Next week sees the release of a new book from Angry Robot publishing, this time from author Madeline Ashby. It’s called “iD: The Second Machine Dynasty” and the author, Madeline Ashby, was kind enough to do a guest post for Big Shiny Robot! to promote the book.

So, without further ado, here’s Madeline:

A weird thing happens in the promotion cycle of your book. At least, it happens to me. Every guest post, every interview, every podcast, every piece of promotion re-introduces me to my book. In a strange way, I feel like I’m getting to know it all over again. From the outside, talking about it, I see its whole shape as one unit, rather than as the isolated parts I’ve worked with for the past few months.

Have you ever had that moment when you’re describing the relationship you’re in to someone else and you hear how much you really love that relationship? Like, you hear yourself say the words to someone else that you’ve never said to your own partner (or parent, or sibling, or friend)? That’s what it’s like. You feel like running back to your book and opening up the manuscript and saying: “I’m sorry you had to put up with so much of my bullshit. I didn’t meant to cut you all those times. I didn’t mean to put you off for Mad Men. I was thinking about you the whole time, I swear.”

Inevitably, there’s also that moment when you realize that you forgot something — a plot element, a grace note, a turn of phrase. It was there all along, like a set of spare keys unwittingly kicked under the couch, only the couch is the hubbub of your mind, and every day it seems to get a little bigger and more cavernous, and more things get stuck in there. This is why it’s good to put a manuscript away before editing it or re-drafting it. You have to let the immediate noise of the novel diminish to a reasonable level, so you can hear the other signals from the parts of the book that you’ve not been able to listen to before. I recognize that even typing those words probably makes me seem like a crazy person, but that’s how it works for me. The longer you leave a manuscript, the more insights you’ll have. Again, it’s like a relationship. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

And you are in a relationship with your characters. Never forget that. Just like real friends, they’ll abandon you if you neglect them for too long. Maybe you’ll run into them again, years later, but it won’t be the same. So put your manuscript away, but not forever. Check in on it. See what it’s up to. While you were busy un-clogging that drain because some asshole left a tea bag in the sink, it went off on vacation, and it probably came back all sun-kissed and golden and there you are up to your elbows in dish soap and coffee grounds. So be careful. That sexy idea of yours can find another writer to take it out in no time flat.

In my case, my idea was about cannibalistic self-replicating humanoids and their blood feuds. And I followed it up with a story about a single self-replicating humanoid learning who he really is while on a path of redemption and revenge. And I’m happy I stuck with those ideas. I’m happy I listened to those characters, because they told me something interesting about what it means to be human, and what it means to love and to hate. But I didn’t know those things until much later. In the moment, I just had to trust that they were taking me somewhere special.

Madeline Ashby is a science fiction writer and strategic foresight consultant living in Toronto. Her latest book, iD: The Second Machine Dynasty will be available from Angry Robot Books 25 June.

It was my extreme pleasure to speak to Orlando Jones about two things that were very important to him, Star Wars, and his new web show from Machinima, Tainted Love.

To listen to the interview, you’ll need to head over to Full of Sith where Mike Pilot, Consetta Parker, and I grilled him about his latest projects as well as the influence Star Wars has had in his life.

As for Tainted Love, it’s something perfect for fans of Big Shiny Robot!

The first episode is posted below, but know that this is Orlando Jones’s attempt to bring graphic novel sensibilities to short form storytelling (and eventually long form storytelling.) The production value of transitions and comic book aesthetic of the show is second to none. You can watch the first episode below and it will take you through all six episodes of the first story arc, starring Jones himself, Eric Roberts, and others.

It was a very fun interview about a fun project and Star Wars, so how could you possibly go wrong?

Perhaps my favorite bit was when he explained to us how his mother had to talk him into seeing Star Wars for the first time. He’s a good guy and I think you’ll enjoy listening to the interview.

For more on Orlando Jones, head to his website. For more on Tainted Love, you can visit their official website as well.

The Clone Wars, despite being canceled, picked up two Daytime Emmys over the weekend: Outstanding Special Class Animated Program & David Tennant (voice of Huyang) for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program. (more…)

If you’ve played a shooter this show is for you, every frustration I’ve had with any FPS is rolled into this show.

Time Traveled Tales is a new collection of short stories from guys like Timothy Zahn, Aaron Allston, Mike Stackpole and plenty of other authors you’ve heard of (me included) and some authors that you’re going to be hearing a lot about in the future.

They’re kickstarting the book as a collection to subvert big publishing and cut out the middle-men, something I was talking about recently in my latest column for City Weekly. This is a perfect way to get great fiction and directly support the artists creating it.

The story I wrote, called “Deep Salvage” is a very cool sci-fi story about two spacers looking to recover a salvage and find something altogether more terrifying.

I’d count it as a personal favor if you checked out the book and considered kickstarting it.

My brief review of Superman: Unchained and an abridged version of this interview appeared on The Huffington Post.

Scott Snyder, as many of you know, is the writer behind Batman and American Vampire. Today, he sets his sights on Superman with the new book Superman Unchained, which is drawn by Jim Lee. I personally thought this first issue of the book captured much more of what Superman is about than all 2+ hours of the Man of Steel movie.

Without further ado, here’s the interview:

BRYAN YOUNG: With Superman Unchained, it seems like 2013 is the year of Superman, and what makes this book for you the big flag-ship title for Superman?         
 
SCOTT SNYDER: For me, I think of it more as the book I would write if I got one chance to write the character ever. And it’s kind of how I tried to approach Batman. First with Black Mirror if I got to write Dick Grayson as Batman one time, with Court of Owls if I got to write Bruce Wayne one time, and then Joker, if I got to do one Joker story ever, that would be it. So with this it really is kind of everything I love about the character I stuffed into one story in one place. It’s really big and bombastic. It’s got kind of a cosmic scale in terms of the threat and the conflict and yet at the same time it’s pretty intimate and deeply about what I think makes Superman special.

BRYAN YOUNG: The last time we talked about it, you said that you were going to put Superman through his paces but that you couldn’t elaborate on that because we were so far away from the book. Can you elaborate on that some, now?

SCOTT SNYDER: I’ll try and get a little bit closer to it and just say we are creating a new villain who in a lot of ways challenges Superman in a way that threatens him not just physically, he is sort of stronger than Superman in a lot of ways physically, but he’s also a character that challenges his mission, challenges his relevance, challenges him emotionally and psychologically in a way that we really want to shake Superman to his core. So in that regard I’d say that about it and you’re going to see a lot of your favorite villains in the book too, from Lex Luthor on. There’s a lot of things coming for him in the book. I wanted it to have a classic feel, so you see the characters you know and love and they’re in situations that you recognize, and yet at the same time I wanted them all to feel fresh. So this story puts them in circumstances that are almost out of context for them, for Lex and everybody else too. I wanted it to be kind of at once classic and modern feeling and different.

BRYAN YOUNG: For people who think (personally I think shortsightedly so) that Superman might not be the most interesting character because he’s invulnerable and he’s a boy scout, what would your response to those people be, convincing them to read this book, that there is something there for them?

SCOTT SNYDER: I think the thing that makes Superman relevant and deeply, deeply compelling is that he’s not just some sort of boy scout who makes these decisions that are ethically right with no reservations, I think he doubts himself, and he knows what’s right and at the end of the day he has to make the decision that he believes in morally. But great Superman stories, in my opinion, pit him against this huge tide of public opinion and also these huge threats, that essentially make it so that making the right decision is the scariest thing in the world. To me, that’s always a relevant story.

Seeing a character who is conflicted about doing the right thing because they know the consequences of doing the right thing could  have global repercussions , and certainly repercussions in their own life towards the people they  love, that are really threatening. Someone like that, still making the right decision because they know at the end of the day that’s all you have, is sort of your own character. That, to me, is always a relevant story. And when you boil it down, that’s what Superman is to me.

He’s somebody who shows us how to be the best we can be even when the circumstances are impossibly terrifying to make those kind of decisions. And Again I just say that again he is really in that way. writing him you really see that he doesn’t’ always know the right thing to do it takes him a while to figure it out and when he does figure it out, he’s sometimes scared of doing the right thing. So in that way, he’s not just kind of a big boy scout who always knows the right thing and has these incredible powers; he’s one of us. He’s human. He’s got a lot of vulnerability and a lot of reservations and when he finally does make that decision the whole weight of the world and the cosmos comes crashing down on him sometimes.   

BRYAN YOUNG: You’re the Batman guy. What is at the core, in your mind, that allows Bruce and Clark to be friends? Or would your version of Bruce and Clark be friends?

SCOTT SNYDER: Yeah they are. You actually see them together in issue two, spoiler, as friends. I think what makes them friends, is that I think they have a tremendous respect for each other in the way that at the end of the day, Bruce deeply recognizes the weight that is on Clark’s shoulders all the time. And he respects the fact that Clark is who he is, through and through. That he is Clark Kent as Superman and makes the same decisions as Superman as he would as Clark Kent. And he put himself in the line of fire globally, with public opinion with the will of different countries, the will of different super villains, as much as Batman makes fun of him, and Bruce makes fun of him, I think he really respects that.

I think there is something similar about Bruce. They both believe in their own missions, and they both will do anything to make those missions successful. And those missions might be slightly different and their methods might be slightly different. But at the end of the day, I think they are both committed to making the world a better place in their own right.  And they have tremendous affection for each other even though their methods and methodology are at certain odds sometimes.

BRYAN YOUNG: Do you think these two iterations of the character are the same classic versions that would rely on each other to take each other down if they had to?

SCOTT SNYDER: Yeah that’s actually part of the scene you see them in. I think Superman wants Batman to have a means of taking him down if something goes wrong and I think Batman would want the same of Superman. I think they both understand in their own friendship that they would want it to be the other person to take them down if something went wrong.

BRYAN YOUNG: Do you feel this book would be a great jumping on point for people who might not read comics generally, but interested in jumping on after Man of Steel?

SCOTT SNYDER: Yeah! Definitely! It’s designed to be 100% reader friendly to anybody that’s never read a Superman story in their life. So if you’ve never read a Superman comic, this is the book to hop on at #1 and welcome to Metropolis. If you’ve been reading Superman your whole life, there are a lot of Easter eggs and there is stuff in the book that makes it clear that this is part of continuity and respects and plays on the stories that you know and love. So it’s supposed to be something that straddles that line, and can be picked up by a new Superman fan or a fan familiar with the character for years.

BRYAN YOUNG: If this story goes well, do you see yourself carrying on with more superman stories the way you’ve done with Batman?

SCOTT SNYDER: SURE! If you guys will rent me a place in Metropolis, I’d love to stay. Who wouldn’t want to? I figure we’ll  see how people like this story, and if Superman even survives it. And if there’s still a Superman at the end, and you guys are happy with us, then I’d love to stay and do more.

BRYAN YOUNG: Superman’s weaknesses have always been – not so much the people around him – but how the people around him, how vulnerable they are. Almost like Bruce. Where Bruce isn’t personally vulnerable, but he is through his family. Superman is very much the same way through the mortality of his friends. Is that something you are playing on in this story?

SCOTT SNYDER: A little bit, but I think we are playing more on his own vulnerability, and I think some of his own Achilles heel. Like the thing that maybe he doesn’t see about himself that makes him vulnerable. One of my favorite stories is actually the search for Kryptonite, it was in Superman/Batman, a while ago. It imagined a world that’s full of kryptonite in different ways that people had collected and used as movie props and all sorts of silly stuff around the world. And there’s such a volume of it, that Superman decides one day that he’s going to clean it up and get rid of it, since it’s so accessible that any villain could use it. And in doing that Batman helps him and they get rid of almost all the kryptonite in the world. But in doing so Superman also realizes that part of reason he’s doing that is because he’s afraid of dying. He’s afraid of his own mortality. He wants to be this immortal and invulnerable super hero that everyone looks up to. And that’s the kind of story that I love doing.

And that’s part of what we are exploring here too, from totally different angle. Kind of a vulnerability that Superman doesn’t realize he has, I think in some ways, until it’s right in his face and he sees it and says, “I didn’t realize that what I was doing or the way I was acting, might be wrong.” I love the stories like that, like Kingdom Come, Red Sun, Dark Knight Returns; where Superman is doing the right thing until it’s not the right thing anymore.  And in some ways, this story asks him if what he’s doing is the right thing, that way.

Superman Unchained #1 comes out today.

Special thanks to Trent Hunsaker, proprietor of Death Ray Comics in Logan, UT, for helping with the interview transcription. He also has podcasts to listen to. Listen to them.

Last night, sometime around 9:30pm MT, Sony ended their E3 Press Conference by giving Microsoft the middle finger, dropping the mic, and walking off the stage – figuratively speaking of course, and I have to say, I was impressed.

Over the last several weeks, Microsoft has come under a lot of fire with their new policy on used games, and the fact that the XBox One will require an internet connection to work. Having been a long time XBox fan, I tried to stay cautiously optimistic, I mean, I have good internet service in my home so what’s the big deal? But the more I hear and read on the subject, I just don’t think when the time comes to purchase a next-gen console I can give my money to Microsoft. Sure, there will be awesome games coming to the console, and the TV tuning capabilities are pretty . . . neat? But there are some big caveats that are hard to swallow:

– Okay, so the XBox One doesn’t need to “always” be connected to the internet, but it has to “check-in” with the proverbial “Mother Ship” once every 24 hours. If it doesn’t, you won’t be playing games.

– Publishers get to determine whether or not you can resell or lend a game.

– On the XBox One, if you purchase a game, you do not own it. You are simply purchasing a liscence to play the game.

These new rules and restrictions are, to put it frankly, assinine and confusing. Micrsoft later noted that you can trade-in your used games, but only to a “participating retailer” who can resell your game – this is most likely due to the fact that they will need to have the capability to access the Microsoft “system” to unlink the game from your console/XBL login in order to resell the game in a state that it can actually be played by the next customer. Also, my console needs to check in via an internet connection every 24 hours in order for Microsoft to verify I have the liscences necessary to play the games I purchased a disc for? I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had an internet outage now and then, so if my internet goes down, I can’t even hop on and play some single player adventure game? I’m sorry, but that’s bad business.

Now let’s talk price point. The XBox One will retail at $499. Now, granted, this comes bundled with the Kinect, but the price still seems a bit steep – especially considering that Microsoft envisions this to be the ultimate entertainment console for any home. I think that price point is just too high for your average, “non-hardcore” gaming/entertainment families. For the rest of us more active gamers? I still think $500 is too high. There are two XBox exclusive games that can move consoles in my opinion: Halo and Gears of War, and I love me some Halo – but I just don’t think I can justify $500 for a console to play one of my favorite franchises and then a bunch of other games available across other consoles.

So this brings us to the Sony E3 conference from last night. It started of pretty rocky to say the least, but around three-quarters of the way through, Sony looked Microsoft straight in the eye, gave a menacing grin, and then proceeded to unload every weapon in their arsenal. The price of the PS4? $100 less than the XBox One at $399. Used games? It plays them with no restrictions. Want to lend a game to your friend? Do it. Your internet is down? Take a break from pwning n00bs in Battlefield and finish off that Assassin’s Creed game you’ve been neglecting because guess what, your console will still let you. Oh, any by the way, thank you for purchasing the PS4 and signing up for $5/month for PS Plus, here’s a free game, Driveclub, and three free indie games, Don’t Starve, Outlast, and The Secret Ponchos. Jack Tretton quite litterally got up on stage, listed out all of the restrictions of the XBox One and said “Yeah, we won’t be pulling any of this bullshit.” You can check it out for yourself in the conference video (jump to the 1:55:00 mark).

I really love my XBox 360 and have invested a lot of time and money into their games, exclusive and otherwise. I am disappointed with what Microsoft has done with the XBox One, and it pains me that I may never play another Halo game if I choose to never pick up an XBox One (who knows, I may after a few price drops), but whatever Sony’s motives, they have positioned themselves to be the more consumer friendly console, and I think Microsoft is really going to suffer in light of this.

When the time comes for me to purchase a next-gen system, Microsoft has essentially already made the decision for me with all of their restrictions. The PS4 has kept things simple for me, and that’s how I want it. I want to be able to play my games when I want to play them, I want to be able to lend games to friend and borrow them from them without a bunch of loopholes and restrictions to do so. The PS4 has actually made me excited for a next-gen console, and for me, they have earned my money. Sony could have made the decision to walk arm-in-arm down this new path with Microsoft, but instead, decided to keep things simple, and that is a company I can get behind.

What are your thoughts on the next-gen console war? Will your money be going to Sony, Microsoft or neither? Sound-off in the comments below!

You can follow Arse-bot and all the pointless thoughts he puts out into the interwebs on Twitter @Arse_bot

Thanks to Club Jade, I was tipped off to the fact that a website called “Schmoes Know” is claiming that they have an exclusive on a casting call sheet that lays out the plot and the characters in Episode VII.

I’m not going to link to their site because they’re simply hit-whoring what seems to be an obviously made up story.

They claim a friend who works close to JJ happened to send around a casting sheet and they cut and paste it and revealed it to their website. Here’s the breakdown:

Storyline: Two 17 year old twins, a girl and a boy, are trained by their uncle Luke to be the greatest Jedi’s in the galaxy. Problems arise when the male twin turns to the dark side.

Jaina Solo – Female, 17 years old, lead. – Jacen’s twin sister, one of the greatest Jedi’s in the galaxy, trained by her uncle Luke Skywalker

Jacen Solo – Male, 17 years old, lead – Jaina’s twin brother, one of the greatest Jedi’s in the world. A loner who is constantly struggling with the idea of what’s right and what’s wrong. Starts to turn to the dark side. Full of conviction that what he is doing is the “right thing”. Will eventually become Darth Caedus.

There are about a thousand things wrong with this, but let’s start with the most obvious of our critical thinking skills, okay?

First: When the prequels were being cast it’s my understanding that the actors basically received their lines to read and that’s it. They got an offer and someone would bring them a script and take it back and that’s that. There was no need for these giant casting calls. And if there was, don’t you think JJ Abrams is smart enough to come up with something non-Star Wars related that would have the same qualities in a character to send around to casting agencies?

Secondly: JJ Abrams is the king of secrecy. If this leak really did come from close to JJ Abrams as the “schmoes” website insists, then it’s obviously a fake or testing for leaks.

Third: Jedi’s? Between the erroneous apostrophe and the unnecessary s, are we really to believe this bit of copy came from someone familiar with the Star Wars universe?

The last point I want to make is this: don’t expect the Expanded Universe. This is written like the fevered dreams of a Legacy of the Force fan (believe me, I’m a fan and would love to see that story on screen), but it’s really just a retread of the prequel trilogy. Expect something big, new, and different.

And don’t expect a site like “Schmoes Know” to break the news when there really is some. Sure, they couched it as a rumour and said it could be fake, but I think anyone who thought this was real enough to report it first hand as an exclusive is simply being irresponsible.

Who knows what Ubisoft has to offer? The conference starts at 3pm pacific time. Stay tuned here as we blog live updates!

And Ubisoft’s conference is a go! Let’s kick things off with Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains. He then shows off some cool Kinect features for Rocksmith allowing him to change his “band.” The example he does is he changes his keyboards to a synthesizer. This is part of the new “Session mode” featured in Rocksmith 2014!

Moving on to Splinter Cell: Blacklist, which is releasing on August 20th. We get a pretty cool trailer. If you are a fan of the Splinter Cell series you will not be disappoint! Not much is revealed about the story in the pretty and badass cinematic. Just a lot of piratey things!

Up next is a trailer for Rayman Legends. Ubisoft is saying it will be the biggest and best Rayman game to date and releases on September 3rd. It looks like cartoony actiony fun! This game looks pretty fun and sports over 120 levels!

The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot is shown off next. It is currently in a beta that you can sign up for at their website http://www.themightyquest.com .

And now the moment many have waited for, South Park: The Stick of Truth! After a short trailer we are just told it will be coming this holiday season!

Now we’re up to checking out the Next Gen games!

The Crew is a really cool looking racing game! The teaser video looked like real life! It is a fully open world driving game in which you take on one criminal organization one city at a time. The demo shows an illegal street race. This game looks as if it is based off of “The Fast and the Furious” or “Gone in 60 Seconds”.

Time for Watch Dogs! Watch Dogs looks breathtaking! In the trailer we see the main character take down a man accused of human trafficking.

For those of you the like to get your groove on Just Dance 2014 is coming! Now it will support 6 players at once and will come out in October on all platforms!

We’re reminded that Just Dance started as a minigame in one of the Raving Rabbids games, and speaking of there will be a Rabbids animated TV show called Rabbids Invasion. It will be an interactive TV show. You’ll have control over certain aspects of it and can change the show as you watch it. It looks like it’s through mini games, much like the actual Raving Rabbids games.

Ooh our first look at Game Play for Assassin’s Creed IV!

Next The Division is being shown, with game play and story, “what will it take to save what remains”. That will end the day is lengthy demo of Tom Clancy’s the Division. They’re going to have a post show rap up with Aisha Tyler, I’m sure she’ll be taller than all of them too.

Apple’s keynote presentation at WWDC 2013 wrapped up just about an hour ago, and it was one hell of a full keynote! Here’s is a 10,000 foot view of all that was covered by Tim Cook and company at the presentation that sold out in 71 seconds!

Retail & Digital Stores

As usual, Tim Cook kicked off the keynote with some numbers. Apple’s 407 retaile stores received 1 million daily visitors in 2012, and Apple opened up a very impressive new store in Berlin. On the digital front, next month the App Store turns 5. In 5 years, there have been 50 Billion app downloads, along with 900 Thousand apps available in the app store serving the 575 Million account holders. Cook was also proud to announce that over $10 Billion has been paid out to developers, with $5 Billion of that being paid out last year alone.

anki

There was a pretty neat demonstration by the folks at anki – a group focused on robotics and AI. They showed off a pretty cool “game” in which cars raced around a track on a mat on the floor. The iPhones ran these little things via blutooth, making them aware of their surroundings and able to react to follow the track, avoid other cars, etc. There was a small hiccup during this presentation when they had to reset their software, but overall it was a pretty cool concept using an iOS device to bring physical gaming to the living room.

Mac & OS X Mavericks

Again with some numbers. Apple’s OS touts a 72 million install base, the iMac is the #1 deskt0p in the US, and the Mcabook is the #1 notebook in the US. But of course, one of the bigger announcements was “OS X Mavericks”. Not sure how I feel about the name, but everyone seemed to enjoy what the new OS is bringing to the table, including Finder Tabs, File Tagging, and better multi-display capabilities.

OS X Mavericks looks to be full of “Advanced Technologies” including Compressed Memory – which rapdily compresses inactive memory to increase responsiveness, App Nap – used to direct power only to apps that benefit from it, OpenGL 4 for more responsive graphics and Timer Coalescing, which can reduce CPU activity by up to 72%.

Safari is also getting an overhaul with a clean new homepage with top sites, a side bar with your book marks, reading list, and links shared from those you follow on Twitter. The new Safari is also made with big power saving improvements so you can browse longer without having to plug in, along with less memory usage.

The OS X Mavericks demo was pretty slick. The 60 FPS scrolling looked really smooth, with no jitters from loading the next image you’re scrolling through. The software will also put a stop to apps/software consuming lots of power and memory when you navigate away from them.

Some other features covered as well were the iCloud keychain, which will securely store passwords and credit card info (less the security code) across multiple devices; Actionable notifications; background app updates; an overhauled calendar in which you can integrate locations, directions and travel time to appointments; Improvements to the Maps app, including the ability to send directions right to your iPhone and the ability for developers to add mapping functionality to their apps via the Map SDK; and finally iBooks is coming to the Mac, and your pages will be synced across multiple devices.

The OS X Developer preview is available today, and the general public will be able to upgrade to Mavericks this Fall.

MacBook Air

The New MacBook Air was unveiled today as well, touting all-day battery life with the 11 inch and 13 inch versions supporting 9 hour and 12 hour battery lives respectively. Unveiled at the same time was the new AirPort Extreme.

Mac Pro Sneak Peek

The audience was given a sneak peek at “The future of the pro desktop” with the Mac Pro.

This machine is built around unified thermal core, contains a new Generation Xeon processor with up to 12-core configs, 256 bit-wide floating point, and PCI Express Gen 3, Fastest ECC memory and is externally expandable via thunderbolt 2. This bad boy will also support up to 3 4k displays. The Mac Pro is coming later this year for all you graphic designers, video and photo editors out there chomping at the bit. Designed in California, assembled in the US.

iOS

The moment finally came as everyone in the audience held their breath in anticipation of iOS7, but, of course, first some numbers. 600,000,000 iOS devices have been sold and Apple holds 60% of the mobile web market share along with 82% tablet market share.

Of course, iOS 7 is said to be the biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone. I feel like this has been said each time a new version of iOS is unveiled, but this time, it actually holds true. This new iOS looks beautiful with flat icon designs, transluscent layers, and a tilt sensor to interact with those layers (i.e. on your home screen, if you tilt the top of the phone towards you, you can “see” behind the icons). Animated lock screens now appear to be supported, and the weather app has received a complete overhaul with animated graphics and the ability to view all saved locations at once – also doubling as a world clock. The overall look and feel of iOS has been completely changed, and from what I saw, 100% for the better.

Many will be excited about a quick-access control panel accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the device. Here you finally have fast access to bluetooth, wifi, brightness, etc. and even a built in flashlight (sorry, flashlight app developers). Multitasking has been redesigned as well, with a simple double tap of the home button you can scroll across screens of all your open apps. The mobile version of Safari also received some attention with a complete redesign, better looking and more functional tab access, and you are no longer limited to only having 8 tabs open at a single time. And finally, the camera, which can now also be accessed from the quick-access control panel. You can now swipe across to select different shooting modes, and even apply live filters built right in to the app. Your photos are now stored much better using metadata which organizes your photos into places and times.

Oh SIRI, how we love to give you so much shit. Briefly the most exciting new feature, SIRI was quickly found to be lackluster and not very useful by many, but she has also received an overhaul in this new iOS so that may no longer be the case. SIRI features a new interface, the ability to pick a male or female voice in multiple languages, and a less choppy, robotic sound to it. SIRI can now also control much more of your device such as turning bluetooth/wifi on/off, increase the brightness, etc. SIRI is now featuring new integrations as well from Twitter, Wikipedia, and . . . Bing. Yes, seriously, Bing.

Also part of iOS 7 is iOS in the Car which adds to functionality for those of you who drive around in iOS-ready cars. iOS will now be integrated into your car’s screen, and you’ll be able to use SIRI to read messages to you and even dictate a response back, all hands free.

To not much of a surprise to anybody, iTunes Radio was unveiled as well. It is built right into the music app and is ad-free for iTunes Match subscribers. It appeared to be pretty slick, but I think will already have an up hill battle with other similar, more established services like Pandora and Spotify to compete with. Will your average user really want to start from scratch putting together their playlists?

The iOS 7 Beta will be made available later today, and the rest of us will have to wait until this Fall to get our hands on it.

Final Thoughts

For me, this was a hell of a WWDC. It really seems like Apple came out of the gate with all guns blazing. On the mobile side of things, part of me wonders if Tim Cook and company finally see Windows and Android as real competition and are going to rise to the challenge. Competition always makes for better inovation, and the customers benefit from this. As an iPhone user, I am thrilled with what they have done with iOS 7, despite apparently not getting my letter about actionable notifications. The new iOS is hypnotically sleek and brings a lot to the table to keep the iPhone in the game as more devices come to the market. I don’t think there is a smart phone out there that is the “best smart phone”, I’m a big proponent for buy what suits you best; but as an iPhone owner, I am very excited about iOS 7 and really feel like Apple has stepped up their game a bit.

As usual, Apple is making some of the best hardware out there, and the Mac Pro coming later this Fall, and the MacBook Air are once again falling in line with their quality products. I’ve been thinking about picking up a MacBook Air for some time now, and this might be the version I finally buy. The Mac Pro looks to make a big splash with desktop users later this Fall, and I’m betting a lot of power users will be looking to pick one of these up.

What did you think of Apple’s WWDC 2013 Keynote? What was your favorite reveal? Do you think they missed the mark on anything? Sound off in the comments below!