WWDC 2013 Roundup: iOS 7, OS X 10.9, MacBooks, ‘Genius-like’ Radio app (plus new tidbits)

Mark Gurman

Photo by Nick Thulin

Photo by Nick Thulin

By this time in 2012, Apple had taken the stage and dominated the news cycle multiple times to announce products like a new iPad, Apple TV, new Mac operating system, and various other software for both iOS and OS X. However, the first half of 2013 has been low on Apple product introductions as the company, coming off of a big fall, has focused on minor tweaks to existing products.

Even though Apple has been out of the limelight, the Cupertino company has been hard at work on a slew of new hardware, software, and services products, and the company plans to introduce new versions of iOS, OS X, and the MacBook Air at its WWDC conference next week. Apple will be holding a keynote on 10 AM on Monday to talk about these new products.

Below, you can find our much-anticipated WWDC 2013 roundup along with many new tidbits about what Apple is preparing:

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Apps & Updates

Review: Moment is a huge improvement on Facebook sharing for OS X

Mike Beasley

When Mountain Lion launched last year, Apple introduced some basic Facebook sharing options to OS X. You can post a status update from Notification Center or upload a photo from Finder, Preview, iPhoto, or other Mac applications. While those functions are useful, Apple has yet to really embrace all of Facebook’s features. For example, you can’t tag a friend in a status update or create a new photo album, and the notification integration, while nice, is a bit unreliable.

Today, Tapmates released Moment, a new app that bridges the gap between OS X’s Facebook integration and the features you’re already used to on the Facebook website. Keep reading for our full review.

Kamcord adds voice overlay feature, announces 500M iOS gameplay videos recorded in last 6 months

Jordan Kahn


Kamcord, the startup offering a free SDK that makes it easy for iOS devs to offer in-game recording functionality to their users, today is announcing some pretty big updates to the service. Since grabbing $1.5 million in seed funding from some notable investors back in December (Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, and others), the Y Combinator-backed service has experienced some significant traction and the team is adding plenty of new features to stay ahead of the competition.

Kamcord-iPad-01The big new feature being announced is voice overlay functionality that will allow users to narrate their videos while they play, as demoed by the team in the video above. CEO Matt Zitzmann also provided us with some other updates the team has added in the last month, including: Video trimming, a custom UI / white-label solution, and a new “Gameplay of the week” notifications feature.

Also being announced today: Kamcord has recorded over 500 million gameplay videos in the last 6 months alone across the 100 apps its currently deployed in. One those games includes the latest from Chillingo and Zitzmann says the company is talking to all the other big mobile game developers too. Read more

Apps & Updates

Gmail for iOS updated with new inbox grouped by category & improvements to notifications

Jordan Kahn

Gmail-inbox-iOS-categoriesAs expected, Google just started rolling out its brand new inbox to iOS users after first introducing us to the new category-based design last week. While its not a tabbed design like on the desktop, much like the Android app that just started rolling out iOS users can now access the new feature that groups emails into separate inboxes by selecting categories from the app’s side navigation bar.

 Meet the new inbox: If you’ve enabled the new inbox, your mail is now grouped into categories so that you can see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when. Primary mail is shown first and it’s easy to access and keep track of email in other categories by opening the menu. Configure this feature by going to Gmail.com on your computer.

Today’s Gmail update also brings improved notifications allowing you to customize what emails you receive notifications for: Read more

Apps & Updates

Google updates Chrome for iOS with conversational voice search, improved voice recognition & performance enhancements

Jordan Kahn

Chrome for iOS - Voice-SearchAs expected, Google updated its Chrome for iOS app to version 27 today after releasing updates for both desktop and Android late last month. The update includes a number of new improvements, the most notable of which is voice search that allows users to take advantage of the conversational voice search features Google already rolled out to Mac. Google previously announced the feature (pictured above), would be arriving on iOS, but today the updated app is officially available to all on the App Store.

With today’s update you will not only be able to search with your voice right within Chrome (a feature already available to users through the Google Search iOS app), you’ll also get “answers spoken back to you” for specific search results. Google first showed off the new conversational search features at its I/O event last month.

Other improvements in today’s update include faster voice recognition “with text streamed on the fly,” faster page reloads even on slow networks, and the usual stability and security enhancements. Read more

Apps & Updates

Apple debuts WWDC 2013 app for iOS, will feature session videos, Passbook support, more

Zac Hall

Apple has rolled out its WWDC 2013 app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch (via MacRumors) this morning as WWDC quickly approaches. Apple has promised to push out session videos much quicker this year and will be available online as well as via its WWDC 2013 app for iOS.

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference kicks off a week from today in San Francisco where we’ll be covering the event.

Apple is set to preview new versions of its iOS and OS X operating systems at its keynote, which we’ll be live blogging from location, and has already promised to deliver beta releases of both operating systems to developers so they can prepare their apps for the new operating systems:

“We look forward to gathering at WWDC 2013 with the incredible community of iOS and OS X developers,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Our developers have had the most prolific and profitable year ever, and we’re excited to show them the latest advances in software technologies and developer tools to help them create innovative new apps. We can’t wait to get new versions of iOS and OS X into their hands at WWDC.”

WWDC attendees can use the app to organize their session priorities, navigate around Moscone West, and save their registration information in Passbook.

Check out the details below: Read more