11/06/2013 19:49

 

Apple Unveils iOS 7, iTunes Radio At WWDC Developer Fest -

 

 

In summary: Apple announced a new version of its Mac OS X operating system that will be called Mavericks and released later this year. It previewed an update to the Mac Pro desktop, which  features a “radical” new cylindrical design, and announced new MacBook Air notebooks. A new version of  iOS will be out in the fall with a free, ad-supported iTunes Radio service.

Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference today by announcing a redesigned version of iOS that he says is the most significant update to the mobile operating system since its introduction on the iPhone in 2007.

iOS 7, created under the guidance of Apple’s design chief Jony Ive, sports a new interface with new colors, type and icons and transparent layers. “True simplicity is derived from so much more than just tthe absence of clutter and ornamentation,” Ive said in a video introducing the software, choosing to shun the stage even though he was among the more than 5,000 attendees  on hand for today’s opening of the five-day gathering in San Francisco. “It’s about bringing order to complexity.”

During a two-hour presentation, Cook,  joined by top executives including marketing chief Phil Schiller, iTunes lead Eddy Cue and software chief Craig Federighi, also unveiled updates to the MacBook Air notebook that extend its battery life, a revamped version of the Mac operating system software called OS X Mavericks, and a free streaming music service called iTunes Radio that will be ad-supported and available at the outset in the U.S. They also previewed an update to the high-end Mac Pro desktop computer,packaged in a new cylindrical chassis, and said it will be made in the U.S. and released later this year.

Today’s product introductions were an important milestone for Apple, which hadn’t unveiled a new product since its Oct. 23 introduction of the iPad mini. Critics have been saying the unprecedented 230-day “drought” between product rollouts was a sign it has lost its way without visionary co-founder Steve Jobs to drive innovation. Apple’s stock has lost a third of its value from a high of $702.10 in September, a situation even Cook, who celebrates his second anniversary as Apple’s CEO in August, has described as frustrating. Cook said last month at the AllThingsD conference that his team is at work on some “game changers” — new products that may push Apple into new categories such as smart TVs and wearable computing devices – though he declined to say what those products may be.

Schiller, after describing the Mac Pro  design as “truly revolutionary, truly revolutionary,” sought to take on those critics. “Can’t innovate anymore, my ass,” he said to applause from the crowd.

While an interactive TV, smartwatch and a new iPhone weren’t expected today, analysts are counting on Apple to host a new product event in the fall to unveil an update to the iPhone, Apple’s biggest moneymaker. They’re also hoping to see a refresh of the iPad mini and a low-cost version of the smartphone designed to appeal to cost-conscious buyers in emerging markets. ”Today’s keynote sets the stage for more events in the second-half of 2013 and into early 2014 as new products are unveiled,” said Brian White, an analyst at Topeka Capital Markets.

While the more than 5,000 developers in attendance shouted their approval for the new OS software, Macs,  and iTunes Radio music service, which will include more than 200 stations, investors were less impressed. Apple’s shares fell $2.92, or less than 1 percent, to close at $438.89 in regular Nasdaq trading.

Here’s my play-by-play from the event. Apple has also posted the video from today’s keynote on its website.

• 9:15: Apple, has let members of the press into the exhibit hall at Moscone Center early this year (usually the doors opens about 10 minutes before the keynote and everyone runs to grab a seat — and an outlet).
• Spotted in the crowd already: Al Gore, former VP and Apple board member, chatting with Tim Cook and design chief Jony Ive, who is responsible for the redesign of iOS and Mac OS X. The Mac operating system is always named after a cat – Mountain Lion, Snow Leopard and Tiger, among them — and the press corps is taking bets on what the new cat name will be.
• How long does it take to fill up more than 5,000 empty chairs? Less than 5 minutes.
• 10:00: WWDC opens up with a black-and-white video, mostly text, with starts with line:  If everyone is busy making everything, how can we ever perfect anything?
• Tim Cook takes the stage to wild applause.  “Those words mean a great deal to us. You’ll see that reflected throughout the show today.” This is our 24^th WWDC. Attendees from over 60 countries. Two-thirds of the people in the audience are attending WWDC for the “first time,” Cook says. More than 100 sessions and more than 100 hands on labs this week at WWDC. Apple has 1,000 engineers on hand as well.
• Apple has over 6 million developers with 1.5 million added in the last year.
• WWDC sold out in 71 seconds, he says. “It’s the biggest venue we can get…But we are posting sessions online everyday.”
• Cook is now going into some updates, starting with Apple retail. 1 million per day visited Apple stores last year. He says tens of thousands of school kids pick the Apple store as a destination for field trips.
• 407 stores around the world, operating in 14 countries. Just opened a new store in Berlin in a 100-year-old building – one of the first theaters there. Now showing a video of the Berlin store opening.
• 10:09: Apple’s app store celebrates its fifth birthday next month. Users have downloaded 50 billion apps. There are 900,000 apps in the store, with 375,000 designed just for iPad.
• There are 575 million iTunes accounts. “We have more accounts with credit cards than any store on the Internet that we’re aware of.”
• “We have now paid developers $10 billion. And the momentum is incredible. We paid $5 billion of that just in the last year.” Cook says that’s three times more than all other platforms combined.
• Cook turns the stage over to an iOS developer called Anki. He says that Anki is using the iOS platform to create an entirely new platform of experiences that “brings artificial intelligence and robotics into our daily lives.” Boris Sofman, co-founder of Anki, is called to the stage to demonstrate the product — which is called Anki Drive and seems to be remote-controlled cars racing around a track. “Our app knows everything that is happening in real time — we’re not using iOS not just as remote controls but as immersive experiences.” He says they’re taking all the things we love about videogames and programming them onto physical devices. “We are bringing videogames to life” on the floor of your living room. To be released in the fall.
• Cook says it’s about the power of the platform — iOS and developer creativity.
• 10:17: Cook now talking about the Mac. Says installed base is 72 million, double what it was five years ago. he says the MacBook is the top notebook in the PC in the U.S. today. “For us it’s never been about making the most. We care more about customer sat and quality.”
• Apple has shipped 28 million copies of Mountain Lion, the latest version of Mac OS X. He says adoption of Mountain Lion is higher than that of new version of Windows (much laughter.)
• Craig Federigh, svp of software at Apple, takes the stage to talk about OS X (pronounced OS Ten). Mountain Lion is the ninth “cat” OS X released. He says they don’t want to be limited by a lack of cat names so they’re taking it in a new direction today with the lion name. (Jokes about ‘sea lion.’) The name for new OS X today and in the future will be California themed — places in the state. Today’s new OS X: Mavericks (named after the surfer beach south of San Francisco.)
• He’s talking about three new features. First up is “finder tabs.” Second is “tagging,” when you save a document, in addition to saving its location and name, you can tag it. “Tags are really great for powerful search.” Third, Mavericks will add support for multiple displays — allowing you to share your desktop across multiple screens. When you pan your spaces, you can do it independently on each display.
• Federighi is now doing a demo of the new features — starting with finder tabs (check Apple’s website later today for overview of how all this works.)
• 10:29: New technologies re: power and performance in Mavericks will include accelerated scrolling and “timer coalescing,” which has to do with helping to conserve battery power, Federighi says. He’s now discussing compressed memory tech that will help with response times and waking the system from standby.
• Apple shares up less than 1 percent, or $3.33, to $445.14 at 10:31 a.m. California time.
• On to Safari, Apple’s web browser. New features include shared links, where you see all the links shared by people you’re following on Twitter and LinkedIn. Apple has also made improvements to JavaScript.
• Federighi says the changes in terms of performance and features to Safari in Mavericks will be “profound.” He says it will use “way less memory” than rival browsers (Google’s Chrome, Firefox.)
• Now onto a demo of the new version of Safari.
• He announces a new feature called “iCloud keychain” built into Safarai that securely remembers your passwords, credit card info, and automatically syncs it across your systems.
• Federighi is now giving a demo of new Notification services in Maverick, as well as the new Calendar. The Calendar is aware of travel time, location and weather around events.
• On to the Maps App. “The maps teams has been making great improvements to the data in maps,” Federighi says. Works on the Mac, of course, and can send updates right to your iPhone.
• Apple is providing a developer sofware developer kits (SDK) so app creators can add Maps to their programs.
• iBooks will run on Mac.
• 10:44: On to a demo of the Maps app and how it looks on the Mac, and demo of the new version of the Calendar.
• Apple shares up 1.12 percent, or $4.93, to $446.74 at 1:46PM EDT.
• Demo of iBooks. Mac /Maverick users will be able to browse their books and read them, as well as access the iBooks store (up until now, iBooks didn’t run on the Mac before — only iOS devices).
• Mavericks preview for developers is available today. For everyone else, Mavericks will be out this fall.
• 10:51: Phil Schiller, global marketing chief, takes the stage. Starts talking about the MacBook Air and announces a new line of Airs that deliver “all day battery life.” The new Airs are built on the new Intel 4th generation core processor (Haswell). Will extend battery life so you can watch “almost” the entire trilogy of Lord of The Rings on one battery charge, Schiller says.
• New Airport base stations introduced.
• MacBook Air in 11-inch starts at $999, with 128 gig. The 13-inch is $100 cheaper at $1,099.  (he flashed the price really fast — sorry). Both start shipping today.
• Schiller also gives a “sneak peak” of the new Mac Pro, the most high-powered desktop Apple offers (and which is long overdue for an update).  The Pro desktop is “truly revolutionary, truly radical…This product is so cool…” Schiller shows a video of what the new Mac Pro will look like. It’s a round tower (black and shiny).
• “Can’t innovate anymore , my ass,” Schiller says to lots of applause. It’s built to run a “thermal core — that even sounds cool.” Double the performance of the previous generation of Mac Pro. New flash-based memory that’s super fast. Can be expanded. Supports Thunderbolt 2. (Schiller is really into speeds and feeds here). He says this is the first Mac that comes standard with dual GPUs — that gives 2.5 times the graphic performance of the prior generation of Mac Pro. It also supports 4K displays — you can have up to three 4K displays on the built-in graphics.
• “It is a Mac unlike any other Mac we’ve ever made,” Schiller says. It’s one-eighth the volume of the prior Mac Pro. The entire top of the cylinder design is a handle.
• 11:02: It’s “coming later this year” and will be assembled here in the U.S. No pricing disclosed as part of this sneak peak.
• Tim Cook back on stage. Says there are 300 million iCloud accounts — making iCloud the fastest growing cloud service ever. One of the most popular features in iCloud is iTunes in the cloud. The back-end infrastructure of iCloud  works across a variety of services. For instance, Game center has 240 million users.
• Used to send 7.4 million push notifications.
• iCloud will be integrated into iWork, Apple’s app suite (Pages, Numbers, Keynote productivity apps.) iWork for iCloud — will let you create documents on a Mac or PC and store them in the cloud. Demo by Apple’s Roger Rosner going on now. Shows iWork working across browsers (Chrome included). Available for developer preview; will be available for general users later this year.
• Apple shares still up slightly: 443.06  1.25(0.28%)
• 11:12: Cook retakes the stage to talk about iOS. Says Apple has sold over 600 million iOS devices (that’s iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch). He says that iOS usage is higher than usage of other mobile operating systems, namely Google’s Android. Says more holiday shopping online last year was done with iPhone/iPad than other mobile devices. “It probably doesn’t surprise you that if people are using them more, they love them more.” He says iOS users are “more satisfied” with the software than other systems, in part because Apple provides more software updates. 93 percent of iOS users are using iOS 6, the current version. Says most Android users aren’t on the newest operating system — more than a third are using an OS that was released in 2010. Cook says this “version fragmentation” is terrible for users — and for developers.
• “The team at Apple has been working incredibly hard on the latest version of iOS. Today, it’s a great thrill that I announced iOS 7.” Cook says it’s the biggest change to iOS since the iPhone was introduced with the software in 2007. He’s now showing a video, narrated by Jony Ive, that shows radical new interface. “We have always thought of design as being more than just how something looks…Ultimately, design defines so much of our experience.” I’m sure they’ll post this video on the Apple site shortly.
• “True simplicity is derived from so much more than the absence of clutter and ornamentation. It’s about bringing order to complexity,” Ive says in the video. Shows new typography. Features a whole new palette of colors. Translucent layers. “These planes create a sense of depth and vitality.” (Lots of applause, oohs and aahs as you can imagine.)
• The iOS 7 interface has some new icons. Ive says it’s an important new direction and beginning for Apple.
• Audience member shouts out: “I love you.” Cook says, “Thank you.”
• Craig Federighi back on stage to go through iOS 7 demo, which he says is a collaboration between Ive’s design team and Apple engineers. As you move your hand, the interface tracks your motion. The interface has an edge to edge design (the menu bars/icons disappear so the screen is all about the content).
• 11:26: Federighi is going through the weather app, calendar app and show how the layers/transparency work. The font change is notable from the prior version of iOS. In mail app, photos now appear edge to edge.
• Apple shares: 443.21  1.40(0.32%)
• New color palette used in iOS 7 emphasizes pale colors — reminds me of Easter egg colors. (see the WWDC poster in the photo above to get a sense of the colors).
• “It’s a comprehensive end to end redesign of the iOS experience,” Federighi says, that’s almost like getting a new iOS.
• He’s going through 10 of the new features. Control Center can be accessed from a swipe at the bottom of the device (you can quickly access airplane mode, for example and flashlight).
• Next, multi-tasking. Now in IOS 7, multi-tasking will work for all apps.
• Safari browser in iOS has a “full-screen look.” There’s a new smart search field that gives you quick access to your favorite websites.  Federighi is now giving a demo of Safari in iOS 7. New tabs features means you’re no longer limited to 8 tabs.
• 11:36: On to a demo of Control Center. You can turn on/off the do not disturb feature, play a song, turn on flashlight. Control Center can be accessed from within any app. He’s talking about a new feature called AirDrop — a way to share with friends who are around you. You can share with multiple people from the device — “no need to wander around the room, bumping the phone.” Works on iPhone 5, 4th gen iPad,  iPad mini and latest iPad Touch (needs latest Wifi technology for AirDrop to work).
• There’s also a new Photos app in iOS 7. You can organize photos instead of having them just listed in one continuous photo roll. Federeghi says photos can now be organized into “moments” since iOS knows when the photo was taken and where.
• 11:45: Eddy Cue of iTunes is up  to demo Siri. You can now choose either male or female voice for Siri (and the female voice has been updated). You can now say “play my last voicemail” or “turn on my Bluetooth” or “turn up my brightness.”
• Siri can answer more questions. Integrates Bing search info.
• Cue is now talking about how Siri is being used in car systems. In 2014, 12 automakers will integrate iOS in their cars.
• New discovery tools for finding apps.
• App Store will also update your apps automatically (huge applause for this one).
• 11:49: Cue introduces  iTunes Radio. Streaming music service is built into the Music app. Apple will preload it with hundreds of  “stations” around music genres  but you’ll be able to create your own stations around genres, artists. You can say “play more songs like this” or “never play songs like this.”
• It’s built into iOS 7. Also built into iTunes on your Mac and PC, and also built into AppleTV.
• It’s free with ads. If you’re and iTunes match subscriber, it’s add free. Apple says the service will be available first in the U.S.
• 11:54: Federighi back on stage. Says Apple is only showing a small number of the new features in iOS 7, but he is showing off “activation lock.” Says many users use Find My Phone to help find the iPhone if it’s lost or stolen. New activation lock prevents thieves from turning off Find My Phone and from activating the phone.
• iOS 7 is available in beta to developers on the iPhone today. Beta for iPad is coming in a few weeks. Final release of iOS will be out this fall.
•  Tim Cook returns to stage to recap announcements: Mavericks, Mac Pro, iWork, iWork for iCloud, iOS 7 — amazing new features and
• It’s the biggest change to iOS since the introduction of iPhone.
• iTunes Radio — the best way to discover new music.
• We are incredibly proud of all of these products. They’re examples of “what Apple does best.” Thanks Apple employees for their work.
• “I’d like to close this morning with a reminder that our goal at Apple is to make amazing products that our customers love. The words you saw at the beginning of the show are more than words to us — they’re the values we live by.”
• Cook shows a new ad that talks about “the experience of a product…will it make life easier…does it deserve to exist.” The ad will start appearing on TV tonight.
• 12:00. And that’s it.
• Investors aren’t as impressed as the developers in the room here. Apple shares are now just up 9 cents to $441.72. That’s 0.02%.