As every other technology site has already covered this Apple’s Keynote Presentation on their annual event, World Wide Developer Conference.
As I am heavy Macintosh User (thanks to my high school friend where I first ever touched beige PowerMac G3 and Adobe Photoshop
There were 3 major updates from Apple. Their MacBook line, OS 10.8 Mountain Lion, and iOS6.
MacBooks
They updated their entire MacBook Line, both MacBook Air and MacBook Pros.
They all got a little faster CPU, a little faster video card, and USB3. Faster CPU and GPU is great, but probably the most beneficial update is USB3. I’m using MacBook 2010, and don’t really see the point upgrading my computer just for USB. From my experience, I’ve had only a handful of situation that I really used my computer’s spec to its maximum. If I upgrade your computer every 3 to 4 years, I won’t out run computer’s performance.
They also released their entirely new MacBook Pro 15 with Retina Display. I don’t do much of graphics, so retina display itself does not excite me that much (I am excited, but just not like singing and jumping and running around the room), but the entire package looks great. .71″ of thickness, 4.46lb of weight, and 8GB of memory. I’m currently using my MBP with its optical drive replaced with SSD anyways, so lack of optical drive on this new Retina MBP wouldn’t make any difference. The price tag of $2,199 is not cheap, but if you are at the point to replace your computer anyways, this new RetinaMBP would definitely be the choice.
Mountain Lion
This is a “old” “news” but a few features that is note worthy. The biggest thing for me is the AirPlay. Since I’m in Education field presentation is big part of my work (no, I don’t give presentations, but I help others to do their presentations.) One of the things we are looking into for next semester is to use iPad in Classroom. using AppleTV and AirPlay, the instructors can walk around the room freely with their iPads, and do more dynamic presentation/classes. with AirPlay on laptops, the possibility will go even larger. I can imagine, an instructor give their presentation from their iPads, while walking around the class, students can take notes, search, and do their work on their own computer, then share their desktop onto the big screen for the class…
Expansion of iCloud is also exciting. To be honest, the Documents&Data on iCloud was only half a__(fill the blank as yo want) job, on MacOSX. on iOS, the shared documents worked okay, but when it comes to iWorks on your desktop/latptop, it was not even close to be useful… now with the realtime editing/sharing feature, the iCloud will be very useful.
Messages.app on OSX would be interesting if (and at this point it doesn’t seems to be happening…) they could incorporate the SMS into the picture. if you can do text message from your desktop, this would be totally awesome!
Another minor but will be very useful feature for me is the Drag and Drop files in Screen Sharing. I use the Screen Sharing from my laptop all the time, to access client computer as well as accessing my server in my office from home. Currently I’m using AFP and just access the shared space, but if I could do drag and drop, it will shave a few steps, and make thins a bit easier for me.
iOS 6
As everyone were expected, Apple announced iOS 6. Again, there are a lot of features there, but I’ll pick just a few, that interest me.
Maps: Maybe one of the biggest topics that you find online about the iOS 6. Google is not providing map app to iOS anymore. yeah, they don’t like each other anymore. It’s sad for me since I do like both Apple and Google. I think they are both great innovator, but well, they are rival, both are in smart phone market, so, I guess it was inevitable. The new partner for the Apple is TomTom. It was kind of surprise to me, since with iOS’s new feature, Turn by Turn Navigation, which can be a serious contender for the TomTom’s GPS market. but no complaint. I like TomTom as well ^^; My concern is in other nations; Admitting Google has a great maps worldwide, it may be hard to compete in each country.
Answering options for phone call is another great feature.
often I get a phone call middle of something and I can’t answer right away. with a few taps, i can respond with text message is pretty neat.
Do Not Disturb: Instead of shutting down the phone, or just silent (still vibrate), now you can set the phone to be quiet, but still up. Fine setting sounds really nice, and it’s one of the thing I’d play with first thing once I get it.
PassBook: the eTicket app would be pretty cool as well. There are more and more places where you can buy tickets online. one place where you can gather all the ticket is pretty nice.
Siri: Siri is growing up, and getting smarter. They can take more command, and the integration to the automotive is pretty cool. However, I wish if they could standardize the interface for mobile device and automotive integration. I certainly don’t want to choose my car based on cellphone support nor the other way around neither…
All these are covered by everywhere and more into detail, there’s nothing new that I could add… However, working in technology field, and being Mac Lover, I had to write something… just that…
