Mountain Lion next month
There were many big announcements at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) at San Francisco that kicked off on Monday. As speculated, the company revamped its Mac line-up, introducing new specs to its Macbook Air and Macbook Pro. Apple also launched its new flagship of the notebook line, a Macbook Pro featuring Retina Display.
For Apple products users, the big update also came on the operating system front. Mac’s next generation operating system OS X Mountain Lion, the ninth update to the system, has been announced for release next month (July) at a cost of $19.99. It comes with 200 new features, including integrations with the Apple iOS such as the notifications center and iMessages. There is also a very strong Facebook integration that will enable Mac users to share anything they want on Facebook without having to log on to the Facebook application.
iOS 6 coming soon too
There was news for the iPhone and iPad users too at the WWDC, with Apple previewing its mobile operating system’s next iteration — the iOS6. The big announcement, as expected, was the introduction of a new Maps application that is set to rival Google Maps. Apple has been acquiring some maps technology companies over the years in a bid to make an in-house Maps application that would be the ‘go-to’ app for users of Apple mobile devices. The Maps application will also feature turn-by-turn voice navigation support and a flyover feature that will present photo-realistic 3D views of cities.
Apart from this, the iOS upgrade features improvements to Siri, the digital voice assistant, enhanced support for iCloud from within the Safari browser (which would enable users to store web pages for offline reading) and even a simple way to decline incoming calls.
Facebook App store
Almost everyone else has done it, and now Facebook too has joined the apps store club by launching its own App Center. Currently, the feature has been rolled out only in the U.S., and is expected to be launched in other parts of the world in the coming weeks. It looks almost similar to the apps markets of the other players — Apple iTunes and Google Play included — and will feature both mobile and web apps. Users will also be able to “send to mobile” apps they find on the Web store. Currently the Facebook App Center is said to feature 600 apps.
Compiled by KARTHIK SUBRAMANIAN
