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Apple iPad Air event: All the details
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds, PC / Laptop, Software,
Yesterday, Apple made what will likely be its final product announcements of 2013, and there was plenty they had to go over during the 2013 Apple iPad event. The star of the show was the iPad Air, although some might argue that OS X Mavericks launching for free was the biggest surprise of the day. We covered all the news, and have broken everything down by category below to make it easy for you to catch up.
iPads
Macs
- 15-inch MacBook Pro updated, now starts at $1999
- 13-inch MacBook Pro refreshed with Retina display, starts at $1299
- The new Mac Pro launches in December for $2999
OS X & iOS
- OS X Mavericks will launch today, completely free
- Apple releases iOS 7.0.3 with iCloud Keychain, iMessage fix, Touch ID tweaks
- OS X Mavericks now available, grab it from the App Store for free
iWork
- Apple releases Numbers 3.0, here’s a look at what’s new
- Apple releases next major version of Keynote, here’s what’s new
- Apple Pages hits 5.0, here’s a look at what’s new
iLife
- iMovie 10.0 now available, here’s a list of all the new features
- Apple releases major iPhoto ‘11 update, here’s what’s new
What was your favorite announcement of the day?
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The history of Mac OS X pricing: How we got to free
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Features, PC / Laptop, Software,
We had a few readers email in yesterday after it was announced that OS X Mavericks would be free, a first for a major desktop operating system release. It seems a few of you are curious about how Apple got here, and what the history is as it relates to the pricing of OS X. So, here's a quick history lesson.
- 10.0 Cheetah: Released March 24, 2001 for $129
- 10.1 Puma: Released September 25, 2001 for $0
- 10.2 Jaguar: Released August 23, 2002 for $129
- 10.3 Panther: Released October 24, 2003 for $129
- 10.4 Tiger: Released April 29, 2005 for $129
- 10.5 Leopard: Released October 26, 2007 for $129
- 10.6 Snow Leopard: Released August 28, 2009 for $29
- 10.7 Lion: Released July 20, 2011 for $29
- 10.8 Mountain Lion: Released July 25, 2012 for $19
- 10.9 Mavericks: Released October 22, 2013 for $0
So, as you can see, both OS X 10.1 Puma and 10.9 Mavericks were released as free updates, however, Puma was released just six months after 10.0 Cheetah, so that would have been ridiculous if Apple has chosen to charge for it. Other than that anomaly, OS X updates remained at $129 each until Snow Leopard in 2009, which sold for $29. The last $129 version of OS X was Leopard, which saw massive delays due to Apple pulling engineers from it to work on iPhone OS 1.0 (now known as iOS.) Lion was also sold for $29, and was the first version of OS X to be available as a digital download from the Mac App Store. The following year, Mountain Lion debuted at just $19--the best bargain in OS X release history until yesterday, when Mavericks launched for free. The trend has always been that OS X updates would cost the same as the previous year, or less--never more (discounting the Puma issue, which was a huge bugfix patch.) As this point, it appears that OS X has gone the way of iOS, where all updates from here on out will be available for free, on an annual basis.
You can download OS X Mavericks, for free, right now.
Apple releases next major version of Keynote, here’s what’s new
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Software,
Apple has released a major update to its Keynote presentation software today, as part of a greater software push release in conjunction with today's Apple iPad event. There are a bunch of new themes and animations to be found, as well as deeper iCloud integration that allows for simultaneous collaboration. Here's a rundown of all the new features found in Keynote 6.0:
- Stunning new user interface
- Brand-new Apple-designed themes
- Simplified toolbar gives you quick access to shapes, media, tables, charts, and sharing options
- New Format Panel automatically updates based on selection
- New and updated cinematic transitions and animations
- Updated Magic Move animations
- New Emphasis build animations
- Centered canvas for greater layout control
- Use gorgeous preset styles to make your text, tables, shapes, and images look beautiful
- Animate data with new interactive column, bar, scatter, and bubble charts
- Use new 2D bubble charts
- Quickly and easily share a link to your work via Mail, Messages, Twitter or Facebook
- Anyone with the link will always have access to the latest version of the presentation and can edit it with you at iCloud.com with Keynote for iCloud beta
- New unified file format across the Mac, iOS, and the web makes presentations work seamlessly everywhere
- Turn on Coaching Tips for guided in-app help
You can download the new Keynote now for free if you're an existing user, otherwise you can buy Keynote for $19.99.
Apple Pages hits 5.0, here’s a look at what’s new
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Software,
Apple has updated Pages to version 5.0 as part of a bunch of refreshed iWork and iLife updates in conjunction with its Apple iPad event today. Apple's word processor sees a host of new features integrated, including new writing tools, better performance, and a new design with a bunch of Apple-designed templates. Deep iCloud integration is here as well, allowing you to access yoru documents across all your OS X and iOS devices. Here's the full list of what's new in Pages:
- Stunning new user interface
- Over 60 Apple-designed templates
- Simplified toolbar gives you quick access to shapes, media, tables, charts, and sharing options
- New Format Panel automatically updates based on selection
- Enhanced change tracking, comments, and highlights; show and hide changes and comments on mouse-over
- Animate data with new interactive column, bar, scatter, and bubble charts
- Use gorgeous preset styles to make your text, tables, shapes, and images look beautiful
- Easy setup for headers, footers, and document body
- Use new 2D bubble charts
- Enhanced conditional highlighting makes it easy to automatically highlight cells based on numbers, text, dates, and durations
- Quickly and easily share a link to your work via Mail, Messages, Twitter, or Facebook
- Anyone with a shared document link will always have access to the latest version of the document and can edit it with you at iCloud.com
- Access and edit documents from iCloud.com using Pages for iCloud beta
- New unified file format across the Mac, iOS, and the web makes documents work seamlessly everywhere
- Turn on Coaching Tips for guided in-app help
- Pages is now available in Arabic and Hebrew
- Improved support for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
You can download Pages now for free if you've purchased a Mac on or after October 1, 2013, otherwise you can grab it for $19.99.
15-inch MacBook Pro updated, now starts at $1999
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop,
Alongside the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, Apple also announced an updated 15-inch MacBook Pro at today's Apple iPad event as well. The 15-inch model includes the new Intel Crystalwell Iris Pro graphics chip, and ships with OS X Mavericks (which includes a bunch of performance enhancements on its own.) As far as power efficiency, Apple says the new 15-inch model has an 8 hour battery, includes Thunderbolt 2, and supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The price is slashed by $200, with a starting price now at $1999 with a 2.0GHz Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. You can get the new 15-inch MacBook Pro today.
13-inch MacBook Pro refreshed with Retina display, starts at $1299
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop,
At today's Apple iPad event, the company revealed a new 13-inch MacBook Pro. The Retina display model from last year is now the default, and it's is thinner and lighter, at 0.71 inches thick and 3.46 pounds. Apple also cut the price by $1299 (but also defaults now to 4GB RAM instead of 8GB in the base.) Apple says that the new 13-incher gets 9 hours of battery life, Thunderbolt 2, and 802.11ac Wi-Fi support. You can pick up the new 13-inch MacBook Pro today.
The new Mac Pro launches in December for $2999
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop,
Apple has revealed more details about the new Intel Xeon-powered Mac Pro at today's Apple iPad event. The new, small cylinder relies solely on PCIe flash that sees 1.2/GB/s reads and 1.0GB/s writes, with six Thunderbolt 2 ports and AMD FirePro graphics with up to 12GB of GDDR VRAM. The Mac Pro can support up to three 4K displays over Thunderbolt plus an additional over HDMI (it supports HDMI 1.4.) Four USB 3.0 ports, 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0, and a motion sensor round out the main features. It starts at $2999 for a 3.7GHz Quad-core Xeon, 12GB RAM, and launches in December.
OS X Mavericks will launch today, completely free
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Software,
Update: You can download OS X Mavericks now!
At this morning's Apple iPad event, the company announced that its next major desktop operating system, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, will launch today. It will be available exclusively in the Mac App Store, and in a huge shift for the company, it will be completely free. Mavericks brings a few cool features and optimizations to OS X--things like Apple Maps, iBooks, greatly-improved multi-monitor support, native tabbed Finder, tagging support in Finder, iCloud Keychain, and much more.
Mavericks is compatible with a wide range of Macs:
- iMac (Mid-2007 or later)
- MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)
- MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)
- MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
- Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)
- Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)
- Xserve (Early 2009)
There you have it! Who's planning on grabbing that upgrade when it hits the App Store?
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| OS X Mavericks
What we expect from tomorrow’s Apple iPad event
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Features, Handhelds, PC / Laptop, Software,
Apple is set to go out with a bang this year with its big October 22 event. The obvious product announcement that everyone is expecting belongs to the iPad line, with the iPad 5 and iPad mini both seeing significant upgrades. What else can we expect from what will likely be the final Apple event of 2013? Join us after the break for our analysis and expectations.
Click to continue reading What we expect from tomorrow’s Apple iPad event
Apple puts out call to developers to submit OS X Mavericks apps ahead of imminent release
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Software,
Apple released OS X Mavericks Golden Master to developers earlier this month, and with the next Apple event scheduled for October 22, it would seem obvious that the public release of Apple's next major desktop operating system is imminent. More proof? Apple has sent an email to developers asking them to submit their OS X Mavericks apps starting today:
Make sure your app takes advantage of the great new features in OS X Mavericks when the world's most advanced desktop operating system becomes available to millions of customers later this fall. Download OS X Mavericks GM seed and Xcode 5.0.1 GM seed, available on the Mac Dev Center. Build your apps with these latest seeds, then test and submit them to the Mac App Store.
Apple will begin reviewing Mavericks apps right away in preparation for the expected launch later this month.
