AllThingsD » Worldwide Developers Conference

Apple's WWDC 2012 Already Sold Out

John Paczkowski — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:55:08 +0000

Apple will hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) June 11 through June 15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, the company said this morning. But if you’re hoping to attend, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Tickets for the event sold out about two hours after they first went on sale. That’s 10 hours faster than the $1,600 tickets sold out last year.

What About Oakland Coliseum For WWDC 2012?

John Paczkowski — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:00:56 +0000

Ten hours. That’s all it took for this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to sell out.

Tickets went on sale at 8:30 AM ET Monday and by 6:30 PM there were none left. In 2010, the conference (which hosts about 5,200 attendees) sold out in eight days, so this is a significant spike in demand and a good indicator of just how high developer interest in iOS and Mac OS is running these days. Already, tickets are being scalped on eBay, some for nearly double their face value.

Aliph Collaboration Deal With Cisco for Jawbones in the Workplace Launches

Kara Swisher — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 12:00:06 +0000

In April, Cisco unveiled a wide-ranging collaboration with Aliph–a San Francisco start-up that is famous for the noise-canceling Jawbone Bluetooth mobile headset–to put its software and device in Cisco’s IP phones in the enterprise.

It launches today.

The Cisco (CSCO) deployment is a big win for Aliph, since the networking giant is a dominant player in the arena to provide telephony solutions to businesses, part of its Voice and Unified Communications division.

The idea is to use the Jawbone device and the software that manages it to allow workers to move around an office and have the call move with them, echoing increasingly mobile consumer behavior. That will even include jumping from office phones to mobile devices.

To do this, Cisco will be using Aliph’s technology, which the start-up is calling a “wearable platform.”

The company was formally launched in 2004–in fact, at the D: All Things Digital conference–by Alexander Asseily and Hosain Rahman, who met as Stanford University undergraduates.

It is funded by Silicon Valley venture powerhouses Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital, as well as smaller investors, who put in a total of $43 million.

With the stylish and innovative Jawbone, Aliph has turned a lot of heads in the wireless headset space, aimed directly at high-end consumers.

It is prominently featured, for example, in Apple (AAPL) retail stores.

Now, it is finally in the workplace.

Here is the image of the box for the new Cisco/Aliph partnership:

And here is the official press release:

Jawbone and Cisco Introduce Wireless Headset for Enterprise Collaboration and Beyond

Jawbone Integrates With Cisco Video Endpoints Extending Unified Communications Inside and Out of the Workplace

SAN FRANCISCO and SAN JOSE, Calif. Sept. 30, 2010–Jawbone and Cisco today announced they are closely collaborating to allow employees to easily move from device to device throughout their day. Jawbone ICON for Cisco Bluetooth Headset will intelligently bridge mobile phones and Internet Protocol (IP) phones in a way that is transparent to users and extends unified communications beyond the walls of the workplace.

Users will be able to connect to their Cisco® Unified IP phones and mobile phones simultaneously, creating a truly unified, wireless, and hands-free communications experience as they move from in-the-office to on-the-go. While on the same headset, employees can take a call from their desk phone and the next from their cell phone as calls can be handled from both sources at the same time on the same headset. The headset extends Jawbone’s industry-first wearable software platform, with Cisco technology to deliver applications that span enterprise and mobile use. Jawbone’s industry-leading industrial design and superior ergonomics ensures users can wear their unified communications wherever they go.

Shipments of the Jawbone ICON for Cisco Bluetooth Headsets have begun in the U.S. and Canada, bundled with Cisco Unified IP Phones 9951 and 9971. International shipments will begin in October 2010.

Key Facts / Highlights:

• Users no longer need to remain tethered to their desks; their audio and voice follow them wherever they go, leaving their hands free for other tasks.
• Employees can remain connected to both phones at the same time and don’t have to pick up the handset on their ringing phone, then pick up their cell phone when it rings because both calls from both sources can be handled at the same time on the same headset.
• Users will be able to make and receive calls from their Bluetooth-enabled mobile, Cisco Unified IP Phone, Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone or Cisco Cius and can switch among the endpoints as they change location.
• Jawbone ICON for Cisco delivers built-in intelligence that allows the headset to be dynamically enhanced through new software applications and functional updates via the Jawbone MyTALK platform.
• As rich new features and functionality are available, the headset can be easily updated either by the IT manager or user themselves.

“We live in an increasingly connected world where the lines between work and play are blurring fast, if not completely gone. People want integrated solutions that are valuable to them all the time regardless of where they are or what they are doing–these need to be lifestyle solutions with the best functionality in a form that is appealing,” said Hosain Rahman, CEO of Jawbone. “No one is willing to make tradeoffs anymore and we are extremely fortunate to be collaborating with a company like Cisco that is committed to leading this vision of new user experiences around the best of both worlds: enhanced productivity through innovative enterprise-grade technology with an equal emphasis on user-centric design.”

“Cisco understands the changing nature of work,” said Steve Slattery, vice president and general manager IP Communications business unit, Cisco. “The Jawbone ICON for Cisco Bluetooth Headset is the type of next-generation device that will allow workers to collaborate regardless of where their work lives. This first wearable and updateable platform is the only one that enables enterprises to get more value out of the device over its lifetime through functional updates as Cisco enhances its UC offering.”

About Jawbone

Jawbone, also known as Aliph, is committed to creating wearable and personal technology products that deliver an unsurpassed user experience. The company’s flagship product, the award-winning Jawbone Bluetooth headset, first disrupted the industry in 2006 with its military-grade NoiseAssassin technology and instantly became recognized as the best Bluetooth headset available. In 2010, Jawbone ICON became the company’s most innovative Jawbone yet; introducing unmatched ease of use, personalization, sound quality and design to the market. Jawbone ICON is currently available in 23 countries across North America, Europe, Middle East and Asia.

The winner of numerous consumer awards, Jawbone features a uniquely stylish design and is part of the permanent collection at various museums including New York MOMA.

Jawbone is a privately-held company headquartered in San Francisco.

About Cisco Collaboration

From award-winning IP communications to mobility, customer care, Web conferencing, messaging, enterprise social software, and interoperable telepresence experiences, Cisco brings together integrated network-based collaboration solutions based on open standards. These solutions, as well as services from Cisco and our partners, are designed to help promote business growth, innovation, and productivity. They also designed to help accelerate team performance, protect investments, and simplify the process of finding the right people and information.

About Cisco Systems

Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, this year celebrates 25 years of technology innovation, operational excellence and corporate social responsibility. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

Apple's Total Gross Profit From the App Store Since Launch: $189 million

John Paczkowski — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:20:57 +0000

Apple’s iTunes App Store may be the biggest mobile application around, but it’s not much of a revenue generator. The company claims it runs the App Store at “a bit over break-even,” and according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, that is indeed the case.

Extrapolating from metrics provided by CEO Steve Jobs during his Worldwide Developers Conference keynote earlier this month–$1 billion paid to developers for five billion free and paid app downloads–Munster figures the App Store has contributed only $189 million to Apple’s total gross profit since it launched.

That’s about one percent of Apple’s (AAPL) $33.7 billion gross profit during the same period.

“Using a pricing scheme similar to iTunes, with 70 percent ($1.04) to the developer, $0.20 plus 2 percent of the ASP ($0.23) to the credit card company, and 1 percent ($0.02) per app for processing (storage & delivery), Apple’s App Store gross margin on revenue from paid apps ($428 million since launch) is about 44 percent, or $189 million in gross profit,” Munster explains. “This does not factor in the roughly $81 million Apple has spent since launch to store and deliver the 4 billion free apps that have been downloaded.”

So while App Store sales are through the roof, Apple is certainly not making a killing from them. But that’s never been the point, anyway. Like iTunes itself, the App Store’s purpose is to drive hardware sales. It’s a secondary business.

Said Munster: “We see a virtuous cycle of Apple’s robust app ecosystem adding features and functionality to the iOS devices, which drives sales, which makes the ecosystem more robust, which encourages more developers to write apps, and the cycle repeats itself.”

An iPhone 4 Review Roundup

John Paczkowski — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:09:48 +0000

“This is really hot,” Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs said of the iPhone 4 when he unveiled it at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month. And the pundits seem to agree. The first reviews of the device began rolling in Tuesday afternoon and they are largely glowing, despite some expected complaints about the device’s performance on AT&T’s (T) network. Below, excerpts from a few of them.

In both hardware and software, [the iPhone4] is a major leap over its already-excellent predecessor, the iPhone 3GS.

It has some downsides and limitations–most important, the overwhelmed AT&T network in the U.S., which, in my tests, the new phone handled sometimes better and, unfortunately, sometimes worse than its predecessor….But, overall, Apple has delivered a big, well-designed update that, in my view, keeps it in the lead in the smartphone wars….

The most important downside of the iPhone 4 is that, in the U.S., it’s shackled to AT&T, which not only still operates a network that has trouble connecting and maintaining calls in many cities, but now has abandoned unlimited, flat-rate data plans. Apple needs a second network.

Both Apple and AT&T told me they worked to make the iPhone 4 do a better job with AT&T’s network. For example, the phone itself is surrounded by a prominent stainless-steel trim piece that acts as a large antenna. And Apple said it also tuned the phone to try to grab whatever band on the network was less congested or less affected by interference–to stress the quality of a signal over its raw strength. AT&T said it, too, made some changes to its network with the new iPhone in mind.

But, in my tests, network reception was a mixed bag.

– Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal

[The iPhone 4] is not the first phone with both a front and back camera. It’s not even the first one to make video calls. But the iPhone 4 is the first phone to make good video calls, reliably, with no sign-up or setup, with a single tap. The picture and audio are rock solid, with very little delay, and it works the first time and every time….Now, the iPhone is no longer the undisputed king of app phones. In particular, the technically inclined may find greater flexibility and choice among its Android rivals, like the HTC Incredible and Evo. They’re more complicated, and their app store not as good, but they’re loaded with droolworthy features like turn-by-turn GPS instructions, speech recognition that saves you typing, removable batteries and a choice of cell networks. If what you care about, however, is size and shape, beauty and battery life, polish and pleasure, then the iPhone 4 is calling your name.

– David Pogue, New York Times

The new iPhone 4 I’ve been testing for about a week and a half–along with the major refresh of the mobile operating system software at the core of recent models–demonstrates once again why Apple’s handset is the one to beat, even as it faces fierce competition from phones based on Google’s Android platform, among others….Critics are left with reasons to whine. Apple’s public dissing of Adobe Flash means you’ll still come upon Web video sites that don’t make nice with the iPhone. I had a few dropped calls. The battery still isn’t user-replaceable, and there’s no slot for expanding memory.

– Ed Baig, USA Today

We’re not going to beat around the bush–in our approximation, the iPhone 4 is the best smartphone on the market right now. The combination of gorgeous new hardware, that amazing display, upgraded cameras, and major improvements to the operating system make this an extremely formidable package. Yes, there are still pain points that we want to see Apple fix, and yes, there are some amazing alternatives to the iPhone 4 out there. But when it comes to the total package–fit and finish in both software and hardware, performance, app selection, and all of the little details that make a device like this what it is–we think it’s the cream of the current crop. We won’t argue that a lot of this is a matter of taste–some people will just prefer the way Android or Symbian works to the iPhone, and others will be on the lookout for a hardware keyboard or a particular asset that the iPhone 4 lacks–but in terms of the total picture, it’s tough to deny that Apple has moved one step past the competition with this phone.

– Josh Topolsky, Engadget

The fourth incarnation of Apple’s iPhone is an incrementally improved, familiar device–not a new kind of device, as was the case with the recent introduction of iPad. Yes, the notable features with iPhone 4–both the device and the iOS4, which came out yesterday in advance of the iPhone itself–are mostly tweaks. But what tweaks they are: Apple’s focus on improvement is as much key to the quality of its products as innovation. But there’s one flaw it doesn’t improve: the poor quality of calls placed over AT&T, which remains the iPhone’s only U.S. carrier….AT&T still sucks, and the best engineering out of Cupertino won’t change that.

– Xeni Jardin, BoingBoing

IPhone 4: Thanks for the Memory

John Paczkowski — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:25:29 +0000

Here is a good explanation for why the forthcoming iMovie app from Apple (AAPL) will run on the iPhone 4, but not on its predecessor, the 3GS: The new model has double the memory. Video of a Worldwide Developers Conference session released Thursday confirms rumors that the device is packing 512MB of RAM (see image above; click to enlarge).

That’s twice the RAM of the iPad, which, like the new phone, sports a 1GHz Apple A4 processor. This means iPhone 4 buyers can expect some impressive performance gains over the 3G and 3GS.

“This is really about allowing [iOS 4's] limited multitasking to actually have a robust performance,” Rapid Repair CEO Aaron Vronko told Computerworld. “With only 256MB, the iPhone would waste a lot of time and battery power managing memory [during multitasking]. This definitely helps, and will let you keep more apps in the background without affecting battery life.”

[Image Credit: AppleInsider]

Viral Video: Larry and Sergey Buzz You Up, While Zuckerberg Is Board

Kara Swisher — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 07:55:04 +0000

How in the world did BoomTown miss these very funny new puppets from 1938 Media of Google (GOOG) co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook?

In the first one, below, the search giant twins are channeling the terrific old “Pumping Up with Hans & Franz” television skit on “Saturday Night Live,” while needling Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs over the Wi-Fi troubles at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco earlier this week.

And in the second, Zuckerberg talks privacy as played by a two-by-four with a curly perm, doing a little bit from “Rainman.”

Enjoy:

Meet the Two Grad Students Who Freaked Out the NYT–The Pulse iPad App Creators Speak!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 01:17:03 +0000

The first thing to strike you about the pair of Stanford University graduate students (pictured here) who made the banned and then unbanned news-reading iPad app, Pulse News Reader, is how they look like an advertisement for all that is good about entrepreneurship.

Sweet-natured, slightly naive, energetic and very product focused, they are the last techies you’d choose to be the ones who got the New York Times (NYT) in enough of a tizzy to force Apple to pull the aggregator from its App Store.

BoomTown met Akshay Kothari, 23, and 22-year-old Ankit Gupta this afternoon at a hotel near the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, where Pulse was called out yesterday by name by Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs for excellence only hours before the company had to stop offering it to users.

At first, the shy pair said they did not want to call attention to themselves or rail on Apple or the Times. After much convincing by me, they agreed to talk about their unusual situation in the video below, focusing on the product and its origins.

It started out simple enough, creating Pulse for the Launch Pad class at Stanford, which requires students to develop and put out a product. Both students are at Stanford’s Institute of Design and created a company called Alphonso Labs when Pulse was done.

It took them only four weeks to develop and, within weeks after it was approved for sale in the App Store, Pulse became a red-hot paid seller for the fast-growing tablet device–putting Pulse at No. 1 at times on the list of paid apps on iTunes.

In fact, the app was so well regarded that the Times wrote a rave about it last week.

The high culminated for Kothari and Gupta when Jobs named Pulse first in a list of the most-promising apps for the iPad in his keynote speech at the WWDC yesterday.

Unfortunately, that was the last hurrah for them, since the business side of the New York Times–after seeing the article about Pulse in the Times–had already fired off a letter to Apple demanding that the app be taken down.

“The Pulse News Reader app, makes commercial use of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds, in violation of their Terms of Use,” wrote Times lawyer Richard Samson to Apple on June 3. “Thus, the use of our content is unlicensed. The app also frames the NYTimes.com and Boston.com websites in violation of their respective Terms of Use.”

Sources at the Times said that while there are many other similar readers for online news that do exactly the same thing, Pulse’s combined framing and use of the paper’s RSS feed for commercial gain–as well as, let’s be frank, its popularity–caused execs to make what looks like a pretty boneheaded move.

(Could they have called the pair first? Of course they could have, but they did not.)

So, after the Times lawyer wrote Apple, Apple wrote Kothari and Gupta, telling them of the removal of Pulse from the App Store: “The New York Times Company believes your application named ‘Pulse News Reader’ infringes The New York Times Company’s rights.”

Today, though, the app was suddenly back up with no comment from Apple.

A Times spokesperson said this might be a mistake and that the media giant did not know what had happened.

Neither did Gupta and Kothari, who said the app on sale now is the same as the old one, although they had submitted a new version without the Times as a default earlier today.

“It’s a mystery,” said Gupta. “Although it is sad that we were off the App Store right when people might have heard about us.”

The next step? Who knows?

UPDATE: Sources close to the situation said that the Pulse iPad app was reposted because the new version submitted earlier today does not automatically include the Times properties and that older versions sold will soon be updated.

Other sources also noted that the Times has had issues with many other third-party news readers in the past, though not one as visible as Pulse.

And it remains to be seen if Pulse’s creators face other irked content owners or not.

In any case, one thing is still certain: Like its creators, the innovative Pulse is sweet, and it is on sale for $3.99 at iTunes.

For now, that is.

Until the next twisty development, here’s the video interview of Kothari and Gupta:

[ See post to watch video ]

[Photo by All Things Digital intern Drake Martinet--taken before the recent controversy.]

Walt & Kara Get Some FaceTime

Kara Swisher — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:06:48 +0000

BoomTown attended the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco yesterday with my partner in (tech) crime, Walt Mossberg.

After the keynote speech by Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs–in which he unveiled a major upgrade to the company’s popular smartphone, now called iPhone 4–Walt and I went to check out what all the fuss was about at WWDC demo tables outside the giant hall at Moscone Center West.

While we tried out a bunch of the new features, our intrepid Web kingpin, Adam Tow, took this movie of us using the new FaceTime video-calling service, which allows picture-in-picture chat on the iPhone 4 via Wi-Fi.

Yes, we are unusually ridonkulous, especially since we are mere inches away from each other.

Still, we persevere–so here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Already an iPhone 4 Spoof–With Jane Lynch and Kassem G

Kara Swisher — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:55:16 +0000

Here’s a very funny iPhone 4 spoof by take180.com’s Electric Spoofaloo that just went up on the Web.

The new version of the popular Apple (AAPL) smartphone was just unveiled today by CEO Steve Jobs at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Called “Mac vs. Jane Lynch,” the spoof features BoomTown’s pal and “Glee” star–congrats to you and Lara on the hitching, btw!–and comic Kassem G.

Best line: “Hey pal, you dropped a call.”

Enjoy:

Kara, Walt and Katie Visit iPhone 4-Palooza at WWDC–With Special Guest Stars Schiller, Pincus and More!

Kara Swisher — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:37:16 +0000

Earlier today, BoomTown hoofed it to downtown San Francisco to join a pair of All Things Digital A-Team members–Walt Mossberg and Katie Boehret–at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the newest version of the iconic mobile device, iPhone 4.

As usual, I had to snark it up with a video of the proceedings at Moscone Center West, where over 5,000 of the Apple (AAPL) faithful gathered to kibitz and ogle.

Cue the excessive oohing and aahing.

A very playful Jobs–who even handled a networking connection snafu with unusual restraint–gave them a lot to talk about, from the iPhone 4′s FaceTime video chat to its squarish, stainless-steel-and-glass new design to multitasking to an even crisper screen called Retina Display.

(Memo to Katie Cotton: Is the iBall the next secret Apple project? Because Retina Display, frankly, sounds a little too much like the corrective LASIK eye surgery I have been avoiding.)

Also on the menu: Some more info about iAds, which is competing with Google (GOOG) in the nascent but fast-growing mobile advertising market.

Jobs threw in a few light jabs at the Silicon Valley search giant, although it was pretty tame overall.

Interestingly, I was just at the same venue for Google’s I/O developers event a few weeks ago, where that company was showing off cool new features for its Android mobile operating system, all while dissing Apple.

In any case, like that one, it was another big day for the smartphone market and users, as Apple tossed off its newest innovations. Presumably, the ball is now in Google’s court.

Until Google swings back, here’s my video, including interviews with top Apple execs Phil Schiller and Katie Cotton, as well as Zynga’s Mark Pincus, who demoed a new iPhone version of the start-up’s FarmVille online game:

[ See post to watch video ]

You can check out the entire video of Steve Jobs being interviewed a week ago at our eighth D: All Things Digital conference here.

In WWDC Postscript, Apple Announces Safari 5 Launch

John Paczkowski — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:34:28 +0000

Among the Apple rumors that failed to materialize during CEO Steve Jobs’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote address this morning was Safari 5, the next iteration of the company’s Web browser. But shortly after 3 pm PT, an Apple news release announcing the launch appeared on the PR Newswire site, only to vanish after about 10 minutes and reappear about an hour later.

Among the browser’s enhancements: Safari Reader, which presents multipage articles in a single scrollable page; support for more than a dozen new HTML5 technologies; a new search engine option–Microsoft’s (MSFT) Bing–and an improved Nitro JavaScript engine that Apple (AAPL) claims runs JavaScript 30 percent faster than Safari 4, three percent faster than Google’s (GOOG) Chrome 5.0, and more than twice as fast as Firefox 3.6.

Here’s the release as I received it.

Apple Releases Safari 5

SAN FRANCISCO, June 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today released Safari® 5, the latest version of the world’s fastest and most innovative web browser, featuring the new Safari Reader for reading articles on the web without distraction, a 30 percent performance increase over Safari 4,* and the ability to choose Google, Yahoo! or Bing as the search service powering Safari’s search field. Available for both Mac® and Windows, Safari 5 includes improved developer tools and supports more than a dozen new HTML5 technologies that allow web developers to create rich, dynamic websites. With Safari 5, developers can now create secure Safari Extensions to customize and enhance the browsing experience.

“Safari continues to lead the pack in performance, innovation and standards support,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Safari now runs on over 200 million devices worldwide and its open source WebKit engine runs on over 500 million devices.”

Safari Reader makes it easy to read single and multipage articles on the web by presenting them in a new, scrollable view without any additional content or clutter. When Safari 5 detects an article, users can click on the Reader icon in the Smart Address Field to display the entire article for clear, uninterrupted reading with options to enlarge, print or send via email.

Powered by the Nitro JavaScript engine, Safari 5 on the Mac runs JavaScript 30 percent faster than Safari 4, three percent faster than Chrome 5.0, and over twice as fast as Firefox 3.6.* Safari 5 loads new webpages faster using Domain Name System (DNS) prefetching, and improves the caching of previously viewed pages to return to them more quickly.

Safari 5 adds more than a dozen powerful HTML5 features that allow web developers to create media-rich experiences, including full screen playback and closed captions for HTML5 video. Other new HTML5 features in Safari 5 include HTML5 Geolocation, HTML5 sectioning elements, HTML5 draggable attribute, HTML5 forms validation, HTML5 Ruby, HTML5 AJAX History, EventSource and WebSocket.

The new, free Safari Developer Program allows developers to customize and enhance Safari 5 with extensions based on standard web technologies like HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. The Extension Builder, new in Safari 5, simplifies the development, installation and packaging of extensions. For enhanced security and stability, Safari Extensions are sandboxed, signed with a digital certificate from Apple and run solely in the browser.

Pricing & Availability

Safari 5 is available for both Mac OS® X and Windows as a free download at www.apple.com/safari. Safari 5 for Mac OS X requires Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8 or Mac OS X Snow Leopard® 10.6.2 or later. Safari 5 for Windows requires Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista or Windows 7, a minimum 256MB of memory and a system with at least a 500 MHz Intel Pentium processor. Full system requirements and more information on Safari 5 can be found at www.apple.com/safari. The Safari Developer Program is free to join at developer.apple.com/programs/safari.

*Performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection and other factors. All testing conducted by Apple in May 2010 on an iMac® 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system running Mac OS X 10.6.3, with 4GB of RAM. JavaScript benchmark based on the SunSpider 0.9.1 JavaScript Performance test.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh. Apple continues to lead the industry with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system, and iLife, iWork and professional applications. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store, has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

UPDATE: Safari 5 is now live and available for download.

Appetite for IPhone Continues Undiminished

Yukari Iwatani Kane — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 07:00:34 +0000

As Apple Inc. (AAPL) gets set to likely unveil a new iPhone on Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference, new survey results show that demand for the device is stronger than ever.

Data tracking firm Nielsen Co.’s quarterly survey found that Apple’s iPhone is gaining on No. 1 device by ownership, Research in Motion Ltd.’s (RIMM) BlackBerry, in the U.S. The iPhone added two percentage points for a 28 percent market share in the three months ended in late March compared to the previous quarter. RIM still had the biggest market share at 35 percent but it lost two percentage points in that period.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Apple to Debut iTunes.com, Mac Pro and MacBook Air Refreshes at WWDC?

John Paczkowski — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:15:05 +0000

The big news coming out of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 in early June will almost certainly be a next-generation iPhone, a device with specs much like those leaked earlier this spring. But there may be a few other announcements as well. The next version of the Mac OS X, perhaps. And beyond that, some news about the Mac and iTunes.

In an inspired bit of entrail reading this morning, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu says Apple (AAPL) may have a libretto of big WWDC announcements. “Other announcements we are picking up that could potentially be made are iTunes.com, a web-based version of its iTunes client, and new Mac refreshes with faster processors and graphics, namely the Mac Pro and MacBook Air, which were last refreshed in March and June 2009, respectively,” he wrote in a note to clients this morning.

An interesting bit of speculation. Certainly, it’s conceivable that the Mac Pro and MacBook Air get updated. As Wu notes, it has been quite a while since the last one. But iTunes.com, the online music service Apple is believed to be building on its Lala.com acquisition? That might be a bit of a stretch, as my colleague Peter Kafka reported in late April.

“Sources tell me that in the past few weeks, Apple has started signaling to the labels that it’s interested in a Web-based version of iTunes, its dominant music retail platform,” Kafka wrote on April 30. “But those conversations are preliminary at best. So if you’re expecting to hear about an ‘iTunes.com’ offering in the near future–like during Apple’s June 7 developer conference–you’re likely to be disappointed.”

PREVIOUSLY:

Gaming WWDC: A New iPhone–But Not on Verizon

Apple: Will Steve Ballmer Show Up at the WWDC Keynote?

Eric Savitz — Thu, 27 May 2010 12:00:41 +0000

So, maybe there could be a surprise or two at the Apple (AAPL) Worldwide Developers Conference, after all.

Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with tiny Global Equities Research, contends that 7 minutes of the June 7 keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been blocked off for a presentation by Microsoft (MSFT) to talk about Visual Studio 2010, the company’s suite of development tools. Chowdhry says the new version of VS will allow developers to write native applications for the iPhone, iPad and Mac OS.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Gaming WWDC: A New iPhone–But Not on Verizon

John Paczkowski — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:45:32 +0000

Now that a pair of lost next-generation iPhone prototypes has robbed Apple of the element of surprise, the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference is likely to be a “non-event” for its stock.

So says Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who doesn’t expect the WWDC to have much in the way of big “Oh, One More Thing” moments. According to Munster, Apple will probably announce a fourth-generation iPhone at the conference, and the device will probably look a lot like the prototypes we saw earlier this spring.

“Consistent with recent media reports, we expect the new iPhone to feature a front-facing camera for video conferencing, along with a new, thinner design, an improved rear camera, and better battery life, with higher capacity (32GB/64GB) at the current $199/$299 price points,” Munster writes. “We expect the new version to be popular among current iPhone 3G owners (a 2 year-old device) with a significantly different design and feature set (unlike the 3GS).”

The company is also likely to offer an update on iPad sales. Since that device’s launch in April, Apple (AAPL) has announced iPad sales figures three times. WWDC would be a perfect time to do so again.

And Apple may offer a peek at the next version of Mac OS. “Apple may choose to provide a limited demo of the next version of Mac OS X (10.7) at WWDC,” Munster says.

“Software is a key differentiator for Apple but the Mac OS has not seen the same level of innovation as iPhone software in recent years,” the analyst adds. “With the next version of Mac OS X, we expect Apple to bring some of the same innovation to the Mac platform. Multi-touch technology, for example could be a key feature of Mac OS 10.7.”

But beyond these offerings, don’t expect much. As for rumors that WWDC will see the announcement of a Verizon (VZ) iPhone: Don’t pay them much heed.

Certainly, Munster doesn’t put much faith in them. “We believe it is unlikely that the next generation iPhone will be available at Verizon (or Sprint) at launch,” he says. “Rather, it is more likely that it remains exclusively available at AT&T in the US at launch.”

The Incredible Slipping Delivery Date

Niraj Sheth — Wed, 26 May 2010 07:00:33 +0000

Verizon Wireless’ (VZ) newest flagship phone, HTC’s Droid Incredible, is living up to the name: It’s incredibly hard to find in stores.

Impossible, actually. The phone sold out soon after hitting shelves on April 29 and has been on back-order for over a week. Even more frustrating for Droid fanatics, the date for when it will ship has been a moving target, getting pushed further and further back as orders pile up.

Customers can order a Droid today and have it by June 15–if it was ordered a week ago, the ship date was June 8. Either way, few people ordering their Incredibles will get them before Steve Jobs takes the stage on June 7 at Apple’s (AAPL) Worldwide Developers Conference, where he is widely expected to pull the cloth off of the new iPhone.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Attention, Wal-Mart Shoppers: iPhone 3GS Clearance Sale in Aisle Nine

John Paczkowski — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:58:58 +0000

With two weeks to go before Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference and the presumed debut of the company’s next-generation iPhone, Wal-Mart is dropping the price of the entry-level iPhone 3GS by more than half.

This morning, the retailer cut the price of iPhone 3GS devices with 16 gigabytes of memory from $197 to $97 with a two-year service contract. Wal-Mart claims the reduction is simply part of its “ongoing aggressive savings announcements.” But coming as it does amid speculation about the launch of a new iPhone (and rumors of the discontinuation of the 8GB iPhone 3G), it is being interpreted as a move to clear out inventory before that device arrives at market.

Meanwhile, Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) continue to sell the 16GB iPhone 3GS at its original price, though I can’t imagine that this will continue much longer. When Apple introduced the iPhone 3GS in June 2009, AT&T slashed the price of the entry-level 8GB iPhone 3G to $99.

The company is expected to do the same thing this year with the low-end 3GS. And, as it did last year, that price cut will likely spur adoption of the device among the lower tiers of AT&T’s customer base. As BTIG Research analyst Walter Piecyk observed in a note to clients this morning:

We estimate that last years price cut of the iPhone 3G to $99 stimulated more than 3 million phone sales to existing AT&T customers that helped the company further penetrate the family plan with higher ARPU, lower churn customers. We believe the impact could be even larger this year for AT&T given its the broad market acceptance of the iPhone, the halo impact of the iPad and the installed base of iPhones that will need to be upgraded to a 3GS phone in order to benefit from Apple’s latest upgrade to its iPhone OS 4.0.

Steve Jobs to Headline Apple's WWDC Conference

John Paczkowski — Mon, 24 May 2010 13:14:47 +0000

As expected, Apple’s (AAPL) annual Worldwide Developers Conference will kick off with a keynote from CEO Steve Jobs. The address is scheduled for Monday June 7 at 10 am PT and will likely include the announcement of a next-generation iPhone and further details about iPhone OS 4, the state of the iPad ecosystem and Mac OS X 10.7. And Jobs says his keynote won’t disappoint.

Apple's Next iPhone More of an iPad Mini?

John Paczkowski — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:15:49 +0000

Market source reports from Taiwanese trade publications are usually best taken with a grain of salt, if not a salt lick, particularly when they’re about Apple. That said, Digitimes reports today that the company’s next-generation iPhone is interesting in its detail.

Industry sources tell the magazine that the device will feature a 960×640 pixel double-resolution display, enhanced with the same in-plane switching and fringe-field switching technology Apple used to improve viewing angle and readability in the iPad. The display panel itself is said to be 33 percent thinner than the one in its predecessors, presumably to allow for a larger battery.

Finally, the new iPhone is believed to run an A4 processor with 512MB of system RAM. In other words, it’s built with the same processor found in the iPad, but double the RAM. That would obviously make for an impressive smartphone, though it seems unlikely that Apple (AAPL) would outspec the iPad on that front so quickly after the latter’s debut.

Noticeably absent from the Digitimes report: Any mention of a front-facing camera for video chat. Odd, given what we’ve seen in the two prototype next-gen iPhones that have leaked to the wild.

In any event, Digitimes claims this iPhone will be announced on June 7 during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference and that Apple, in preparation for the launch, has placed an astonishingly large order for them with its manufacturing partner, Foxconn. The company has requested 4.5 million units for June and another 19.5 million for the rest of 2010, for a total of 24 million units.

[Image credit: Taoviet.nv]

Bad News, Steve. You Know My iPhone HD Prototype? Well, I Was Celebrating My Birthday at This Bar in Hanoi…

John Paczkowski — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:01:17 +0000

If it’s true that Apple CEO Steve Jobs personally monitors the list of employees who have permission to take pre-release versions of the company’s products off campus, he might want to raise his standards for inclusion a bit. Because the company seems to have lost yet another next-generation iPhone prototype.

Photos of the intact device and a teardown were posted to the Vietnamese forum, Taoviet, yesterday, and they look genuine, though obviously, there’s no way of knowing for sure.

The prototype is nearly identical to the one lost in a German ale house and subsequently purchased by Gizmodo, though it’s a bit more polished. It features the same iPad-esque glass and aluminum design and a chip with an “APL0398″ designation–the same one found on the iPad’s A4 system-on-chip. It lacks the two screws so prominent on the Gizmodo device, which suggests it may be a near-final production model.

Again, there’s no way to be certain. But I imagine we’ll find out for sure during Apple’s (AAPL) Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address, the traditional venue for introducing new iPhones.

Below, photos and video of the device.

[Image/video credit: Taoviet.nv]

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference Scheduled For June 7

John Paczkowski — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 12:42:44 +0000

Apple’s (AAPL) annual Worldwide Developers Conference has an official date: June 7 through June 11 at San Francisco’s Moscone West. With that date confirmed, Apple watchers can now begin cranking the handle of the rumor mill in earnest, though at this point it’s pretty clear what at least one of the big announcements will be. The five-day conference will also likely bring additional news about iPhone OS 4, the state of the iPad ecosystem and perhaps some details about Mac OS X 10.7, the successor to Apple’s Snow Leopard operating system.

Almost Famous: Lance Podell of Next New Networks

Drake Martinet — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:30:31 +0000

A feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.

This week: We grabbed a Caltrain up to San Francisco to meet with Lance Podell, CEO of Next New Networks, the Web video network whose shows usually mix hi-fi production and lo-fi hosts for that ultra-Webby feel that the kids are raving about.

Or so Podell hopes.

Who: Lance Podell

What: Chief Executive Officer

Why: According to Lance, Next New Networks is aiming to transform its existing lineup of 12 Web TV “networks” into a content behemoth that competes with the big cable guys. Oh yeah, and they plan to monetize it too. Eye rolling aside, at the end of 2009, they were nearly profitable.

Where: nextnewnetworks.com (Web site); @NextNewNetworks (Twitter); New York, N.Y. (analog place)

Who else: You name it. Next New Networks competes for face time with an armada of YouTube stars (although they try to recruit some of them too). How does it stack up? Well, the camera work in the latest webisode from YouTube star Fred isn’t anything to write home about, but you don’t have to sit through video advertising either.

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job Ever: I had a job for a very brief time at a start-up called Savatar; it’s hard to even think about it. [Ad giant] WPP (WPPGY) had invested in this company that was supposed to build Web sites for all the WPP companies. This is like back in 1994. Not only did it crash and burn, but they made me go into I don’t know how many meetings and promise things I just knew we could never deliver.

When He’s Not Busy CEOing: I’m a dad a lot. My son plays just about every sport, so I’m at a lot of games. I also enjoy chasing my little girls around the house.

Gadget of the Moment: I’d love to buy an Internet-enabled TV. I was in the early days of interactive television trials and I really want to see that come to fruition.

Wishes There Was an App For: I really want to be able to use my BlackBerry with my Mac.

Fails At: Ugh, it’s a long list. My son would say understanding that he’s always right.

Bio in 140 Characters

Lance went from Lafayette College to the HBS, and then into the ad game. Next New Networks brought him in to be the ad money rainmaker.

The Five Questions

You guys have been around for a while now. I don’t know if I’d call you “New,” but what’s “Next” for you ?

We don’t just believe in just creating shows and niche content. We believe that the hosts of our shows have to also be a member of the community the show is aimed at. On our indy mogul network for example, Eric Beck literally runs one of the shows, Backyard FX [Think McG meets MythBusters]. He creates Hollywood-style special effects in your backyard for under $100. He’s really doing it. That’s step one.

Step two is we are asking you to contribute. It’s very Web-like, in a very Web way, right? Not like TV. We want you to contribute your thoughts, videos, comments and posts, following the video. Again, not like TV. We don’t have six-month development cycles. Every week that host is coming up with the next episode and we are relating it back to the community and their experience in the prior week.

So, the model is: No more broadcast, just piece together enough niche content, plus some revenue model, to equal profitability?

That’s true, what you said is entirely true. But I don’t want to get too bogged down in that. And the end of the day though, we are an entertainment company, so niches can mean a variety of things. Early on, the company’s goal was to have 100 “networks.” I think that was just an audacious goal to set for the sake of goal-setting. What we’ve done over time is try lots of things, see what works and what doesn’t, see where the passion within our company is, and build on that. And, as the YouTube audience has grown and matured, we can start to look there for shows that are popular and communities of interest.

Also, advertisers are asking for a lot. They want to reach moms, for example. So we are looking for gaps in the Internet that are also things moms want to watch. We don’t create programming specifically to satisfy the advertisers.

A good example of how the relationship works is that Caress had hired Carson Kressley [the "Queer Eye" guy] as a spokesperson, and as part of the ad agreement, we had him on our women’s talk show. Now, Carson wasn’t scripted by Caress, he just came on the show. It was a women’s talk show and he acted as though he were on the “Ellen” show, for instance.

You guys put your content everywhere: YouTube, Hulu, Vimeo–all of them. Are you concerned about a platform like Hulu setting up a pay wall and potentially adding a level of complication to your viewers’ experience?

We’re not concerned yet. If Hulu were to change to paid content, I don’t know that it would start with the Web originals. Do I imagine that three years from now that Web original programming will have the same kind of brand impact as something that comes out of NBC? Yes. Because Internet TV is changing everything. Our programs can be viewed on TiVo. They can be viewed on FiOS. Once, we had the kind of loyalty that might warrant it, would I be interested in selling some content behind a wall? Yeah, I’d look at it.

So you are confident that you can turn a profit without making people pay?

You know, you are talking to an old ad guy here. We have always said we’d never be able to pay for the next thing with just advertising and yet we always have. I believe we will pay, not for everything. For some things.

So if advertising is what’s “Next,” then what will those “New” ads have to do differently?

The advertisers that do really well with us, the ones who really get it, are the ones who come to me and say they want to hear their products advertised in the voice of the show host. They want the ad to sound like the voice of that community. They don’t want me to use their eight words that are in every print ad. They don’t want me to say that they are 100 percent reliable, safe and colorfast. They want me to talk about their brand in the way that the community will connect with it.

Another area that I think is hugely compelling is in the area of interactivity. And I think fashion is just the first place it should go. The idea of watching something on TV and then being able to immediately buy what the actor is wearing is just incredible to me.

The In Living Color Interview

[ See post to watch video ]

Fool! You Fell Victim to One of the Classic Blunders! Never Negotiate with Steve Jobs…

John Paczkowski — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:36:27 +0000

Apple is doing to the wireless industry what it did to the recording industry beginning back in 2001: Stealing its customer relationships.

That’s the gist of an argument put forth this week by Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett, who believes that with the iPhone and App Store, Apple (AAPL) has upended the wireless market in much the same way it upended the music industry with the iPod and iTunes.

“It wasn’t that long ago that AT&T’s exclusive agreement with Apple’s iconic iPhone looked like a customer relations masterstroke for the carrier,” Moffett wrote in a note to clients. “AT&T Mobility, a brand that had once been cingular-ly stodgy and tired, was suddenly, well, relevant again. Apple’s iPhone meant that AT&T was the place for cool handsets. Better, it was the place for wireless data….Somewhere along the way, however, Apple has stolen the march, and in the process has recast AT&T from hero to villain.”

AT&T, says Moffett, was roundly jeered at every mention at Apple’s last Worldwide Developer Conference. And, as someone who attended that event, I can attest that this was indeed the case. Certainly the revelation that AT&T (T) wasn’t yet supporting iPhone features like MMS and tethering did not go over well with the WWDC audience, which was already abuzz with criticisms of the carrier’s slow data connections.

With the iPhone, Apple made AT&T Mobility relevant again. It brought the company millions of new subscribers. But in the process, Apple also realigned the strategic playing field in its favor. Radically. Writes Moffett: “Remarkably, Apple has so thoroughly stolen the customer relationship–who would argue that Apple iPhone customers’ first affinity is to the device rather than to the network–that the network is not only irrelevant, it is rather a source of derision.”

As NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker said back in 2007, “Apple has destroyed the music business and if we don’t take control, they’ll do the same thing on the video side.”

Or, perhaps, to the wireless business.

New ATD Features: Topic Pages and Finding Jobs (No, Not Steve!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:57:42 +0000

Here at All Things Digital, we are always fussing away on our site, making a variety of improvements regularly to deliver a better experience to our readers.

In that vein, we have recently added two new features over the last few weeks, both of which deserve a look-see: Topic pages and job listings.

The first is our attempt to offer a new and easier way for the ATD audience to navigate specific information, by gathering in one place a selection of blogs, columns, videos and photos on the site, all related to a single popular topic, all without requiring a user to search via keywords.

The variety of our topic pages will grow over time. But right now we have special pages for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone 3GS, the Palm (PALM) Pre, the new Bing search service from Microsoft (MSFT) and news from Apple’s recent Worldwide Developers Conference.

Secondly, we’ve partnered with Simply Hired to offer paid job listings on AllThingsD.com, right from the front page. Starting this week, you’ll find Simply Hired widgets with current job opportunities on pages across our site, including here.

Recruiters can post jobs directly to the ATD jobs page, and these listings are also distributed to more than 5,000 partner sites in Simply Hired’s network, including GigaOM, Mashable and WashingtonPost.com.

(Full disclosure: Simply Hired, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., has raised some of its funding from the News Corp. (NWS) digital unit, Fox Interactive Media. News Corp. also owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)