WWDC 2012: Biggest Macbook Refresh; New Pro, Air Ships Today
Apple fanatics and developers from over 60 countries packed the Moscone Center in San Francisco for the WWDC 2012, which kicked off in San Francisco at 10.a.m. PT today.
The highly anticipated hardware refresh was announced by Phil Schiller after Apple CEO Tim Cook's keynote speech. Cook said in his keynote that over 30 billion apps have been downloaded to date. "It's an economy itself.. it operates in 120 countries. And we're adding an additional 32,″ he mused.
The specs for the new Macbook Air are amazing. It will be even thinner than the previous model, packed with the latest Ivy Bridge 3rd Generation Core processors with up to 2 GHz dual-core i7. The notebook can be boosted to 8GB of memory, and will come with 60% faster Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M GPU with up to 1GB of Memory - and 512 GB SSD. It will be available in two sizes - 11inch and 13inch, and include a 720p Facetime camera.
It will come with a 2.0 USB Port and 3.0 USB Port.
Prices for the 11-inch will start at $999 for 1.7 GHz dualcore i5 with 4GB RAM and Intel HD Graphics 4000, PLUS 64GB SSD.
The 13-inch will start from $1199 with 1.8GHz dual-core i5, 4GB RAM, and 128GB SSD.
On top of that, the specs for the new Macbook Pro was announced. The notebook will indeed come with retina display, becoming the highest resolution notebook in the world. The display will have four times the number of pixels than the regular Pro. Schiller compared the screen to the regular Pro.
The new Pro will weigh only 4.46 pounds, and come with a smaller size. It will be 1/4 thinner than the current Pro. The latest Macbook Pro will be the lightest ever and come packed with powerful Ivy Bridge processors.
They will be available with up to 2.7 GHz Quadcore i7, up to 8GB 1600MHz memory, NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M GPU with up to 1 GB of memory.
The 15-inch will have up to 2.6GHz quadcore Core i7, up to 16GB of RAM, and Kepler GT 650M graphics
The computers will come with the fastest RAM, fastest graphics, and will be built around flash storage - up to 768 GB!
It will also have up to 30 days of stand-by time and come with two high speed 3.0 USB ports.
The 13-inch will start at $1199 with 4GB Ram, 2.5 GHz dual-core i5. It is expected to have a 7hr battery.
The 15-inch will also come with the super quadcore processors and have the same price tag as the previous model. It will also have a 7 hour battery life.
Schiller boasted about the batter power inside the Pros. "It's dominated by a battery, it takes tremendous work on battery life to drive the hardware."
"Without doubt, it's the best computer we've ever built," he said.
