Apple's WWDC Today - No Thread Yet?

[dangonay]

Kinda surprised nobody posted this up yet.

Apple had the keynote at the start of the WWDC today, talking about iCloud, iOS 5 and OS X Lion. Some highlights of each:

iOS 5:

- Finally a complete overhaul of notifications, done similarly to Android and other devices. No more stupid popups in the middle of other apps.
- Newsstand to keep all your magazine and newspaper subscriptions.
- Twitter integration.
- Cutting the cables/no more PC. Updates can now be done over the air (including the OS itself) with updates now only downloading what's changed (no more 600MB iOS downloads). Syncing with iTunes can be done wirelessly. No need to tether your iPhone to register it the first time you activate. In fact, you could use your iPhone or iPad without even owning a computer.
- Updates to Safari including tabbed browsing, and a new Reader feature which strips out all non-essential stuff from the paga and displays only the article itself.
- iMessage. Messaging improvements include delivery and read receipts, live status telling you if the other user is typing, groupos messaging and it works over WiFi and 3G. Photos, videos and contacts can also be sent.
- Split keyboard for iPad (where you get one half keyboard under each thumb).
- Camera button on home screen for faster picture taking if you're in a rush. Also volume up button can work as shutter button. Holding a finger over the screen locks exposure to that area and you can also do some photo editing right in the camera app.
- New reminders feature which is also location aware.
- 3GS phones and up, iPad 1 and 2 and Touch 3 up supported.


OS X Lion:

- $29.99. That's right, only $30 and it's a download only (4GB in size). Plus you only pay that $29.99 price once and can install it on all your authorized Macs you own.
- Mac Server to cost $49.99.
- Multi-touch gestures now supported.
- Full screen apps (took long enough).
- AirDrop. Any two Macs close together will set up an automatic, secure and encrypted connection between them. To transfer files to the other persons computer just drag and drop the file to their Mac.
- Much improved Mail system which includes better searching and a conversation view.
- System Wide Resume. If you're in the middle of an application and close it, next time you open it you will be back exactly where you were when you left.
- Automatic updates/backups. Files are now automatically saved for you. You also get the ability to have multiple revisions and go back through the history of a documents changes.


iCloud:

- Free to use with 9 apps and also with your own purchased music.
- Take a picture on your iPhone and it immediately becomes availabe on any other devices you own. Same holds true for other forms of documents, calendars and so on.
- Automatic daily backups of your device to the cloud.
- Pay $24.99 a year and iTunes will scan your harddrive for any music you have. If it finds a song that they also have on their servers, it doesn't need to get uploaded - it simply recognizes you have that song and you get a 256k AAC DRM free version to use yourself. Think of it as Amnesty for your pirated music. You can then download these tracks any time to any device you own (no streaming at this time, though, which kinda sucks). So for $24.99 a year you get a secure backup of all your music. If you have music that's not on their servers, then it will get uploaded for you.

To me the big one is iCloud storage of your music. The lack of streaming at the moment sucks, but I can see it being added. Imagine if one million users of Amazon or Google's cloud music locker all bought the latest Lady Gaga release. That means the album will get stored one million times over. That's an incredible waste of storage space. With Apple's iCloud, they don't need to do this, which is probably why they can offer 20,000 songs for only $24.99 a year (with Amazon that would cost $100 a year and we don't know how much Google will charge once it gets out of the beta program for Google Music).



There's a lot I probably missed so you can go here to read all about it.

Engadget WWDC Blog

[mos_skeeto]

Nice things but nothing groundbreaking for me for ios and icloud. Storing your library online is pretty cool but for someone with 1 or 2 i device I don't know if it's worth doing. Syncing by cable is kinda annoying sometimes but it's not a biggie. I bet the over the air updates make it more difficult to jailbreak devices. I like the lion upgrades. I like paying once for stuff and being able to use it on all devices. OSX is becoming more ipad like I wonder what the long term plan is like for apple. Maybe one day (in like 10 years) the 2 operating systems will be one.

[Ronin]

Love the new features but most of it is already included in various apps or jailbroken stuff. It's like Apple is looking at the best apps, buying out those companies and integrating it into their software. Finally you're not downloading an entire iOS and only the updates.

iMessage looks like the Apple version of BBM everyone wanted. I hope the group chat feature works well and isn't just sending texts to multiple people like you get now. I want the portable chat room feature like in BBM, Whatsapp, etc.

iCloud and iTunes Match will be awesome if it 1.) works with all our pirated music. I have purchased music but got some others that are just downloads. 2.) streaming is eventually available AND the streaming data will be independent of our 6GB per month...or else streaming all that music is going to eat through it pretty quick, I'm sure.

Haven't read enough about Lion. Download only seems like a bit of a weird step to take but hopefully 4GB means it runs quick and isn't bloated.

[Armind]

"- Automatic updates/backups. Files are now automatically saved for you. You also get the ability to have multiple revisions and go back through the history of a documents changes."

Does this apply to only mac apps or can it be used for any, such as Adobe?

[dangonay]

iTunes match will work with pirated music. There's no way for them to differentiate between a downloaded song or one you ripped from a CD you own. This will also make record companies happy. $25 a year from a "pirate" who previously gave them no money at all is a good compromise instead of fighting with pirates and spending money on lawsuits.
Posted via RS Mobile