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Apple announced several products and updates Monday at its World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC).
An Anonymous Coward wrote in with news of Apple's OS X 10.11 "El Capitan":
The next version of OS X, Apple's laptop and desktop operating system, has been announced at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference! Its version number is 10.11, and its moniker is "El Capitan," in reference to the superb and truly American El Capitan rock formation at America's premiere national park, the Yosemite National Park.
Details are still coming in, but it's expected to include updates to Safari, Mail and Spotlight. Metal for Mac will combine the "computing power of OpenCL and graphics power of OpenGL into a new API that does both." It's expected to be available in public beta starting this July, with the final public release coming in the fall. This is an important release of OS X that Mac users worldwide are looking forward to.
ghost sent in two submissions to tell us that Apple will open source the Swift programming language:
In today's WWDC keynote, Apple announced that Swift (the programming language from last year's WWDC) will be open sourced sometime later this year. They specifically noted Linux support but neglected to mention *BSD or Windows. (LLVM, the back-end behind Swift and clang, supports *BSD and Windows). Reactions from Open Source advocates were tempered, as they noted the source code has not yet been released, nor has the license been announced.
The Swift Blog has been updated with information about new features and the open source efforts: Swift source code will be released under an OSI-approved permissive license. Contributions from the community will be accepted — and encouraged. At launch Apple intends to contribute ports for OS X, iOS, and Linux. Source code will include the Swift compiler and standard library. Apple thinks "it would be amazing for Swift to be on all your favorite platforms".
One of our editors, takyon, scoured the web to provide us with this compendium:
Apple has announced Apple Music, a Spotify clone, that replaces its existing iTunes Radio service. It will offer: a free tier similar to what iTunes Radio provided, unlimited streaming music for $9.99/month, or $14.99/month for a six-person "family plan". The service includes human-curated playlists and a 24/7 "Beats 1" radio channel featuring popular music and interviews. It will be released June 30th on OS X, iOS, and Windows, and will come to Android in the fall. Apple is offering the first 3 months of the paid service for free.
Apple announced iOS 9 for iPhones, iPods and iPads. It will include: a revamped "Spotlight Search" with features that compete with Google Now; transit routes for Apple Maps in major cities, as well as 300 cities in China; and an improved native news application. iPads will receive "Split View" and "Slide Over" multitasking features. A "Move to iOS" app will facilitate wireless migration from Android to iPhone.
WatchOS 2 for Apple Watch will add: new watch faces; a "Time Travel" feature using the digital crown to view information and events from the past or future; FaceTime Audio support so you can call other people with Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches; email voice dictation; and an alarm clock mode for when the Watch is laying on its side and charging. Various iOS 9 improvements to Apple Pay and Maps will also come to the Watch. Finally, developers will be able to make native apps for the Watch that don't require them to run on the iPhone.
Apple Pay is coming to the United Kingdom in July.
Original Submissions: One, Two, and Three.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by WillAdams on Tuesday June 09 2015, @01:49PM
I rather desperately need to replace my Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4121 which is what ultimately replaced my Newton MessagePad (which in turn replaced an NCR-3125 (donated to the Smithsonian by the guy I sold it to) running PenPoint).
What is so hard about making a portable machine which:
- has a daylight viewable display
- uses a stylus so that one can draw / write on it (I'll even forgo it being active if there's working palm rejection, sufficient accuracty / precision, and an interface which actually supports pen usage w/o needing hover)
For bonus points, I'd like GPS and the option of a cellular data plan.
Currently trying a Toshiba Encore 2 Write 10, but it fails on the daylight viewable display point.... I like to use my machine outdoors, and to use it as a mapreader when travelling --- I need a transflective LCD or some equivalent technology. Something nicer than Windows would be nice.
Please.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 09 2015, @01:54PM
YotaPhone 2?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Tuesday June 09 2015, @02:15PM
My apologies, having a usable screen size and the ability to run arbitrary applications was implied, but not explicitly stated.
Big thing is I need a Beziér curve drawing program (yes, I did w/o one on the Newton --- it was portable enough w/ long enough battery life and I was at a point in my life where note-taking was more important than productive work), a font editor would be nice, and I'd like a full TeX environment.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 09 2015, @02:36PM
It's an Android device, and the e-ink display is 4.7 inches at 540 x 960. That's better resolution and roughly the same display size as Newton.
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(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Tuesday June 09 2015, @02:54PM
Agreed and understood. The thing is, I'm no longer able to make do w/ such a small display --- the Newton happened at a time (college) when I didn't need a Beziér drawing program, or a larger display.
Still glad to know about the device, and I hope that it presages a return of daylight viewable displays.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 09 2015, @03:11PM
The YotaPhone 2 is bigger than the original, so I could imagine a third version approaching phablet sizes. That's about the best you can hope for before it becomes a large tablet and not the PDA/smartphone you originally described. An e-ink tablet [cnet.com] (that does more than an Amazon e-reader) probably exists but doesn't likely fit the features or price point you want.
I think we all want to see a 10+ inch bendable e-ink tablet device (bonus: in color).
YotaPhone size progression:
YotaPhone 1
Primary screen: 4.3 inch. 1280 x 720. 342 PPI.
E-ink screen: ??? inch. 360 x 640.
YotaPhone 2
Primary screen: 5.0 inch. 1920 x 1080. 441 PPI.
E-ink screen: 4.7 inch. 540 x 960.
YotaPhone 2C = ???
YotaPhone 3 = ???
“We’ll be launching a new phone by the end of the year, and it will have a different-sized screen,” is all Sawan will say about YotaPhone 3. [emirates247.com]
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(Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Tuesday June 09 2015, @03:00PM
What you want is called a Motion CL920. It is designed for industrial use so it is probably more than what you are willing to spend but there it is. Motion has been making the tablets you would actually want to buy for years and they really have locked up the niche of "tablets for people who actually need tablets for their jobs".
https://www.motioncomputing.com/us/products/rugged-tablets/cl920 [motioncomputing.com]
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Tuesday June 09 2015, @04:41PM
Actually, I considered getting a refurbished CL900 from Gainsaver.
The things which put me off:
- battery life
- expense of a refurbished machine vice the new Toshiba Encore 2 Write 10
- machine weight / size
- daylight viewable display isn't transflective --- instead it's sort of daylight viewable 'cause it reduces reflections and burns a lot of power pumping the brightness up (see above for battery life)
- lackluster reviews
All told, I regret getting the Toshiba and wish I was instead just making do w/ my old machine (it would cut down on the amount of web surfing which I do, since I limit myself to known safe sites on it).
(Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Tuesday June 09 2015, @04:50PM
The new ones are quite good on battery life. Motion and Fujitsu seem to be the only manufacturers who "get" tablets... everybody else just makes breakable youtube screens IMHO. I have a T731 that I can use as defensive weapon in a pinch. The new R12 is pretty amazing but, unless work is paying, I am not dropping > $2k on one. I am interested to see some more useful Metro apps especially for my medical clients. Great tablets but they get used in "Desktop" mode like 90% of the time.
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:44PM
Yeah, I left out rather a long list of Fujitsu tablets which I used before the ST-4121:
- Point PT510
- Stylistic LT C500
- Stylistic ST2300
- Stylistic ST4110
I've got quite the collection of power supplies, docking stations, &c.
Really regret that Fujitsu isn't making a direct replacement. I'd've gotten a Q584 if it just had a (true) daylight viewable display.
(Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:10PM
Yeah the market seems a bit confused at the moment. Samsung seems to be flirting with moving upmarket but has not really committed. You get a digitizer but not much else to make the form factor worthwhile. Wacom has the Cintiq but the price is really off the wall unless you REALLY need it or have cash to burn. Not sure where Fujitsu is going. They are still a good choice but they are losing a lot of the edu market as well as mobile sales forces to iApps. I was surprised that they did not do a big tablet push with Microsoft with touch apps since they have such a long history.
The daylight viewable stuff gets really tough. You are right, most of it is just "turn up the brightness really high" so goodbye battery life in the field. The iRex 1000s was really a neat product for its time... it had its issues (which were mostly fixed by the end) but bad timing to try to compete with the iPad.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:02PM
Which machine had the best transflective screen?
My thinking here is that a transflective and touch/pen sensitive screen is the hardest thing to come by. So perhaps it's easier to find a working screen and then doing some transplantation of the hardware that runs it.
(Score: 2) by kbahey on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:13PM
Wow! Someone really did use those. They were among the the earliest commercially available hand writing recognition "tablets".
I worked for NCR for many years, and remember demoing the 3125 for a difficult customer. We did not intend to sell him those in particular. We were just trying to make them shed the perception that NCR is just a so-so company without cutting edge research and technology.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:46PM
Yep. It ran PenPoint quite nicely, and Windows for Pen Computing well enough.
Really miss PenPoint --- it paired really well w/ my NeXT Cube.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:56PM
For anyone that cares it had the specification [wordpress.com]:
* CPU: 80386SL @ 20 MHz (has about 15 MIPS)
* RAM: 4 MB
* HDD: 20 MB
* Weight: 1500 grams
* Pen: passive
* Display: LCD 640 x 480, 16 gray shades
* OS: MS-DOS plus PenOS or PenPoint or PenWindows
* Interfaces: VGA, keyboard, RS232C, Centronics, all via a “I/O Connector Adapter”
* Released: 1991
* Initial price: 4795 USD
(got slightly curious..)
(Score: 2) by WillAdams on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:08PM
The pen line there is wrong.
It had an active digitizer / stylus done by Wacom --- only binary though, no pressure support, so it only registered on / off.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday June 09 2015, @10:05PM
What is so hard about making a portable machine which:
- has a daylight viewable display
- uses a stylus so that one can draw / write on it (I'll even forgo it being active if there's working palm rejection, sufficient accuracty / precision, and an interface which actually supports pen usage w/o needing hover)
What's hard about it is they cost more and most people don't care enough to pay for it, so niche users get screwed.
I'm not as picky about the daylight viewing, as long as it's not completely horrible outdoors, but I prefer 10" or larger screens and I refuse to use a tablet that doesn't have an active pen, so I have similar problems. The pen requirement, especially, tends to limit options, though it's been getting better lately thanks to Samsung and (surprisingly) Microsoft. I went from a Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet -- one of the first android devices with an active pen, a bit ahead of Samsung's galaxy note stuff -- to the 12" galaxy note they released a year or so ago.
So far, I've been much happier with the Samsung device than I expected. Screen quality is excellent, good brightness, and the pen (being wacom) kicks ass, though it took me a while to adjust to it because it's much smaller than any I've used before.
What's interesting, though, is how Apple's walled garden approach may eventually lead to another alternative: bluetooth-based active pens. They have very limited usefulness right now, only working in a handful of applications on either platform (Android or iOS), but there's a chance the concept will catch on and become more widely usable. We may reach a point where you can match the other requirements (size, display type, platform) and pick up a bluetooth pen to satisfy the digitizer need.
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Wednesday June 10 2015, @04:01PM
You should be able to use any other Wacom EMR pen --- just won't fit in the pen slot.
I limped along w/ the pen from my Fujitsu Stylistic w/ my Asus Vivotab Note 8 for a while --- just tucked it into the elastic strap which held the case closed.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Thursday June 11 2015, @12:56AM
You should be able to use any other Wacom EMR pen --- just won't fit in the pen slot.
Unfortunately, that's not quite the case. There is a lot of overlap, such that the pens from wacom-based ("Penabled") tabletPCs should interoperate, but that doesn't hold true for all of their EMR pens. Their Bamboo, Intuos, and Cintiq lines don't play nice with hardware that they weren't made for, and there's been some cases of compatibility between generations not holding up as well. The difference seems to be that the TabletPC technology doesn't change much, and gets licensed out to third parties without change, so they tend to be compatible regardless of vendor.
I think the Galaxy Note pen can be swapped with a standard TabletPC one, but I don't have one to verify. I considered getting one when I first got the tablet, but I got used to the pen size after a while and the urge to do it went away. Might still do it one day, though, if I can find one that seems comfortable enough. I'd love to be able to use my Intuos4 pen -- it's incredibly comfortable -- but it's not an option :(
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Thursday June 11 2015, @01:26PM
Yes, my apologies, agree that would have been more accurate to say Tablet PC / UD-compatible pen.