WWDC08: Steve Jobs Keynote live blog
Here we go with Steve Jobs’ Keynote Speech at Apple’s WWDC08 in San Francisco.
All times are BST (GMT+1/PDT+8), entries in reverse chronological order.
1950: All done.
1950: Steve concluding with talk about WWDC08. Go developers, get stuck in to the new iPhone!
More affordable iPhone
1944: More affordable: iPhone 3G 8GB will cost $199, 16GB for $299, also available in white.
Rolling out on July 11th to 22 countries, for a max of 199 all around the world (damn exchange rates)
iPhone worldwide
70 countries over next few months.
iPhone 3G with GPS
1938: GPS added to the iPhone.
1937: Great battery life: standby 300 hours, 3G talk time 5 hrs. Browsing: 5-6 hrs, Video: 7hrs, Audio: 24hrs.
1936: iPhone 3G 36% faster than Nokia N95 downloading web pages
1935: Why do people want 3G? Browsing and email.
Running demo of downloading over 3G vs EDGE. 3G 2.8 times faster – approaching Wi-Fi speeds (well, OK)
1930: Everyone wants an iPhone. Can’t afford the iPhone is the major reason for not getting one.
Taking it to the next level.
Introducing iPhone 3G, taken everything learnt from the first gen model, and improved.
Thinner edges. It’s nice. Same 3.5 inch. Flush headphone jack (haha), feels better in the hand.
iPhone worldwide
Joking about iPhones being used unofficially in many countries.
iPhone
Steve talking about coming up to first year anniversary. 90% customer satisfaction.
98% of iPhone users are browsing web with it.
Mobile Me
1915: “Exchange for the rest of us” Push email. Everything kept up-to-date and in sync, email, contacts, calendars.
Syncs with iCal, etc. on the Mac, Outlook on the PC. Full syncing. iDisk integrated. Demo of the system.
Me.com (not up yet)
Contacts incorporates lists, live search, Google maps.
Calendar, colour coding, drag and drop events.
$99 per year, comes with 20GB storage. Free trial. Replacing .Mac (dot Mac)
Apps
1910: Apps Store available in 62 countries
Applications can be developed that only work on a group of iPhones, for example a group within a company, and can be distributed any way they wish, eg via Intranet.
Ad-hoc apps distribution.
iPhone OS updates
1905: More additions:
- Added contact search
- Added Keynote, Numbers support (OS X support)
- Support for MS Office docs – Word, Excel, PowerPoint
- Bulk delete and move for messages
- Save images from email etc. into photo library
- Scientific Calculator
- Parental controls
- More Language support: Asian languages 2 forms Japanese, 2 forms Chinese, draw characters with finger — “great advantage of not having a load of plastic keys for your keyboard” haha
Free s/w upgrade for iPhone, $9.95 for iPod Touch users. Available July.
iPhone SDK
1900: Issue of background processes – allowing them to continue running when a user finishes actively using them – is a bad idea because it drains the battery and degrades performance.
Apple will introduce Push Location Service for all developers. Persistent IP connection to the iPhone.
Push three types of notifications: badges eg how many messages you have; sounds; custom messages
Preserves battery life, maintains performance, over the air – Wi-Fi and cellular. Available from September, but seeded from next month.
1827-1900: Now demoing a variety of applications already coded.
iPhone SDK used for educational / medical applications.
MLB.com official website for major league baseball
Real-time video highlights.
Band
Written by English Independent developer. Song dev. s/ware
Pangea Software
Two games developed ported from Mac OS X.
Enigmo: Physics based puzzle game, completely touch based. 50 levels.
Extremely CPU intensive – requires good CPU – iPhone CPU is great, according to dev.
Cro-Mag Rally: 3D racing. iPhone is the steering wheel.
Took three days to get games up and running, to playable state.
Available from launch of apps store for $9.99.
Associated Press: local news
Mobile News Network: Delivery of local news based on iPhone location, plus photo / video.
Impressed with speed of development on the iPhone.
TypePad: mobile blogging
Already had web version, but now native app allows for use of camera, etc.
Free from launch of App Store.
Loopt: Location based/aware + social network:
has developed for nearly every mobile platform, iPhone is best and most powerful.
Available from launch
EBay: auctions on the iPhone. Fully functional.
Free app available from launch of app store.
Sega: showing Super Monkey Ball with over 100 levels. Makes maximum use of the accelerometer. Coded in 8 weeks. Intuitive.
Available from launch of apps store for $9.99.
1825: What do developers think of the SDK so far?
“XCode dev environment blows away everything we’ve worked with before”
One soundbite says the iPhone SDK is much better and easier than any of the other major dev platforms.
Walt Disney: “the iPhone is a breath of fresh air … stable … full-featured.”
Scott Forestell from Apple explaining Software Dev Kit.
1824: Development using many aspects of iPhone.
1821: Skipping over the detailed stuff, interesting if you’re a developer, let’s hope they’re getting all this, and us consumers can just enjoy their apps.
1819: Scott now demonstrating Interface Builder
1816: Developers can build apps for iPhone same way as Apple does
Talking about APIs. Basically using exact same OS X kernel as used on Macs.
Easy to build location based services, OpenGL ES, real-time 3D graphics.
This has all been covered in previous presentations, but reiterating as this is a dev conference after all 🙂
Powerful tools: XCode: write, edit, debug code. User Interface builder. iPhone simulator on Mac. This has all been in the beta SDK releases.
+Instruments: measure and optimise performance of applications.
iPhone 2.0 software
1815: “iPhone is enterprise class mobile platform” – not sure which CEO said that.
1812: Getting interview from Disney executive, plus a range of other CTOs.
1810: Talking about iPhone enterprise support, push email / contacts / calendars / remote wipe etc.
1809: Over 250,000 people have downloaded the SDK since it became available. 4,000 people in beta developer programme, including 35% of Fortune 500 companies.
1806: Steve runs through the usual statistics: 52,000 attendees at WWDC08.
Apple now in three parts – Mac, Music, iPhone
1805: We’re off. Steve Jobs on stage.
1800: You know these events never start on time. At least Steve gets to play more of his favourite music.
1755: Waiting for the show to start. Don’t forget to check out Tech Digest and iPhonic for a summary of the announcements, plus analysis.
One thought on “WWDC08: Steve Jobs Keynote live blog”
Everyone wants an iPhone. Can’t afford the iPhone is the major reason for not getting one.
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