I’m at Apple‘s (AAPL) Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, where a line has been forming around the block at the Moscone West facility.
Massive applause for that, and Apple CEO Tim Cook is on stage. He says the show, in its 23rd year, is “older than some of you” in the audience. The show sold out in an hour and a half. The longest-running developer conference.
Cook starts with an update on the App Store. Over 400 million accounts. Over 650,000 apps, with 225,000 for iPad specifically. Downloads have rached 30 billion. Apple has written checks for over $5 billion. The App Store is coming to 32 more countries, says Cook.
Time for a developer video! The video shows a school in India using an iPad app, projected on a giant screen, to teach anatomy. A developer who has created programs that help the blind navigate. Heartfelt remarks from the folks at AirBnB. A child with a speech impediment using a children’s app for learning.
Tim Cook is back. He wants to talk about changes to the notebook lineup, and he brings onstage Phil Schiller, Apple’s marketing head.
The MacBook Air is first up. Everyone is trying to copy it, says Schiller. Updated to 2 gigahertz Intel (INTC) “Core i7,” flash drives up to 512 gigabytes, up to 8 gigs of RAM. Will have USB 3 connections. Schiller disses the competition’s clumsy USB ports. Adding the MacBook Pro HD (720p) camera.
The 1.7 gigahertz 11-inch model will be $999, the next model up $1,099. It ships today.
MacBook Pros get a facelift as well, with the new Nvidia(NVDA) “GeForce 650M” discrete graphics, and up to 2.6 gigahertz Core i7 processors.
So what’s next? asks Schiller. He throws up a slide of an object with a black cloth over it. Apple’s designers have been thinking about what would make a next-gen MacBook Pro? You want it to have a”killer new display. You want it to be radically thin and light.
Schiller unveils it. It has “a magnificent new display.” The crowd roars with delight. It is super thin. 0.71 inches thin. It’s about as thin as the MacBook air. Just 4.46 lbs.
Yes, it has the “Retina Display” in a 15-inch frame with 2880×1800 resolution, the world’s highest-resolution display, says Schiller. Reduced glare and reflection by 75%. Applications in the company’s “OS X” operating system have been updated to take advantage of the new display. Schiller highlights improved apps, including “Aperture,’ “Diablo 3,” Photoshop, Autocad.
Inside, it has Intel quad-core i7 processors. Supports up to 16 gigs of memory. Again, the Nvidia “Kepler” discrete graphics. Up to 768 gigabytes of flash storage. Up to 7 hours of battery life. Has an SD slot, an HDMI output port, USB 2 and 3, MagSafe 2, two separate Thunderbolt ports. Apple will be offering adapters to go from Thunderbolt to FireWire and Ethernet.
The case also has “the best stereo speakers we’ve ever put into a notebook or a desktop,” and dual microphones.
Roll the video of Johnny Ive and company talking about the new machine. Apple built the “layers of the display” into the aluminum unibody case, doing away with a layer of glass. Special venting was designed with specially positioned “asymmetric” fans that spread sound over different frequencies. Big applause for that from the crowd.
The base model starts at $2,199 for a 2.3 gigahertz quad-core Core i7 model. Ships today.
Now it’s on to Mac OS X. Craig Federighi, the company’s head of Mac development, is up on stage to talk about “Mountain Lion.” he starts off by talking about iCloud, the company’s online synchronization service. The company is bringing “Documents in the Cloud.” Shows a document “library that synchronizes with iPhone and iPad, and developers will be able to add support for their apps. The existing iPhone apps for Reminders and Notes and Messages (“iMessage“) will also be available on the Mac desktop.
Federighi focuses on iMessage, which can send messages to iOS devices but also “other legacy messaging services.”
Federighi moves on to “Notification Center,” which will bring little alerts at the top of the screen, and which can be shown in a drawer that slights out demo, the edge of the screen using a swipe of two fingers on the computer’s trackpad.
Next up, Dictation. You’ll be able to talk anywhere you can type, says Federighi. Sharing has been built in across the system. In the Preview app, with a special section of the System Preferences app for setting up Twitter.
Federighi talks about the new version of Safari. It will synchronize which Web pages you’re currently reading across all devices, something called “iCloud Tabs.” There are also new multi-touch gestures. Pinching on the trackpad reveals all the current or recently viewed tabs for you to browse.
Apple shares are currently up $2.03, or 0.4%, at $582.35.
Mountain Lion will be out next month, as a download from Apple’s Mac App Store, for $19.99.
Next up is Scott Forstall, head of iOS development. He starts by saying the company has sold more than 365 million iOS-based devices. The company is supporting more than 7 billion notifications per day, and have sent 1.5 trillion notifications to date. There are 140 million users of iMessage. 130 million users on Game Center. Forstall announces iOS 6. He focuses first on Siri.
Siri “has been studying up a lot,” he says. Time for a demo. Siri has leaded all about sports. “What was the score of the last Giants game?” “The Giants were downed by the Rangers yesterday.”. She can also tell you players’ stats by name, and see a player “card” displayed on the screen. Siri knows about basketball: She tells Forstall that LeBron James “appears to be slightly taller than Kobe Bryant” in answer to a question about height. You can get movie times and trailers from Siri, integrated with Rotten Tomatoes.
Siri can also now start applications on command. Forstall says the company is working with car makers to integrate a Siri button into the steering wheel of new cars, what he calls “eyes free.”. Adding English and French support for Canada, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Mandarin for Taiwan and both Cantonese and Mandarin for Hong Kong and mainland China. Big applause for that.
Enhancements to the Phone function of the iPhone will let you respond to an incoming call with a text message, and also set a reminder for oneself to call the caller back later on.
And now Maps. Big applause doe that. Apple has built an entirely new mapping function, “and it is beautiful.” Forstall shows some of the map screen shots. Says it is a global effort. Will include turn-by-turn navigation. Huge applause for that. Includes re-routing capabilities, the ability to zoom out from the current location to see entire area. Will work from the phone’s lock screen and can be activated using Siri.
Apple has already gathered 100 million local business listings, Forstall said. Apple will give out beta copies to developers today. Will be available later this fall.
Apple’s Scott Forstall showed off a fly-through of San Francisco in the company’s new mapping function.Tim Cook is back on stage to wrap things up. “Only Apple could make such amazing hardware, software and services,” says Cook. “It’s why people come to work at Apple, to do the best work of their lives.”
And that’s it. Apple shares have surrendered some earlier gains but are still up 34 cents at $580.66.
Update: Apple shares slumped following the event, closing down $9.15, or 1.6%, at 571.17.
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