The day is upon us, and there’s barely an hour left to go before Tim Cook (presumably) takes the stage at 10:00 AM Pacific to potentially unveil the iPhone 5, or maybe the iPhone 4S, who knows– But, either way, we’ll find out shortly. Yesterday I posted a little roundup of sorts of what we might be able to expect today, and as of this writing we’ve taken in over 50 comments on that story of people speculating what might be coming. Whatever it is, I want one.
If you’re the kind of person who likes to have every possible liveblog open in different browser tabs so you get everything the second it happens, here’s a pretty awesome list of other sites doing live keynote coverage:
Anyway, the keynote will be starting shortly. As soon as it does, keep an eye on this page for updates.
Looks like it’s the iPhone 4S, which will launch on October 14th, as a premature update to the Japanese Apple Store listing reveals:
Half hour to go!
People are being seated in the 4 Infinite Loop media room right now… The event should be underway shortly.
Tim Cook has taken the stage. He’s welcoming everyone, and seems to be going over the typical introduction that we’ve come to expect of these types of events. Tim is discussing the momentum of Apple, and the success of their ever-growing number of Apple stores. In total Apple has 357 stores in 11 countries.
In other news, focusing on OS X Lion, there have been six million copies downloaded so far, which is 80% more than Show Leopard. The Mac as a platform is also doing incredible. Apple saw 23% growth in Macs since last year, while the PC has only grown 4%. Meanwhile, since launching in 2001, the iPod has soaked up 78% of the portable music player market and 45 million iPods have been sold from July 2010 to June 2011.
“Next up is iPhone," says Cook. The iPhone 4 has sold over half the iPhones that have been sold so far, becoming the #1 smartphone in the world. Not only that, it’s rated #1 in every consumer satisfaction ranking that exists. 93% of Fortune 500 companies are testing or rolling out the iPhone too. Satisfaction ratings are high on iPad too, with the devices showing up everywhere. Education has become huge for the iPad, and pilots are replacing massive bags full of manuals and logs with an iPad. 80% of top hospitals in the US are now testing or piloting using iPads as well. Also, 92% of Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying iPads, and the success of the device, in only 18 months is unheard of. Three out of four tablets sold in the USA are iPads.
First up in the new things department is a new app from Apple called “Cards" which seems to utilize Apple’s iPhoto printing service to send mailed greeting cards directly from iOS devices. You even get push alerts for delivery status.
Apple has sold over 250 million iOS devices, and today, they’re “taking it to the next level" as Scott Forestall takes the stage. iOS is the #1 mobile OS with 43% of the market. Currently there are more than half a million apps on the App Store, 140,000 of those are specifically for the iPad. iOS users have downloaded over 18 billion apps, more than a billion a month, and so far Apple has paid out more than $3 billion to developers.
Scott also is detailing a new app, called “Cards" which seems to utilize the iPhoto printing services to send real greeting cards directly from iOS devices. There’s even push alerts for delivery status. These cards will cost $4.99 to be delivered anywhere in the world. Following this, Scott moves on to 10 features of iOS 5. So far it seems like we know about all of these already. Better push alerts, iMessage, Newsstand, improved camera, etc. 67 Million Game Center accounts have been created so far, and it too will be improved in iOS.
iOS 5 goes live on October 12th. Now they’re recapping iCloud. So far this seems like a re-run of the WWDC keynote. Oh, here’s something new, a find my friends feature similar to find my iPhone. You can share your location with friends, which seems pretty similar to the Facebook check in services and other social networks that offer similar things:
iCloud will also go live on October 12th.
Phil Schiller is taking the stage now to talk about updates to two of the lines today. First is the iPod nano. This year’s edition gets some updates. Now you’ll swipe between icons to navigate instead of using the grid. It also has deep Nike+ integration to allow you to track your walks and runs. Also, since people created accessories to turn iPod nanos into watch bands, they updated the device with new clock faces including this sick looking nixie clock:
Available today, you’ll be able to get a 8GB nano for $129 and a 16GB for $149. Next up is the iPod touch, Apple’s most popular iPod and the #1 portable gaming device.
Phil is also talking about how iOS 5 and iCloud are tremendous updates for the iPod touch, specifically citing iMessage. The iPod touch comes in both black and white now. $199 for 8GB, $299 for 32GB, and $399 for 64GB. Available October 12th.
Next up is the iPhone… and the iPhone 4S is officially revealed. The design is the same, but the innards are all new. The iPhone 4S comes packed with the Apple designed A5 processor. It’s dual core, and Phil says “We see it scream on games." Mike Capps from Epic takes the stage to take that further.
He starts off mentioning how last year they showed off Unreal Engine 3, and Infinity Blade. This year, they’re bringing us Infinity Blade 2 with visuals “that you’ve never seen on a mobile device.".
Infinity Blade 2 is coming December 1st.
Phil takes the stage again to explain that the A5 is a dual core processor, with a CPU that is twice as fast as the A4, as well as dual core graphics which are up to 7x faster. It also uses small amounts of power too, with 8 hours of 3G talk time, 6 hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of video, and 40 hours of music.
They’ve also redesigned the antenna (hopefully to avoid the ‘grip of death’ issue, and made the iPhone both download and upload faster, a maximum of 14.4 Megabits per second. The iPhone 4S is a world phone, with both GSM and CDMA radios you’ll be able to use it anywhere.
Next up, Apple beefed up the camera. “We didn’t just want to make this better than other phones, we wanted to make it better than point and shoot cameras." The iPhone 4S comes with an 8 megapixel camera and captures 60% more pixels as well as 73% more light than the previous model. It’s also a lot faster. There’s even a hybrid IR filter, a five element lens, face recognition and tons more. It’ll only take 1.1 seconds to take the first photo, which is a massive improvement, needless to say. The camera now records in 1080p, with image stabilization and noise reduction.
Airplay mirroring just got mentioned, and paired with an Apple TV you’ll be able to game on an even bigger screen.
Next they’re moving on to the rumored voice control features of the new iPhone. You’ll be able to say almost anything to your phone and it’ll be able to do it or find it. So far they’ve demonstrated getting directions, finding restaurants, and even handling text messages.
The iPhone 4S will also do dictation, and while it works out of the box, it “gets better" as it learns your voice.
They’re now playing a commercial showing off all these new features… Is there time for “one more thing?" Pricing announced for the new iPhone lineup, iPhone 4S preorders start on the 7th and the device will be released on the 14th. In addition, it’s also coming to Sprint.
Tim is back on stage wrapping things up, but it doesn’t seem like there’s “one more thing." Yep, that’s it, keynote is over! Now time for some hands-on time with the iPhone 4S and Siri.
Photos courtesy of Engadget and Thisis my next.
