Finally, a new iMac to purchase. I’ve been waiting for about a year to purchase a new one, so once the keynote was over I rushed to the Apple Store and ordered one. The iMac 27-inch with Retina 5K display, 4.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, 16GB 2400MHz DDR4, and Radeon Pro 580 with 8GB RAM.
Then, I ordered a new 10.5-inch iPad Pro, 256GB, in Space Gray, with a Charcoal Cover and an Apple Pencil. It will replace my 2+ year old iPad that doesn’t support the Pencil for graphics work directly on the screen. Am looking forward to seeing if the old muscle memory is there for creating graphic images. Would be nice to create my own custom covers for stories that reflected them more closely then the images I’m forced to ‘shop’ into something suitable.
Besides the hardware released (new MacBooks, MacBook Pros) or announced (beefy iMac Pro and HomePod) there was a slew of software updates and improvements as well.
Looks like macOS is going on an alternating releases. Last year Sierra was introduced with new features while this year we get High Sierra, a refinement pass on those base technologies. Previous refinement passes (Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion) allowed for core technologies to be revised, improved, and stabilized for future new releases. One example of a refinement this year is moving the windowing API over to Metal, Apple’s low level graphics engine that enables faster graphic and video operations. Their favorite term used was “smooth as butter”.
One new feature in macOS I’m looking forward to is the new Apple File System (APFS) which replaces the 30+ year old Hierarchical File System (HFS+). Designed for today’s computers, its more nimble when supporting today’s memory and storage requirements, fully encrypts your files and data for security, and supports hardware like SSDs which didn’t even exist when HFS+ was designed. APFS became the default file system for the iPhone and iPad with the 10.3 iOS release and unless you were a developer you probably didn’t realize the huge file system improvements that were added to your iPhone or iPad.
Lots of other software announcements for iOS, tvOS, and watchOS, but those weren’t that interesting to me. Nice, but not what I was waiting for.
Both are being delivered next week, so I’ve got some prep to do in backing up my current machines and getting ready to enjoy my new tools.
IMHO, a great WWDC.
