MacRumors

While iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks drew most of the attention at this week's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, another one of Apple's introductions also generated a significant amount of discussion and controversy: redesigned AirPort Extreme and AirPort Time Capsule Wi-Fi base stations.

The new vertical designs take up considerably more volume than their predecessors, although footprints have been reduced to just 3.85 inches square. The new base stations include support for the latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard, and Apple has increased the number of antennas from three to six. The vertical design is intended to optimize range and signal strength by elevating the antennas, while also helping the base stations offer beamforming, which automatically finds 802.11ac devices and targets Wi-Fi signals toward those devices for optimum performance.

The teardown experts at iFixit have obtained one of the new AirPort Extreme units and have torn it apart to examine its internals. Given that the AirPort Extreme and AirPort Time Capsule have identical external designs, it should be no surprise that the AirPort Extreme contains space for a hard drive, although it appears that users will not be able to build their own Time Capsules by simply adding hard drives to their AirPort Extremes.

We free the top cover, only to find...3.5″ of empty space. While the AirPort Extreme doesn’t come equipped with storage, we dug up a standard 3.5″ SATA hard drive, just to test it out. Perfecto!...Except we can’t find any connectors where we’d plug in the hard drive, only empty spaces on the logic board—so chances of DIY AirPort Extreme to Time Capsule upgrades are slim.

Looking further, iFixit found the usual array of chips on the logic board, and was also able to trace the antenna cable up through the center of the device to a large plate at the top which serves to distribute the Wi-Fi signals. And overall, iFixit gives the AirPort Extreme a repairability score of 8 out of 10, citing standard Torx screws, a relative lack of glue, and modular components as positives and slightly difficult prying to open, difficult fan access, and breakage-prone connectors as negatives.

Apple's new AirPort Extreme is priced at $199, while the AirPort Time Capsule base stations incorporating hard drives for wireless backup storage are priced at $299 for 2 TB and $399 for 3 TB.

The Wrap reports that Ashton Kutcher's film "Jobs" will now debut on August 16 in the United States. The film, which premiered at the Sundance Music Festival in late January to mixed reviews, had been scheduled for an April 19 wide release, but was delayed.

Five Star Institute's Mark Hulme financed and produced the movie, which Open Road acquired in a service release deal prior to this year's Sundance Film Festival, where "Jobs" was the closing night film. Both sides decided to wait and create proper buzz before releasing "Jobs" rather than rush the movie out so soon after Sundance.

By opening after most summer blockbusters (Sony's "Elysium" is the last major title on Aug. 9) rather than mid-April, "Jobs" now stands a better chance to succeed and distinguish itself in the marketplace.

"Jobs", which stars Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs and Josh Gad as Steve Wozniak, is one of several Jobs-related films in the works or already released. Back in April, rumor site Funny or Die released a rather poorly received "iSteve" comedy film starring Justin Long, who had played the "Mac" character in Apple's long-running "Mac vs. PC" ad campaign.

A third film is being written by Aaron Sorkin and is the official adaptation of Jobs' authorized biography by Walter Isaacson. The film, which is still in the early stages of development, is planned to encompass three 30-minute scenes showing Jobs backstage just prior to the launches of the original Mac, NeXT, and the iPod.

The teardown experts at iFixit have just taken apart the new 13-inch Mid-2013 MacBook Air that was announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote yesterday, and while there aren't too many drastic changes in the internals there are a few differences that are worth noting.

The team found that the PCIe-based SSD module from Samsung is smaller than the previous model's Toshiba SATA module, which also means that the drive is not compatible with previous MacBook Air models. As noted earlier by AnandTech, the read/write speeds of the flash storage approach 800 MB/s.

Samsung SSD in Mid-2013 MacBook Air 

When Apple announced the Haswell-based MacBook Airs yesterday, perhaps the main highlight of the introduction was the "all-day" battery life topping out at 12 hours for the 13-inch model. And while the processors are a large part of the claimed all-day battery life, iFixit found that the new Airs also sport batteries with increased capacity driven by higher voltages: increasing from a 7.3 V, 6700 mAh power battery to a 7.6 V 7150 mAh power battery.

Other changes that the iFixit team found include a redesigned AirPort card that provides 802.11ac Wi-Fi and an expanded heat sink covering both the CPU and platform controller hub (PCH), although the PCH does not have any thermal compound applied to assist with transferring heat to the heat sink.

The 11-inch MacBook Air starts at $999 with a 128 GB hard drive, while the 13-inch MacBook Air starts at $1099 with a 128 GB hard drive. Both lines are available at Apple's Online Store and at the company's retail outlets.

At yesterday's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple unveiled its next generation operating system, OS X Mavericks. While Mavericks incorporates a number of significant changes like a redesigned Finder, a Safari overhaul, and new Compressed Memory settings, there are also a number of other, smaller changes that MacRumors forum readers and other sources have unearthed.

AppNap Settings - AppNap, which is designed to conserve battery by sending apps into a hibernation mode, can be disabled on a per app basis by developers.

New Activity Monitor - The Activity Monitor has been redesigned, offering new charts and graphs that show bytes/packets sent/received. It also includes a new energy tab that shows the energy impact of apps and includes a built-in system diagnostics tool.

Design Updates - Along with some app redesigns, Apple has removed much of the linen look that was introduced with Mountain Lion. Both Dashboard and the log-in screen have a new background. Launchpad folders also have a new translucent background, and Mavericks users will notice new fade in and fade out behaviors. Finally, Finder selections have new rounded corners and the dock has a new look.

Notification Center - The standard gray linen background has been removed from Notification Center, in favor of a plain, dark background. Notification Center also includes a new Messages sharing option, allowing users to send messages without opening the app. It functions similarly to current Facebook and Twitter integration.

Battery Status - The Battery dropdown menu has received a new category in Mavericks, displaying apps that are using a significant amount of power.

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While the most obvious change in iOS 7 is the look and feel of the user interface, Apple's engineers have packed the update with numerous changes both big and small.

Here are a selection of changes noticed by folks in the MacRumors Forums and elsewhere.

Cellular Data Tracking by App - In Settings / Cellular, users can track cellular data usage on a per-app basis. Apps can have their cellular data access disabled individually as well.

Update Apps Manually - The App Store now updates apps automatically, but for users who prefer to handle things themselves, automatic updates can be disabled via a slider in Settings / iTunes & App Stores.

How to Get to Spotlight - Spotlight is now accessible from the home screen by swiping down from the middle of the screen. Additionally, in Settings / General / Spotlight Search, users can manually turn search result categories on and off, as well as change the order results are presented in.

Live Clock Icon - The clock icon provides the correct time, including a live second hand. The weather app does not update -- it is always partly cloudy.

Newsstand Has Permanent Icon - Newsstand's icon remains the same regardless of what publications are inside it. The app itself works similarly, though the design is substantially different. Newsstand can now be put inside a folder as well.

App Permission for Microphone Access - Apps are now required to ask permission to access the microphone, similar to how apps currently ask to access location data or the camera.

Multitasking Switcher Works in Landscape - The app switcher works in landscape mode. Double-tap the home button to access. Control Center can also be used in landscape. Apps can also be manually quit by swiping up, and multiple apps can be closed at the same time.

Skips in iTunes Radio - iTunes Radio listeners get 6 skips per station, regardless of if they are on the ad-supported or ad-free versions of the service. It is believed that the skips reset each hour.

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Aside from the "all-day" battery life that comes alongside the upgrade to Intel's Haswell processors in the new MacBook Air, one of the other major improvements is the adoption of PCIe-based flash storage for much faster performance. The new PCIe flash will also be coming to Apple's radically redesigned Mac Pro later this year, and undoubtedly other Macs as well.

Available in capacities up to 512GB, this next-generation flash storage is up to 9x faster than a traditional 5400-rpm notebook hard drive. And it’s up to 45 percent faster than the flash storage in the previous-generation MacBook Air. So when you flip open MacBook Air, it’s ready to go right away. Even after a month in standby mode, the screen springs to life.

AnandTech has taken a closer look at flash storage performance and other benchmarks in the new MacBook Air, finding that read/write speeds are approaching 800 MB/s.

The drive in my system uses a Samsung controller, although I've heard that SanDisk will have a PCIe solution for Apple as well. A quick run through Quick Bench reveals peak sequential read/write performance of nearly 800MB/s.

This is a pretty big deal, as it is probably the first step towards PCIe storage in a mainstream consumer device that we've seen.

Beyond battery life and flash storage enhancements and the shift to Haswell, Apple's new MacBook Air brings several other enhancements as well, including faster 802.11ac Wi-Fi and dual microphones for reducing background noise.

One of the new iOS 7 features introduced by Craig Federighi at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote yesterday was Activation Lock, which aims to reduce the appeal of Apple devices to thieves by preventing stolen phones from being activated by new users.

There's one feature I want to talk about in a little more detail, which is Activation Lock. So, hundreds of millions of use Find My iPhone to find our phone when it's just lost in the couch, or maybe left at Starbucks, but also when it's been stolen. And now, with Activation Lock, if a thief tries to turn off Find My iPhone, or if they even wipe the device entirely, they will not be able to reactivate it because they don't know your iCloud user name and password. We think this is going to be a really powerful theft deterrent.

Apple's announcement comes just days before a summit scheduled by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón in which the officials are to meet with representatives of Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft to discuss issues related to mobile device theft. The officials have been pushing manufacturers and carriers to find ways to disable stolen devices in hopes of making them less desirable to thieves.

As noted by the Associated Press, Schneiderman and Gascón released a statement yesterday addressing Apple's activation lock and noting they are cautiously optimistic about the announcement while waiting to hear more details about how it works.

"We are appreciative of the gesture made by Apple to address smartphone theft. We reserve judgment on the activation lock feature until we can understand its actual functionality," the prosecutors said in a joint written statement. [...]

"We are hopeful that the cellphone industry will imbed persistent technology that is free to consumers that will make a phone inoperable once stolen, even if the device is off, the SIM card is removed or the phone is modified by a thief to avoid detection," the prosecutors said.

The summit is scheduled for this Thursday in New York City, and Apple will presumably share more information about Activation Lock with the officials at that time to help them understand its benefits and limitations.

At the end of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote yesterday, CEO Tim Cook introduced a new TV ad focusing on how Apple's products and services enrich lives. The ad's tagline is "Designed by Apple in California", leveraging the statement displayed on every Apple product to make an emotional connection with consumers over the care the company puts into its products.

This is it. This is what matters. The experience of a product. How will it make someone feel? Will it make life better? Does it deserve to exist? We spend a lot of time on a few great things, until every idea we touch enhances each life it touches. You may rarely look at it, but you'll always feel it...this is our signature, and it means everything.

Bloomberg now reports that the ad is part of new campaign being launched by Apple and longtime advertising partner TBWA\Chiat\Day. The company's "Photos Every Day" and "Music Every Day" ads that have been running over the past several months are also part of the campaign.

After years of product-oriented ads that have failed to stem market-share losses to devices built on Google Inc.’s Android software, the campaign will emphasize the quality and reliability of Apple’s ecosystem of products, apps and content, said the people, who asked not to be named because the plans aren’t public. The company previewed one of the ads yesterday. Others will follow in coming months, one of the people said.

According to the report's sources, the summer campaign will not focus on any single product, instead promoting the overall brand and seamless integration of the Apple ecosystem.

Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook reorganized Apple last year to encourage collaboration among units so that Macs, iPhones and iPads work better together, and the planned ads will focus on how the products can simplify users’ lives, hearkening back to Apple’s roots, the people said.

Apple has also launched a new "Designed by Apple" page on its website, offering a longer version of the text from the new commercial, as well as hosting the company's "Intention" video that opened yesterday's keynote.

Sources indicate that TBWA\Chiat\Day has become somewhat frustrated by a lack of clarity from Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller about what direction the company's ads should take. Pressure has reportedly increased following waning consumer enthusiasm for Apple's ads, such as the "Genius" ads that briefly aired last year. The new campaign seeks to refocus Apple's advertising efforts on the company and its connections with users, hopefully bringing a stronger and more cohesive message.

With the introduction of its new Haswell-based MacBook Air models yesterday, Apple revealed a strong emphasis on battery life, pushing the rated operating time from five hours to nine hours on the 11-inch model and from seven hours to 12 hours on the 13-inch model.

Even with the focus on battery life, Apple was also able to bring some minor performance improvements, as seen in Geekbench 2 benchmarking results highlighted by Primate Labs. Overall, the new MacBook Air models performed 3-8% better than their previous-generation counterparts.

With Haswell, Intel's focus was on reducing power usage. Rather than improve performance by 25%, Intel improved performance by 10% while consuming 25% less power.

Apple then went a step further. Apple reduced power usage even more by selecting processors with lower frequencies. In the low-end Air, the frequency has been reduced to 1.3 GHz from 1.7 GHz, while in the high-end Air, the frequency has been reduced to 1.7 GHz from 2.0 GHz.

The new MacBook Air is available now through Apple's online store, although the company recommends waiting until tomorrow before trying to obtain one at any of its retail stores. Pricing begins at $999 for the 11-inch models, with the 13-inch models starting at $1099.

Apple has announced the winners of its annual Apple Design Awards at WWDC, highlighting an array of apps from utilities to games on both iOS and the Mac. Apple's Design Awards were created to recognize apps that "raise the bar in design, technology, and innovation."

iPhone and iPad
- Yahoo! Weather
- Badland
- Letterpress
- Ridiculous Fishing
- SkyGamblers: Storm Raiders (Also Available on Mac)
- Evernote (Also Available on Mac)

iPad Only
- WWF Together
- Procreate

Mac Only
- Coda 2

This year's awards also include two apps from student developers. Finish is a streamlined task manager designed to help users organize to-dos into tasks, while mosaic.io allows users to display a photo mosaic across two or more iOS devices.

Student Winners
- Finish
- mosaic.io

Finally, Apple highlighted three other student created apps which student scholarship applicants designed to describe their experience and background for a chance to win tickets to WWDC. Winners included Louis Harboe, Bryan Keller, and Puck Meerbug.

2012 winners of the Apple Design Awards included Jetpack Joyride, Paper, and Sketch.

At this morning's WWDC keynote in San Francisco, Apple announced the latest iteration of OS X, Mavericks, which features a new tabbed finder, independent handling of multiple displays, tagging, and a Safari redesign.

As promised, Apple has begun offering developers beta access to Mavericks. The beta software can be downloaded from Apple’s developer site and devs can also access the new iOS 7 beta as well. According to Apple, Mavericks is its most power efficient operating system yet.

While developers can get immediate access to Mavericks, the general public will need to wait for the software’s official release, which is expected to take place in the fall.

At today's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Apple offered a sneak peek at the upcoming Mac Pro, which features a radical tubular redesign along with Intel Xeon processors and ECC memory.

After the keynote, WWDC attendees were able to get a closer look at the Mac Pro and Engadget posted a number of photos as well of a video of the new Mac Pro.

The new Mac Pro is a fraction of the size of Apple’s last Mac Pro, which was originally released in mid–2010 with a small update in 2012. Though it is significantly smaller, the Mac Pro will include features like a full-sized HDMI connector, four USB sockets, six Thunderbolt 2 ports and two gigabit Ethernet ports.

Apple has not given an exact release date for the Mac Pro, but it is expected to debut later this year and it will be the only current Apple product assembled solely in the United States. MacRumors has additional photos of the Mac Pro provided by a developer.

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Apple has released the first build of the iOS 7 Beta to developers, ahead of what is likely to be a long summer of beta testing.

The first build, number 11A4372q, was released for the iPhone 5, 4S and 4, along with the fifth-generation iPod Touch and new betas for the Apple TV and a beta of Find My iPhone. Apple also released the first build of the Xcode 5 Developer Preview.

Devices should be backed up using iTunes or through iCloud prior to installation of iOS 7, and following installation, can be restored through either process.

As usual, Apple warns developers that "pre-release versions of iOS are considered Apple Confidential Information and are subject to the terms of your iOS Developer Program License Agreement. Unauthorized distribution or disclosure of Apple Confidential Information is prohibited."

Download Links (Users must be a registered Apple developer to use these):

- iPhone 5 (Model A1428)
- iPhone 5 (Model A1429)
- iPhone 4S
- iPhone 4 (GSM Rev A)
- iPhone 4 (GSM)
- iPhone 4 (CDMA)
- iPod touch (5th generation)
- Mobile Device Installer Package

As part of its flurry of updates to Apple.com today, Apple's web team posted the new OS X Mavericks background image at 5120x2880. That resolution is identical to the one anticipated for a 27" Retina display for the iMac or a standalone Retina Thunderbolt Display.

The image, which was noticed by Twitter user Marvin Scharle, is similar to Retina-sized images that were included in Lion in 2011, long before Apple had released any Retina-equipped Macs publicly.

With Apple's announcement today that the new Mac Pro would include support for 4K video displays along with Thunderbolt 2, the company is clearly getting ready for larger Retina panels in the future.