The Games Begin: Live Coverage Of Apple WWDC Event In San Francisco

Update: See Our In Depth Coverage As Well:


It’s now around 8 am PDT. We’re (Mike and Mark) arriving at Moscone West a couple of hours before the 10 am Steve Jobs Keynote with Matt Hickey from CrunchGear. For the next couple of hours we’ll be live blogging the bedlam around the registration table, taking photos, and interviewing any expert we can find on what they think will be announced.

Then, at 10 AM, all bets are off. We rush into the auditorium, elbow and threaten our way to the best seats we can find, and start creating all kinds of rich media for your enjoyment. I’ll be live blogging the event here, as will Matt Hickey. Mark Hendrickson is manning his shiny new camera with enough optical zoom to tell you the thread count on Steve’s sweater – expect those photos to be posted regularly throughout the session.

The layout will be a bit of a mess, but we’ve got an army of interns back at the office who’ll keep things as orderly as possible and will clean things up after the event is over. Then the real fun begins – we all get to opine and speculate on what we’ve just seen.

For a little background see our coverage of the iPhone SDK event.

The Big Event:

Images of the new iPhone 3G:




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11:50 AM: That’s it. Steve walks off stage and the keynote is over.

11:48 AM: They’re showing off a new iPhone commercial. On July 11 it will be available in 22 countries.

11:47 AM: Launch date is July 11. The maximum price is $199 all around the world

11:46 AM: The low end 3G iPhone is $199, 16gb is $299. The 16GB version also comes in white. The price has dropped from $399 to $199

11:43 AM: Asia is pretty scarce other than China. These 70 will be rolled out over next several months, not now.

11:42 AM: They’re showing a world map and playing Its A Small World showing all the countries where you can get the iPhone. You can get the new iPhone in 70 countries!!

11:41 AM: Their goals: six new countries today, and they have a goal of 12 for the iPhone 3G, to 25 in next several months.


11:40 AM: GPS is built in. Location services are a big deal. The phone gets data from cell towers, WiFi and now GPS (STUNNING!).

11:39 AM: E-mail downloads are 3.6x faster. New battery times: 300 hours standby, 10 hours 2G talk, 5 hours 3G talk, 5-6 hours browsing, 7 hours of video, 24 hours of audio.

11:38 AM: “It’s amazingly zippy” says Steve. Also compared to two other 3G phones – the Treo 750 and the Nokia N95. 33 secs for the Nokia, 34 secs for the Treo. They’re now doing the same speed tests for e-mail.


11:36 AM: 3G: faster data downloads for browser and email. They’re showing a comparison with edge. 3G looks way faster. Edge took 59 seconds. 3G is 2.8x faster. Now they are comparing 3G to WiFi. It took 17 seconds on WiFi and 3G was close in load time. 3G approaches WiFi speeds.


11:34 AM: It’s thinner, full plastic back, solid metal buttons, NO front camera, flush headphone jack (good) and improved audio.
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11:33 AM: 56% of people said the iPhone was too expensive. Introducing the iPhone 3G (that’s what I’m talkin’ about!)

11:30 AM: “iPhone was called best invention of the year…users love the iPhone. We have sold 6 million iphones until we ran out a few weeks ago.”

11:26 AM: MobileMe is $99 a year and comes with 20GB of online storage. There is a 60 day free trial. It will be available with iPhone 2.0 software in early July. MobileMe replaces .Mac

11:23 AM: Phil Shiller is up on stage showing off Mobileme.
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11:21 AM: That includes Outlook and they’ve build a suite of web applications based on Ajax for mail, calendar. Users go to me.com, get to mail, calendar, photos, etc. You can easily sync photos from iPhone to MobileMe, gets put into albums, and see it online.

11:17 AM: It gives us push email, contacts and calendars right to devices. Everything is up to date wherever you are. It stores information up in the cloud. It’s .mac 2.0 and they promise it might work. MobileMe also works for windows.

11:16 AM: Something entirely new: MobileMe – a brand new service from apple. It’s like having exchange for the rest of us.

11:16 AM: The third way to distribute: ad hoc. student to teachers. You can certify up to 100 iPhones, and those apps can be run on up to 100 iPhones.

11:15 AM: “but we got feedback that enterprises want to distribute apps themselves just for their phones. So we’re adding a way for enterprises to distribute apps.” An enterprise can authorize a set of iPhones in their enterprise, then create apps that only run on those phones, and can distribute them on their own intranet any way they want. Users download and sync to phone through iTunes.

11:14 AM: “If your app is 10mb or less it can be downloaded any way, but if it’s over 10mb, through WiFi or iTunes only.”

11:12 AM: They update wirelessly as well. Developers set price, and keep 70% of revenue. They are fairplay apps so they are secure, no charge for credit cards or hosting.

11:10 AM: It will be $9.95 for the ipod touch and free for iPhone. Now Steve is talking about app store. It was unveiled in March, it will be on every iPhone. It’s a way for developers to reach every single user. Users can pick apps and wirelessly download to their phone.

11:09 AM: iPhone 2.0 software will be released in early july.

11:08 AM: They added parental controls, can turn off explicit content, youtube, safari, itunes, apps store. They have also added language support beyond english: two forms of japanese, two forms of chinese (simplified and traditions), including one where you draw the character with your finger. They also added support lots of other languages.

11:08 AM: They added bulk delete, move for messages and the ability to save images you get in an email to your photo library. They also added a scientific calculator – just turn the calculator to landscape and it changes to scientific.

11:07 AM: CONTACT SEARCH! Finally Steve is giving us contact search! They have added full iWork document support: pages, numbers and keynote. They have completed support of MS office on the iPhone: Word, Excel and now PowerPoint is supported.

11:06 AM: That ends the SDK update. Steve Jobs is back on stage.

11:05 AM: This can bring up a notification window with an option to pull up the application. This solves a lot of problems. The app can ping you occasionally to get an update on your location, for example, if you choose to do it. It works over WiFi and cellular and will be available in September.

11:04 AM: There are three types: badges (how many messages waiting), custom alert sounds, and custom textual alerts.

11:03 AM: “As you run an application it’s connected to your server. When the app quits, no server connection. But Apple will maintain a persistent notification session to the phone.”

11:03 AM: “We’ve come up with a far better solution. A push notification service to all developers.”

11:02 AM: Talking about features now…Background processes issue – Problems include it causes battery drain and CPU cycles drain, which can create a sluggish experience.

11:00 AM Xavier Carillo Costa is showing the game. It has beautiful action. It only took two days to port to the iPhone. It’s visually stunning…will be available in September.

10:59 AM: The last app is from Digital Legends Entertainment.

10:58 AM: Basically, this kicks ass for doctors.

10:57 AM: It’s much more effective than current models. Next is Mark Cain from MIMvista to show tools for doctors. He’s showing CT scan showing anatomic data and a PET scan showing metabolic activity.

10:56 AM: The app helps to create more doctors. Currently med students rely on atlases and flash cards to learn the human body. Now they are using the iPhone. They’re showing Netter’s Anatomy drawings. You can select a part of the body, scan across highly detailed images, select a pin and jump to the web to get more info from Google or Wikipedia. “You can also take a quiz to name parts,” says a student who used the prototype to learn five new brain terms waiting in line for a latte.

10:55 AM: Next: Modality. There are two more medical apps. Modality is the first. S. Mark Williams Dr. is on stage to show the app.

10:54 AM: “The first mobile device that we are offering highlights for. These clips arrive minutes after they occur.” It will be in app store when it launches. (Matt Hickey from CrunchGear really likes the MLB one).

10:53 AM: Jeremy Schoenherr from MLB.com is now on stage for next app called MLB.com At Bat. UI shows today’s games, tap on one for more info, see details on the bottom, and see real time video highlights of baseball games.

10:52 AM: Finally, a bass guitar, showing the strings and playing via touch. All the instruments can be recorded, mixed, dubbed and turned into a song, or get together with friends for a jam session. “It will be at least a few weeks for the Apps Store” they just said (slipped).

10:51 AM: He is now showing drums and now a 12 bar blues instrument – all the stuff you need to play the blues. He’s nearly getting a standing ovation (serious WOW).

10:50 AM: He’s built this in his spare time he says. The app is called Band and lets people create music from scratch. He’s showing a piano, he’s hitting the keys and playing music. The crowd loves this one.

10:49 AM: The second game, Croman Ralley, is like Flintstones cars. There are ten cars to choose from, plus a submarine on the atlantis level. He’s now driving his Flintstones car with the iPhone accelerometer to bang into other players. $9.99 each for the games, and they will be available at launch. Next up is a single developer, Mark Terry, to show Cow Music.

10:47 AM: On level two he’s showing water drops flying all over the place. Polygom accurate collision tests require high cpu usage, but the iPhone is handling it without a problem.

10:46 AM: Next: Pangea Software, a longtime Mac game developer. They’ve ported two games to the iPhone. Brian Greenstone from Pangea is now on stage. The first game is Enigmo, a physics based puzzle game. It’s totally touch based, to get drops of water to move around properly. It has very rich graphics. Users try to get 40 drops into the right jug to get to level two.

10:45 AM: If you see something, send in the information and a picture directly from the iPhone (WOW). Every iPhone will have a direct link to AP. He’s stopped talking about it (I wish he had dug into that last bit a little).

10:44 AM: Users can read top news by category (sports, etc.). You can also watch video from the news network or use the app to report news.

10:43 AM: “For us the iPhone has been an important catalyst to combine information from thousands of sources.” It’s called The Local News Network. It retrieves local news based on your location from the phone.

10:42 AM: “The AP is an associated cooperative of over 5,000 news organizations. They already have a good web app for the iPhone, but they’re taking it to the next level with a native application.” Benjamin Mosse is on stage to show the new application.




10:41 AM: The TypePad app will be available for free at the launch of app store. Next up: Associated Press.

10:40 AM: You can also add a photo from the phones’ normal photo album. He brings it into the blog, you can change the blog if you like, then tap to add a title, category and body text and commentary.

10:39 AM: Michael Sippey from TypePad is on stage. “TypePad is the largest professional blogging service in the world.” He’s showing an app that says create post, take photo, or add photos.

10:38 AM: You can use loopt with other carriers too. Loopt will be free on the iPhone and in the app store at launch. Next: Typepad

10:37 AM: He’s clicked on a friend, it shows a friend’s details, finds a nearby cafe, texts her through the application to see if she’s free. If she is, he can get directions with a click.



10:36 AM: Sam, wearing a hot pink shirt – “We are incredibly psyched about loopt on the iPhone. We should know where people are, what they are doing. You might be stuck in an airport and be very close to a friend, we can connect you.”

10:35 AM: Next: Loopt. “When we added core location to the sdk, we couldn’t wait to see what developers would make of it.” Sam Altman, CEO Loopt, comes on stage.

10:33 AM: They’re doing a search for wii for cheap and live results are showing. You can get more information, shows full html, and can click to save to your watchlist.



10:32 AM: eBay is bringing auctions on the iPhone. “Five weeks ago we decided to start building.” They’re showing home screen with search, avatar and a number of navigation items.

10:31 AM: This game will be available for $9.99 at the launch of app store (and I’ll be buying it). Next up: eBay. Ken Sun is on stage to demo.

10:31 AM: He’s playing the game using the iPhone Accelerometer to move the character. The tild control allows accelerations and deceleration with pinpoint precision.


10:30 AM: Sega: took them two weeks to create Super Monkey Ball three months ago. Now they have something amazing. Ethan Einhorn from Sega is now on stage.

10:29 AM: “We have a fantastic platform for people to build incredible applications. We are really amazed at some of the applications. We’ve invited them up here today.”

10:28 AM: David Pogue: “You’re witnessing the birth of a third major computing platform. Windows, Mac OSX, and now the iPhone.”

10:27 AM:
Disney: “After working with hundreds of other mobile devices, developing for the iPhone is a breath of fresh air.”

Infoworld: “I have coded fairly extensively with symbian, window mobile and blackberry. iPhone just blows them away.”

FIM: “We really like Xcode, it blows away RIM”

10:26: The tools have been out for three months, and thousands of developers are using them. We asked them what they think.”

10:25 AM: It lets you do a search of contacts, and tap on nearby and can now see contacts within 10 miles of your present location. It’s a pretty awesome application that he built in 4 minutes from start to launch.

10:24 AM: Scott is now finishing the creation of the application, total time was about 3 minutes.

10:21 AM: He’s now using Interface Builder to drag out a user interface, dead simple drag and drop interface to build the iPhone application interface.

10:20 AM: Scott is building a sample application using the tools.



10:18 AM: Tools: Xcode, use it to write, edit and debug code. Interface Builder – easily construct interface and then connect directly to code. iPhone – a simulator for debugging.

10:17 AM: Core OS, Core Services, Media, Cocoa Touch – They all use the exact same OSX kernel on the iPhone as normal macs.

10:16 AM: Next up to talk about the SDK is Scott Forrester. “We’re opening up the same native APIs and tools that we use internally. That means that you as the developer can build apps the same way we do.”

10:15 AM: They are showing a video of corporate customers saying how rad the enterprise iPhone is.

10:13 AM: Cisco has built in secure VPN into iphone 2.0. 35% of the Fortune 500 companies have participated in the beta program including the top 5 banks, security firms and 6 /7 top airlines, 8/10 top entertainment, 8/10 pharmaceuticals and many universities.

10:12 AM: Enterprise can now hook up with MS exchange. Users can push email, contacts, calenders, auto-discovery, global address lookup and remote wipe. All of these are built in to the new software.




10:11 AM: “iPhone 2.0 software: three parts”
1. Enterprise Support
2. SDK
3. New end user features

10:10 AM: Talking about the iPhone – “”We started a developer program 95 days ago on March 6, over a quarter million people have downloaded the sdk. “Over 25k people have applied to the paid developer program. Unfortunately we couldn’t take everyone, 4k people got in.”

10:09 AM: Scott Forstall, SVP iPhone software and Phil Schiller SVP Product Marketing will help him talk about the iPhone. Berttand Serlet, SVP OSX Software will later give a preview of OSX called Snow Leopard.

10:08 AM: 1,000 Apple engineers are here. “There are three parts to apple now. The first part is Mac. The second part is music. And the third is iPhone”


10:07 AM: “We’ve been working hard on some great stuff that we can’t wait to share with you.” A record 5200 attendees are here. It’s completely sold out. 147 sessions, 85 on the mac and 62 on the iphone.

10:06 AM: Steve Jobs just walked up on stage. He’s wearing, wow, jeans, tennis shoes and a black turtleneck sweater.

10:05 AM: The stage just went dark, they’re playing great balls of fire by Jerry Lewis.

10:02 AM: They just came on the PA and told us to turn off cellphones (including iPhones), things will start in a few minutes.

10:00 AM: There’s a buzz in the air. Things should get rolling momentarily.

Pre-Event Blogging:

More images before the keynote:







9:58 AM: We are seated in the main exhibition hall with literally a couple of thousand press, VIPs and developers (developers get stuck at the back). Every seat is taken, we’re elbow to elbow on our macs.

9:50 AM: The keynote begins in 10 minutes. Oh, the suspense.

9:50 AM: The mad dash we had earlier…
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9:49 AM: Walt Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal is here.

9:44 AM: Mike talks with Ryan Block of Engadget.
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9:42 AM: Mike talks with Brian Lam from Gizmodo.
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9:40 AM: All but confirmed, eBay and Loopt will be two of the first iPhone apps.

9:38 AM: Six Apart CEO Chris Alden is here with a VIP Pass. What are the chances they might be launching an iPhone app too?
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9:30 AM: The Apple Store is down. Hmm, wonder why? They’re not like releasing anything today, are they?

9:20 AM: Some more banner goodness while we wait.

9:00 AM: Another prediction – this time from Erick Savitz (Barron’s West Coast Editor)…
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8:55 AM: The press is camped out in front of the doors leading to the keynote. People are starting to fill the lobby up, while an army of apple employees in green shirts stand around. Some signs say: “App Store – now accepting applications” and “iPhone SDK – let’s see what develops”

8:50 AM: Matt Mark and I have arrived. We‘ve checked in. We’re in the press waiting area where there are at least 50 or 60 press people, all of the big press is here.


8:45 AM: Inside the Moscone Center.

8:30 AM: Any bets on whether or not eBay launches an iPhone app today (see video)?
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8:25 AM: Arriving at the Moscone Center.

8:15 AM: In the video below Mark Hendrickson and Matt Hickey predict what Steve will announce.
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8:10 AM: CrunchGear has a photo of a red iPhone. It may or not be real, but it appears to match up with other possibly “leaked” photos.

7:50 AM (PDT): A great way to start off the day (see video).
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