[Yossarian]

Hi Everyone-

While I'm no longer a big Apple fanboy...
a lot of us still have Apple equipment, are dependent on Apple Operating Systems, and sometimes do Apple development.

It is clear that Apple is a leader in personal computing, and personal computing is how we access FR, so it behooves us to stay on top of what they're doing.

And for that, the biggest event of the year is the World Wide Developer's Conference, held in San Jose CA, kicking off today. The keynote was fairly newsworthy, especially compared to recent years.

I watched it, and here are the biggest news items for me:

• Apple's health kit is now getting into women's fertility cycle tracking. THIS IS HUGE - hugely good if Apple's privacy policy is as good as they claim, hugely bad if not. Why is it hugely good? By tracking fertility, it just may convince some women to go off birth control pills (with all of their attendant problems).
• iOS now has a systemwide "dark mode". This is good for reducing eye strain for those of us who use our devices too much, or integrate them into our car.
• A new Mac Pro that is properly expandable with PCI Express Slots is coming in the fall. It is pricey if you don't need that kind of power, but reasonably priced if you do. (Saying this as someone who built a Threadripper workstation. ). It is a proper small tower (with a variant coming for rack-mount), and they are introducing a number of optional add-in cards to go along with it. One of the cards has an FPGA, so that's a good thing for us hardware developers - we can accelerate some algorithms very quickly with those.
• Apple introduced a high end 32" video editing monitor - that's the only way to make sense out of its capabilities (just a step (?) below a $38K pro mastering monitor) and its price ($5K). For what it is, if you bring your own stand or monitor arm, it is reasonably priced. Really, it is almost in a market of its own, between the insane movie studio-only monitors, and traditional LCD displays. It has a multi-segmented backlight for contrast enhancement. Want anti-glare? Add another $1K. Want Apple's stand for that monitor? ADD ANOTHER $1K!!! (The crowd groaned.)
• Swift UI looks to make creating a GUI a lot simpler than Objective-C;
• There should now be a lot more Mac OS programs coming over from iPad thanks to the "Catalyst Project".
• Apple is splitting iPad off into its own OS: iPadOS. Will it eventually replace Mac OS? I don't know.

Anything else? For individual products, sure, check the links above. For Kremlin Watchers, Tim Cook's voice was breaking like he was going through puberty, whereas Craig Federighi acted like a man in command.

All in all, it was a good Keynote. I just want Tim "Censorship and pushing the LBGT Agenda is a good thing" Cook out of Apple!

[Yossarian]

Ping!

[TexasGator]

“and personal computing is how we access FR, so it behooves us to stay on top of what they’re doing.”

I access mostly via android.

[TexasGator]

“and personal computing is how we access FR, so it behooves us to stay on top of what they’re doing.”

I access mostly via android.

[SamAdams76]

I've been a big Apple fanboy for years but I must say that since Tim Cook took over from Steve Jobs, Apple has lost a bit of its luster.

I miss Steve Jobs. He was a jerk but I miss him just the same. He may have been a lib too but he knew better than to mix politics with business.

[Sarah Barracuda]

The new Mac Pro looks like an oversized cheese grater, and it will only cost you over 10 grand to get one LOL..Ive never had a mac desktop before would like the iMac Pro wonder if they will drop the price now that this one will be coming out soon

[Drago]

Looks like they are paying homage to the 1st Gen Intel Mac Pro “Cheese-grater”! (A very upgraded 2009/10 Mac Pro is my current machine). Nice to see that it didn’t turn into some modular “stackable” nightmare! Just an updated more traditional shape/size. Nice job by Apple on a pro desktop (finally!!!)

https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Is Apple continuing to move away from the Mac computer? Most of the platform seems to be getting long in the tooth and hardware updates are now few and far between. It’s been years since the last Mac Mini refresh.

[Crusher138]

Yay! The new Mac Pro is finally announced!

Boo! Starting at $6K? WTF!

I have been putting off replacing my 6 year old Mac Pro because I wanted the new one, but now, holy crap, $6K?

I got my last one for just under $3K and my wife almost had a cow about that. She now says that I can only get my Mac Pro if she gets a new sewing machine of equal value!