for mobile carriers worldwide. You might expect that those customers would amount to around 20% of data usage. That isn’t the case as  iPhone users account for an average 45% of carrier data traffic and data use by iPhone users is more consistent than data consumed by Android customers.

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference has spawned some huge lines this year, with many waiting outside San Francisco’s Moscone Center a full nine hours before the keynote will begin — as we showed you earlier. But it isn’t just Tim Cook and co. who will be enjoying all of the attention; the local Starbucks is struggling to keep up with thirsty attendees.

Source: saschasegan on Twitter

Tyype, a new ultra-simple text-editing app for the iPad, could point the way to better text manipulation in iOS 6, due to be announced today at Apple’s WWDC in San Francisco. And while we don’t think for a moment that Tyype’s gestures will make actually be in the new OS, it certainly shows that not only is Apple’s way not the sole way to do things, it isn’t even the best way.

It’s almost here, folks. One of the biggest events of the year for an Apple fan is today, June 11th. Tim Cook, Phil Schiller and others will be taking the stage at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in sunny San Francisco at 10 A.M. Pacific/ 1 P.M. Eastern.

We’re expecting a whole lot of announcements from Apple tomday, so stay tuned to Cult of Mac for breaking coverage all day, and especially starting at 10/1 Pacific/Eastern, when our live-blogging coverage of the keynote will commence.

Thousands of developers will be crammed into the Moscone Center this morning to watch Apple talk about new products like iOS 6, Mountain Lion, and possibly some new Macs. It’s going to be a very busy, exciting day. We can’t wait!

Don’t expect Apple to stream today’s keynote live, but keep hitting refresh on Cult of Mac for breaking news stories all day, plus post-keynote reactions. Apple usually posts a video recording of the keynote a few hours later, and we’ll have that live as soon as it’s up, along with a 90-second video recap for you impatient types. To whet your appetite, check out our complete roundup of what to expect from Apple at WWDC 2012 and our history of Apple product announcements at WWDC from the past decade.

Image: James Martin/CNET

Today at 10AM Pacific, Tim Cook will take the stage at the Moscone Center in San Francisco for Apple’s annual WWDC keynote, and if the rumor mill is to be believed, he’ll be hard pressed to fit everything Cupertino is ready to announce into its 90 minute presentation. We’re looking at massive upgrades to the entire Mac line, the official unveiling of iOS 6, loads of new apps, and maybe possibly even our first glimpse of the iPhone 5 and Apple HDTV.

Here’s what we think Apple will (and won’t) announce today, ranked in order of likelihood.

Noteshelf — the best writing and scrawling app available for the iPad — has at last gotten a Retina update for the new iPad. And boy was it worth the wait.

Tim Cook gave his first major interview since becoming Apple CEO at the AllThingsD conference last month, and the full video interview with Cook has now been made available.

Clocking in at 1 hour and 40 minutes, Cook’s interview with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg tackles all kinds of topics, including the state of Apple post-Steve Jobs, upcoming products, China labor practices, and more.

Apple’s online store has gone down ahead of the company’s keynote presentation at WWDC in just under four hours. We’ve had our suspicions that the company will be refreshing a number of its Macs, and this almost confirms they’ll be available to order today.

Apple’s unveiling of its next major operating system, iOS 6, is right around the corner. Scott Forstall and Co. are expected to announce the new OS to developers at WWDC next week. Very little is actually known about iOS 6, but there have been some rumors that made headlines over the last few months.

iOS 6 looks to be an evolutionary upgrade from iOS 5, rather than a revolutionary jump forward. Here’s what we expect to see.

Most of us have considered moving out iTunes library to an external hard drive to save space at one time or another. If you use a MacBook Air, you know how squeezzed for space you can feel after using a laptop with a much bigger hard drive. Heck, we’ve even written about saving space via iTunes migration.

But what about iPhoto? True, pictures take up less space than iTunes videos, or even MP3 tracks, but more and more these days we’re taking photos with huge pixel counts with similarly large file sizes. And what about all the movies we use our iPhones or cameras for? They eat up a lot of space, too. So, you might at some point want to move all the photos and home movies you manage in iPhoto to an external drive to save space. Here’s how.

As we patiently wait for Tim Cook to kick off Apple’s WWDC keynote in just under five hours time, the last of the WWDC rumors and reports are spilling in. One of the more questionable pieces comes from KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who believes the new MacBook Pro won’t get that thinner, lighter, MacBook Air-like form factor we’ve all been hearing about. But that a resurrected MacBook will instead.

Launch Center Pro from App Cubby on Vimeo.

App Cubby has made a little teaser video for the forthcoming new app Launch Center Pro. As you may remember, Launch Center is kind of like Quicksilver or Launchbar for your iPhone — you fire it up and tap buttons to perform actions. You can quickly compose a Tweet, or tap a button to open the Mail app with a new draft already pre-populated with a recipient’s address, or even schedule a message, say, to be sent at a certain time (this will pop up a reminder in the Notification Center).

Since iOS 5 was introduced last summer, our lock screens finally do something worthwhile, and that is present all of our unread notifications in one place, so that we can see what we’ve missed at a glance. However, when you have no outstanding notifications, the lock screen is stall a rather boring place.

AnimateLockscreen is a new jailbreak tweak that aims to change that, by breathing new life into your lock screen with gorgeous animated wallpapers.