Apple WWDC '12: The Roundup - MacBooks, iOS6 and Mountain Lion

The 2012 Worldwide Developer Conference keynote just ended a few minutes ago with many new exciting announcements and releases. Apple updated their MacBook Pro line. Here's a brief summary of the updates. They're pretty enthralling. 

Let's start (with the most exciting one, of course).

MACBOOKS

•  A new line of MacBook Pros have been announced, called the "next-generation MacBook Pro". 
• In line with their recent practices, they've removed the optical drive to keep it to a slim 0.71 inches, even thinner than Phil Schiller's finger (that was the joke...). 
• It will feature a Retina display, packing 2880 X 1800 pixels into the 15.4 inch screen (there's only one screen size, no 13" or 11". Presumably because Apple did not have the time or adequate resources at the time to test it out on other screen sizes). 
• This amounts to a whopping 220 PPI, more or less the same pixel per inch density as the new iPad 3. 
• It's packed to the gills. Features a top of the line, quad-core i5 or i7 processor, configurable up to 16 GB of RAM and Nvidia Keplet GeForce GT650M GPU. Oh wait folks, it features the flash memory found in MacBook Airs (and some Pro models, if your customize yours) of up to 768 GB. No kidding here. 
• Battery life is rated at 7 hours and to charge it, you'll need a MegSafe 2 port, which is noticeably tinner than the one we're using right now. Do note that MegSafe 2 is NOT compatible with the original MegSafe.
• It also includes two microphones and speakers, with Apple boasting it to be the best you'll ever hear coming from a laptop.
• I'm guessing that most of the parts was soldered into the motherboard of the next-gen MacBook Pro. It is more "elegant and more efficient", in the words of Sir Jonathan Ive. This means that you can give up any hope of trying to tinker with the storage space and other innards. 
• It should be remarkably quiter due to asymmetrically-placed fans. 
• It features a backlight keyboard and the huge multitouch trackpad, of course.
• The base model: 2.3GHz i7, 8GB RAM, 256 Flash Storage ships today for $2,199. Quite the price, Apple.
• The 13 and 15 inch MacBook Pros that we have today are all getting a bump to Ivy Bridge processors. Not much other improvements, otherwise. Same price.
• No mention of the 17 inch MacBook Pros. I have always thought that those were selling pretty badly. Someone who wanted something portable with a sizeable screen would've went with the MacBook Pro 15 inch. Someone who wanted a large display would've went with an iMac. What's the point of the 17 inch MacBook Pro?
• The 11 and 13 inch MacBook Airs are also getting the obligatory spec bump to an Ivy Bridge processor. I was kind of disappointed and shocked that these weren't the ones getting the Retina screen.

iOS 6

•  Developer beta will be available today, coming to consumers this fall.
• It'll be available for the iPhone 3GS (surprisingly), 2nd and 3rd (or new) gen iPads and finally, the 4th gen iPod Touch. However, we can expect that Apple will exclude some of the hottest features from older devices (iPad 2? iPhone 3GS?). 
• Siri has been updated with iPad compatibility (only the 3rd gen iPad). 
• Siri can now launch apps, update your Facebook posts, sort restaurants by ratings and single out the best movies from the trashy ones (trust me, there are lots these days coming from Hollywood) with Rotten Tomatoes intergration.
• Chinese and Korean support are now added. 
• Facebook is now intergrated into iOS. You can post status updates from notification center and Facebook will also sync your contacts with your friends list (I'm anticipating this to be a complete mess and disaster). You'll can also have your Facebook friend's birthdays sync with your iOS calender. 
• On the Phone.app front, we see two new and frankly, beneficial features added. First would be text replies from the call screen so that you can immediately text back (a prewritten message) if you're busy or, for some reason, can't take a call. Secondly, you can now activate a "do not disturb" mode (much like Skype's), which allows you to completely turn off any notifications. Updates, phone calls, text messages and the like. You have the choice to whitelist certain people and ifsomeone calls you twice within the set amount of time, the second phone call will come through. 
• You can now FaceTime over 3G/ Cellular. This should, by right, make FaceTime much more painless and facile to use. The carriers might not like it as much, though.
• Apple IDs and phone numbers are now unified so that if someone calls you on FaceTime, you'll be able to answer from both your Mac and iPad.
• iCloud Tabs = basically a copy of Instapaper. 
• Select people will now get a notification the moment you post (or stream) a photo to Photo Stream. There, your friends would be able to see these in a separate album and share them. 
• On the Mail.app front, we'll be getting VIPs, whereby certain contacts will be entitled to their special notification. Videos and messages can now be inserted into the messages. 
• Pull to refresh is also available now in iOS6. This surprisingly overdue feature drew a huge cheer from the crowds. 
• Passbook (which I'm anticipating to be available in the US for a certain period of time) is a new app that files all of your passes (airplanes, movies, shopping) and anything else into a single place. Definitely a neat feature. 
• Guided Access is now a key feature in iOS, which is definitely nice to see. Here, you can disable some software or hardware buttons that you don't want the disabled users punching. I think it's great that Apple is also taking disadvantaged people into consideration, providing them with support far superior to Android.
• Maps gets a refresh here. Google is kicked out, replacing it with it's very own in-house built software. With the ability to work directly from the home screen, Maps has more than 100 business listings, live traffic reports, turn-by-turn navigation (the interface looks…different). 
• Siri is also integrated here, allowing you to ask questions such as "are we here yet?"
• Flyover is a truly spectacular feature for Maps. Apple basically mapped and modeled every city in the world in 3D to an insane amount of detail- by far better than Google Earth. Everything about the Maps is impressive. 
• Lost Mode, which is incorporated into the Find My iPhone service allows the owner of the lost phone to send a phone number to the phone and if by chance the person who got it is a good guy, he can call the owner with just a single tap. This is almost useless if you ask me. You can now very well send a message to your lost iPhone with your phone number and maybe a threatening message. What's the point of this feature? 

ONE LAST THING...

No new iPhone was announced. 

Mountain Lion

• To be released in July, costing $19.99 presumably from the Mac App Store only.
• Customers who buy new Macs today need not worry - you'll be getting a free update.
• Most of the features are the same as the one previewed back in February by many technology blogs.
• Just like in iOS6, there is going to be heavy Facebook integration: you can post to Facebook from throughout the system, contacts and calendars sync. The integration is so deep that even iTunes is not spared. You'll be able to see who Liked what on iTunes and on the App Store.
• PowerNap (with a beautiful logo) was also announced. It allows your computer or system to continuously update (App Store apps, backups, system updates) even while it's asleep, therefore, not disturbing you and not wasting too much battery. Only works with (I'm guessing) the new MacBook Airs announced today and the next-gen MacBook Pro. 
• Developers will receive final built today.

...And that wraps up my summary guys! It's almost 4:40 am here. Apple's shareholders and executives are going to be swimming in a pool of gold bars should everything goes as planned. 

My thanks to the following blogs for covering the event and providing the base for this roundup: Engadget, The Verge, The Loop

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