Weekend Wrap-Up: Apple Trots Out OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 at WWDC
Happy Sunday! It’s time once again for our Weekend Wrap-Up, where we gather up the biggest stories in tech from the past week and help you catch up on what you missed.
There was a lot of Apple news this week, but Google and Amazon had some news of their own, too. Let’s dive in.
Apple Unveils OS X Yosemite, Its Latest Desktop OS
If you thought that last year’s Mavericks release was a big one, and that this year’s version of OS X would simply refine the operating system’s looks, you were half right. Apple’s OS X Yosemite definitely goes in a different direction visually, borrowing some of the ideas that Apple used in its revamp of iOS last year. But new software features are coming, too, and most of them are designed to help your Mac and your iOS device work better together. For instance, a new “Hand-Off” feature will detect what you’re doing on your iOS device and let you finish on your Mac. We’ll surely learn more about Yosemite as we get closer to its full release this fall.
Also Coming This Fall: iOS 8
As we’ve seen in years past, WWDC wasn’t just a place to unveil the latest desktop OS: mobile got some love, too. Apple gave us a look at iOS 8, which includes some neat new features and tricks — one of which may be tied to that darned iWatch rumor that won’t seem to die. HealthKit acts as sort of an aggregator for all of the health and fitness-related apps on your iPhone — think RunKeeper, FitBit, etc. Because it works with those apps, it can work with third-party fitness tracking devices, but it’s hard to believe that the company isn’t setting up a playpen for its own wearable down the line. There are a lot of other iOS 8 features, which we’ll undoubtedly cover as we head toward its fall launch.
Project Tango is Real, and Google Has Given Us Video
It’s been rumored for a bit, but now we can plant this news firmly in the “confirmed” section: Google’s Project Tango is legit, and the company is now showing the device off in a video. The tablet has some wicked good hardware and boasts “desktop-level processing power,” according to our own Brian Rubin. But the most intriguing aspect of the device is its camera set, an entire collection of regular cameras, motion-tracking cameras and depth sensors built on top of Movidius Myriad 1 vision processor architecture. This could allow the Project Tango tablet to do 3D mapping, something we’ve not really seen in a consumer-facing device before. Developers who want to toy with the possibilities can pick up a dev kit for $1,024, but there’s no word yet on a commercial release.
Amazon May Finally Do That Smartphone
It’s been one of those on-again, off-again rumors for quite a while: Amazon is going to do a smartphone. Or is Amazon not going to do a smartphone? The company is going to do an event for a new project on June 18 and, despite having a teaser video with Amazon customers reacting to the new toy, we still don’t know what it is. New smartphone? New Kindle Fire tablet? Something entirely new that we aren’t expecting? Why must we ask so many questions? Why do you tease us so, Amazon? We’ll find out in 10 days what the e-retailer has up its sleeve, but in the meantime, click the link above and check out the video — then make some guesses of your own.