Today, Steve Jobs, among others at Apple unveiled three software-focused products today at 10:00 Pacific. Here is a recap of these new products.
Mac OS X Lion
Mac OS X Lion was actually unveiled on October 20th, 2010, but today they decided to add more features and do a more in-depth demo. The OS will be released during July this year to the Mac App Store for only $29 (yay!). Here are some of the new features of Apple’s OS.
-Multitouch Gestures, which makes the operating system more like iOS
-Fullscreen apps, self explanatory
-Mission Control, a combination of Dashboard, Spaces and Expose
-AirDrop, a peer to peer file sharing service for Mac users
-App Store, self explanatory
-Mail, improvements which makes it a lot like it’s iPad counterpart
-Launchpad, an iOS-like view of all your applications
-Auto Save and Versions, automatically saves all your work
-Resume, resumes all applications and processes from the previous session
iOS 5
iOS 5 was the most anticipated part of this event. Apple wowed the crowd with features such as wireless syncing and new notifications, they even released a beta version for developers (currently downloading on my computer). Apple didn’t give us a specific date, but the OS will be released to the general public this Fall. Here are the main new features of this OS.
-Notification Center, an Android-like way to view your notifications
-iMessage, Apple’s new messaging system that will definitely kill RIM’s Blackberry
-Wireless syncing, syncs and backs up your iOS device to iTunes automagically
-Newstand, a digital hub for all your newspapers and magazines
-Reminders, a to-do list and note taking app
-Twitter, a system-wide integration with the popular social networking site, Twitter
-Camera, adds camera button to lockscreen among other improvements
-Photos, adds photo editing to Photos application
-Safari, adds Safari Reader, Reading list and Tabbed Browsing to the browser
-Mail, adds rich-text editing and other new features
-Calendar, adds year-view
-Game Center, adds the ability to add profile pictures and a lot more features
-Multitasking gestures for iPad, self-explanatory
-AirPlay Mirroring for iPad 2, mirrors your iPad 2′s screen to any compatible AirPlay device.
iCloud
This may be one of the most exciting parts of this event, Apple killed MobileMe for these new features. iCloud is Apple’s free cloud services offering. iCloud is currently a public beta and will be released this Fall. Here are the greatest features of Apple’s service.
-iTunes in the Cloud, automagically pushes every new iTunes purchase to everyone of your registered devices, and you can also download your old song purchases.
-iTunes Match, when you have songs you didn’t download on iTunes, iTunes Match will match those songs with those on iTunes so you can use those songs in the cloud, too. iTunes Match costs $25 a year.
-Photo Stream, when you take a photo on one device, it automatically appears on all your other devices.
-Apps, books, documents and backup, iCloud makes sure all your devices have the same apps, the same books and thesame documents. iCloud also backs up your information every day once it is connected to a power source.
-Mail, contacts and calendars, the same services as MobileMe
Apple’s new announcements all look amazing. Which ones will you be using?
