WWDC 2017
Apple WWDC 2017 as it happens... highly anticipated every year, 2017 is no different.
As always, there's a mix of presentations that discuss new technology, software, hardware and launch new products and give us the roadmap for the coming months.
Augmented Reality [ AR }
Apple have been working hard behind the scenes with some very clever technology, especially around Augmented Reality [ AR ] that although an alien concept to most allows us to see some pretty awesome stuff usually that is so life-like, it feels like it's really there... imagine a coffee table in your lounge for example.. a friend has come over and you happen to be into gaming or, you're designers and you want to look at a house or kitchen design in 3D right there in front of you - walk around it, see how the sun casts shadows across your designs in real-time etc. You can create a Virtual Reality existence on your table and have everything happening in your lounge room - rockets flying around, gun battles happening, soldiers marching around on your coffee table or add and remove design elements, change colours, change lighting.. all in VR and all with full motion tracking rendering of the 'actual' background in your room and the real people and objects within it, but with all of your game-play happening in front of you. You simply walk around with your iPad or phone to see exactly what's going on. Possibilities here really are endless and leapfrog holographics in terms of quality and life-like presentation.
iPad Pro.
Apple introduce a new iPad Pro range. A new iPad Pro features 10.5" screen. 20% larger than the previous 9.7". Apple claim that a 10.5" iPad Pro is important as it enables a full sized keyboard to be displayed. P3 white collar gamut, auto white balance, 600 nits brightness for HDR video. ProMotion - Apple have dramatically improved display performance - the new iPad Pro will now refresh at 120Hz instead of 50 or 60Hz. The 12.9" version will also get a bigger screen. Far smoother and crisper motion - one of those things you have to see to believe.
This has the knock on effect of improving Apple Pencil latency to 20ms - this essentially is the delay time between what you do and what you see.. iPad Pro has no latency noticeable at all. iPad is also able to change its refresh rates dynamically which will vastly improve battery life. For example - no need for a refresh of 120 times per second for a still image.
A10X Fusion inside the iPad Pro is a 6 Core Processor and incredibly, a 12 Core GPU. It is overall 40% faster graphically and 30% overall than the previous generation A9 Chip. A handy fact, 500 times faster than the first ever iPad!
Metal software in iPad enables iPad Pro to perform graphically 7 times faster than an i7 Quad Core desktop PC Apple claim. [ A demonstration of iPad Pro's editing capability is shown - and very impressive it is too. ]
Battery life is about 10 hours. Apple then continue to list updated adapters and charging devices. iPad will charge in half the time. New smart covers and a new Apple Case that stores the Pencil [ given the price the Pencil, that's a very, very good idea ]. iPad Pro in 10.5" and 12.9" see the 32Gb dropped which is a great thing. Options are now 64GB, 256Gb and 512GB. Available to order today and will start shipping next week. Apple then go on to display a shiny new video we will have in the store today in Port Macquarie. They'll ship with iOS 10 with iOS 11 coming in Spring.
iOS 11
Largest iOS release ever. The Dock. Predictive dock is now available from any part of the screen with predictive Apps - the iPad knows what you might be about to use and gets them ready in the Dock for you. A new App Switcher now includes drag and drop. Images, Text, URL's - drag them all. The new keyboard allows the flick a key to access punctuation or symbols. App Switcher also allows you to work in split screen, multiple screens with preservation of your various layouts left in tact - so you really can do a lot of stuff at the same time without losing your window layouts that took ages to get right!. Safety features such as ' Do not disturb whilst driving ' are also built in the iOS 11 with auto-response - you can turn these features off, but useful nonetheless, and YES!.. Apple have changed control centre back to the single screen - this confused so many people wondering where their quick access to the light, flight mode, do not disturb etc. had gone and replaced by an iTunes/Music windows instead!
Files. Another simple term for a feature we all need. Files finally allows you to easily see and manage your files and server connections from a single navigation bar. This has always been a problem making iOS somewhat frustratingly prohibitive - not any more. The navigation bar looks exactly the same as the one you're used to on your Mac's finder window. Yay! Coming Spring.
MacBook Air and MacBook.
I thought MacBook Air 'may' have been discontinued, but then it is very very popular so Apple have given it a little speed bump to keep it happy. I'm sure it will feel the love and remain popular for the time being. MacBook was left largely unattended - frankly, does it need anything? Not really. A speed bump too into MacBook.
MacBook Pro
Gets the latest generation Intel Processors, even faster SSD's [ is that even possible! ] and a significant price-drop for the 13" models. Pricing and ordering available later today at shop.lecport.com.au
iMac.
Also gets a speed bump with better graphics and Thunderbolt 3. Apple say graphically, the upgrade iMac is 80% more powerful.
iMac Pro.
Makes me wonder if Microsoft jumped the gun with the Surface Studio just to get one over on Apple? Well, maybe they did, maybe they didn't but what we're about to see from Apple is iMac Pro. If you thought iMac could not possibly end up being the most powerful all in one professional desktop solution available by far, you'd be wrong. This one I wasn't expecting - not to this extent anyway. Details and specs to follow on our website at shop.lecport.com.au due to go live this week after all of these updates. According to Apple, this beast will boast 8, 10 and potentially 18 Core Xeon Processing and Radeon VEGA 128GB Graphics - which apart from being absolutely insane, will allow 3 displays at 5K to seamlessly operate from this Mac. Available later this year, we'll have all options available as soon as Apple release them on our new website shop.lecport.com.au
HomePod.
This is an incredibly designed speaker.. It houses 7 individual tweeters for extreme clarity. A 4 inch motor assisted upward facing woofer pumps out the deep bass tones and all controlled by an Apple A8 chip. An insanely powerful speaker.. but is it just that?
Of course not! The speaker checks out it's own environment and adjusts the way it projects sound to create a very spacious sound based exactly on its where you put it. Add 2 of these speakers and they work together to create the sort of sound you'd expect form a home cinema system. HomePod works seamlessly with your Apple Music subscription by voice. It talks to your music library and knows all of your playlists... say "Hey Siri", and talk to it. Ask it to play music or give you information on anything and HomePod will help. You do not even need to be close to it. Apple claim it will understand you even if you have loud music playing. If it does, I'll be [ more ] impressed! HomePod understands all sorts of commands, Apple have enabled the most popular straight away - general knowledge, turn home kit devices on and off, access news, radio stations, set reminders - all sorts of things. HomePod, like the latest generation Apple TV is a hub for HomeKit devices allowing you to access and control any HomeKit from anywhere in the world. HomePod is priced amazingly at $349 US in space grey and silver and Australia is with the first to get it in December along with the U.K. and U.S.
Stay tuned today as we upload and enable all new product to our new website at shop.lecport.com.au - we will go live with this hopefully by the end of today. In the meantime, call to discuss any of these new releases and for pre-orders - email sales@lecpm.com.au
As always, there's a mix of presentations that discuss new technology, software, hardware and launch new products and give us the roadmap for the coming months.
Augmented Reality [ AR }
Apple have been working hard behind the scenes with some very clever technology, especially around Augmented Reality [ AR ] that although an alien concept to most allows us to see some pretty awesome stuff usually that is so life-like, it feels like it's really there... imagine a coffee table in your lounge for example.. a friend has come over and you happen to be into gaming or, you're designers and you want to look at a house or kitchen design in 3D right there in front of you - walk around it, see how the sun casts shadows across your designs in real-time etc. You can create a Virtual Reality existence on your table and have everything happening in your lounge room - rockets flying around, gun battles happening, soldiers marching around on your coffee table or add and remove design elements, change colours, change lighting.. all in VR and all with full motion tracking rendering of the 'actual' background in your room and the real people and objects within it, but with all of your game-play happening in front of you. You simply walk around with your iPad or phone to see exactly what's going on. Possibilities here really are endless and leapfrog holographics in terms of quality and life-like presentation.
iPad Pro.
Apple introduce a new iPad Pro range. A new iPad Pro features 10.5" screen. 20% larger than the previous 9.7". Apple claim that a 10.5" iPad Pro is important as it enables a full sized keyboard to be displayed. P3 white collar gamut, auto white balance, 600 nits brightness for HDR video. ProMotion - Apple have dramatically improved display performance - the new iPad Pro will now refresh at 120Hz instead of 50 or 60Hz. The 12.9" version will also get a bigger screen. Far smoother and crisper motion - one of those things you have to see to believe.
This has the knock on effect of improving Apple Pencil latency to 20ms - this essentially is the delay time between what you do and what you see.. iPad Pro has no latency noticeable at all. iPad is also able to change its refresh rates dynamically which will vastly improve battery life. For example - no need for a refresh of 120 times per second for a still image.
A10X Fusion inside the iPad Pro is a 6 Core Processor and incredibly, a 12 Core GPU. It is overall 40% faster graphically and 30% overall than the previous generation A9 Chip. A handy fact, 500 times faster than the first ever iPad!
Metal software in iPad enables iPad Pro to perform graphically 7 times faster than an i7 Quad Core desktop PC Apple claim. [ A demonstration of iPad Pro's editing capability is shown - and very impressive it is too. ]
Battery life is about 10 hours. Apple then continue to list updated adapters and charging devices. iPad will charge in half the time. New smart covers and a new Apple Case that stores the Pencil [ given the price the Pencil, that's a very, very good idea ]. iPad Pro in 10.5" and 12.9" see the 32Gb dropped which is a great thing. Options are now 64GB, 256Gb and 512GB. Available to order today and will start shipping next week. Apple then go on to display a shiny new video we will have in the store today in Port Macquarie. They'll ship with iOS 10 with iOS 11 coming in Spring.
iOS 11
Largest iOS release ever. The Dock. Predictive dock is now available from any part of the screen with predictive Apps - the iPad knows what you might be about to use and gets them ready in the Dock for you. A new App Switcher now includes drag and drop. Images, Text, URL's - drag them all. The new keyboard allows the flick a key to access punctuation or symbols. App Switcher also allows you to work in split screen, multiple screens with preservation of your various layouts left in tact - so you really can do a lot of stuff at the same time without losing your window layouts that took ages to get right!. Safety features such as ' Do not disturb whilst driving ' are also built in the iOS 11 with auto-response - you can turn these features off, but useful nonetheless, and YES!.. Apple have changed control centre back to the single screen - this confused so many people wondering where their quick access to the light, flight mode, do not disturb etc. had gone and replaced by an iTunes/Music windows instead!
Files. Another simple term for a feature we all need. Files finally allows you to easily see and manage your files and server connections from a single navigation bar. This has always been a problem making iOS somewhat frustratingly prohibitive - not any more. The navigation bar looks exactly the same as the one you're used to on your Mac's finder window. Yay! Coming Spring.
MacBook Air and MacBook.
I thought MacBook Air 'may' have been discontinued, but then it is very very popular so Apple have given it a little speed bump to keep it happy. I'm sure it will feel the love and remain popular for the time being. MacBook was left largely unattended - frankly, does it need anything? Not really. A speed bump too into MacBook.
MacBook Pro
Gets the latest generation Intel Processors, even faster SSD's [ is that even possible! ] and a significant price-drop for the 13" models. Pricing and ordering available later today at shop.lecport.com.au
iMac.
Also gets a speed bump with better graphics and Thunderbolt 3. Apple say graphically, the upgrade iMac is 80% more powerful.
iMac Pro.
Makes me wonder if Microsoft jumped the gun with the Surface Studio just to get one over on Apple? Well, maybe they did, maybe they didn't but what we're about to see from Apple is iMac Pro. If you thought iMac could not possibly end up being the most powerful all in one professional desktop solution available by far, you'd be wrong. This one I wasn't expecting - not to this extent anyway. Details and specs to follow on our website at shop.lecport.com.au due to go live this week after all of these updates. According to Apple, this beast will boast 8, 10 and potentially 18 Core Xeon Processing and Radeon VEGA 128GB Graphics - which apart from being absolutely insane, will allow 3 displays at 5K to seamlessly operate from this Mac. Available later this year, we'll have all options available as soon as Apple release them on our new website shop.lecport.com.au
HomePod.
This is an incredibly designed speaker.. It houses 7 individual tweeters for extreme clarity. A 4 inch motor assisted upward facing woofer pumps out the deep bass tones and all controlled by an Apple A8 chip. An insanely powerful speaker.. but is it just that?
Of course not! The speaker checks out it's own environment and adjusts the way it projects sound to create a very spacious sound based exactly on its where you put it. Add 2 of these speakers and they work together to create the sort of sound you'd expect form a home cinema system. HomePod works seamlessly with your Apple Music subscription by voice. It talks to your music library and knows all of your playlists... say "Hey Siri", and talk to it. Ask it to play music or give you information on anything and HomePod will help. You do not even need to be close to it. Apple claim it will understand you even if you have loud music playing. If it does, I'll be [ more ] impressed! HomePod understands all sorts of commands, Apple have enabled the most popular straight away - general knowledge, turn home kit devices on and off, access news, radio stations, set reminders - all sorts of things. HomePod, like the latest generation Apple TV is a hub for HomeKit devices allowing you to access and control any HomeKit from anywhere in the world. HomePod is priced amazingly at $349 US in space grey and silver and Australia is with the first to get it in December along with the U.K. and U.S.
Stay tuned today as we upload and enable all new product to our new website at shop.lecport.com.au - we will go live with this hopefully by the end of today. In the meantime, call to discuss any of these new releases and for pre-orders - email sales@lecpm.com.au
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