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Apple Shows Off New iOS 7, Mac OS X At WWDC

Nerval's Lobster writes "Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off his company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco with a short video emphasizing the importance of design, particularly that which evokes some sort of emotional connection such as love or delight. But that sentimental bit aside, this WWDC was all business: huge numbers of developers attend this annual event, packing sessions designed to help give their apps an edge in Apple's crowded online marketplace (some 50 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store, Cook told the audience during his keynote). Apple also uses its WWDC to unveil new products or services, attracting sizable interest from the tech press.

This time around, the company introduced Mac OS X 'Mavericks,' which includes 'Finder Tabs' (which allow the user to deploy multiple tabs within a Finder window—great for organization, in theory) and document tags (for easier searching). Macs will now support multiple displays, including HDTVs, with the ability to tweak elements between screens; Apple claims the operating system will also interact with the CPU in a more efficient manner.

On top of that, Apple rolled out some new hardware: an upgraded MacBook Air with faster graphics, better battery life (9 hours for the 11-inch edition, while the 13-inch version can draw 12 hours' worth of power). Apple has decided to jump into the cloud-productivity space with iWork for iCloud, which makes the company's iWork portfolio (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) browser-based; this is a clear response to Office 365 and Google Docs.

And finally, the executives onstage turned back to iOS, which (according to Apple) powers some 600 million devices around the world. This version involves more than a few tweaks: from a redesigned 'Slide to Unlock' at the bottom of the screen, to the bottom-up control panel that slides over the home-screen, to the 'flat' (as predicted) icons and an interface that adjusts as the phone is tilted, this is a total redesign. As a software designer, Ive is clearly a huge fan of basic shapes—circles and squares— and layering translucent elements atop one another."

12 of 607 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? by Wingsy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well, why not? C'mon, you can tell us. It does look nice, and I like the way you can rotate it to get to the i/o on the back. Oh, and that little light that comes on when it's rotated. No need to cuss and go find a flashlight. A little thing, but a nice thing.

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  2. Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? by adisakp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I mean really... why?

    One thing you should be happy about... putting all the expansion OUTSIDE of the computer using STANDARDIZED interfaces (Thunderbolt was actually developed by Intel and you can get PC adapters) means that any money you put into expanding a computer will be easily portable to other computer or when you upgrade a computer. This isn't necessarily true with internal cards (think ISA / VESA / PCI / PCIe / PCIx). Also, you don't have to worry about upgrading your computer's power supply or cooling when you add expansion.

  3. Re:tabs in the Finder window? by AnotherShep · · Score: 5, Funny

    Explorer in Windows or one of a million shitty things that sort of work in Linux.

  4. Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? by tysonedwards · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to the product page, it sure doesn't look like those are standard GPUs, as well as it looks like they go from dual socket Xeons to single socket, mounted centrally so the entire system would need to be disassembled to replace the CPU, if it is even replaceable.

    From the imagery posted on Apple's website, it looks like a Mac Mini++.
    Apple: Mac Pro

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  5. Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As long as the parts are all standard and easily replaceable

    Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... ha.... Yeah, probably.

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  6. Re:The TB bus does not have a lot of bandwidth by adisakp · · Score: 5, Informative

    The TB bus does not have a lot of bandwidth it's only pci-e X4 and I hope that each port or has it's own X4 link or at least one X4 link for 2 ports.

    Thunderbolt 2 is 20Gb/s. There are 6 ports and 3 Thunderbolt controllers (each controller handles a full 20Gb/s across 2 ports).

    FWIW, PCIe 1.0 x8 is only 16Gb/s and x4 is only 8Gb/s.

    The bandwidth here is basically faster than 6 x8 slots.

  7. 25 foot surf ... by perpenso · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does OSX Mavericks come with a Sarah Palin or a Tom Cruise doll?

    No. But it does come with images of the big wave surfing location, Mavericks, for which it is actually named. A location that has 25 foot surf on an average day. A really cool place.

  8. Re:The TB bus does not have a lot of bandwidth by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Thunderbolt 2 is 20Gb/s"

    Remember that 'Thunderbolt' speed numbers include both the PCIe and the Displayport data channels(and, to the best of my knowledge, the capacity allocation between the video and data channels is fixed, even if only one is being used). By aggregating the previous 4 10Gb channels into two 20Gb channels, they allowed full Displayport 1.2 resolution and expect to bottleneck external storage devices slightly less; but the PCIe side still looks like PCIe 2.0 x4. Not slow; but substantially slower than x8 and x16 PCIe 2.0 and slower still than PCIe 3.

  9. Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? by immaterial · · Score: 5, Informative

    None of these boards are curved. The CPU and two GPU's are attached in a triangular arrangement around a triangular aluminum heat-sink. Much of the "wasted space" in the curved areas contains the SSD, RAM, and Thunderbolt/USB/other ports.

  10. Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? by Dahamma · · Score: 5, Informative

    If designed right (and it sounds like a custom-designed 6" impeller fan) 1 big high-quality fan would be a lot more reliable than 4-5 small, crappy OEM fans found in most PCs. It's not like Apple has any reason to cut costs here, this thing is going to cost a mint and have an absurd profit margin, anyway.

  11. Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? by Megane · · Score: 5, Funny

    But a cylinder? No.

    Apple's next product will be donut-shaped expansion cases that fit around it.

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  12. Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? by nxcho · · Score: 5, Funny

    Actually, Apple has a lot of fans and they tend to be far from silent.

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