Last Monday Apple commenced their annual World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. WWDC often plays host to new Apple hardware and software announcements, in addition to being a chance for developers to network, share, and learn about new technologies regarding iOS and OS X.
CEO Tim Cook took to the stage of the Moscone Centre and introduced the next version of Apple’s desktop operating system, OS 10.9 Mavericks, new models of the MacBook Air, new wireless solutions in the form of the 802.11ac compliant Airport Extreme and Time Capsules, the new Mac Pro, and of course, iOS 7.
Surf’s up!
Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks officially renounces over a decades’ use of cat names, moving onto a “Californian-themed” naming convention. Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, explains that Apple wanted something that would “last for at least the next decade”. Mavericks is a famous surfing location in Northern California, and a sensible name for the beginning of the next generation of Apple’s desktop OS.
In this release, the company has focused more on “under-the-hood” improvements rather than adding gloss and glam (or lack of) akin to Windows 8. These include ‘Timer Coalescing’, which reduces the amount of intervals between CPU idle and active states, resulting in 72 per cent less CPU usage. ‘App Nap’ intelligently reduces system priority for programs which are not running in the foreground—for example, that annoying Flash ad nested in a tab five windows back in your browser won’t chew precious battery power. A reported energy savings of 23 per cent is possible with App Nap. ‘Compressed Memory’ manages available RAM as to reduce the amount of memory usage for inactive apps, leaving room for other tasks.
Combined, these changes are sure to increase performance, resulting in a much snappier and responsive Mac. Cosmetic changes are very little, with the dreaded skeuomorphism (the ‘art’ of designing digital GUI’s to look like real-world objects, and the reason for Scott Forstall’s departure from Apple) present in the Calendar app completely abolished. Also worth mentioning are the addition of new built-in programs such as iBooks and Maps, and a new and improved Finder featuring tabs and system-wide tagging. Support for multiple displays has been enhanced, allowing access to the menu bar and dock on every display.
It’s easy to think of Mavericks as just another incremental update, but isn’t that what every OS update is? Look at the transition from Windows 7 to 8—I personally see it as a downgrade. What about your favourite Linux distribution? Ubuntu 12.10 looks about the same as 12.04. There isn’t a whole lot of room for innovation in the desktop, the ‘next big thing’ won’t come in the form of the desktop PC. Microsoft tried that and failed, but Apple understands and is taking a very cautious, well-paced approach.
Something’s in the Air. Again.
“People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware,” said Alan Kay. To that extent, Phil Schiller welcomed the audience and announced the new MacBook Air’s, shipping today. The nee 11” and 13” models incorporate Intel’s new fourth generation core processors, named ‘Haswell’. The ultra low voltage (ULV) processors found in the MacBook Air’s can deliver up to nine and 12 hours of battery life respectively. Standby time is still 30 days.
The new processors also include Intel’s new HD5000 integrated graphics, delivering an impressive 40 per cent performance boost over the last generation. These notebooks are also the first to feature 802.11ac wireless networking, also known as 5G Wi-Fi. This new standard has an expected throughput of one Gbps, in comparison with 300 Mbps of 802.11n.
To complement this, Apple also announced updated models of their popular Airport Extreme wireless router, and Time Capsule router/network HDD combination. The new design is in the shape of a vertically-oriented rectangular prism, displacing a lesser volume of space than the old, flat, square models. They both feature the new 802.11ac standard, with a “beamforming” antenna array for optimal coverage. The new Time Capsules can be purchased in 2TB and 3TB flavours.
“Can’t innovate any more, my ass”
The venerable Mac Pro, Apple’s one and only professional-grade desktop computer, has also received a mention. The Mac Pro has essentially carried the same design of the PowerMac G5 released almost a decade ago. It’s a heavy, intimidating tower of monolithic proportions that comes with a matching price tag. Whilst that hasn’t changed, the design has: “New Mac Pro looks like Darth Vader’s home computer. Hell, it looks like Vader’s evil trashcan,” tweets @ihavenomouth.
At first glance, the new compact cylindrical design is reminiscent of the attempts to create a small but powerful professional desktop in the form of the PowerMac G4 cube—a beautiful product that no-one bought. It too featured a revolutionary cooling system, limited upgrade possibilities, and a sleek, new design for its time. The new Mac Pro features the latest Intel Xeon processors, with configurations up to 12 cores. Every model ships with dual AMD FirePro graphics, capable of driving three 4K displays simultaneously, and ECC certified 1866MHz RAM (the fastest ever for a Mac Pro), PCIe flash storage for superfast reads and writes, and Wi-Fi as standard. Everything is cooled by the new “thermal core”, which replaces individual heatsinks for components into one, large, central cooling chamber with a single fan. This results in a considerable savings in space, and reduces noise by a noticeable amount.
I/O ports include six Thunderbolt 2 connectors, each a whopping 20 Gbps of bandwidth, four USB 3.0 ports, audio in/out, dual ethernet, and HDMI. With this new system, Apple has a clear target market set—creative professionals making a lot of money, or creative professionals whose companies pay for their computing needs.
A clean slate for a new beginning
Finally, Tim Cook handed the stage over to Craig Federighi to introduce the future of iOS. The mobile operating system loved by hundreds of millions of users is receiving its biggest update yet. Gone is the skeuomorphism of the Forstall days, and in place is an extremely clean, refined interface designed by Jony Ive and his team.
From the second the user hits the power button, they are presented with beautiful typography and an interface which feels alive. The subtle 3D effects add a layer of depth to the otherwise flat UI; utilising the gyroscope, the wallpaper shifts below the icons as if there were separate, physical layers—and that itself was a key design consideration.
“I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity, in clarity, in efficiency, true simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter… it’s about bringing order to complexity,” says Ive. iOS 7 rings true to these goals, and features a design which is coherent and consistent.
Layers are employed extensively to enforce hierarchy; the wallpaper, icons, apps, notification centre, and control centre all sit on a different “layer” of the overall UI. For example, the act of opening a folder triggers and animation which makes the user feel like they’re diving further into the layer of apps, rather than jumping to a different layer altogether. iOS 7 is evidently all about the small details—those that bring great joy and delight to the user without shoving it in their face.
The camera and photo gallery have been reworked, and now display your images in ‘Moments’. It’s very similar to the new Google+ Photos page, which automatically groups images in albums based on date and location. The new camera interface features modes for Photo, Video, Square (a square-cropped frame), and Pano (the same panorama mode released with iOS 6). The old aperture shutter effect has been removed, making the app feel snappier and more “focussed”.
Messages essentially remains the same, with a flat redesign of every UI component. The glossy bubbles have been flattened, with a subtle blue or green gradient depending on whether the text was sent via iMessage or SMS. It’s also worth mentioning the keyboard, which has lost its grey background with raised keys. Now, the colour of the keyboard changes depending on the task, and translucency is applied subtly to “give a sense of context”. It’s the same keyboard iOS users know and love, so no complaints there.
Flat redesigns are also evident in the remaining built-in apps, giving the entire OS a very uniform and consistent feel. Newsstand is now graced with its own separate app interface, abolishing the annoying folder design. And yes, Newsstand can now be placed in a folder. The iTunes and App Stores retain the same functionality with a new design, the latter finally allowing users to add paid apps to a wish list—a feature that has been desired since 2008!
The new Safari was born as the result of a relationship between Internet Explorer for Windows Phone, and Chrome for mobile. Apple has taken many design cues from both these browsers, and merged them together with a splash of white paint. The URL bar and controls look like Explorer, while the tabs interface is heavily inspired from Google’s browser.
All in all, the WWDC 2013 keynote was yet another fantastic event. Some users will be pleased, others, disappointed. Apple has announced some great products, maybe not as revolutionary as the Mac, iPhone, or iPad, but still keeping with their tradition of putting users first.
It’s interesting to see where the company is headed, especially at a time when they’re carrying such heavy criticism for not innovating. Who knows? Maybe there is a light at the end of the aluminum and glass tunnel.