OS X Mountain Lion, Apple's latest desktop operating system, has seen mass adoption since launching at the tail end of last month, and after shifting some two million units in the first 48 hours alone, a large ensemble of Mac users are currently getting to grips with the new features.
Although the Mac App Store is still relatively in its infancy, it is already home to a large array of fantastic and powerful apps, all located in one central hub. Working in a similar fashion to the iOS variant, the dedicated store for OS X based apps is broken down into different categories and makes it extremely easy to sift through free and chargeable apps that may make our day to day Mac usage more productive or just a lot more fun and engaging.
A significant refresh of the Mac Pro was expected to arrive at WWDC '12, but the speculation never reached fruition, and the somewhat neglected device still pines for its first changes since 2009. Intel's long-awaited Ivy Bridge chip finally reached the Cupertino company's famed MacBook range at the annual developers conference, and both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro were grateful recipients. Meanwhile, Apple also introduced the first MacBook Pro to ditch the optical drive while also including a beautiful Retina display, and we took this as a sure sign of things to come.
The introduction of the Retina-ready MacBook Pro was a fantastic achievement for Apple and represented a huge step forward for the Mac line of computers as Apple continue to develop both the hardware and software of their increasingly popular notebooks. The company is rightly proud of what they have achieved with the initial release of the MacBook Pro with Retina display, and pride themselves on being the first to market a notebook that features a display with 5.1 million pixels and a monstrous 2880 x 1800 screen resolution.
When we talk about Apple, the first products springing to mind are the MacBooks, iPhones, iPads, and iPods, devices of which have all had a hugely significant impact on their respective markets over the past 10-12 years. That said, before the last decade, Apple was nothing more than a computer company, competing with fierce rivals Microsoft while creating plenty of innovations of its own.
It's been nearly three weeks since Apple deemed their latest version of OS X to be ready for a prime time release on the Mac App Store, a decision that resulted in over three million Mac owners purchasing and downloading the cutting-edge operating system within the first twenty-four hours. The early indications seem to show that users were generally happy with what Mountain Lion brought to their Mac experience, but a few users have been reporting a detrimental effect on internal MacBook batteries.
It's difficult to remember what we all used to do to handle our increasingly busy schedules and work loads before we had such capable computers and mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad. Being able to be permanently connected to our diaries, appointments and task lists through the use of mobile hardware and scheduling software has proved to be an invaluable resource for those who have busy professional and personal lives, but the real power is needed when we knuckle down to actually sift through our list of tasks.
I was never one of those iOS device owners who got caught up in the Angry Birds phenomenon, but judging by the staggering sales and usage figures which Rovio has reported in the past, it seems that the majority of the iOS device owning world have gotten onboard with the ornithological mayhem at one stage or another. The original Angry Birds game saw a huge shift in the mobile gaming world with Rovio's success with what is essentially quite a simple idea, proving that there is definitely a market for serious game developers within the mobile ecosphere.
Although companies like Apple and Microsoft are continuously tweaking existing versions of their operating systems and building next-generation software to power PCs and Macs, it would all be pretty much useless without a connection to the internet. You would actually be extremely surprised at how much of your day-to-day computing activity actually relies on being connected to the world wide web, meaning there is nothing more infuriating than a poor or dropped wireless connection.
I'm not sure if I am the only one, but whenever I think about Apple as a company, I always assign a certain level of fairy tale type magic to them. I can't quite put my finger on why that's the case, but it probably has a lot to do with the way the company has dragged themselves from the depths of despair to become the most profitable company in existence, producing some truly remarkable and innovative products along the way. The world is extremely familiar with the iPhone, iPod and iPad as well as the flawlessly designed Mac range of computers, but what about the Apple iCar?
