As expected, Apple unveiled a bunch of new computers today, including new iPads, new MacBook Pros, and showed off OS X Mavericks. Om and I called the play-by-play directly from the Apple event in a live blog right here.
Here’s more on what was announced, and scroll back through the blog to see how it unfolded:
- Apple releases OS X Mavericks today for free, Macbook Pros with lower price
- Apple announces iPad Air, “the lightest full size tablet in the world”
- Apple announces second-generation iPad mini with retina display
Looks like that’s a wrap. Time for some hands on!
Thanks for following along. Stay tuned for more thoughts later today after some product playtime! :)
My go to tablet these days is a new Nexus 7. Why? 1920 x 1080 resolution on a 7-inch screen. That said, I can’t wait to get a peek at the new iPad mini in a few minutes.
Apple makes great videos. Nothing else. That said, I need to go eat or will faint fast
They’re showing a new Ad for the iPad Air now. Om is awake for this one.
Tim is back on stage to wrap things up.
No keyboard case or accessory then. Third party keyboard makers just breathed a huge sigh of relief. ;)
“Customers love protecting their iPads with covers and cases”. A few new colored covers.
Not selling iPad Mini w/Retina is pretty lame and it is going to impact next quarter sales ;-)
Available later in November. Original iPad mini stays in the lineup but costs $299 now. Smart pricing.
Also uses the A7 with 64-bit, just like iPad Air. 10 hour battery life. MIMO antennas and expanded LTE support. Same colors as the iPad Air. Cost: $399 for 16 GB with WiFi (nailed it!)
There we go: most requested feature is Retina Display and it’s here!
If so, I’ll guess $399 to start for that.
iPad mini discussion now. Retina?
With the free iLife and iWork apps, it’s really like the iPad got better and got a price cut; assuming you want/use those apps. It’s a nice value play by Apple.
I’m definitely looking forward to some hands on time to see how well the iPad performs. The native apps should fly and 3rd party apps will improve as they get re-written for iOS 7 and optimized for the A7 chip.
While watching the video, I’m now wondering if there will be a keyboard accessory. My gut says no although with a 1 pound tablet, an Apple keyboard accessory would likely keep the overall weight pretty low.
Hey look: a video to watch!
Priced at $499 for 16 GB and Wi-Fi. $649 for LTE. iPad 2 is $399. Starts shipping Nov. 1 around the world; including China.
5 MP camera, 1080p HD video, 10 hour battery life. Silver/white and space gray/black.
First iOS device with MIMO for WiFi but still 802.11n, not 802.11ac. That’s surprising to me but you can’t have it all.
72 times faster graphics than the original iPad. (See Moore’s Law note below, Phil)
New A7 / M7 chips inside the iPad Air. CPU and graphics are 2x faster than the prior model. Moore’s law at work.
Lighter and thinner means more portable. Could be a tough call between buying a mini and an iPad Air.
7.5 mm thick, which is 20% thinner. The team spent tons of time to find every tenth and hundredth of a millimeter when there could says Phil. New iPad Air weighs 1 pound. Wow!
Still a 9.7-inch retina display. Bezel is 43% thinner on the side.
New name: iPad Air. Say wha?????
Here it is: the new iPad. Looks more like the mini: Thinner, lighter and less side bezel.
We’re getting a little iPad history lesson now as a build up to the news.
“We want our customers to create even more important stories on iPad. This is just the beginning,” says Tim. Phil’s back.
Some really interesting use cases in agriculture, sports, energy, research and retail. That’s one of the best things about a tablet: It can “be” anything thanks to the apps and the simple form factor.
Now a video showing the creativity of iPad users.
475,000 iPad apps in the store now. “Not a stretched out smartphone app that our competitors are doing.”
Tim is mentioning the 81% tablet usage stat I wrote up earlier today. Not sure if it’s the same source….
“Everyone seems to be making a tablet. Even some of the doubters….”
Just sold the 170 millionth iPad earlier this month.
Cumulative iPad sales are nearing 180 million.
iPad time!
With the free apps and Mavericks, “we are turning this industry on its ear,” says Tim.
Tim’s back on stage. Time for iPads?
Just need more iCloud storage Eddy. Get on it, bro!
That’s both iLife and iWork. Updated apps are available today.
Here comes another theme: All of these productivity apps are now free with purchase of a new Mac or iPhone.
They’re on stage collaborating on an Eddy Cue poster that’s totally making fun of him. He’s a good sport.
Collaboration now added to iWork for iCloud. It was the most requested feature.
Pages lets you share to social networks or via email with a link. Click the link and it opens in iCloud in Safari. No Pages install needed to view.
Eddy is flying through the iWork apps. Just too much to cover to go into depth. Suffice it to say: the updates and redesigns look nice and effective. And now another demo. This one is Pages.
Full file compatibility across all iWork apps regardless of device. Again: seamless content across devices.
“Today” and “Free” are two of my favorite words at this keynote event. Copy this Microsoft and Samsung ;-)
iWork time. (where are the new iPads?)
Wonder if Apple will ever create a virtual live blogger feature? Oh wait… I’d be out of a job. All of those iLife updates are available today.
There are different virtual drummers based on music style. Apple says these are powered by session drummers and all have different personalities.
You can drag the control for the drummer to add different sounds or change the beat. Pretty slick.
Drummer feature adds a track that automatically plays with your song.
Here comes a demo of something new in GarageBand….
Agreed. He’s not looking us in the eye. I’M OVER HERE!!!!
iMovie gains PIP and different playback speeds on iOS 7. Each iteration of these apps gains a few more features, bringing what used to be desktop-only functions to mobile.
Eddie Cue is reading from a prompter. I am pretty certain. LOOK at his eyes ;-)
Photo Books now available from an iPad. Nice. One of these days, I’ll order a book.
He’s covering iLife apps; all new versions for iOS 7, which we knew. 64-bit software.
Another un-tucked shirt. I sense a theme….
Phil is done. Here comes Eddie Cue.
I hope Om remembered to get butter on the popcorn…..
Apple is showing the assembly line for the Mac Pro. Pretty nifty. Lots of robotics used for the milling and such.
Video time for the Mac Pro. Om went to get popcorn…
New Mac Pro will be assembled in the USA. Nice to see more devices being put together here.
Phil says the new MacPro is much more power efficient (43W at idle) and no louder than a Mac Mini.
More nonsense about available in December 2013. Oh please, get this shit out of the door or stop talking about it
$2999 to start on the new Mac Pro. I thought perhaps it would be about $500 less but this is still reasonable for the device. Available in December.
I think you could run all of the NASA Command Center with this Mac Pro. OK, maybe not, but this is going to make video / image editing, movie making and more much faster.
Marco Arment is polishing his credit card right about now :-)
And now my foot is sore. Om has hard shins.
Lot of features and nerd data — falling asleep, Kevin kicked me in the shin. #hatehim
The PCIe flash has reads/writes up to 1.2 Gbps/1 Gbps. And up to three 4k displays are supported. MOAR PIXELS!!!!
I am just glad they make laptops us old farts still want to spend money on…. Mac Pro is nice, just no room in my highly mobile life anymore. Cloud is my workstation!
Dual workstation graphics. This will be a screamer for heavy duty visuals. Up to 7 teraflops of compute power with GPU and CPU.
“The future of the pro desktop.” says Phil. Fastest processor ever in a Mac. Intel Xeon E5 with 4, 6, 8 or 12 cores. Fastest memory two.
Mac Pro time. I was very impressed with the hardware when Apple teased it earlier this year.
Very aggressive price drops in my opinion, considering the boosts in hardware components. Lots of people will be happy this holiday season.
New lower price: $1999. Last year’s model was $2199. That’s with 8 GB of memory, retina display, 256 GB flash storage. Shipping today.
15-inch model gets Intel Iris Pro graphics but you can choose Nvidia GeForce GT 750M if you want. Up to 8 hours of battery life. 802.11 ac Wi-Fi, Thunderbolt 2 and Mavericks.
Price drop: Old model was $1499 but the new model is $1299. Retina display 2.4 GHz i5, 4 GB of RAM, 128 GB of flash storage. Shipping today. That’s a heck of a nice price.
802.11 ac support, which is super nice if you have the right router for it. Thunderbolt 2 ports as well. Mavericks included, of course.
“You can watch the entire Batman trilogy on one charge.”
13-inch MB Pro. Under 3.46 pounds. 0.71 inches thin. New dual core Haswell (Hey, I got one right!) with Intel Iris graphics; up to 90 percent faster than old graphics. Up to 9 hours of battery life.
Actually so do I. But I digress. Phil is sharing quotes about the MacBook Air. Turning attention to MacBook Pro now…. I figure the Haswell chips are inside.
Like Craig, Phil has his shirt un-tucked. Just saying.
Here comes Phil Schiller to discuss MacBooks.
Available today. Guess the Apple servers will be slammed in 3… 2… 1….
Even if you’re on Snow Leopard, you can get to Mavericks through a single update. 2007 iMac/MacBook Pro and up gets Mavericks.
Glad I didn’t bet on that $29 prediction.
Mavericks is free!
“Today we’re going to revolutionize pricing.”
So I’m guessing $29 and availability soon. Let’s see….
Really flying through this demo. Now on to Calendar with travel time for events, alerts on phone for when it’s time to leave. This is definitely a demo on steroids given so much to highlight in Mavericks.
Snoozing in between demos of the Mavericks. Maybe I shouldn’t have started using the beta.
He’s showing off Keychain in iCloud for web purchases. Again, seamless use of data across apps (and cloud).
Craig just got an iMessage from his wife. Her name: “Hair Force Two”. ;)
Wow.. these Apple guys now are comedians too ;-) Like this change.
This is where Apple excels: Making it seamless to manipulate content across multiple apps.
Craig is showing iBooks on the desktop now with Mavericks. Multitouch is supported for navigation, just like on the iPad. You can also drag iBooks content to iWorks for a quote.
Demo time!
iBooks is also part of the new software. I can see huge benefit for textbooks here.
Notifications are improved in Mavericks: They’re actionable. Finder has tags. Safari makes it easier to share links. Display mirroring is also better in Mavericks. Apple Maps comes to OS X as well.
OpenCL can move processes to the GPU from the CPU to boost speeds: Up to 1.8x faster for image processing and other tasks.
Graphics: Mavericks can dynamically allocate video memory as needed for performance.
Compressed memory is part of Mavericks to help make space for more memory allocations. “We can fit 6GB of data in 4GB of memory.”
Installing Mavericks on the new Air will boost web surfing time by 1 hour and video by 1.5 hours.
“We’re trying to get more out of your hardware with Mavericks: better battery life, faster speeds….”
Time for Craig Federighi to talk about OS X. Yes… his hair looks good.
“They’re trying to turn PCs into tablets and tablets into PCs.” Obviously a shot at Microsoft. Surprised no mention of Chromebooks.
Mac data: “Incredible hardware and software” blended together, says Tim. “Our competition is different. They’re confused. They chased netbooks.”
App Store numbers now: More than 1,000,000 apps available and 60 billion cumulative downloads. That’s a LOT of apps. $13 billion to developers now.
Some focus on iTunes Radio now, which works on iOS, Apple TV and Mac/PC via iTunes. 20 million users on iTunes Radio now with 1 billion songs played.
200 million devices running iOS 7 after the first 5 days of availability. 64% of all Apple mobile devices running iOS 7 now.
“When we see customer response like this, it makes it all worthwhile,” says Tim.
I don’t think any other company has ever created so much passion and joy for its products. That’s the highlight of the video here: super excited people who wait in line and spend lots of money. Amazing when you think about….
Now another video showing off the iPhone launch in different Apple stores around the world.
Biggest iPhone launch ever: 9 million in the first weekend. Still no breakdown of the 5s vs 5c sales though. I don’t think we’ll ever hear that.
Now some news. Tim talking about the iPhone launch.
Tim said the video was played at the developer conference. “you will see some amazing products that could only be developed in that way”
And now Tim Cook is on stage!
It’s all about design and focus; two things Apple excels at. Very simple video in all black and white. Mostly text with a few basic visual. “We simply. We perfect. We start over.”
And we’re starting! Playing a video now….
Om said it would be cool if Kanye was on stage later. I’d rather see McCartney who just happens to be promoting his new album…. hmmm….
BTW: all of the usual suspects are here with us: Mossberg, Baig (he’s next to Om, in fact), etc… I didn’t see Pogue though. Is Yahoo! not welcome here? Kidding….
Stage has a few iPads set up on both sides as well as a few new iMacs for the presentation bits. No hints of anything, of course. *sigh*
So were just asked to silence our devices. I guess we have to say “devices” now: phones, tablets, computers, glasses, watches, etc… ;)
Having never been to one of these before, I have to say that it’s obvious how much attention to detail Apple puts into the venue setup… just like its products.
Of course, I’m a blasphemer today: Brought my Chromebook Pixel with integrated LTE in case the Wi-Fi falls down. ;)
Hey, we’re finally in the door after milling about in the London-like weather for 1.5 hours! Good seats in the middle of the venue and the WiFi seems good.
Here’s one from Kevin:
That’s where we’ll be having RoadMap in early November, by the way:
Hey everybody! Om and Kevin are milling about waiting for the event to start, but here’s what it looks like from the outside, in front of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts:
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