WWDC

Apple's new Safari takes a page from Chrome

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple unveiled a new version of Safari today at the company's World Wide Developer's Conference here. The browser takes some visual cues from the competition but manages to maintain its unique take on browsing.

Not unlike Google's Chrome, Safari 6 ditches its search bar in favor of a unified search-and-URL location bar. As with Chrome, and optional in Firefox, the search-location bar clears up a significant chunk of the ever-dwindling browser screen real estate. You'll have more room for extension icons, basically.

During the WWDC keynote this morning, Apple's new head of … Read more

Mountain Lion shipping in July

Mountain Lion, originally seeded to developers in February, will be available from the Mac App Store in July for $19.99.

Apple's new operating system takes the Mac OS in a new direction, with Apple integrating a number of iOS-inspired features from its mobile devices. Apple SVP Craig Federighi says the new OS has over 200 new features, including notifications, Reminders, Game Center, Documents in the Cloud, and Messages. Many of these features are standalone programs, but some such as the Notification Center and sharing tools are systemwide services. Apple is also enhancing security options with its Gatekeeper technology, … Read more

Apple's Mountain Lion roars to life with 200 new features

Mountain Lion, aka OS X version 10.8, will better tie together the worlds of OS X and iOS with a host of new features.

Revealed today at Apple's WWDC in San Francisco, first on the list will be iCloud, new to OS X. The cloud-based service already boasts 125 million registered users, according to Apple. Applications like mail, contacts, calendar, Messages, Reminders, and Notes will all sync up, along with a new feature dubbed "Documents in the Cloud," which can sync documents from Pages, Keynote, Preview, and TextEdit.

Users can simply drag and drop documents to their cloud-based storage, as if it were just another folder on the desktop.

Developers can also add iCloud to their own applications, courtesy of an API (applications programming interface) from Apple.… Read more

Apple's Mac base hits 66M users, 40 percent on Lion

Apple's Mac userbase has grown to 66 million users, the company announced today at its Worldwide Developers Conference.

The company, which also unveiled new MacBook Pros and a MacBook Air at the event, says that it has sold 26 million copies of Mac OS X Lion since its launch last summer, and 40 percent of its users are running that operating system.

That 40 percent figure proved important to Apple. During its keynote, the company said that it took Microsoft's Windows 7 platform 27 months to hit the same penetration rate as Lion, which needed only nine months … Read more

Apple: Retina Display MacBook Pro starts at $2,199

Apple has shown off an all-new, next-generation MacBook Pro today at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The computer, which was announced after Apple unveiled its updates to the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros, is just 0.71 inches thick and is being called the lightest MacBook Pro ever made. And for those looking for better visuals, the device comes with Apple's Retina Display -- the same screen found in its later iPhones and new iPad.

According to Apple, the next-generation MacBook Pro's 15.4-inch Retina display features "the highest resolution" of any notebook on … Read more

Apple beefs up new MacBook Airs with Ivy Bridge, from $999

Apple's new MacBook Airs are getting a dose of Ivy Bridge and a few other upgrades, but no Retina Display.

Announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference today, the new MacBook Airs will be equipped with the latest Intel Ivy Bridge chips, offering up to a 2.0 Ghz dual-core i7 processor. But the added Turbo Boost can bump the processor speed up to 3.2GHz.

Other options include a 512GB solid-state drive with a read speed of 500MBps, faster than any other hard drive, according to Apple. Also on the feature list is 8GB of 1600Mhz memory. … Read more

Apple: 30B apps downloaded, 400M App Store accounts set up

Apple's operation is showing no signs of slowing down.

Keep track of what else Apple is announcing at our WWDC keynote live blog.

At his company's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote today, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm has 400 million App Store accounts. In addition, the company has 650,000 apps in its App Store, and users have downloaded 30 billion apps so far. All that has helped Apple dole out $5 billion to developers since the marketplace's inception.

Back in March, Apple announced that its App Store had reached 25 billion downloads.… Read more

MacBook Pro, Siri, iOS6, take WWDC spotlight (live blog)

Editor's note: This live blog has concluded. You can replay it by clicking here, or check out our roundup of WWDC stories. Also note our two first take reviews: Apple's MacBook Pro with Retina Display and its new MacBook Air.

Apple once again takes over San Francisco's Moscone center for its annual developers conference, and CNET will be there to bring you the news live.

The tech giant today is expected to show off a new version of iOS, spruce up its Mac lineup, and offer a little more information on Mountain Lion, the next major version … Read more

What iOS 6 means for Microsoft: Not a thing

Aren't you tired of people pitting Apple against Microsoft in the mobile space? I am.

Sure, the two tech giants compete directly, but one is the market leader and the other is just getting off the ground. If Microsoft just launched its mobile rocket, Apple's already on the moon.

In the desktop space, of course, it's the other way around.

So it's not really fair to write a post like Brian Caulfield did over at Forbes, attempting to gauge just how much the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system matters to the folks in … Read more

Apple Store goes down as WWDC keynote looms

Tune in starting at 8 a.m. PT for our Apple WWDC keynote live blog.

As expected, Apple has taken its online store down to update the marketplace with all of the goodies it plans to show off today at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

When Web users head over to Apple's online store, they'll come to a page saying the marketplace will "be back." Apple says that it's "updating the Apple Store for you and will be back soon." Although the message hasn't changed from previous notices, it's worth noting that … Read more