What can we expect to see at WWDC this year?

With WWDC right around the corner rumors are running high with news about new iMacs, MacBook Airs, and more.

Here’s what I think we can hope to see at WWDC:

1. With Intel’s new Ivy-bridge processors out, and Apple’s whole computer line-up awaiting an update we can will definitely predict that Apple’s new machines will definitely carry the Ivy-Bridge Chips.

2. USB 3.0 is becoming more and more popular, and rumors from 9to5mac show that USB 3.0 will replace USB 2.0 in all future Macs

3. More RAM: Currently the most RAM an Apple Macbook can hold is 8 GB, but rumors are showing MacBook Pro models with up to 16 Gigs of RAM. Now that would be one monster laptop.

4. Apple’s top-of-the line Mac, the Mac Pro, has not been updated for 2 years. And sources are showing a scarcity in Mac Pro’s at Apple Stores. Professional workers would love to see a new Mac Pro, so hopefully we will see an update next week.

5. 15-inch MacBook Air. For a couple of months there have been rumors that Apple is adding another model to their MacBook Air line. So we can assume that it will be the 15-inch. But we don’t know weather their is enough technology to create a 17-in MacBook Air

6. Retina Display Macs: Display technology has become more and more advanced. And some images found in the source code of Mountain Lion show images with a large number of pixels that would only fit on a Retina Display.

6. iOS 6: Pictures below show that Apple will be showing iOS 6 off and most probably release developer versions. Some features we might see in iOS 6 are Facebook sharing integrated into Apps, Siri for the iPad, Apple’s new Maps app, and iCloud improvements.

7. Mountain Lion: Versions of Mountain Lion have already been seeded out to Developers so we can probably hope to see Apple release Mountain Lion to the public at WWDC.

8. Apple TV SDK: Sales of the Apple TV has been steadily increasing and at AllThing’s D’s D12 conference Tim Cook stated that the Apple TV had become something Apple would pay more attention to. So we might see Apple release an Apple TV SDK, so the Apple TV can become a more attractive offer to people.

All of this seems like too much to be releases at one WWDC keynote, but these are just predictions that may or may not come true.

-MacMusings

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Apple Sends out Invitations to October 4th Special Event

Today Apple had begun sending out invitations to a special event dated for October 4th.

The invitation has one simple line “Let’s talk iPhone.” Many people, including me, think that this statement is talking about the rumored Voice-Assistant that will be a dominant feature in iOS 5. We will finally find out what Apple did with Siri. The invitation also includes 4 icons; Calender showing the date October 4th, Clock showing the time as 10 A.M. sharp, Maps with its usual icon, and the Phone icon with a “1” badge.

We can definitely speculate  there is going to be a new iPhone release, maybe a couple new iPods,  along with iOS 5, iCloud, and iTunes Match. But for the rest we will just have to wait till next Tuesday.Please Rate, Comment, and Subscribe

-MacMusings

Lion top’s 1 Million Downloads in 24 Hours.

In just one day Apple’s new Mac Operating System, Lion, has been downloaded over Million Times! That’s over $30,000,000 in revenue. This pretty much shows how much of a success Lion is for Apple. It has been the Top Paid Download in since yesterday morning, and I think it will stay there for at least another week.

Even the ratings and reviews show how much customers are loving Lion. The average rating is just under 5 stars. These ratings are for July 22.

The thing that I think that is really pushing sales is the Price. I mean at on only $30 most people wouldn’t think twice about buying it. But I think there is a also one thing that is stopping it from becoming even more successful. It’s only available through the Mac App Store. If there was an option that people could buy a DVD online or at the Apple Store,  sales could’ve been higher. Buy anyway this is still a great feat for Apple.

If you are still on Snow Leopard and haven’t downloaded Lion yet, I recommend you download immediately. It’s an investment you won’t regret.

-MacMusings

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Apple releases 2011 Q3 Earnings, and announces Lion Release Date

Today Apple released financial information about their fiscal third quarter with a record for iPhone and iPad sales. Apple announced sales of $28.57 Billion and a Net Profit of $7.31 Billion. This was a around 3-4Billion more than what analysts had predicted. The Quarterly Earnings Call results were announced by Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer.

Apple Sold 20.34 Million iPhones that’s record high, even without Apple releasing a new phone in a year. Analysts think that it’s the Verizon (CDMA) iPhone and the White iPhone that are really driving sales. 9.25 Million iPads were sold, that’s a record for the iPad as well.

Unfortunately Apple sold only 3.95 Million Mac’s this quarter. So Mac sales were down. But there was a 59% growth in Mac ales in the Asia-Pacific Are. iPod sales were also down with only 7.54 Million iPods sold.

Apple additionally announced that Mac OS X 10.8 Lion will release tomorrow, July 19, in the Mac App Store. No information was given on time of release.

Overall this was a great Fiscal Quarter for Apple. Hopefully in the next Fiscal Quarter Mac and iPod sales will be higher.

-MacMusings

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Wrap-Up of WWDC

WWDC 2011 is already over!

There was many interesting things at this WWDC, especially the Steve Jobs‘ Keynote. We found out about new Lion features, when it was going to be released, and it’s low price of $29.99. We were demoed iOS 5 and it’s amazing new capabilities by Scott Forstall. And finally iCloud was shown to us and all of it’s amazing new abilities, and the amazing price of Free!!! Overall I think this WWDC was only a little exciting that we learned about iOS 5 and iCloud.

But there were disappointments as well. First, if you aren’t an Apple Developer you can’t get any of these products until July or Fall. Second, there was no usual iPhone Hardware release.So for Consumers there’s nothing to do until July, and if you’re only an iPhone user till Fall. Rumors are that Apple will release the iPhone in their September-Music event along with new iPod’s, iOS 5, and iCloud. Hopefully that event will be more exciting. But that’s all we have for now.

-MacMusings

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iTunes Match

Apple on Monday announced iCloud this Monday which let’s you keep your media in sync between your devices. But what if you have songs that were not bought on the iTunes Store? How will they be uploaded to iCloud? Apple has come out with a product called iTunes Match. What this does is, is it tries to match your songs with the 18 Million Songs on iTunes. And if it’s found iTunes will automatically upload the song to iCloud at 256 Kbps quality, even if your original song was of lower quality. However if your song is not in iTunes it let’s you upload that song to iCloud. Apple will release this service in Fall along with iCloud and iOS 5. But unlike iCloud iTunes Match will cost $25 Annually.

I wonder if Apple will let you upload your songs to iCloud even with out iTunes Match because from my entire iTunes Library only one song was bought from iTunes.

-MacMusings

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Apple Design Award Winners for 2011

On Tuesday, the second day of WWDC Apple announced the Design Awards. Last year Apple’s focus seemed to be a lot on iOS so much that they didn’t even give out Awards for Mac Applications. But this year they are back-on track and are giving three awards in 4 Categories. the winners get a MacBook Air, an iPad 2, and an iPod Touch. And the winners are…

Mac:

• Capo by SuperMegaUltraGroovy
• Pixelmator by Pixelmator
• Anomaly: Warzone Earth by 11 Bit Studios

iPad:

• Our Choice by Push Pop Press
• Osmos by Hemisphere Games
• Djay by Algoriddim 

iPhone:

• Infinity Blade by Chair Entertainment
• Cut the Rope by Chillingo
• Golfscape GPS Rangefinder by Shotzoom

Student:

• Pulse News Reader by Alphonso Labs
• Pennant by Vargatron
• Grades 2 by Tapity

Great Job to all the winners. They are also lucky to get free advertising from the Media that give free coverage on these apps.

-MacMusings

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iCloud, the successor to MobileMe

At WWDC 2011 Steve Jobs showed to the world what iCloud was. He began with saying how 10yrs. ago people realized that the computer would become a “personal hub”, it would be where you would keep all your media. So before to get photos, music, videos, etc on your devices they had to be synced wit your Mac. But nowadays every the devices hold all types of media, and it was hard to make sure that all your devices had the media you wanted when you wanted it. So now the Mac is also going to become a device and the “personal hub” will be moved to the cloud. And Apple’s cloud will be iCloud and it will store information and push information to all your devices to maintain in sync. And it will happen seamlessly without you having to do anything. So for example you download a song on your iPad it will automatically download on your Mac, PC or any other iOS device for free. Then Steve jokes,”Why should I believe them? They’re the ones that brought me MobileMe.” Because MobileMe wasn’t much of a success. But MobileMe had three major apps Contacts, Calender, and Mail. And now Apple has rewritten those Apps from the ground up for iCloud.

Contacts: Now when a contact is made on an iPhone, the contact is pushed to the Cloud and then to the other devices. So every device attached to your Apple ID will have their contacts synced automatically.

Calenders: Same for Calenders, you make a new event or update an event on one device it is pushed to all your other devices automatically. You can even share calenders between devices.

Mail: And again you messages, inbox, folders, settings, are all synced between all your accounts at your me.com email account.

App Store: On all your devices you can view a purchase history, even if the app is not installed on your current device. But since all those Apps are synced to the cloud, you tab a button that will let you download that App onto your device from the cloud for free.

iBooks: Like the App Store you can view your purchase history, and it is all saved on the cloud so your books will automatically download to all your devices for free.

Wireless Backup: Once a day iCloud will automatically back up your device. it backs up everything including settings, music, photos, apps, books, and other information. So if you have to restore your device or you get a new one, the backup will automatically sync the device.

Documents in the Cloud:  When you use iWork on one of your devices and create a document, the document is sent to iCloud and then pushed to all your other devices. So this works with Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. And also developers get API’s to put this system into their apps for iCloud integration. And this works with Macs and PCs.

 

 

Photo Stream: So you can take a Photo on your iPhone and then be able to watch on your iPad, iPod Touch, Mac, PC, and Apple TV.. Also if you import photos on to one device it will be sent directly to all your other devices. To sync with a Mac it will send the photos to iPhoto and for PC with the Pictures Folder. And to save storage space Photo Stream it will only store the 1,000 most recent photos and for only 30 Days in the iCloud Server. To keep a photo permanently all you have to do is save it to an Album.

 

iTunes in the Cloud: So same as before buy a song, podcast, movie, tv show on one device and the purchase history is saved in the iCloud. So go to any other device and tap to download the same media for free onto that device straight from iCloud. Or as an option you can have it automatically download all purchased content on all of your devices.

 

So those are all the Apps that are a part of iCloud. iCloud is the next generation of iCloud. and MobileMe was $99 annually. But iCloud will be Free! All these amazing services Free from Apple. Their is a Developer Preview available today. And for the rest of us it will ship along with iOS in the Fall. And that’s iCloud from Apple. I think it’s really great that Apple has been able to make all these amazing features and let customers have it for free. So good on Apple.-MacMusings

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Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi show off Lion at WWDC ’11!

The first major thing demoed by Apple today was Lion. Lion has around 250 Features, but only 10 major ones were demoed today.

First Mr. Schiller explained Multi-Touch gestures, Full Screen Apps, & Mission Control. Then Mr. Federighi came up and demoed these new features.

Multi-Touch Gestures: In Lion the gestures are improved and are more fluid. It brings many gestures from iOS to Lion, such as tap-to-zoom, and even new ones like swiping between full-screen apps.

Full Screen Apps: Almost all of Apple’s Apps are designed to be also used in Full Screen completely blocking the Dock and Menu Bar so like in iOS the only thing you see is the App you are using. And using three fingers and swiping to the left you can switch between Full-Screen Apps. Also one full-screen App, Photo-Booth has a new interface and new animations such as face detection where birds will fly in a circle around your head or make your eyes look BIG and many more.

Mission Control: Mission Control is new feature that combines Expose, Spaces, Dashboard, and new features all into one seamless experience. Slide 3-fingers up and it will show you all your windows open, clustered by App, and it will show you all the desktops open. Also while in Mission Control you can make or delete desktops and move windows in and out of desktops. Also there is a whole desktop preserved for Dashboard widgets.

Then Mr. Schiller talked about the Mac App Store,Launchpad, Resume, and more. And again Mr. Federighi came up and demoed those features.

Mac App Store: Since the Mac App Store was release for Snow Leopard, it has been a great success for Mac App developers. For example AutoDesk is on the Mac App Store and added more than a million users, just because of the Mac App Store. And with Lion there are new features such as in-app purchases, sandbox security feature, push notifications, and faster updates.

Launchpad: With a four-finger pinch gesture they can view all their applications in an iOS type UI. When you download an App from the Mac App Store it will show directly in Launchpad. In Launchpad you can launch an App, create pages of Apps, and like in iOS create Folders to put Apps in.

Resume: This feature saves whatever you are doing. So when you open an application it will open right where you left it. If you had to restart your computer it will open up all the windows when it starts back up.

Auto Save: When you’re working on a document it will automatically save what you are doing. So if you did something wrong and want to go back to what you had done before you can go directly to it. Or you can make instant duplicates and lock the document so it can’t get tampered with.

Versions: Auto Save will continuously save the changes you make in a document. You can choose to view all your versions and get a Time Machine like UI to see all the versions of the document.

Air Drop: In the Finder Menu you can select the Air Drop menu and view all the people on your network running Air Drop. Using this you can seamlessly  send documents back and forth between Macs.

Mail: In the new Mail you can have a two or three column view, with the UI similar to the iPad. Also Mail has new ways to filter responses during searches. Another thing is called Conversation View. In this view each message is split into different sections to not confuse everything to one section.

Those were the 10 main features, but there are many more including Windows Migration, FileVault 2, and more. And for developers there are more than 3000 new API’s.

Another change to line is than instead of an Optical Disk like its previous cousins, Mac OS Lion will ship only through the Mac App Store. All you gave to do is click “Buy” and it will do all the upgrades needed automatically. Lion will only be 4GB. And the Price? Apple has decided to sell Lion for only $29.99. The most-recent developer preview will be available today. It will be available for customers in July. The Server Version will only be $49.99.

For me I think that Snow Leopard to Lion is a major jump compared to Leopard to Snow Leopard. I can predict that apple will bring more iOS features to OS X in the future.

-MacMusings

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A Live Feed for WWDC 2011

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/applelivekeynotes

Hey Guys I couldn’t find a stream for my self, but these lucky guys have a video blog, with an Audio Feed. Have Fun!

-MacMusings

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