This year’s WWDC 2012 conference was just a tad too late for us to liveblog, but here is a quick rundown of what went down. More detailed looks at each new piece will follow shortly.
MacBook Air (starting at $1099) (11-inch or 13-inch) (available now)
An updated MacBook Air has been shown with Ivy Bridge. Improvements with the starter model (11-inch $1099) include a new 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics, 4GB RAM, 64GB flash storage, and a 5 hour battery life. The 13-inch has a 1.8GHz dual-core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, as well as the same integrated-graphics as the 11-inch. Both have USB 3. Neither has a retina display anywhere to be seen. And they remain very, very competitive with Ultrabooks. It comes with Lion, but can be upgraded to Mountain Lion for free when that arrives. For full price-lists, check out the Apple Store.
MacBook Pro (starting at $1349) (13-inch or 15-inch) (available now)
The classic MacBook Pro has been updated, except for the 17-inch which has been discontinued. Changes include Intel’s Ivy Bridge. The 13-inch has 2.5GHz Core i5, upgradeable to a 2.9GHz Core i7 chip and integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000. The 15-inch has quad-core Core i7 parts, 2.3GHz or 2.6GHz, and Nvidia’s Kepler-based GeForce GT 650M graphics chips, with up to 1GB of video memory available. Battery-life for both is 7 hours. It comes with Lion, but can be upgraded to Mountain Lion for free when that arrives. For full price-lists, check out the Apple Store.
MacBook Pro (15-inch with Retina display starting at $2,499) (available now)
Yes, Apple has split up their MacBook offerings further, with a new MacBook Pro that has a “Retina-display”, marketing speak for a higher resolution display. The DVD-drive is gone, making it just a little thicker than an Air, at 0.71-inches. The screen is a crazy 2880 x 1800 pixels, or 220 ppi, and comes in just one flavour, a 15.4-inch model. It weighs 4.5 lbs, or around 2.04kg. Inside, the new Pro has a quad-core Intel i7 processor, up to 16GB of RAM, and a Nvidia Kepler GeForce GT 650M GPU. Instead of a traditional harddrive, this version has an SSD which can come in sizes up to the expensive 768GB version. It has a 7 hours battery, SD card slot, USB 3.0, HDMI, Thunderbolt (2), MagSafe 2 and the 3.5″ headphone jack. Inbuilt are 2 microphones, 802.11n for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 and asymmetrically-placed fans meaning a more quiet running sound. If you need a bigger hard-drive, then Apple recommends the updated regular MacBook Pro’s. But if you like all of the above, you can head over to the Apple Store site right now. It comes with Lion, but can be upgraded to Mountain Lion for free when that arrives. It starts at $2,499, but for a full price-lists and comprehensive spec-list, check out the Apple Store.
iOS 6 (September-November public release, available now to developers)
Apple announced iOS 6, which includes Siri for iPad, new Siri features, Facebook integration, the ability to Tweet and Facebook from Notification Center, Do Not Disturb-mode (like Airplane Mode, but still connected, just not showing, notifications), further phone Number integration with iMessages and FaceTime, Safari tab-sync, a new iOS photo sharing system (like its own social network), Mail improvements (like pull-to-refresh), Passbook for coupons, flight passes and more, a new custom Maps app with no Google in sight, and there are a few more little features. For the full, detailed rundown, click here.
OS X Mountain Lion (July public release for US$19.99, available now for developers)
OS X Mountain Lion now has a release scheduled for July, with availability to Snow Leopard and Lion users for US$19.99 from the Mac App Store. It can also be downloaded now for developers, with a near-final preview available. New additions to what we’ve already seen include PowerNap, which updates the system in sleep-mode (only for the MacBook Air and new MacBook Pro), a mute-switch for notifications, and dictation, available anywhere. There is also Facebook sharing and contact and calendar sync with Facebook. You can also now Like things in the App Stores and iTunes. Overall, it also includes Notification Center, new apps like Reminders, Messages and Notes and a number of other features.