At Apple’s WWDC keynote today, announcements came as expected: a new Retina-display MacBook and iOS 6 — when released this fall — to feature Facebook integration, a new all-Apple created mapping experience and a smarter Siri that handles more tasks.
Apple Integrates Facebook Into iOS6 here on Marketing Land covers more about the Facebook news. Apple Gets Into Local Search With New Maps App and Apple Siri To Add Sports, Restaurants, Reservations, Movies & App Search on our sister-site Search Engine Land cover the Siri and Maps stories.
Below is my my live blog of live blogs of the event below. I wasn’t at the event myself, so I watched these places that were: 9To5Mac, AllThingsD, Betanews, CNET, CNN, Engadget, Gdgt, GigaOM, Gizmodo, Mashable, New York Times, Reuters, San Francisco Chronicle, The Next Web, The Verge, TechCrunch, TechnoBuffalo, Time, VentureBeat and the Wall Street Journal. There will be typos, because I was typing fast.
Trash Talking Android
There is music playing. Coldplay. And everyone has Xylobands rigged to their iPhones. OK, I made the part about the Xylobands up.
Says Gdgt, Siri is welcoming people to WWDC. “Is that a big audience? Ohhhh.” No, but I wish she said that. She’s apparently making a lot of bad jokes, including says Reuters, talking trash about Android. “Ice Cream Sandwich. Jelly Bean. Who makes up these code names. Ben and Jerry?” CNET quotes her saying. Those are all nicknames of Android operating system versions.
Stats About Apps & The App Store
Tim Cook is out now saying there are 400 million App store accounts, says CNET. “This is the store with the largest number of accounts with credit cards anywhere on the internet that we’re aware of,” reports Engadget. [Hint, take that, Google]. Also says 650,000 apps in the store for 225,000 of them for the iPad. [And about 100,000 of those were downloaded by my kids and are screwing up my wife’s iPhone].
Developers have made over $5 billion from the App Store, Cook says. The Engadget live blog, by the way, is very good. There are 30 billion download to date. That’s a lot of downloads, David [That’s a Love, Actually, reference. Rent it]. Gdgt has a picture of a big check with the $5 billion figure being shown. Store is in 120 countries, with goal for 150 [even if Apple has to invade North Korea, though might be easier to buy it].
Video playing now, says AllThingsD, one is a GPS program being shown for blind people. An anatomy app. People talking about the iPad changing everything. CNET posts about owners of a hotel treehouse in Vermont like the AirBnB app. [You know, until someone burns down the treehouse, then it’s a big tech story about AirBnB’s failures….]. The AirBnB cofounder now getting some video time, wow — someone at Apple likes the service.
Some Minor MacBook Air & MacBook Upgrades
Phil Schiller is now up. Notes Mashable, someone who tried to livestream WWDC has been escorted from the building. Enjoy your Android phone, because Apple has now instituted a live-time ban. No, not worry, at least the ban part. Says AllThingsD, Cook says to expect news of new laptops, new iOS 6 and MacOS updates. Starting first, updates to MacBook Air. Says The Verge, new CPUs, up to 2 GHz dual core, 3.2 Ghz boostin, 8GB or RAM [damn, now I need to upgrade], 512 GB of flash storage, USB 3.
But what about the damn hard drive storage, Tim? 256GB is so 2005, cloud or no cloud?
Facetime will get 720p camera. 11in will have same screen resolutions, says CNET. 13″ will have same as well. Starts shipping today, both versions. And no, no storage past 256GB on the 13″ on. Bummer.
MacBook Pro updates. New graphics from Nvidia. Will this keep my kids computers from melting under Minecraft? Prices the same, says The Verge. 15″ will have quad-core CPU. And that’s it, that’s the update to those lines, I guess new video. Nothing about retina displays so far that I’m seeing.
The Next Generation MacBook Pro
But wait, there’s a picture of a computer under a slide. OMG, “Next generation MacBook Pro” is now showing. Sorry, I’m passing out! Not really. Says CNET, Schiller says “you want it to be radically thin and light.” I do, Phil, I do! Well, he’s got “the most beautifcul computer we’ve ever made” says CNET. Says The Verge, “There’s never been a computer this gorgeous… thinner than my finger.”
It’s about as thin as a MacBook Air, shows pictures The Verge has. By the way, The Verge has a really good live blog going. And says CNET, also with a good live blog, there’s a Retina Display. 2880×1800 resolution pixel density (FYI, don’t confuse that, if I remember correctly, with screen resolution. More pixels, sharper display, not more stuff being displayed).
Schiller is going on that it ships with Lion, has updated Mail, Safari, iPhoto, major update to Aperture, says Gdgt. All of these updated to better graphics for Retina. It’s showing four screens of uncompressed video.
He’s doing Apple’s own teardown. There’s a big battery, Cook remarks. Quad-core processor up to 2.7Ghz with 3.7 turbo boost. 16GB of RAM (I’ll take it all, please). 768 Flash storage; 7 hours battery time. Says CNET, it’s a quad-core Air. Has SD, HDMI, USB 2 & 3, Thunderbolt and headphones as ports. And MagSafe 2, a thinner connector. And says CNET something about a new power adapter. Says Gdgt, MagSafe 2 is thinner because needed to be to work with this thinner computer. And yes, backlit keyboard says The Verge. I wonder if there’s a matte screen? Says AllThingsD, if you have legacy connectors, you can run them through Thunderbolt using an adapter, including Ethernet and FireWire.
Video about the new MacBook Pro now. It’s going on and on, but Gdgt says one part is that the fan will be “nearly imperceptible” to the user. I hope that’s not because it will be useless at actually cooling the MacBook Pro. Seriously, my current one is cooking my hands. And the video is over.
Schiller showing specs. 15.4″ Retina display, 2.3 GHz quad-core i7, 8GB Ram, GeForce GT 650M 1GB, 256 flash storage, 7 hours battery time, 0.71″ thick/thin, 4.46lbs, $2,199, and options beyond that. Got some long-overdue shopping today.
Mac OS X Mountain Lion: More iCloud Integration
Now Craig Federighi is on with OS X. 40% of MacOS users are using Lion, took Windows 27 months to reach that same stat, Apple did it in a year (heck of a lot cheaper to upgrade, however), lead-up for new features about next-gen Mountain Lion, iCloud support built-in and iCloud has 125 million users.
iCloud-friendly apps like notes and reminders [iCloud, remind me to clean up. Tomorow]. Look at notes app that still seems to use that horrible font by default. Also that you can do messages from your desktop I guess similar to the confusing messaging app on the iPhone, where I never know if it’s going out as a text message or not.
You can drag-and-drop documents to the cloud (you know, like Microsoft SkyDrive allows). And oh joy, now we get notifications on our desktop through a new notification center. Because all those notifications on our phones (Android, iPhone) aren’t annoying enough. Say CNET, there’s a disable feature. I’ll be wanting that.
Sharing. In Mountain Lion, you can share things directly to Twitter, email, message, AirDrop, Flickr — not sure if others like, um, Google can easily add themselves in or not. Safari will have a smart search field like Chrome, says The Verge.
There’s an iCloud Tab feature that shows you want tabs you have open across all your iCloud-enabled devices. Long demo going on about this which I’m finding a less-than-compelling feature. Maybe I’ll get it more when I use it first-hand.
Now showing how sharing works. That was brief. And notifications can come in from services like Twitter. You can also tweet right from the notification center. Why hasn’t Apple just bought Twitter already?
Power Nap: MacBook Updates While Sleeping
I’m tired, now, so I could use my own Power Nap, which is the name of a new feature that lets the computer update itself as it sleeps. If you have a 2nd-gen MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with Retina display, that is.
AirPlay Mirroring: Scotty, Beam My Laptop Up To The TV
AirPlay mirroring: oh you can beam what you’re watching to an AirPlay-video device. So, you know how you can’t watch TV through something like Google TV, because heaven-forbid you easily watch on a big screen exactly what you’d see on a laptop? Now you can use the laptop to directly beam that verboten stuff to your big TV.
Oh dear, The Stig from Top Gear is on stage now. But the British Stig or the American one? He’s racing. Oh, and he’s apparently Mr. X. Or Racer OS X. Either way, someone over at the BBC isn’t going to be happy with Apple right now.
Says The Verge, Safari will now have Baidu-support, I guess for Chinese versions.
Mountain Lion ships in July for $20. Which will get huge adoption over Windows 8, because that puppy ain’t shipping for $20. New Mac buyers will get free upgrade.
iOS 6: Siri Does More, Sports, Movies, Apps & Car Integration
Now up, Scott Forstall to talk iOS. Ouch. Says Android released a “Dairy product” around when iOS 5 came out. Like 75% of installed base is now iOS 5. 81% of apps use notification center [I know, and they’re freaking annoying]. 1.5 trillion push notifications. 150b messages from 140 million iMessage users. Twitter has seen 3X growth increase from iOS after integration. 75% of customers are very satisfied versus 50% of Android.
iOS6 now announced, and Siri will get to do new things. She’s learned about sports, The Verge reports. Asks for score of last Giants game, we get little stats coming up. Asks for National League Standings, a little card with those comes up. Asks about restaurants, and a page comes up with info integrated from Yelp and OpenTable. Seems like Yelp will finally get more visibility here.
For movies, Rotten Tomatoes is integrated to give answers related to movies.
Siri can also launch apps, if you tell it the name of something you have. “Siri, play Words With Friends,” I can see the Alex Baldwin Siri ad in my head already.
There’s “Eyes Free,” where Apple is working with a wide-range of car manufacturers to use Siri from your steering well. Several say they’ll integrate in the next 12 months. Wow, if they’re able to upgrade older cars. Bet they won’t. But still, wow.
More languages. Yeah, but will they fix it so that if you want to speak in a British accent but get American listings, that’s possible? Because it’s not, now, and it really should be.
See also our story: Apple Siri To Add Sports, Restaurants, Reservations, Movies & App Search.
Facebook Goes Native In iOS
And finally, Facebook. As expected, it’s integrated into iOS 6, so that if you enter your Facebook information, you can share natively, pull info from Facebook, you can like apps in the App store, TV shows, movies. And that’s it for Facebook.
See also our story, Apple Integrates Facebook Into iOS6
Call You Later, Do Not Disturb & Facetime Over Cellular
Phone gets some enhancements. Now you can reply to calls with messages like “I’ll call you later” or make reminders. This looks way cool, though I use Google Voice, so I wonder how it will deal with that. I’m guessing it won’t.
New “Do Not Disturb” feature lets messages and alerts come in without vibrating or making noise, so you can, you know, sleep.
Facetime over cellular now an option. Because the cellular networks aren’t sluggish enough or charging us too much for data.
Says CNET, phone number and Apple ID are unified, so that if someone calls your phone, you can answer on your iPad or Mac.
2/3rds Of All Mobile Web Traffic From Safari
Two thirds of all mobile web traffic comes from Safari, he says. Wow.
New way for web sites to say they have an app. Which is a new way for Apple to lock people potentially even more away from the open web and into iOS apps.
Shared Photo Streams
Shared Photo Streams now being offered, choose photos, friends, they’ll get a notification. Kind of what Google+ allows. And sounds like a nice feature.
VIP Mail
Mail gets a feature called VIP, where you can tag people to be in your VIP Mailbox. Sounds like Gmail’s Priority Inbox, except you have to pick the people.
Passbook For Tickets & More
Passbook, a new way to store all your boarding passes, movie ticket apps, store cars. Hmm. More demo going on. I’m still kind of hmm on this. Need to play with it more when live.
Guided Access is a new feature designed to help those with accessibility needs, such as autism or even by teachers who want to keep students out of certain apps.
Maps Dumps Google, Goes All Apple With Turn-By-Turn GPS
Oh, Maps. Almost forgot about the new maps. Entire new solution from ground-up. All maps built in-house, CNET reports. 100 million business listings. Info cards about places. Traffic information being built with anonymous, real-time, crowdsourced information. Wait, is my iPhone now going to be reporting back on the speed of my car?
Turn-by-turn navigation, which if its like Google’s Android navigation will patch-up a big iPhone weakness. New “Flyover” feature, let’s you go through 3D models of places. Hey, it’s iPhone Flight Simulator. Or Bing Maps 3D view that few know they’ve had for years, I’m guessing.
Now turn-by-turn being demoed. It’s really hard to tell, but it doesn’t seem as nice as navigation with Google or a dedicated GPS. Won’t really know until I try it.
There’s also a new “Lost Mode” that will send a phone number to your phone, then the person can tap on that to call you.
See also our story: Apple Gets Into Local Search With New Maps App.
iOS 6 Out In Fall
iOS 6 is out for developers today, will ship in fall [no doubt with the new iPhone], will support 3GS and 2nd gen iPad.
Tim Cook is back out, thanks people and that’s it.
Big thanks to CNET and The Verge. Of the many live blogs I started out with, they had the tabs that stayed open the most with me. See more coverage from across the web of the news at Techmeme. Also see below for our related articles today with more comprehensive news out of the event:
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