WWDC Announcements

June 11, 2012 • ∞

I’m sure you’ve seen hundreds of posts and comments about the new products and updates released at WWDC, so I will keep my thoughts short.

The updates to the MacBook Air look great. Now with Ivy Bridge, USB3, and a 720p camera.

The MacBook Pro is now thinner and has a retina display and solid state storage.

An interesting comment from Alex Obenauer about the retina displays:

The new retina display is 2880 by 1800. Here’s the catch: that’s less screen real estate. It’ll be crisper, but you can fit less on your screen. Since the OS and apps will be in HiDPI mode, you’re seeing an equivalent 1440 by 900 resolution display, with 4x the “crispness.” That’s a downgrade in screen real estate, even if it is an upgrade in screen resolution.

Screen real estate is very important for designers and many others and with an equivalent 1440 by 900 resolution, you might as well just go with a 13" MacBook Air for the portability and battery life.

Another interesting comment I’ve seen flying around on Twitter regarding the retina display is the fact that things not updated to support retina can look jagged (especially web pages).

The unannounced new AirPort Express has me excited with simultaneous dual-band 802.11n. Dual band allows your network to run at both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, allowing you to run devices at either frequency without slowing down others. This feature previously was only available on the AirPort Extreme which is $80 more expensive.

The Mac Pro upgrades were underwhelming as they didn’t include Thunderbolt or USB3.

Finally, while Mountain Lion (coming out in July for $19.99) was just what we’ve seen from the developer previews, iOS 6 has some really neat new features including:

New maps: turn-by-turn directions, real time-traffic updates, and maps from TomTom (replacing Google Maps)
Passbook: boarding passes, cards, and coupons will show on your lock screen at appropriate times
Phone: send calls to voicemail and respond with a pre-recorded message and a “Do Not Disturb” feature, silencing all calls and texts except from can’t-miss contacts

Those are just some of my favorites, but there are many more.

Overall, I think Apple did a great jobs with all their updates and refreshes. I can’t wait to see what they will announce for the new iPhone.