Apple WWDC 2013 Impression

The streaming keynote is up at Apple.

The keynote started with a video about design and feeling, emphasizing that unlike other companies, Apple doesn’t just churn out products after products, that each Apple products involved something more. Pretty cool message, considering how people and the tech “journalists” are whining about Apple not innovating anymore because they don’t ship products every other month like Samsung. Also, looks like each Apple videos now will end with “Designed by Apple in California,” a PR spin, considering that most of Apple products are made in China.

Just with any Apple keynotes, it started with Apple stores’ experience, how great the app store, etc. Tim Cook looked more comfortable, but it’s hard to match the Steve Jobs’ energy on past keynotes.

First is demo of anki drive, a car toy using robotics technology and controlled by iOS. There was an almost demo fail. Neat idea showing what kind of uses iDevices can be, but this is probably going to be just an expensive toy. I want to see more medical devices powered by iOS as promised a while back.

Next, the Mac. As expected, new OS X. Running out of cat names? OS X Sea Lion? Well,

 

WWDC 2013 Prediction

Just in case you don’t know, Apple is starting WWDC on Monday. Of course, anytime Apple does a keynote presentation, a ton of rumors are flying around in regards to what Apple is going to unveil. As usual, the analyst are predicting anything they can think of, from new Macs to new iPhone, iPads, etc.

Based on the posters going up at the event, obviously Apple is going to talk about iOS7 and a new OS X. WWDC is a developer conference, so these are expected. It’s just that sometimes Apple announced a product too, and the big one was the iPhone 3G, that people are expecting new products instead.

My prediction would be refreshed Mac lineup, in conjunction with intel releasing their new chips Haswell. I expect a refresh across all Macs, from the Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, retina Macbook Pro, and the iMac. I don’t think we will see a retina Macbook Air, although the 13″ retina Macbook Pro will be very interesting with the upgraded internals to Haswell. The Mac mini, maybe, but it seems that the mini is on a longer cycle than the rest of the Macs, so maybe not right away. The Mac Pro? Well, who knows. Apple has been saying they would do something, but never did. It’s the only Mac that doesn’t even support Thunderbolt. Apple is making their money on iOS devices now, so a low volume and premium priced Mac Pro may not be their priority.

Oh, and all those Macs will come with Mountain Lion. Apple cannot just release a new OS and ship it right off the bat. They have to give developers time to actually look at it. So I’m guessing after the hardware announcements, then we will see a preview of the next OS X.

Same thing with iOS. I don’t think we will see any new iDevices on this upcoming WWDC. Apple usually did another event beforehand to preview a new version of iOS and to let developers use the beta, but so far they have not done that. So this would be the announcement, and then, new iDevices will be out in September/October.

One more thing? Maybe new routers with 802.11AC. Oh, and there’s iRadio. Not sure if Apple would do this on WWDC, as music related stuff are usually announced in September, together with the new iDevices. I think the new version of OS X and iOS7 will be the bulk of the keynote. I think Apple would have quite a bit of new things with these two OSes that they need the time to talk about them. Besides, it is WWDC, for developers.

Okay, that’s my two cents. Not much “leaks” around, meaning that we will see actual new iDevices later this year. The refreshed Macs are expected with Haswell. As usual, it is always exciting to watch Apple’s performance in their keynotes. I’ll be following Engadget’s live blogging. I like gdgt’s but they are part of Engadget now. UPDATE: Also, looks like Apple is going to live stream the keynote.