The original iMac might make you feel old

Recognize these beasts?

If you do, this miiight make you feel old. Old and impressed though!

Today, TWENTY years ago, the first iMac was officially released. The ever-so-joyfully colored iMac G3.

The iMac has continued to exist in better and better (and greyer) forms over those twenty and has not only become waaaay more compact and sleek, but has also become waaaay more powerful.

Like you, right?

The computer was designed by Apple design chief Jony Ive, and was introduced by Steve Jobs in May 1998 as such:

“This is iMac. The whole thing is translucent. You can see into it. It’s so cool,” said Jobs when introducing the iMac G3.

It sold originally for $1299, and came equipped with a 233 – 700MHz PowerPC 750 G3 processor, 4GB of storage, a 15-inch CRT, a CD-ROM drive, and an ATI graphics card, all of which made the iMac a best seller. In fact, released just a year after Jobs returned to Apple, the iMac was thought to be behind 1999’s first quarter profits tripling.

Today, the iMac is available in 21.5 and 27-inch size options, with 4K and 5K Retina displays, Kaby Lake chips, AMD graphics, and super fast SSDs.
There is also an iMac Pro, for Apple’s more professional users with a Space Gray body, Xeon processors with up to 18 cores, Radeon Pro Vega graphics, and up to 4TB of SSD storage.

Happy Birthday, iMac. Although we may miss your large colorful body in our lives,  We appreciate you even more for what you’ve become.

Jony Ive to speak! (At Tech Fest)

Recently seemingly only appearing in Apple Videos as a voiceover, Apple’s Jony Ive will be making an appearance at next month’s Tech Fest in NYC put on by The New Yorker.

He is one of the ‘the innovators, dealmakers, and geniuses who are changing the world’ and will be appearing in conversation with The New Yorker’s David Remmick talking about “the shape of things to come,” focusing heavily on design.

Also appearing at the event is a bunch of other really impressive sounding people, such as Thomas Rando, Director of the Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Stanford University School of Medicine, Daniela Rus, Director of M.I.T’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Gary Kasparov, Chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, and Snap Chairman, Michael Lynton

Keep in mind, although there will be very many interesting things said at Tech Fest, tickets are $1500 clams. That being said, you can buy tickets here.

Jony Ive given prestigious award

Our beloved Jony Ive (Senior Vice President of Design at Apple Inc., duh)  was crowned King of San Francisco recently!

Not really. That crown might actually belong to Madison Bumgarner.

But Mr Ive did get honored by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art recently when they awarded him with the 2014 Bay Are Treasure Award, recognizing his as a creative individual who has influenced visual culture.

That’s a pretty rad award to get.

“Ive is our generation’s most innovative and influential figure in the field of industrial design—no other design mind has done more to transform the way we visualize and share information,” said SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra.  “SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast to establish a department of architecture and design, and we’re thrilled to celebrate Ive’s revolutionary achievements.”

Yay Jony! This is not the first prestigious award for him, amongst others he has also been made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in a ceremony held in 2012. A Bay Area Treasure and a Knight Commander of the British Empire?

Too Cool, dude. Too cool.

Here’s Mr. Ive discussing design process with Vanity Fair earlier in October in a rare public(ish) appearance.

Countdown to WWDC! What can you expect?

WWDC begins in 4 days!

Taking place in San Francisco’s Moscone building, Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference will kick off with a 2 hour keynote speech headed by Tim Cook at 10AM PST, Monday the 2nd of June!

Are you psyched?

So here’s the deal as far as we know it.

Apple hasn’t announced the content of a lot of their WWDC sessions and they have been given names such as: “To be announced” “No comment”,”Shhh, can’t tell you” “This one is sealed”, and “You’ll never guess”.

Click on these sessions and Apple says: “The title and description of this session will be revealed after Keynote on Monday June 2. Check back to view the updates schedule.”

Sneaky and exciting.

We have been told that we can expect updates to iOS and OSX. We can most likely expect at least a mention of Beats By Dre and the deal they have made with Apple, and probably a cameo by the good Dr Dre himself. We can expect Jony Ive in his loveliness explaining awesome things (via video), and Tim Cook excitedly talking about inspiration and the future of technology and Apple’s role in making your world a better place.

We suspect that it is likely that we may see new ways to make mobile payments, as well as an introduction to the much rumored ‘Healthbook’, built into the updated iOS with health measuring and reporting capabilities.

The announcement of the iPhone 6 ( more than one? Bigger screen? No more bezels? Made of unicorn’s tears?) and the iWatch ( will it ever come!?) are also possibilities that a lot of people are eagerly anticipating- both of which, particularly the iWatch, would need a fair amount of time for the developers to create apps for them before their release. A lot of people are, however, skeptical that either, especially the iWatch will be mentioned at WWDC.

The Financial Times has recently reported that Apple could be introducing a way for you to certain functions in your home with Apple Devices, perhaps  in combination with Apple TV. Functions that could be controlled from your iPhone or iPad could include lighting, security, temperature control  and connected appliances like television and sound. These would all be controlled centrally, incorporated into the iOS, instead of through 3rd party apps.

And then we have this, beautifully phrased from the Apple Sauce direct:

Ooooooh. Well we’re excited. Stay tuned folks, we’ll be bringing you all the news and mysteries unraveled direct from the great city of San Francisco as it happens!

Images courtesy of Apple. & Quickmeme

WWDC dates announced! Details here!

Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference dates have been announced!

This year the conference will run from June 2nd through to June 4th, and developers have had the opportunity to apply for random ticket selection up until today- a different approach to other years.

Here is the run down from Apple themselves:

So, what can we expect?

You should definitely expect to hear Tim Cook making announcements regarding the iPhone 6 and iOS 8 and outlining their release dates and specs. Apple TV will most likely be getting an upgrade, however an actual Apple TV will most likely not be making an appearance.

There is a chance an iWatch will be announced, although analysts and basically everyone in the tech world go back and forth on this one. We think there is a 72.5% chance, but we’re not betting the farm.

We’ll also get pretty video’s played at 9:42 am, inspirational speeches, and special appearances by Craig Federighi and Jony Ive!

Are you excited?? Cos WE ARE!

Images courtesy of Apple & Unitedcats

Apple Videos

Here are some videos from the most recent Apple Event featuring the new iPads, the Apple Magic, the wonderful Mr Ive, and Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston as the narrator on the “Pencil” TV ad.

Way to be hip and happening with current pop culture there Apple. Also, way to use music and fancy images to make us all goosebumpy.

Enjoy friends!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9gLqh8tmPA

Also enjoy this, posted on Aaron Paul’s instagram.

WWDC lowdown!

Alright guys, so yesterday was THE BIG DAY!

The four day annual world wide developers conference for Apple began yesterday morning, kicking off at the Mascone Centre in San Francisco at 10am.

As per usual, WWDC began with a perfectly orchestrated keynote speech given by Tim Cook, featuring a few other key Apple guys AND more importantly, featuring some new Apple software and hardware announcements and previews.

DOUBLE RAINBOW EXCITING!

For the first time, the keynote was broadcast live from the Apple website and on Apple TV.

The two hour address was, as expected, super stylishly presented, with multiple media presentations, some jokes, and a few fantastic and even surprising new Apple products and updates.

The top things you should know about that were announced today are:

– The new Mac Pro. Stellar, revolutionary and round.

– iOS 7, the biggest change to iOS since the iPhone came out.

– OS  X Mavericks – the new operating system named after a California beach break.

– New Macbook airs with super extended battery life.

– iTunes Radio – the much talked about radio product that actually sounds better than we expected!

Super double rainbow exciting, right!?

We’ll have even more from WWDC coming up this week!!

iOS 7

Yesterday we were given a preview of iOS 7, and apart from the fact that we only saw a teensy snippet of one of our personal favs and the man mainly responsible for iOS 7, Jony Ive, the new iOS announcement exceeded even our expectations. And we had high hopes!

Now, this system update will not change your life drastically, it will not do your job for you or make you a more beautiful person, but what it does is promise to enhance your life, with it’s combination of a pared down and simplified beauty and increased functionality.

This seventh system update is the biggest change to iOS since the iPhone came out with the user interface changing pretty drastically as well as the addition of a number of new features.

As was predicted ( or leaked in a timely manner by Apple), the new iOS has none of the skeumorphic, life like graphics or icons as seen in the previous versions.There is a whole new color palette, completely new icons and the overall impression is a much cleaner, flatter, brighter and simpler user interface.

There is a translucent feel to the screen, which gives depth to the phone, even down to the wallpaper, which you can now see behind app icons, and that moves intuitively in relation to the motion in your hands.The typography, also, has been redesigned to be bigger, spacier and cleaner.

Apple has said that this is the future of iOS, that as well as being the biggest change to iOS since the original iPhone, it is a new beginning.And, well, we haven’t tested it out yet, but we like the way it looks. We like the new features, and we like the direction Apple is going with it.

Here are some new features that make iOS 7 super, double rainbow exciting.

Control center
Swiping up from the bottom of the device, you can find the all-new control center. This innovation provides quick access to preferences and settings. You will find switches for wifi, Airplay, a flashlight, do not disturb, brightness, airplane mode, and quick music buttons.

Weather, Messages, Calendar

Messages and the Calendar app have both been cleaned up and simplified. The updated weather app has animation representing live weather, (the lightening looked particularly cool) with the ability to see more details such as humidity, and scrunch all your favorite places together to see not only the weather in each, but the time in world clock format.

Multitasking

Pressing the power button twice will now give previews of apps that are open, rather than the small app icons that we see right now on iOS 6.

The phone will intuitively learn which apps you use most often and at what time. Background processing will then provide updated content, ready and waiting for the time that you use them.

This also applies with apps that send push notifications- when that happens, the phone will start processing updates because it knows that you will more than likely be opening that app soon.

The phone will recognize and take advantage of power efficient times, such as when it is connected to Wi-Fi, to update apps.

Airdrop
This is a new function, sadly only available on the most recent devices ( iPhone 5, iPad etc).

Airdrop makes it super easy to share photos, videos, contacts and other stuff between friends with iPhones. Connecting via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, you can simply click the share button and choose the recipient from those around you.

You can send whatever you want ( from apps that support Airdrop) and the person receiving can choose to save the item- it will then be located in the appropriate app. Photos in iPhoto, etc.

Safari

Safari is updated with a new full screen look and smart search tab, one tap access to favorites and better parental controls.

You also have the ability to see and browse your tabs from other devices.

Also… and this is kind of a biggie… no more eight tab limit! Oh my god apple, why did that take so long, but thank you, thank you.

Tabs are also now organized differently- vertically in 3D instead of horizontally, with the ability to reorder the tabs. To get rid of one tab you just swipe it to the left.

Photos and camera

The camera app now includes 4 camera options- Normal, square cropped, video and panoramic. You also have the option of a number of live filters to apply to photos.

The photos app has a brilliant way of organizing your photos using time and location to bundle your photos into ‘moments’, which are photos from the same time and/or place. These ‘moments’ can then be organized into ‘collections’, which are groupings of moments using that same organizational information.

You can also view your whole collection via year, see what locations you were in for each year, and scrub to find a specific photo.

Siri

Siri now has not one but two new voices, a more human like female and male voice!

A new interface, with sound waves to represent Siri when he/she’s processing, French and German capabilities and a whole whack load of higher intelligence makes Siri exciting again.

The results can now include photos within the app and has the ability to answer more questions more intelligently, with Twitter, Wikipedia and web search results from Bing integrated into the app. Interesting choice with Bing, but we’ll ride with it for a while…

Siri itself has also become more integrated into your device, and can perform functions such as turning the brightness down, turning Bluetooth on etc.

New app store
For starters, the new app store looks way better. Secondly, all of your apps will now update automatically, (down with those little red numbers!) and thirdly, we now have some new search options.

You will be able to search for apps based on your location, or or an event or festival you’re at. You can also now search for and find apps using age range, which is designed with kids in mind.

Itunes Radio
We have a whole other section on iTunes Radio, go here to read it ☺

Ios in the car
iOS will soon be integrated into your car by having your device display through the in-car monitors. A bunch of cars will begin to be integrated with Siri, Maps, messages and more in 2014.

The introduction to this was pretty broad, however there will be more details to come. The car manufactuors who will be including iOS in at least one of their models include Honda, Mercedes- Benz, Nissan, Volvo, Kia, Acura, Ferrari, Hyundai, Infiniti, Jaguar, Opel, and Chevrolet.

OK, so those are the big features. There are also a ton of different, smaller features in iOS 7, like the updated notification centre that can now be accessed from the lock screen, and synced across all of your devices, and the activation lock to try to prevent theft ( no-one can use your iphone unless they know your iCloud username & password.)

We think that iOS 7 is really pretty cool, especially considering that we’ll be getting at least a few more cool features in the hardware component around the same time (Fall this year). What do you guys think?

iOS 7 will be available to the public in the Fall. Demos for iOS 7 are available on Apple’s site- here.

First image courtesy of techradar.com, all others courtesy of Apple.com

More iOS speculation

More speculation yesterday about Apple’s upcoming iOS 7!

So far, we all ( think we) know that the system update will be flatter and less skeuomorphic than the iOS we all know.

This means that some such features originating under Steve Jobs, such as the Notes app looking like a real notepad and other real world aesthetic replication will be gone under the leadership of Mr Jony Ive who took over in October last year. Gone also will be the shine and gloss of app icons.

Now, according to website 9to5mac, as well as being flatter, iOS 7 will have a monochromatic design and according to their sources, each app will have a white back with a splash of color individually assigned to that app.

Jony Ive is said to have made his mark throughout the whole of the updated version of iOS 7, which is due to be announced and previewed at the keynote address of WWDC on June 10th in San Francisco.

Looking forward to it Jony!

image courtesy of Redmondpie.com