iOS 6 Top new features:

iOS 6, new MacBook Pro, and more announced!

Today at Apple’s WWDC keynote, far and away the most exciting product announced has to be refreshed and replenished mobile operating system. The days of iOS 6 are upon us, and the platter of 200 new features Apple is serving up is more than enough to make any fanboi’s mouth water. Up until now, we’d swallowed down a hearty rumor stew, complete with trusted source claims, leaked beta sites, rumors, and pure speculation. We’ve more-than expected Apple Maps, iCloud features, and Facebook integration, but the rumor mill had taken us further than that, with hopes of Siri APIs, Siri for iPad, and even deeper customization, with live apps not unlike the live tiles seen in Windows Phone’s metro UI. So which dreams came true, and which will be left for later generations of the software? Apple's new iOS 6 comes loaded with new features. From completely new Maps to a new version of the voice-activated personal assistant Siri to Facebook integration. It looks quite sweet. These will be the new features of your iPhone and iPad.  1. Siri Siri keeps being updated. The new version on iOS 6 does sports scores and stats. You ask what was the score for the Giants and she will reply that they were downed by the Rangers. It will also tell you about batting averages.  Siri is being integrated with Yelp and OpenTable. You could ask for a good italian restaurant near you and she will tell you about the best ones using Yelp information and allow you to make a reservation with your voice using OpenTable. It's also bringing movies with IMDB for reviews and information, and Fandango for tickets. You can ask for a movie that stars your favorite star or director, and she will find them for you. The result screen is quite nice, with integratedRotten Tomatoes ratings. I wonder how much more useful this will make Siri. Would people use it more now that it has some neat integration with these useful services? Tell us in the comments.   Siri is also being updated to other languages. They are adding Canadian French, Spanish for Spain, Mexico and the US. Also Italian in Italy and French, German and Italian dialects for Switzerland. Plus Asian languages: Korean plus Mandarin and Cantonese in China. Siri will be available on the iPad. 2. Facebook integration  Facebook is now completely integrated with the iPhone. You will be able post to Facebook from Apple's apps, just like you can do with Twitter. That includes images directly from the Photos albums. Or location from Maps. It's even integrated with Siri. And the Calendar application, so birthdays and events are automatically synchronized at all times with Facebook.  The most interesting thing is that, as I said in the rumor round up, there will be an API for it, so every developer can enjoy the same Facebook services. This means that your favorite applications would be able to easily post things in Facebook or get Facebook information easily. 3. New Phone features  This is a welcomed surprise: they are updating the Phone application, which has remained almost frozen for all this time. I like this feature, which Nokia already had some years ago: you can reply automatically with a message when someone calls you. The phone will show you a list of messages like "I'll call you later" or "I'm on my way" that you can click and automatically send while rejecting a call.    A new "Do Not Disturb" preference will turn off calls and messages at night. The neat thing is that notification will come but the phone will not sound or light up. I'm quite happy about this feature, because the lighting up can be quite annoying. Still, you can mark some phone numbers as important, which will allow them to disturb you at night. On the other hand, if someone is calling you repeatedly and continuously, the new Phone app will push the call assuming it is an emergency. This, I'm sure, will be misused several times. 4. New Facetime  The first big news is 3G support for Facetime. You will be able to call someone using Facetime over the 3G network. The quality will not be as good as Wi-Fi, but it will be supported.  Another neat feature of the new Facetime is that the device IDs are being unified. In iOS 6, when someone calls your phone number, you will be able to answer the call from your iPad or your Mac straight away. The ID unification will be the same with iMessage, which will hopefully fix the confusion. Sometimes users get messages in one device but not the other one. 5. New Safari Safari is getting the live synchronization of tabs with Mountain Lion, so your browsing experience is unified across devices using iCloud. It also uses iCloud synchronization for an Offline Reading List, which allows you to read a story that you have marked to read later without a web connection. This is pretty neat for subway commuters and flights. One of the best features, however, is the new support for web forms uploads. To me, it has always been so frustrating not to be able to upload a photo to a web site. Now you can click on the upload button, a Photo browser will appear, and you will be able to upload. I wonder if this service will also be available for other file types, like Pages documents. 6. Photo streams on iCloud Now you can share your photos on streams. You can pick friends and they will be able to see any photos you uploads in a dedicated stream automatically. Everyone will also be able to comment on them. It's like creating private Instagram feeds on the Photos app. 7. Mail Mail's Mailboxes have also been revamped for a new feature: VIPs. You can mark people as VIPs, and their emails will automatically go into a special folder. This is going to be the only folder I'm going to read from now on. 8. Passbook This a new app. It will allow you to have all your tickets and coupons—airplanes, train, movies, concerts, gift cards, loyalty cards, whatever—in a single wallet. It's quite pretty and useful. 9. New Maps App Are you listening Mountain View? We all knew it was going to happen, but Apple just launched its own, stunning, Maps product, with “Flyover” or Apple’s incredible new 3D maps display which quite honestly makes Google Maps look antiquated. “We built an entire new mapping solution from the ground up,” Forstall said while demoing the product, “It is beautiful. We did all the cartography ourselves.” In addition to the 3D display, Maps will have Siri integrated turn-by-turn directions. Crucial to the new Maps product is local search and Apple has taken in 100 million local businesses so far, in addition to partnering up with Yelp to provide the listings. The company is also building a Waze-like traffic service, so users can see where slow traffic is and see accidents — Apple will use using anonymous crowd-sourced real time data from iOS users to keep this up to date. All the new Maps will be vector-based; which means that users can rotate views, angles and drill down into buildings. While it’s still got a firm grip on Android and the web, it’s no surprise that Google’s stock is now down $8. Main: iOS 6: All the New Features Coming Soon to Your iPhone and iPad (Updating Live) and With s Play | TechCrunch =-=-=-=-=-=Mac Releases=-=-=-=-=-= The next generation MacBook Pro, unveiled Monday, is ultra-thin and was described by Apple as the “most beautiful computer” that the company’s ever made. The notebook will start at $2199. The notebook is .71 inches thin, Ars Technica reported, and weighs just 4.46 pounds. It has a retina display, which measures 15.4 inches across, and has 220 pixels per inch. The company showed off photo and video apps that take full advantage of the display, as well as a new Kepler graphics chip from Nvidia and a quad-core i5 or i7 processor from Intel. The computer will have a USB 3.0 /USB 2.0 port, and HDMI port, two Thunderbolt ports and a new MagSafe power adapter, the report said. The company also has changed the way it spaces the fans on the notebook, to make it run quieter. The notebook, even with that power-hungry screen, will have 7 hours of battery life. The battery, which Apple showed off on-screen takes up the bulk of the machine’s inside. The new model will ship Monday. In addition to the new model, the MacBook Air is getting an Ivy Bridge processing update, the site reported, with up to 2.0 Ghz for the processor, USB 3.0 ports, capability for up to 512 GB of flash storage and up to 8GB of memory. The notebook will also have a USB 2.0 port, and a 720p camera, The Verge reported. Prices for the new 11-inch MacBook Air are $999 and $1099. The Macbook Pro is also getting a spec bump, with the same USB ports as the Air, better graphics and Ivy Bridge chips. The prices will stay the same for both the 13-inch and 15-inch models. Shipping starts Monday for the updated notebooks, as well, Apple said. The machine will include retina display and feature a 15.4-inch display with a pixel density of 2880 x 1800 and a batter life of seven hours. The new MacBook Pro will start at $2,229 in Canada for a model with 8 GB of memory and 256 GB of flash storage while a model with a faster processor and 512 GB of flash storage will start at $2,829.

What I found in this town, I'm heading for a breakdown! What's that sound, you're so loud, I'm heading for a breakdown!