Notes from Apple’s “Lets Talk” Media Event:
Stats given first. You know the drill. Stats before giving you the info on the new candy.
-100,000 people visited Shanghai store the first weekend it opened.
-357 Apple stores now open.
-Year over year growth. 4% PC, 23% growth
-Still, 77% of consumers are buying other systems, which leaves incredible room for growth
-Over 300 million iPods have been sold. “It took Sony 30 years to sell 220,000 Walkman cassette players.”
- The iPhone is five percent of the overall mobile phone market
-As for iTunes, it’s now up to 20 million songs, or more than 20Xs the catalog Apple offered when it first launched the service.
-iTunes Store remains largest music store in the world, having served 16 billion Songs.
-iPad 95% satisfaction rating in latest survey.
-Roughly 1000 Universities — including Stanford and Notre Dame — have iPad pilot programs in place.
-92 percent of Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying companies. They’re not saying what they’re doing with them, but they’re at least buying ‘em.
iOS – Lots of WWDC recaps.
-Apple has also passed the 250 million iOS device sales mark.
-iOS is now the number one mobile operating system, 43 percent compared to Android’s 33 percent as of the July. ComScore number Apple is quoting.
-With a quarter billion iOS devices sold, iOS is the No . 1 mobile operating system with a 43% share.
-There are now 140,000 apps made specifically for the iPad
-Customers have download 18 billion apps — more than a billion per month.
-over halve a million (500,000) apps in the app store in total.
-1 billion App download per month.
-Hallmark, just got served. New app, “Cards” Lets you design and print greetings cards”. Apple will send them. You can create and mail cards via iPhone from your iOS device and Apple will print them out and send them on high-quality paper. $2.99 to mail a card domestically, or $4.99 to anywhere in the world.
-iCloud just works and is free. You can download and re-download your music and media anytime on any Apple device. Your photos can be in your camera roll but can also be on all your devices at the same time — they sync into the cloud then down to your other devices. Documents also get updated across all your devices.
-Apps and backups also via iCloud –
-Find my friends. Like Google’s Latitudes. You can see the location of friends and family on a Map who choose to share their location with you. You can invite friends to share their location for a limited time period as well. So if you wanted to share your location with a few friends while you visit the mall, you can, and set the location sharing to expire in 3 hours.
-iOS 5 released Oct 12th.
iPod new features
-This year the nano multitouch display can display large icons instead of smaller ones in an array.
-There’s an improved fitness experience that allows you to go on a walk or a run via Nike+ straight out of the box!
-New version available today — $129 for the 8GB and $149 for the 16GB, down from $149 and $179
iPhone 4S
-Retina display, glass on front and back with the same stainless steel band along the edges — But inside, everything is new.
-iPhone 4S has the same A5 chip found in the iPad 2 — up to 2X faster than the A4 found in the iPhone 4.
-Dual core graphics like the iPad 2 as well, yielding up to 7X faster real world performance than the iPhone 4
-iPhone 4S now offers up to 8 hours talk time on 3G
-14 hours on 2G and 6 hours of 3G browsing.
-Better Antenna, Apple has also updated the wireless system in the phone
-The new stainless steel band has two antennas and the phone can now automatically switch between the two intelligently to maintain better reception.
-Phil’s taking a shot against the Atrix, Thrill, and Inspire 4G. “The iPhone 4S is just as fast as these phones.”
-iPhone 4S now offers 14.4Mbps downloads, which is essentially what rivals have been calling “4G”
-As expected, the iPhone 4S is also a world-phone — meaning it can operate on both GSM and CDMA networks.
-This is great for travelers who may have Verizon (CDMA) stateside but need to roam on GSM networks overseas.
-8Meg camera! that’s 3264 x 2448. That’s 60 % more pixels than photos taken by iPhone 4. With lots of new stuff
-Also, iPhone 4S has a backside illuminated sensor that allows 73% more light per pixel than the iPhone 4. The capture rate is 33% faster as well. iPhone 4S also includes a Hybrid IR filter for better color accuracy and more uniform images. It also has a 5-element lens and only sports a half second delay between shots.
-And, five whole elements in the lens assembly — 30 percent more sharper, and it’ll go down to f/2.4!
-There’s a new Image Signal Processor that Apple designed, enabling face detection and 26 percent better white balance.
-Comparo tie: Bionic takes 3.7 seconds for the first picture, 2 for the Galaxy S II, Sensation 2.1. 0.5 seconds iPhone 4s
-There’s video image stabilization, with temporal noise reduction.
-Now for video recording: 1080p HD recording.
Siri Assistant – Beta
-Voice Recognition – Siri Assistant
- Ok, this is cool. It answers, when you ask. Will I need a rain coat today?
-Wake me up at 6am tomorrow. And it sets the alarm for you.
-Find me a great greek restaurant. Like the computer, on Star Trek.
- A great AI natural language experience.
-reads text messages and answers with voice
-”When can I have lunch next”
-Siri can also read your text messages to you if you’re wearing a bluetooth headset and the iPhone is in your pocket.
-Siri does currency conversion.
-You can set reminders to call your wife, pick up the kids from school, etc, all by dictating what you want to Siri. Or it can lookup Steve Jobs on wikipedia. You can also ask, for instance, “how many days until Christmas.” The demo is impressive.
-Siri also offers an interface it examples “Tap the mic to say things like”: How do i get home? Email Lisa about the trip. What is Apple’s stock price?
-there is also a microphone next to the spacebar on the iPhone keyboard, which allows for dictation.
-Dictation works out of the box but improves with time as it becomes accustomed to your voice.
-Works for English (US, UK, and Australia) plus French and German. It’ll be beta to start, but there’ll be more languages and services coming.
-the antenna design looks like the current Verizon version, with the same basic groove placement.
Pricing: 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, and 64GB for $399.
iPhone 4S launches Oct 14th.
iPhone 4 will sell for $99 in an 8GB configuration, as well, with contract.
Available in US with AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.
NO IPHONE 5!!