“Can’t innovate anymore, my ass!”

That line, uttered on-stage by Apple’s Phil Schiller, perfectly sums up the company’s WWDC 2013 Keynote presentation. I’m sure you’ve seen the news by now: a radically redesigned iOS 7, the updated OS X Mavericks, a sleek new Mac Pro, and an upgraded MacBook Air. So rather than regurgitate every nitty gritty detail, I figured I’d give you, our loyal readers, a short recap with my personal thoughts on today’s announcements.

OS X Mavericks

Apple kicked off the Keynote by unveiling the next iteration of Mac OS X, the first with a California-themed name, “Mavericks”. Mavericks is a fairly major update for OS X, though it doesn’t feature a brand new UI like iOS 7. Still, Mavericks continues Apple’s trend of bringing popular iOS features to the Mac, and introduces some new features for both platforms.

Firstly, Apple Maps and iBooks are both coming to Mac OS X with Mavericks. We’ve been waiting on these for a while, and they’ll make great additions to OS X. However, I’m curious if anyone would actually read a book on their laptop, and… well… we all know the downsides of Apple Maps. Probably the coolest feature of Apple Maps is the ability to look up directions on your computer and push them to your iPhone - I can see this being pretty useful.

Despite the lack of a UI redesign, Mavericks does shed some of the skeuomorphic elements from certain OS X apps. Calendar has returned to its silver roots, and we suspect Contacts, Notes, Reminders, and Game Center will follow suit. I say good riddance.

I’m pretty excited about the power user features of Mavericks.Finder Tabs will make it a lot easier to rearrange and organize files, actionable and cross-device-syncing Notifications are a welcomed addition, as is improved multi-display support. Overall a solid update for OS X, which we’ll get our hands on in the Fall.

Hardware - the Mac Pro finally gets some attention!

John Siracusa and Marco Arment can sleep happy tonight, as Apple finally unveiled the next generation Mac Pro! It’s one eight the size of the old cheese grater model, though at the expense of expandability. While nerds will be disappointed at the lack of extra harddrive bays and RAM slots, the new Mac Pro looks to be quite a feat of engineering! It’s a small black cylinder with a large array of ports on the back, including Thunderbolt 2.0. The new Mac Pro is likely financially out of reach for most of us, but it’s great to see Apple acknowledging the pro user market. They need to keep pushing forward, and the Mac Pro is the machine they can use to do that.

The MacBook Air also got a fairly major update. The new 11-inch and 13-inch models now pack new, faster Intel Haswell processors with integrated HD Graphics 5000. The new Air’s also have much improved battery life - 9hrs for the 11-inch, and 12hrs for the 13-inch. Nice, incremental updates, as expected. I want one.

iOS 7 - the star of the show!

Of course the big focus of the event was iOS 7, which has been completely redesigned under the direction of Sir Jony Ive. Rumours just before the event hinted that the iOS 7 redesign would be “polarizing”, and I’d say that panned out. The new iOS is extremely flat, featuring thin fonts, translucency, and a black and white colour scheme throughout. The stock app icons have all been redesigned, as have all of the stock apps. Apple has screenshots of everything posted on their website.

Personally, I thought iOS was long overdue for a dramatic redesign, but this is way further than I thought Apple would go! I’ve already installed the beta on my phone, and most of it looks and works great. I think the redesign is extremely beautiful, and the only thing I don’t like are the new icons. Many of them look extremely half-assed, like they were thrown together in MS Paint or something. I hope Jony Ive and his team spend the next few months before launch refining some of these icons, making them look a little more professional than they do now.

Aside from the redesign, iOS 7 includes some much-needed and highly requested usability tweaks and features. There’s a new Control Center, invoked with a swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Control Center houses toggles (finally!) for Airplane mode, WiFi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb, and Rotation Lock. You’ll also find a brightness slider, music controls, a flashlight button, and shortcuts to alarms, calculator, and camera here. It’s a great addition, and one of my favourite new features!

I can’t touch on every new aspect of iOS 7 here - check out Apple’s website for an in-depth look. I will say that, overall, I am thrilled with iOS 7. Apple is back. They’re innovating again, and I’m confident that Jony Ive won’t let their software design stagnate as it had. I’m thrilled to see Apple embracing some new UI paradigms and gestures, and I can’t wait to see how iOS 7 evolves as it nears launch this Fall.

Wrap Up

I came away from today’s Keynote seriously impressed. Today my faith in Apple was restored, and they finally introduced something that excited me. If you’re an Apple fan, I’m sure you feel the same. Today marked yet another shift in direction for Apple, one that will steer them for years to come. I’m stoked to see more.

Tweet