WWDC takeaways:
Retina is the Future - It’s back to the Mac for hardware. iOS users, spoiled by their high DPI screens, now have an option to keep the same experience on the Mac. Slowly, Apple is eating away at the chances for the competition to win on specs. Of course, Apple listed the specs of the new screen in the keynote, but Retina is one of those instances where reaching a certain level is good enough. If another laptop maker comes out with a higher res screen, it simply does not matter anymore.
Mountain Lion - iCloud was a bigger bite than Apple was willing to admit. Just getting started with mail, contacts, calendar, and photo stream was plenty. Throw in Siri and there’s a lot going on and a lot that can go wrong. With Mountain Lion, the message is clear: iCloud is not going away (Why would anyone want it to?). Now more than ever, users of iOS will be connected more closely to their Macs. Especially with things like Safari cloud tabs, your workspace will follow you seamlessly. The device with which you view the content matters less and less. Whether it’s iPad, iPhone, or Mac, your work is right where you left it.
iOS 6 - To be honest, this category was a bit of a letdown. The Siri updates are nice and will be instantly in use on my devices, but I had hoped for some kind of third party ALI, even if it started simple. Maps looks great, but like copy/paste, it’s more of an “it’s about time” feature than a big surprise. On a personal note, I was really holding out hope that we would see multiple users or major UI component updates. Instead we got what seems to be a polished incremental upgrade. Maybe Apple has something left up its sleeve for the iPhone announcement in the fall.
