Apple Shows Off New iOS 7, Mac OS X At WWDC 607
Nerval's Lobster writes "Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off his company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco with a short video emphasizing the importance of design, particularly that which evokes some sort of emotional connection such as love or delight. But that sentimental bit aside, this WWDC was all business: huge numbers of developers attend this annual event, packing sessions designed to help give their apps an edge in Apple's crowded online marketplace (some 50 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store, Cook told the audience during his keynote). Apple also uses its WWDC to unveil new products or services, attracting sizable interest from the tech press.
This time around, the company introduced Mac OS X 'Mavericks,' which includes 'Finder Tabs' (which allow the user to deploy multiple tabs within a Finder window—great for organization, in theory) and document tags (for easier searching). Macs will now support multiple displays, including HDTVs, with the ability to tweak elements between screens; Apple claims the operating system will also interact with the CPU in a more efficient manner.
On top of that, Apple rolled out some new hardware: an upgraded MacBook Air with faster graphics, better battery life (9 hours for the 11-inch edition, while the 13-inch version can draw 12 hours' worth of power). Apple has decided to jump into the cloud-productivity space with iWork for iCloud, which makes the company's iWork portfolio (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) browser-based; this is a clear response to Office 365 and Google Docs.
And finally, the executives onstage turned back to iOS, which (according to Apple) powers some 600 million devices around the world. This version involves more than a few tweaks: from a redesigned 'Slide to Unlock' at the bottom of the screen, to the bottom-up control panel that slides over the home-screen, to the 'flat' (as predicted) icons and an interface that adjusts as the phone is tilted, this is a total redesign. As a software designer, Ive is clearly a huge fan of basic shapes—circles and squares— and layering translucent elements atop one another."
This time around, the company introduced Mac OS X 'Mavericks,' which includes 'Finder Tabs' (which allow the user to deploy multiple tabs within a Finder window—great for organization, in theory) and document tags (for easier searching). Macs will now support multiple displays, including HDTVs, with the ability to tweak elements between screens; Apple claims the operating system will also interact with the CPU in a more efficient manner.
On top of that, Apple rolled out some new hardware: an upgraded MacBook Air with faster graphics, better battery life (9 hours for the 11-inch edition, while the 13-inch version can draw 12 hours' worth of power). Apple has decided to jump into the cloud-productivity space with iWork for iCloud, which makes the company's iWork portfolio (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) browser-based; this is a clear response to Office 365 and Google Docs.
And finally, the executives onstage turned back to iOS, which (according to Apple) powers some 600 million devices around the world. This version involves more than a few tweaks: from a redesigned 'Slide to Unlock' at the bottom of the screen, to the bottom-up control panel that slides over the home-screen, to the 'flat' (as predicted) icons and an interface that adjusts as the phone is tilted, this is a total redesign. As a software designer, Ive is clearly a huge fan of basic shapes—circles and squares— and layering translucent elements atop one another."
Re:tabs in the Finder window? (Score:4, Informative)
Windows Explorer for Mac OS X.
Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? (Score:5, Informative)
If Apple's (rather painfully self-satisfied) slideshow thing [apple.com] is anything to go by, there isn't a single standardized part in the entire computer, with the exception of the RAM, and possibly the CPU, depending on whether they went socketed or BGA.
The two GPU cards are probably PCIe electrically; but the shape certainly isn't compatible, the CPU card is its own animal(one that packs a whole four RAM slots, that's Serious Workstation material right there...), and PCIe-attached SSDs in the mini-PCIe form factor are relatively odd ducks(most that are that size and shape are mSATA, and PCIe direct-attached cards are usually rectangular PCIe 8x cards.
Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? (Score:5, Informative)
From the imagery posted on Apple's website, it looks like a Mac Mini++.
Apple: Mac Pro [apple.com]
Cooling (Score:5, Informative)
I mean really... why?
Now that Apple.com is updated, you can find out why - it's a cylinder because the GPUs and CPU are mounted around a central cooling core made from a single piece of aluminum with a single massive fan on top.
Re:The TB bus does not have a lot of bandwidth (Score:5, Informative)
The TB bus does not have a lot of bandwidth it's only pci-e X4 and I hope that each port or has it's own X4 link or at least one X4 link for 2 ports.
Thunderbolt 2 is 20Gb/s. There are 6 ports and 3 Thunderbolt controllers (each controller handles a full 20Gb/s across 2 ports).
FWIW, PCIe 1.0 x8 is only 16Gb/s and x4 is only 8Gb/s.
The bandwidth here is basically faster than 6 x8 slots.
The Post-PC world is a little shaky (Score:4, Informative)
Looking at all the work Apple has done on that Mac Pro and Macbook Air, it seems they aren't putting all their eggs in the mobile basket any more.
Good to see some common sense. Post-PC is marketing hype. The PC will be standard technology for at least the next 100 years.
Re:The TB bus does not have a lot of bandwidth (Score:5, Informative)
"Thunderbolt 2 is 20Gb/s"
Remember that 'Thunderbolt' speed numbers include both the PCIe and the Displayport data channels(and, to the best of my knowledge, the capacity allocation between the video and data channels is fixed, even if only one is being used). By aggregating the previous 4 10Gb channels into two 20Gb channels, they allowed full Displayport 1.2 resolution and expect to bottleneck external storage devices slightly less; but the PCIe side still looks like PCIe 2.0 x4. Not slow; but substantially slower than x8 and x16 PCIe 2.0 and slower still than PCIe 3.
Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The TB bus does not have a lot of bandwidth (Score:5, Informative)
And PCIe 1.0 is well and truly obsolete. PCIe 3.0 is shipping already and we have devices targeted at workstations maxing out PCIe 2.0 x8 links handily. Never mind the latency increases imposed by Thunderbolt.
TB has its place, but as the exclusive means of expansion in a system it is lacking.
Re:The TB bus does not have a lot of bandwidth (Score:4, Informative)
missing the point how are the TB chips linked to the chip set? and does each controller have it's own X4 link?
The TB 2.0 chipsets use a x4 PCIe 2.0 link per controller [anandtech.com]. Guess that means that each pair of two TB ports shares the bandwidth of a controller (6 ports / 3 controllers / 12 PCIe 2.0 lanes total.
Probably not fast enough for external graphics that would outperform the (extremely fast) internal graphics solution but still orders of magnitude more bandwidth than any current external consumer or prosumer storage solution.
Re:Cooling (Score:4, Informative)
Except that if you look inside, the actual system is triangular in shape. It's basically a cylinder because someone thought that would look cool.
Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? (Score:5, Informative)
If designed right (and it sounds like a custom-designed 6" impeller fan) 1 big high-quality fan would be a lot more reliable than 4-5 small, crappy OEM fans found in most PCs. It's not like Apple has any reason to cut costs here, this thing is going to cost a mint and have an absurd profit margin, anyway.
Re:How stupid is a Mac Pro Cylinder? (Score:3, Informative)
If designed right (and it sounds like a custom-designed 6" impeller fan) 1 big high-quality fan would be a lot more reliable than 4-5 small, crappy OEM fans found in most PCs.
Sounds like they took some design cues from SilverStone. They have been using their 180mm "Air Penetrator" fans in a wide variety of applications, and it works pretty well. The FT02 has three of them on the bottom, blowing upward, over a motherboard rotated 90 degrees. (The ports stick out the top and there is a secondary cover to hide the wire routing out a hole in the back.) Even when they're turned to low speed, it has some of the best thermals of any case, and quite reasonable noise levels. The SilverStone Temjin TJ08-E uses a single 180mm intake fan and is one of the best Micro-ATX cases currently available. So the design of using one large, good-quality intake fan blowing upward over components certainly sounds like it's viable – similar designs have worked well on the PC side of things.