Apple WWDC Review June 2013

Once again tickets for Apple’s Developers Show sold out within seconds of going on sale. So where are people lining up to see.

The big push is the welcome keynote speech from Tim Cook who is the CEO assigned by Steve Jobs to run Apple.

Far too many people expect WWDC to be a show aimed at pushing new hardware. There were far too many expectations for new iPhones or new iPads. This was never going to happen. This is a developer event. People want to talk about API and memory utilization, Of course they are happy to look and get excited about new phones but they want the bits and bytes.

Mr. Cook showed, with the help of some senior Apple staff the software road map for the Mac and the mobile devices. The new IOS, called iOS7 was the significant part of the show and is described in details below.

The MAC OS has run out of big cat names and will be based from now on around towns in the Great State of California. The first chosen one is the surfer town of Mavericks. We can expect OS X Marvericks later this year. Most of the changes to this platform are technical with a big push on performance and simplicity. See full Mavericks review below:

The Mac Pro, the oldest service Mac computer has been totally redone with a stunning new cylindrical design that is tiny compared to the old beast of a computer. See MAC Pro review.

And just to keep the hardware crew happy we have revamped Mac Book Airs with longer battery life based on the latest Intel core processors and graphics chip sets and enhanced Wi-Fi with 802.11 ac.

Apple also doubled the amount of Flash Disk and cut the price. If you purchased an Air last week you must feel a little sorry. This is now a fantastic computer. The Air was always great but now it’s even better.

Apart from the widely leaked iRadio service, coming to the US in the Fall and other countries at some point in the future that was about all that was covered in the nearly two hours. The crowd of Apple developers’ loved it. And they should Apple has paid developers over $10 Billion, representing 30% of total 3^rd party app sales. Talking of apps the show was launched with a demo from a new robotic software hardware, gaming company with a super clever concept of robotic games in real life.

OS X: Mavericks:

The cats are renamed with towns. Mavricks brings performance and security with a neat Password generator and keeper integrated with Safari and Keychain. This will help security of website management, a very welcome enhancement. We also get a clean look to Maps, Calendar and Notifications and the integration of iBooks onto the desktop. Safari is revamped to be faster and cleaner.

Anyone who used multiple displays or projectors will appreciate the enhancements to the multi-screen support and control. This was always a weak point in Apple compared to the simplicity of Windows. This goes even further than Windows as each screen now has its own menu making usage much better with reduced mouse work.

Under the hood we have the addition of Tags for documents and an enhanced Finder Window with tabs, again another welcome enhancement.

iOS7:

This turned out to be a big change. The design influence of British start Johny Ive is behind this release. Everything has been changed. There is a new fancy 3D look with beautifully designed icons and graphics. More importantly behind the graphics is a host of new features that will continue to drive the iPhone as the device to have. The major user changes are a new Control Centre to manage all the aspects of the phone. Enhanced Multitasking with full windows preview and smarter integration and the addition of Air Drop as a way to share photos and other content with others. Intelligent updating lets the phone connect to the network is a smarter way to reduce the amount to power used to pull and push data from multiple sources from the radio network.

The list goes on with: Enhanced camera application. Better photo library and sharing. Better Web browsing with enhanced Safari. The addition of iTunes Radio and Siri in multilanguage and a better understanding of controlling the iPhone.

Looking at the design side, Apple showed a video interview with Johny Ive talking about the new changes and enhancements. It’s a total overhaul of the look and feel with new gestures. Every app icon is new and many look different. Long gone are the real word references to wood, leather and paper. In comes simple, clean design.

Nothing we’ve ever created has been designed just to look beautiful. That’s approaching the opportunity from the wrong end. Instead, as we reconsidered iOS, our purpose was to create an experience that was simpler, more useful, and more enjoyable — while building on the things people love about iOS. Ultimately, redesigning the way it works led us to redesign the way it looks. Because good design is design that’s in service of the experience. Simplicity is often equated with minimalism. Yet true simplicity is so much more than just the absence of clutter or the removal of decoration. It’s about offering up the right things, in the right place, right when you need them. It’s about bringing order to complexity. And it’s about making something that always seems to “just work.” When you pick something up for the first time and already know how to do the things you want to do, that’s simplicity.

iOS 7 looks very clean, fresh and modern and gives the iPhone a new look. See images of the clock, and locations. They look stunning.

Maps are enhanced. Everything is new. We will be able to see a Beta today and the full release will ship later the year and work with Apple iPhone 4 and 5 and iPad 2 and above.

It looks great.

Watch out for a full review.

Mac Pro:

This is the computer that you find in every design agency, every photography studio and every video production company. This is the choice of professionals. But it’s old and not at all sexy. The new machine is everything the old one isn’t. It’s tiny, the size of our Porsche designed cylindrical kettle just 9 inches high. Stunning looks, compared to a large cheese grater. Superfast specs with the latest processors, graphics cards, oodles of fast RAM and of course Solid State drives.

What it does not have is expandability. The box looks close to full, there are no slots. Then again being round, slots would be hard to engineer. So all expansion is via the IO ports and Mac Pro gives you Thunderbolt 2, USB 3 and HDMI. This gives you the ability to add extra disk for certain but now you will need more clutter on your desk next to the Mac Pro. Expect a plethora of external drives in the same shape format.

The video of the WWDC Keynote is available from the Apple website.