WWDC 2012

Late as always, Apple’s 23rd WWDC kicked off almost a month ago after selling out in just 1h43m! This years event kicked off with Siri warming up the crown and GarageBand on an iPad playing a sting after each joke. Apple touted some interesting facts about the App Store

MacBook Air

Keeping the same design as the last generation, the new Air gets updated CPU, RAM and graphics, better IO to the SSD, and USB 3.

11"13"
Processor1.5GHz dual-core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 2.6GHz)1.8 dual-core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 2.8GHz)
Memory4GB4GB
GraphicsIntel HD Graphics 4000Intel HD Graphics 4000
Storage64GB SSD126GB SSD
Connectivity2xUSB, 1xThunderbolt, WiFi, Bluetooth2xUSB, 1xThunderbolt, WiFi, Bluetooth, SD card slot
BatteryUp to 5 hours web surfingUp to 7 hours web surfing
Price£849£999

It should be noted that whereas some manufactures are installing separate USB2 and USB3 ports, Apple has integrated the two into one physical port.

MacBook Pro

The ‘Pro has similar updates as the Air.

13"15"
Processor2.5GHz dual-core i5 (Turbo Boost 3.1GHz)2.3GHz quad-core i7 (Turbo Boost 3.3GHz)
Memory4GB4GB
GraphicsIntel HD Graphics 4000Intel HD Graphics 4000 Plus NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 512MB of GDDR5 memory
Storage500GB HDD500GB HDD
Connectivity1xEthernet, 1xThunderbolt, 1x FireWire 800, 2xUSB, Audio in/out, SDXC slot, WiFi, Bluetooth1xEthernet, 1xThunderbolt, 1x FireWire 800, 2xUSB, Audio in, Audio out, SDXC slot, WiFi, Bluetooth
PowerUp to 7 hours web surfingUp to 7 hours web surfing
Price£999£1,499

The New MacBook Pro*

The New MacBook Pro shows us the direction that Apple are going to take with its products. It’s just as much about what is has as what it hasn’t… Dubbed The MacBook Pro with Retina Display, this beauty has a 2880x1800 display, at normal viewing distances the naked eye cannot distinguish one pixel from another.

This ‘Pro doesn’t have an optical drive, or a spinning hard drive. It has soldered RAM modules. There isn’t a FireWire or Ethernet port… Its biggest asset is the Retina display, but it also boasts a new thinner design, just a little thicker than the Air. It has a newly designed thermal system too, bringing air through gills in the side of the laptop using asymmetrical finned fans to reduce perceived noise levels.

The Retina display packs a whopping 5,184,000 pixels onto the 15.4" screen. It has more pixels than an HD TV. There are so many pixels that the preview window in Final Cut Pro displays HD video!

Base ModelUpper Model
Processor2.3GHz quad-core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz)2.6GHz quad-core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz)
Memory8GB8GB
GraphicsIntel HD Graphics 4000 Plus NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memoryIntel HD Graphics 4000 Plus NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory
Storage256GB SSD512GB SSD
Connectivity2xUSB, 2xThunderbolt, 1xHeadphone, 1xHDMI, 1xSDXC slot, WiFi, Bluetooth2xUSB, 2xThunderbolt, 1xHeadphone, 1xHDMI, 1xSDXC slot, WiFi, Bluetooth
BatteryUp to 7 hours web surfingUp to 7 hours web surfing
Price£1,799£2,299

OS X Mountain Lion*

Apple also announced Mountain Lion, the eighth major release of OS X. The company was quick to note that in nine months 40% of OS X users are currently running OS X Lion, Windows 7 has achieved the same percentage in 26 months. They also announced 66m OS X users, triple that of five years ago!

Mountain Lion is packed with over 200 new features of which Apple demoed eight.

iOS 6

Apple’s last announcement was iOS 6. iOS is currently running on over 365m devices, and 80% of those devices are running the latest release (iOS 5). Apple took a jibe at Android where is noted that only around 7% of its install base is running the latest version. Apple also gave us a quick insight into some push notification stats, on average Apple pushes 7b notifications a day! And by WWDC had pushed over 1.5 trillion notifications to iOS devices!

Packed with over 200 new features, Apple demoed just a few.

And many APIs for developers to get their hands on. iOS 6 will be available on the iPhone 3GS and higher, the iPad 2 and higher, and the fourth generation iPod Touch.

That summed up WWDC 2012. Time Cook came to the stage to wish everyone a great week and closed the keynote.


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