Philadelphia’s Drexel University knows that everyone needs a portable computing option when they’re studying on campus. But what about those students who don’t want to lug their personal computer around with them?

To help out students, Drexel has unveiled a MacBook vending machine on campus. It sits in the University’s Hagerty Library and allows students, faculty, and staff to “check out” a MacBook for free, for five hours at a time – as long as they sport the proper Drexel ID of course.

The vending machine is open 24/7 and is entirely self-service. It contains a maximum of 12 MacBooks.

Drexel says they’re “providing a solution to students who don’t want to carry a laptop while walking late at night from their dorm or off-campus housing to the library.”

If this vending machine proves to be a success, Drexel says they’ll possibly add others in other areas around campus. Apparently, they’re weighing iPad vending machines as well.

[Drexel News Blog]

CNN reports that four armed robbers made their way into an Apple store in Paris on New Years. They were able to get in through a service entrance and threatened employees to let them into the back storeroom. From there, the robbers were able to get away with $1.3 million worth of iPads, iPhones and MacBooks.

So, how did they get away with it? It turns out that robbing a store on New Years is apparently easier than it looks thanks to the majority of police attention being given to the crowds outside on the streets. The police note that the thieves also knew exactly what they were doing by going after devices in the storeroom while leaving the display devices on the show floor.

This isn’t the first time that an Apple store has been hit with major thefts since the launch of the super popular iPhone 5. In Japan, thieves hit three major stores in Osaka and made away with over 100 iPhone 5s. The iPhone 5 also continues to be a popular target among those who rob people on the street, but Apple thankfully provides a free service to catch them. Unfortunately, the unactivated iPhones in Paris can not be recovered so easily.

One of those little issues reared its ugly head last week as MacBook owners began to find that their batteries were just not holding out like they used to. While it could be blamed on a hardware malfunction, the problem only appears to affect those who have upgraded to Mountain Lion. Unless thousands of people simultaneously ran into battery problems, it’s probably an issue with the operating system itself.

Ars Technica decided to run a few tests to see just how bad the battery life was under Mountain Lion. The test revealed that the new retina display MacBook Pro would lasts a little over eight hours on Lion. With Mountain Lion installed, the battery would never last beyond five hours.

According to a user on the official Apple forums, an Apple rep told him that the problem is indeed originating from the software. The company is currently creating a fix and will distribute it via patch on the App Store once it’s finished.

It’s a relief that it’s only the OS causing the problem. A hardware malfunction on such a massive scale would have embarrassing for Apple. If you find yourself not being able to wait for the release of the patch, you can try a few of these solutions: repair your disk permissions and access control lists, reinstall Dropbox or reset GateKeeper so that it allows apps to install from any source.

Nothing is worse than decreased battery life on laptops. We’ll let you know when the patch is available so that you can get back to eight hour marathons of Mac bliss without having to plug it into the wall.

If you were paying attention, though, you may have noticed that there’s one thing that Apple didn’t announce: an updated 17-inch MacBook Pro. The non-retina MacBook Pro is available in 13-inch and 15-inch models only, and the retina display MacBook Pro is available only in a 15-inch model. So where’s the 17-inch MacBook Pro? Well, it looks like they’ve killed it. When the Apple Store came back up following the keynote, the 17-inch MacBook Pro was nowhere to be found:

So, while Apple fans have plenty to be excited about today, it’s not all sunshine and roses. If you were holding out for a new 17-inch MacBook Pro, it looks like you’re out of luck.

This is not the full version of Siri, but it can be used for dictation. Hitting the microphone button allows you to speak dictation to a number of software application including Facebook and third party applications like Microsoft Word.

Follow our live coverage here.

[img: Engadget]

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Brian Mastenbrook
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Dictation, because Apple should have access to my every thought. Privacy is dead.

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UPDATE: “I hope you have a fantastic week, thank you very much for coming.”

UPDATE: Talking about how great Apple and their products are and the importance of devs in that process.

UPDATE: Tim Cook back on stage.

UPDATE: iOS 6 ships “this fall,” will support iPhone 3GS and later, iPad 2 and new iPad, 4th gen iPod Touch and up. Beta available for devs today.

UPDATE: Maps app will feature and promote travel apps from the App Store.

UPDATE: Same features for China that were announced for OS X are coming to iOS 6, too.

UPDATE: Redesigned the App Store. Fine tuned privacy controls. Improved experience for users with hearing aids. Per-account signatures. Added Lost mode to Find My iPhone: send a phone number to your lost iPhone and allow whoever finds it to call you.

UPDATE: “And these are only 10 of the over 200 new features in iOS 6.”

UPDATE: Siri narrates your turns. Get ETA, overview of your trip, etc.

UPDATE: Includes adaptive, cinematic animations of turns.

UPDATE: Showing off turn-by-turn navigation.

UPDATE: Flyover. Hyper-realistic 3D models. Vector based maps respond quickly. Lets you zoom in and out.

UPDATE: Ask Siri to take you there, and she’ll give you directions. Ask for stops like gas stations, and she’ll find them along your route.

UPDATE: Monitors traffic, updates your ETA on the fly. Reroutes you around bad traffic. Integrated into Siri, shows on the lock screen of the phone.

UPDATE: Turn-by-turn navigation built in.

UPDATE: Integrated with Yelp, traffic service in the works. Includes incident reports using anonymous crowdsourced data from iOS users.

UPDATE: Brand new mapping solution built from the ground up. Doing all the cartography in-house. A worldwide effort.

UPDATE: Time for Maps.

UPDATE: Guided Access allows you to control whether kids can change an app’s settings. Single app mode allows you to lock an app so that they can’t leave the app by hitting the home button.

UPDATE: Next, Guided Access.

UPDATE: Cards updated live. If your flight’s gate changes, the app updates your boarding pass automatically.

UPDATE: Automatically updates balances on store cards.

UPDATE: Location based features in Passbook. When you get to the movie theater, it pulls up your ticket.

UPDATE: Passbook. Get all your passes – boarding passes, tickets, store cards, movie tickets, etc. – all in one app.

UPDATE: Now easier to upload photos/videos straight from the mail app.

UPDATE: VIPs coming to Mail. Mark a contact as a VIP and get a notification when they send you an email, also a flagged mailbox.

UPDATE: Photo Stream. Shared photo streams coming in iOS 6.

UPDATE: Full screen Safari in landscape on iOS.

UPDATE: Smart app banners lets devs direct users to the App Store for their native apps, or launches the app automatically.

UPDATE: Safari getting iCloud tabs and photo uploads.

UPDATE: Apple ID and phone number being unified, so you can receive FaceTime calls and messages to your phone number from your Mac or iPad.

UPDATE: FaceTime now works over 3G.

UPDATE: Do Not Disturb allows you to turn off notifications temporarily. Includes fine control. Also set to allow repeated calls in case of emergencies.

UPDATE: Reply to phone calls with messages, or set reminders to call them later.

UPDATE: Phone app getting enhancements.

UPDATE: Facebook friends’ contact info will appear in their entries in the Contacts app. Facebook events (including birthdays) now appear in Calendar.

UPDATE: Post to Facebook and Twitter from Notification Center. Use Siri to post to either Facebook or Twitter. Also made Facebook integration a public API, meaning devs can integrate it into their apps easily.

UPDATE: Facebook integration. Sign into Facebook from the Settings app. Post to Facebook from Photos, Safari, Maps, the App Store, the iTunes Store, Game Center, and more.

UPDATE: Siri coming to the new iPad.

UPDATE: Local search going around the world.

UPDATE: Several new languages, including Spanish, Italian, Korean, Mandarin, and Cantonese.

UPDATE: Working with a number of car manufacturers to bring Eyes Free Siri integration within the next twelve months. Use buttons on your steering wheel to activate Siri.

UPDATE: “Eyes Free.”

UPDATE: Now Siri can launch apps. E.g., “Play Temple Run.”

UPDATE: Can ask about directors, actors, etc.

UPDATE: Siri has become a movie buff. Ask what movies are playing nearby. Rotten Tomatoes integration. Watch trailers from within Siri. Showing a trailer for The Avengers.

UPDATE: Much more information about restaurants. Partnered with Yelp and OpenTable for reviews and more information.

UPDATE: Ask about team scores, individual player stats, standings, and more. Even ask whether LeBron is taller than Kobe.

UPDATE: Sports scores now integrated. Shows final score of yesterday’s Giants-Rangers game.

UPDATE: Siri demo.

UPDATE: More than 200 new features, starting with significant enhancements to Siri.

UPDATE: Over 75% of users are very satisfied with iOS.

UPDATE: Going over some of the features added in iOS 5. 1.5 trillion notifications since launch. 140 million iMessage users, over 150 billion messages sent, over a billion sent every day.

UPDATE: 365 million iOS devices sold as of March. Over 80% of them are running iOS 5 (compared to a huge number of Android devices using Gingerbread instead of Ice Cream Sandwich).

UPDATE: Now time for iOS 6.

UPDATE: Mountain Lion ships next month. Devs get near-final preview today.

UPDATE: Upgrades from both Snow Leopard and Lion. Buy once, upgrade all your Macs.

UPDATE: Upgrade to Mountain Lion is $19.99. Yes, really.

UPDATE: 1700 APIs for developers.

UPDATE: New features for China. New Chinese dictionary. Updates for pinyin input. Baidu search for Safari.

UPDATE: Many more features. Including VIPs in Mail, search in LaunchPad, Gatekeeper, Offline Reading List.

UPDATE: Showing off CSR Racing head-to-head using AirPlay mirroring.

UPDATE: Use Game Center and AirPlay to send your game to your big screen.

UPDATE: Supports turn-based and head-to-head gaming, both Mac-to-Mac and Mac-to-iOS.

UPDATE: “Finally, Game Center.” There’s been “a renaissance of gaming on the Mac” thanks to the App Store.

UPDATE: AirPlay mirroring. “Absolutely the easiest way to get whatever’s on your Mac onto a nearby projector or television.” Connects to Apple TV and sends 1080p video.

UPDATE: “Power Nap.” Keeps your Mac up to date while it sleeps. Fetches mail, calendars, photos, reminders, etc, even when asleep. Downloads App Store and system updates while charging.

UPDATE: Tweet directly from Notification Center. Notification Center also supports web services.

UPDATE: Notification Center helpful for when you use full-screen apps. Supports multitouch gestures: swipe down with two fingers on the trackpad to bring it down.

UPDATE: Tab View: use gestures to physically navigate across tabs.

UPDATE: iCloud tabs. Shows you all the tabs you’ve got open across all your iOS/OS X devices. Pick up on your Mac where you left off on your iPhone.

UPDATE: Unified search/URL bar.

UPDATE: The new Safari. Fastest Javascript engine of any browser on the planet.

UPDATE: Sharing (via Twitter, Messages, Flickr, etc.) integrated deeply into the OS. Log into Twitter using System Preferences.

UPDATE: Mountain Lion gets Dictation. Anywhere you can type, you can talk. Including third-party apps like MS Word.

UPDATE: Notifications can be turned off temporarily. Shuts itself down if you connect a projector.

UPDATE: Notification Center brings “consistent and elegant” notifications to Mac, replacing all the various and distracting ways apps got your attention.

UPDATE: Changes to a document made on your iPhone are automatically synced to your Mac.

UPDATE: You can drag files into iCloud to upload.

UPDATE: Attachments up to 100MB in size, including HD videos via iMessage.

UPDATE: Messages brings iMessage to the Mac. Allows you to respond to messages from your iPhone via your Mac. Keeps all your conversations synced across devices.

UPDATE: Location-based reminders on the Mac for the first time.

UPDATE: Three new iCloud apps for Mountain Lion: Message, Reminders, and Notes. Documents in the Cloud another new feature. Allows you to store your apps in iCloud. Comes with a developer SDK so devs can build Documents In The Cloud support into their apps.

UPDATE: iCloud has 125 million users.

UPDATE: 200 new features in Mountain Lion, just 8 focused on today.

UPDATE: 26 million copies of Lion shipped. 40% of OS X users are on Lion 9 months after release. It took Windows 7 27 months to get to the same point.

UPDATE: 66 million Mac users now, three times the number of a few years ago.

UPDATE: Notebooks done, on to OS X.

UPDATE: Starts at $2,199. Ships today.

UPDATE: Video over, Schiller back on stage.

UPDATE: Completely redesigned internal cooling system. Designed to be imperceptible to the user. Asymmetrically placed fan blades spread the sound over a variety of frequencies.

UPDATE: “One of the most significant challenges was completely redesigning our approach to designing the display.” The display is built directly into the unibody.

UPDATE: Three million more pixels than an HDTV.

UPDATE: Video showing off the new MacBook Pro’s features. Jony Ive: “Without a doubt the very best computer we’ve ever built.”

UPDATE: FaceTime HD camera, dual microphones, best stereo speakers ever on a desktop or notebook.

UPDATE: SD card slot, updated MagSafe power port, two thunderbolt ports, two USB 2/3 ports, and an HDMI port.

UPDATE: A 2.7GHz quad-core i& processor, up to 16GB of RAM, a GeForce GT 650 graphics processor, up to 768 GB of flash storage. 7 hours of battery life, 30 days standby.

UPDATE: Completely redesigned internals, including a huge battery.

UPDATE: New display will be great for gaming.

UPDATE: Updates to Photoshop and Autodesk also in the works.

UPDATE: All major Apple apps take advantage of the new retina display. Including iMovie, iPhoto, Mail, Safari, etc. Major updates to Aperture and Final Cut Pro. Individual apps will have to update, otherwise they get pixel-doubled (think iPhone apps on the iPad).

UPDATE: 15.4-inches diagonally, 2880×1800 resolution. 220 ppi, 5,184,000 pixels total. Most hi-res notebook ever. Reduced glare by 75%

UPDATE: Retina display!

UPDATE: Less than three quarters of an inch thick: 0.71 inches. Thin as the MacBook Air, weighs 4.46 pounds. Thinner and lighter than the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

UPDATE: Very thin, very light, enormous display. Schiller says “It’s thinner than my finger!”

UPDATE: The Next Generation MacBook Pro. “Killer new display,” thinner, lighter, no optical drive or wired networking.

UPDATE: Brand new MacBook.

UPDATE: MacBook Pro to come in 13-inch and 15-inch models. 13-inch to be $1199 and $1499, 15-inch at $1799 and $2199. Ships today. No retina display so far.

UPDATE: MacBook Pro: up to 2.7GHz quad-core i7 processor, up to 8GB of memory, 60% faster graphics.

UPDATE: New prices: all models get a $100 price cut, all ship today (Apple Store still down).

UPDATE: 11 and 13-inch models, 1366×768 display, 720p FaceTime HD camera.

UPDATE: Adding a USB 3.0 port.

UPDATE: i& Ivy Bridge processors, up to 8GB RAM, 60% faster memory. 512MB of flash storage.

UPDATE: MacBook Air up first. Looks like four separate models.

UPDATE: “The MacBook Lineup.”

UPDATE: Phil Schiller takes the stage to show off notebook changes.

UPDATE: “Today we’re announcing exciting new changes in notebooks, and major releases of OS X and iOS.”

UPDATE: Video over. Tim Cook returns to the stage.

UPDATE: Video talking about some of the amazing apps in the App Store, including one that helps blind people navigate. Developer says he never thought of picking another platform.

UPDATE: App Store coming soon to 32 new countries, bringing the total to 155.

UPDATE: Developers have gotten a whopping $5 billion in payments from the App Store.

UPDATE: The App Store has over 400 million user accounts. Largest number of accounts with credit cards on the internet. 650K apps in the App Store, 225K of them are iPad-specific. “This compares to just a few hundred for our competition.” 30 billion app downloads so far.

UPDATE: Tim Cook takes the stage. “We have some really cool stuff to show you this morning.”

UPDATE: The presentation is opening with a video of Siri, who says she “was asked to warm up the crowd.” She’s telling jokes, including “How many developers does it take to change a light bulb? None. That’s a hardware problem.”

UPDATE: Apple has announced that the presentation will begin shortly. There are reportedly some MacBooks already on the stage, though it’s not clear whether they’re new ones or not.

With just a few minutes left to go until Apple’s WWDC 2012 Keynote, attendees are already being seated in the hall at San Francisco’s Moscone West. You can check out our rumor roundup from this morning for an idea of what to expect from today’s keynote. Meanwhile, this page will be updated live as the keynote progresses. Click refresh regularly to see new updates, which will appear at the top of the page.

Now, with the keynote right around the corner, details have emerged of some of the specs we should expect to see in the new Macs. According to a report early this morning from 9to5Mac, there will be three configurations of the Mac Pro: two normal configurations and a server configuration. The first of the two normal configurations will sport a 3.2GHz quad-core processor, 6GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive, and an ATI Radeon 5770 graphics processor. The second will have a 2.4GHZ twelve core processor, 12GB of RAM, and the same hard drive and GPU. The server configuration will come with the 3.2GHz processor, 8GB of RAM, and two separate 1TB hard drives.

There will also be four configurations of the MacBook Pro, 13.3-inch and two 15.4-inch. Interestingly, these appear to be only minor updates, raising the question of whether the MacBook Pro line might not be getting a retina display after all, and whether the rumored new MacBook will actually be getting the updates we’ve been expecting for the MacBook Pros.

At any rate the first of the new 13.3-inch MacBook Pros will include a 2.5GHz dual-core processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive. The second will have a 2.9GHz dual-core processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 750GB hard drive. The first 15.4-inch model will have a 2.3GHz quad core processor with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive, while the second will have a 2.6GHz quad core processor with 8GB and a 750GB hard drive. The second 15.5-inch model will also offer optional upgrades to a 2.7GHz quad-core processor and a 1TB hard drive.

None of this is confirmed, though 9to5Mac’s information has often been good in the past. At any rate, all will be revealed this afternoon during Apple’s keynote. You can follow our WWDC 2012 page for more information, including live coverage of the keynote as it happens.

While there have long been rumors that Apple would be announcing updates to several of their Mac computers, this all but confirms it. What it doesn’t do, unfortunately, is confirm any of the details. That means we’ll still have to wait for the keynote to see whether the new Macs will be getting retina displays, or whether they’ll roll out an entirely new line of MacBook.

You can check out our WWDC 2012 page for more information, and for live coverage of the keynote once it begins. It’s scheduled for 10 AM Pacific time (1 PM Eastern).

A new report today, though, suggests that the MacBook Pro may not be getting an update at all. It seems that KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has told AppleInsider that Apple will actually be unveiling an entirely new line of laptop computers, simply called the MacBook. It is this new MacBook, Kuo says, that will be getting the retina display, slimmer form factor, and losing the optical drive. The new MacBook, Kuo says, will come in 13-inch and 15-inch models. The 13-inch model will start at $1,199, and the 15-inch model will start at $1,799. He expects Apple to launch the 15-inch model next week, but delay the 13-inch model until August. If the new MacBook sells well enough, Apple will eventually discontinue the MacBook Pro line altogether.

Of course, none of this is confirmed, but it makes good sense. For one thing, the name “MacBook Pro” is an anachronism that doesn’t really make sense anymore: it comes from a time when Apple had two separate notebook lines, the MacBook and MacBook Pro. The MacBook was a bit less expensive and a bit less powerful, and had a white plastic body, while the MacBook Pro had beefier specs, an aluminum body, and came in a 17-inch model (the MacBook was only available in 13-inch and 15-inch models). Eventually the 15-inch MacBook was discontinued. Not long after, the 13-inch MacBook Pro was introduced and the 13-inch MacBook also discontinued. It makes sense that Apple would want to drop the “Pro.” The way they plan to do that, it seems, is by introducing an entirely new line of MacBooks and phasing out the MacBook Pro.

This also makes sense of a report we brought you a few days ago. Earlier this week a spec sheet that claimed to be for the upcoming 13-inch MacBook Pro was leaked. To the surprise of pretty much everyone, it appeared to be only an incremental update, rather than the kind of major overhaul we had been expecting. If Kuo is right, then that spec sheet makes more sense: soon-to-be-announced MacBook will be getting the lion’s share of the improvements, while the existing MacBook Pro line will be getting a much more modest feature bump.

But again, nothing is certain yet. We won’t know anything for sure until Tim Cook takes the stage at WWDC 2012 on Monday.

Now, AppleInsider and 9to5Mac have separately published a leaked list showing part numbers for a large number of new Macs. If this information is accurate, it proves that the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, and Mac Pro are all getting upgrades and will be released around the same time (presumably sometime after Monday’s WWDC 2012 Apple keynote). You can check out the parts lists for yourself below. First is the one published by 9to5Mac. They claim to have been sitting on this one for awhile, because it includes information that could put their source’s job at risk. They only published it because AppleInsider did so first:

The first image from AppleInsider appears to be a photocopy of the actual inventory list. The second is AI’s own table showing the likely hardware associated with each model number.

If this information is reliable, as seems likely, then it looks like Apple really is gearing up for a major overhaul of the Mac product line. Now all that’s really left to wonder about is what features these new Macs will have.