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Apple unveils Keychain for iCloud, confirms 300 million iCloud accounts
Apple today at WWDC announced some changes to iCloud, including a new iWork for iCloud and a keychain feature that'll sync your logins across all your iOS devices. The keychain is a cloud-connected password manager that ties into Safari on the desktop and Safari on the iPad and iPhone. It'll save passwords as well as credit card information and more. Tim Cook also confirmed that iCloud now has 300 million accounts, making it the fastest-growing cloud service ever (even faster than Facebook). More than 300 million iOS owners use iTunes in the cloud and these folks have downloaded their content 35 billion times. Cook also confirmed that 240 million users are on Game Center and blew us away with stats on iMessages that confirm the service has transferred 800 billion iMessages and sent 740 trillion push notifications.
Apple announces Safari upgrades as part of OS X Mavericks
Apple has announced an updated version of Safari at WWDC. The browser update adds a new home page featuring a Top Sites feature that stores all of your bookmarks and regularly read sites. Using a new bookmark bar, you can easily add and remove links to your Top Sites selection. They've also introduced a "Reading List" feature to the home page that allows you to quickly jump from story to story on the sites you read the most. Safari also now has Twitter and LinkedIn integration that allows you to monitor and open links shared in those services within the browser using another sidebar. Enhancements have also been made under the hood of the program, including improved Javascript support. In addition, Safari now uses far less memory and is better at power management than other browsers. To quote Craig Federighi "When you compare [Safari's energy efficiency] to Firefox, it's actually kind of sad."
Apple brings Maps to OS X in Mavericks
Maps in OS X was expected, but is very welcome. After a rough beginning on iOS, Apple Maps has been progressing, and now with Maps running on OS X, we'll see some powerful integration between the Mac and iOS. Maps on a Mac looks smooth and impressive in 3D. Even better, there's a big effort to integrate maps with Calendar, and sync mapping data between all your Apple devices. If you set up an appointment, you'll get the ability to map it, and when scheduling your day, the travel time and traffic will be taken into account. Also, Apple says you can send directions from your iPhone to your desktop, or back the other way. Sent directions will show up as notifications, so it is easy to start on your journey without a lot of fiddling around. These new features will come on OS X Mavericks, and will be a part of the upcoming iOS 7.
Apple announces iBooks for OS X
Apple has announced that iBooks for OS X will be included as part of OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Users will be able to access all 1.8 million iBooks on the Mac. The iBooks for OS X interface will be a two-page layout by default and be totally flat, which means there will be no skeuomorphic pages. Users will also be able to add notes and highlights, with the notes being usable as study cards. These notes, highlights, bookmarks and more will be synced with your iOS device. iBooks for OS X will also sync your reading progress, so you can stop reading on your Mac and pick up right where you left off on your iOS device. You can read more about iBooks for OS X on Apple's Mavericks preview web page.
Mac OS X Mavericks to integrate iOS notifications
If you have a Mac and use an iOS device, Apple just announced an enjoyable feature to go along with the new version of OS X, also known as Mavericks: the ability to push iOS notifications directly to your Mac, regardless of whether or not Safari is open. The alerts show up as a banner in the top right corner of your display, much the same as any other Mac-related banner; additionally, any missed notifications will pop up in your lock screen any time you wake up your device. %Gallery-190864% Follow all of our WWDC 2013 coverage at our event hub.
Apple introduces OS X Mavericks at WWDC 2013
Apple has run out of cat names for its new OS, so it's gone to a California theme. The next OS X will be... ta da... OS X Mavericks. Apple claims the new release, OS X 10.9, will have deep improvements in battery life and finder tabs. Apple is also adding tagging, which will enhance search greatly and will be welcomed by power users. In an on-stage demo by VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi, you could see the power of tabs and tagging. Tags can appear in the finder sidebar, making this a very useful addition to OS X. Multiple displays also got a lot of applause from the crowd. Spaces can be shown on any display, and an AirPlay-connected TV can act as a fully independent display. In a demo of the new feature, you could see the ease of moving assets around the screens, and it was impressive seeing an HDTV added as an extra display via an Apple TV. Apple has also put a lot of thought into battery life and other advanced technologies. Mavericks is claimed to "intelligently align" interrupts, so CPUs can get up to a 72 percent boost in performance. Apple has also highlighted "Compressed Memory," a method of improving memory use on the fly. That's just a bit of what is coming in OS X Mavericks. It looks to be a big leap over the current offerings, and seems focused on ease of use and performance. A beta version of OS X Mavericks will be available today for developers, while the final version will debut this fall. You can read more about OS X Mavericks on Apple's website.
Mac OS X Mavericks promises better multi-display options, can use Apple TV as extra monitor
We're in the midst of being shown new OS X Mavericks features here at WWDC, and one of those sounds especially interesting for those craving a bigger work area: for those already using a two-display setup, the dock and menu bar will now appear on either panel as your activity moves between them, and each display can be panned independently. What's more, if you have an HDTV hooked up to an Apple TV box, you'll be able to use that as a wireless third display in exactly the same way. Follow all of our WWDC 2013 coverage at our event hub.
Nexus One blasts off to 28,000 feet, looks slightly worse for wear (video)
Your average satellite these days is roughly on par in terms of size with your average living room, give or take, and so naturally the cost of lofting one into orbit is, if you'll pardon the phrase, sky high. Despite that, many offer less processing power a mobile processor like Snapdragon. The obvious solution? Chuck a smartphone into orbit and revel in the savings. That's the idea behind the PhoneSat, helped along by the Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation, which strapped a Nexus One into a rocket with 1,000lbs of thrust and threw it up to 28,000 feet to see how it copes with the immense stress of riding into space. Of course, 28,000 feet isn't quite space (NASA would have run out of astronaut badges long ago), but the G-forces and temperature cycles felt during this short trip are comparable to a one-way voyage to orbit. The first such launch didn't go so well, with the rocket suffering a ballistic return -- coming in like a projectile without a 'chute. The shattered remains of that are shown above. But, the second flight was rather more successful, and the video results can be seen below -- captured by the phone itself. Update: Matt Reyes, one of the folks behind the launch, wrote in to let us know of another article here on the project, including more details on the history of the team and the various hardware beyond the N1 payload. Matt, along with project members Chris Boshuizen and Will Marshall, are NASA engineers, helped by Ryan Hickman at Google, which probably helps to explain how they were able to get from the photo above to the successful launch below in just one iteration. [Photo credit: Steve Jurvetson]
Fans react to 3D Mavericks / Clippers matchup
Under normal circumstances, we tend to give 3D a hard time around here, but it's hard to deny the strides the technology has made of late in an attempt to move beyond being a gimmick and into a desirable product. It seems that hundreds of NBA fans that packed the Magnolia Theater just days ago were quite impressed with the first regular season matchup to be aired in 3D. Those in attendance were able to catch a commercial-free 3D broadcast of the Dallas Mavericks versus the LA Clippers courtesy of two Sony 4K projectors and a set of gaudy glasses. Unfortunately, we're not sure if the one-time event will blossom into something more, but feel free to tap the read link for more opinions and a couple more snapshots.[Via AboutProjectors]
FSN Southwest preps first NBA regular season 3D broadcast
It's good to see those Brits aren't the only ones getting 3D HD sports action this season, as PACE is back and hooking its Fusion 3D tech to an NBA game yet again. For the first time during the regular season (after last year's All-Star Game and a Finals game) -- and unsurprisingly with a connection to Engadget HD friend Mark Cuban (where's our invite man?) -- the March 25 game between the Dallas Mavericks and L.A. Clippers can be viewed live at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, or across town in the Magnolia Theatre with Sony's SXRD 3D projection system beamed onto an 18x42 foot screen for VIPs and 100 lucky fans who can win entry on mavs.com. Now if they could just find a way to simulate buying tickets for way over face value from eBay or StubHub in the theatre, it would be just like going to a real game.
NBA Live 07 to be launch title, Mavericks win Finals
If you're a basketball aficionado you may be interested to know that NBA Live 07 is slated to be one of EA's lineups for the PS3 launch. By "one of" I'm of course alluding to their tendency to include an army of sports games for November and the Sony console as well. You may also be interested in the fact that they've predicted who will take the cake in the NBA Finals coming up via their NBA Live 07 simulation (though we don't know for which console). Hope this doesn't ruin anything for you, but it's Dallas Mavericks over the Heat.Sorry Miami fans.
