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IPhone OS 4.0 : April 08, 2010
Apple offers peek at iPhone 4.0 OS.

12:42 - Still gathering at the lobby. Images will likely come from multiple sources as access to these is particularly limited.

12:52 - For those that are curious: this is being held at 4 Infinite Loop, not 1. Apple has several buildings on the campus.

1:02 - People are seated; Phil Schiller has been spotted at the event.

1:06 - Jobs on stage; updating things. 450,000 iPads sold as of Thursday. 600,000 iBooks.

1:09 - Over 4 billion app downloads so far; 185,000 total apps in the App Store, 3,500 of which are for the iPad.

1:11 - "Beyond all the numbers, what it was really about, was this: when you create something, you have butterflies in your stomach before you put it out in the world, you don�t know if people will love it."

1:11 - App demos: Netflix, weather radar, Marvel comic reader, ABC.

1:14 - iPhone 4.0: due in summer 2010. Over 1,500 new APIs, including accessing the calendar, photo library, video camera data... quick look, SMS, full map overlays, and automated testing for apps.

1:17 - 5x digital zoom, playlists, tap-to-focus video, Places in photos, home screen wallpaper, file & delete mail search results, Bluetooth keyboards.

1:21 - First feature: MULTITASKING. Double-tap the home button: shows currently running apps. Determined which services apps need to run in the background, so we made those as APIs to enable the feature but preserve battery life.

1:25 - First: audio streaming. Pandora up to show how audio can keep running in the background. iPhone a "transformative moment" for us as it doubled growth, now 30K per day. Just one day to make Pandora background-aware: it can now show an audio control even outside of the app to pause or skip tracks.

1:30 - Skype next. You can receive word of a call from outside the app and take it without losing the ability to go elsewhere. Bringing up movie and OpenTable apps to show how Skype will change the status bar and indicate it's in the middle of a call.

1:33 - Third up: background location. GPS apps often want to use your location in the background, but right now they stop navigating if you switch away. They can now keep tracking live. Some apps, like Loopt, will periodically get position in the background; we've added a status indicator to let you know your location is being tracked. iPhone 4.0 lets you manually allow or block location awareness per app (much like push notification).

1:33 - Positioning will also let you know if any app has checked for your location in the last 24 hours, and will checkmark that app if it has.

1:35 - #4: Push notifications. Now adding local notifications; these are like push, but there's no online connection. For apps that just want to send data to let you know about their local status.

1:37 - Next major feature: FOLDERS. People are downloading lots of apps, which takes a long time to find. A better way to organize [is folders]. Users drag apps on to one another to create folders; you can then tap on that folder to see the available apps. The name is auto-created, but you can rename it yourself.

1:39 - Folders can exist in the dock. Allows for many more apps on your home screens; you used to only be able to see 180 apps, now you can see 2,160.

1:41 - 3rd major feature: UNIFIED MAIL INBOX. All mail gets pooled together. You can also now have more than one Microsoft Exchange account. It's still possible to focus on just one account, so fast switching is in place. You can sort messages by the conversation thread. Attachments can now be opened by App Store titles, not just official apps.

1:44 - 5th: iBooks for iPhone/iPod. Everyone requested it, but we were already working on it. Same interface as on the iPad, just smaller.

1:46 - Next: Enterprise. Tougher e-mail encryption, as well as data encryption within apps themselves through APIs. Mobile device management; ability to wirelessly distribute apps through a company's own servers. VPNs can now use SSL.

1:48 - Unusual new addition: Game Center Games are very popular; there are over 50,700 titles versus 4,321 on the Nintendo DS and just 2,477 for the PSP. "Blows them out of the water." Apple has added a social gaming network. Automatic matchmaking (player finding) at similar skill levels. Achievement system. (Ed: much like Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network)

1:49 - iAd is real! Mobile ad system. There are a lot of free apps, but developers have to find a way to make money, and Apple wants to help. "Most of this advertising sucks." We want to help devs make money so they can keep their free ads free.

1:51 - Big opportunities: most spend over 30 minutes with apps on their phones each day. An ad ever 3 minutes would amount to 10 ads per phone per day; once iPhone devices top 100m, that's 1 billion ad impressions every day.

1:52 - More importantly, Apple wants to do more than just get the impressions. "We want to change the quality of the advertising." We know interactive ads on the web, but they're not capable of delivering emotion.

1:54 - We want to be even more interactive than the web. Some of that will come from video and how it's handled. People don't hit ads because you get pulled out of the app; iAd is in the OS, so interaction and video stay within the app. Users can just return to the app whenever they want. People will be much more interested because they won't "pay the penalty" for doing it. iAd is sold and hosted by Apple, and devs get an "industry standard" 60% cut of the revenue.

1:54 -

1:56 - An example is a Toy Story 3 ad (below): using HTML5 to show the ad, go to a full-screen ad experience that includes profiles, videos, and even a game.

1:58 - You can even make in-ad purchases, such as a more complete game. A Nike ad shows with a full-res video.

1:59 - Clearly tightly integrated with the OS: the Nike ad lets you shake the phone to get another video of a basketball dunk. Makes it very unlikely iAd will ever reach other platforms (especially Android).

2:02 - Mockup Target ad next: Jobs pretends to build a dorm with gear at the University of Michigan. Best part is that these ads are easy: "hundreds of thousands" of iPhone developers can make the ads, not just ad professionals.

2:03 - Review: multitasking, folders, iBooks, Game Center (GameKit), iAd... Over 100 user features.

2:04 - iPhone 4 developer preview TODAY: http://developer.apple.com . Full features imited to iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 3rd-gen (32GB/64GB). They'll run "pretty much everything." iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2nd gen will run most, but won't handle multitasking; the hardware just isn't up to it. iPad gets the update in the fall.

2:05 - Q&A session with Jobs, Scott Forstall and Phil Schiller up next.

2:09 - How is AT&T ready to compensate for more data use? Jobs: Not necessarily correct that AT&T will use more data. We're not multiplying the minutes of use. Nothing to suggest more usage.

2:10 - Does wireless app distribution allow distributing apps outside of the App Store? Forstall: The program lets enterpise sign its apps. It doesn't let them distribute apps to phones beyond their own.

2:12 - Is the iPad's success going to damage the international launch? No; we're [still] launching later in April. (Most rumors put it at April 24)

2:14 - Will ads need an approval process? Jobs: There need to be "some boundaries." You can't just run any ad on ABC, he says. Hoping there won't be anything other than a "light touch."

2:14 - Any change of heart on Flash and Java? Jobs: No.

2:16 - On ad agencies: Jobs claims those like its own (TBWA/Chiat/Day) have been "super excited." Helps them bring their "storytelling skills" to digital ads. They want to hire technical staff to help implement their storytelling.

2:19 - Why no things like timelines (see: Twitter) in the multitasking API? Forstall: Things like Twitter work better with push notifications, when you get the most relevant data. It's better in iPhone 4.0 since you're told where you're going and because the app is still running.

2:22 - Why have you veered away from widgets or glanceable info? Isn't that possible? "Shipped on Saturday, and rested on Sunday. Anything possible." (Android has widgets)

2:24 - Why is iAd different? There haven't been so many apps that don't exist on computers. This is a "new phenomenon..." we never had that on the desktop, so search was often the only way to find a lot of things.

2:25 - No plans to be a worldwide ad agency. We don't know a lot about advertising. We tried to buy AdMob, but Google snatched them up because they didn't want us to have them. Bought Quattro to do it, but "we're [still] babes in the woods."

2:28 - On the absence of support for iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2G (and earlier): Jobs: no decisions to make; earlier hardware just can't support the features. Forstall: Devs can see what the hardware supports and turn on features based on what they want to support. Jobs: Isn't really a problem, just that some devices can't support multitasking. Schiller: Apple is "sensitive" to these issues. It wants to make things simple and reach as many devices as possible.

2:30 - What is Apple doing to make phones safer while driving? Jobs: Apple does more than most to link phones into cars' control systems. You can have hands-free calling; there are controls on steering wheels. Probably better than anyone because of the iPod momentum (which led to iPod/iPhone integration in cars).

2:31 - Will Apple ever support unsigned apps? Jobs: There's a "porn store" for Android. You and your kids can download it. That's a place "we don't want to go," so we're not going to.

2:32 - On the iPad: Jobs says people think this is a "profound game changer... when people look back on this years from now, they will think of this as a major event in the history of personal computing devices."

2:34 - Schiller: surprised at how quickly people are getting the iPad. "Remarkable rate." Jobs: if there's a competitive [rival] to the iPad, they'll be hoping they'll get 3,500 apps in the first year... we've seen that in the first week; it's happening fast, and because it's standing on the shoulders of 85 million people who already know how to use it, they're just taking to it like a fish in water."

2:40 - How do you close apps? You don't have to worry about closing them (ed: may be selective closing).

2:41 - Discovering apps is a problem in the App Store. Is that going to be improved? Jobs: App Store is independent of OS 4; it's a service, and we can improve it without waiting. We're constantly interested in improving it. Discoverability has been improved through the Genius, but the infrastructure will evolve.

2:42 - Jobs: The small window to the store can only do so much. Websites can feature iPhone apps outside and around the phone to help exposure.

2:43 - Jobs: Users shouldn't have to think about certain elements of the interface. "If you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager, they blew it. Users shouldn't have to ever, ever, EVER think about that stuff."

2:44 - Keynote over.

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