MobileCrunch |  |
- Siri-ous Mind Blowing: Video Evidence Of Apple’s Prophetic Past — Circa 1987
- TCTV: Is The iPhone 4S A Worthwhile Upgrade?
- FCC Wants GPS In Every Phone By 2018
- Siri: My “Humble” Female Personal Secretary
- The iPhone 4S Camera Upgrade Explained
- Watch: Here’s Apple’s iPhone 4S Video Intro
- Where Was Facebook At The Apple Event Today? Not There. Stay Tuned.
- Apple Announces “Cheaper” iPhones: The Old Ones
- Everything You Need To Know About Today’s Apple Event
- The Original Siri App Gets Pulled From The App Store, Servers To Be Killed
- The iPhone 4S—It’s What’s On The Inside That Counts
- Apple Reveals Siri Voice Interface: The “Intelligent Assistant” Only For iPhone 4S
- Apple Officially Announces The iPhone 4S: Same Design, All New Guts
- Tim Cook: iPhone Has 5% Of Mobile Phone Marketshare Worldwide, “An Enormous Opportunity”
- More Than 1 Billion iOS Apps Are Downloaded Each Month
- Forstall Intros New And Improved iOS Apps: Cards, iMessage, And More
- iOS 5 To Be Available To Everyone On October 12th
- Tim Cook: The iPad Is The Undisputed Best-Selling Tablet In the World
- Tim Cook: 250 Million iOS Devices Sold, Huge Retail Traffic, Record Numbers Everywhere
- Live From London: Apple’s Remote iPhone Event
| Siri-ous Mind Blowing: Video Evidence Of Apple’s Prophetic Past — Circa 1987 Posted: 05 Oct 2011 12:50 AM PDT  As you may be aware, Apple held it’s big iPhone 5, er 4S, event in Cupertino today, and while the iCinco failed to make an appearance and the company’s stock plunged 5 percent as a result, it was still a good day for the Apple faithful. iOS 5 is coming on October 12th, and though some who’ve been waiting to upgrade were disappointed by the striking physical similarity between the iPhone 4 and the new iPhone 4S, Sprint users are now welcome, and the 4S is notably speedier. And perhaps most exciting (depending on who you ask) is that Siri, the personal assistant app that uses natural language processing to answer questions, make recommendations, and eventually aims to replace your butler, will now be native on all iPhone 4Ses. Sure, some have already been using Siri on the iPad, Apple probably should have made this available for the iPhone 4 as well, and we’re all pretty surprised that Apple has kept the name Siri, after buying the company that makes its eponymous app back in April of last year, but now the app is native, always with you, and it works. Which is something, right? Forget the fact that she sounds like the female version of HAL 9000 … What’s so cool, as Apple said in their description of Siri, is that it’s “proactive, so it will question you until it finds what you're looking for”. This should hopefully mean that you won’t have to shout your question 10 times before you divorce Siri and throw her in the toilet — Siri uses context and logic like some kind of sweet, sweet robot from the future. She’s a humble and intelligent assistant, and works towards proving the kind of deep voice integration that will be part of Apple iOS 5 (and mobile technology going forward). However, what’s even more mind blowing is that Apple predicted this technology more than a quarter century ago. The following video has been making the rounds over the last 24 hours (and thanks to Sociable for first pointing it out), which you really have to see. Apple’s “what if” exposition, which contains some late-’80s awesomeness, describes something called the “Knowledge Navigator” — a suped-up, tuxedo-ed personal assistant that users manipulate by way of voice and touch. According to the video, the personal assistant connects with all the major networks, features two-way videoconferencing, and helps you keep appointments, find, converge, and share documents — the works. It’s quite a feat considering the Apple IIGS had just been released the previous year. Basically, The Knowledge Navigator predicts touch technology, the iPad, iPhone, Skype, FaceTime — and Siri. All in one talking, well-dressed device. The savvy technologists among us may be well aware of the progenitors and technological precursors to these devices and services, but here we have very real confirmation that Siri (and Apple products as a whole) have been in gestation in the minds of Apple’s wizards since (at least) 1987. And the best part? If I’m not mistaken, this “futuristic” video is set in the year of 2011 — there’s a mention of an article written in 2006 that was supposedly created five years in the past. Now, even for those cynics and naysayers among us, that’s pretty fantastic. Hold on to the top of your head. I guess Apple didn’t steal the idea for iOS from Android after all. Without further ado, below you can find the 1987 introduction to Knowledge Navigator and 2011′s introduction to Siri: Image excerpt courtesy of WatchPlayRead Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with...
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| TCTV: Is The iPhone 4S A Worthwhile Upgrade? Posted: 04 Oct 2011 05:13 PM PDT  iPhoned out yet? Of course you’re not. (Don’t worry Android fans — your day is coming soon.) TechCrunch Editor Erick Schonfeld and I sat down for a few minutes today to riff on all things iPhone 4S, from the merits of the device itself to whether or not the tech community at large is being a bit too harsh. Plus, the question of the hour: who should buy it? Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with...
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| FCC Wants GPS In Every Phone By 2018 Posted: 04 Oct 2011 03:41 PM PDT  After years of having a GPS-equipped phone, the idea of not having GPS is a little crazy. Even with smartphone adoption rates dramatically increasing, there are still plenty of folks out there with maps and awesome memories. But come 2018, all of our directionally gifted friends will have GPS on their phones like it or not. The FCC has ruled that all telephone service providers — including VOiP services — must offer only GPS-capable handsets by 2018 to better aid in pin-pointing the location of 911 calls. According to Courthouse News Service, it’s still unclear what the sunset deadline is for use of phones not equipped with GPS. 911 calls from phones without GPS require the carrier to triangulate the caller’s location from cell towers, which is less efficient than the phone’s GPS simply relaying location data back to emergency services. Either way, the FCC estimates that with or without the new rules, 85 percent of cell phone owners will have GPS-equipped devices by 2018. Hopefully the leftover 15 percent gets with the program before anything that requires a call to 911 goes down.
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| Siri: My “Humble” Female Personal Secretary Posted: 04 Oct 2011 02:13 PM PDT  Today, Apple introduced us to the iPhone 4S. It’s hard not to feel let down after the iPhone 5 rumor mill was spinning at full force just yesterday (courtesy of the craziest rumor yet), but a couple 4S features were enough to perk up my spirit. One feature in particular, Siri, pretty much blew my mind. It is, far and away, the coolest voice control system I’ve ever heard of, and seems to do just about everything. Ask Siri for nearby Greek restaurants? Bam! 20 Yelp listings are instantly sorted by rating. Ask Siri to read you your texts? No problem, she’s on it. Ask Siri what Siri is? “I am your humble personal assistant.” Okay, this just got a little weird. Before I go on let me just say that I haven’t been able to confirm whether or not Siri comes with customizable (female/male) voices, like a TomTom GPS. If so, this post can just be about what I would think if Siri was a female-only voice. Anyways… While checking out the Siri demo during Apple’s presentation I couldn’t help but be amazed. Siri feels like a real person, and what it does is… well, amazing. But hidden under all that awesomeness is one very subtle tidbit that no one (as far as I can see) has inquired about: Why is the personal assistant voice control feature on the new iPhone a lady? Is it because we generally perceive receptionists and assistants to be female? Here’s your answer: Probably, but who cares? Yes, a feature like this may advance the stereotype that women, like yours truly, are the docile, resourceful assistants of big, strapping men like your average iPhone user. But freaking out over it only advances other stereotypes (like the notion that feminists try to make everything a feminist issue). “But… But…” they cry, “Won’t this affect perceived gender norms of future generations?” Um, no. Things like income inequality, reproductive rights, and domestic violence might affect the children… but a phone that, like most electronics, defaults to a woman’s voice? It’s not all that significant in the grand scheme of things, is it? Though the debasement in her self-identification is a little fishy. I personally think Siri’s voice sounds wonderful but in all honesty, Siri could be spoken in the voice of Gilbert Goddfried or Fran Drescher and I wouldn’t care. As long as she does all cool things Apple says she’ll do, it doesn’t really matter. Final thought: Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with...
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| The iPhone 4S Camera Upgrade Explained Posted: 04 Oct 2011 01:30 PM PDT  It may be that the most compelling new feature of the iPhone 4S isn’t iOS 5 or the A5 processor, but the new camera. I’ve given phone cameras a lot of guff for the generally poor image quality that results from a small sensor and bad glass, but this really is a problem that camera-makers have been trying to alleviate. And the iPhone 4S is looking like the best effort yet. Why should you care about the iPhone’s new camera? Let’s go down the list and make sense of the new features. 8 megapixels. Well. This one is self-explanatory, but really the least important. Other phones and small cameras have high megapixel counts, and really, you don’t want or need that many. The thing is all those tiny pixel wells have to be packed into such a small place that you end up with image quality problems. In this case your best photos will look better and it probably won’t affect other shots negatively. 1080p. As above, not really amazing in itself; other devices this size and smaller shoot 1080p. We’ll have to see how it looks in action, but I’m guessing you’ll be seeing a lot of distortion during camera movement due to the rolling-shutter effect on smaller sensors. 1080p resolution doesn’t mean 1080p quality, but if the sensor supports it, there’s no reason not to enable it. I’m just hoping there will be hacks to enable some better framerates. “73% more light“. The new sensor features “next-generation backside illumination,” an upgrade to the upgrade that made the original iPhone 4 camera much better. We won’t know for sure who makes the camera until the teardown comes, but Omnivision did the last one and they have a newer version (the Faster picture-taking. The new sensor was described by Schiller as being “1/3rd faster,” which is a phenomenally vague description, but I’m guessing the onboard electronics are able to offload the image data 30% faster. But with these small sensors, what matters isn’t getting the image off the sensor but getting it processed, encoded, and displayed to the user. The A5 processor is still something of a mystery, but it’s no secret that a major focus was on graphics enhancement. As I suggested in that link, having a chunk of the CPU entirely dedicated to JPEG processing is a given. Chances are the next iPad will have similarly enhanced photo-taking abilities. So the combination of a faster sensor and an expedited pipeline for that image data to go through makes the iPhone 4S camera twice as fast as the competition (i.e. about a second faster by their measure, your mileage may vary) at making the shot happen. It also allows for more accurate white balancing and color tweaking, so your shots won’t look like they were taken next to a bunch of lava or under a blue sun. Improved lens. The most important part of a camera is… the photographer — but right after that is the lens. And the lens of the iPhone 4 was already pretty solid for a camera phone: F/2.8 (apparently limited to F/3) at about 30mm equivalent focal length. The new one is f/2.4, about half a stop better, which doesn’t sound like much but at this point of the aperture scale counts for a lot. It’s a pretty big increase in the total amount of light hitting the sensor. The focal length wasn’t specified but Schiller mentioned it was “super wide,” which if wider than 30mm equivalent starts putting the iPhone into true wide-angle territory (starts around 24mm equivalent if you ask me) — but he may have been referring to the aperture. At any rate the half-stop improvement is real enough. Real-time stabilization. This is a nice feature for small cameras, since, lacking heft, they tend to wiggle around a lot. I’m assuming it’s not optical stabilization, since that would require more space than they’ve got, so it must be electronic stabilization based on live image analysis. Again this is the A5 at work. By designing the camera’s image processor around the hardware (and vice versa), they can do this kind of heavy graphical analysis without taxing the battery too much. Based on the specs it’s probably the best camera system attached to a phone on the market right now, though real-life tests will have to be performed next month to determine image quality and evaluate the veracity of Apple’s speed claims. The changes aren’t superficial, though, and the camera should be on the short list of reasons to consider upgrading. Update: Image Sensors World points out a report (PDF) that has the Omnivision OV8830, not the OV8812, as the sensor (and it does make more sense, though the pixel counts are identical). The iPhone 4 will be offered in the US by AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Product specs: Dual-core A5 CPU, said to be "2x as fast at CPU tasks" Dual-core graphics, up to "7x faster than the previous iPhone" Battery life estimates: 8 hours talk time on 3G, 14 hours on 2G. 6 hours of browsing on 3G, 9 on Wi-Fi. 10 hours of video playback, 40 hours of music. Theoretical download speeds of 14.4Mbps (as opposed to 7.2 on the iPhone 4.) World Phone...
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| Watch: Here’s Apple’s iPhone 4S Video Intro Posted: 04 Oct 2011 01:08 PM PDT  Can’t navigate around Apple’s site right now because their servers are melting? Still want to see the snazzy 5 minute video they made to introduce the iPhone 4S? Don’t worry — we’ve got you covered. (Also, huge thanks to Apple for using the beat from Adele’s “Rolling In The Deep” as the background jam. I hadn’t heard that song in at least 7 minutes, and was terrified that I might eventually not have it stuck in my head.) Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with...
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| Where Was Facebook At The Apple Event Today? Not There. Stay Tuned. Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:53 PM PDT  One of the things noticeably absent from Apple’s iPhone event today was Facebook. After all, other outlets were reporting that they would for sure be a part of the event. Late last week, we reported hearing that could be the case, but that the two sides were still talking and that Facebook had a back-up plan just in case Apple didn’t give them the go ahead. And for good reason. We’ve heard from a source that sometime late last night, Facebook was told that they would not be a part of Apple’s event today. This is nothing new. Companies are told to prepare to go on stage at these events all the time only to get pulled at the last second. It’s just a bit odd that a company as large as Facebook was passed over. Instead, look for Facebook to send out invites to their own mobile-themed event sometime very soon. Again, both their HTML5 mobile platform (aka “Spartan“) and the iPad app are ready to go — in fact, the documentation for Spartan was briefly live on the web late last week. And well, we’ve seen the iPad app before. This all reminds me a bit of the Nuance/Siri situation. In the months leading up to WWDC this year, we reported on a deal reached between Apple and Nuance to deliver voice technology to the iPhone by way of Siri. We also reported that a key ingredient to this was the use of Nuance technology on Apple’s servers. But at WWDC, there was no mention of any of this. Turns out, Apple decided to make it an iPhone 4S feature. And sure enough, today we saw the launch of the new Siri app integrated into iOS. Just because something is not shown on stage at an Apple event doesn’t mean it’s not coming. It just means that it didn’t make the cut for one reason or another. Stay tuned. Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original idea for the term... Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with...
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| Apple Announces “Cheaper” iPhones: The Old Ones Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:51 PM PDT  Despite predictions to the contrary, Apple did not announce a cheaper, mass market version of the iPhone today. Instead, it announced an upgraded iPhone 4 called the iPhone 4S. It’s the same on the outside, but with all new insides. However, there are more affordable iPhones now on the market: the old ones. Apple says it’s keeping the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 around. Not only that, it’s dropping their prices. Why would Apple keep these aging devices alive? Simple. To battle Android, Symbian, RIM and Windows Phone – especially in emerging markets. According to today’s announcement, the iPhone 3GS is now free with a contract. The iPhone 4 has been reduced to $99. While the new lower prices are based on 2-year agreements with mobile carriers, the fact that the phones are not being killed off entirely is important. These are the “new” cheaper, mass market iPhones. Apple didn’t specify where these discounted devices would be sold, only noting that the iPhone 4S would be available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, U.K., France, Germany and Japan. It would not be surprising to see these older models used as Apple’s inroads into emerging markets, though. Here’s why: More people are buying Android smartphones than iPhones. That fact is not in dispute. According to recent estimates from comScore, Android’s U.S. market share is 41.8% to Apple’s 27%. In Europe, where Symbian still reigns, it’s 22.3% for Android vs. 20.3% for iPhone. Worldwide, some analysts now peg Android as having nearly 50% of the smartphone market. What iPhone lacks in volume, though, it makes up for in profit, capturing two-thirds of available mobile phone profits in Q2 2011. One could even argue that Apple does not need to provide a low-cost iPhone – it was doing just fine without one, thank you very much. For Apple, however, not having a presence in emerging markets was a challenge it needed to address. Take for example, India – the second largest telecom market after China. According to a recent Bloomberg report, Apple accounted for just 2.6% of India’s smartphone shipments in a market with 602 million subscribers. That’s fewer devices than it shipped to Norway, Belgium or Israel. Nokia dominates the Indian market, with 46% of shipments in Q2. Even struggling handset maker RIM reached 15% in shipments there. And Samsung, who plays the field with bada, Android and Windows Phone devices, reached 21% (source: IDC). Bloomberg cites issues with iPhone availability, advertising and the Indian carriers, the latter having just started to launch their 3G networks this year. (Without 3G, much of what the iPhone could do, it only does well when Wi-Fi is available.) Price, too, is an obvious concern. Meanwhile, in China, the iPhone is expensive, sometimes even costing more than it does in the U.S. That’s ironic, given China’s role in iPhone manufacturing and assembly. It’s also only available through the country’s second-largest carrier, China Unicom. However, reports from July stated that Apple CEO Tim Cook (then COO) was looking to bring the iPhone to China’s largest carrier, China Mobile, which has 600 million subscribers compared with China Unicom’s 200 million. Despite the technical challenges of launching in these regions, not to mention the competition from name-brand competitors and knockoffs alike, Apple knows it can not continue to ignore the need to compete in these markets. China and India, of all the emerging markets, are important due to their sheer size – after all, Apple doesn’t generate all its income from device sales. Failing to capture market share in these regions is simply a missed opportunity to generate revenue. Even Cook admitted during Apple’s most recent earnings call China’s importance to Apple’s growth in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as its importance to the company’s overall results. According to Cook, iPhone sales in China were a "key driver" of Apple’s $8.8 billion in revenue for the quarter. And Chinese Apple stores have the highest traffic (4x the traffic as their American counterparts) and highest revenue of any Apple stores in the world. Today, during the Apple keynote, Cook talked about the opening of two new retail stores in Asia this past week: Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Shanghai store, now the largest in Asia, saw 100,000 visitors on its opening weekend. For comparison purposes, it took the L.A. store a month to hit that same number. So while a “cheaper” iPhone in these markets would mean lower margins on Apple hardware, the incredible size of the markets means there’s an opportunity to make up for that loss through device sales potential. Competitors Android, RIM, Nokia and Windows Phone often battle iPhone on price, as their app ecosystems and content businesses (e.g., Zune is no iTunes, Google Music doesn’t even sell songs) are still lacking in comparison to Apple’s. With price out of the equation, Apple’s growth potential has just been radically changed. In other words, with the new iPhone 4S, Apple continues to cater to the high-end crowd who would have upgraded anyway. With the iPhone 4 and 3GS, Apple goes after the market that wanted a smartphone of any kind, as long as it was affordable. It goes after those who wanted the iPhone, but didn’t have the money. That said, a discounted iPhone alone may not be enough for Apple to take the market share lead in smartphones, given that there hundreds of Android devices vs. just these three iPhone models. It stands to reason, though, it will at least make a dent in Android’s seemingly unstoppable market share growth. Oh, and the new Sprint iPhone won’t hurt either. Image credits: asymco, Apple
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| Everything You Need To Know About Today’s Apple Event Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:36 PM PDT  It’s been a busy morning in Cupertino at Apple’s ‘Let’s Talk iPhone’ keynote. The big headline was the iPhone 4S, but no iPhone 5. Perhaps you had a hard time following all the news from Apple on the iPhone, iOS 5, other iOS devices and apps. Apple didn’t offer a live online webcast to the public. But the TechCrunch team, on two continents, has been busy tracking all the Apple news. Click on any of the headlines for more info: The Live Blog iPhone 4S
iOS 5 Siri – Your Humble Personal Assistant App
Other Apps
iPod Nano & Touch
The Reaction
How The Predictions Fared
Apple’s Latest Stats
This page will be updated. Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with... The iPhone 4 will be offered in the US by AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Product specs: Dual-core A5 CPU, said to be "2x as fast at CPU tasks" Dual-core graphics, up to "7x faster than the previous iPhone" Battery life estimates: 8 hours talk time on 3G, 14 hours on 2G. 6 hours of browsing on 3G, 9 on Wi-Fi. 10 hours of video playback, 40 hours of music. Theoretical download speeds of 14.4Mbps (as opposed to 7.2 on the iPhone 4.) World Phone...
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| The Original Siri App Gets Pulled From The App Store, Servers To Be Killed Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:28 PM PDT  Long before today’s announcement that the Siri Voice Assistant would be an integral part of iOS, Siri was a third-party app. It wasn’t as pretty, and not nearly as well integrated, but it had one big advantage: it ran on just about any iOS device. Then Apple bought Siri. It immediately became clear that Apple was making a push into voice — and yet, the app stayed on the store. It lived on un-updated, but it lived on nevertheless. Then Apple introduced Siri… exclusively for the iPhone 4S. And with that, the life of Siri (the application) came to an end, making way for Siri (the feature).
For something that most would never notice, the pull down was masterfully choreographed: when Siri was first mentioned on stage, the application was still easily available. By the time the demonstration was over, the app was no where to be found — and unfortunately for the folks who might have already nabbed Siri in the past year or so (or worse yet, those who have come to consider Siri a part of their everyday lives), it appears as if the servers that Siri (the app) relies on were shut down at the same time. Update: After a brief downtime, the servers came back up.. with a message of their impending demise: “I’ve been replaced! The new Siri is even smarter and better looking than me, and waiting for you on the iPhone 4S. I’ll be leaving for home Oct 15th. Until then…how can I help you?” So, why take it down? Two reasons come to mind. For one, it’s pretty tough to up-sell current iPhone 4 owners to the iPhone 4S if one of the biggest features is already available (albeit to a limited extent) as a third-party app. Less nefariously, having a third-party app (especially one that hadn’t been updated in around a year) available with the same name as a feature would be beyond confusing. If it were solely about avoiding confusion, though, why pull down the server for those who already have the app?
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| The iPhone 4S—It’s What’s On The Inside That Counts Posted: 04 Oct 2011 11:49 AM PDT  If you were hoping for a brand new iPhone 5 today, you might be a little disappointed. Instead, Apple announced the iPhone 4S, which looks exactly like the iPhone 4—on the outside. On the inside, it’s a whole different story, and that the message Apple tried to get across during its presentation today. So let’s unpack the iPhone 4S and take a look at its guts to see what’s new. First, and most importantly, the iPhone 4S will be powered by a new A5 processor. The A5 is a dual-core processor which will be up to twice as fast as the current A4, and seven times faster processing graphics. Apple is also claiming faster data speeds (with maximums of 14.4 Mbps download speeds, and 5.8 Mbps upload). The battery life is slightly longer *8 hours talk time versus 7 hours for the iPhone 4), but standby time is much less (200 hours versus 300). Second, it’s got a dual CDMA/GSM chip for different networks, making it a world phone (and cheaper to manufacture to boot since Apple won’t have to make two different models for different carriers). The antenna is also redesigned to improve call quality (AT&T should be loving that tweak). There are actually two of them, which can switch between transmitting and receiving. Third, the camera is much better. Not only is it an 8-megapixel sensor with 60 percent more pixels than the one in the iPhone 4, but it is also designed to capture 73 percent more light 33 percent faster. The camera includes a high end infrared filter as well as five layered lenses which should improve the sharpness of pictures by up to 30 percent. And since the camera is one of the most used features on the phone, double-tapping the home button now opens the camera. The time it takes to get off your first shot is 1.1 seconds, and half a second for each shot after that. And it shoots 1080p video as well. That’s the hardware. The iPhone 4S also will ship with iOS 5, and all the iCloud-enabled apps. AirPlay will aslo work on the phone so that you can stream videos wirelessly to your Apple TV. But the biggest new piece of software that takes advantage of the A5 chip is the Siri Assistant, a voice-controlled assistant you can call up anytime by holding down the home button for a few seconds. You can ask it the weather, time, directions from Yelp, schedule a meeting on your calendar, reply to messages, play a song from iTunes, or ask any factual question via Wolfram Alpha. All with voice commands. Prices start at $199 for a 16GB phone, and go up to $399 for 64GB. Who’s buying one? Screenshot via Engadget Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with... Apple’s iPhone was introduced at MacWorld in January 2007 and officially went on sale June 29, 2007, selling 146,000 units within the first weekend of launch. The phone has been hailed as revolutionary with its bundle of advanced mobile web browsing, music and video playback, and touch screen controls. The iPhone is exclusively carried on the networks of both AT&T and Verizon in the U.S. An iPhone can function as a video camera (video recording was not a standard feature...
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| Apple Reveals Siri Voice Interface: The “Intelligent Assistant” Only For iPhone 4S Posted: 04 Oct 2011 11:22 AM PDT  All those rumors of deep voice integration in iOS 5 have just been confirmed. Scott Forstall is back onstage demoing the new “intelligent assistant” service, which surprisingly retains its original name: Siri. Activating Siri requires a quick hold of the home button, and then Siri is ready to listen. So far, Forstall’s demos seem to confirm what we’ve already heard: it’s surprisingly robust, and is a champion when it comes to interpreting voice input. So far, Forstall has asked Siri the current time in Paris, how the NASDAQ is doing today, and the location of great Greek food in Palo Alto. So far, Siri has answered all queries with aplomb, and the crowd is really getting a kick out of it. The integration with iOS seems to be just as impressive as we’ve been hearing: you can ask it to remind you to call someone before you leave the office, and it’ll automatically create an entry in the Reminders app, complete with a geo-fence just to be sure. You can also ask Siri to read your queued messages to you and make an appointment in the Calendar app. The worst part so far? Siri indeed seems to require the iPhone 4S’s extra horsepower, because it appears to be a 4S exclusive. The kicker? Siri was originally a run-of-the-mill iPhone app. What a shame. Siri will be a beta for the time being, as it only supports English, German, and French voice input, but there are more language add-ons and tweaks to come. Many thanks to sister site Engadget for the images!
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| Apple Officially Announces The iPhone 4S: Same Design, All New Guts Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:55 AM PDT  It’s official: sixteen months after the launch of the last iteration, Apple CEO Tim Cook has just taken the stage to announce the next iPhone. It’s called the iPhone 4S. … and it looks exactly like an iPhone 4. Uncharacteristically for Apple, official word of the iPhone 4S actually crossed the wire a bit early when the page for Apple’s store in Ginza, Japan mentioned the device. The whispers around the rumor mill constantly contradicted each other regarding Apple’s next iPhone. Some foresaw the iPhone 4S; others saw an iPhone 5 on the way. Some claimed it’d be both. If an iPhone 5 is on this year’s launch calendar, it hasn’t been mentioned yet at this event. The iPhone 4S will go up for pre-order on October 7th, with the first shipments set to arrive on October 12th. The specs disclosed so far:
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| Tim Cook: iPhone Has 5% Of Mobile Phone Marketshare Worldwide, “An Enormous Opportunity” Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:43 AM PDT  “Let’s talk iPhone” reads the banner above today’s iPhone event in Cupertino. Newly minted CEO Tim Cook glossed over some pretty impressive iPhone statistics in introductory overview on the phone, namely that the iPhone 4 has sold one half of total iPhones sold since it was introduced late last June. “The iPhone has 5% share of the worldwide market of handsets,” Cook revealed. “I could have shown the bigger smartphone numbers. But we believe over time all handsets become smartphones.” Emphasizing that the mobile phone market is 1.5 billion units annually Cook noted, “An enormous opportunity for Apple.” Cook went on to state that 93% of Fortune 500 companies are testing the iPhone on an enterprise level and that it ranks first in customer satisfaction among smartphones, according to JD Power and Associates. "The iPhone is pummeling the competition," he said, emphasizing that there was more coming on the iPhone later in the talk, obviously. As Cook began the announcement emphasizing the Chinese Apple Store foot traffic, namely 100K visitors on opening weekend in Shanghai, (“six stores in China now — we will do more!”) it’s worth noting that the burgeoning Asian smartphone market is opportunity enough. Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with... Apple’s iPhone was introduced at MacWorld in January 2007 and officially went on sale June 29, 2007, selling 146,000 units within the first weekend of launch. The phone has been hailed as revolutionary with its bundle of advanced mobile web browsing, music and video playback, and touch screen controls. The iPhone is exclusively carried on the networks of both AT&T and Verizon in the U.S. An iPhone can function as a video camera (video recording was not a standard feature...
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| More Than 1 Billion iOS Apps Are Downloaded Each Month Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:40 AM PDT  At today’s Apple iPhone 5 event, Apple announced an update on the number of iPhone and iPad applications now available. There are more than 500,000 apps in the iTunes App Store, 140,000 of which have been built specifically for the iPad. “That gives anyone who owns an iPad a better experience,” said Apple’s SVP of iOS software Scott Forstall. That makes the App Store the “number one store for mobile apps,” he added. Apple customers have also downloaded 18 billion apps to date, at a rate of more than a billion per month. Yes, 1 billion! That means both Apple and it’s developers are getting rich – Apple says now it has paid out $3 billion to third-party developers. That number is up from $1 billion in June, 2010. The larger Apple’s app economy grows, the larger its devices will appeal to developers as a platform for their mobile apps. With a quarter billion iOS devices out there and growing, that is a huge market. Image credit: Engadget
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| Forstall Intros New And Improved iOS Apps: Cards, iMessage, And More Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:39 AM PDT  While everyone’s likely tuning in to catch a glimpse of the new iPhone, Scott Forstall just taken the stage to talk about some of the cool new apps that Apple has rolling out shortly. First on the list is Cards, which allows users to “create and mail beautiful cards” directly form the iOS device of your choice. From what we’ve seen of the interface, it’s slick-looking and easy to use — typical Apple. Once created, Apple will print the cards on 100% cotton paper, slap some Apple-designed postage on it and mail it. The best part? You’ll receive a push notification from the USPS up delivery. It’ll run $2.99 for cards shipped in the US, and $4.99 for international users. Expect it to go live on October 12. Next up are a few that have already been making the rounds: iMessages and Reminders. iMesssage is of course the iOS-to-iOS answer take on messaging that some are claiming will greatly reduce reliance on standard text messaging. Messages sent will push to all associated devices, which allows users to pick up where they left off at any time. Reminders does exactly what it sounds like, but with added twists like geo-fencing, which triggers certain reminders at certain locations. No more forgetting to buy milk when you’re close to the grocery store! Safari’s iOS version has also got a bit of a feature bump: it now has Reader functionality, which strips out the content on a webpage and reformats it for easier reader. Super useful on the desktop, probably even moreso on mobile devices. The stock Camera app also benefits from a few tweaks, like on-device editing. Users can now perform basic tricks like cropping photos and reducing red-eye on the fly. Sure, it’s no Photoshop Touch, but it’s a welcome addition nevertheless. Developing… Thanks to our sister site Engadget for the images!
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| iOS 5 To Be Available To Everyone On October 12th Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:36 AM PDT  This morning at Apple’s iPhone event in Cupertino, Apple’s Senior VP of iOS Software Scott Forstall took the stage to fill in the rest of the details regarding iOS 5 before they moved on to talk about new hardware. iOS 5 will launch to everyone on October 12th. For those who need a recap, the top 10 features of iOS 5 (as hand-picked by Forstall himself):
Also hugely important to iOS 5, but mentioned later in the presentation: iCloud, Apple’s photo/document/data syncing solution. It stores your photo stream, backs up your contacts, keeps a catalog of all the apps you’ve ever purchased, and can store documents and files from third-party apps. iCloud will launch to everyone on October 12th, as well. Everyone gets 5 GB for free, while 10 GB, 20 GB, and 50 GB plans are available for $20, $40, and $100 per year respectively. The iOS 5 update will work on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 1 and 2, and iPod Touch (3rd/4th gen).
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| Tim Cook: The iPad Is The Undisputed Best-Selling Tablet In the World Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:33 AM PDT  Tim Cook took to the stage today and proudly talked up the iPad’s success. Per his opening remarks, every state in the US has schools either deploying or testing the iPad. This also holds true for 80% of the top hospitals in the US and 92% of the Fortune 500 companies. But Tim wasn’t done with the killer stats. The iPad is the “undisputed” tablet in the world and 3/4 of all tablets sold are iPads, Tim said. He went on to say that “everybody and their brother” is trying to compete. The iPad is just 18 months old and Apple already has a commanding chunk of the tablet marketshare. Their stats prove it: Apple has effectively won the tablet war. The iPad’s success helped iOS devices hit a major milestone. Apple has sold (read: not just shipped) 250 million iOS devices since the original iPhone in 2007. Part of this success comes from the 500,000 iOS apps with 140k available just for the iPad. New today is an official iPhone and iPad app called Cards that allows users to create and mail cards right from their iOS device. Create on the iPad and it’s printed on 100% cotton paper and mailed through USPS.
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| Tim Cook: 250 Million iOS Devices Sold, Huge Retail Traffic, Record Numbers Everywhere Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:28 AM PDT  Tim Cook started today’s iPhone announcement off with some Apple stats, and he had a lot of good news. First was their growth in the retail sector, where Cook focused on the new stores in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Cook’s headline stat was that while their store in LA took a month to reach 100,000 visitors, the Shanghai store did that number on its opening weekend. Next was the Mac. OS X 10.7, Lion, has sold more than six million copies — which he notes is 80% more than Snow Leopard, and furthermore a number it reached ten times faster than Windows 7. He didn’t mention that Windows 7 sold an additional 455 million copies or so after that, but hey. The growth of Apple’s MacBook and iMac lines was also a topic of discussion. Cook noted that Apple computers grew at six times the rate that PCs have, and that the MacBook Pro and iMac are the best-selling laptop and desktop in the US. Total install base right now? 58 million. On the iPod front, a device many feared would have its original form factor discontinued today, Cook noted that Apple has sold a total of 300 million iPods. The iTunes store has expanded to encompass 20 million songs, and users have downloaded 16 billion of them. Perhaps more impressive is the fact that Apple has sold 250 million iOS devices. That’s iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads — and we’ll do a breakdown of those sales numbers later. The iPhone 4, he says, makes up more than half the iPhones they’ve sold, and is the number one smartphone in the world. There’s more coming, including the actual news of the day. Stay tuned. [image: Engadget]
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| Live From London: Apple’s Remote iPhone Event Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:49 AM PDT  When the media invites went out for today’s Apple iPhone event last week, I thought “crap, I’m gonna be in London”. Turns out, that’s not such a bad thing. Apple has set up a live broadcast of the event at the Covent Garden Apple Store here. I’m here, ready to liveblog from 5,000 miles away. What will we see? The iPhone 5? The iPhone 4S (sure seems like it). iOS 5? Nuance-powered voice controls? New iPods? No iPods? Something else? (Here’s the liveblog — we had planned to use ScribbleLive, but it’s down, so we’re doing it old school!) Tim Cook takes stage Good morning. This is my first product launch since being named CEO. I’m sure you didn’t know that. It is a pleasure to host you today. This campus serves as a second home for many of us. It’s sort of like inviting you into our home. This room is our town hall. It has quite the history. Just 10 years ago we launched the original iPod here. It went on to revolutionize the way we listen to music. A year ago, we did the new MacBook Air. A few updates: Apple has enomorous momentum. Apple Stores. Two new stores in China. Both are setting new record. In Shanghai, 100,000 visitors for opening weekend. In LA, we thought it was awesome when we did 100,000 in one month! Hong Kong store. Cool spiral staircase “only Apple could do this”. Cook is now showing a short video to show off “excitement and energy around our retail”. Video over. “I think I watched that 100 times. I could watch it more easily” 6 stores in China now — we will do more! 357 stores in 11 countries. Mac You can’t talk about Mac without talking about Lion. Reviews are incredible. Walt Mossberg loves it. First time ever we offered Lion as a digital download only. The results have been staggering. We have downloaded over 6 million copies of Lion. That’s 80% more than Snow Leopard. It took Windows 7 20 weeks to reach 10% of installed base. Lion did this in two weeks. We also released the new MacBook Air. Our customers love it. The MacBook Pro and the iMac are the #1 best-selling notebook and laptop in the U.S. The Mac outgrew the PC market by over 6 times. We’ve done that 5 years in a row. We are now approaching 60 million users around the world. Our market share has steadily increased. U.S. retail Macs are now about 1 in 4 PCs sold in stores. Not too long ago, this number was in the mid single digits. But 77% of people are still buying something else. This just means we have a high ceiling here. Music 10 years of the iPod. It reminded all of us how much we love music. It became a part of our lives again. It becomes the #1 music player in the world. In the U.S. the market share has been above 70% for a very long time. We now have sold over 300 million iPods cumulatively. It took Sony 30 years to sell 200,000 walkmans. iPod is still a large and important market for Apple. We sold 45 million iPods in the past year. Almost half of those are going to people buying their first iPod. And many are going to people being introduced to Apple. This is a very important business for us. iTunes started 8 years ago. 200,000 songs at first — we now have 20 million songs. It’s the number 1 music store in the world. Over 16 billion songs downloaded. iPhone iPhone 4 in a very short period of time has sold over half of the total iPhones sold the entire time we’ve been selling them. It’s the #1 smartphone in the world. It’s not jst in consumer space. 93% of Fortune 500 companies are deploying or testing iPhone. It’s number one in customer satisfaction. “The iPhone is pummeling the competition.” For six times in a row JD Power has rated iPhone #1 in customer satisfaction in smartphones. The iPhone has 5% share of the worldwide market of handsets. I could have shown the bigger smartphone numbers. But we believe overtime all handsets become smartphones. This market is 1.5 billion units annually. Enormous market. More coming up on iPhone… (laughs). iPad People have been thrilled with original iPad and now iPad 2 from earlier this year. There is a lot of love for this product. They’re showing up everywhere. iPads in schools, for example. We think they help both teachers and students. Every state in the U.S. now has an iPad deployment or test. 1,000 universities in the U.S. all have iPad programs too. In the cockpit too! Pilots are using it to replace 40 pound notebooks. Also in hospitals. Over 80% of the top hospitals in the U.S. are now testing or piloting iPad. 92% of Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying iPad. This is in less than 18 months. This is unheard of. “iPad is the undisputed top-selling tablet in the world.” Despite everyone and their brother trying to compete with iPad, 3 of the 4 tablets sold in the U.S. are iPad. We have passed 250 million iOS devices sold. Today we’re taking it to the next level. I’m going to have Scott Forstall come up to show us the latest. Scott Forstall We’ve already sold a quarter billion iOS devices. It’s the number one mobile OS with 43% of the market. Mobile browsing, iOS is 61% of the market. Over 500,000 apps in the App Store. 140,000 just for the iPad. It’s the number one store for mobile apps. In just a little more than 3 years, customers have downloaded more than 18 billion apps. And it’s accelerating. More than a billion per month now. Developers have been paid more than $3 billion for those apps. New app from Apple: Cards. It lets you create and mail beautiful cards from your iPhone or iPod touch. We print it out for you after you make it on the phone. We’ll even mail it for you. If you mail it in the U.S. we’ll add the postal services bar code – so you’ll get a push notification the day it’s delivered. Very cool. $2.99 in the U.S. $4.99 anywhere in the world. Free download on October 12. Let’s talk about iOS 5. Just a few months ago we showed it off. We’ve seeded over 100,000 developers. They love it. Quick recap: 200 new user features. Ten key new features (the ones gone over previously): Notifications. iMessage. Reminders. Twitter integration. Newsstand. Camera. Game Center. Safari. Mail. PC-free. It will be a free update available on October 12 — next week. Here’s Eddie Cue to show off iCloud. It’s all about being automatic. There’s no syncing. There’s nothing new to learn. It just works. And iCloud is free. iTunes in the Cloud. Over 1/3 of music we sell is purchased from iOS devices. Keeping it in sync can be frustrating. Now when I download one place, it downloads to all your devices, including your Mac or PC. And there’s the new Purchased area in the Store to find songs you previously bought. Get them all at no additional cost. This works for TV shows too. Watch any at no additional cost. On your Apple TV too. We’ve done something huge with Photos. Photo Stream. They’re on your camera roll, but you wish they were on all your devices. With iCloud they are. It’s built-in to the Photos app on the iPad. And it’s built into iPhoto on my Mac. And on Apple TV. Documents in the Cloud — anytime you start a document on any device, it’s saved and stored in iCloud. Documents are updated across devices. There are APIs available too — we used them to put it into Pages, Number, and Keynote. Those updates will be available on October 12. Apps are also automatically downloaded to all devices. Books works the same way too. Contacts updated. Calendars updated. Mail to all of your devices. Daily backups. Find my iPhone — now you can even locate your Mac. Today we’re announcing a new app called: Find my Friends. When you launch it, you see a list of family or friends sharing a location with you. Use it at Disneyland. I can even see if my son made it to school okay. That’s great, but what about sharing it temporarily? That’s really easy. A picnic at the beach — location sharing ends on Saturday at 7PM. Location sharing stops automatically. There are parental settings so kids can’t share with others. Or so kids can’t turn off location sharing with parents. iCloud is free for iOS 5 users. And Lion users. Unlimited storage for purchased things. 5GB for music, etc. You can purchase more space too. iTunes Match. Rather than upload every song in your library — which could take weeks. We’ll find and match every song with ours. Cache the songs you listen to most right on your device. $24.99 a year. Ships on October 12. iTunes Match end of the month in the U.S. We’re working hard to bring it to other countries by the end of the year. iCloud video time. Phil Schiller takes the stage. I’m really pleased to talk to you about the iPod. We started on it because we loved music. That hasn’t stopped. We’re still making them. Now let’s update two of them. iPod nano Customers love it. We’ve added some updates, now it’s easier to navigate with bigger icons. Fitness is one of the most popular uses. We’ve improved it. Right out of the box you can go on a walk or run — no extra senors or devices. You go on a run, plug the device into a Mac or PC and all your data is there. It’s a really great way to get fit. People have made iPod nano watch bands. We thought that was really fun. So we added 16 new clock faces. Schiller shows off a classic one, an LED one, etc. We have Disney characters too — a Mickey Mouse watch face! Now iPad nano is $149 for 16 gigs $129 for 8 gigs. Most affordable nano ever. Available today. iPod touch Our most popular iPod. It’s the most popular portable game player as well. Now it will run iOS 5 — all the great features, iCloud, Game Center, Messages, etc. Brand new white version Was $229 for 8GB — now it’s $199. A key price point 32 GB – $299 - 64 GB – $399 – All: October 12. Next: iPhone Last year we did iPhone 4. Competitors haven’t come close to copying it yet. How do you follow it up? I’m really pleased to tell you today all about the brand new iPhone 4S Of course it started with a Retina Displace. Glass front and back. But instead, it’s all new. It has a new chip: A5 chip, same from the iPad 2. This is an Apple designed chip. Dual-core processor. Up to 2x as fast at CPU tasks. Dual-core graphics – so up to 7x faster. Awesome for games. Epic Games on stage to show off new games using a new graphics engine built for the AS — in some ways, the graphics are better than the high end consoles, they say. “This can only run on iPhone 4S — why? because it’s AWESOME”. This new game available December 1. Phil Schiller back. That’s a great example of the new performance you’re going to get. Will you trade off battery life for that power? No — first time you have 8 hours of talk time with 3G. 14 hours 2G talk time. 9 hours WiFi browsing. 6 hours 3G browsing. With iPhone we revolutionized steel antenna. Now we have something new — the phone can intelligently switch to both transmit and recieve to do better call quality. It can also now download data twice as fast as before. Previously you could do 5.8 up and 7.2 down — now it’s 5.8 up and 14.4 down. This is what a lot of our competitors claim when they “4G”. We’re not getting into that debate. It’s about real world performance. It’s faster than some of these phones. Also, it’s a world phone. Before it did GSM and CDMA. Now the iPhone 4S has both. When you’re traveling it can pick up anything. New camera. The iPhone 4 is the most popular camera on Flickr. We already were better than any other phone. We set our sights on making it better than point and shoot cameras. There’s a new 8 megapixel sensor. You can print an 8×10 glossy photo — that’s 60% more pixels than iPhone 4. But more pixels sometimes make it worse, but we have a new sensor to gather 73% more light. 33% faster at capturing too. Hybrid IR filter (like high-end DSLR). 5 custom-designed lenses (4 with iPhone 4). 30% more sharpness. Inside the A5 is an image signal processor. It can do face detection. White balance is better. Super fast photos. Time to first picture — 1.1 second. Destroys camera phone competition. Second picture just 0.5 seconds. Other guys 2 – 3 times longer. Droid users – you go to take a picture and you can go get a coffee in between — laughs. Video recording: stunning HD video, now 1080p. We have real-time video image stabilization. Temporal noise reduction. Video showing off new quality — lot of hot air balloon action. For many customers this will be the best still camera they’ve ever owned, and best video camera they’ve ever owned. Next: AirPlay. It’s one of the best-kept secrets of iOS. iPhone 4S is gaining AirPlay Mirroring to Apple TV (or do it via HDMI cable). Of course it comes with iOS 5 and iCloud. “It’s the best iPhone yet”. But we haven’t told you the best feature. It’s a feature all about our voice. For decades technologists have teased us that we should be able to talk to our machines. But it never comes true. What we really want to do is just talk to our device. “What’s the weather going to be today?” And talk in anyway you like. Siri feature. You’re intelligent assistant that gets things done just by asking. Demo time. This is beta software — this is a tricky demo to do, but we’re gonna do it anyway. Forstall back on stage. You can get to Siri at anytime just by holding down the home button for a few seconds. The exact words I say aren’t important, it’s the meaning behind the words. Different words, Siri figures out the meaning. “Do I need a raincoat today?” “It sure looks like rain today.” We’ve integrated it with weather, but also all kinds of things. Like the Clock — the time in Paris. Ask it about stocks. Tell it to set an alarm. “We’ve also partnered with Yelp” Get directions. You can reply to messages. Schedule something on a calendar. Forstall is showing it all off – and it all works wonderfully. Set a reminder with the new Reminders app. Also partnered with Wolfram Alpha. Search Wikipedia. Do currency conversions. How many days until Christmas? “You can ask so many questions of Siri” — you can’t ask everything, but it’s impressive. We decided to make a guide to show you what you can ask. You can even play songs from iTunes in the Cloud. “Who are you?” “I am a humble personal assistant” — applause. That is Siri, you’re humble intelligent personal assistant. Phil Schiller back on stage. Siri also does dictation. Anywhere you type in iOS, you’ll see a new microphone key. It sends it to our server and comes back with your text. (Sounds like that Nuance deal went through). Works over WiFi and 3G. It will be built in with support for English, French, German. It will be beta to start. We will add more languages and services over time. Video of iPhone 4S. It comes in black and white. 16GB – $199. 32GB – $299. 64GB – $399 (first time 64GB) The iPhone 4 will be available for $99 8GB only. The iPhone 3GS available for 8GB for free. The iPhone 4G pre-orders start on the 7th. It will be available on October 14. US, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Germany, Japan on the 14th. On Sprint in the U.S. for the first time. October 28 – 22 more countries. End of the year it will be in 70 countries. Over 100 carrier partners. The fastest roll out we’ve ever had for an iPhone. Tim Cook back on stage for a review of what was just announced. What sets all these things apart is how they’re engineered. Only Apple can make sure hardware and software services. I am so incredibly proud of this company and all of the teams that worked so hard. That’s a wrap. Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with...
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