Apple's WWDC Announcements | What You Need to Know

Leading off with a beautifully designed mission statement, Apple opened WWDC with much fanfare and a whole lot of love for its home state of California, and some gargantuan software and hardware announcements.

More after the jump.

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Posted in Tech

Google Maps for the iPhone

The announcement that every iPhone fan has been waiting for since the chaotic mess that is Apple Maps is here, Google Maps is back on the iPhone. Yes, Google Maps is back and better than ever (some say even better than Android's) with a new and improved design, faster load times, voice-guided turn-by-turn directions, public transit info, and info sheets for points of interest. Google

Posted in Software & The Web

Google's new Enhanced Voice Search

As convenient and fun as Siri is, its still a bit rough around the edges and its speed leaves a bit to be desired. Today, Google unveiled a new version of their Search app with a newly enhanced Voice Search feature that simply put, destroys Siri. Voice recognition and results are instantaneous and once you try it, you'll see just how Google is giving Siri a run for her money. Now if only Apple and Google could play nice and share technologies again... iTunes

Posted in Software & The Web

Out Tomorrow | Mac OS X Mountain Lion

Time to prep those Macs for an upgrade. Apple is releasing Mac OS X Mountain Lion tomorrow via the App store ($20) and with it comes better iCloud integration, Reminders and Notes now for the desktop, iMessage, Notification Center, Dictation, Twitter/Facebook integration, and much much more. Link

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iOS 6

Apple previewed its latest iOS 6 operating system today and wowed crowds with an impressive feature set. Amongst the massive list of new features, Apple introduced items such as Facetime over Cellular, an improved Siri implementation that now has information on sports scores and restaurants, and much much more. Apple also introduced Passbook, a digital wallet of sorts that easily organizes Movie tickets, boarding passes, and various other cards and is open for development to any company who wants to bring their ticketing or card systems to the App. The biggest highlight of the day was the debut of Apple's new in-house Google Maps killer which finally brings native turn by turn navigation to the iPhone. It also features impressive 3D flyovers, 3D buildings, and Siri integration. Link

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Google Drive

One of Google's worst kept secrets has been officially unveiled with Google Drive arriving today giving users 5 gigs of free web storage for your PC, Mac, Android, and soon iPhone and iPad. Starting at $2.49 a month you can get 25GBs of storage all the way up to 16TBs for $800 a month. Feature-wise the service seamlessly integrates into Gmail and Google+ and can open and view up to 30 types of files right inside your browser. Link

Posted in Software & The Web

Paper for the iPad

The team who worked on the unfortnately 86'd Courier Project have moved on to Apple's wonder tablet to bring you Paper (Free), a digital Moleskine of sorts for sketching, writing, outlining, and much more. Its definitely not your average sketching app, check out the video above to see it in action. Source

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Sparrow for iPhone

Sparrow brings its popular e-mail client over to the iPhone offering up a solid alternative to Apple's polarizing Mail app. The iPhone app has the clean and uncluttered interface as its desktop brother and adds the efficiency of the iPhone's touch interface. Only downside is that Apple has kept Push on lockdown, so no instant e-mail as of yet. Link

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OS X Mountain Lion

With iOS now being Apple's bread and butter, its no surprise the brand wants the same ease of use within the Mac OS line. This year the brand better integrates everything we love about iOS with the introduction of OS X Mountain Lion. Arriving this summer, the new OS will desktop-ize a number of key features from iOS such as iCloud, iMessage, Notifications, Game Center, Reminders, Twitter, and Airplay Mirroring. Link

Posted in Software & The Web

iCloud

Apple unveiled an impressive new service that brings all your important data and content into the cloud for wireless access across your all your Apple devices. The free service lets you store, view, and sync your photos, books, music, and documents straight from the cloud. iCloud makes automatic backups over wi-fi daily and as you would expect everything was designed to work seamlessly when pushed to all your devices. Link

Posted in Software & The Web