Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Apple Mega-Announcement

Today Apple will announce some new stuff (predictions here).

When they make their announcements I'll post my reactions by updating this post.

The event is scheduled to start at 10:00 AM Pacific.

11:46 AM

U2 is performing.  Guess we won't learn about the cube.


11:44 AM

One more one more thing?  Music.

Maybe we learn what the giant white cube is?

U2. So what.

11:43 AM

 Pay works with  Watch.

11:39 AM

Walkie Talkie, control Apple TV, viewfinder for iPhone camera....

Works with Handoff.

11:33 AM

I wonder if iPhone springboard will eventually work more like iWatch - endless sea of icons instead of Manhattan grid on pages.

Now talking about health.  Fitness App and Workout App.

Works with any iPhone 5 or 6.

Starts at $349.  Early 2015.

11:30 AM


WatchKit for developers. Apps, notifications and glances.

Twitter being demo'd.  American Airlines checking in by tapping on watch.  Starwood Hotels checkin and unlock door by waving watch in front of the door.

City Mapper, reminds you to get off at right stop.  Pinterest can remind you of sites to see.   MLB sports scores (nice).


11:20 AM


Astronomy watch face is very cool.  Katie will love it.  Swipe up for "glances" (sort of like iOS notification center - important information.  "Taptic" engine notifies you of notifications incoming.

Can act on notifications (Accept invites, etc.)  Quick replies to messages.

Can use dictation to reply (or can send audio recording).  Animated emoji.

Siri built in.

Maps built in.  Calculates directions, etc.  While walking, it will give you taptic feedback as to which way to go, so you don't need to look at screen.

New form of communication - digital touch.  Press button under digital crown.  See friends list. Tap friend.  Can choose "digital touch" in addition to email, text, etc.  When you tap screen, he feels it.  Sort of like tactile SMS. Can send your heart beat so it can be felt on someone else's wrist.




11:16 AM

Live demo time.

Apple watch requires iPhone.


Force-touch to customize watch face.

11:13 AM

Many watch faces. Choice of bands.  Nice clasps.  Many different buckles and clasps, actually.  Some have magnetic closures.  Two different sizes of watches.

Three editions: watch,  watch sport, and  watch edition.

Watch is stainless steel.
Sport is durable and light.
Edition is special hard gold.

11:03 AM

"Digital crown" - infrared LEDs / photodiodes that translate rotary movement.   Rotate to zoom or scroll.

Press to go home.  Home screen is cute (depicted in the 11:00AM photo below).

Display turns on when you raise your list.  Navigation/animations very smooth, from videos anyway.

Shortcut button under the crown allows you get shortcuts to contacts.  Can send heartbeat, "pokes" and doodles to others.

11:00 AM

Watch

Not "iWatch"

Crowd going nuts.  It sure is pretty.

Not iPay and iWatch.  End of "iNames"?

Accurate to plus/minus 50ms.  Very customizable.

Brand new user interface.


10:58 AM

Wow. That is a pretty watch.

10:56 AM

One more thing...  (Tim Cook almost cried)

10:53 AM

On-line payments - one touch checkout with Pay.  Same advantages.  Target, Groupon, Panera, Uber, MLB, Apple Store, OpenTable adding "Buy with Pay" buttons.  Will be able to use OpenTable app to pay your check at participating restaurants.

New Pay SDK available to all developers.  Launching next month (only iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, but I suspect the on-line stuff will work on 5S as well).


10:49 AM

New chip: "Secure Element" built into iPhone 6.  Keeps all your credit card info encrypted.  Can view cards in Passbook.  Add card from iTunes account.  Can also add a new card by taking picture of the card with the phone camera.  Adds it to Passbook.

Select card from Passbook, touch the Touch ID and you are done paying.

They don't store the credit card - they create a "device only" account number and use a one-time payment ID and dynamic secure ID.   Can suspend all payments from iPhone with Find My iPhone.  If phone lost, no need to cancel credit card, because card isn't stored on phone.

Apple doesn't know what you bought, how much you paid, or where you bought it.  Cashier doesn't see your name, credit card number or security code.

Starting with AmEx, Visa and MasterCard.  83% of credit card volume in the U.S. covered.  Works in 220,000 merchant locations right now.  Adding Macy's, Bloomingdales, Walgreens, DuaneReade, Staples, Subway, McDonalds, Whole Foods, Apple Stores, Disney, Toys R Us, Sephora, etc.

10:47 AM

New process is called "Pay" (ApplePay). Just hold your phone near the terminal at the same time your finger is on the Touch ID button, looks like.

10:45 AM

Apple vision is tor "replace the wallet" starting with payments.  I now have John Appleseed's credit card number.  I'm going shopping.

10:44 AM


Apple plays a funny iPhone ad re: Health app. (Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake)

New category of service: it's about the wallet....

10:42 AM

Sept. 17 official iOS 8 release date.  I assume developers will get it sooner.  Maybe later today.

10:38 AM

The front-facing selfie camera is better as well. New silicone cases. Whatever.

Same colors as before.  iPhone 6 starts at $199 with 16GB with contract. $299 gets you 64GB. $399 is 128GB.

iPhone 6 Plus starts at $299.  Same memory configurations.  iPhone 5S now $99.  iPhone 5C now free with contract.

Sept. 19 ship date.

Preorder on Sept. 12.  (Hey, Siri, wake me at 11:55PM on Sept. 11).


10:35 AM

Entire Apple website seems to be broken now.  Someone's getting fired.

10:31 AM

43 Megapixel panoramas.  Dedicated face detection hardware.   The iPhone 6 Plus has optical image stabilization. Nice.

1080p at 60fps, and now slo-mo is now 240fps (up from 120fps).

10:29 AM

New camera - 8MP, 1.5 micron pixels, f/2.2.
New sensor has dedicated focus pixels for phase-detection autofocus.  Wonder if it combines that with contrast-detect?

10:22 AM

I wonder if the various "wide screen" and "one handed use" stuff will make its way to iPad or iPad mini?  The widescreen keyboard seems needlessly cluttered.  It's like they had the extra space and figured they had to use it for something.

The A8 has 2 billion transistors.  Wonder how much of that is logic and how much is cache.  Apple made a big point of talking about thermal envelope and sustained maximum frequency this time.  Been saying this for awhile - Android chips tend to run well only on benchmarks.

iPhone 6 Plus battery life looks good.  Double the iPhone 5s for audio, 40% more for video, 20% more for browsing (50% on 3G), 24 horus of 3G talk (vs 10 hours on iPhone).

M8 chip.

"Advanced Wireless" - LTE is faster (150Mbps vs 100Mbps in previous).  20 LTE bands - more than any other smartphone (though that doesn't help any particular customer unless they travel).  VoLTE support on AT&T, Tmobile and Verizon (yay! Simultaneous voice and data!)

802.11ac wifi support.  Fantastic.

Wifi calling, but only on Tmobile for now.

10:16 AM

Double-tap (not press) home button to shift display for one handed use, sounds like (hard to follow broken livestream).

10:12 AM

4.7" is 1334x750, and 5.5" is 1920x1080.  Latter is unexpected.  Seems to me that will cause problems for developers.

10:09 AM

Livestream is fubar.  Now with Chinese live audio translation.

Anyway, iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.  Look identical to leaks:


I like the way the screen has a rounded taper.  The screens are not sapphire, looks like.

9:56 AM


Confidence.

9:51 AM

I believe that this is the first Apple live stream that provides this sort of control from the browser:


9:45 AM















9:42 AM

Seems to be growing consensus that the white box is an Apple Store.  On the one hand it's sort of fitting that Cupertino get its own (beyond the company store, which sells t-shirts and Apple logo swag).  On the other hand, that's not where you'd put a store (at least not where a normal retailer would).  Maybe some sort of Apple museum/archives/library or something?  Steve Jobs wasn't one for looking back, but Tim Cook might be.   Though I would think, from the location, that the structure isn't permanent?

9:20 AM

What on earth does Marie Claire have to do with the mysterious white block?

9:00 AM

@Tim_Stevens on Twitter reports that there are DSLR's taking pics on timers pointed at the white cube.

This should be interesting.

Also, I note that for the first time ever, Apple is liveblogging itself.   Apple is often accused of generating hype.  In the past, in my opinion, most of the hype was ginned up by the Apple journalism ecosystem (with baseless speculation, "analyst" guesses, etc.)   This time there is no question. Apple is raising expectations to a tremendous degree.  They must be supremely confident as to what they're about to announce.

8:40 AM

Daniel Eran Dilger (@DanielEran on Twitter) posted this closeup of the mysterious new DeAnza structure.  Looks like an Apple store.










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