ABC7 Tech Blog

Tim Cook Wrap-up

Tim Cook is back on stage, reviewing everything announced over the past 96 minutes.

What puts Apple way out front, Cook says, is how these devices all work well together.  "I'm so incredibly proud of this company and all of the teams that worked so hard to bring all of the innovations you've seen today to reality."  

"Thanks very much."

Event is over.   Live blog ends now.  Watch our comprehensive coverage on ABC7 News later today at 4, 5 and 6pm.

David Louie, Business & Technology Reporter, ABC7 News

 

iPhone 4S Availability

iPhone 4S - 16GB for $199, 32 GB for #299, and 64GB for $399 - two year contract.  Comes in black and white.

Older iPhone 4 will now be available for $99 for 8GB.  8Phone 3GS - 8GB model is free.  

iPhone 4S available Oct. 14 in US, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan.  Pre-orders start this Friday.  On AT&T, Verizon -- and -- Sprint.  

On Oct. 28 -- 22 more countries will have iPhone 4S available.  Evnetually 70 countries.

Siri - What Else It Does

Siri can also do calendar scheduling, send messages, etc., all verbally.  Instantly provide currency exchange rates.  

Can search Wikipedia by asking Siri for info.  

Siri alone is going to be justification to get the new iPhone 4S.  

Siri also does dictation so you can write emails by voice.  

Built-in with support for English, French & German.  Will add more services and languages over time.

 

iPhone 4S Video Recording

iPhone 4S wil have 1080p HD video recording.  Video image stabilization.  Temporal noise reduction.  

Phil Schiller is showing a home movie taken with the new iPhone 4S.  It's a hot air balloon ride.  Impressive.

AirPlay - lets you stream music or video to any other AirPlay equipped device.  

Now he's sharing what he considers the best feature yet -- voice.  Siri - your intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking.  The voice recognition works by interpreting what you're asking it to do, regardless of how you say it.  You initiate Siri by pressind down on the home button.  You speak, and the phone delivers the information you requested, such as the weather forecast.  

"Do I need a raincoast today?"  "it sure looks like rain today," the synthesized voice responds.  

"What time is it in Paris"  "The time is Paris, France is 8:16 PM."  

"Wake me up tomorrow at 6am."  "OK, I set it for 6 am."  

Really neat feature.

"How is the NASDAQ doing today?"  "NASDAQ composite is down right now at 2321.70."

Partnered with Yelp so you can ask questions about businesses and restaurants.  

Understands concepts as you ask questions.  

"Give me directions to Hoover Tower."  "Here are directions to Hoover Tower."  Screen displays map and routing info.  

Siri can also read your instant messages.  

This is really going to be great for hands-free operation.  

Processor Speed Impact on Battery Life & More

8 hours of 3G talk time, 14 hours of 2G talk time, 6 hours of 3G browing, 9 hours of wi-fi browsing.  Apple worked on battery life issues.

Wireless system - engineering team worked to improve wifi.  Intelligently switches between two antennas for best reception and call quality.  Faster, too.  Downloads will be 2 times faster. 

iPhone 4 came with either GSM and CDMA network compatibility.  The iPhone 4S will be a world phone, capable of working on both GSM and CDMA, switching to the specific network where you are globally.  

Improvement to camera on iPhone 4S... 8 megapixel sensor.  Print out an 8x10 photo that's flawless.  60% more pixels than the iPhone 4.  Sensor gathers 73% more light than the previous model.  Five element lens (Apple deisnged).  Sharper photos.  The previous iPhone had four element lens.  

 

New Processor Impact on Games

Mike Capps, president of Epic Games, is on stage now to show the Apple designed A5 chip can enhance graphics on games.  Epic is showing a game with really smooth, deep graphics.  It allows details to appear in rest of the environment, such as fireflies, reflections off the water, and coi in the water are visible.  Also makes animated characters seem more alive.  

 

iPhone News - Finally!!

How do you follow up a hit product?

It's the new iPhone 4S.  Inside it's all new.  How's it different?

New chip, A5, is now in the iPhone.  Dual core processor.  Performance up to 2 times faster.  Dual core graphics, which means graphics can be seven times faster than previous iPhones.  This will make a big difference in game play.

 

iPod News

Phil Schiller talks about the iPod

Nano repriced at $149 for 16GB (was $179) and $129 for 8GB.  

iPod Touch - 8GB for $199, 32GB for $299, and 64GB for $399. 

OK... now iPhone news.

iCloud & App News

Apple's Eddie Cue is now reviewing features of iCloud, which is Apple's evolving cloud based service made possible by its new, massive server facility in North Carolina.  It will allow devices to sync better, store media.

iCloud and iOS5 will ship on Oct. 12.

One interesting feature:

"Find My Friends" -- new app launching today that will allow family & friends to find each other.  Eddie Cue jokes that he can now track whether his son got to school OK.  Simple privacy controls, parental restrictions (to allow parents to disable kids to turn it off). 

 

iOS Update

There are 140,000 iPad apps.  Customers have downloaded 18 billion apps from the App Store... that's a clip of one billion per month.  Apple has paid $3 billion to developers for selling their apps through the App Store.

(It's now 10:25am, and we're still waiting for the news we really want to hear.  Talk about torture!  LOL.)

Now he's talking about iOS 5.  It has 200 new user features, including notifications (which you can see on a locked screen), iMessage (new messaging service between iOS users on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch), Reminders (new app - create to-do list), Twitter integration (embedded into iOS so you can tweet photos directly, embed YouTube videos), Newsstand (updates are downloaded in the background), Camera (you can get to the camera app from a locked screen with a double tap, add grid lines to help compose shots, auto focus lock, edit and rotate images, do red eye correction), Game Center (67 million people signed up int he past year - enhancements to this), Safari (reader feature that takes websites and cleans up the clutter for easier reading).  

iPhone & iPad News

iPhone 4 in a short period of time has sold over half of the total iPhones sold the entire time they've been selling.  It has become the #1 smartphone in the world.  Year over year grown of the iPhone is 125%.  93% of Fortune 500 companies have deployed or are testing the iPhone for corporate use.  

Now Cook is turning his attention to the iPad.  (He teased that more iPhone news is coming up.  He's not deviating from his review of how each of Apple's products is doing in the marketplace.)

About 1000 universities across the country all have iPad programs.  iPads are in the cockpit, replacing heavy briefcases with manuals and checklists, making pilots more efficient.  Cook says iPads are also appearing in hospitals to administer bedside care, review patient records, and to view diagnostic images.

92% of Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying iPad in less than 18 months.  iPad is the undisputed #1 selling tablet in the world, Cook says.  74% of tablets sold in U.S. are iPads, versus 26% for others.  

There are now 250 million iOS devices in use.  

Scott Forstall is now taking to the stage to talk about the IOS operating system.