iPhone OS 4.0 Live Blog [Finished]

Its Over! Check out the official release for all the details here.

11:38AM Gizmodo:
Q: Are you concerned at all about multitasking and other features that wouldn’t work for the older devices. Will this upgrade be enough to get people to upgrade their phones and renew their contracts and such.
A: The 3GS has been a huge hit, and iPod touch’s sales curve really accelerated over the last year. So a lot of these products, the install base, are the most recent products. The old ones will still love the new features, but they’ll just miss ones like multitasking. If that’s an incentive to get people to upgrade to the new phone, that’s fantastic.

Q: How do you close applications? And can people use stuff other than iAd and Game Center?
A: If you want to kill an app…you don’t have to. We architected something so the user doesn’t have to be the custodian of applications. We’ll give the apps in the foreground as needed. The user doesn’t have to worry about that at all. The user just uses things.


In multitasking, if you see a task manager, they blew it. Users shouldn’t have to ever, ever, ever think about that stuff.

And to answer the second question, yes, you can use any service.

11:31AM Gizmodo:
Q: Anything surprise you about the initial reaction to the iPad so far?
A: Even though we’ve been using these internally for some time, you still have butterflies in your stomach the few weeks before…the night before…launch. You never really know until you get it into customers’ hands, and they tell you what they think. The feedback we’ve got has been off the charts. We think this is a profound gamechanger. We think when people look back some number of years from now, they’ll see this as a major event in personal computation devices. What’s been really great for me is how quickly people have got it. You know. I’ve gotten a few thousand emails so far from people I’ve never talked to before just telling me how much this product is…how much they think this product is going to change their life and what they do. People are getting it very quickly. -Jobs

“If our competitors ever introduce a competitor to the iPad, they’ll be hoping they can get 3500 apps within the first year. We got 3500 apps in the first week. It stands on the shoulders of 85 million people out there who already know how to use it because they used an iPod touch or an iPhone.


Q: How are you going to improve the app store for discoverability?
A: The app store isn’t part of iPhone 4 or any OS release. It’s programmed on the server side so we can enhance it without waiting for the release of any iPhone OS release. We’re constantly interested in improving that, and do so fairly frequently. In terms of discoverability, we’ve added stuff like Genius recommendations. I also see an infrastructure evolve to help users find apps. The store on an iPhone with the small screen can only do so much. But you are seeing more websites and services featuring iPhone apps of the week. There’s a lot of infrastructure building up outside the app store that has been servicing this. -Jobs

Game Center, this is also meant to help the viral spread of applications, when your friends challenge you to a game that you don’t have. There’s also gifting, so if you have an app that you love, you can gift it to someone.

11:27AM Gizmodo:
Q: Can you do anything to make these phones more safe so people wont’ use them when they shouldn’t be using them (like when driving).
A: I think we do more than most to connect our phones into cars’ control systems. We’ve done a great job for handsfree calling and such. We’ve done a better job on that than everyone else.

Q: Are there any plans for you to run unsigned applications, like on Android?
A: There is a porn store for Android to go to. You can download them, your kids can download them. That’s a place we don’t want to go. We’re not going to go there.

“There was no decision to make as far as multitasking. Some of the earlier hardware can’t support multitasking at all.”

“We do not have any plans to become a worldwide ad agency. We tried to buy a company called admob, and Google came in and snatched them from us. We bought Quattro instead. They’re teaching us and we’re learning as fast as we can.”

11:17AM Gizmodo:
Q: Is there a reason why you won’t be able to see a timeline in Twitter or an IM conversation in the background?
A: We think it works better with the push notifications as it’s in place now. The fast-app switching is very complicated and more impressive than what we demoed.

Q: Why have you veered away from widgets on the iPad?
A: We just shipped it on Saturday. And then we rested on Sunday.

Q: So widgets are possible?
A: Everything is possible.


11:12AM Gizmodo:
Q: How about iPad support?
A: iPhone OS will be on the iPad this fall.

Q: Is there going to be any change in Apple’s position on Java or Flash on version four?
A: No.

Q: The development of these rich iAds…will Apple make a development platform for people to make these ads?
A: This isn’t necessary. They’re all HTML5 ads and people can choose any tools they want. As long as it’s HTMl5.

11:12AM Engadget:
Q: Will there be an ad approval process? A: (Jobs... super long pause) Um... well there's going to be some process... but these people are paying to run ads. So, I'm not sure it'll be anything other than a light touch.

11:11AM Gizmodo:
Q: Are there going to be achievement points, like Xbox Live?
A: We’re still looking at point options.

11:10AM Gizmodo:
Q: Will the social gaming network from Apple supplant all the social gaming networks already available? And what will Apple do different?
A: The problem was there are a bunch of different social networks out there. So the goal was to build it into the platform, and everyone can be on the same gaming platform. We expect developers will build this into their games because they’ll have a wider audience.

11:09AM Gizmodo:
Q: Given the huge demand of iPad demand in the US, will that impact the international launch?
A: No. It’ll still be near the end of April, like we said.

11:07AM Engadget:
Q: Given that multitasking will increase data usage, how do you think AT&T will handle that? A: (Jobs) I'm not sure that's a correct assumption.

Q: But what about Pandora? A: (Jobs) I don't think you're right. It doesn't use that much data.


Q&A Coming Up Shortly...

11:02AM Engadget:
"We are releasing it for end users for iPhone and iPod touch for users this summer. For the 3GS and iPod touch 3rd gen. And, for iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2nd gen, they will run many things... but there are some things they won't run, like multitasking."

"And, we're bringing OS 4 to the iPad this Fall."




11:01AM Engadget:
"So let's review. Multitasking, folders, enhanced mail, iBooks, enterprise, Game Kit, and iAd. And these are just seven of the 100 new user features. Now we are releasing a dev preview today."


11:00AM Engadget:
These ads are looking a lot more like apps. Almost totally separate apps that live inside apps. Is your mind blown yet?

"So that is iAd, and that is our seventh tent pole."

10:59AM Gizmodo:
Another sample ad comes from Target. It plays a target ad video. You can also custom-build a college dorm room.


10:57AM Engadget:
Now Steve is showing an Air Jordan ad with an embedded video. This is kind of cool -- the ad has a "history of the Air Jordan" app/ad.

"So here's Nike ID... you can make your own shoes. And there's an app right here that I can download to my phone."






10:55AM ARS:
"there's even a game in this ad!" Can see where the movie's playing, see it on the map (this is all still within the ad). "Have you ever seen an ad like this?" (total silence) "Anything even close?"


10:53AM Gizmodo:
An example, an app that delivers entertainment news. On the bottom there’s a Toy Story 3 banner. Jobs says “I’ve seen it, it’s really good.”

When you click on the ad, the ad takes over the screen. “All this stuff is done in HTML 5 by the way.”

If you tap on the X on the top left, you can go back to the app where you left off.




10:52AM Engadget:
"Because iAd is in the iPhone OS itself, we have figured out how to do interactive and video content without ever taking you out of the app."

"For devs to add this to their apps is really simple. They can do it in an afternoon. Apple is going to sell and host the ads, and we're going to do a 60/40 split."

Demo.


10:50AM Engadget:
"This is a pretty serious opportunity, and it's an incredible demographic. But we want to do more than that. We want to change the quality of the ads too."

"You know the ads on the web -- they're eye catching and interactive, but they don't deliver emotion. What we want to do with iAds is deliver interaction and emotion."

"So that's what iAd is all about. It's about motion plus interactivity. The ads keep you in your app. Today when you click on a banner ad, it yanks you out of your app and throws you onto the advertisers web page. So people don't click on the ads."

10:50AM Gizmodo:
An average person spends 30 minutes in an app all day. So if they put up one ad every 3 minutes, it’ll be 10 ads per day. Soon, they’ll have 10 million devices, leading to 1 billion ad impressions per day.


10:49AM Engadget:
"When you look at ads on a phone, it's not like a desktop. On a desktop, search is where it's at. But on mobile devices, that hasn't happened. Search is not happening on phones; people are using apps. And this is where the opportunity is to deliver advertising is."

10:48AM Gizmodo:
What’s happening is people spending a lot of time in apps. They’re using apps to get to data on the internet, rather than a generalized search.

10:47AM Engadget:
"So our seventh tent pole is called... iAd. It's mobile advertising. Now, what's this about?"

"We have a lot of free or reasonably priced apps... we like that, but our devs have to find ways to make money. So our devs are putting ads into apps, and for lack of a better way to say it, we think most of this kind of advertising sucks."


10:46AM Engadget:
"Our 6th tent pole is Game Center. This is a dev preview for OS 4. Gaming is extremely popular on the iPhone and iPod touch. We have 50,000 games. Let's compare that to the competition... the PSP and DS... we blow them out of the water."

"We want to make gaming even better on the iPhone -- so we added a social gaming network."

Wow. So Apple's got their Xbox Live. This is kind of huge. Achievements, leaderboards, match making.


10:44AM ARS:
1) Even better data protection
2) mobile device management, huge request
3) Wireless app distribution
4) multiple exchange accounts on a single phone
5) Exchange Server 2010 support
6) SSL VPN support


10:43AM Gizmodo:
For the fifth tentpole, Scott Forstall comes back on stage and shows off Enterprise features.

10:42AM Gizmodo:
It has access to all the same books on the iPad, and you just need to buy once and “read anywhere.” They’ll wirelessly sync the current page and bookmarks, just like the Amazon Kindle app does.

10:41AM Engadget:
"So that's number 3. Number 4... we're adding iBooks for iPhone OS 4."


10:40AM Engadget:
"Now if you want to focus on one account, we've added fast inbox switching. In addition we've added the option to organize by thread."

"And, open attachments. The ability to get an attachment and open it with an app for the app store."




10:39AM Gizmodo:
Third tentpole: Enhanced Mail app. First is a unified inbox. You can have multiple email accounts come into one screen. So you don’t have to jump between inboxes. You can have more than one Exchange account now too.


10:36AM Engadget:
"I want to make a folder with games in it. I have several games, so I just push my finger on an app, they start to jiggle, and I just drag one app on top of another and it instantly makes a folder. It also automatically names the folder based on the categories of these apps, or I can rename."

"I can drag this around anywhere I want. I can have as many as I'd like. I can also put a folder in the dock."

"Now one of the other things I wanted to show you was the homescreen, the ability to change the wallpaper."


10:35AM Engadget:
"So our second tentpole... folder."

"People are having to flick from page to page to page to find them. Folder fit the bill. Let me just show you what it's like."




10:34AM Engadget:
"Next, task completion. There are some apps that take awhile to complete a task. Like uploading pictures to flickr -- now it can continue to upload pictures in the background. And our last one -- fast app switching. It's what allows applications to save its state and stop running, and then restart instantly where you left it."


"So there are our seven services for multitasking. To go along with all this, we have this incredible user interface. And that is multitasking, which is our first tentpole for iPhone OS 4, and now back to Steve."

10:32AM Engadget:
"That is background location. Next, push notifications. They're very popular, in 9 months we've pushed more than 10b notifications."

"Now building on push notifications is local notifications. It doesn't need to use our servers."


10:31AM Gizmodo:
So how does this work? They’re adding an indicator on the status bar to show whether an application is asking for your location. It’s a little arrow on the top.


10:28AM ARS:
Next up is Background location. two classes of apps that want to use your location in the background: 1) turn by turn direction applications, like TomTom. Until now, if you left an app like TomTom, it would stop tracking your location and stop giving you directions but now you can keep tracking your location with GPS in the background while listening to music, etc.

GPS uses a fair bit of power but that's OK for an app like this cuz it's usually in your car and charging


2) second class of app is social networking applications, like Loopt. great solution for these apps that doesn't require GPS to be on all the time, using cell towers. our baseband is always connected to a cell tower, knows when you've moved from one to another. when we know you've switched between cell towers, we can wake up your app and tell it you've moved.

with all these apps, we take privacy very seriously


10:24AM Engadget:
Next up is VOIP. "Now when you're on Skype, you can switch to another app, and you get a double-high status bar. And when you're not running it in the foreground, you can still receive calls."

David Ponsford from Skype, "Thanks everybody. We have half a billion users, and iPhone OS 4 makes it even more convenient to use Skype."


"Until today navigating away from the app meant that I would go offline. Now I go into the background, but I can still receive calls."

"Hey Aaron are you there?" "Yeah you want to go to dinner tonight?" "Yeah, let me go into other apps to find a restaurant."

10:22AM Gizmodo:
“It took developers just one day to make Pandora fully background aware.”

With the new APIs, Pandora just plays in the background without you having to do anything. “Notice the performance of the browser even though Pandora is playing in the background,” he says as he fires up Safari.


10:21AM ARS:
with iPhone OS 4, Pandora can continue to play music in the background while you switch between apps and you can even use iPod controls on the lock screen to control Pandora. inviting up Pandora founder Tim Westergren to demo.


10:19AM ARS:
we're really excited about adding multitasking. how are we adding multitasking while preserving battery life and performance? looked at tens of thousands of apps and distilled the services that they need to multitask in the background. in iPhone OS 4, we're providing those services as APIs to developers. so devs can add multitasking while the system preserves battery life.

10:19AM Engadget:
"So to explain how we did this while preserving battery and performance... Scott Forstall."

10:17AM Engadget:
"I'm gonna launch mail, this has a URL -- so I jump to safari -- so I want to go back to mail... I double click the home button and a window raises that shows me all the apps that are running."

"Now I want to go to ebay -- I go right to where I left off in the apps, now I want to play a game -- now I want to play a game, Tap Tap Revenge, it keeps me where I was. Again, the game stops, let me go back and look at mail."

"So now I want to go back to my game. Pretty cool, huh?"




"And again, I can go home anytime I want. Boom I'm home. Make sense? Really simple UI, puts all the apps at the bottom that are running." You can scroll through the list. "Also, you see the new look of the dock. So that is multitasking. We've been using it a lot and it changes the way you use the iPhone."


10:15AM ARS:
It's really easy to implement multitasking in a way that really drains battery life, and it's really easy to implement it in a way that reduces the performance of the foreground app, so if you don't do it just right, your phone's gonna feel sluggish and your battery life will go way down. we figured out how to implement this for 3rd party apps and avoid these things.

"took us a little longer, but we figured out how to do it"


10:14AM Engadget:
"We're going to talk about 7 new features... the first one which is the biggest one... multitasking."

"Now we weren't the first to this party, but we're gonna be the best. Just like cut and paste."

10:12AM Engadget:
Over 1500 new APIs in OS 4. Devs can access the calendar, photo library, quicklook...

"We're releasing a framework called accelerate -- for hardware accelerated math functions."

"In addition, there's over 100 new user features. Create playlists, 5x digital zoom, tap to focus on video, gift apps, geotagging, places in the photo app, change the homescreen wallpaper, bluetooth keyboards... spell checker."


10:10AM Engadget:
"Now let's get to the iPhone. We won the JD Power award for 2010, but we've won it for the last 3 years in a row. Now if we take a look at market share, one way to look at it is what's the share of use -- what is US mobile browser use?"

"iPhone has a 64% mobile browser use share... everything else added together is half the iPhone."

"We've sold over 50m iPhones to date, and if you add the touch, over 85m iPhones and iPod touches. If you're a dev, that's a plum market to go after."

"So today we are giving a dev preview of iPhone OS 4. We've been working on this for a while, it's pretty great -- we're going to ship this summer and release a dev preview today."

10:07AM Engadget:
"So that's a little update on the iPad. Now I'd like to talk about the App store. Users have downloaded well over 4b apps. Yeah. To date. And we have over 185,000 apps in the App Store. And we have over 3500 iPad apps in the store. These apps on the iPad are just amazing. I want to show you some screenshots of some of the apps. You'll be surprised how great these are if you haven't seen them."

"We've got some awesome driving games."

"Marvel's got a great comic book app... weather, the universe, MLB... fantastic apps. Epicurious for recipes. Etrade... this is a fantastic app from IMBD."

"And of all the futuristic magazines out there, Pop Sci is really great. And Netflix... the quality of the video is very nice... and... where would we be without an accordion?"



10:06AM Engadget:
"Beyond all the numbers, this is what it was about for us."


10:06AM Engadget:
"iBooks, over 600,000 downloads. We've gotten tremendous feedback on iBooks. The first day iPad apps... users downloaded over 1m apps." As of today, users have downloaded 3.5m."


10:05AM Engadget:
"The first day we sold 300,000 iPads, and I want to update you -- as of today we've sold about 450,000." "I'm told Best Buy is out of stock... we're making them as fast as we can. We can't make enough of them... so we'll have to try harder."


10:04AM Engadget:
"Thanks for coming this morning. We have something we're pretty excited about -- and that is iPhone 4. Before we get to that I have some updates. The first is the iPad -- we just started shipping. Before we shipped it we got some great reviews..."


10:03AM:
Steve Jobs is out

10:00AM Engadget:
"Ladies and gentlemen, please switch your devices to silent mode."

Gizmodo:
We’re inside. People are being seated. Anyone with a camera is being separated out for some reason. Seriously?

09:59AM


We will be live blogging the iPhone OS 4.0 keynote address here starting tomorrow at 10AM Pacific.

Since events like this tend to bring down servers we will use a collection of quotes and images from various sources to give you the best coverage possible.

*Thanks to Engadget, Gizmodo, and Ars Technica.