Archive for June 10th, 2013

Apple WWDC 2013 Keynote

Monday, June 10th, 2013

Apple uses the yearly Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) to show off its next generation software and technologies for developers. The general public follows it closely via many live-blogs and generally can’t wait to have the upcoming goodies in their hands.

The opening Keynote speech kicked-off the WWDC today and it showed some very interesting developments:

  • Mac OS X 10.9 preview. It will be called Mavericks (as Apple ran out of cats and OS X Sea Lion was a too far fetched name 😉 ) and released this fall. The highlights: Finder Tabs, Tags, Multiple display support done right, various great advanced features, Compressed memory, Safari on steroids, iCould Keychain (I like that as I was recently checking out various password managers such as 1Password, which might now become obsolete ;)), improved Notifications/Calendar/Maps and, finally, iBooks come to the Mac!
  • An updated Macbook Air which brings  huge improvements on battery life (12h on the 13″ model!)
  • Newly designed Airport Basestations supporting faster WiFi and more
  • A sneak peak of the next Mac Pro…you gotta see this one for yourself, WoW!
  • iCloud updates including the next member of the iWork family, iWork for iCloud, allowing you to fully edit your documents from within a browser thus *also* on a PC!
  • iOS 7, the biggest change to iOS since the introduction of iPhone. It’s packed with amazing new features and a stunning new user interface. Believe me, this one is moves up the level for smartphone OS’s. New hardware to support all the features (iPhone 5S, iPad 5 and iPad mini 2 will be announced in the coming weeks…). The most exciting new features of iOS 7: A easy access Control Center (finally a way to put your phone into flight mode directly from the lock-screen 😉 ), true multitasking for all apps, great improvements on Safari (including loosing the 8 tab limit 😉 ), Airdrop (a supereasy way to share files between iDevices and Macs, greatly improved Camera and Photos App (especially the lather will make browsing your Photo library fun), Siri got even smarter (and might be useable), iOS in the car, App store, localised apps near me, automatically app updates, Music, iTunes Radio

 

Extra attention was given to Apple’s values in designing products, as you can see from the opening shots in the Keynote speech video:

 

if everyone
is busy making everything
how can anyone perfect anything?
we start to confuse convenience
with joy
Abundance with choice.
designing something requires
focus
the first thing we ask is
what do we want people to feel?
delight
surprise
love
connection
Then we begin to craft around our invention
It takes time…
There are a thousand no’s
for every yes.
we simplify
we perfect
we start over
until everything we touch
enhances each life
it touches.
only then do we sign our work.
designed by Apple in California

 

At the end of the Keynote, Tim Cook said: “I’d like to close this morning with a reminder. That our goal at Apple is to make amazing products that our customers love. Really great products that enrich peoples’ lives. The words you saw at the beginning of the show are more than just words to us. They are the values we live by. They drive us. You’ve seen them reflected in our products over the years and just as much in the products this morning…And you’ll continue to see these reflected in the products we do in the future.”

QOTD June 10 2013

Monday, June 10th, 2013

Norman Thomas: “The secret of a good life is to have the right loyalties and hold them in the right scale of values.”