20:00 Three Foo Fighters songs later, and it’s all over. A good conference I think – are you excited about the new iThings?
19:42 – The Foo Fighters are here, apparently. Whoo, go them. They are going to sing a song about the new iPhone. It’s called Times Like These. When they are done (five minutes later) they get a standing ovation. Yay, woo, go Foo Fighters.
19:41 – iPods are taking over.
19:38 – US prices: iPod shuffle, $49. iPod nano, $149. Keeping the 4th gen iPod touch, 16GB at $199. New iPod touch, 32GB, $299.
19:34 – New earphones confirmed. Earpods. So it turns out that Vietnamese leak was genuine, hurrah! Called EARPODS, will be coming soon as a standalone and with all new iPod / iPhone products.
19:33 – Now we talkin’ about speakers. Apparently Apple include these in one or two of their products… new earbud coming, eh Apple?
19:31 – Ooh, Siri on iPod Touch now. But not iPhone 4? Pssh. Oh shi-, iPod Touch coming in multiple colours for the first time ever. Five colours. Cool! Overall, a pretty decent upgrade!
19:30 – There’s a safety strap for the iPod Touch. So you don’t go dropping it with all that gaming. Also: Bluetooth 4, Wireless N 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz. AirPlay Mirroring so you can play on the big screen. Although the image shows two people playing on it at once, how does that work?
19:27 – There was a weird Clumsy Ninja demo. Apparently it reacts and learns. A bit hard to get across from still images. Actual news: 40 hours of music battery life from the iPod Touch. New camera too, 5 megapixel with all the same tech as the iPhone 5’s. Could be quite decent then!
19:22 – 6.1mm thin. Cor. Lightest iPod Touch ever. Same resolution and size display as the iPhone 5. Also includes the A5 chip, so should be quick quick – but not as fast the iPhone 5!
19:21 – Also the new Nano includes Bluetooth and the new Lightning connector. Next up: iPod Touch. Talking it up as a gaming device.
19:19 – Many colours available! Tiny home button, tiny 2.5″ multi-touch display. Also, FM radio, fitness and pedometer built in. Sorry, Nike+. Also – Bluetooth! This one could be good hacking toy. Lightning connector, of course.
19:18 – OH MY GOD IT LOOKS LIKE A TINY PHONE. 5.4mm thin.
19:17 – Discussing the 6 generations of the Nano – “what can we add?” Apparently: large display, nice controls, thin and light. So just like the iPhone 5 then?
19:16 – OK, now we’re talking iPod refresh. Excitement?
19:15 – So no appearance (yet) of the rumoured Apple Spotify equivalent music streaming service. But the new iTunes isn’t available until late October! I wonder why it’s so far off?
19:14 – Looks like a much cleaner interface overall in the new iTunes. Also, iCloud is actually integrated sensibly – it was quite confusing before.
19:11 – And now, back to our regularly scheduled live blogging.
19:10 – Just to confirm, the iPhone with 4G will be available in the UK on EE, which is the new name of Everything Everywhere. They’re also looking to bring out a number of Android and Windows Phones including the Nokia Lumia 920 LTE, Samsung Galaxy S III LTE and HTC One XL.
19:08 – iTunes 11 confirmed. Looks really nice, actually! I wonder when we’ll see it for PCs? Oddly enough, musical artists can now share photos with you. Could be good for photobooks I guess?
19:06 – iOS 6 release date: September 19th! Mark it on ye calendars!
19:05 – New iTunes for mobile devices. Integrated Facebook likes, which is pretty cool I guess. Good way to share apps.
19:02 – “Now in addition to announcing iPhone 5, we have something near and dear to our hearts to talk about today — and that is music.” Mac Pandora incoming? iTunes 11? Yay.
19:01 – Preorders start on September 14th, ships on September 21st in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. More countries on the 28th.
19:00 – Same price as the iPhone 4S. In the US, that’s $199, $299 or $399 on contract. iPhone 3GS is gone.
18:56 – So, the iPhone 5 has officially been announced! A new 4″ display with row for five rows of home screen icons, 20% thinner and lighter, a new A6 chip that offers double the performance, an improved 8 megapixel camera, support for LTE in the UK and better battery life than ever. What do you think – going to preorder one?
18:53 – Wrapping up now. Video time, and then a price and release date?
18:49 – Siri does sports now, as mentioned earlier. Google Now already does this :)
18:45 – Safari updates: Full screen mode, synching between desktop and PC. Passbook works from the lockscreen. No NFC mentioned!
18:43 – Essentially all of this is just catching up to Google, without actually using Google maps.
18:42 – Turn by turn directions confirmed! Apparently there’ll be some sort of cinematic camera angles too. LIVE YOUR LIFE AS A MOVIE.
18:40 – Now a demonstration of iOS 6. Will we see NFC contactless payments? I think so. Scott Forstall has appeared. Turn by turn directions!
18:39 – Of course, there’ll be an adapter.
18:38 – It’s time to talk connectors. Going over long history of 30 pin connector, since 2003. But now the move is to wireless, they are saying. New connector is confirmed as ‘Lightning’. Improved durability, reversible, 80% smaller.
18:37 – OK, wideband audio. Should fill up more of the spectrum. 20 partners for this at launch. iTunes wideband, here we come.
18:36 – THREE MICROPHONES? Two for noise cancellation, I would assume. Bottom, front, back. Improved speakers too.
18:35 – 1080p video, improved video stability, face detection. You can take photos while video recording. Facetime is now 720p HD.
18:33 – Panorama mode. Yay? Okay, it does look pretty good:
18:33 – Digital image processing also improved. Next generation ISP, spatial noise reduction, smart filter, better low light performance, 40% faster.
18:32 – Camera lens is 25% smaller, ‘dynamic low light mode’, ‘precision lens alignment’, ‘sapphire crystal.’ Look out Lumia 920!
18:31 – 8 megapixel backside illuminated camera with hybrid ir filter, five element lens and f/2.4 aperture. What does that hybrid IR filter do then?
18:30 – Apparently battery life to be better than the iPhone 4S, despite faster CPU, GPU and bigger screen. More batteries I suppose!
18:29 – Verdict from the ground on that demo: Not amazing, but pretty cool. Now there’s a battery symbol next to Phil’s face. Battery life incoming.
18:28 – Game Center allows for time-shifted head to head racing, similar to what you get with Trackmania and other racing titles. Cool for mobiles.
18:27 – As promised. The graphics in this game looks pretty darn amazing. Console level graphics? Yeah, as much as the Tegra 3 looks console quality I’d say, maybe a bit better.
18:26 – Ah, interesting! Apple A6 chip, twice as fast CPU and graphics. Now that is new, although perhaps not a surprise. Is that quad-core then? Apple promising 2x performance across the board.
18:24 – LTE support for US, Canada, South Korea, Hong Kong, China… What about Europe? Yup, Everything Everywhere for the UK and Deutsche Telecom. Just to confirm – we’ve got LTE iPhones in the UK and they’ll be exclusive to Everything Everwhere, the merger of T-Mobile and Orange.
18:21 – 44% higher contrast and integrated touch on that screen, as predicted. That’s how the phone is so thin. LTE radio, also HSPA+ and DC-HSPCA. So faster data connections for all, yay. A single chip is used for voice and data, and one chip for radio. A dynamic antenna as well.
18:20 – OpenTable looks pretty good. Apps can be bigger. Also, HD video fits as its a 16:9 aspect ratio. No surprises yet.
18:19 – Black bars for legacy apps who don’t use the extra space. Again, as predicted. Some developers have already updated.
18:17 – 4″ display, as predicted. There’s a fifth row of icons, again as predicted. So far no surprises, but it is good to see the real deal.
18:16 – It’s 18% thinner, 20% lighter. 7.6mm, 112g. Damn. Retina display, 326 PPI. Made entirely of glass and aluminium. As expected, but still cool to see!
18:14 – It appears magically from the stage. Five rows of app icons, as expected. Looks pretty crazy. A video is being shown.
18:13 – Today we’re introducing iPhone 5. That’s the official name, yay.
18:12 – “We have some exciting news about the iPhone.” OH HERE IT COMES. Phil Schiller is talking iPhone. Big cheers from the crowd. What did you expect? ;)
18:12 – The average customer uses over 100 apps. Which is a bit mad, to think about it. I thought I was one of the heavy users, but clearly not!
18:11 – 700,000 apps, 250,000 for iPad – way above Android’s numbers, especially for tablet optimised apps. The price of fragmentation!
18:10 – Apple making fun of other tablets, as iPads account for 91% of web traffic; above their 68% market share. 94% of Fortune 500 use iPads.
18:09 – Apple have sold 84 million iPads, good for 68% of the market share of tablets worldwide. Absolutely crazy stuff.
18:07 – Apple have sold 17 million iPads between April and June. They’ve also had the highest market share in notebook sales over the past 3 months in the US – that’s pretty crazy actually.
18:00 – We’re here to live blog the Apple iPhone 5 event! Stay tuned for more stuff – you’ll have to refresh the page as we’re not all fancy, though!