Hi, Bryan Here…
Starting at 12:00:00 GMT-0500 (CDT), basically two hours, Apple will hold it’s conference and unveil the new iPhone 5 (or whatever they will call it), plus some other products. We will be live blogging the event. So keep it here for all the latest updates. As far as we know right now, we can expect new iPhones. And there is a possibility of new iPod touches, iPod nanos, and maybe a glimpse at the iPad mini. We will just have to wait and see. I know Apple is working on new iMacs, but I would imagine that would be at a later date. So, keep it tuned here for up-to-date news and images from the Apple event.
HERE WE GO…
People seem to be settling in…
Music is playing….
Officially started….
Tim Cook on stage
Tim Cook talks about the Apple Store in Barcelona….
Everyone is happy that the Barcelona store has opened. Video shows the store opening…
There are 380 Apple stores…
Cook is talking about how cool Mountain Lion is and how it’s the best OS on the planet….. is it?
Cook says the Apple notebooks have the #1 market share 27% of it…
iPad time…
17 million iPads were sold from April-June….
iPad is 91% of all tablet web traffic! Tim says “I don’t know what these other tablets are doing! They must be in warehouses or store shelves or maybe in peoples’ bottom drawer.”
iPhone time….
Oh boy, here we go! Phil Schiller is up on stage.
“Each and every year we introduce new versions with new features… each time setting the gold standard”
iPhone 5! That’s the name.
“So, iPhone 5. It is made entirely of glass and aluminum. It’s designed and built to an exacting level of standard unlike anything we, or anyone in our industry, have made before.”
“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the hardware and software engineering that has gone into this product is unlike we’ve ever undertaken before.”
It’s the thinnest and lightest iPhone yet. 7.6mm thick, 18% thinner than before.
It’s a 326ppi Retina display, four-inches. 1136 x 640 resolution. Same width, but taller.
iWork apps have been updated too. Keynote, Pages, Numbers “all take advantage of this gorgeous display.”
iMovie and Garage Band too.
Open Table now shows photo galleries and other things — and curiously their banner ad disappeared with the refresh.
44% better color saturation, full SRGB rendering here.
Phil is saying that touch is integrated into the display, so it’s thinner and sharper, less glare in sunlight.
All that just for the display! Now, let’s talk wireless. “Ultrafast Wireless” they’re calling it.
HSPA+ is 21Mbps, DC-HSDPA is 42Mbps, and LTE is a max of 100.
Single chip for voice and data, and a single radio chip as well.
“And we have a really unique innovation with a dynamic antenna… it can automatically switch antenna connections.” Similar to how the 4S worked.
In the US: Sprint, AT&T and Verizion. All will support LTE.
“We’ve updated every aspect of iPhone 5. Everything has been enhanced.”
New chip, the A6! 2X faster CPU and 2x graphics compared to the A5
22% smaller, too, and more energy-efficient.
Rob Murray from EA is up to show us some gameplay action on the iPhone 5!
“You’re going to see the Porsche GT3 racing on the legendary raceway, Laguna Seca.”
There are realtime reflections, rear-view mirrors. “Yes, for the first time in Real Racing you can see behind you.”
“Time-shifted multiplayer” it’s called.
“This is Real Racing 3 for the powerful new iPhone.” It’s coming later this year.
Battery life…
8 hours of 3G or LTE talk time or browsing. 10 hours on WiFi browsing.
Now, camera. “If you know anything about camera design the biggest challenge is vertical height.” Going thinner compromises optics.
5-element lens and f/2.4 aperture. Same as the iPhone 4S but thinner.
Now there’s a dynamic low light mode. It evaluates nearby pixels to give up to 2 f-stops greater low-light performance.
And, there’s a new image processor in the A6 to reduce noise and includes a so-called “smart filter” to do better at color-matching.
“It’s really powerful to deliver amazing low-light photo capture.” And it’s 40% faster image capture!
There’s a new feature Shared Photo Streams. You can share a series of photos with friends and family to share and comment.
Panorama is official! Fucking finally.
You sweep the scene vertically to get the most resolution, then just swing your phone.
It’s a 28 megapixel resulting image!
Now it’s about video…
It’s 1080p still but with better video stabilization, and there’s facial recognition. You can grab photos, too, still.
The front-facing camera is now 720p, backside illuminated.
The audio system – there are three microphones. Front, bottom, and back.
This is for voice recognition and noise cancelation.
The speaker has a 5-magnet transducer. That’s three more magnets in your transducer.
And there’s something Phil is calling “wideband audio.”
it’s a wider spectrum for audio. So, your voice will sound more natural. It requires carrier partnership, 20 will support. He mentioned DT and Orange at launch.
Connector time…
“So many of the things we used to do over the wire we now do wirelessly.”
It’s called Lightning.
“So now we have Thunderbolt and Lightning.”
You can plug it in either way, it’s all digital, 80% smaller. “It’s a huge difference in the world’s thinnest smartphone.”
Bose, JBL, B&W, B&O and others are already working on new docks and speakers.
iOS6 time…
“We’ve also built a search engine in so you can look at local points of interest.” There are 100 million.
zooming in, zooming out, seeing 3D buildings. It’s all perfectly smooth without the turn-by-turn navigations interrupted.
“We’ve also got great satellite imagery.” We’re seeing the flyover mode again, Satellite imagery wrapped around the 3D map of the city.
Safari, a new full-screen view similar to the desktop version. Just tap the arrows pointing at corners.
you can share your tabs from your desktop to your phone. It’s called iCloud Tabs.
Now, new enhancements on Mail…
You can mark people as a VIP, then whenever you get an email from them it’ll go right into a separate inbox.
You can flag messages as well for follow up. Or, you can use Gmail.
Passbook now, seeing coupons and movie tickets.
you can get plane tickets as well through here and, if you’re at the airport, your ticket will show up right on the lock screen
demo of the shared Photo Stream feature time…
They get a notification in their Photos app and, hey presto, your pics are on their phone.
Siri updates….
Ask a score for a game, Siri responds with…
“Now Siri’s also learned a lot more about movies.”
“Can you recommend a good movie in theaters?”
You can find restaurants and then choose to make reservations, which pops you right into the Open Table app.
And Scott just posted an update to Facebook by voice, too.
Two colors! Black or white front.
The white version has a raw aluminum back. The black one has the black anodized backing.
“iPhone 5 is now the best phone we’ve ever made, and what would be a great phone without a killer video?”
Wow.. Apple phone porn…
No NFC, unfortunately, nor any talk about using Bluetooth 4.0 for near-field communications.
No wireless charging, either.
And, no micro-USB compatibility.
Same price as the 4S. $199 for 16GB. $299 for 32GB, $399 for 64GB.
iPhone 4 is now free on contract! 4S is now $99.
Pre-orders start on Friday the 14th. Shipping on September 21st in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, 3GS, new iPad, iPad 2 and iPod touch all are getting iOS 6. That drops on September 19th.
Now onto something new besides the iPhone 5….. MUSIC!!!!
“Apple loves creating music products. Apple is deeply embedded in our DNA. This is the reason that we created iPod and iTunes, and these products have gone on to revolutionize the music industry.”
“Today we’re announcing some exciting changes with both iPod and iTunes.”
26 million songs in iTunes, 20 billion songs purchased since its launch 9 years ago.
435 million iTunes accounts, all with one-click purchasing.
new iTunes store….
When you’re previewing a song you can browse away and it’ll keep playing. You can share directly to Facebook and Twitter.
This comes with iOS 6 on the 19th.
They say, The new iTunes is “dramatically simpler”. It’s basically a big grid now, much more simplified user interface.
Click on any album and the window splits, expanding to show the tracks.
The album cover is shown on the side with a colored backing. Click on any song and… it plays!
Managing playlists is a lot easier now. You can quickly hop back to your library without closing the playlist and then just drag and drop tracks to where you want them.
There’s a new “coming next” button that you can use to change the order of upcoming tracks.
Searching is revised too. It shows results inline. Click on anything and it brings you to the album or playlist, or double-click in the search results to play.
There’s a new mini-player, very tiny and discrete.
It features a tiny little bit of album art along with basic controls. There’s search in there too.
iCloud integration up next….
Artist’s pages on iTunes store and iCloud now have concert dates…
“The new iTunes will be available in late October.”
Greg Joswick is now up to talk iPod.
Apple has sold over 350 million iPods.
iPod nano….
“We really wanted to take the chance to reinvent the nano.”
It’s super tiny but has a wider screen than before. Looks to have a tiny Home button. It’s 5.4mm, 38% thinner than the last Nano!
2.5-inch display in the nano that’s multitouch.
Seven colors, aluminum, black, purple, green, blue, yellow and red.
There’s an FM tuner with DVR functionality — pausing and rewinding.
Plus you can look at photos and video, too.
There’s fitness and a pedometer built in…
it has the Lightning connector, which plugs in to the left side of the bottom.
Bluetooth now! So, wireless audio streaming is enabled.
30 hours of music playback, the longest battery life of any nano! Doesn’t look to offer any sort of app support, though.
Now onto the iPod Touch….
Time for the 5th generation — “It’s the best iPod touch we’ve ever made.”
Just 6.1mm thick, 88 grams in weight, looks to offer similar styling as before but slightly more squared back.
Retina display…
It has a 4 inch display…
“Perfectly matched for widescreen video using every pixel of that display.”
And it now has an A5 processor….
“7x faster” graphics than the old iPod touch…
Up to 40 hours of music playback in the touch, 8 hours of video. Slightly increased over the 4th gen Touch. Plus new camera.
It’s a five megapixel iSight camera. Backside illuminated, f/2.4, five element lens and that same sapphire crystal lens cover.
The iPod touch has the panorama feature on it too…
Mystery button on the back of the iPod. It’s called the iPod touch loop.
You can attach a little wrist strap to the back if you like, “for the added security when you’re taking pictures or just walking around town.”
1080p video now with image stabilization and you can use iMovie right on there. Also a 720p camera for the FaceTime HD camera on the front.
Hooray for bracelets!!!
“This is our new iPod lineup for the holidays.” No pricing announced.
Now onto…what???? Speakers…..
New earbuds are next. Over 600 million sets of earbuds have been shipped. That’s over 1.2 billion “little speakers”
EarPods is the name.
“The shape of the EarPod is actually defined by the geometry of your ear, but they don’t create a seal the way other in-ear headphones do.”
There’s a port in the back for mid-tones, a port in the stem and of course the main port pointing into your ear. All are said to maximize airflow for sound quality.
Shipping today…
Okay, pricing. 2GB Shuffle is $49 still.
iPod nano is 16GB for $149.
5th gen iPod touch 32GB is $299 or 64GB for $399.
So new iPhones, new iPods, new nanos and touches, new ios6, new iTunes and new earphones.
Now the Foo Fighters are playing live…
AND WE’RE DONE.
Thank you all for joining.