Less than two months after revealing the new iPhones and iOS 7, Apple held another event yesterday on October 22nd to reveal what else? More Apple products, such as the revamped Macbook Pros, Mac Pro, and new iPads. They also gave more details on the new Mac OS X, Mavericks.
So many new details, where do I begin?? Well as par the course, Apple read its report in terms of sales, app downloads, etc.; and to be honest it is quite impressive. They’ve sold over 9 million iPhones by the end of the launch of the newest iPhone devices last month. With over 1 million apps available in the App Store, it currently touts a whopping 60 billion downloads! But enough with this on to the stuff you really want to know about...what's new!
Apple released it's latest version of Mac OS X (version 10.9) Mavericks yesterday. The new OS has over 200 new features. Some notable ones, are workflows (Automator) can be saved as speakable items so that they can be ran via voice command. Another handy feature that will help improve battery life is App Nap, when you are not using an application or the window is minimized, App Nap slows down the app to conserve your battery. There is also better support for when you use multiple displays, giving each display connected to your desktop it's own menu bar and improved access to applications when using the multiple displays. You can check out the full list of new features here, Mac OS X new features I also appreciate how even though there are many new features, they still maintain the familiarity of the OS. Oh and did I mention it's FREE for all Mac users, even if you aren't running the previous release of Mac OS. It's available now from the App Store.
They also reintroduced the new Macbook Pro, with retina display. Equipped with two Thunderbolt 2 ports, PCle-based flash storage, 4th Gen dual core or quad core processors, two USB 3 ports, it rivals it predecessor in terms of speed easily. The 13-inch MacBook Pro resolution boasts 2560x1600 pixels and the 15-inch model has 2800x1800 pixels, so saying the graphics are good is being quite modest. Hard drive capacity ranges from 128GB up to 512GB flash storage. in terms of portability, the new Macbook Pro weighs And of course it comes pre-configured with Mac OS X Mavericks. The base model for the 13-inch Macbook Pro is priced at $1299 and the base model 15-inch Macbook Pro is price at $1999.
My personal favorite moment from the event was the in-depth reveal of the completely redesigned Mac Pro. It's no longer the standard tower but is an all black cylinder shape and at first it strikes you as odd, but ohhhh the specs on this thing!! Available in Quad core or 6 core (with Intel Xeon E5 processor), memory starting at 12GB and configurable with up to 64GB, and Dual AMD FirePro D300 or D500 graphics processors. Oh and did I mention that it can support up to six Thunderbolt displays or three 4K displays and has PCle-based flash storage starting at 256GB and can be configured up to 1TB. The all new Mac Pro Quad core pricing starts at $2,999, the 6-core starts at $3,999. The Mac Pro will be available in December.
Annnndd drumroll.....there's a new iPad, meet the iPad Air! It's thinner, approximately 7.5 millimeters thick and weighing just 1lb. It is also engineered with an A7 chip that is designed with 64-bit architecture. It comes pre-loaded with iOS 7 and the iWork apps (Numbers, Pages, Keynote) as well as GarageBand and iPhoto. Pricing for the iPad Air starts are $499.
So will you be purchasing any new Apple products?