by Keith Richardson
Big news in June, indeed! First Microsoft released its updated preview of Windows 8. Polite applause from most quarters.
Next, Google piped up about their upgraded maps app, and did so not on an Android tablet but on an iPad—just to emphasize that no matter what Apple does, users will still be able to download Google Maps from the App Store. Some crabbed that the announcement seemed rushed, if not premature.
And then, on June 11, Apple bombarded us with announcements covering hardware, especially a new MacBook Pro to die for (really?), and further insight into Mountain Lion, its new OS for Macs, and iOS 6, the latest iteration for iPads and iPhones coming in autumn.
There are now two classes of MacBook Pro, neither of which sports Ethernet ports or optical drives (for CDs and DVDs). The extra thin, 15.4” “Retina Display” models boast an until-now-unheard-of-resolution-in-a-portable of 2880 by 1800 pixels, Core i7 processors with ‘Turbo Boost,’ an extremely fast Solid State Drive (no spinning hard drive), 8GB of Random Access Memory (upgradeable to 16GB for $200 more)—and price tags of CDN$2229 to CDN$2829 depending on which processor and SSD size one chooses. Note that, in order to create a thinner, lighter machine, Apple had to solder in the RAM; don’t expect to upgrade it in the future. For best protection, buy the 3-year Apple Care plan. And, if you really need one, Apple still sells an external optical drive for $79.
For most seniors, MBPs with Retina Display and SSDs are a lot more machine than we need. The thicker, heavier, lower resolution, cheaper MacBook Pros are still good upgraded machines. Apple offers two 13.3” and two 15.4” models. While 17 inchers are no longer made, you may still be able to find one in the inventory of your favourite Apple dealer this month.
Prices are considerably more affordable for the non-Retina versions but vary with configuration. The entry level 13.3” model lists at $1229 while the advanced 15” version will set one back $1000 more for a faster, more efficient processor, double the RAM and a bigger HD. You can order any of the MBPs with SSDs instead of Hard Drives if you’re prepared to spend $100 to $800 more!
Our advice on the new MacBook Pro: if you DON’T need portability, then an iMac is still the way to go: more machine for the money, and, honesty, it doesn’t take up any more room than an MBP, and you don’t need a wireless router, either! If you do only email, web surfing, photo management, memoir writing, and a few games, consider an iPad: while you will need a WiFi connection, the ‘Pad will satisfy virtually all your needs. (Incidentally, both Telus and Shaw, as standard service these days, can provide combined modem/ WiFi routers).
But if you really want that 15 inch display—excuse me while I wipe away the drool—your solution is between the lines above!
If you buy a new Mac this month, you’ll be entitled to a free upgrade to OS 10.8 (Mountain Lion). If you can wait a month, new Macs should have ML pre-installed after mid-August (also watch for specials on “old stock”). There are “over 200 new features” in ML (“new” from Lion, even newer for those upgrading from Snow Leopard (OS 10.6.8)). Check ’em out at www.apple.com/osx/whats-new/features.html
To upgrade an older iMac currently running Snow Leopard or Lion costs $19.99, and you’ll do the upgrade online via Apple’s App Store.
To see if your Mac can be upgraded to Mountain Lion, go to www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/. Although I am running Lion on my MacBook Pro bought in 2006, I will NOT be able to run Mountain Lion on it; I’d need the model that replaced my MBP in June 2007. Aarrgh.
We’ll have more to report on Mountain Lion and Windows 8 next month. As usual, the excitement is more about software than hardware! Check out Mountain Lion for yourself at apple.com/osx/ where you can click on Watch the OS X Mountain Lion video. Most exciting feature for seniors? We think it may be the (free) built in Dictation feature. Imagine almost no typing…. Or maybe Dictation is too good to be true. After all, it’s not a new technology: it’s built into Windows 7, and many of us have paid dearly for speech recognition software from Nuance (Dragon Dictate or for Windows, Dragon Naturally Speaking) only to find it less user friendly than we’d hoped…. See David Pogue’s article in Scientific American (December 2010)— www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=talk-to-the-machine
Windows 8 can be previewed at windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/release-preview or at lifehacker.com/5839777/whats-new-in-windows-8
By the way, a few numbers presented by Tim Cook at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference in June just in case you missed them :>)
The 2012 WWDC was Apple’s 23rd WWDC, making it the longest-running developer conference around.
The 2012 WWDC sold out in one hour and 43 minutes (compared with several days in 2011).
The 2012 WWDC hosts attendees from more than 60 countries.
There are 400 million (Apple) App Store accounts.
And there are about 650,000 apps in the App Store itself.
225,000 of those apps are designed specifically for iPad.
30 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store so far.
The App Store has generated five billion dollars in revenue for developers.
Soon, Apple will bring the App Store to 32 more countries, making it available in a grand total of 155 countries.
There are 66 million Mac users — triple the number Apple had just five years ago.
26 million copies of Lion have been shipped so far.
40 percent of OS X users are running Lion.
Mountain Lion will be the eighth major release of OS X.
Mountain Lion will feature more than 200 new features and 1,700 new APIs.
iCloud’s user base has grown to 125 million.
Through the end of March, Apple had sold 365 million iOS devices (iPads, iPhones).
More than 80 percent of iOS users are running iOS 5 (current OS due to be upgraded this fall).
There are currently 140 million iMessage users; they send around 1,000,000,000 iMessages per day.
iOS has delivered 1.5 trillion push notifications so far.
There are currently 130 million Game Centre accounts, from which there have been posted 5 billion scores.
More than 10 billion tweets have been sent from iOS 5.
About 47 percent of all photos posted to Twitter are sent from devices running iOS 5.
(Thanks to All Things Digital: allthingsd.com/20120612/apples-wwdc-keynote-by-the-numbers/)