WWDC ‘08 Rundown

Did you have your pants shot off by WWDC? Yea, us too but like that guy at the party who wakes up on the couch with sharpie marks on his face you probably forgot the blow by blow action. Don’t worry we got you covered. Unfortunately we can’t offer the complete run down in comic book form as awesome as that may be. There is no way we’re impersonating ESPN newscasters so strap in and prepare for the full coverage targeted right at your head

Act 1

Enter Steve Jobs

-For the first time in WWDC history Apple pulled a full house selling out tickets with 5,200 attendees.

-iPhone is the equivalent of a 3rd leg to Apple’s corporate stool. Wonder what the 4th is. (note to Apple, that two legged stool before the iPhone must’ve been a bitch to use right?)
-62 out of the 147 development sessions were dedicated just to the iPhone.
-Snow Leopard only brought up for a moment, Bertrand Serlet talked it up outside of the keynote.

Act 2

Exit Steve Jobs
Enter Scott Forstall

-iPhone free SDK has received 250,000 downloads, 25,000 applied for paid 2.0 beta with only 4,000 getting in.
-iPhone 2.0 focuses on Enterprise support, SDK development and new features to keep users happy.
-Business users have requested push email/contacts/calendars, auto discovery, global address lookup and remote wipe which we’re building in to the new 2.0 Firmware.
-Worked with Cisco for VPN and tied in WPA/WPA2 Enterprise, 802.1x authentication, EAPCTLS, TTLS, LEAP and Peop V0, V1.
-Even more numbers, big companies love the SDK/2.0 Firmware. 35% of Fortune 500 companies, top 5 commercial banks/security firms, 6 out of 7 top airlines and 8 out of 10 top pharmaceuticals/entertainment companies have signed on and are developing for and/or deploying the 2.0 Firmware.
-Devs have access to the awesome APIs used in OS X and are nearly line for line identical. Core OS, Core Touch and Media layers are available for developing on.
-Xcode makes Application development totally easy in conjunction with the iPhone Simulator.
-Sega showed off Super Monkey Ball utilizing accelerometer for movement and will retail for $9.99.
-The makers of Loopt are porting their App to the iPhone and leverages core location to find friends in a totally stalker-ish kinda way.
-We already knew Type Pad was developing for the new 2.0 Firmware and showed off their Blogging client which has been heavily simplified to fit in only the most important bits but still has enough under the hood to make it a serious alternative to the web interface (cross posting, photo uploading).
-Associated Press worked off their news aggregation App which also uses Core Location and pipes content including videos relevant to your area.
-More in gaming, Pangea announced a port of Enigmo and CroMag rally. Both run flawless despite being very CPU intensive. CroMag Rally uses the accelerometer for navigation.
-One of the more interesting Apps, developed by lone developer Mike Terry was shown. You can finally fulfill your rock star dreams without the use of an oversized plastic game controller.
-MLB gave a quick run down off their App which not only gives real time updates but video snippets of each play just for the iPhone.
-Ebay gave a short demo of their App that looks like a simplified version of the Web App.
-MiM Vista and Modality boasted their medical Apps which are sure to aid doctors and trainees alike.
-Number one requested feature: background notifications. Well, it’s not coming, instead Apple in September will allow developers to push out “updates” in the form of an unread count badge, sound or text box to Apple’s servers which are pushed to your iPhone all over the air.

Act 3: iPhone 2.0

Exit Forstall
Enter Steve Jobs

-Contact search is coming finally.
-iWork read only support is coming (keynote, pages and numbers).
-Expanded Microsoft Office support to include PowerPoint (read only).
-Bulk delete and bulk move of emails.
-Images can be saved off Safari directly to the camera roll.
-Scientific calculator support included while in landscape mode.
-Parental controls: turn of YouTube, App Store, iTunes and/or explicit content.
-More languages and handwriting recognitions for Asian languages.
-Early July release (probably coincide with iPhone release). Free for all iPhones, $9.95 for iPod Touch users.
-Wireless download of Apps and Auto Update.
-Developers get 70% of all profits, Apple grabs the other 30%.
-Fairplay DRM tagged onto all Apps to counter piracy.
-No charges to Developers for free Apps.
-If an App weighs in under 10 MBs it can be downloaded off the Cell Network. Any bigger and you’ll need to grab it off your computer or Wi-Fi.
-Ad Hoc App distribution for Enterprise customers.

Act 4: Mobile Me

Exit Steve Jobs
Enter Phil Schiller

-.Mac replacement (about time!)
-Marketed as Exchange for the rest of us.
-Push contacts, calendars and email. No more syncing up to iTunes for that.
-Info goes to the cloud and updates on your iPhone, Mac and PC.
-Works with native Apps for OS X and Windows.
-Web 2.0 based interface at me.com.
-Mobile photo uploads.
-Drag and drop email support in web Interface.
-Contacts are fully searchable online and integrated with Google Maps.
-Photo editing also included, images can be resized and cropped.
-iDisk accessible through Safari.
-Price will remain the same ($99) but storage will be upgraded to 20 GB.
-Will hit stores early July with a free 60 day trial.
-All users on .Mac will be ported over and upgraded to MobileMe.

Act 5: iPhone 3G

Exit Phil Schiller
Enter Steve Jobs

-Had to over come some challenges: 3G connectivity, 3rd party Apps , Enterprise support, more affordable and widespread availability.
-Introduced iPhone 3G: Solid metal buttons, plastic back, flush headphone jack and improved audio.
-3G benchmarks: 21 seconds (3G) VS. 59 seconds (EDGE) to display National Geographic’s website. Wifi only comes in at 17 seconds. 5 seconds (3G) VS. 18 seconds (EDGE) to download an email attachment.
-Battery life: Standby is 300 hours, 2G talk is 10 hours but halved when on 3G. Web browsing will net you 5-6 hours, video playback at 7 hours and audio playback at 24 hours. Oddly GPS is mysteriously left out.
-GPS uses assisted location. Your general area is plotted with either Wi-Fi or a cell tower then GPS zeroes in on you.
-Original deployment goal was 6 countries today, reach 12 by launch and stretch it to 25. Apple outdid themselves with 22 countries at launch and hitting over 70 by the end of the year.
-Subsidized price will be $199 for an 8GB model and $299 for a 16GB model. Special white version will be available as a 16GB model only.
-Lands July 11th.
-New Ad that shows the phone for a whole 3 seconds.