Apple updates: Retina display MacBooks and much more

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is always an event to watch for exciting new product announcements. And this time, again, they have not let us down at all and revealed a number of great product updates.

Amongst others there will be a new MacBook Pro with a super high resolution Retina Display and USB 3.0. They also showed off the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion operating system for Mac as well as the next OS version for iOS devices, iOS6. An update to the Airport Express wireless router was announced too, together with a new iPad Smart Case, one that now covers both the front and back of the iPad.

New: MacBook Pro with Retina Display

This will be the lightest and thinnest MacBook Pro ever produced. It weighs just 2kg and features an ultra-high resolution 2880 by 1800 pixel, 220ppi, 15.4-inch Retina Display. Photographers will appreciate the fact that the screen should be much less reflective than the older models with glossy screens!

For connectivity the new MacBook hosts 2 x USB 3.0, HDMI, 2 x Thunderbolt and a headphone port and it supports 802.11n Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth 4.0. Notably absent are an Ethernet and Firewire800 port. If you need those you can use the (new) adapters that connect these interfaces to the MacBook using the Thunderbolt port. An SD/SDHC/SDXC slot on the other hand is still present.

The new model can hold up to 16GB storage with up to a quad-core Intel i7 processor running at up to 2.7GHz. SSD storage option of up to 768GB can be ordered as well.

More information on Apple's website.

Updated: MacBook Pro 13-inch and MacBook Pro 15-inch

The 13 and 15 inch MacBook Pros have been refreshed and also include USB 3.0 as well as other improvements. Interestingly, the MacBook Pro 17-inch seems to have been discontinued.

More information on Apple's website.

Updated: MacBook Air 11-inch and MacBook Air 13-inch

The new MacBook Air models also get USB 3.0, and now feature a dual-core Intel i7 processor running at up to 2GHz as well as faster Graphics. Storage options are now up to 8GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage.

More information on Apple's website.

New: OS X Mountain Lion

Apple's next major version of the OS X operation system, Mountain Lion, is to ship in July as an App Store download for $19.99 (or the equivalent in your local App Store). New features include voice dictation in any application and better social media and iCloud integration.

More information on Apple's website.

New: iOS 6

Coming fall will see the next major update for Apples operating system for mobile devices. iOS6 will have improvements to Siri voice recognition and dictation, a new Maps app (not using googlemaps any longer), Facebook integration, and much more.

More information on Apple's website.

Updated: Airport Express

The new AirPort Express supports simultaneous dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi, transmitting at both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies at the same time. Meaning that no matter which band your wireless devices use, they’ll automatically use the best available band for the fastest possible connection.

More information on Apple's website.

iPhoto for iPad/iPhone available & other updates

Coinciding with the announcement of the new iPad, Apple also released iPhoto for the iPad/iPhone. The other components of the iLife suite (iMovie and GarageBand) as well as the complete iWork Suite (Keynote, Pages, Numbers) have been updated as well and have been adapted to take advantage of the new high resolution screen and 1080p full HD video capabilities of the new iPad.

With iPhoto for iOS, Apple brings its popular iPhoto photo editing and browsing tool to the iPad/iPhone. The new app takes full advantage of the intuitive Multi-Touch gestures on iPad and iPhone as well as the high resolution of the new Retina displays.

Using simple gestures you can select and compare images. Editing capabilities include auto-enhancements such as straightening photos and fixing exposure, contrast, and colour. Editing tools such as red-eye removal, lighten, sharpen, soften, and darken are also present; simply use your fingertips as brush to paint in the effects. iPhoto can handle images up to 19 megapixels.

Posting photos to Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter is easy and you can also send photos between your iPhone and iPad, stream photos and slideshows to an Apple TV with AirPlay, and use iCloud to publish photo journals to the web to share them with friends and family in a whole new way.

Photo, iMovie 1.3 and GarageBand 1.2 are available for only $4.99/€3.99 each in the iTunes App Store. Keynote 1.6, Pages 1.6 and Numbers 1.6 are slightly more expensive, but still cost only $9.99/€7.99 each in the iTunes App Store. (Updates are free to existing customers)

Photoshop Touch for the tablet now available

With the new Photoshop Touch app, Adobe brings a bit of the power of Photoshop to your tablet. Photoshop Touch is available in the iTunes Store (iPad2 required) and Android Market for just $9.99/€7,99.

Some of the features of PS Touch include:

• Well known Photoshop features such as layers, selection tools, adjustments, and filters.
• Easy selection of part of an image with the “Scribble Selection” tool.
• “Refine Edge,” where instead of your mouse/pen you simply use your fingertip to refine the selection around those normally very difficult to select image elements like hair.
• Camera fill feature – fill an area of a layer with the view from your camera.
• Integration with Google Image Search.
• Image sharing on Facebook.
• Step-by-step tutorials for techniques “the pros use.”
• Sync projects with Adobe Creative Cloud and open layered files from Adobe Photoshop Touch in Photoshop.
• Max image size: 1600 x 1600 pixels (enough for a print of 10.7"/27cm at 150ppi).

PS Touch looks like a great (and fun) tool for the creatives amongst us: