

Steve Jobs live from WWDC 2010 - agotterer
http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/07/steve-jobs-live-from-wwdc-2010/

======
j79
Goodness. Just read about the iPhone using a "Backside illumination" sensor,
Googled it, and found this Wikipedia article:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backside_illumination>

At the bottom: "The new iPhone 4 uses this type of sensor in its camera."

I love the times we live in.

------
nixme
Re: iOS 4 upgrade price, "We finally found a way to get them for free to our
iPod touch users."

I'd guess the GAAP changes Apple lobbied for [1] made the difference.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/09/accounting-
rules-c...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/09/accounting-rules-change-
could-end-ipod-touch-update-fee.ars)

~~~
awolf
Ah interesting.

I'm a cynic: I assumed their motive for doing this was to make their iAd
platform more compelling to advertisers.

~~~
masklinn
Though it probably helped as well.

------
stevejohnson
This will probably get lost in the noise, but I want to make an important
point about the WiFi issues: it's not because there were too many _users,_ but
rather that there were too many _access points._ There were _570_ access
points in the room, probably the result of people bringing along their MiFis
and similar devices. Running a 571th device would not have solved that
problem.

~~~
rmorrison
Sounds like my apartment in San Fran at any given point in time = ) Included
in the long list of wifi networks here are several by a company that spam
advertises through SSIDs.

From their website: "Freedom of Expression"...

------
mclin
Video chat. It's been available in asia for ~5 years? yet no one uses it. Will
it be different in North America?

~~~
jokermatt999
Smart phones were available in the US for ages before the iPhone, yet Jobs'
and Apple's star power helped them to become more widespread. The whole
"reality distortion field" can be used for good if it's to help spread
adoption of interesting technologies, imo. I think the fact that it's coming
from Apple will help adoption, even if the implementation is the same or even
worse.

~~~
tcskeptic
Really? The iPhone success is a result of a "reality distortion field"? That
is essentially what you are saying, that it has all been a result of smoke 'n
mirrors and "star power". But it hasn't. For all of the criticisms you can
throw and Apple decisions, the iPhone has been truly revolutionary, and the
biggest revolution has been that it is a smartphone that doesn't make the
average person want to cry when trying to use it, in fact, it makes the
average person giggle with pleasure. That isn't hype, it isn't a reality
distortion field, it is the result of real, hard, work.

~~~
jokermatt999
That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that it can help. Yes, the
iPhone is a good product. I understand that's part of the reason behind the
fervent love of it. I think that Apple's image can help things succeed.

Look at the iPod and the iPad. Who the hell had an MP3 player or a tablet
before they came out? Not many people. Apple is good at creating needs and
good products where products already existed. I'm not saying their design
isn't part of that, I'm saying that their image can certainly help. We don't
know enough about this new FaceTime to say it's instantly better than previous
products other than the fact that it's free, and gong to be an open standard.
Since we can't speak about the design of it, I chose to speak about another
factor that could cause it to succeed.

Edit: "Reality distortion field" was a horrible choice of words on my part by
the way. I meant that Apple's success at marketing would help this product
succeed, no matter how the implementation was, not that their implementation
will be or has been poor.

------
stanleydrew
Market share: iPhone 28%, Android 9%

Mobile browsing: iPhone 58.2%, Android 22.7%

Looks like Android is edging the iPhone in mobile pageviews per user. Or am I
thinking about this wrong?

~~~
gyardley
That seems right, but it's possibly because iPhone users are more likely to
use the native-app version of popular websites.

~~~
enjo
Is that not true of Android users as well? Most of the sites I use on a
regular basis have an Android presence as well (Facebook, Yelp, etc..)

I think the probable reason is that the web-browsing data tends to be a few
months ahead of those gartner market-share estimates.

~~~
gyardley
Maybe. We have an analytics client for both platforms, though, and we just
don't see the same level of application usage per user on Android. Why this is
I'm not sure.

------
SandB0x
"With Farmville on the iPhone, you'll be able to farm anytime, anywhere."

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

~~~
jakarta
"Its really going to piss me off that my phone call isn't going through
because some jerkoff is harvesting virtual cabbage."

~~~
pohl
Whoever said that must not be able to talk & use the network at the same time?

~~~
nooneelse
No, you missed the point. The point was that the people farming are going to
be taking up bandwidth and this will (further) degrade network performance for
others. And so when the speaker has a call fail and this occurs to them, it
will be annoying, presumably due to how frivolous a use of bandwidth that
activity seems to the speaker.

------
weeksie
The FaceTime thing is epic. That said, it just gets more and more dangerous to
go out and get hammered and start drunk-dialing people . . . The number of
post-bender apologies that I usually have to make will probably go up by at
least 50%.

~~~
NZ_Matt
It's only iphone 4 to iphone 4 so it's basically useless most of the time.

~~~
tvon
Jobs: "we’re going to make FaceTime an open industry standard."

Should be interesting.

~~~
gokhan
They have to. It will be dead otherwise, based on the current prerequisites
(iOS4 to iOS4, only on wifi)

~~~
FluidDjango
I seem to recall he said the "only on wifi" was a temporary thing - while "we
work with cell carriers" (I noted the _plural_ : carrierS).

~~~
jodrellblank
Hello from outside America; we don't have AT&T.

~~~
tsally
Hello from inside America; you don't really want AT&T.

------
siculars
CNN is streaming the keynote 30 minutes behind real-time. <http://www.cnn.com>

~~~
karzeem
Wow. You know you've got marketing down when CNN's top story is simply a feed
of your product announcement.

~~~
bonsaitree
I think that's more a reflection of CNN's lax journalism.

~~~
mkramlich
CNN is in the field of journalism?

------
butterfi
The good news: A Netflix client! The bad news: AT&T just cut your data plan...

------
gbhn
I'm not sure I follow the "Retinal Display" name. Is this just branding on a
300dpi pixel resolution? Or is there something to do with multi-resolution
support for apps (those coded in the old resolution will still get up-
converted text resolution, it sounded like).

~~~
alain94040
Let this be a lesson in marketing to all of you...

As geeks, we'd tend to say "New and improved screen resolution: 300 DPI!".
Which doesn't mean anything to 99% of the general population. But "retinal
display", withs its attached explanation, now that's really something.

Words matter.

~~~
raganwald
You see this all the time on everything from advertisements to infomercials.
There are two simple templates for every feature you want to pitch:

Problem First:

Tired of text that looks like it was built out of lego blocks? iPhone 4.0 has
a 300DPI Retinal Display, which is so sharp that the human eye cannot see
individual dots on the screen.

Feature First:

iPhone 4.0 has a 300DPI Retinal Display, which means you will never see blocky
pixels again: the display is so sharp that the human eye cannot see the dots.

...

Tired of working around the clock on a cool new feature only to have customers
ask you "So What?" These two feature pitch templates explain why customers
should care, which means more sales for you!

Or perhaps:

Reg Braithwaite's "World Of Go" uses gestures instead of buttons, which means
the entire screen can be devoted to the board, making it look like a Go board
instead of like a Go program.

------
ovi256
The antenna idea (the metal frame is divided, acting as multiple antennas) is
really nice, and so obvious in retrospect. Yeah, everything's simple in
hindsight. I wonder if Apple invented and thus patented that.

~~~
wmblaettler
Won't your body affect the antennae when you hold the device though?

~~~
ovi256
If you touch the two parts, in theory you short the antenna to the ground and
you absorb most of the radiated power. But I'm sure they have thought of that.
You see, RF (radio frequency) waves behave quite differently than DC (direct
current). Your skin must have a high enough impedance to RF that it does not
affect the antenna.

But then, what happens if you short the gap with metal ? That sounds a lot
less nice. I'm sure the RF power amp must be shortcut protected, so you don't
risk damaging it, but if you short the gap, and thus the antenna, bye bye
outgoing packets.

Maybe it's more complicated than that, and the other metal half is not the
ground for the antenna, but it's insulated - floating - from the exposed
antenna. Therefore shorting the gap would not short the antenna to ground but
it would modify the physical characteristics of the antenna, therefore its
impedance, therefore the radiating efficiency. This is all messy, as I have
never practiced RF design, only took classes.

------
jasongullickson
Looks like it's the year of bombing demos...even Steve's has been hit!

~~~
muhfuhkuh
Steve couldn't get on that vaunted AT&T network. Someone shouted "Verizon".
Haha.

~~~
jodrellblank
Hurr Hurr but look at the pictures - it's on WiFi.

[http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/06/apple-...](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/06/apple-
wwdc-2010-187-rm-eng.jpg)

~~~
joezydeco
So the wifi is saturated because there are 500 people streaming photos and
tweets from the hall.

C'mon. Can't Apple just live stream these keynotes from here on out? Everyone
on all sides knows these announcements are in the public sphere 250
milliseconds after Steve says it.

For being so controlling of their media message, why let the bloggers run the
final leg?

~~~
enjo
It's a really nice way to get a lot of really influential people on your side
I'd think. By letting the media outlets have control over the dissemination of
information it gives them a lot of incentive to stay on your good side (see:
gizmodo not being invited to the keynote).

~~~
joezydeco
But the media outlets that really matter to Apple (Newsweek or WSJ/Mossberg
for example) get access way before the launch so they can write their
articles.

------
yurisagalov
Looks like we're not sparing any hits today. First a shot at Google Ads,
followed by an indirect shot at Adobe.

Actually I found the shot at google ads amusing. The quip about how (Theo? I
can't read his first name) Gray earned more money on the app store than in 5
years of operating Google ads on his website periodictable.com, appears to
have taken down his site

(The slide I'm referring to is
[http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/06/apple-...](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/06/apple-
wwdc-2010-089-rm-eng.jpg))

~~~
tvon
I think those were fairly light shots, at least compared to what was said at
Google I/O.

------
tvon
I'm not really clear on what the gyroscope adds that wasn't there before, can
someone clarify?

~~~
jasongullickson
Accelerometers can only detect orientation relative to gravity, gyros can
detect it relative to themselves.

This is the same thing that Nintendo added to their controllers a few months
ago.

For example I wrote an app that calculates Horsepower based on weight and
acceleration, however it's hard to determine if detected acceleration is due
to the vehicle or gravity (if the device tips or tilts during the test). By
having the gyros available, I can detect and compensate for the error-inducing
influence of gravity.

~~~
dkokelley
Also, astronauts can now use the iPhone effectively in space.

~~~
snissn
' "With Farmville on the iPhone, you'll be able to farm anytime, anywhere." '

------
fjabre
It looks like Apple now represents a very real and serious competitive threat
to Google's #1 money maker: ads.

They now control a 3rd of the mobile market (iPads excluded) and are seemingly
poised to continue this trend with the new iPhone packing several new and
revolutionary killer features. Again this excludes the sold-every-3-seconds
iPads. We all know that they'll get the lion's share of what's left of RIM and
Windows mobile in a year or two.

Also, Jobs definitely didn't hold back when introducing Bing and iAds during
the presentation.

I'm a little uneasy about all of this of course. I love the web and have
devoted much of my career to building web apps that run on laptops and
netbooks but I have to say, love it or hate it, Apple is bringing some serious
game changing shit to the table and continues to iterate faster than anyone
can catch up.

~~~
walkon
>We all know that they'll get the lion's share of what's left of RIM and
Windows mobile in a year or two.

I disagree - I think Android devices will experience more growth than iPhone
OS (or iOS) in a year or two.

------
danielnicollet
So with all this great stuff (amazing new features, great market share, etc.),
I wonder how Apple doesn't open the iPhone to non-ATT carriers. That's the
single reason I have been staying on my good ol'RIM BB. Any ideas?

~~~
unexpected
There's an AT&T exclusivity agreement in place. It was for 5 years, set to
expire in 2012.

------
bl4k
gdgt coverage: [http://live.gdgt.com/2010/06/07/live-wwdc-2010-keynote-
cover...](http://live.gdgt.com/2010/06/07/live-wwdc-2010-keynote-coverage/)

~~~
andrewcaito
This was submitted here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1410917>, but I
wanted to comment to mention that it automatically refreshes with good
pictures.

~~~
bl4k
ye I also prefer it because the site scrolls easier, comments are better and
there are more/better pictures

------
jasongullickson
iOS 4 - do I sense another Cisco trademark battle?

~~~
FluidDjango
Jobs said that Apple had worked out "an arrangement" or some such with Cisco.

------
turtle4
I can't believe that the demo isn't being run off of its own network.
Seriously, if you can't get good reception inside, at least run your own
dedicated wifi network. What were they thinking?

~~~
poutine
You don't understand WIFI. All WIFI devices share the same 2.4/5GHz bandwidth
and thus if you have too many devices in one physical location you're screwed.

~~~
herdrick
Sure, but why didn't they use directional antennas to get a demo-dedicated
network on the stage? Which would be a good permanent feature for any big
conference room come to think of it.

~~~
bbatsell
That doesn't eliminate the problem of interference from all of the other
networks on the same channel (or on the neighboring channel that shares part
of the spectrum), which are all using omnidirectional antennas. It can help,
certainly, but 570 Wi-Fi networks in one ballroom is going to be hell on any
network chip trying to sort through all the noise.

~~~
herdrick
No, I'm including all the antennas in that - why not use directional ones for
all the networks in the room to keep the stage free of extra networks?

~~~
bbatsell
Because Apple had control over, maybe, 10-20 APs in the room (and those almost
certainly only constituted one mesh network). The 569 other networks were from
devices controlled by journalists and other attendees, the majority of which
were MiFis (according to Jobs), which don't even have ports for external
antennas.

------
crocowhile
HD display and movies, 5MP camera, increased battery life, folders and
multitasking, gyroscope... I have all this on the Nexus One and that is a 6
months old phone. I think this WWDC is signing the end of an era: jobs has
lost his famous innovative advantage and now he is running behind. Android/HTC
had these features in their last generation phones and with EVO coming out
they are going to make the iPhone 4 obsolete already.

~~~
houseabsolute
You left out all the things you don't have on your Nexus One. An HD video
camera, or any camera at all that captures at 30 fps. The Nexus One's display
is lower resolution than the announced iPhone display, and some of the Nexus
resolution is fake resolution from the novel pixel setup. Video calling.
Guitar Hero, Netflix, and Farmville. iAd (you know that is going to be a draw
for some developers). Universal copy and paste.

I'm currently using a Nexus One as my primary phone, but let's please make
honest comparisons.

~~~
crocowhile
N1 has hd video at 20fps. display is better, ok. guitar hero, netflix and
farmville I would not call them innovations. farmville is a way to overcome
flash of course.

~~~
evgen
In that case my current iPhone has hd video at 1 fp5s. If it isn't at least
23.976 fps then it isn't hd video. Period.

~~~
crocowhile
Let me be clear because here it seems I get a waterfall of downvotes for
daring saying something against an apple product.

Multitouch = innovation

Apple store = innovation

GPS = innovation

UI thought for mobiles = innovation

Apple came out first with those things. Then people catched up. This time what
is the innovation? A bit more pixels on the display and the farmville client?
Are you kidding me?

~~~
houseabsolute
Your original claim was that it was obsolete on arrival and had little to do
with innovation. You also claimed that Android had feature equivalency with
the newly announced iPhone but were selective about the features that are
equivalent. Finally, you claimed implicitly that the feature list is what
makes the phone, which is obviously untrue. That's why you're getting
downvotes.

~~~
crocowhile
My claim was that there is nothing innovative in the iPhone 4 compared to the
N1 and that technically speaking __EVO __makes it look obsolete (EVO does
1280×720 @ 25 fps, front camera, hdmi output, supports SD card etc).

~~~
younata
for the record. 720p is 1280 x 720. As you said, the evo is 25 fps the iphone
is at 30 fps, with the same resolution.

This is being pedantic, and doesn't really help the argument that the iphone 4
is better, but, at least one of your points is invalid.

------
jokermatt999
This somewhat tangential, but I have to say that I've only seen one "live
coverage" method that really worked well IMO: Lifehacker's LiveWaving of
Google IO. I still haven't really used Wave at all, but that really seemed to
work well for a live coverage event. It felt much less "hackish" than the
auto-refresh and scroll down method.

------
martythemaniak
Here's something I wrote back in December based on no info:
[http://martin.drashkov.com/2009/12/iphone-4g-predictions.htm...](http://martin.drashkov.com/2009/12/iphone-4g-predictions.html)

Not that it means very much - changes like the screen, storage and ram/cpu
were pretty obvious.

------
jodrellblank
Ars Technica coverage: [http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/wwdc-
keynote-steve...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/wwdc-keynote-
steve-jobs-liveblog.ars?comments=1#comments-bar)

MacRumours coverage: <http://www.macrumorslive.com/>

------
expertcs
no iPod touch update? I was hoping they will at least have a camera in the
iPod touch added.

~~~
rje
The iPod line is usually updated at its own event in September. I expect to
see an iPod with a front facing camera then.

------
nexneo
"Video calls" is one more thing of the day!

------
mdg
Please just say its coming to Verizon already.

~~~
tvon
I think AT&T giving discounted renewals six months in advance is good
indication that they will be losing exclusivity early in 2011.

~~~
agotterer
Interesting. Wouldn't it be an advantage for another network to leak that
information to deter signing with att?

~~~
maukdaddy
I would imagine there are HUGE penalties for this. Also, just because AT&T's
exclusivity agreement expires in 2011, doesn't mean another carrier has agreed
to carry the iPhone yet.

------
ThomPete
I am beginning to wonder whether iAds is the reason Apple don't want Flash on
their mobile devices.

~~~
stcredzero
Actually, that makes sense. If Flash were on the iPhoneOS devices along with
some kind of cross-compile dev environment, then Adobe could develop its own
iAd clone. By controlling runtimes, and development environments, Apple makes
it much harder for a competitor "ad within the app" framework to exist.

~~~
jodrellblank
How does banning Flash stop DoubleClick from releasing an Objective-C library
which loads small ads from their servers for in-app display, and gives
developers a cut of the revenue?

~~~
ThomPete
How many advertising agencies and marketing houses do you think have objective
C programmers with experience in flash banners?

~~~
stcredzero
Right, so that undercuts Adobe's developer base. That's also consistent with a
strategy of favoring HTML5 over Flash.

