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My one hope for WWDC is that Apple would put Retina displays across the line. My logic for this was that the iPad suggested larger retina displays could be manufactured economically, and that it would be the type of change that developers would need to modify their software to target those retina displays. Retina displays across the line would provide a lot of incentive to get those apps updated. Now, developers are only going to target the lucky duckies who buy the next generation MBP.

I still have a sense that we will see retina updates to the Thunderbolt Display, the iMac and the Mac Pro, sooner rather than later. But that may just be wishful thinking.

All the above is good counsel. That said, I was pleasantly surprised by the things that did come out yesterday. It gives me things to mull over for future acquisitions but nothing there will cause me to suddenly start placing orders with the Apple store. Of course, at the present moment I am quite happy with the state of my Apple hardware and software.

I'd discounted all the hardware rumors. The retina display MacBook pro, I suspect, was announced less as "this is a great machine you'll want to do development on" and more "Hey, we've been telling you for years that different resolutions were coming, that you couldn't count on 72 dpi. Now it's reality - adapt."

But I was really shocked at no AppleTV SDK. If Apple is going to do anything interesting in that arena, apps will be part of it. Which means either yet another year will pass while Apple marks time in this arena, or they're picking "favored developers" to get the info.

Jimbotomy5cxd, on 12 June 2012 - 06:29 AM, said:

That isn't really the case. Its one thing to make a small retina display, and even the iPad is really not that big. Its quite a bit different to scale that up to larger screen sizes. Take for example the 30" display. Its not unreasonable to believe defects are measured per square inches of display and the 30" display for example is roughly 4 times (ballparking it) as big as the iPad. If you had one defective screen in every 4 screens of iPad's size, that would mean you would pretty much have every 30"er having a defect.

Now that's just wild estimation, as the 30" display would probably not have the same PPI as the iPad, or even the new MacBook, so its hard to say how many defects per square inch we are talking about, but its easy to see that as the resolution increases, the possibility for defects on larger screens goes up not by a factor of the diagonal, but as a factor of their area. Its one thing to toss a 10" screen aside as being defective, its quite another to ditch a monster 30"er.

I was shocked, shocked I say that Apple hasn't improved iTunes and device sync. Both of those products are horrible junk. Apple - instead of creating new bling how about fixing the blah first!

The one item that I have seen nobody mention so far is that there was no Macbook Pro 17" announcement. It had been rumored that Apple would stop making the bigger notebooks. Do we now assume that is the case? The bigger screen size (always been my preference) is very handy if your laptop is also your desktop. And I would think this sort of change would be of interest to developers who are likely to be using a laptop as their desktop.

JeffRundeejk0, on 12 June 2012 - 07:21 AM, said:

Apple actually did quietly release a minor update to iTunes, supposedly with several bug fixes. ( reference ) I'm going to have to download that tonight to see if it fixes my own iPod sync problems.

This post has been edited by zarmanto: 12 June 2012 - 08:22 AM

rdolivaw, on 12 June 2012 - 07:56 AM, said:

You can more than assume. The 17" MacBook Pro is no longer listed on the Apple Store. Apple's habit is to simply stop talking about products that it either no longer offers or isn't actively supporting.

Chris Breen, on 12 June 2012 - 05:31 AM, said:

There's an old saying that I think applies rather nicely, here: "There is nothing more uncommon than common sense."

Very valid and sensible points. As an amateur tech blogger I fell into the hype that perhaps Apple may release a new iPhone or the very least announce something. I think that I was mostly hopefully because I want to upgrade from my iPhone 4.

Having a yearly release of iOS devices is, as stated, a wise move. No need to peeve people off with updating products on a more aggressive frequency. Still, one item I wish that would have gotten some sort of update was iWorks. Seems the last mild updates didn't add anything or make compatibility with Microsoft Office any better. One thing I was hoping for.

Thanks for your insights as always Mr Breen.

marcinszablewski, on 12 June 2012 - 08:32 AM, said:

That's another instance where "appropriate time and place" can aid your sleuthing. iLife and iWork are products aimed at the general Mac user rather than developers and pros. So, you'd see those kinds of announcements at a consumer-focused event like, say, an iMac announcement or, if it's iLife, an event all its own.

I'm still surprised why they used Siri to show off sports in a room full of people that most likely do not know or care about sports.

pxlhero, on 12 June 2012 - 09:31 AM, said:

The stereotype is that geeks don't care for sports because they're an uncoordinated lot who spend all their time in front of computer screens. Turns out (at least among the tech types I know) a lot of them are into sports. Geeks like minutia and sports statistics offer it by the bucketload. So, no surprise to me.