WWDC 2012

Like many others, I followed the live coverage of WWDC. It’s interesting that, unlike previous events, some sites didn’t bother to do live coverage pages, and instead started tweeting about it. Most likely this has to do with their inability to handle the load properly: in previous years many of these sites had outages, and even now the same AppleInsider has switched to live coverage mode where you can’t see anything except the live feed, and at the top of the site there’s a huge red notice saying “During the live broadcast the page updates automatically” :)

Out of everything that was announced, here’s what I personally find interesting:

• The new MacBook Pro. Thinner, lighter, with a Retina display, and no DVD drive. Apparently, an SSD is optional. It goes on sale in a few days. Prices here will probably be astronomical for the first month or so, but by fall, it might be a good time for an upgrade. By the way, a new wave of app redesigns for high-resolution displays is coming, this time for desktops.
• macOS Mountain Lion. Here I’m mainly interested in tab syncing through iCloud, though you can do that with other tools too.
• iOS 6. I actually still haven’t updated to 5.1.1; it just seemed like such a minor update. In version 6, I’m interested in the improvements to the Notification Center and the Phone app, the “Do Not Disturb” feature, and, again, tab sync.

The rest of the new software features are less interesting from a user’s perspective and more from a technological one. This includes the new Maps, Passbook, and calls via Apple ID. I’ll probably write about that some other time, once more details are available.