October 22nd Apple Event Rundown: iPad Air, Mavericks

So, how did you like today’s Apple Event? Didn’t really see anything special today, mostly evolutionary updates. Though we did get mostly good news for Apple fans looking for better performance from their favourite products. If you missed out on today’s event, we’ve got the Sparks/Coles notes version of what’s new and exciting.

OS X Mavericks is Free, pretty nice

We’ll get the biggest announcement out of the way right now. Just like with iOS, Apple is now offering Mac OS X Mavericks as a free upgrade. You heard me right, free. Nada, nothing. Which is fantastic news for all Apple fans. Especially folks such as my self who have neglected to update their now aging copy of Snow Leopard. We’ve got no excuses now.

One new feature of Mavericks Apple showed off was the ability to respond to messages in the notification screen instead of having to fire up iMessages every time. Bringing the best features of iOS to conventional platforms is something we definitely like to see.

Via Apple

Apple promises that Mavericks will be more efficient too. Better memory management can make 4GB feel like 6GB, while overall tweaks improve battery life by over an hour. At least, that’s what they say. We’ll be testing this out ourselves on our greying 2008 Unibody MacBook.

Both iLife and iWork have also been updated for Mavericks.

For a complete rundown, check out Apple’s own page on their latest update.

Garbage Can Mac Pro

Time to take out the trash, with your new Mac Pro. The stout, round workstation computer will be coming out in December. This thing’s a pretty big deal since it’s the first Mac in years to be assembled domestically.

Via Apple

The Mac Pro comes stock with a quad-core 3.7ghz Intel Xeon processor, 12GB of RAM, dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs (Crossfire?), and a 256GB SSD. This promises to be quite the work station computer, especially if you do a lot of video or photo editing on Mac.

Haswell MacBook Pros

We were expecting Apple to upgrade the entire MacBook Line to Intel’s new Haswell architecture. Which is exactly what we got.  It’s more a spec bump than anything else.

The 13” model will start at $1299 and feature a 2.5ghz dual-core  i5, Intel Iris graphics, 4GB of RAM (ugh, why not eight), and a 128GB SSD. The 15” model starts at $1999 and comes with a 2.0ghz quad core i7, GeForce GT 750M graphics, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. Both models feature a Thunderbolt 2 port, PCI-express SSDs, and 802.11ac WiFi.

Apple has also quietly axed the 13” non-retina MacBook Pro. Though it’s still available for $999 while supplies last.

iPad Air

It seems the iPad simply gets thinner and lighter as the years go by. The 10” model has been renamed the iPad Air. It’s the thinnest one yet, and weights in at just one point. The guts are the same as the iPhone 5S. You’ll find the A7 dual core chip and M7 co-processor. Presumably it has the same 2GB of RAM.

via Apple

Aside from that, not much has really changed this time around. It doesn’t have TouchID, still comes in black or white, and costs the same. Apple is still hanging on to the 16GB model for dear life. It also still lacks expandable storage, which has become a deal breaker for me. It starts at $499 and comes in sizes from 16-128GB. You can get your hands on the iPad Air starting November 1st.

Retina iPad Mini

This is another one of those things we expected to happen. Apple has bumped the iPad Mini’s display up to Retina quality. The 7” tablet has the same 2048×1536 resolution as its bigger brother, as well as the same A7 chip powering it. The Mini also now includes a front facing camera and improved WiFi. The price remains at $399 for the 16GB models and comes in sizes up to 128GB. It will also be available on November 1st.

Via Apple

That’s it for new hardware. If you want to watch the entire keynote event, you can find it here. I’ll hopefully be posting a review of Mavericks once I get around to installing it on my laptop.

Source: Apple