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Apple WWDC: iOS 5, Lion, iCloud

Steve Jobs was on hand today to kick off Apple's WWDC keynote. Lion took the lead, with no surprises except a $29.99 pricetag and a July ship date. iOS is getting a new "Notification Center"; Twitter is being integrated; he announced a split thumbable keyboard for iPads; wireless syncing; and a native IM system for iOS devices, shipping in the Fall. iCloud will be free, syncing apps (Mail, Calendar, Contacts and iWork apps) across devices. Photostream is iCloud for pictures. iTunes iCloud will let you re-download your tracks at last, and iTunes Match will let you match your ripped CDs to Apple's copies.

21 of 662 comments (clear)

  1. In other words... by Admodieus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...he introduced the Apple community to Android, Windows Phone 7, Linux, Windows, and OS X Snow Leopard.

    --
    "It's a reverse vampire...they....they crave the sun!"
    1. Re:In other words... by roothog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As trollish as that looks, I was sort of thinking it too. I didn't realize how far behind the times Apple had gotten, until I saw the list of coming features and thought to myself, "I've had that for years".

    2. Re:In other words... by ibmjones · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...he introduced the Apple community to . . . OS X Snow Leopard.

      OS X Snow Leopard? Who makes that?

    3. Re:In other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Apple has always been more about making things actually "just work" instead of introducing new things. Before the iPhone you could do all those things and more on Windows Mobile and Symbian phones. Before the iPod there were MP3 players with far more features than the iPod had.
      The difference is that Apple takes some existing features, and does them _really_ well. You could browse the web on Windows Mobile, but the experience was pretty painful. The iPhone was the first to make that feature actually useful enough to use all the time. Same with the iPod. I have a little MP3 player from Samsung and I can't for the life of me remember how to use it. It just isn't intuitive.

      It is changing a little though. For example the notification system was taken exactly from Android without significantly improving it. And I'm disappointed that there were no changes to the home screen to be more dynamic to allow quick access to certain features (like turning Wifi/bluetooth on/off).
      I still think the user experience is better on iOS than Android, but the gap is much smaller than it was just 6 months ago. Apple will have to be a bit more creative to maintain that lead there.

    4. Re:In other words... by LordRobin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No you haven't.

      This happens every time Apple announces a new product. Someone invariably claims that it's nothing new, because some half-assed crappy version of the idea exists somewhere. Then once the product is actually released, everyone is amazed at what a leap it is.

      This goes all the way back to the iPod. "Oooh, an MP3 player. Big deal. I have one of those."

      ------RM

  2. I skipped Snow Leopard by xjerky · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But I will definitely go for Lion at $29. The thing is, how will it be made available to Leopard users? Jobs said it was Mac App Store-only.

    (posting non-anon this time)

    --
    A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
  3. Oh how times change by Xunker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    2001: Record labels sue my.mp3.com in to oblivion.
    2011: Record labels can't wait to suck on the iTunes Cloud teat.

    --
    Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
    1. Re:Oh how times change by gnasher719 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      2001: Record labels sue my.mp3.com in to oblivion.
      2011: Record labels can't wait to suck on the iTunes Cloud teat.

      In between: Some major payment of money from Apple to the record companies.

  4. Re:Maybe some links would be nice? by Ambiguous+Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Then why post low-content live-bloggish "articles" here on slashdot? Post an article linking to one or two of those live blogs instead, or even add some sort of editorial commentary to the post.

    What was posted, though, I expect to be signed as "Sent from my Android" or similar.

    --
    Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
  5. Perhaps one of the biggest advances... by arcite · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Untethered idevices! Apple just opened themselves up to a whole new segment of the market...those people who don't have an iMac or Macbook. This means that anyone who can afford the lowest level idevice is able to get access to the whole ecosystem to handle all of their media, user created content, documents, ect.... The iCloud makes all of this possible. The data is persistent and secure forever, for all present and future devices. It only gets better from here on out; we are finally in the 21st century baby!

  6. Re:Matching my music with iTunes store? by OverlordQ · · Score: 1, Insightful

    so basically it's exactly like dropbox et al

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  7. Re:Give us the betas! by tooyoung · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think that the idea is that users don't interact with files and the file system. They interact with songs through the iTunes interface. I know there are a million and one reasons to do clever things with the file system organization for music, but I think that 99% of users don't really care about how their songs are laid out on the FS. They think of them as songs, not files.

  8. Re:Annnnnd it's a big nothing. by Chitlenz · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I was hoping for some new iphone ... or flash support... or SOMETHING new.

    ....flash support? hahahahahahahahahahahaha

    yeah its screwed up isn't it?

    Apple's approach to developers is

    1) We get to claim 30% of your revenue
    2) You have to live in a box and learn "our way" to stay there
    3) We can change the rules at any time

    It's almost dystopian, how the hell do they expect to attract developers with these kinds of restrictions?

    It has never been more clear that Wonziak did all the work, and Jobs did the marketing, and we all know who ended up running the place.

    Seriously, in the early 90's I wrote a lot of software on a 7200 PPC Apple, and loved it, but I just can't get into the new Macs. They feel like the government with all the rules.

    --
    Imagination is the silver lining of Intelligence.
  9. Re:Annnnnd it's a big nothing. by ctid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Putting very mildly indeed, iTunes Match is an important announcement.

    --
    Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
  10. Re:Give us the betas! by TobyRush · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Steve himself pointed out that MobileMe was a misstep. As someone who has cobbled together a cable-based home iTunes network, Gmail (via both a desktop/laptop web browser but also through iPhone's Mail app for notifications, etc.), Flickr & iPhoto, AppleTVs, a 60GB iPod, my wife's iPod Touch, Things for to do lists, etc., etc., etc., the only thing that is not encouraging to me about this is the thought of redoing everything again. But if Apple is actually putting some energy into this (and from the data center pictures, it looks like they are), it's might be too tempting to refuse.

    And iTunes Match? Does anyone else find it baffling how they are getting away with this? I mean, for $25 I get legal versions of every single—ahem, questionably procured, shall we say— tracks in my gigantic iTunes library? Did the record companies read the fine print on this? I mean, as a voracious music consumer, I'm NOT complaining... we've all known for a long time that things were going to have to change in regard to digital media and copyright. And say what you will about them, I could see Apple being the company to make it happen. But really... how did they get away with this?

    --
    Sam! If you will let me be,
    I will try them.
    You will see.
  11. Re:Annnnnd it's a big nothing. by gnasher719 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1) We get to claim 30% of your revenue

    ... and we paid out 2.5 billion dollars so far to developers. Also just out: The Apple app store (the one where you can buy apps for Macs only) is the _largest_ seller of PC software! Beating Walmart, Best Buy and anyone else. And can you tell me any other store that lets developers keep 70% of the revenue.

  12. Re:Annnnnd it's a big nothing. by clifyt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With $2.5 Billion in sales of independent software in the last year...thats how.

    I know several of developers that HATE the idea of what the iStore is...and at the same time, are making far more money using it, selling their products far cheaper, than they ever did before.

    You can either be religious about all of this, or you can be pragmatic.

    If you were selling anywhere else, you'd have to deal with CC processing, you'd have to deal with boxed products. You'd have to deal with a shitload of other hassles...in this regard, the only hassle you have to do is to mind read what Steve Jobs is planning on doing next and for most developers, this isn't a problem.

    Even a friend that just has a product kicked out recently...said he made enough before it was kicked out...and it isn't like his code isn't reusable. Will fix the problems and resubmit.

    And if this is too much of a problem, they can always go program for Android.

  13. Dear Apple by Enry · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Welcome to last year.

    Love and kisses,
    Android

    Really, though all these things are good, but Apple is going for the same thing IBM and Microsoft tried in the 80s and 90s by locking users into a static platform. There's better bells and whistles now, but when Facetime can't connect with anything other than an iOS or OS X device, you'll have to say forget it and go with something more cross platform like Google Voice. Many of the new features advertised already exist in one form or another and the ones that are unique are more 'Huh. Interesting, but not enough to make my buy one'.

    1. Re:Dear Apple by blahbooboo · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You do realize that Apple released the code for FaceTime for others to build it into their clients. And you do realize that several important pieces of the new stuff are also made available to third party developers so they can participate, too? Exactly how is releasing code for others to use locking users into a static platform?

      When did Apple release FaceTime? Did this happen today, as yesterday everyone was still waiting??

  14. Re:It looks like this: by cheeks5965 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    i'm not going to argue the merits of your post, since we'd both be arguing with a distinct lack of facts. But the truth is that the record companies have the rights to the music, so if they don't like the online arrangement they're taking their ball and going home. mp3.com failed at the most important sales job -- getting the music companies on board. jobs extended his rds and convinced the record cos to buy in. and so you have this new service that's supported and works well.

    As for #4, I believe it is "4. Pay the record companies a boat load of cash." which is all they really want. can you blame them?

    --
    -- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
  15. Re:No install media, no deal by Deus.1.01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thats ok, my wallet was stuffed with those 500 dollars i saved buying an Asus laptop anyway.

    --
    My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.