At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Monday, we saw an interesting preview of their product pipeline led by new versions of the Mac Operating System (OS X Mavericks) and their Mobile Operating System (iOS) moving forward to iOS 7.
Without question, with no new mobile hardware being released in the form of new iPhones or iPads, the most anticipated new product of the day was certainly iOS 7 which saw Apple unveil its new “flat” design style conceived by Apple Design Guru Jony Ive.
iOS 7 will be supported on the iPhone 4, 4S and 5; iPad 2, 3 and 4th generation, iPad Mini and 5th generation or later iPod Touch with the developer SDK being immediately available for iPhone.
This new version of iOS features new icons, buttons and colour schemes as well as translucency within the keyboard and 3D motion when the device is moved.
Another great new feature of iOS 7 is the “Control Center” which can be accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the screen offering instant access to brightness, volume, Do not disturb, Bluetooth, airplane mode, and a flashlight app while also allowing control over AirPlay and music playback settings.
Users will also get a new version of Safari as a part of iOS 7 which will see an end to the eight-tab limit while AirDrop is the Apple file-sharing tool and iTunes Radio, Apple’s Spotify killer will be available free and supported by the iTunes Radio streaming-music service.
Apple Maps will also get a much needed update bringing 3D maps and the ability to get an instant estimated time of arrival for any address in a calendar event and more detailed information in the view cards.
Not to be outdone by new Apple software, the Apple Hardware side of the business delivered several new models in the MacBook Air line and the all-new Mac Pro computer with an all-new cylinder shape and featuring the Intel Xeon chip with up to 12 cores, a PCIe controller with 1.25Gbps reads and 1Gbps writes, Thunderbolt 2 with 20GBps throughput and support for as many as three 4K displays.
So all in all the WWDC 2013 Keynote gave us much to look forward to and appeared to cement a relationship with Microsoft while treating Google as a hostile competitor.
If you missed the Apple WWDC 2013 Keynote, Click Here to view the replay.