Music Ally

Today Apple announced a brand new iPhone, as expected based upon the earlier leaks.

Industry watchers expecting cloud music or a touch-based desktop computer interface were left disappointed, but the new iPhone 4 itself looks set to continue Apple’s rise in the smartphone space. Read on for our live updates on today’s announcement.

Steve Jobs is telling everyone how amazing the iPad is. 2 million sold so far, available in ten countries. 8,500 iPad-specific apps available.  35 million iPad-native app downloads. 5 million books downloaded, iBookstore represents 22% of US ebook market.

Updates to Apple’s iBook format includes the ability to make notes, boomarks and to view/read PDFs.

Apple wants to emphasise its support of the HTML5 standard for coding (this is probably a sideswipe at Adobe, which is upset that the iPhone/ iPad does not support Adobe’s Flash.)

Next up: the App Store. 225,000 apps so far – more than any other app provider. 15,000 apps submitted every week, 95% of which are approved within a week.

Those that aren’t usually fall into one of three categories: either they don’t work as advertised; they connect to private APIs, which is not permitted; or they crash.

Jobs highlights a few leading apps, starting with eBay. Next he brings up Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix.

In the US, the digital movies on demand component of Netflix will be available on the iPhone just as it is on laptops.

CEO of Zynga is introduced on stage. Farmville for the iPhone is announced. Users will be able to manage the same farm they have been tending on Facebook…but on their iPhone. Connected to the same friends that you socialise with via Farmville on Facebook.

Complete with a push notification if your crop starts to wither! “Tractoring just got cooler” – bet that wasn’t something you expected to hear at WWDC…

Activision senior VP is brought on stage to talk about Guitar Hero. On the iPhone you can customise the look of your rock star; the game comes with music from Queen, Rolling Stones plus newer acts like Vampire Weekend. New strumming interface tuned for the iPhone. Available today from USD $2.99.

Steve Jobs is back. 5 billion downloads from the App Store in total so far. $1 billion paid out to developers so far.

Onto the iPhone – the part we’ve all been waiting for.

Steve mentions the Nielsen study on smartphone market share that Music Ally mentioned in today’s Bulletin. iPhone market share three times that of Android.

From a separate study, Net Applications: iPhone has 58.2% of the US mobile browser market.

In 2010, Apple is making the biggest leap for the iPhone since it was launched. Over 100 new features.

All new design looks exactly like the one leaked by Gizmodo. Glass on the front, stainless steel surround. Really thin. Like a beautiful old camera. 24% thinner than the iPhone 3GS. Thinnest smartphone on the planet.

Microsim like the iPad, meaning that existing iPhone users won’t just be able to slot in their regular-size SIM card.

Front-facing camera, flash.

Three slits around the outside; a stainless steel band that forms part of the antenna system. So the Bluetooth, wi-fi and cellphone connection are all integrated into the fabric of the phone.

Next announcement will be a “biggie”: the “retina display”, increasing pixel density by four times within the same amount of space. 326 pixels per inch – a sharper display than other phones. Jobs claims this is well over the ideal resolution to show visuals on a mobile device at the usual distance that people hold it. Compares it to a fine printed book. iPhone 4 is brighter and sharper than the iPhone 3GS.

Steve is in live-demo mode. Asks people in the auditorium to cut down on their wi-fi to help with connectivity! Live web connection proving shaky so Steve shows some photos from the camera roll to demonstrate the higher-quality imagery of the iPhone 4. 800:1 contrast ratio is four times better than the iPhone 3GS. 78% of the pixels on the iPad.

iPhone 4 powered by the A4 chip, designed in-house by Apple. Bigger battery inside the device. Result is that there’s 40% more talk time, 6 hours of browsing on mobile, 10 hours of browsing on wi-fi, 40 hours of music, 300 hours on standby.

More environmentally-friendly: no arsenic, no PVC, no mercury, more recyclable.

Mobile data speed: quad-band HSDPA – 7.2mbs download, 4.8mbps upload in theory – though mobile carriers don’t yet support it.

3 axis gyroscope, means more precision than the accelerometer in terms of the interface, should be great for gaming. When Steve moves around the stage, so does the app – it can recognise turning as well as heavy degrees of movement.

Brings the sensors to four: compass, proximity sensor, light sensor, accelerometer.

Next Steve looks at how to improve the camera. 5 megapixel sensor. 5 x digital zoom, tap to focus, LED flash. Camera records HD video: 720p at 30 frames per second, with tap-to-focus and LED flash on video too.

Plus iMovie for iPhone! This is Apple’s famous consumer video editing application but available for the iPhone. Users can record directly onto the iMovie timeline, select from existing video clips or add photos. Photos automatically get the “Ken Burns” effect (where the camera pans and zooms around a still image). Users can add titles. Geolocation information can be automatically added into the video clip if desired.

The iMovie feature is going to be very useful for bands shooting on-the-road footage…they will be able to upload ready-made clips in minutes live from their phones. Cost of iMovie for iPhone: USD $4.99.

Demos proving difficult because there are so many people on wi-fi in the auditorium.

iPhone OS will be renamed iOS4.

Steve Jobs is talking about an architecture for multitasking…could this be the “apps running in the background” development needed to enable music apps to become a success?

Yes! Pandora is shown while moving to another app. Music in the background at last.

Now onto mail: threading introduced (a la Gmail) allows people to follow conversations.

New feature on home screen: folders. Allows users to create a folder of their favourite apps. A folder can be dragged onto the dock. The iPhone OS (now iOS) is beginning to look more like a standard computer desktop system.

Search engine has been amended. Google is still the default but Yahoo and Bing have been added. Each search engine has its own way of formatting the results.

100 million iOS compatible devices sold (iPod touch, iPhone, iPad) and now iBooks are available for the iPhone. iBookStore also available on iPhone. Same features as on the iPad – and the ability to do it all wirelessly with no extra charges. Users can stop reading a book on their iPad, go out of the house and continue reading from the same place on their iPhone.

Lots of emphasis on the potential market for app developers –  150 million registered accounts ready to pay for apps.

iAds up next – designed to help developers create free apps. Instead of pushing users out of the app, the iAds keep users in the app. Apple sells and hosts the ads (so in this regard they have added a Google-like component to their business) and developers get paid 60% of the revenue for ads on their apps.

A number of key brands have already advertised on the iAds platform including AT&T, GE, Chanel, Sears, Best Buy, Disney. Steve Jobs shows a Nissan ad including video and a competition to win a car. Advertisers have committed over USD $60 million to iAds so far.

Now the “Just one more thing…”

Jonathan Ive, design supremo at Apple, famed for the iMac and original iPhone designs.

Steve Jobs is video chatting with Ive on the iPhone.

Jobs and Ive are talking about how revolutionary and futuristic video chat using mobile devices is, neglecting to mention that the UK network 3 launched with exactly that feature many years ago.

The video calling feature is called FaceTime. What makes it different to the old mobile data based video phones is that it operates via wi-fi between iPhone 4 devices. So one iPhone 4 can make a video chat connection to another with no set up, as long as there is wi-fi around. Either the front or back video camera can be used.

Initially wi-fi only, Jobs hopes to get it set up over data later on, perhaps next year.

Various demos of FaceTime including sign language chat for deaf users (though how will they hold the phone while chatting?)

Apple plans to make FaceTime an open industry standard.

Colours for the new iPhone 4 will be black and white.

Prices USD $199 for 16gb model, same as the iPhone 3GS, and USD $299 for the 32gb model. In the US, AT&T will offer subscribers whose contracts are due to expire this year an upgrade path at the same price as long as they extend their contracts.

Preorders start June 15 for US, France, Germany, UK, Japan; in July shipping in 18 more countries; 24 more countries in August; 40 more in September.

On June 21 there will be a free upgrade to the new operating system for owners of iPhone 3GS phones (with some limitations).

This entry was posted on Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 5:54 pm and is filed under Digital Music News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.