Apple's Big Event: Skinny Laptops, Smarter Siri, and Maps
We are keeping a close eye on all the news coming out of Tim Cook's big Google-jabbing World Wide Developer's Conference talk, which is set to start at 1 p.m. EST.
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So here we have it, today's big announcements will include new hardware and updates to both iOS and OSX.
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MacBook Air
Insides: As expected, the new MacBook air will include a new Intel Ivy Bridge processor, with up to 2GHz in i7 speed. It will start at 4GB of RAM but users can get up to 8GB of memory if they like, with graphics running up to 60 percent faster. It will now have up to 512GB of flash storage.
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Outsides: Looks basically the same. No retina display. But, it does have a new USB 3.0 port.
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Cost: The 11 inch will still start at $999 but for $1099, $100 less than before, you can get 128 GB of flash storage. And as for the 13-inch, it also comes in at $100 less than before at $1199 and $1499, for 128 GB of flash storage and 256GB, respectively.
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When can you get them: Today.
MacBook Pro with Retina Display
Insides: This thing will be fast. Like the Air, it has the new Intel Ivy Bridge Quad-core processor, too, with 2.7 gigahertz, up to 16 gigabytes of RAM and up to 768 gigabytes of flash storage. It also comes with the newest operating system, OSX Mountain Lion.*
Outsides: Here's the updated MacBook with the fancy screen everyone wanted. At 0.71 inches thin, it comes in at one-quarter thinner than the previous model and just 4.46 pounds. It also has the retina display everyone loved so much on the iPad, with 2880x1800 pixel density, which on a 15.4 inch screen, gets it well over 5 million pixels.
Battery: Even with that pretty Retina display, it claims up to 7 hours of battery life, 30 days of standby. Apple has also introduced new, thinner MagSafe adapters.
Cost: The MacBook Pro with Retina starts at $2199 for the 15.4-inch model with 256 gigabytes of storage and a 2.3-gigahertz quad-core processor. Without the Retina display, the new, thinner MacBook Pro starts at $1,199 for the 13-inch and $1800 for the 15-inch.
When can you get them: Today.
iOS 6
Siri: The personal assistant knows more about everything. It can now look up restaurants by review from Yelp and give sports stats from Yahoo. Apple also partnered with Rotten Tomatoes, giving the bot information about movie times and trailers. Users can also tweet by talking into the phone. And, the bot can now launch apps. Siri has also learned more languages, adding Spanish Italian, Korean, Mandarin and Cantonese to its arsenal. With that, local search will also go global. And, now the iPad will also have Siri integration.
Facebook: Speaking of Siri, Facebook now works with Siri, along with the total integration of the social network into the phone. Users no longer have to log-in to Facebook on different apps. Facebook events will go into iCal; users can like songs in iTunes and so on. You can share photos, links and maps, too.
Facetime: The video chatting feature now works over cell phone networks, meaning users no longer have to be connected to WiFi to vid-chat.
Updated Phone App: The new phone app makes it very easy to ignore your friends. A new reminders feature reminds someone to call someone back if they don't feel like picking up at the time. It also allows users to send a message, instead of picking up. There's also a do not disturb feature, which tells the phone not to bother with alerts. This is tricky: One can assign certain friends (parents?) the do not disturb feature. But, if people call multiple times, the call will go through. There's also a new geo-fencing feature will reminds users to call someone when they are in a certain area.
Maps: Apple's Google Maps replacement includes 3D renderings, as expected. Just like the rest of the phone, new Maps has Siri integration as well. Say you're driving along a road, you can ask Siri for the nearest gas station, which seems pretty useful. It also has what sounds like a nifty search feature,turn-by-turn directions and traffic info.
Photo Stream: Brings photo sharing to Apple's cloud, with commenting.
Mail VIPs: It's like Gmail's starring feature, but one can star a contact rather than a specific email.
When can you get it: Coming this fall for iPhone 3GS and later. As well as the 2nd and 3rd generation iPad.
Mountain Lion OSX
Dictation: It's not exactly Siri, but the new OS will allow users to speak commands into their computers.
iCloud: Mountain Lion will have iCloud integration for Messages, Reminders, Notes, Pages, Numbers and Keynote, making them available on all Apple products. For heavy Message users that means you can message people on their computers, too, now. Notes and Reminders, already available on Apple iOS devices, will now make their way to the desktop. Documents will sync your documents. Notes will support both images and links and can be opened across multiple windows.
PowerNap: It keeps your Mac working while you're not actually using it. There's also a "do not disturb" function, which suppresses all notifications, say, for someone doing a presenation.
Safari updates: The browser a new "smart search" field, new tab view, and tab synching, meaning it remembers tabs from other devices using iCloud. Users can also use gestures to navigate between tabs.
Game center: Here, users can play games and share scores over multiple devices.
When can you get it: Next month, via the app store.
How much will it cost: Mountain Lion is just $19.99, a full $10 cheaper than Lion. Users can upgrades from Snow Leopard or Lion.
*This post originally stated that the MacBook Air came with Lion.
