An Apple A Day…
Apple has officially begun its World Wide Developer’s Conference (which I believe sold out before it even went on sale, due to some developers having time machines). With the new conference, comes the new Keynote address, and with it, the inevitable announcement of Cool New Stuff. The video is already available to watch online here, but I’ll note a couple of things that caught my attention.
• MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Wow. Just…wow. Yes, they updated all the MacBooks, including the MacBook Air and the other MacBook Pros. All of them are really wonderful, class-leading laptops. But the MBP w/RD is really in a class by itself. The resolution of the 15” monitor is even higher than my 27” iMac. It’s flash drive can be very large (768GB) and because it’s flash, it’s also extremely light and fast. It’s as fast as a desktop machine, if not faster. And for all that Apple laptops always skimp on I/O ports, the two Thunderbolt ports can have adapters for everything else, the USB 3.0 is a nice addition. I am disappointed they removed the optical drive, however (it’s something I use). The video (watch it) promotes Apple’s pro apps, and this has a very high price tag—this is not for the average user. But I do think that this machine will be the professional laptop for the foreseeable future. If my Twitter feed is any indication, so many video and photography professionals ordered it within the first hour of availability that it may already be.
• iOS 6. Nice enhancements. The new Map app was inevitable (sorry Google) and it’s got some really killer enhancements, along with looking pretty. The new Passbook looks like we’re getting closer—in a good way—to a digital wallet that will hold your airline boarding passes, movie tickets, and so on. The other enhancements to Mail, Safari, etc. seem incremental and very welcome. Looking forward to it (and hopefully a new iPhone in the Fall to go with it, but that’s another story).
• Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Already shown before, so not too much more to add. I guess the real news was that it has a hard release date of July. But it looks like it should be fine, the way that I find Lion fine. I don’t think there will be anything in Mountain Lion that will take my breath away, but I doubt I’ll have complaints, either.
Anyway, that’s my takeaway from what was announced.
