Dear Friends,
Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference was this week, and as usual, the focus was on the software. The glue that holds Apple together is the tight integration of their innovative hardware, vanguard, groundbreaking software and access to content. WWDC is the showcase for the software part of this 3-legged stool. And Apple did not disappoint! Tim Cook and his team showed a preview of Mac OS X 10.10, called Yosemite and iOS 8 (I wonder why we do not have cute names for iOS versions…?).
Perhaps the most significant announcement for the gathered developers was that Apple introduced Swift, a new programming language that has been 4 years in the making at Apple and should make writing apps for OS X and iOS 8 faster and easier.
As a developer, I have access to the beta versions of this software and I am the official Small Dog guinea pig. I will be able to report over the next several weeks on my experiences. If you sign up at Apple’s website, you could be a part of the public beta program that will be coming this summer. Suffice it to say, at this point, the first releases of the software are very buggy and Apple has work to do. On the other hand, the new features that I have have been checking out are very cool.
It is this software and Apple’s ecosystem that will continue to make the Mac and iPhone/iPad the hardware platforms of choice and continue to have Samsung, Google and Microsoft scrambling to try to keep up with Apple as they sprint to the future.
I was hoping to go back to the improved OS X Mail client (something I moved away from in Mavericks) but that is not quite ready. Fortunately, my latest favorite third party email client, Airmail, seems to work great with Yosemite.
Kali and Stephanie will go into details on some of the new technologies you will see in the fall, but I want to call out a couple that I think are significant. The first is that Apple has opened up their Touch ID fingerprint sensor to developers. While your fingerprint data remains extremely secure in the Apple A7 chip in what Apple calls the “secure enclave,” Apple will allow app developers to use Touch ID for verification. This is a vital part of Apple’s continued entry into the electronic payment space. It is huge.
The other two areas are the Smart Home initiative which will establish standards for home automation hardware that your iPhone or iPad can control, and the HealthKit. With Smart Home’s location sensitivity, your iPhone knows you are home, so with the right gear, it can turn on the lights, turn up the heat, open the door and even turn on the TV for you just by walking in the room. Very sci-fi!
The HealthKit is cool and will be the portal for other smart hardware and sensors. The Health App is installed with iOS 8 and has a bunch of categories ready to use such as Basal Calories, Blood Alcohol, Blood Sugar, Blood Pressure, Body Mass, etc. and some that need more explanation like “number of times fallen,” Body Heat Flux, Sleep Analysis, etc. I am sure we will be hearing more about this!
Dads & Grads continues for a little bit, so this week’s Kibbles & Bytes special is a new MacBook Pro 13-inch Retina with 2.4GHz i5 processor 4GB of RAM and 128GB storage. Our Dads & Grads special takes $100 off with AppleCare so AppleCare is included and that qualifies you for the free Hammerhead carrying case, too.
But Kibbles & Bytes readers are special, so I am going to sweeten the pot a bit here by including a 1TB Seagate Backup Plus hard drive (because we want you to always have backups and plenty of storage), an Apple external SuperDrive, and a large ViewSonic 27-inch display.
So — you get the new MacBook Pro, AppleCare, Hammerhead case, Seagate 1TB drive, Apple SuperDrive, and ViewSonic display all for only $1859.99! And, we will ship it to you for only $4.99 (and don’t forget the free small dogs with each order)!