Apple Keynote In 2014

New MacBooks, a new Mac Pro, new Apps, a new operating system and new iPads. Apple’s presentation of 22nd October was filled with many new products and despite the rumors, some surprises.

Mac Book

Apple has upgraded their MacBook Pro lineup. The design remains the same as the previous generation. The MacBook Pros are running faster processors and the newest graphics. Apple also upgraded their Thunderbolt technology – the new MacBooks have Thunderbolt 2 connections. Personally, the major news here is that Apple drops the starting price of both the 13-inch and 15-inch model by 200$. The 13-inch model now starts at 1299 US$ and the 15-inch model at 1999 US$. You can already buy the new generations, Apple started shipping them the day of the presentation.

Mac Pro

Back in June, at WWDC, they already showed some images of the new Mac Pro (that to me looks like a bin…). This week they gave further information about their newest high-end computer. They announced, that they start shipping the new Mac Pros (starting price of 2999 US$) this year in December! I guess many film editors or music producers already know what’s on their Christmas wish list…

iLife and iWork

Apple decided to upgrade their iWork and iLife lineup on both iOS and Mac OS X. iWork includes Pages, Numbers and Keynote. If you already own one of these apps you get a free update. You get the same free update if you own one of the iLife apps – iPhoto, iMovie or GarageBand. When buying a new Mac, you now get both packages for free – not only iLife like it was until now. Businessly will be testing iLife and iWork over the next weeks. There will be a review on both product packages.

Mac OS X Mavericks

The new OS X was already presented back in June during WWDC. It looked promising due to great new features. Since the new features where already well known before this presentation, I didn’t expect any surprises. Well, I was wrong. For the first time Apple is giving out a new operating system for free on the Mac. This is a big deal. It will be interesting to see what Windows will do in future, since their newest operating system Windows 8 starts at 119.99 US$.

Also for Mac OS X Mavericks there will be a review after it has been used and tested by Businessly.

iPad Air and iPad mini Retina Display

This is probably the part of the presentation most of the people were excited about. Apple introduced their new iPad models, including an iPad mini with retina display and a new-designed iPad Air. Both are now running the same A7 chip as the iPhone 5S. Besides of that the iPad mini doesn’t see any changes, except the display – which is a nice upgrade. More of a change sees the big brother of the mini. Apple decided to name it iPad Air. It just weighs 1 pound, that makes it 28% lighter than the previous generation. It’s also 20% thinner and overall 24% less volume. Both iPads start shipping this November! The starting prices are the same as the previous generation for both products – the iPad Air starting at 499 US$ and the iPad mini Retina Display at 399 US$.

Businessly will be testing the iPad Air. There will be a review after using the device for a week.

The keynote covered pretty much all expectations. Despite that, there were no major upgrades. The upgrades of the MacBook Pros are nice, but not earth quaking. A lot of the information were already communicated about the Mac Pro and the iPad mini didn’t see a huge upgrade. Mac OS X Mavericks wasn’t a surprise, Apple did surprise their costumers by giving it out for free. The biggest change of Apple was designing a new “big” iPad and giving it a new nam