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| Tim Cook speaking at WWDC 2012 |
Welcome to Apple's WWDC 2012 Conference at the Moscone Center. Here was the live events going on down in the Moscone Center this morning..
10:00 a.m.: Clapping. Lights go down.
10:01 a.m.: Siri says hello and welcome to WWDC. Video of Siri telling jokes. I found 396 venture capitalists fairly close to you. Looks like Instagram finally accepted Facebook’s friend request. Much laughing more jokes. Then clapping. And then Tim walks on stage.
10:02 a.m.: Cook says they have a great week planned. This is the 23rd WWDC, the longest running developer conference. Sold out in 1 hour and 43 minutes. There are attendees fro over 60 countries. Over 100 sessions and over 100 hands on labs. There are over 1,000 Apple engineers here.
10:04 a.m.: First, App Store update. Over 400 million accounts on the App Store. With credit cards and one-click buying. The store with the largest number of accounts with credit cards anywhere on the Internet. Over 650,000 apps in the store. About 225,000 specifically designed for iPad. Compares to just a few hundred for the competition.
10:05 a.m.: New data point: customers have downloaded 30 billion apps. Developers have received checks for over $5 billion. Store in over 120 countries. Starting later this month, adding 32 more countries, boosting total to 155 countries.
10:06 a.m.: Goal is to do great work, and in doing so make a difference in other people’s lives. Love to see developers using out hardware and software to share their latest and greatest ideas. Next, we get a video on some of the work of developers. (Which as a blogger I love, since I can catch my breath.) People are talking about the use of apps in classrooms in India, to teach anatomy in medical schools, etc. There’s a plug for AirBNB in the video. They rent castles! They rent tree houses! Takeaway: There are lots of very useful apps.
10:14 a.m.: Video finally ends. Much clapping.
10:15 a.m.: Cook comes back. He thanks everyone in the developer community. Much clapping, again.
10:16 a.m.: He says they are announcing new laptops, and updates to OSX Mountain Lion and iOS.
10:16 a.m.: Cook invites Phil Schiller on stage to start with new Macbooks. He says they will update the Air and Pro.
10:17 a.m.: First the Air. He notes that everyone is trying to copy it. It has changed the consumer notebook market. They are going to update it with third generation of Intel Core processors, also known as Ivy Bridge. Run up to 2 GHz, or 3.2 GHz with turbo boost. Integrated graphics up to 60% faster. Up to 512 GB of storage. Up to 2x faster read speed. Faster than any hard drive. Adding USB 3. Up to 10x faster than USB 2. Single port for both USB 2 and USB 3. Also updating FaceTime camera. Comes in 11 and 13 inch sizes. Prices are $999 and $1099. For the 13 inch, $1199 and $1499. All are $100 less than before. Starts shipping today.
10:21 a.m.: Next, MacBook Pro: Updating processors to Ivy Bridge. Faster memory. Up to 60% faster graphics. 2.7 GHz; 3.7 GHz with turbo boost. New Kepler Nvidia discrete graphics processor. Also has USB 3. Comes in 13 inch and 15 inch. 13 inch is $1199 and $1499. For the 15 inch, priced at $1799 and $2199. Same prices as current versions. Shipping today as well.
10:24 a.m.: NEW: The company is adding a new entry in the laptop lines. Next generation MacBook Pro. Will have new display. Radically thin and light. Bold and embrace new technologies. Schiller is warming up. Voila! “The most beautiful computer we have ever made.” Much oohing and aahing. It is thin! It is light! It is small. Thinner than my finer, Schiller says. “A true breakthrough in engineering,” he says.
10:27 a.m.: The new generation MacBook Pro is 0.17 inches think. Weighs 4.46 pounds. Lightest MacBook Pro they have made. It is a retina display. 15.4-inches across. Pixel density is 2880 x 1800. 220 pixels per inch. That 5,184,000 pixels. The world’s highest resolution notebook display. Reduced glare and reflection by up to 75%. Ships with OSX Lion. Mail updated so it is like reading fine print. Safari updated for the new laptop, like reading magazine quality type. Also updating professional applications to full advantage. Aperture is being updated. He says the new display is a breakthrough for developers. 4x the resolution of phones. Final Cut also being updated to take advantage of the display. Applications need to be updated to take full advantage of the new display. Adobe Photoshop is being updated, he notes, to take advantage of the Retina Display. Autodesk is working on new version of AutoCAD to take advantage of the display.
10:32 a.m.: He shows an image of the inside of the laptop, which is dominated by the battery. Has Quad Core i7 processors up to 2.7 GHz. Up to 16 GB of RAM. Kepler graphics. Built around flash storage: Up to 768 internal flash storage. Faster than any hard drive. Battery life up to 7 hours or 30 days of stand by. Ports: SD slot. HDMI slot. USB 2/3. MagSafe 2 for power cords. 2 Thurderbolt ports. Glass track pad for gestures. Backlit keyboard. 802.11n WiFi. Facetime HD camera. Dual microphones. Best stereo speakers we have put in a notebook computer, Schiller says.
10:36 a.m.: Time for a video on the MacBook Pro. (Whew, I can catch my breath.) The video notes something clever they’re doing to make the fan quieter.
10:39 a.m.: Stock update: AAPL up $2.93, or 0.5%, to $583.25.
10:42 a.m.: Video over. Configuration on the new generation MacBook Pro is 15.4 inch display starting at at $2,199. It’s green, he says, Energy Star 5.2, etc. Starts shipping today.
10:44 a.m.: Schiller hands off to Craig Federighi, to talk about OSX. They have sold 26 million copies of Lion. 40% of Mac users now using Lion. Today, they are announcing Mountain Lion. Mission remains the same: deliver most advanced operating system, optimized for multi-touch trackpads. Over 200 new features in Mountain Lion. He will detail 8 of the new features.
10:46: First, iCloud. When you sign in to new Mac, automatically configs apps to work with iCloud. Mail, contacts, calendar. Also three new apps optimized for iCloud. Messages (including iMessage), reminders and notes. Also integration for new feature called Documents in the Cloud. Simply new way to access and organize your documents. Make docs available and updates on all devices. Works with Pages, Numbers, Keynote. Supports location-based apps for the first time. He’s doing a demo. Can view and make changes on multiple devices of the same document; update on one device, automatically updates on another device.
10:51 a.m.: Next, Notification Center comes to the Mac. New consistent elegant system based on banners and alerts. Banners slide down from the top, then slide back. Alerts come in the same way, but stay around until you dismiss them explicitly. You can manually shut then off; if you connect to a projector, they are disabled automatically.
10:53 a.m.: Third, Dictation. You can speak documents.
10:53 a.m. Fourth, Sharing. Easier than ever to share from within apps. Share button on toolbar. Can share to Twitter. Flick. Mail. Yahoo. Gmail. Vimeo. (Alert: No mention of Facebook here, in an obvious spot to discuss any new partnerships with Facebook.)
10:54 a.m.: Fifth, new Safari, with unified smart search field. Can pick up browsing from other devices. With tab view, can use gestures to navigate tabs in the browser. Faster page loading. New scrolling architecture to make it smoother and “lightening fast,” Federighi says. Can see documents open on any currently logged in devices. Can see live version of all tabs to make it easier to browser through tabs; browse easily between images of current tabs.
10:55 a.m.: New feature called Power Nap, fetching emails, keeps track of calendar and reminder updates while it sleeps. Will back up to Time Capsule, download system updates automatically. Automatically refreshes data. Does not even spin up fans. Compatible with recent Airs and the new generation MacBook pro.
11:01 a.m.: Seventh, AirPlay mirroring. To mirror content on multiple screens in up to 1080P resolution. Also can send audio to AirPlay enabled speakers.
11:02 a.m.: And finally, GameCenter. Making gaming on the Mac better. Same GameCenter account on the Mac as on iOS games. Supports cross-platform iOS-to-Mac gaming. He’s going to demo AirPlay and GameCenter now. Some guy comes on stage in a racing suit complete with helmet to demonstrate CSR Racing, a new gaming title. (They make a joke about Racer OSX, sort of a nod to Speed Racer fans.)
11:06 a.m.: Other stuff. Can market VIPs in Mail. Offline reading list in Safari for offline reading. Also adding new features for China. Improved Chinese input method. New Chinese dictionary. Eight new Chinese fonts. In Safari, adding support for Baidu as search provider. Video sharing to Tudou and Youku. Also easier to set-up China’s leading email services. Over 1,700 new APIs.
11:07 a.m.: Mountain Lion delivered next month via App Store, priced at $19.99. Buy new Macs today, get free up
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