iT's tiMe
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Summary of Apple's Let's Talk iPhone event
Tim Cook is on stage
Tim Cook wrote:357 total stores in 11 countries, and many, many more are coming to "raise the bar at retail."
Hey Tim I know a little island in the Caribbean that would be glad to have one.
"Six million copies of Lion downloaded so far -- 80 percent more than Snow Leopard."
"We're comparing to Windows 7 -- it took 20 weeks to reach 10 percent of the Windows install base. It took Lion two weeks."
"The net result? 23 percent market share for Apple as of August."
"There are still 77 percent of people who are buying something else. What does that mean? We have an incredibly high ceiling here. We have a long way to go."
"Now we're talking music, reminding us that the iPod launched in 2001 before "revolutionizing the industry."
"Market share for iPod? A neat 78 percent."
(Seems that Engadget went down)
(Ok, back up)
"Next up is iPhone. This could be the reason why the room is so full today."
According to a ChangeWave survey, HTC is second at 49 percent. Apple is #1 at 70.
"More coming up on iPhone..."
iPad is the "undisputed" #1 tablet in the world. Tim says "everybody and their brother" is trying to compete, but three quarters of all tablets sold are iPads.
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Scott Forstall is up now.
"All of this together makes the App Store the number one store for mobile apps."
(Engadget, strike 2) (Apparently so is CNET)
(Back up again, come on Engadget)
New Cards app, coming October 12th
(Engadget AGAIN!)
Scott's going over the top 10 features of iOS 5 as mentioned in WWDC, so no real need to re-mention them &...
(Engadget bites the dust once again) (Think I am switching sources at this point)
October 12th - iOS 5 launch date
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Eddie Cue is up & iCloud is next on the agenda
Walking through iCloud, so again no need to re-mention
(Argh refreshed wrong page by accident & lost a chunk of what I typed)
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Phil Schiller is up
iPod nano & iPod touch updates
Nano gets new UI with bigger icons & new clock faces
New color and prices for the iPod touch
It comes in 7 colors, now the iPod nano is 8GB for $129, and 16GB for $149. Available today.
And now
iPhone talk
"As you’ve heard, it’s the number one smartphone in the world. People have been wondering, how do you follow up a hit product like the iPhone 4?"
"Of course it starts with the Retina Display. But inside it is all new. The A5 chip is now making its way into the iPhone.”
“Dual-core CPU, 2x as fast at CPU tasks. Also dual-core graphics. Up to 7x faster in the previous iPhone. One area you really see it scream is in games.”
"You’d think if you put a CPU like that you’d sacrifice battery life.” Increased to 8 hours talk time, damn! “Fantastic battery life.”
“Our engineering team has worked really hard to advance the state of the art that’s never been done in a phone before. It can now intelligently switch between two antennas between send and receive to make even better call quality.”
Data can now download up to 2x as fast. Theoretical max performance used to be 5.8 up and 7.2 down — now doubles to almost 14.4Mbps down.
“Where have I heard these numbers before? This is what our competitors call 4G… the iPhone 4S is just as fast as all of these phones, even faster in real-world use.”
Next: a worldphone!
“The iPhone 4 has already surpassed every other camera out there on photo sites. We set our sites on competing with many great point and shoot cameras.”
"CMOS backside illuminated sensor — gets 73% more light than the iPhone 4 sensor, and 1/3rd faster. On top of that, we place a high-end IR filter for greater accuracy and uniformity.”
“We have an amazing lens system, five lens elements. It’s now a really wide f2.4. Compared to most point and shoots we can let in a lot of light.”
Oh, and Phil almost forgot to tell us about the Apple designed ISP, which enables stuff like face-detection and auto-white balance. “And that chip takes super fast photos. What do we mean?”
Other phones take 2-3x longer to shoot. “What do Droid Bionic customers have to do between taking pictures? Get coffee?” Yaburnt.
Video recording
We take stunning Hd video, and for the first time, 1080p video.” Applause.
1080p, real-time video image stabilization (yes!), real-time temporal noise reduction.
"To many customers this will be the best still camera they've ever owned and the best video cameras they've ever owned."
“For decades technologists have teased us with this dream that we can talk to our technology. But it’s never come true! It’s such a let-down! What we really want to do is just talk to our device!”
Siri: the intelligent assistant to get things done just by asking.
“What’s the weather like today?” Siri gives the forecast. Big applause.
"Scott’s asking Siri all kinds of stuff. Find me a great Greek restaurant in Palo Alto. “I’ve found five Greek restaurants, and I’ve sorted them by rating.” Scott: “I’ve been in the AI field a long time. This blows me away.”
“With Siri, you can just ask Siri to read your messages to you.” Siri reads the messages in your notification queue, hands-free. Nice.
Instant Wikipedia and Wolfram Alpha searches by voice. “Now, to define a word, it’s as easy as asking Siri. Define ‘mitosis.’” And Siri delivers results. “Just ask your personal assistant, Siri.”
Man, this Siri demo is starting to drag on. He’s asking how long until Christmas. Siri: “82 days.” Scott: “Get shopping!”
“Compose and dictate email right to Siri. Set timers. Look up contacts, create notes, search the web, search Wikipedia. It’s absolutely blow-away. Well, who is Siri? Just ask!” Siri: “I am a humble personal assistant.”
“Thanks Scott, that is the coolest feature of the iPhone 4S. Siri does dictation — now whenever you see a keyboard, you’ll see a microphone. Talk to Siri, tap done, and in the blink of an eye it comes back with your text. Speak with your natural language.”
“And now you understand all the great new stuff inside the iPhone 4S.” A5, new antenna system, new optics, HD video, and now Siri.
“So that’s the iPhone 4S. Black and white, 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, and 64GB for $399. 64GB is the first time in an iPhone.”
“The iPhone 4S is not the only phone in our lineup. The iPhone 4 will now be available in Black and white for just $99. Thei phone 3GS in 8GB: free.” Boom.
Pre-orders on the October 7th, and then launching on the 14th.
That’s right Sprint people, you’re FINALLY getting the iPhone. Sorry, T-Mobile people. Guess it’s that AWS of yours, I don’t know.
"This will be the fastest iPhone rollout we’ve ever had. That’s the iPhone 4S. Thank you.” Big applause"
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Tim is back
iOS 5, iCloud, iPhone 4S, Siri… “when you look at each of these, they’re great, fantastic, and industry-leading. But what sets them apart and puts them way out front is how they work together so well.”
When you think about it, only Apple can bring all these things together in such a powerful and integrated experience. I am so incredibly proud of this company and all of the teams that work so hard to bring the innovations you’ve seen today to reality.
& that's all they wrote folks.
