MacMost Now 876: Apple Announces OS X 10.9, iOS 7, New Mac Pro, iTunes Radio

At the Worldwide Developers Conference Apple announced new versions of both OS X and iOS. They also launched new MacBook Air laptops and Airport base stations. A new Mac Pro was shown with a whole new design. A new streaming music service called iTunes Radio was also announced. See some of the new features of the operating systems.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost Now. On today's episode let's take a look at all the announcements today from the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.
This morning Apple's CEO Tim Cook talked to six thousand Apple developers in San Francisco and he told them about the new version of Mac OS X 10, iOS 7, and some new hardware. So let's start off talking about new hardware.
Available today are new versions of the MacBook Air with new faster processors. These extend battery life significantly. We're talking about nine and twelve hour battery life for the 11" and 13" versions of the MacBook Air. 
Also we've got new Airport Extreme and Time Capsule base stations. These are completely different form factor. A lot smaller and they work with the latest 80211 AC standard.
But perhaps what got developers most excited was an announcement of a new Mac Pro machine. This is going to feature a completely new design and some fantastic specs with new processor, graphic chips, and Thunderbolt 2. This isn't out today but it is promised for later this year and this is going to be the machine that Apple will manufacture in the United States.
Apple announced the next version of Mac OS X 10.9 and they are going to get away from the cat names and for the next ten years they are going to go with place names in California starting with a famous surf spot called Mavericks. It looks like Mavericks is indeed going to be a new flatter design getting rid of some of those physical elements like the look of Calendar and Notes and going with a very flat design.
There is going to be some new features like in the Finder for instance there will be Finder tabs. In a window there will be tagging. There will be better use of multiple monitors with things like Mission Control and Spaces working in each individual monitor rather than across all of them at once.
Also two major new apps have been announced. One is one that a lot of people have hoped for which is iBooks for Mac. So you will be able to access all the iBooks you have bought for the iPad and iPhone on your Mac and read them there. It looks like you will have full functionality with iBooks textbooks as well.
The other app is a Maps app which makes sense since there is a Maps app for iOS there is going to be one for the Mac and there will be some compatibility between them. You will be able to view directions on your Mac and then send it to your iPhone for instance.
What is really exciting about Maps on the Mac isn't the app itself so much as the STK. This means that third party developers can incorporate Maps technology into their third party apps very easily. They already do this for the iPhone, they have been doing this for a long time but the ability to do that on the Mac will mean some really interesting apps coming out that use the Maps.
So when are we going to see Mavericks. Well, for developers it's coming out today and for the general public we will see it later this Fall. So pretty quick. It used to be that we would get these things announced and it would be more than a year before everybody gets a new operating system. Now they are just promising it in months.
To go along with a flatter look for Mavericks we also have a much flatter and completely redesigned look for iOS 7.
iOS 7 is going to have a whole bunch of new features as well. You can see here what some of the screens now look like. They are very different than how they looked previously. They have kind of evolved over time but this is a big leap in another direction. 
So one big new feature of iOS 7 is going to be something called Control Center which we sort of had before but it was just a strip at the bottom that you had to kind of swipe through to access different controls. Now there are going to be more controls and they are going to be available there in this one screen that you can call up at anytime.
Another big new feature is going to be AirDrop for iOS. This has been rumored and it basically means that you can send files, usually photos, from one iOS device to another in basically the same room. But the cool thing is you don't have to be on the same network at all. So you can be in a room with several friends. Nobody is even on a WiFi network and you will be able to see them and send them a photo just because they are near you because the phones will communicate directly with each other instead of with a WiFi base station or a cellular network.
Siri has some new functionality including new voices that sound a lot more humanlike and also integration with services like Twitter and Wikipedia. Also it looks interesting there is going to be some integration with Bing which is going to be talked about a lot in blogs I am sure as Apple moves further away from Goggle.
Apple is also working on some more car integration with lots of manufacturers signing on to not only have the iPhone sync with the car, you will be able to use things like Siri through it, but actually have information from the iPhone screen show up on the car's screen as well.
There are tons of other features that were mentioned. Some quickly flashed on the screen and lots we will be hearing about in the coming months. Three that I want to mention really quickly.
One is FaceTime audio calling. So you will be able to actually use FaceTime just for audio and you can kind of cutout your cell phone carrier completely and not use your minutes to talk to other iPhone users.
Another is the ability to block numbers for phone messages and FaceTime. Something iPhone users have wanted for a long time. To be able to block somebody.
The third is anti-theft ability to stop somebody from stealing your phone, wiping it, and then reactivating it as a new phone. Supposedly they will need your password in order to do that even if they wiped the phone. That should make it very difficult for thieves to justify stealing an iPhone because they shouldn't be able to use it for anything after that.
So as with Mac OS X, iOS 7 is going to be available today for developers and then it will be available in the Fall for everybody.
Another big thing that crosses over both the Mac and iOS side is the announcement of iTunes Radio. So iTunes Radio looks to be a direct competitor to Pandora which is basically streaming radio based on something you give it, like a song name or an artist name, and it just plays songs that are like that. You can thumbs up and thumbs down the songs. So pretty much just like Pandora. It is going to be tied into iTunes so you can purchase songs that you like. Also it looks like it is going to be tied into iTunes Match where people who aren't iTunes Match subscribers get the service free but with ads, and if you have an iTunes Match subscription then the ads go away. So kind of similar to Pandora's system.
The interesting thing is that it is going to work in iTunes on Mac and PC and then it will work in iOS as well and even work on Apple TV. So it is going to work across all those devices which will be kind of nice.
So that sums up today's announcements. Keep in mind this is the developers conference. That is why these announcements are centered on things that developers need to know. For instance Mac OS X and iOS which are available for developers now so they can test it with their apps but also develop new apps using those new features so when they come out for the general public later in the year there are apps that already take advantage of all this stuff.
That's why the focus is on development rather than on launching lots of new hardware products.
Hope you found this useful. Until next time this is Gary with MacMost Now.

Comments: 7 Responses to “MacMost Now 876: Apple Announces OS X 10.9, iOS 7, New Mac Pro, iTunes Radio”

Chris

12 years ago

Does Apple still believe there is a future for the market of albums and individual songs?

Rdio and Spotify are digging into this market, and Apple, like usual, will play catch-up years later.

But I guess if you still believe that being the owner of your media has value, then you will probably still hang around the iTunes store.

Gary Rosenzweig

I think both sides are moving toward a middle. Spotify is a little closer to "ownership" than Pandora. When I find an album I like in Spotify, I add it to a playlist and put that into a folder called "My Albums." I feel it is in my collection. Of course, that assumes I am always a Spotify subscriber.
iTunes has moved toward subscription with iTunes Match. I no longer worry about downloading and organizing my collection of files. I just have it all in the cloud.
The only advantage that iTunes has for me is the breadth of the music available. Lots of things I want aren't on Spotify, but are on iTunes. So I spend money on a Spotify subscription for 50% of my music, and purchase as-needed from iTunes. Some months I spend less on iTunes than Spotify (even $0) and some months more. But between them I have the music I want.

Squafdonoboles

I have over 2,000 vinyl albums, 752 45 RPMs, 126 78 RPMs and 75 cassette tapes all in mint condition. Never liked the lossy sound of digital music.

Blake

Well done Gary very informative...

Alexmike

The Apple community is a much better place to live as long as you live there too. Great information !!!

Johan-Martijn

Yep, the new Mac Pro will probably blow our socks off (literally?), though I do remember the fate of of the Cube... But design-wise it is absolutely stunning! Probably the price as well, when the whole thing is assembled in the US. But what the heck; if it ends up in Tate Modern or MOMA we could all grin and say, Yeah, and it still works!

These bells and whistles may appeal to the younger crowd but for those of us who are over 60 who remember using a Commodore 128, what we have now is well enough.

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MacMost Now 876: Apple Announces OS X 10.9, iOS 7, New Mac Pro, iTunes Radio

Comments: 7 Responses to “MacMost Now 876: Apple Announces OS X 10.9, iOS 7, New Mac Pro, iTunes Radio”

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