iOS 6 contains plenty of new features that Apple didn't mention at WWDC. Image courtesy of William Gamache ([email protected]).
We’re still trawling through the new iOS 6 beta releases that Apple pushed out after its WWDC keynote yesterday, and we continue to find nice new features and improvements. If you’re as excited about iOS 6 as we are, you’d probably like to hear about them.
Here’s a few changes Apple has made to emoji, Reminders, and more.
There's a good chance your next iMac won't look like this one.
There were suggestions that Apple would refresh its iMac at WWDC yesterday — alongside the updates it issued to the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro. However, the Cupertino company’s popular all-in-one didn’t get a mention during the two-hour keynote. That could be because it is hard at work on redesigning the iMac and the Mac Pro.
According to one Apple executive, both machines will receive big updates next year.
The new MacBook Pro highlights Apple's battery design know how
While the new MacBook Pro’s retina display, light weight, and thin format factor were all show stoppers, the notebook’s battery is also a major feature and feat of engineering. Apple claims that despite powering all those pixels, the new MacBook Pro with Retina display has a battery will last for seven hours on a single charge and offer a full month of standby power. Unsurprisingly, much of the its internal space is devoted to the mammoth battery required for that feat.
The new MacBook Pro with Retina display isn’t the first Apple device to sport a massive built-in battery. The new iPad also sports one and the MacBook Air line has had most of its internal space devoted to its battery for years. Each new mega-battery from Apple represents an advance of battery technology that few other companies could deliver.
Advanced call options are a great iOS 6 feature for business users
Despite delivering excellent business solutions in many of its products, there’s always a consistent refrain that Apple doesn’t understand business customers or corporate computing needs. Apple didn’t focus on many specific business uses of the new and upcoming products announced during today’s WWDC keynote. If you look closely, however, there are definite signs that Apple is designing iOS 6 and Mountain Lion,.
During today’s keynote Apple showed a slide that mentioned iOS 6 would get some “Redesigned Stores” but Scott Forstall never went into detail on what the stores look like. Now that we’ve got iOS 6 loaded up on our iPhones we’re finally able to see what the new stores look like and boy are they a great improvement over the predecessors. Here’s what the new App Store, iTunes, and iBooks look like in iOS 6:
Inside the Mac Pro, Apple's most powerful and configurable Mac
There have been concerns about the fate of the Mac Pro ever since Apple killed off the Xserve a year and a half ago. Although Apple didn’t say the Mac Pro was on the chopping block, the company did let it go without an update for quite some time. Although the Mac Pro didn’t get featured in today’s WWDC keynote like the MacBook lineup, which includes the new MacBook Pro, it did receive a long-needed update.
The biggest reaction to the Mac Pro’s update today is a sense of relief by many creative professionals and Mac-focused IT departments. The update proves that Apple isn’t signing the death warrant for its most powerful and most expandable Mac. That makes the updated specs a symbol of Apple’s commitment to high-end and high-performance systems in addition to being a major product update.
iOS 6 offers huge potential for local businesses to attract and retain customers
If I had to pick on adjective for Apple’s upcoming iOS 6, it’d be “local” – Apple is integrating an immense range of local features and giving businesses amazing tools for attracting new customers. Regardless of whether you’re talking about a large chain like Starbucks or a family owned local business, Apple is offering virtually any customer-facing company an immense range of tools to attract and retain new customers.
I don’t “need” a new MacBook Pro with Retina display and maxed out specs, but I really want one. I want one like really really bad, and maybe you do too, but if you’re frothing at the mouth to shell out the $4,000 for the top of the line MacBook Pro you’re going to have to be really patient because right now the shipping estimates are 3-5weeks. That’s just long enough for buyers remorse to sink in.
Wow! Apple just unleashed a thunderstorm of new products and software on the world. Our heads are still spinning trying to keep up with all the new awesome features but we’ve managed to compile a list of everything Apple just announced at today’s WWDC keynote so you know all about the goodies coming your way. Take a look and see what you might have missed.
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.
Is Apple hiding something awesome under their black banner?
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.
Analysts are offering last minute predictions before today's WWDC keynote
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.
You need copious amounts of coffee to wait in line for 9 hours.
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.
Cult of Mac speculates about what to expect in Apple's upcoming version of iOS.
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.
Apple is expected to resurrect the MacBook, but kill of the MacBook Pro. What?!
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.
Apart from a new graphics chip, this MacBook Pro logic board looks exactly like the old one.
We’re almost certain Apple will announce a new MacBook Pro at WWDC this week, but what we’re not quite so sure of is exactly what the new notebook will bring. An Intel Ivy Bridge processor and a high-resolution Retina display seem like the most feasible changes, but there’s also been much debate over a new design.
Some reports have suggested the device will sport a thinner, lighter form factor that will be heavily influenced by the MacBook Air. While others have claimed the design will remain the same as existing MacBook Pros. Now a leaked logic board for the upcoming device seems to side with the latter.
A hardware bomb! That’s what CultCast special guest and Ars Technica writer Chris Foresman thinks is about to go down at next week’s WWDC. I think he’s right, and on our brand new CultCast we’ll tell you why Apple might be about to refresh every Mac they make. Plus, there’s iOS 6. We’ll tell you what to expect from Apple’s new mobile OS too.
And don’t miss our winner of Faves and Raves, the game where we pitch our favorite hardware/apps and then vote on which is best.
All that and too many LULZ on our brand new CultCast. Subscribe now in iTunes and read on through for our show notes.
A look back at Apple's biggest WWDC announcements from the past decade.
Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) has been a staple event for the company since since the turn of the 21st century. The first ever WWDC was held in 1983, but it wasn’t until 2002 that Apple started using the conference as a major launchpad for new products. Since then, Steve Jobs and Co. have unveiled products like the Power Mac G5, Mac Pro, iPhone, and plenty of software. Because WWDC has always been a developer-focused conference, Apple uses the event to announce new apps, OS X versions, major iOS updates, etc. For an Apple fan, it doesn’t get much better than WWDC.
With WWDC 2012 set to kick off on Monday, June 11th, we decided to take a look back at the big announcements Apple made at WWDC over the past decade.
Is this a sign new Macs with Retina displays are coming?
Macs equipped with Retina displays are high on everyone’s wish-list right now, but despite many rumors claiming we’ll see them announced at WWDC, we’ve still had our doubts they’ll arrive this year. However, we’ve been handed a glimmer of hope this morning after Retina-ready Mac applications began appearing in the Mac App Store.
What are IT professionals and business users looking for at this year's WWDC?
WWDC is only a few days away and the event is shaping up to be filled dramatic announcements. Expectations include an Apple HDTV, a new Mac lineup that includes an updated Mac Pro, the unveiling of the next iPhone, iOS 6 with Siri support for the iPad, updates to Siri’s functionality, and load of additional details about Mountain Lion.
Whether all those expectations are met or not, WWDC and its keynote will pack lots of information for developers and IT professionals as well as various Apple product announcements and previews. The big announcements may be the best part of WWDC for most Mac users and Apple fans, but the event is, at its heart, a giant powwow for developers. It also offers IT professionals and CIOs their best glimpse at Apple future plans and the new technologies that they will need to support and/or manage.
So what are IT leaders and business professionals going to be looking for at WWDC? Here’s our IT wish list for this year’s WWDC.
Oh, man. With WWDC just around the corner, the rumors are rising high enough to choke us. This latest comes from “a source in China” by way of our friends over at ZooGue cases, Tim Angel and Graham Smith. It’s an “iPad nano,” and it may or not have “fake” written all over it.
With the MacBook Pro, Air and iMac lineups all expected to see a refresh at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference next week, it looks like the seemingly-abanonded Mac Pro will also be updated. Apple has begun pulling Mac Pro stock from its retail stores and online shipping estimates are also starting to slip. This type of activity is typical right before a new version of an Apple product is announced, as Apple clears out its old inventory to make room for the new.
The Mac Pro saw its last refresh in July of 2010, and many have begun to lose faith that Apple will continue to support its ‘pro’ users as the company transitions to being more consumer-oriented. It would seem that we can all be hopeful for the future of the Mac Pro, as the machine is about to see its first refresh in nearly two years.
WWDC 2012: "Where great ideas go on to do great things."
Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference is set to kick off next Monday with a media keynote, and signage for the conference is already being put up. We expected the banners to start going up Friday afternoon, but Apple has started decorating earlier than normal.
Thousands of developers will fill the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California all next week, and Apple is expected to unveil iOS 6, new Macs, and some other surprises. It’s going to be a wild week!
Update: We’ve gotten more pics from the Moscone Center for you to check out.