Apple Announces New MacBook Airs with Haswell Processors and 'All-Day' Battery Life

At today's WWDC keynote in San Francisco, California, Apple announced new 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Airs, which have been designed with battery life in mind. As expected, the new Airs use Haswell processors that offer enhanced performance and significantly improved battery life, but feature no cosmetic changes. 

With the new Haswell processors, The 11" MacBook Air will now have nine hours of battery life while the 13" MacBook Air will have a stunning 12 hours of battery life.

In addition to Haswell processors, the new MacBooks feature 802.11ac compatibility, with support for the "Gigabit WiFi" 802.11ac specification. Gigabit WiFi offers speeds up to three times as fast as existing 802.11n wireless networks. 

The 11" MacBook Air starts at $999 with a 128GB hard drive and the 13" MacBook Air with a 128GB hard drive starts at $1099. Apple's MacBook Airs are available today from Apple's Online Store and at retail locations.

Source: Mac Rumours

Apple Unveils iOS 7 with Major Design Overhaul, Multitasking and Control Center

At today's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Apple unveiled the latest iteration of its mobile operating system. As expected, iOS 7 features a major design overhaul that removes many of the skeuomorphic elements found in previous versions of iOS, instead favoring a clean and gloss-less "flat" look. 

"It's the biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone," said Tim Cook. "It has a whole new structure that is coherent and that is applied across the entire system," said Jony Ive in a video showing off the new operating system. "We've considered the tiniest details like refining the typography to much larger ones like redesigning all the icons..."

Read the full story here. Source: Mac Rumours

Apple Tease with New Mac Pro Coming

Today, Apple Inc gave us details of their new Mac Pro coming later this year. The radical new redesign sees many new features including a cylindrical form-factor, next gen Xeon processors, memory with 60GBps bandwidth and all PCIe flash based storage. In addition to these new performance winners, we also get some little design touches, like the built in handle and a back panel that lights up "tron style" to show us the ports. No pricing yet, with later this year not coming soon enough. Full details here.

Wave-Themed OS X Banner Goes Up at Moscone West for WWDC 2013

9to5Mac has posted a new photograph showing a wave-themed banner with an X in the middle, similar to the iOS 7 banner that was revealed earlier today. The spartan and minimalistic banners are significant change from the style used in previous years, particularly the OS X banner below.

The X appears to use the Helvetica Neue Ultra Light font, an extremely thin variant of Helvetica and the same font as the iOS 7 banner.

Source: Mac Rumours 

Google CEO on NSA spy program: We're definitely not involved

Google CEO Larry Page has flatly denied involvement in a secret spy program operated by the National Security Agency, calling into question recent news reports that alleged the company gave spooks a backdoor into its servers.

Google's statement was also signed by David Drummond, the company's top legal officer, who oversees the entire legal department.

PRISM gives the federal government surreptitious access to customer information held by Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Google, Facebook, and other Internet companies, according to reports from the Washington Post and The Guardian newspapers yesterday.

The program, code-named PRISM, allegedly allows NSA analysts to peruse exabytes of companies' confidential user data by typing in search terms. PRISM reports have been used in 1,477 items in President Obama's daily briefing last year, according to an internal presentation to the NSA's Signals Intelligence Directorate that the newspapers obtained.

Those allegations about companies' participation in PRISM remain unconfirmed, and thecompanies listed in the supposed presentation have denied any participation. Today's statement from Page, Google's co-founder, is the most detailed to date -- and, crucially, comes from someone who would be in a position to know or investigate rather than an unnamed corporate spokesman who would not be...

Read the full story here. Source: CNET

The 6 most underrated games for Android: May 2013 edition

 

There are a lot of fun games on the Google Play Store, but it's difficult to find a game that isn't overshadowed by a game that has millions of downloads and high ratings. So just like last month, we've gone into the depths of the Google Play Store searching for some of the best underrated games, and we're back to show you what we've found. As usual, if you'd rather watch the video, just head down to the bottom of the article...

Read the full story here. Source: Android Authority  

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8-inch and 10-inch announced

Samsung has revealed its latest tablets in the Galaxy Tab lineup: the dual-core Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8-inch and Tab 3 10.1-inch slates, with Jelly Bean and the latest features from the Samsung Galaxy S4.

The Tab 3 series is a pair of new slates with dual-core processors and high definition screens, both packing the latest version of Android, 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

The 8-inch Tab 3 arrives to take on the likes of the Google Nexus 7 and iPad mini. It packs a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor under the 8-inch, 1,280x800-pixel high-definition screen.

Samsung says the 8-inch model is designed to be held in one hand, with physical keys on the bottom. There's a 5-megapixel camera on the back, and a video-calling camera in the front.

The 10-inch model boasts a 1.6GHz dual-core processor, but for some reason only a 3-megapixel camera.

The tablets also include features first seen on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smart phone, including the clever S Translator lingo decoder, and WatchOn, which turns your tablet into a TV remote control.

Samsung promises a 3G, 4G, and vanilla Wi-Fi version of both Tab 3 series tablets. They hits shops "later this year", with exact details of release dates and prices to follow.

Source: CNET

Apple Planning 'Something Really Different' for New Mac Pro

The new Mac Pro model, expected later this year, is "something really different" according to a video professional who says he spoke with the Mac Pro product manager.

Writing on the RedUser.net forum, Andrew Baird says he spoke to Mac Pro project manager Douglas Brooks on the phone after emailing CEO Tim Cook with his concerns about the lack of a new professional tower from Apple over the past few years.

Baird told MacRumors that the call didn't include any specific details about when the new machine would be released, nor its specifications -- however, he was assured several times that the new Mac Pro would be worth the wait. Brooks told him that the machine would be released later this year.

Somewhat corroborating Baird's phone call, Lou Borella -- administrator of the 'We Want a New Macpro' Facebook group -- wrote on the page that he heard the new professional Mac would be "heavily reliant on Thunderbolt" with "no internal expandability", and would have support for dual-GPU's and no FireWire or optical drive.

In mid-2012, after a minor update to the Mac Pro was announced at WWDC, Tim Cook confirmed to a fan that new Mac Pros were coming in 2013, which was later reiterated by an Apple spokesman. It has also been rumored that the new Mac Pro would be the first Apple computer in years to be 'Made in the USA'

Source: Mac Rumours

Pricing Leak Suggests MacBook Air Release at WWDC, Retina MacBook Pro Update Shipping Later?

 

 9to5Mac has received information from a source that suggests the MacBook Air updates that are expected at WWDC will ship soon after the keynote, perhaps with updated AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule wireless base stations that support a new, faster wireless standard.

These leaks line up with a report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who said in April that the MacBook Air update expected at WWDC would ship very soon after the event, while the Retina MacBook Pro would ship later due to production bottlenecks on the advanced displays.

The site also says it received pricing for three new accessories that could be new AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule models. If accurate, these would likely support the new 802.11ac-wireless standard.

As we wrote in our WWDC rumor roundup earlier today, the notebook updates are likely to be the hardware highlight of WWDC, with new MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro models announced.

Expected upgrades include a shift to Haswell processors, a possible slimmer design for the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, a new full HD (2.0-megapixel) FaceTime camera on the Retina models, and a dual-microphone system on the MacBook Air. 

Source: Mac Rumours

Apple Releases OS X 10.8.4 with Safari 6.0.5, iMessage Bug Fix

After a beta period spanning several weeks, Apple today released the final version of OS X 10.8.4. The update, which can be accessed via the Mac App Store, includes several notable bug fixes including a fix for an issue that caused iMessages to display out of order along with Microsoft Exchange and Calendar compatibility improvements. 

 - Compatibility improvements when connecting to certain enterprise Wi-Fi networks 

- Microsoft Exchange compatibility improvements in Calendar 

- A fix for an issue that prevented FaceTime calls to non-U.S. phone numbers 

- A fix for an issue that may prevent scheduled sleep after using Boot Camp 

- Improves VoiceOver compatibility with text in PDF documents 

- Includes Safari 6.0.5, which improves stability for some websites with chat features and games 

- A fix for an issue that may cause iMessages to display out of order in Messages 

- Resolves an issue in which Calendars Birthdays may appear incorrectly in certain time zones 

- A fix for an issue that may prevent the desktop background picture from being preserved after restart 

- A fix for an issue that may prevent documents from being saved to a server using SMB 

- Addresses an issue that may prevent certain files from opening after copied to a volume named “Home" 

- A fix for an issue that may prevent changes to files made over NFS from displaying 

- Resolves an issue saving files to an Xsan volume from certain applications 

- Improves Active Directory log-in performance, especially for cached accounts or when using a .local domain 

- Improves OpenDirectory data replication 

- Improves 802.1X compatibility with ActiveDirectory networks 

- Improves compatibility when using mobile accounts

The update also includes Safari 6.0.5, which improves stability for websites with chat features and games. 

After eight different beta builds, Apple closed its 10.8.4 Beta Testing Program last Friday. During the beta, Apple had asked users to focus on Wi-Fi, Graphics Drivers, and Safari. The public version of OS X 10.8.4 is the same 12E55 build that was seeded to developers on May 24. 

- OS X Mountain Lion Update v10.8.3 (342.33 MB) 
- OS X Mountain Lion Update v10.8.3 (Combo) (809.98 MB) 

Alongside OS X 10.8.4, Apple has also released security updates for OS X Lion and Snow Leopard: 

- Security Update 2013-002 (Lion) (57.69 MB) 
- Security Update 2013-002 Server (Lion) (105.61 MB) 

- Security Update 2013-002 (Snow Leopard) (329.85 MB) 
- Security Update 2013-002 Server (Snow Leopard) (404.83 MB)

Source: Mac Rumours

Amazon supersizing its food delivery business?

Never mind the books, movies, music, computer gear, and whatever else you might buy from Amazon. How about a nice banana? The e-tail giant is seriously considering a big move into the grocery-delivery business, according to a report.

The company is set to expand its Seattle-only AmazonFresh service to Los Angeles as early as this week and to the San Francisco Bay Area later this year -- with launches in 20 other urban areas in the U.S. and abroad contingent on the success of the LA and SF businesses -- Reuters reports, citing two unnamed sources.

It's true that fresh food doesn't stay fresh for long, and that the banana you ordered three paragraphs ago can also get easily bruised in transit. Those facts make an online grocery business a risky prospect (just ask Web 1.0 casualty Webvan). But Amazon is hoping to make its profit from other items ordered at the same time as groceries, according to another Reuters source, supermarket analyst and consultant Bill Bishop, who told the news service that Amazon is eyeing as many as 40 markets.

"Amazon has been testing this for years and now it's time for them to harvest what they've learned by expanding outside Seattle," Bishop is quoted as saying.

Reuters also notes that, aside from the threat posed to supermarkets and other food purveyors by a giant like Amazon taking a bite out of the market, the e-tailer's grocery effort could ultimately touch FedEx, UPS, and other package pushers: Amazon will deliver the edibles with its own vans, and success on the grocery front could lead to a broad network of company delivery trucks, which could handle nonfood items as well, Reuters says.

We've contacted Amazon for comment and will update this post with any info we get from the company.

Source: CNET

Apple: We wanted a 'level playing field' for publishers

NEW YORK -- Apple argued that it had fought for equality among publishers big and small as it provided a rare glimpse into its negotiating tactics during the second day of the government's e-book price-fixing trial.

Kevin Saul, one of the key attorneys tasked with making deals for Apple's music, TV, books, and similar businesses, faced more grilling on Tuesday from U.S. Department of Justice attorney Mark Ryan over whether Apple knew and cared about the pricing of its competitors -- a key factor in the case, which accuses Apple of conspiring to control e-book pricing.

"We wanted to treat everybody on a level playing field such that big publishers would be treated the same as small publishers," Saul argued. "It was all about Apple and our ability to launch a bookstore that would be the best on the planet."

During the round of questioning in which he repeatedly answered, "I don't know" or "I don't recall," Saul portrayed Apple as "indifferent" to pricing deals publishers reached with other retailers. He also testified that negotiations with publishers were "difficult" and "challenging" and that many initially rejected some of Apple's "must-have" provisions, including a so-called "most-favored nation" clause that would allow Apple to meet the lower pricing of e-books by any other retailer...

Read the full story here. Source: CNET