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12 Jun 14:27

Live Coverage of Apple's WWDC 2015 Keynote: iOS 9, OS X 10.11, Apple Music, and More

by Jordan Golson
wwdc_2015_invite_epicenterApple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicks off today at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco, with the event headlined by the traditional keynote address beginning at 10:00 AM Pacific Time / 1:00 PM Eastern Time.

In line with tradition, Apple is expected to provide the first looks at iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, with the company also announcing a fresh push into streaming music led by a new Apple Music subscription service and a revamped iTunes Radio. Apple is also expected to debut new tools allowing developers to build native Apple Watch apps and perhaps make some additional announcements related to Apple Pay and HomeKit.

Apple is providing a live video stream on its website and via Apple TV.

In addition to Apple's video stream, we will be updating this article with live blog coverage and issuing Twitter updates through our @MacRumorsLive account as the keynote unfolds. Separate news stories regarding the event announcements will go out through our @MacRumors account.

Sign up for our newsletter to keep up with Apple news and rumors.



Full Keynote Transcript Below in Reverse Chronological Order

12:26 pm: And that's the end!

12:26 pm: "Have a great week, it's great to be together!"


12:21 pm: Cook: "Before we go, it's only fitting to celebrate the launch of Apple music with an incredible music performance by one of the hottest new artists in music today. It's not only a hot new artist, but he's going to do a worldwide premier of his newest song this morning. Please give it up for The Weeknd!"

12:21 pm: "It is the privilege of a lifetime to work with them."

12:21 pm: Cook: I'd like to recognize our team at Apple for making and creating all these products you've seen this morning.

12:20 pm: This has been a jam-packed morning, we hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have.

12:19 pm: Cook back on stage -- we made a great ad.

12:19 pm: Everyone gets their own account, with their own library, playlists and recommendations.

12:18 pm: Doing something really great for families. For $14.99, can have six family members.

12:18 pm: $9.99 per month, and we want everyone to try it so the first three months are free.


12:18 pm: Launching in 100 countries later this month with iOS 8.4, and a new versions of iTunes for Mac and Windows, Android coming this fall.

12:17 pm: And that is Apple Music. It is a revolutionary music service with recommendations just for you, a worldwide live radio station with the best DJ's, and an exciting way to connect for artists. All the ways you love music, all in one place.

12:16 pm: If you went to a movie and forgot a song from a movie soundtrack... "Play the song from Selma"

12:16 pm: "Play the top song from May 1982"

12:15 pm: Showing off Siri's music chops: "Play born to run." "Play top 10 songs in Alternative"

12:14 pm: Showing off Connect: Artists can share all kinds of stuff, studio sessions, photos, videos, early lyrics, etc.


12:12 pm: Giving a demo of Beats One -- has a very similar sound to BBC Radio One, where Zane Lowe's popular evening show was aired.

12:09 pm: Functionality for discovering what music the user likes is similar to Beats, but with a new UI.


12:06 pm: Eddy Cue now giving demo of Apple Music

12:06 pm: Eddy Cue wishes Phil Schiller a happy birthday!


12:02 pm: Drake sporting old-school rainbow Apple logo on his jacket.

12:01 pm: Bringing Drake on stage to talk about Connect and what it's like for an artist.


12:00 pm: Worldwide, live, broadcasting 24/7, coming from New York, LA and London.

12:00 pm: We're called Beats One, we're always on, playing the music that we love."

11:59 am: "Move the needle. And that's what we're doing."


11:59 am: Good music on the radio creates a debate. "Put the great music in front of the average."

11:59 am: The truth is, Internet radio isn't really radio. It's just a playlist of songs. We wanted to do something really big. Create a worldwide live radio station broadcasting around the globe. Beats One. Hired Zane Lowe.


11:58 am: Music personalized to your taste based on songs you love.

11:57 am: Search and stream millions of songs on iTunes.


11:57 am: Revolutionary Music Service. Starts with My Music.

11:57 am: Iovine brings Eddy Cue on stage.

11:56 am: For artists: This is an ecosystem, its built to fit together. It fees off each other. When you upload your music to Apple Music, anything can happen.

11:56 am: Part three; Connect: Connecting fans with artists.

11:55 am: Let's build the first ever worldwide live radio station, broadcast from three cities that plays music not based on research or genre or drumbeats. Only music that it great and feels great. A station that has only one master -- music itself.


11:55 am: Second thing: live, 24/7 global radio station.

11:54 am: Why did that happen? It was probably programmed by an algorithm alone. Algorithms alone can't do that emotional task.

11:54 am: You're in a special moment, exercising... or some other special moment. And your heart's pumping. And you're about to turning up the reps. And the next song comes on... BZZZZT Buzzkill.

11:54 am: Three things: Revolutionary music service. When you're listening to a song, what song comes next?

11:53 am: One place, one complete thought around music.

11:52 am: New 24/7 radio station, Beats One. Anchored by famous DJ's from LA, New York and London.


11:50 am: From that, I'm standing here so proud of everyone that's worked so hard, I'm going to introduce you to Apple Music.

11:50 am: So, I reached out to Tim Cook and Eddy Cue, guys can we build a bigger and better ecosystem? With elegance and simplicity that only Apple can do? One complete thought around music.

11:50 am: Technology and art can work together, at least at Apple. Now 2015, music industry is a fragmented mess. You want to stream music, you can go over here. You want to stream video? Check these places out. You want to follow an artist? There's more confusion for that.

11:49 am: Telling story of how he got involved in digital music... Apple showed him iTunes. "Wow, these guys really do think different!"


11:48 am: Jimmy Iovine on stage

11:48 am: I'd like to bring up someone who knows more about music and the music experience than anyone I know.

11:48 am: "I know you are going to love it, it will change the way you experience music forever."

11:48 am: Today we're announcing Apple Music, the next chapter in music.

11:46 am: Made a video about the history of music.

11:46 am: We love music, and music is such an important part of our lives and our culture. We've had a long relationship with music at Apple."


11:46 am: We've been working really hard on it and we're super excited.

11:45 am: "Before we close this morning, we do have One more thing..."

11:45 am: Cook back on stage.

11:45 am: "We're just getting started here, looking forward to the journey ahead with Apple Watch."


11:44 am: watchOS 2 is available as a developer beta today

11:44 am: "I'm super excited to see what all of you do with this stuff."

11:40 am: A lot of access to the watch with native apps. Demo starting.

11:39 am: Using digital crown, access to digital crown. Control custom UI elements by rotating the crown.

11:39 am: HomeKit is native on the watch, talk to HomeKit devices on the watch, great future for control from the wrist. Accelerometer. Taptic engine, range of feelings and audio that will come out the speaker. Feedback on wrist both audio and felt.

11:38 am: Apps can access the microphone, play audio through watch speaker or Bluetooth speaker. Short-form video on the watch face, HealthKit including streaming heart rate data.


11:37 am: Wandering away from the phone, Watch can connect directly to known Wi-Fi networks.

11:37 am: App logic runs on the phone, but with native apps, UI and App Logic will run locally on the watch. Great new frontier for apps on the watch.

11:36 am: "But that's not all!"

11:36 am: Can request glances from Siri. "just some of the highlights coming in watchOS 2."

11:36 am: Siri can get mass transit directions, control things in the home -- "Hey siri, set the dinner scene" -- set the lights just how you want them.

11:35 am: Transit, departure times, navigating will get step-by-step directions for getting through mass-transit.


11:35 am: Supporting store cards in Apple Pay, Wallet coming to watch so rewards cards coming too.

11:35 am: New heath and fitness achievements that can be shared over iMessage, Facebook or Twitter.

11:34 am: "Go for a 300-calorie bike ride", "Go for a 5-mile run"

11:34 am: Siri can start workouts, "Hey Siri, start a 30 minute run in the park"

11:34 am: Health & Fitness, favorite apps can run natively on the watch, and workouts with these apps will contribute to all-day activity.

11:34 am: Adding FaceTime Audio for higher fidelity calls.


11:34 am: Read email on watch, and can now reply to email as well.

11:33 am: Digital Touch updates, can use multiple colors in drawings.

11:33 am: Communication, adding multiple sets of friends and can add a friend right from the watch.

11:33 am: Great experience for the watch when its on your nightstand and charging. Nightstand mode. Display of the time, set an alarm that will wake you up in the morning. Can snooze or turn off the alarm with the buttons on the side.


11:32 am: "A really fun way to interact with time on your watch"


11:31 am: Current information, but also weather later today. What if you could go forward in time? Supporting that in watchOS 2, called Time Travel. Rotate digital crown, information will update on your screen.

11:31 am: Will work on modular face and others that support complications, a variety of templates for developers.


11:31 am: Show flight time, state of home control system, charge level of electric car, or sports scores. Choose info you'd most like to see.

11:30 am: App developers can make own complications.

11:30 am: Timelapse photography, when you raise your wrist, you'll see 24-hour shoot set to your local time.

11:29 am: Timepieces: Watchfaces and how you can change them. New watch faces including Photos Face, using album or selected photos.


11:29 am: watchOS 2: enhancements -- timepiece functions, improvements in communication, health and fitness, Apple Pay, Maps and Siri.


11:28 am: Bringing Kevin Lynch on stage.

11:28 am: Began making Apple Watch available just six weeks ago. Pretty amazing that we're already talking about the next version of the watchOS. Great new capabilities. Will bring native Apps right to your wrist.

11:28 am: We really believe deeply in this space, we believe in technology designed for the wrist. By opening up the platform, you will create new and powerful uses that today we can only begin to imagine.

11:27 am: This is a giant moment. This is how we felt when we launched the App Store. Opening a new platform to developers.

11:27 am: "Now, we want to talk about the next opportunity to transform the world." The opportunity to bring native apps to the Watch with a new version of watchOS.

11:26 am: "Thank you."

11:26 am: 100 billion apps downloaded.

11:26 am: 850 apps downloaded every second.

11:26 am: "There's so much that can still change and evolve due to the power of applications." - The average person has 119 apps.

11:26 am: "We're still just at the beginning of all this." - Phil Schiller

11:22 am: 98% of all Fortune 500 companies have an iOS app.


11:21 am: Apps plus handheld devices, that's a watershed moment in civilization. - Neil deGrasse Tyson.

11:21 am: "This is bigger than any of us imagined." - Phil Schiller

11:20 am: Most profitable app marketplace on the planet. We could not be more proud of the work that you are doing. More and more, developers are transforming, empowering and reimagining the very important things that we do in our daily lives. We've made a video.

11:19 am: Rate of growth and momentum is absolutely staggering. Industry has never seen anything like this before. App Store has forever changed software and software distribution. Been a economic boon. Paid out $30 billion to developers.


11:19 am: App Store is key. Hard to believe the App Store was launched only 7 years ago. Happy to announce that the App Store recently passed a major milestone: The App Store has passed 100 billion app downloads.

11:18 am: Seemingly no limit to what you can do.

11:18 am: Swift, a single language for you to create apps for OS X and iOS. So many possibilities for you to use these platforms and these tools to create unbelievable apps that will impact business and healthcare and education and everything in our lives.

11:18 am: El Capitan, we've created a new version of OS X that dramatically improves the experience of the Macintosh.

11:17 am: "iOS keeps getting better and better, iOS 9 takes it to an even greater level."

11:17 am: Tim Cook back on stage after long presentation by Craig Federighi.


11:17 am: Free upgrade in the Fall, and will support all devices supported by iOS 8.

11:17 am: Developer beta today, Public Beta for iOS 9 in July.

11:16 am: Compiler and standard libraries for iOS, OS X and Linux.


11:16 am: Huge applause from the developer-heavy crowd.

11:16 am: For 20 years to come. We think Swift should be everywhere and used by everyone. We're going to do something really big. Today we're announcing Swift will be open source.

11:15 am: "We think Swift is the next big programming language."

11:15 am: Swift: Stepping on the gas this year with Swift 2. We've continued to roll out optimizations.

11:14 am: CarPlay: Audio apps, now supports apps by automakers to control things in the car. More kinds of screens, HiDPI. Wireless CarPlay. Apple to get in car without taking phone out of the bag and start experiencing CarPlay effortlessly.


11:13 am: HomeKit: Adding supports for Window Shades, CO sensors, motion sensors, security systems. Access your home remotely and securely through iCloud.

11:13 am: Lots of additional health metrics to be tracked. Reproductive health.

11:12 am: GameplayKit with AI and pathfinding, Model I/O for 3D lighting on models, ReplayKit to let users record their gameplay and share it.

11:12 am: iOS 9 is a great release for users, but once again is a fantastic release for developers.


11:11 am: Security - two-factor authentication to protect their data in iCloud. Software Update, we want everyone to get to iOS 9. We've done major enhancements to the architecture. Reduce amount of free space you need to get to iOS 9 from 4.6GB in iOS 8 to 1.3GB.

11:10 am: New Low-Power Mode. "Pulls levers you didn't know existed." Extends battery life for 3 hours.

11:10 am: Great features, but also foundations. Performance, battery life (focused on real world use cases, seeing addition of 1 hour of typical use on full charge on iPhone).

11:09 am: Not all features available on all devices, SplitView only on iPad Air 2.

11:09 am: Developer API's -- if you've adopted auto-layout and size classes, that carriers over onto iPad.


11:07 am: Picture-in-picture with currently playing videos while in another app.

11:06 am: Can swap apps in one side, keeping another app static on the other.


11:05 am: Bring in other applications, calendar, notes. Tap on divider and get SplitView. Multi-app, multi-touch.


11:04 am: New task switcher, full screen previews of apps. Finger-swipe from the slide brings in an app, "SlideOver"

11:04 am: iPad has always supported some multitasking, but for iOS 9 we're taking it to a whole new place.

11:03 am: Multitasking coming to iPad.

11:03 am: Hook a physical keyboard, discover shortcuts, shortcuts for app switching, and to searching in Spotlight.

11:03 am: QuickType keyboard. Shortcuts coming to the bar. Cut, paste, formatting. Can put two fingers on iPad keyboard and it becomes a trackpad to move cursor. Make selections.


11:01 am: Now to iPad.

11:01 am: Rolling out in US, UK and Australia.

11:01 am: "Great content comes from all kinds of sources. Whether a local newspaper, a blog, or a special interest publication."

11:01 am: NYTimes, Conde Nast, Politico, many more.

11:00 am: Private from the ground up, what you read is not linked to other apple services."

11:00 am: "Stunning content, personalized for you, fantastic on iPad and iPhone as well."

11:00 am: Craig back on stage.

11:00 am: "We can't wait to get it in your hands, thank you very much!"

10:58 am: Publisher channels, topics, news keeps track of a million topics so I can be specific about interests. Search "Swift", and get results like Taylor Swift and the programming language. Machine learning algorithms search articles to decide which stories belong in which article.

10:57 am: "I read ESPN for the articles... but there's also some beautiful photos and videos."

10:56 am: Rich typography, beautiful images. "The best mobile reading experience ever."

10:55 am: Choosing sites and genres, combines into a custom feed.


10:54 am: New demo for the news app: Susan Prescott, VP of applications

10:54 am: News from the world's greatest sources, personalized for you. Beautiful content, gorgeous imagery, custom layout and rich typography.


10:53 am: Today, I'm pleased to announce that we're introducing a new application: News

10:53 am: The apps that we've chosen to build in to iOS. They represent fundamental experiences to living on mobile devices. There's one that we've been wanting to do for years.

10:53 am: Cards for vendors will show if they support Apple Pay.

10:52 am: Coming to a number of cities, including many in China.


10:52 am: Taught Siri about transit. "I'd like to take the subway to the Guggenheim museum."

10:52 am: Step-by-step directions, including time for walking directions. Taking special care to get details right. We carefully surveyed entrances and exits so we can give you walking directions on time to travel from where you actually are.

10:51 am: Transit. emphasizes all the different transit lines. Buses, trains, subway stations. See all the lines that run through a station. Multimodal routing.


10:51 am: Focused on drivers, freeways and roads. For a lot of iOS users, they're mostly focused on public transit. SO we've created great map just for them.

10:50 am: Maps: continued to invest heavily in Maps. 5 billion user requests per week. 3.5x higher than the next leading mapping app.


10:49 am: Craig is back. Talking about enhancements to the Notes app. Formatting options. Checklist options. Photos. Drawing/sketching tools. Can share things from Share Sheets.



10:47 am: Passbook being renamed "Wallet"

10:47 am: New features coming in iOS 9: Store credit and debit cards. Store cards offer unique membership benefits. Kohl's, JCPenney, BJ's. Loyalty and rewards cards coming too. Coming to Dunkin' Donuts this fall.


10:46 am: Will be able to commute and pay for fares on London's Underground with Apple Pay.

10:46 am: 250,000 UK merchant locations, more than we started with in the US.


10:46 am: In July. Ulster Bank, NatWest, Amex, Santander, RBS, Nationwide, HSBC, First Direct. 70% of credit and debit cards in the UK.

10:45 am: Bringing Apple Pay to the UK.

10:45 am: Later this month, Pinterest will launch buyable pins using Apple Pay.

10:44 am: Great momentum within apps as well. So easy to use in-app, seeing 2x conversion rate.


10:44 am: Will surpass 1 million locations next month.

10:44 am: Working with Square to enable small businesses to accept Apple Pay. Square launching reader to accept Apple Pay this fall.


10:43 am: Last year we started with credit and debit cards, 2500 banks. Adding Discover this fall.

10:42 am: Apple Pay: bringing VP of Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey.


10:42 am: Hitting privacy hard: Anonymous, not associated with Apple ID, randomized identifier, not linked to other Apple services. Not shared with third parties. You're in control.

10:41 am: iOS 9 tries to anticipate needs and provide them, like a good assistant would.


10:40 am: Siri: "Show my photos from last June in San Francisco". Photos has new scrubber bar at the bottom, slide through photos.

10:39 am: Heads to kitchen, goes to Search and Siri is making suggestions for people to contact, apps, locations nearby. Coffee and breakfast places are suggested because its morning.

10:38 am: Goes to his gym. When he plugs in headphones, offers music. Then gets an email. Phone automatically adds event invitation.

10:37 am: When a notification comes in, takes him to iMessage. Tells Siri: "Remind me about this later today."Includes link to iMessage right in the reminder.

10:36 am: Craig giving iOS 9 demo

10:35 am: New API for search, when user performs a search, find content in apps and pull that up in results. And when they tap, deep linked into application.

10:35 am: New search window, offers commonly used apps or contacts, one-tap links to nearby locations like food and drink, or breaking news. Improved search.


10:34 am: If there's a call coming in with number not in address book, phone can look in email and try to figure out who might be calling.

10:33 am: If you run in the morning, your phone can learn that you like to listen to music. Can offer music when you plug in headphones. Context sensitive to time, place. Might offer audiobook in the car. iPhone can take invitations that you get in email and automatically add to calendar.


10:33 am: In iOS 9, bringing proactive assistant.

10:33 am: "Remind me about this when I get home" -- reminder refers to what was being used when the reminder was done.

10:32 am: For iOS 9, SIri has new UI. "Show me photos from Utah last August." Great at taking reminders. "Remind me to grab my coffee off the roof of my car when I get in."


10:32 am: Siri has been 40% more accurate over the last year, down to 5%. Industry-leading number. Siri's 40% faster than ever at responding.

10:31 am: Starting with Intelligence and Siri.

10:31 am: Now, iOS 9. Want to improve battery life, performance, security. Adding intelligence to user experience, enhances how to use device but without compromising privacy.

10:30 am: Now, iOS. Recapping iOS 8. 83% adoption on active iPhone users.

10:30 am: That's OS X.


10:29 am: El Capitan is available to developers today. Public Beta in July, rolling out to everyone as free upgrade this Fall.

10:29 am: Blizzard, Feral, Foundry, Autodesk, Aspyr touted as adopting Metal.

10:28 am: Craig back on stage.

10:27 am: Showing new game called Fortnite, Metal "allows developers like us to develop better games"


10:25 am: 10x draw call performance, brought in Epic Games to adopt Metal. Bringing Epic folks for quick demo.

10:24 am: Metal is also great for high performance apps. Combines compute power of OpenCL and graphics power of OpenGL into new API that does both. Working with pro developers like Adobe, was able to deliver 8x improvement in rendering in After Effects. Moved drawing engine in Illustrator.

10:23 am: Much more efficiency and performance and battery life.

10:23 am: Way to accelerate graphics in high-performance games. High performance API to graphics hardware. Taking graphics stacks on which apps on OS X are built, Core Animation and Graphics, moving from OpenGL to Metal.

10:23 am: Deep architectural improvements. Adding Metal to OS X.

10:22 am: Many more features, but focusing on performance now. We're seeing 1.4x on app launch, 2x in app switching. 2x time to get first mail message, 4x faster to open PDF in preview.

10:21 am: New Power User features making it easier to deal with lots of windows.


10:20 am: Can split apps left and right on the screen, slide the windows to make them bigger or smaller.

10:20 am: New snapping apps feature, Windows-style.

10:20 am: Showing enhancements to full-screen in Mail, tabs in compose window, can hide in-progress messages and go back to main Inbox.


10:18 am: In Finder: "Documents I worked on last June" -- "A great way to search."

10:18 am: Searching in mail, "Mail I ignored from Phil".


10:17 am: Spotlight includes better contextually aware results. Smarter search: "Weather Friday" shows date-specific weather. "Slides from Brian about El Capitan".

10:16 am: Tabs show if music or video is playing in the background, allows users to mute background tabs easily.

10:16 am: Safari allows sites to be pinned to the tab bar. If a window is closed and reopened, the pinned sites reload instantly.

10:15 am: Easier than ever to find the cursor -- cursor gets bigger to help find it when waking a Mac.

10:14 am: We focused on two major areas. Experience and performance. Made Spotlight more expressive and more powerful than ever. Made big enhancements to the apps you use most, and great advancements in how you manage windows on the system.


10:14 am: Not within themselves, but within Yosemite. The new name for OS X is El Capitan.

10:14 am: Typical California fashion, they started with a kickoff meeting. Then to a team-building off-site. Ultimately, this didn't yield any names. So they called in a consultant. He told them the answer was to be found within.

10:13 am: For our next big release, we wanted to build with great refinements and advances. What to call it?


10:13 am: Adoption rate is incredible, 55% of active Mac users are running our latest update. 7% running Windows 8.1. Fastest adoption rate for any PC operating system ever.

10:12 am: Yosemite is a big, bold beautiful release with a gorgeous new UI with breakthrough features like continuity.

10:12 am: Thrilled to be able to share it with you today. Starting with OS X.

10:12 am: Craig gets a big cheer from the assembled crowd.

10:12 am: Going to dispense with normal updates other than to tell you that everything is going great. I'd like to bring out Craig Federighi to take you through OS X and iOS.

10:11 am: All three together provide incredible opportunities for developers. And unbelievable possibilities for users.


10:11 am: We have a jam-packed morning for you. Bringing a lot of great capabilities to OS X. Update coming to iOS. And today, we're bringing native apps to the Watch, with a new version of watchOS. Gives developers even more time to create even greater apps for the watch that will change the world.

10:10 am: "What we're going to do, we're going to pay the ransom. I have the ball right here. We're giving the ball to Brandon, and we're going to give everything his teammates asked for to them -- so everyone's happy. Congratulations on 100 home runs, and good luck on the next 100!"


10:10 am: Talking about Cleveland player Brandon Moss, his teammates held his 100th home run ball for ransom -- whole list of ransom items is items from Apple.

10:09 am: A lot more people that would have liked to have been here this morning, but we can't fit people in. First time, we are not only live streaming the keynote, we're live streaming 30 sessions of the conference as well.

10:08 am: Our youngest scholarship winner is a 12-year old girl from New York. She is going to have a fantastic future ahead.

10:08 am: Attendees from 70 countries, 805 are first-time attendees. 350 student scholarship winners.


10:07 am: This is not only the epicenter of change, but of the industry.

10:07 am: "Welcome to San Francisco, welcome to WWDC 2015!"

10:07 am: Tim Cook comes on stage for the real start of WWDC.

10:05 am: Culminates in a musical sing-along about developers publishing apps to the App Store.


10:04 am: An elevator full of Tim Cook lookalikes.

10:03 am: Showing mascots from Angry Birds, Monument Valley.


10:02 am: We're starting with a comedy video showing "rehearsal" from yesterday afternoon.

10:01 am: We're starting!

10:00 am: An announcement has asked attendees to switch their devices to silent mode. Almost time!

9:58 am: Celebrities, Apple executives, reporters and WWDC attendees are milling about, waiting for the event to begin.

9:48 am: Attendees still milling around as Apple's begins the live video stream on apple.com


9:42 am: Mashable's Lance Ulanoff shares a photo of the iMacs on stage showing another Yosemite-themed desktop with El Capitan on the left and a snow-covered Half Dome in the distance.


9:37 am: Wall Street Journal reporting Apple Pay will begin supporting retail store-branded cards, popular for their discounts and other special offers.

9:24 am: Media members are being let into the room. Pharrell and Trent Reznor spotted up front, suggesting music will indeed be a big focus.

9:07 am: Re/code reporting Apple is going to ditch Newsstand, introduce a free Flipboard-like app for highlighting content from major media brands.

9:04 am: Photo by CNET's Shara Tibken


8:56 am: Just over an hour to go until the keynote. Attendees are in the holding area waiting to be let into the auditorium.


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Well-known Vietnamese blog Tinhte.vn today published images that reportedly show the design of Apple's next generation iPad Air 2. The pictured device has the same general form factor as the existing iPad Air, but includes a thinner 7 mm profile that measures roughly the same as the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and thinner than the current 7.5 mm iPad Air. In line with previous rumors, the iPad Air 2 model also includes a home button with a Touch ID fingerprint sensor.

tinthe-ipad-air2Claimed iPad Air 2 mockup from Tinhte.vn
While this latest report includes detailed photographs and a video, they only give us a hint at Apple's next-generation iPad as the device in the photos is described as a dummy model used by accessory manufacturers to test out and showcase their designs and not an actual iPad Air 2 unit leaked from a Foxconn assembly line. Similar to previous leaks, the iPad model has the same external design features seen in earlier leaks and in MacRumors' own dummy unit on hand since June.

tinthe-ipad-air2-mr-dummyTinhte dummy unit (left) vs. MacRumors dummy unit (right)
Of perhaps most note, the Tinhte.vn and other dummy models include two distinctive small holes in the area of the rear camera -- one on the back and one of the side of the casing. The hole closest to the camera is undoubtedly for a microphone, while the other hole likely marks the presumed location of the mute/rotation switch, which is not depicted ini full on the models. Today's report and an earlier one have suggested this hole is for a microphone rather than simply marking the mute/rotation switch location, but we believe this interpretation is likely incorrect.


Apple is expected to unveil its iPad Air 2 and possibly a new Retina iPad mini at a press event to be held on October 16. The next-generation iPad Air is rumored to included a faster A8 processor, anti-reflective display, Touch ID, and a gold color option.


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05 Aug 13:06

Galaxy S5 LTE-A: Battery Life, Performance

by Joshua Ho

While I was planning on doing a full review for the GS5 LTE-A, it turns out that there’s relatively little that changes between the original Galaxy S5 and this Snapdragon 805 version. For those that aren’t quite familiar with this variant of the Galaxy S5, most of the device stays the same in terms of design, battery size, waterproofing, UI, and camera. What does change are the SoC, modem, and display. The SoC is largely similar to the one we see in the original Galaxy S5, but a minor update to CPU (Krait 450 vs Krait 400), more memory bandwidth, faster GPU, and faster ISP. In addition, the modem goes from category 4 LTE support on a 28HPm process to category 6 LTE support on TSMC’s 20nm SoC process. What this means is that the maximum data rate goes from 150 Mbps to 300 Mbps. Finally, the display goes from 1080p to 1440p in resolution, and we've previously covered the display's surprisingly good calibration and general characteristics.

Battery Life

Of course, one of the major questions has been whether battery life has been compromised by the higher resolution display or more powerful GPU. To answer these questions, we turn to our standard suite of tests, which include web browsing battery life and battery life under intensive load. In all cases where the test has the display on, the display is calibrated to 200 nits.

Web Browsing Battery Life (WiFi)

In this test, we see that the GS5 LTE-A is ever so slightly better than the Galaxy S5 in WiFi web browsing, which is quite a stunning result. However, the result is within the margin of error for this test, which is no more than 1-2%. This result is quite surprising, especially because we saw how the move to QHD significantly reduced battery life on the LG G3 compared to the competition. Samsung states that there is an improved emitter material in the OLED display, which is probably responsible for the relatively low impact of the QHD display. This kind of power efficiency improvement is due to the relatively immature state of OLED emitter material technology when compared to LED backlight technology.

The other area where power improvements could come from is the WiFi chip itself. Instead of Broadcom's BCM4354, we see a Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 solution in this variant. Both support 2x2 802.11ac WiFi for a maximum throughput of 866 Mbps, but there's a possibility that the QCA6174 solution is more power efficient than the BCM4354 we found in the original Galaxy S5.

Web Browsing Battery Life (4G LTE)

In the LTE web browsing test, we see a similar story as once again the Galaxy S5 LTE-A is within the margin of error for our test. As mentioned before, improvements to the display could reduce the effect that higher DPI has on power consumption. The other element here that could reduce power consumption would be the MDM9x35 modem, which is built on a 20nm SoC process for lower power consumption.

BaseMark OS II Battery Life

BaseMark OS II Battery Score

In order to better show the effects of stressing the CPU, GPU, NAND, and RAM subsystems we turn to our compute-intensive tests. For Basemark OS II, once again we see that battery life on the Galaxy S5 LTE-A is effectively identical to the original Galaxy S5. However, it seems that this comes at the cost of worse performance, which is likely the result of running at a higher resolution and higher ambient temperatures.

GFXBench 3.0 Battery Life

GFXBench 3.0 Battery Performance

While Basemark OS II seems to mostly simulate intensive conventional usage of a smartphone, GFXBench is a reasonably close approximation of intensive 3D gaming. Surprisingly, we see here that the GS5 LTE-A is ahead of the GS5. It seems that the GPU architecture of the Adreno 420 is more efficient than what we saw in the Adreno 330. Once we scale the final FPS by resolution, we see that the end of run performance is around 22 FPS, which means that performance ends up being a bit higher than the original Galaxy S5. This seems to suggest a more efficient GPU architecture.

CPU Performance

While sustained performance is important, more often than not mobile use cases end up being quite bursty in nature. After all, a phone that lasts "all day" usually only has its screen on for 4-6 hours of a 16 hour day. To get a better idea of performance in these situations, we turn to our more conventional benchmarks. For the most part, I wouldn't expect much improvement here. While it's true that we're looking a new revision of Krait, it seems to be mostly bugfixes and various other small tweaks, not any significant IPC increase.

SunSpider 1.0.2 Benchmark  (Chrome/Safari/IE)

Kraken 1.1 (Chrome/Safari/IE)

Google Octane v2  (Chrome/Safari/IE)

WebXPRT (Chrome/Safari/IE)

BaseMark OS II - Overall

BaseMark OS II - System

BaseMark OS II - Memory

BaseMark OS II - Graphics

BaseMark OS II - Web

As seen in the CPU-bound tests, the GS5 LTE-A tends to trade blows with other Snapdragon 801 devices. The only real area where we can see a noticeable lead is the graphics test in Basemark OS II, which gives us a good idea of what to expect for the GPU-bound tests.

GPU Benchmarks

If there's any one improvement that matters the most with Snapdragon 805, it's in graphics. While there is a minor clock bump from 578 MHz to 600 MHz in the Adreno 420, this accounts only accounts for a 3.9% bump in performance if performance per clock is identical when comparing the Adreno 330 and Adreno 420. For those unfamiliar with the Adreno 420, this is a new GPU architecture that brings Open GL ES 3.1 support, along with support for ASTC texture compression and tesselation. As a result, the Adreno 420 should be able to support much better graphics in video games and similar workloads, along with better performance overall when supporting a higher 1440p resolution display when compared to Adreno 330. While we saw how Adreno 420 performed in Qualcomm's developer tablet, this is the first shipping implementation of Adreno 420 so it's well worth another look.

GFXBench 3.0 T-Rex HD (Offscreen)

GFXBench 3.0 T-Rex HD (Onscreen)

GFXBench 3.0 Manhattan (Offscreen)

GFXBench 3.0 Manhattan (Onscreen)

BaseMark X 1.1 - Overall (High Quality)

BaseMark X 1.1 - Dunes (High Quality, Offscreen)

BaseMark X 1.1 - Hangar (High Quality, Offscreen)

BaseMark X 1.1 - Dunes (High Quality, Onscreen)

BaseMark X 1.1 - Hangar (High Quality, Onscreen)

3DMark 1.2 Unlimited - Overall

3DMark 1.2 Unlimited - Graphics

3DMark 1.2 Unlimited - Physics

Here, we see a general trend that in the off-screen benchmarks, the Adreno 420 has a solid lead over other smartphones. Against the Adreno 330, we see around a 50-60% performance increase. However, in the on-screen benchmarks the GS5 LTE-A is solidly middle of the pack. It seems that we will have to wait until Adreno 430 and Snapdragon 810 to see on-screen GPU performance improve if the display has a 1440p resolution.

NAND Performance

Since we're still on the subject of the GS5 LTE-A's performance, I wanted to make a note of something else that changed. It seems that Samsung has put higher performance NAND into this device as well, as there's a noticeable uplift in read and write speed, regardless of whether it's sequential or random.

Internal NAND - Sequential Read

Internal NAND - Sequential Write

Internal NAND - Random Read

Internal NAND - Random Write

WiFi Performance

While at first I thought that the GS5 LTE-A would use the Broadcom BCM4354 chipset for 2x2 802.11ac WiFi, it turns out that this wasn't the case at all. As I mentioned earlier, this is the first shipping implementation of Qualcomm Atheros' QCA6174 WiFi chip. To see whether it's any faster, I used iperf and an Asus RT-AC68U router to try and see what peak UDP throughput is like.

WiFi Performance - UDP

As we can see here, it's effectively neck and neck and quite hard to tell the two apart. Both Galaxy S5s are far ahead of their single stream competition, but we see that two spatial streams only delivers around a 36% increase in performance.

Final Words

While there's been a lot of discussion over the impact of 1440p displays on battery life and performance, it seems that Samsung has managed to make the move to 1440p without losing performance or battery life for the most part. Of course, there's always the question of how much better battery life could be by utilizing the same technologies for a 1080p panel. This ends up going back to the question of whether it's possible to notice the higher resolution. To some extent, the answer is yes, and it becomes much more noticeable when used for VR purposes. However, in normal usage it's not immediately noticeable unless one has good or even great vision.

Outside of conventional battery life and performance tests, there are still a few more things to cover. I've noticed that there's a new Sony IMX240 camera sensor in the GS5 LTE-A, and I've been working on a more in-depth look at the MDM9x35 modem. Overall, we can see that this is a relatively straight upgrade of the original Galaxy S5. This will also give us a good idea of what to expect for future high-end Samsung devices launching in the next few months.

05 Aug 13:06

Synology and the NAS-ty malware-flingers: What can be learned

by Trevor Pott

'Security first' gets more NB for little guys

Sysadmin blog  The recent Synology Synolocker issue should serve as a splash of cold water to any vendors in the tech industry that design and sell systems that are largely unattended or unmanaged.…

29 Jul 11:04

Foxconn comments on reports of plans to invest in Anhui, China

Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) has commented on reports that will invest in new plants in Anhui, China and is already in negotiations with the local government about related processes, saying that the company's investments need to be evaluated and must be reported to the board for a final decision.
21 Jul 16:36

Apple to Open New Retail Store in Chongqing, China on July 26

by Richard Padilla
Apple has announced on its official Chinese website (via 9to5Mac) that it will be opening a new retail store at the Paradise Walk Mall in the Chinese city of Chongqing on Saturday, July 26th, at 10 AM.

applestorechongqing
Last Wednesday, Apple put up a colorful banner over the store's exterior, signaling that the store would be opening shortly. The store will be Apple's eleventh in the country, joining four stores each in Shanghai and Beijing, one in Chengdu, and another in Shenzhen.

Apple has made efforts towards growing its presence in China over the past few years, most notably partnering with the country's biggest carrier China Mobile late last year in addition to opening new retail stores. Apple also became China's fifth-largest smartphone vendor in Q4 2013, accounting for 7% of market share in the country.
21 Jul 16:30

Apple May Shift Next-Generation Chip Production From TSMC to Samsung

by Husain Sumra
tsmcApple may shift production of its 14-nanometer next-generation chips for iPhone from TSMC to Samsung, according to information compiled by Reuters.
TSMC will be supplanted by Samsung in the production of 14-nanometre smartphone chips for Apple and Qualcomm beginning in the second half of 2015, KGI Securities analyst Michael Liu said in a note to clients issued late on Wednesday after a TSMC investor conference.
Taiwanese media reports say Apple partner Qualcomm has already begun working with Samsung on the new chips and has already begun placing orders for them.

Last week, a report indicated that TSMC had begun shipping A-series chips to Apple in Q2 2014, ending the longstanding exclusivity deal Apple had with Samsung to produce smartphone chips. The deal, which was agreed to last year, was part of Apple's bid to decrease reliance on Samsung for iOS device components. Additionally, TSMC had been mass producing 20-nanometer chips for Apple and is working with the company on 16-nanometer chips.

However, it appears Apple will be turning to Samsung for the 14-nanometer variety that is rumored to be the A9 processor in next fall's iPhone 6s. TSMC Chairman Morris Chang does say that the company will rebound in 2016 and regain market share, possibly hinting that another deal with Apple is possible for future iOS devices.
09 Jul 18:01

Watch our Hangout with ARM GPU Fellow Jem Davies

by Anand Lal Shimpi

For those of you who weren't able to catch the live stream be sure to watch our interview with ARM Fellow and all around GPU expert Jem Davies. In our Hangout Jem talked about how he got involved with GPUs at ARM (spoiler alert: his boss told him to go out and buy a GPU company). He also shared his thoughts on Mali's unique architecture and how it may evolve over time. We discussed the future of mobile gaming, solving memory bandwidth challenges, and the potential for ARM scaling its GPU architectures from wearables all the way up to supercomputers.

I reference it a few times, but you should also check out Ryan Smith's deep dive into ARM's Midgard GPU Architecture. ARM is the second mobile-focused GPU vendor to allow us unfettered access to the details of their GPUs and we're very thankful for it.

I'd like to thank Jem once again for taking the time to chat with me, and if you haven't already seen them I'd suggest watching some of our other Hangouts with ARM:

03 Apr 14:14

Is this the Android phone we've been begging for?! New leak may expose premium Galaxy S5 with quad HD display

by Chris Smith
Galaxy S5 Premium Specs

Even though Samsung has denied Galaxy S5 ‘Prime’ rumors that suggested the company will launch a premium high-end model of the Galaxy S5 later this year – the device was said to have a high-resolution 2K display on more than one occasion before and after the Galaxy S5 announcement – such a device may still be in the works. A new GFXBench benchmark test for a yet-to-be-announced SM-G906S smartphone from Samsung reveals a device with a quad HD display (2560 x 1440 pixels), seemingly confirming previous rumors.

Continue reading...

28 Jan 13:40

Supply chains see increased orders for 4G smartphones in China

Panel and touch panel makers are seeing increased orders from China-based handset vendors as the vendors plan to release new large-size high-resolution 4G smartphones in 2014.
28 Jan 13:39

Wanna make your own Azure? Now you can: Microsoft joins Open Compute Project

by Jack Clark

Redmond just gave you the plans

Microsoft has given away the secrets of its data centers for free by joining Facebook's Open Compute Project.…

04 Jun 14:06

Foxconn, Mozilla cooperate to develop Firefox OS ecosystem

Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) on June 3 announced the signing of an MoU with Mozilla for strategic cooperation to develop Firefox OS.
08 May 09:30

Has Apple Lost Control of the Narrative? Yep

by Bryan Chaffin

Apple is getting ready to retake control of the narrative, according to Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes. At the same time, that means that Apple lost control of that narrative in the first place, and Bryan Chaffin says that Apple can only blame itself.

read more


07 May 09:32

IC demand in China will remain robust after May 1 holidays, say sources

Demand for IC parts from the smartphone and tablet sectors in China will remain strong even after the May 1 holiday season as market players are adjusting upward their forecasts of sales of smartphones and tablets in China and other emerging markets for 2013, according to industry sources.