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.
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.
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.
Apple’s tower of power, the Mac Pro, hasn’t been updated in almost two years, but on our latest CultCast, we’ll tell you why that could soon change.
And, did you catch Tim Cook at last week’s All Things D conference? We’ll get you up-to-date quick as we analyze and scrutinize every little thing he said (and didn’t!).
All that and our answers to your questions on our brand new CultCast. Subscribe now in iTunes and read on through for our show notes.
Following numerous claims that Apple will abandon Google Maps and release proprietary mapping technology this year, The Wall Street Journal today reports that Apple is indeed throwing out Google Maps once and for all. Apple showed signs of moving away from Google Maps when it used open-source mapping technology in its recently launched iPhoto for iOS app.
Apple has been reportedly “hatching the plan to evict Google Maps from the iPhone for years,” and the company is expected to debut its completely new app “later this year.”
According to pre-WWDC scuttlebutt, iOS 6 won’t be a huge departure from what we’ve got now, at least when it comes to stand out system features. What we will see, however, is a total revision of Apple’s core apps, most noticeable in Apple’s totally overhauled, Google-free Maps app, along with a sexy new silver UI.
What will it all look like in action, though, on the new, possibly elongated iPhone 5, when it ships in September or October? Over on the Apple Core forums, user gizmosachin created some nice mockups of what all the pieces will look like when glued together.
Google sent out invites to certain publications this morning for a mysterious Maps event that will be taking place on Wednesday, June 6th. With the plea to come see the “next dimension of Google Maps,” the company plans to show a “sneak peek” at upcoming features for its mapping technology.
Sure, the event sounds interesting, but the fact that Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is taking place 5 days later really adds fuel to the fire.
The flaws and future of Siri, his thoughts on Steve Jobs, the long rumored Apple television – Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage at the 10th annual All Things D conference, and boy, did he have a lot to say.
Join us in our brand new CultCast episode as we pick apart Tim’s D10 interview and tell you why he possibly confirmed the existence of Apple’s long-rumored, top-secret television.
And is the Mac Pro about to get the axe? We’ll tell you what we think.
All that and our answers to your questions on our brand new CultCast. Subscribe now in iTunes and read on through for our show notes.
After the insanely fast sellout of tickets for Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off in a couple of weeks, we profiled a range of other events for Mac and iOS developers and for IT professionals who support and/or manage Apple’s desktop and mobile platforms.
While these events are great for developers and IT pros, they focus on the underlying technologies of OS X and iOS more than on how companies and other organizations can implement and leverage Macs, iPhones, and iPads in various businesses and industries. For that, there’s the i.Business Expo, a series of events focused on using Apple technologies to both improve business workflows and for customer/client engagement.
You one of the lucky ones who managed to buy a ticket to this year’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference during the approximately two hours while tickets were on sale? Apple’s posted the schedule of events that you can expect, as well as the requisite app making finding and scheduling your itinerary for WWDC 2012 all the easier.
Source: developer.apple.com
Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference is right around the corner, and on our latest CultCast, we’ll tell you why you need to hold off on your Macbook or iMac purchase for just a little longer — it’s going to be worth the wait!
And then, we answer all our your queries on our brand new listener questions segment.
All that and more on The CultCast! Subscribe now on iTunes and read on for our show notes.
Apple has given its Premium Reseller across the United Kingdom authorization to discount £100 (approx. $160) off all Macs when customers trade-in their old machines. The Think Green scheme will run until June 17, and some believe it could signal Apple’s effort to shift existing stock before its next-generation MacBook Pros make their debut.
While there’s plenty of debate surrounding the next-generation iPhone’s specifics, there’s one thing we do know for sure, and that is that the new device will make its debut at some point during 2012. In preparation for that, Apple has cut existing iPhone orders by around 25%.
With Apple’s entire family of iOS devices now kitted out with high-resolution Retina displays, it’s time for the Cupertino company’s Macs to get the same treatment. We’ve speculated about Retina display MacBook Pros for some time, but there’s been little mention of a high-resolution display for the iMac.
But fear not. Those of you with a love for Apple’s all-in-one won’t get left behind when the Retina display upgrades begin their rollout.
Following Apple’s acquisition of several mapping companies over the years, it has always seemed inevitable that the company would one day wave goodbye to Google Maps in iOS in favor of its own, in-house service. That’s exactly what will happen when iOS 6 makes its debut later this year, according to one report.
Apple is expected to launch its own maps service, which offers an innovative 3D view mode, allowing you to view city stunning cityscapes in all their glory.
Apple could be preparing to kill off OS X Lion early in favor of its predecessor, Mountain Lion, according to the company’s AppleCare training schedule. One source claims that the Cupertino company is already recruiting and training staff for the new release, which could get its debut in June, weeks earlier than expected.
WWDC may have sold out quickly, but as we reported there are alternative events for IT professionals and developers that want to network and hone their skills. One of those is the annual European Macintosh System Administrators Meeting, which began accepting registrations this week for this year’s event, which will be held in Sweden this September.
Unlike WWDC, MacSysAdmin isn’t intended for developers as much as it is IT professionals that need to deploy and manage Apple technologies in business and education.
How quickly WWDC sold out this week – less than two hours and before many developers on the west coast were even out of bed – raises some interesting questions for Apple. Could the company have handled the announcement better? Should Apple allow more than 5,000 developers to attend? Is the current model for WWDC, which was adopted years ago, still viable given the stratospheric success that Apple has experienced over the past few years?
Apple has emailed a number of developers who scrambled to purchase tickets for its Worldwide Developers Conference this June to tell them that their order has been cancelled. Anyone who purchased more than one $1,600 ticket on their credit card is likely to find that their order is “not eligible,” but a phone call to the Cupertino company could rectify the issue.
Tickets to Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference sold out in less than two hours this morning. WWDC is a great event for any developer to attend. The media focus around WWDC, however, always centers on the keynote that kicks of the conference Monday morning – and with good reason. That’s the only public event at the show and also the least technical part of the conference.
The keynote is always more Apple announcement and preview than it is developer content. Apple uses it to announce and preview new technologies in the next iterations of OS X and iOS. The company has also used its WWDC keynote to launch new products (like the iPhone 4 in 2010).
This year’s WWDC track listing has a focus that seems evenly split between between OS X and iOS development. There’s also a fairly even amount of material for both experienced Mac and iOS developers as well as those new to developing for Apple’s platforms. One track that Apple appears to have axed from WWDC 2012, however, is the IT or enterprise technologies track.
An IT or enterprise technology track has not been a guaranteed WWDC staple, but Apple has offered several times over the past decade. The track, which typically comprises the only non-developer events at WWDC, has always offered large enterprises and IT professionals things that they rarely get from Apple – a roadmap or sense of where Apple is heading technologically as well as insights from Apple engineers and other Apple-focsed IT professionals.
Tickets to Apple’s WorldWide Developers Conference (WWDC) always sell out quickly once Apple announces the event – this year the conference sold out even faster than ever. In what was likely an effort to streamline ticket-purchasing and encourage more independent developers to attend, Apple modified the rules governing ticket purchases this year.
At $1600 bucks each, WWDC tickets don’t come cheap, and that ticket shock can be especially acute if you’re a student, slaving away on the app you hope will make your fortune between classes and barista shifts.
Apple’s sympathetic. That’s why they are again offering 150 student scholarships to full-time or part-time students who want to go to WWDC.