WWDC 2012: Laptops, Mountain Lion and iOS 6
Looks like this year’s WWDC was aimed at the Mac Fan..
Looks like this years WWDC was aimed at the Mac Fan. Apple made announcements in three areas: new hardware, Mac OS X Mountain Lion and iOS 6. Let's take a look shall we;
1. Hardware
Apples hardware announcements were almost exclusively about their laptops. There were no new iMacs, Mac Minis or Mac Prosthough the Mac Pro was updated, quietly on the Apple Store. The new MacBook Air: Ivy Bridge processor, up to 2.0GHz dual-core i7 up to 8GB memory up to 512GB flash storage Intel HD Graphics 4000 1440 x 900 pixel 2 USB 3 ports 1 Thunderbolt ports 802.11n Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.0 Face Time HD Camera (720p) SD Card slot Start at $999 The new MacBook Pro 13: Ivy Bridge processor, up to 2.9GHz dual-core i7 up to 8GB memory up to 1TB 5400-rpm hard drive or 512GB flash storage Intel HD Graphics 4000 1280 x 800 pixel 2 USB 3 ports 1 Fire Wire 800 port 1 Thunderbolt port 802.11n Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.0 Face Time HD Camera (720p) SDXC Card slot SuperDrive Starts at $1199 The new MacBook Pro 15: Ivy Bridge processor, up to 2.7GHz quad-core i7 up to 8GB memory up to 1TB 5400-rpm hard drive or 512GB flash storage NVDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics processor with 512MB or 1GB GDDR5 memory 1140 x 900 pixel 2 USB 3 ports 1 Fire Wire 800 1 Thunderbolt port 802.11n Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.0 Face Time HD Camera (720p) SDXC Card slot SuperDrive starting $1799 And then there was the belle of the ball, the new MacBook Pro 15 Retina. Ivy Bridge processor, up to 2.7GHz quad-core i7 up to 16GB memory up to 768GB flash storage NVDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics processor with 1GB GDDR5 memory 2880 x 1800 pixel 2 USB 3 ports 2 Thunderbolt ports 802.11n Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.0 Face Time HD Camera (720p) SDXC Card slot starting $2199 Apple seems to have broken the laptops into three levels for different user needs. The very basic user will be perfectly served with the MacBook Air. Do not mistaken this laptop for a wimpy computer, rather, think of it as a sleek machine fine tuned for the everyday user. Then, for those who need more, those who need more of desktop machine, but need it to be portable, there are the MacBook Pro 13 and 15. These are the mid-range machines for the pro-sumer and professionals. Finally, theres the MacBook Pro Retina which is for the high-end professional that needs a beast to handle the processor intensive audio, video and graphics. Its interesting that they dropped the 17 MacBook Pro. That, coupled with the popularity of the MacBook Air and the thin MacBook Pro Retina design, it looks like Apple is saying that portability is the wave of the future. Apple is known for steering their users in the direction they feel is best, which raises the question, Whats up the lack of new desktops? The Mac Pro has gone the longest without an update, 2 years, and what it did get was just a bump. Since it did not even get a mention at WWDC, I guess I will not go into details either. If you are a user who needs a Mac Pro, you can get all the details here. I will ponder on what could this mean? Is Apple trying to ease us into a brave new world without desktop machines? If I stop and look at my usage, it does seem likely. I do at least 75% of my work on a laptop, 20% on my iPad and the last 5% on my iMac. The bulk of what my iMac is for is to feed my media to the 3 Apple TVs at our house. So, at least as far as I am concerned, I have already bought into the portable way of life. Drink this Kool-Aid Its purple flavor The only non-laptop hardware announced was the Airport Express. I am not even sure I would call it an announcement, really. It was a quick sentence that was easily missed. The new Airport Express has: 802.11 a/b/g/n Dual-band 802.11n wireless on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands 2 Ethernet ports (WAN & LAN) 1 USB port Analog/Optical audio jack As of writing this, all hardware available to ship June 11, 2012, which might change by the time this is posted. Click "next" to read part 2...