And that's a wrap!
She'll be at the conference for the open session on Tuesday, talking about how people "from all walks of life change the world."
Michelle Obama is coming to WWDC as well!
So stayed tuned to The Verge for his photos and hands-on impressions.
Dieter is getting ready to SPRINT to the HomePod.
To recap: iOS 11. iMac and iMac Pro updates. Peer-to-peer payments in iMessage. ARKit. Big iPad software updates. New iPad Pro hardware. HOMEPOD.
(There were a lot of them!)
Cook is summarizing all the announcements.
"We've shown you lots of things this morning, and all of them are shipping this year."
For comparison, a Sonos Play:1 costs $200 and integrates with dozens of music services. But it has no microphone or Alexa-like skills.
Cook is back onstage.
Comes in White and Space Gray
Shipping in the US, UK, and Australia in December.
HomePod: $349
But it costs $349.
Schiller saying it could cost as much as $400 or $700.
And that it's an anonymous query for Apple
HomePod is triggered by saying "OK, Bono."
Schiller says nothing gets sent to Apple until you say "Hey Siri."
HomePod, an inanimate object, "cares deeply about your privacy."
Privacy!
You can control your HomeKit devices when you're out with your iPhone - the HomePod acts as a HomeKit bridge.
So yeah, it works with HomeKit and all the stuff you've set up in HomeKit.
Not that he had it then! I mean, OOPS!
It's true that it gives sports updates: Walt listened to the entire 2013 Red Sox World Series win through his HomePod.
Schiller makes a Red Sox joke about beating the Yankees. Mossberg cackles with glee.
RED SOX shoutout!
The way Schiller is talking, it won't try to do EVERYTHING, but be limited to specific "domains."
Aha! It does a bunch of Echo-type stuff beyond music.
Music, News, Translation, Stocks, Traffic, Sports, Home, Podcasts, Reminders, Messages, Timers, General Knowledge.
Will HomePod set cooking timers for me? Will it give me a news flash? Will it be my friend? (Will it?)
Yep, also a Home Assistant.
(Apple knows how to make hardware, y'all.)
What they don't tell you is that the HomePod is actually a phylactery for the immortal soul of Zane Lowe, who they have trapped inside forever as your musicologist.
We're looking at a slide with a ton of music-related questions. No weather-related questions (yet?)
Okay, but how's the Spotify integration?
It shows a little Siri-esque waveform on top.
There are 6 microphones on it. You can say "Hey Siri" to it.
Schiller said something about it being designed from the jump for Apple Music — not clear if it will work with other services.
Apple really emphasizing audio quality with this. So far no mention of virtual assistant queries outside of music listening. Echo is fast and responsive but so-so audio quality. Google Home is somewhere in between but sometimes speaks up when I'm not addressing it so IDK. (But nobody is listening to us at all times, guys!)
Okay so there's a "musicologist" inside it. It works with Apple Music.
You can set up two of them and they automatically work together.
"Remember the iPod Hi-Fi," they screamed into the night.
I can joke all I want but I can already tell I'm going to buy six of these.
(Basically it can simulate a surround system by knowing where to direct different pieces of the song in the room, sounds like.)
Has anyone checked in on Patrick Spence?
How many U2 songs will HomePod have available at launch?
We are looking at waves on a screen. It can use beam-forming to direct center vocals to the center of the room
It's cozy-looking. Lacks the hard edges of other "smart" speakers.
We're going to get a demo that's... not a real demo, of course. It's a demonstration of how spatial awareness works.
Truly inspiring that Apple found a use for all those Mac Pro cases nobody was buying.
The speaker automatically detects the size and dimensions of the room.
Automatically tunes the audio to the space you're in.
"You plug in the HomePod to AC." So it's not portable.
Does real-time acoustic modeling, audio beam-forming, and multi-channel echo cancellation.
BIG BRAINS IN THIS SPEAKER, Phil says.
it has an Apple A8 chip, same as the iPhone.
4-inch upward-facing woofer.
Each has its own driver and they use beam-forming.
Googles tweeter array
Seven-speaker array of tweeters on the bottom.
It's "under" 7 inches tall.
H O M E P O D ! ! !
It's called HomePod y'all.
HomePod.
It's a cute little ovoid thing.
Comes in black and white.
It's round. With Mesh. It looks like a mesh-wrapped Mac Pro, kinda.
Calling it a "breakthrough home speaker" really places it in a different context than the Echo, which is the real challenge.
Video!
"Later this year" is when it's coming.
Third: has to be "fun to use" with a "built-in musicologist." Okay.
Second: needs "spatial awareness" so it can understand rooms and their shapes.
"Many years" of work on this.
Things the speaker needs to do. First: "It needs to rock the house"
Phil is right about Sonos.
"Breakthrough Home Speaker."
He's saying Smart speakers like Echo are bad because they sound bad.
I mean, Phil.
Yep, he's saying Sonos is bad because they're not smart speakers.
"Why hasn't this happened yet?" he asks.
Alexa, show the speaker already!
"This is really exciting," Schiller says.
(Music focus is interesting!)
I hope it's called the iPod HiFi 2.
Phil Schiller coming onstage.
"Just like we did with portable music, we want to reinvent home music."
HOME speaker!
"But what about our homes?"
Then AirPods. And now...?
Historical overview: iTunes, iPod, iPhone, Apple Music.
"Turn our attention to Music."
Cook says "one LAST thing", a new take on "one more thing."
"One last thing to talk to you about."
6th thing!
Cook jogs back onstage.
it is a video with iPads. The people in the video with iPads are being very productive with their iPads. They are dragging. They are dropping. They are drawing. It is a good video. With iPads.
That's 5 things! Tim Cook comes onstage to intro a video for the iPad.
True. But with only one UX model, not two. And over a million tablet apps. Makes you wonder why Microsoft ever killed the first Surface running new app types on ARM, instead of building on it.
iOS 11 developer beta available end of month. In the fall for everyone.
There's a whole new screenshot-editing UI. You can crop it down right away, take a note with the Pencil, and share it with the native Share Sheet.
So for the document scanner, you point the camera at a document, and it auto straightens it.
Also: water.
This is the part of the keynote where I start to think I should have had a bigger breakfast.
Suddenly, Twitter crashed under the weight of a billion people tweeting EAT UP MARTHA
We've just hit the two-hour mark, everyone.
Okay Spotlight search is what's new.
Okay so he just handwrote some text, then went home and opened Spotlight and searched for his note.
The start of this demo is a little underwhelming. Showing how Pencil works by ... writing stuff in a notes app.
Pencil demo time!
Casey, I can't wait to start drawing all over your edits.
Notes has a document scanner built in.
The iPad Pro getting closer to bring new PC.
You can tap on the lock screen with the Pencil to open your last note. And handwritten notes are searchable (just like Google Keep).
Craig Federighi: Lord of the Files.
When you take a screenshot, it shows a thumbnail you can tap and immediately start drawing on.
Moving on! New Apple Pencil features. Continuous screenshots from Safari you can mark up. You can actually mark up anything you can print, he says.
Weirdly, all this drag-and-drop stuff is kind of how I imagined Microsoft Courier might work.
You can tap and hold on Files in the dock and it will let you drag and drop files directly from a little pop up.
There's a running "Drone defense proposal" joke here, about all the drones that have been shooting footage of the new Apple Campus.
Favorites are synced across devices.
This demo is a real drag race.
Why... would you use a computer like this?
It's telling that Apple is adding desktop-like file management and manipulation features to mobile. Rather than insisting people adapt to being productive with mobile limitations, it's finally recognizing that desktop software is actually pretty great for getting stuff done? Like it was originally designed for?
We're looking at the Files app. You can sort by size and date
"Split view" can also be like a floating window view. It's interesting.
If you are in a full-screen app, you can still drag and drop. You can collect multiple images by swiping with your other hand.
I never expected Files to support all the various file storage apps, and I love it.
You can slide it around to dock to either side of the screen.
Huh. You can swipe up an app into a window that appears OVER the other app.
Demo time.
(GIDDY? Kinda Giddy?)
Supports iCloud, DropBox, OneDrive, whatever!
Supports nested folder, spring loading.
It looks like a file app!
Never before has the word "files" been drawn out with such anticipation.
Files app for iPad.
FILES
New Dock on iPad looks hot as hell.
You can flick up on keys to access punctionation and numbers.
I think dock on iPad might be my favorite announcement so far.
Images, text, URLS. "It's a dragfest!"
Drag and drop coming to iPad.
There's a new app switcher that preserves "spaces" with app pairings.
Wow, you swipe up to get the dock, slide an app up, and it opens in the Slide Over view.
You can pull up the dock from anywhere.
Dock can be FILLED with apps, like a ton of them. There's a "predictive area" on the right
Okay, lots of stuff coming for iPad.
(So the 9.7-inch iPad Pro is gone, I guess!)
Time for more iOS 11 features. Craig Federighi is back onstage.
Ships with iOS 10, iOS 11 coming this fall.
Order today, shipping next week.
You can ratchet up to 512GB of storage and LTE.
$649 for 10.5-inch model. $799 for 12.9-inch.
Doubling storage on base models, start at 64GB of memory.
New leather sleeve coming with built-in storage for Apple Pencil.
(It uses Lightning, not USB-C, if that wasn't clear.)
Accessories: supports USB3, fast charging.
I think our next live blog should just be a live debate about the merits / drawbacks of tablets-as-computers.
f/1.8. The selfie cam is 7MP.
The iPad Pro has cameras. Same as the iPhone 7, 12-megapixel sensor with OIS.
10-hour battery.
Affinity Photo for iPad is available now, if you want to go get it.
To me this is all just a really great argument for a touchscreen Mac laptop with a pen?
Same re: photo-editing demos and then I am like I would really like a trackpad or mouse right now
He was able to select hair really easily.
The reason people don't replace their iPads faster is that iPads are very good! They last many years and maintain their high performance.
They just announced new hotrod iMacs to huge cheers and now an iPad that claims to be faster than an i7 to relative silence... wonder which people are going to choose.
This is an impressive photo-editing demo, but then I am always impressed by photo-editing demos.
BOOM
Lauren, sounds like the real refresh rate that needs to get faster is... people refreshing their whole iPads to new ones.
Advanced displays sound quite nice but Apple's iPad sales were down 13 percent year over year last quarter. Upgrade cycle is more PC, less iPhone. Apple trying everything here with iPad: using stylus, lowering prices, shrinking bezel, adding more performance power...
Claims he can get better performance editing a photo than an Intel Core i7 chip.
It is a photo-editing app with lots of little icons for tools and layers for the photos.
Demo time: Serif's pro photo-editing app called Affinity Photo.
Hockey Stick graph.
They should have Joz onstage more.
30 percent faster CPU over the A9X, 40 percent faster graphics.
6-core CPU, 3 of which are high-performance. 12-core GPU.
A10X Fusion chip for the processor.
For a still image they can ratchet it all the way down to 24Hz.
They can also dynamically adjust refresh rate based on what you're looking at. Which can save power.
Refresh Rate also means it works better with Apple Pencil. 20ms latency.
So motion will be "smoother, crisper, more responsive."
Double the refresh rate
ProMotion is this: the display can refresh at a rate of 120Hz
(Everything gets a name!)
New feature: "ProMotion."
True Tone display, wide color gamut, low reflectivity, 600 nits of brightness (50% brighter), HDR video.
Both sizes of iPad Pro are getting new displays.
Allows for a full-size on-screen keyboard. And a full-size smart keyboard.
Shrunk bezels! Fits 10.5-inch screen into small body.
The bezels are 40 percent smaller. Weighs 1 pound.
Is that actually Joz's shirt or is this another AR demo
In basically the same size body.
It has a 10.5-inch display.
The new iPad Pro
All new iPad Pro though....
The 9.7-inch model is the most popular.
Today there are two models, he says.
He's going to talk iPad Pro for a minute.
Greg Joswiak comes onstage. Cook calls him Joz.
"It's a truly a magical piece of glass that transforms into anything you want." (I want a pony.)
Now, my fave PC - iPad.
It's iPad time.
Tim Cook is back onstage. We're on 5/6 updates.
QR codes on the lock screen for China, where QR codes on the lock screen are a thing.
For best ARKit results, install an enormous table in your home and don't put any actual objects on it.
Giant Feature Slide on-screen for literally less than 3 seconds.
Wingut's game is coming "later this year."
ALL THIS ON AN IPAD USING BUILT-IN FRAMEWORK
It's very impressive looking!
Why... would you play a game this way?
This, to steal Cook's phrase, looks badass.
Buildings pop up off the table in real time — like a GOT credit sequence!
A little dude just jumped off the table. Dark.
A spaceship is landing in the virtual town. It's crazy how they can move the iPad around and everything stays where it ought.
What is Alasdair Coull's real name?
Wow they just popped up a whole game right on the table. It's using Unreal Engine 4.
Wingnut? Really?
It's drinking time over at Magic Leap.
Wingnut AR is coming onstage to talk about what they've done in a demo.
This is a also an implementation of AR that doesn't involve you having to use Facebook Stories! Or learn Snapchat!
And Pokémon Go will support ARKit, so it'll look way better, too.
IKEA is making an app. There's a Batman Lego app that lets you move blocks around on a table.
Of course, there's already Google Tango on mobile. And HoloLens on headsets. But that hardware isn't very accessible right now. Apple has distinct advantage of having a gajillion iPhones already out there.
The most interesting implications for ARKit, to me, are for gaming. At first, anyway. Should lead to cool things!
ARKit they are showing. It's a demo of a kit for developers, but seems like it could be broadly used. Apple seems determined to not be left behind on AR.
"Hundreds of millions" of iPhones will support AR
Now devs have access to more information from the phone's cameras and sensors.
It ties in to the cameras, motion sensors, and, of course, the GPU and CPU.
"Fast and stable motion tracking," using all the sensors of the camera. A lot of the AR overlays you see now on mobile are 2D. Flat, basically. 3D AR is more exciting (i.e., Snapchat) but requires a lot of engineering.
ARKit does a bunch of stuff: motion tracking. Finds planes. Estimates ambient light. Estimates the proper scale for objects.
Yeah this looks way better than the AR in Pokémon Go.
He put a lamp on the table. When he turns the lamp on, the shadow from the cup moves.
That stat about the iPhone being faster than the Pixel or S8 at image recognition appears to be on-device — but those phones tend to do their machine learning in the cloud. Interesting choice of stat.
The app we're looking at is a demo app developers can play with.
The iPhone is able to identify a table as a flat surface. He just put a virtual cup on the table.
AR KIT! Hey everyone, I wrote about how this would be cool last week: https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/2/15730508/apple-wwdc-2017-ar-augmented-reality-developer-tools
Demo!
(Lauren Goode called it!)
Apple showing off how powerful on-device, private machine learning is.
ARKit
Core ML = math. Really fancy math.
Moving on! It's Augmented Reality time.
"iPhone is 6 times faster" at image recognition than the Pixel or S8, Federighi claims.
It's all on-device processing for data processing. It will be on iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS.
New ML APIs for developers. It's called Core ML.
It does palm rejection on the iPad. It extends battery life. (It does not make Julienne fries.)
Hey Guess What? We're going to talk about Machine Learning again.
It's weird to have an "editors' choice" designation when the publication has no publicly named editors.
Metal 2 and HEVC coming to iOS.
Anyone using Clips?
No mention of Clips.
It's really interesting that Apps and Games are fully separated out now. Should make non-game developers happy!
Small thing but: Apple's iPhone mock ups appear to have reverted back to wireless service bars, rather than dots. (Hat tip @connor13aker on Twitter!)
We're still looking through the new interface, and reviews.
I wish Apple would announce on-site childcare for the employee they have onstage right now.
Already almost at the 90-minute mark!
(The entire room is wondering how they get their app into this tab.)
App description pages are like Medium posts. Pretty!
There's a how-to article for VSCO, too. Each day gets an App of the Day, Game of the Day. There's also a daily list.
It's like Apple News inside the App Store, for apps. Written by ¯_(ツ)_/¯
There's a whole article about Monument Valley 2.
The App Store has a "top story." So yeah it's editorially curated.
The new App Store looks like Apple Music, which looks like Apple News, which looks like... Not sure if every single app having a Today screen adds clarity or confusion.
Demo time!
Apple showing a lot of paid apps as a part of this demo...
The Games tab is a smart idea and long overdue. (Facebook beat Apple to it. In Messenger!)
So now "Apps" is a separate tab from Games.
Huh, you can put in-app purchases directly on the App Store, so users don't have to dig into the app to find them.
Games gets its own tab now, too.
(The first card is for the 'World Premiere" of Monument Valley 2.)
It starts with a "Today" tab that has big, color cards you scroll through.
Complete redesign of App Store.
Complete App Store redesign!
New stuff coming: Auto-renewal with Apple Pay. Phased releases — "Woo for phased releases please." It means you slowly roll out your update so it doesn't crash your servers.
Faster app review times, Schiller says. Majority now reviewed in under 24 hours. Btw, this is a partly automated, partly human process.
Okay Schiller is talking some more about how great the App Store is and how much has improved recently. "The majority of apps are reviewed in under 24 hours."
App Store updates! Reminder: last year just before WWDC Apple made some changes to the App Store rev share model and pushed subscriptions. Hard. All a part of the "services" push. Too early to tell, still, whether subscriptions are working for app makers...
Obligatory Pokémon Go reference.
$70 billion paid out to developers.
(Does not include auto redownloads and updates)
180 billion apps downloaded to date.
500 million weekly visitors to the App Store.
SCHILLLLLLZZZZ! He demands cheering from the back of the room and the developers are happy to oblige.
Phil Schiller onstage to talk App Store now!
MusicKit for Apple Music. Third-party apps can access Apple Music now. Nike, Anchor, and Shazam can all interact with Apple Music.
You can set your profile to be private if you want, of course.
AirPlay 2 is why there's a $50 off deal on two Sonos Play:1s right now.
Apple Music: social feature. You can see what your friends are listening to.
Gah we're moving on already! We should spend more time on AirPlay 2!
Bang and Olufsen, Devialet, Libratone, Bluesound, Bowers & Wilkins, others will work with AirPlay 2. No sign of Sonos...
(Somebody check on Sonos' heart rate.)
So you can play to Apple TV speakers and also control from your Apple TV.
Apple TV becomes an AirPlay 2 endpoint.
Apple Music has "Shared up next" to play music to a party playlist.
AIRPLAY 2: BACK FROM THE DEAD
HomeKit 2 — multi-room audio.
Builds multi-room audio into iOS.
AirPlay 2
New category: Speakers.
Next up: Homekit.
Do Not Disturb While Driving is really smart.
Select people can break through and get a message to you when you're driving.
If you turn on the phone, it gives you a notification that you shouldn't do it. (You can turn it off if you're in the back seat.)
YES!!! Do not disturb mode while driving is a great move.
It uses Bluetooth or Wi-Fi doppler effect to turn off your phone screen when you're driving.
CarPlay now — there's a kind of CarPlay interface for people who don't have a CarPlay car. "Do Not Disturb While Driving."
The airport indoor maps will smartly guide you away from United terminals.
Speed limits and lane guidance when you're navigating.
Airports, too! It looks like they're launching with 30 or so. The slide went by fast!
I am going to troll Mossberg in his retirement and text him dollar amounts so he is prompted to pay me. FIVE DOLLARS Walt.
Hitting 8 or so cities right away, hundreds more coming.
Internal maps of dying malls!
There's indoor maps for malls.
As with any algorithm that suggests news, the Big Question is whether this will create self-selection bias. You're already looking at this, read more of this and this.
Moving on! Maps now.
"But wait there is more."
iMessage: when somebody says you owe them money, the $ amount turns into a link you can tap to pay them.
We're an hour and 10 minutes into this thing and we do not appear close to done, btw.
Wow even autocorrect is able to learn what you were reading and add words from those articles to your suggested words. That's wild.
(It's sort of like, uh, ad tracking but for stuff you look at?)
Siri nots that he looked at an article about Iceland, so the Apple News app automatically shows Iceland articles.
"We're using machine learning to help learn more about you." But Siri is also involved somehow.
We're not looking at the new interface for Memories. It was created automatically based on recognizing a dog. You can look at it in portrait or landscape.
I would rather hear about "Machine Learning" than "Fun personal virtual assistant INSERT FEMALE NAME HERE" fwiw.
Loops are basically Boomerangs.
There are new effects, too, like a "Long Exposure" that mimics actually doing that with your camera.
Loops of Live Photos looks fun.
(Imagine taking a shot every time somebody mentions Machine Learning at a tech event now. Imagine dying from alcohol poisoning, basically.)
I enjoy Live Photos way more than I thought I ever would.
You can set a small loop from Live Photo videos. Mentions Machine Learning again.
Still in demo time, we're looking at choosing another Key Photo from a Live Photo.
Craig has a notification from Bruce Sewell, Apple's lawyer, CRAIG YOU SHOULD PROB GO CHECK THAT JUST SAYIN
The notification center looks exactly like the lock screen when you swipe down, then you swipe up to see you older notifications. It's... a little confusing? Will have to try it.
Control Center looks completely bonkers, and I think I love it.
Where's the flashlight app?
Lock screen and notification center are combined now.
They grow bigger and give you more information and controls.
Shortcut to personal hotspot??
You can 3D Touch to get more controls.
Wow Control Center is a big, tall, single page of widgets.
(LET ME HARD-PRESS FOR SETTINGS WI-FI, CRAIG PLEASE)
Major redesign to Control Center.
Demo time!
Redesigned Control Center!
Live Photos: you can trim the video down, you can chose any part of the video as the key photo.
Photos app also getting an update. Specifically the Memories feature uses machine learning to identify sporting events, weddings, etc.
"Improved low-light performance, optical image stabilization, amazing photos when you're seated 500 feet away at a press event, true tone...."
Improved image quality the camera app. And there's a Depth API for developers.
(High Efficiency Image Format) - he says "Of course you can share." So presumably it will just convert to something standard when you share out.
Maybe that will change!
HEVC video encoding on iOS 11. Less storage space for 4K videos. JPEG getting replaced with HEIF - better images at half the size.
The promise of Siri over the past couple years is that it would become more "predictive" but I honestly have not found the app recommendations (when you swipe right from home screen) all that helpful.
1 Trillion photos per year taken with iOS devices.
On-device private machine learning synced across Apple devices.
The on-device learning gets synced to other devices, but "kept completely private, readable only by you and your devices."
"On-device" learning, Federighi says. Context: We're still more private.
It uses "on-device learning" to suggest stuff like news articles, responding with your location, or make a calendar location.
"Siri Intelligence" without voice.
Siri is going to try to be more predictive about what you want to do next.
All I want from Siri is Spotify integration.
(Moving really fast here!)
Siri Kit means more apps can interact. Notes, Omnifocus, WeChat.
Languages supported: English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Spanish.
Siri has voice translation
Translation is in Beta, though, it seems.
Siri can do translation now.
More visual stuff — follow-up questions with a tap.
It does sound a bit more natural!
Upgrade for voice. Used Deep learning to change how she talks. Or how he talks.
Worth noting that these P2P services don't make a lot of money for co's currently in the space. But it's a stickiness thing; keeps people using your apps and services.
Moving on to Siri. 375 million devices support Siri.
My big issue with Apple Pay is that you have to re-add your credit cards every time you get a new device. It's much easier to just sign into Venmo.
That's how most payment apps work. Apple is becoming a little bank.
This is Apple's Square Cash and Venmo competitor. Part of Apple Pay but built into iMessage. We taped a whole podcast on this: https://www.recode.net/2017/5/5/15552020/apple-payments-venmo-square-cash-peer-to-peer-recode-podcast
Apple Pay Cash Card — that's where the money goes when you get it.
P to P Apple Pay payments. Bad for Jack Dorsey and Square. Bad for Venmo.
(So if you turn off iMessage, you don't get to use it I guess?)
It's built into messages as an iMessage app.
Apple Venmo!
Apple Pay now: person-to-person payments.
(It's "end-to-end encrypted" but are they stored encrypted? Guessing yes?)
Huh, so they only keep your most recent messages on the device, the rest are backed up in the cloud.
Does that mean that every time I turn on my MacBook I won't get notifications of every text I received the previous day?
If you delete a message on your phone, it goes away on your Mac.
Better syncing of conversations across devices.
"Messages in iCloud."
Starting with iMessage. "More discoverable" with a redesigned app drawer.
"We have a lot to talk about."
Federighi is back onstage.
Where's Elon?
iOS 11, in other words.
Cook just said "Turn it up to 11."
As usual, showing "other platforms that suffer from HORRIBLE fragmentation." That would be Android.
iOS time. Cook talks customer satisfaction again - 96 percent this time; 86 percent of Apple customers running iOS 10.
Cook says the new iMac is BADASS.
"John I agree, that iMac Pro is really badass."
Cook is back onstage.
$5,000 for starting config. December. Perfect stocking stuffer!
If everyone here contributed a dollar we could all buy and share an iMac.
Available in December.
They said they'd be doing a super-spec iMac while they developed the new Mac Pro.
Comparably specced system on Windows would cost $7000. Starting config for iMac Pro $4,999.
Is this essentially the replacement for the Mac Pro?
Okay sure, but can it run Flash?
1080p FaceTime camera. VESA mount. Fast SD card slot!
Up to 44 million pixels!
4 Thunderbolt 3 ports, 10GB Ethernet built in.
Developers and pros are orgasmic.
You can get up to 128Gb of ECC memory. Up to 4TB of SSD.
Cheers for 22 Teraflops of half-precision computation. (I do not know what that is, but it sounds good.)
Radeon Vega graphics. Available with up to 16GB of VRAM and 400GB per second of memory bandwidth.
All the cores. Every core.
You can also get a 10-core processor. Or, eff it, you can get it with 18 cores.
Ships with an 8-core Xeon processor. (Ooh and ahhs in the crowd.)
It has a new set of fans that are "dual centrifugal."
"Workstation-class performance" in the iMac 5K design.
More powerful than current Mac Pro.
"The most powerful Mac ever."
Sneak peek of super-performing iMac Pro.
It has a dope, dark keyboard. "Seriously badass space gray finish."
iMac Pro.
Video intro: Guitars. It's an iMac...
Are you angry, sad, or disappointed that you bought a MacBook last fall? Are you burdened with the regret of not waiting for Kaby Lake? We want to Hear Your Stories.
Sneak peek — not shipping until end of the year.
There's more though! We're back to talking about how great the iMac is, but Pro users might need more.
(Not at all clear if the MacBook Air is getting Kaby Lake or just a faster processor. Sounds like just a faster processor.)
MB AIR GETS SPEED BUMP! IT LIVES!!!!
All shipping today.
MacBook Air getting a bump in MHZ, too.
New config for 13-inch MacBook Pro that starts at $1,299.
Faster SSD on MacBook. Faster standard graphics on MacBook Pro 15-inch.
Updates for MacBook and MacBook Pro: Kaby Lake.
They are really pouring it on about the Mac. My guess is they have woken up to pros' criticism.
Starts at $1,099, goes up a model that starts at $1,799. A 4k model at $1,299.
The future is all of us wearing face computers for fun on Friday nights.
Might be time to talk price and release for these new iMacs.
(Note: We spent more time on this VR demo than we did on Apple TV.)
Also the developer's name is Lauren, so she is naturally cool.
Vader swings his lightsaber at her in VR. That seems terrifying.
Uh yeah there's Vader. Chilling. Walking around. Ominous music.
This is really getting in the weeds but it's cool that Apple has set up this demo so that we can see both the person wearing the headset and her POV, all within the same frame. Other VR demos have had people wandering on stage with headsets on, with a POV screen behind them, but not all in the same video.
DARTH VADER BREATH
But she's throwing spaceships all over the place, and it looks like a blast.
(Aaand she hit the end of the tether to her computer.)
She's making VR content in VR. She just lit a TIE fighter on fire. Like you do.
But we see a woman in a green screen room using a Vive. She's on Mustafar (the planet).
(There are not VR headsets under our seats.)
Industrial Light & Magic's John Knoll onstage for a demo.
Waiting for pricing info on these Macs as that will determine how much money I will be able to spend on Mossberg's retirement gift.
"Which makes it a great platform for VR content creation."
27-inch iMac, you can get Radeon 570, 575, & 580. Up to 8GB of VRAM.
Looks like iMac is meant to appease graphics pros while new Mac Pro is being developed.
21.5-inch 4k — Radeon Pro 555 & 560. Standard discrete graphics on these models.
Graphics: "big bump" for everything. Entry-level will get Intel Iris Plus 640. 80 percent faster than previous generations.
Two USB connectors with Thunderbolt 3.
Fusion drives are standard on 27-inch config. SSDs will be 50 percent faster and available up to two TB.
Heads up Verge fans I am also posting updates to our Instagram Stories, but our seats are bad, sooooo doing the best I can with photos...
Kaby Lake also supports HEVC Video. You can get up to 32GB RAM on the 21.5-inch model. 64GB on the larger one.
Seventh-generation Kaby Lake processors.
The new iMacs will have better displays. 500 nits (43 percent brighter). 10-bit dithering. Can produce up to a billion colors
VR: single-handedly responsible for Apple giving some love to Final Cut Pro again?
Yep! iMac is up first.
Time to talk about the Mac (hardware?)
Free upgrade to all this fall on any system that supports Sierra.
Public Beta in late June.
High Sierra available as developer beta today.
(Lots of claps for that!)
I am legitimately excited to hear so much about how devs can use high-end machines. It's been missing from Apple events for a while.
Final Cut Pro X will be optimized for spherical video. Steam VR SDK coming to Mac. As are Unity and Unreal.
VR content creation. Metal for VR.
"Rolling out support to all our customers in the months to come."
Metal for external graphics. This is where the Thunderbolt port comes in — Metal 2 developer kit you can order today with an AMD GPU to tune apps for external graphics.
Fav for draw call throughput, RT for faster frame debugging.
Metal 2 also apparently is involved with machine learning for shaders.
The Mac Window server will run on Metal 2 in High Sierra.
Waiting for "middle-out" compression.
New version of Metal for graphics. It's called Metal 2. (Should have been Heavy Metal. Or High Metal. Or Metal AF. Just saying.)
Compression algorithms are straight out of "Silicon Valley," and also genuinely exciting stuff for pro video people.
Graphics now, talking GPUs. Here's our first hockey stick graph, showing performance with GPUs.
There are hardware-accelerated video decoders in newer Macs for it.
Video standards now. H.264 has been the standard for awhile. But H.265 / HVEC does better with 4K.
I asked Walt what he wanted for his retirement and he told me: parallelized metadata.
Parallelized metadata has long been my dream.
Showing a copy dialog on HFS. It takes a minute. In High Sierra, it's instant.
Native encryption. Crash protection. Instant file and directory cloning. Lots of nerdy file system features!
Apple File System replaces HFS as the new default.
NEW file system.
Oh man, we're talking file system formats. "It's time for a more modern file system."
Big deal is "refinements."
All of this is so much easier in Google Photos.
"We've gone deep on the fundamentals -- data, video, and graphics."
Ooooh oooh files!
Apple Photos will let third-party printed photo book makers plug in to Photos.
You can selectively edit color, like a hat. It synchronizes layers to other photo apps — neat!
Photos has more editing tools, including Curves for fine-tuning color and contrast.
Photos has a new persistent sidebar and a better filtering menu for finding photos. Faces is improved, too, he says. Face names are synchronized across devices. (Finally?)
Personally I want to hear more and more about how Apple is using machine learning and artificial intelligence to make these processes smart. AI should not just be relegated to "Siri."
So will Safari break autoplay video in Facebook? Is that a good thing?
Uses 35% less disk space for storing mail.
It's putting important messages at the top. And there's a split view for composing mail messages.
Ad tech industry is seething right now.
Mail's next.
Safari using machine learning to identify trackers across sites. Emphasis on privacy, not surprising coming from Apple.
Uses machine learning to "segregate" tracking data across sites.
Safari will also have "Intelligent Tracking Prevention" to keep ads from following you around the web.
Safari will have some nice performance improvements the next time you use it — to stream the iPhone event in September.
"Safari detects the sites that shouldn't play video." Hm. That's an interesting way to put it.
When he said they were moving east to name the next macOS I was thinking "Fremont" or "Modesto"
Oh thank god — Safari will block Autoplay video.
New macOS mostly about improvement under hood, it seems. But improved Safari.
Javascript should be faster, too.
"World's fastest browser with High Sierra."
"Safari smokes [other browsers] in benchmark after benchmark."
We'll we're moving on to Safari. Guess that's the name?
Federighi says it's "fully baked." Omg.
"They assured us this name is fully baked." Lulz. Told you there'd be dad jokes.
Pop quiz: can you name a single feature of Sierra?
High Sierra?!?!
macOS High Sierra. Is this a joke? It's not clear. he's presenting it as a joke. It's probably a joke.
"We wanted to spend this year perfecting" Sierra.
(Prepare for dad jokes.)
MAC TIME
I have a really hard time imagining wearing the Apple Watch while surfing that's the last thing I'll say about that, oh okay I'll try it.
Craig Federighi is onstage to talk macOS.
"No one can match the Mac's deep integration of hardware and software."
Cook stressing love for the Mac. Wonder why?
Mac time!
Oh here we go — new watchOS features for devs!
Cook calls the Mac "the heart and soul of Apple."
Cook is back onstage. Phew that was fast!
Developer preview is available today. Free upgrade for everybody this fall.
Literally not one word about what developers can do on these platforms at Apple's developer conference so far.
Supports Core Bluetooth, so the watch can work directly with other gadgets like glucose monitors or surfboards.
ClockVerge
Well after seeing this, I think our next move is to launch a Watch-only publication, Casey. Like The Daily, but for Watch.
Including a flashlight app for the watch, which blinks.
I'm just impressed she's actually using the Digital Crown to navigate the interface.
Demo's over. Apple's really hustling through these updates! "There's a lot more coming."
You can assign a playlist to a specific workout, it seems. And you can swipe inside the workout app to directly control your music.
Workout app on Watch will also tell you how many minutes you need to walk to "close the rings." Useful.
Apple News publishers: is your content watch-first?
Watch tells you what you have to do to close rings.
There's a Siri coaching card that hassles you for not closing your rings. (Just kidding, it's kind and looks helpful.)
Apple News available on the Watch, too — and you can save news for later to be read on your phone.
We're scrolling through Siri cards now. There is a cat picture in the feed, right after sunset.
Getting iTunes onto Apple Watch in the past has been surprisingly problematic, fwiw.
(I think that might mean they got rid of the time-travel feature??)
There's a new dock. You vertically scroll through recently used apps.
Demo time!
Gym Connect is sincerely cool — if my gym adopted it I just might buy one of these watches.
A year ago all of these platforms were being presented as foundations and stores for developers, with sub-platforms underneath: iMessage store, etc. None of that vibe recurring yet.
Supports multiple playlists on the watch, too.
There's a new music app on the Apple Watch. It will pull in Apple Music mixes automatically so you don't have to manage it.
Also one of my life goals is to get Dieter on the SF office health bandwagon. But alas, not yet.
Gym connect rolling out this fall.
(Is this the first time Apple has used NFC for something other than Apple Pay or Transit payments?)
I still cannot do one-handed push-ups. Or push-ups.
That's really cool. The NFC reader on the gym equipment works with the Watch. Tells your Watch incline, speed, etc.
All of these watchOS updates so far are self-contained — nothing new for developers to build apps against yet. It's the world's greatest fitness tracker.
Fitness maniac Lauren Goode interested in new workout watch stuff. Good sign for Apple.
WatchOS 4 will have high-intensity interval training feature. Not calling it a "triathlon" mode but essentially you can switch from exercise to exercise like you would in a tri mode.
Oh — watchOS 4 can communicate with gym equipment!
Activity now has monthly challenges, such as "take your Watch out of the drawer" and "wear it."
There's also High Intensity Interval Training. Lauren Goode made a "oh nice" noise. I trust that other people will use this. I refuse to exercise because I intend to die early.
"Personalized" achievement updates. Smarter "coaching." These are a lot of same the buzz words you hear from other health and fitness wearable makers, like Fitbit.
There's an auto-set for pool workouts, it can tell when you hit the end of the pool and call it a lap.
The Workout app has a new UI.
You get little sparkle animations when you close one of your activity rings. It sparkles.
New fitness nagging!
Moving on! This is as fast as I've seen Apple move at one of these events in a long time. Talking about the Activity app now.
They do little fun animations. Lynch calls them "hijinks." He's not wrong.
Wow. The kaleidoscope Apple Watch face takes me back to 1969.
More characters: Woody, Jesse, and Buzz from Toy Story.
Kaleidoscope watchface, "you can rotate the crown and get this kind of trippy effect."
It can show home controls, sunset time, flight boarding passes, etc.
The last major watchOS update was around a year ago, and it was a radical overhaul of the interface. It made the Apple Watch much more intuitive, by smartwatch standards.
Think Google Now, but on your wrist. And from Siri.
Now you can curse at Siri on your WATCH!
It automatically displays a stream of information from Siri. Uses machine learning to figure out what to show you.
The only announcement for tvOS is that it's getting Amazon, the one app they've been trying to get for five years. No developer stats, no new major features, no TV service. Something is going on with that product.
Watchfaces have little complications, now they can change dynamically based on time and location — a new Siri watchface.
watchOS 4
Kevin Lynch is coming onstage to talk Apple Watch.
Um, no Planet of the Apps update? Was planning on moving there if this planet, you know, doesn't make it.
Also #1 in customer satisfaction.
"It's the number one selling smartwatch by far."
Apple watch is next.
That's it for TV!
Weird to hear Cook doing promo for Amazon Prime.
Our sister site Recode first reported this last month! https://www.recode.net/2017/5/5/15552954/amazon-video-apple-tv-app-jeff-bezos-tim-cook
It's coming to the TV app "later this year."
Amazon is coming to the Apple TV.
I don't think Apple has ever explicitly named the number of announcements it's going to make, right up front like that.
Cook is reminding us that the TV app exists, is good.
Starting with tvOS.
Six announcements today.
"Apple is doing great." That's your number update.
No updates — too much to talk about.
"Same core technology," Cook says, but "uniquely designed."
tvOS, watchOS, macOS, iOS — listed in that order.
There's also an 83-year-old developer here. She's "just 82 years old" and published her first app this year.
I love this little overachiever.
Youngest developer ever here: He's a 10-year-old from Australia. Started coding when he was six. Has 5 apps on the App Store.
Attendees come from 75 countries. (Walt notes that Trump has insulted nearly all of those countries.)
Cook is praising the Apple developer community. 16 million registered developers. Added 3 million last year. 5,300 developers here today. Largest ever.
It's been 15 years since we held a dev conference in San Jose, Tim Cook says. Translation: my commute was GREAT this morning!
"This is going to be the best and biggest WWDC ever."
Cook calls San Jose the "heart of Silicon Valley" and says it's down the street from the new campus.
"I'm so glad that really can't happen."
Tim Cook takes the stage!
People have reverted to an older state, re-creating apps in the real world. It's a cute video. Applause.
Apple kicks off WWDC with a reminder that it can ruin our entire lives any time it wants to.
This is the most efficient way to clear up space on an iPhone Apple's ever offered.
The Purge: App Store
Truly, the App Store is the fabric that holds our society together, without with we would descend into chaos and death.
I'm not sure that's how it works but okay. Mayhem. Crashes. "THIS IS NOT AN AIRBNB."
It's his first day. He has a classic iPod. And other desk things. He unplugged a plug and the whole damn server farm goes down. People's iPhones around the world lose their apps.
A very nerdy dude is excited to enter an antiseptic server room.
Video time. "Apple Data Center" It's a skit.
The lights are dimming, the crowd cheers!
When does Ballmer run out?
Everybody is standing. Waiting. The music has gotten louder. That one guy is dancing more enthusiastically than is maybe appropriate, but we accept him. We accept his moves. Inside, in our hearts, we flail, too. Any minute now, the keynote will start.
A fun game to play while we wait is to count the women in the audience. I'm up to four!
I'm exhausted just picturing it.
No "Time to Stand!"s for that guy, no sir.
One-handed ones.
Tim Cook currently doing push-ups to psyche himself up backstage.
(Shout out to the dude in the audience filming this with the Big iPad Pro. I'm sure the people behind him are super pleased to have such a nice screen in front of them.)
I wonder how many "Time to Stand!" notifications the crowd will collectively get during this keynote.
They've asked us to switch our devices to silent mode. So buckle up (and make sure your smart buckle is also on silent mode).
The event is reportedly starting late because no one can find the iMessage App Store.
It's not secret, Nilay.
We should start for real any minute!
My twitter replies also inform me it's Tycho, which means I can make people tweet by typing words into this box. If you're reading this, please Tweet your favorite Twitter executive and ask for editable tweets. CC @CaseyNewton.
Dan has always had a secret lounge vibe.
I am told it's Tycho. By sources. (The source is Dan Seifert.)
(FYI the music is chill, and not loud enough for SoundCloud or Shazam to pick it up. Rest assured it's a lounge vibe. Lounge lounge, not Ultra lounge.)
We should be starting soon! Real soon! The screen has switched over to a black apple logo on a white background.
Packed house!
San Jose is quite nice this time of year, Casey. The 20-degree difference between the Valley and city are pretty remarkable. Since most of us rarely see the sun or look up from a computer screen, we are a serious risk of sunburn these next few days.
File management is a joy. And backing them up goes quickly. Time Files when you're having fun.
So while we wait — for readers who have never been to San Jose, what it's like this time of year?
It's maybe also worth mentioning that our post about the rumored Files app is currently No. 2 on the site. People love files! Ask Dropbox!
I would actually like a Files option on mobile — I think. Hard to say without seeing it. But two of the biggest drawbacks of mobile OS's IMO are the lack of folder manipulation and limited manual file management.
But maybe Files will have some nice mobile touches. 3D Touch to batch-rename your photos!
Not caring about where your files are stored has been one of the nice things about the mobile era. So a dedicated app to manage them seems backward-looking, at least on the surface.
Here's my take, Nilay:
Clips and Files represent two radically different ideas about the future of creation on iOS. Discuss.
Jake and I just did a huge happy dance because Vjeran packed a lens extender for us. TELEPHOTO FTW.
People are already calling it the Clips of file management software.
Gang, why are we talking about my hair when we could be talking about the Apple Files app?
I actually have one scheduled for tomorrow. During work hours!
Get a haircut, hippie.
I love you guys, too!
It's all out of love, Casey. Love.
We miss you, Casey!
bursts into tears
If Casey's hair were here it would definitely be seated closer to the stage than the rest of us.
Not the worst live blog, though, about Casey's hair. I'd read that.
Thank God Casey Newton isn't sitting in front of me. Then I'd just be blogging about his hair.
I really do like this year's WWDC art / graphic, which is playing on the giant screen above stage. It's an animated aerial view of people walking around, chatting, riding bikes, taking selfies.
Actually yes? I was worried about the pollen situation in San Jose today.
Hey Jake, do you have any tissues? I'm worried I'm going to get a nosebleed in these seats.
Okay okay it's noisy in here though....
"Mountain At My Gates" by Foals is playing right now. I just asked Siri twice who Foals is and I got results for Philz and then Falls. So.
People are sprinting in. It's a madhouse.
But iPad mini working GREAT. And yet, if rumors are true, they may kill it. Sad!
Stage is 400 miles away.
And we're in! And seated. ...Seated really far away. Apple decided to put the press pretty far away from the stage.
iPad mini: the better way to blog!
Per usual, Mossberg will be live blogging from a yet-to-be-released 10th-generation iPad.
Here's a pic of Apple's PR guru Bill Evans that Walt snapped while in line:
(Somewhat Sunny in San Jose: Apple's next original series.)
There is a likely theory that the WWDC crowds started super early this year because it's somewhat sunny in San Jose, unlike the usual fog and cold in SF.
But happy to be live-blogging... one last time.
Walt won't say this so I will: he can't go two minutes without taking a selfie with a fan.
Weird being in different building. The flow is different.
Also we're hearing that we should limit our fluid intake because it's going to be a looooooong one folks!
We're hearing around 5,000 will be in attendance. The youngest developer? 10 years old, from Australia. Get coding people.
This San Jose convention center is much more industrial than the traditional San Francisco Moscone Center. It's a pretty packed scene, good vibe from developers. (They also like their free jackets).
Second line now. It's like second breakfast but much less filling.
Developers!
Hello! We are in line! There is a massive crowd here.
Anyway, we'll start soon. In the meanwhile, meditate on the puns Apple put into the WWDC developer schedule:
Here's some of the swag Apple is giving out this year. (Note that Apple was able to ship a Levi's jacket before Google could).
Hey there! You're a bit early! The keynote starts at 1PM ET / 10AM PT on Monday, June 5th.
Event Details
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