Apple WWDC 2012: as it happened

Apple's chief executive Tim Cook opened WWDC in San Francisco today, where he announced a new MacBook Pro, iOS 6 and a Mountain Lion OS X update.

•Tim Cook gives keynote at WWDC
•MacBook range updated
•Next generation MacBook Pro introduces Retina screen to laptops
•Mountain Lion OS X update out next month for $19.99
•iOS 6 integrates Facebook, ending feud
•New maps app ditches Google data

19.58 Right that's the end of WWDC 2012 for another year. And the end of this live blog. We will post more news and reaction in due course.

19.55 Some conclusions from Shane Richmond before he is whisked away into a demo:

Next generation MacBook looks phenomenal. Mountain Lion is very similar to what we've seen before but good. iOS 6 is a solid upgrade but it is only really maps that is radically new.

19.53 Some modest final thoughts from Mr Cook.

Only Apple could make such amazing hardware, software, and services. We are so proud of these products. They are perfect examples of what Apple does best. Ultimately, it's why people come to work at Apple, and with Apple. To create products that empower people. To make a difference. The products we make, combined with the apps that you create, and fundamentally change the world

19.51 Things appear to be wrapping up in San Francisco now. Tim Cook is taking the cheers and applause.

19.50 The new Apple maps have Siri fully integrated - allowing the humble voice assistant to talk users through the journey. Shane Richmond, our man on the ground:

Satnav manufacturers are unlikely to be pleased with Apple's new maps system - which is described as a: "brand new mapping solution from the ground up". There are more than 200 features.

19.49 Scott Forstall, Apple's iOS boss, on the new maps app:

It's just beautiful

19.48 Apple's maps will include 3D capability which comes with a 'flyover' mode that gives the user an aerial view of major cities.

19.46 With Apple's own maps you can ask Siri to plan a journey for you or to plot stops along the way.

19.44 Read The Telegraph's take on the split between Apple and Google here.

19.43 A sign of the growing rivalry between Apple and Google as Apple dumps Google Maps and builds its own mapping software.

19.42 Apple is building a new traffic reports system into its maps - based on tracking people's iPhones as they drive, but has said it will be anonymous.

19.40 New maps time.

19.38 Passbook is free but you need iOS6 in order to access it. It wont work on older operating systems.

19.37 Here's iOS boss Scott Forstall, who Steve Jobs brought with him to Apple from NeXT. He's tipped as a possible successor to Tim Cook.

19.35 And there it is: a new apple App - Passbook. It wouldn't be an Apple launch without one. Passbook: stores boarding passes, store cards, movie tickets all in one place.

19.33 Safari gets some upgrades too but nothing major. Photo streams can now be shared with others. And mail now includes a 'VIP' feature. This marks people whose messages are important.

19.31 Here's "Hair Force One", Craig Federighi, in some hilarious on stage banter with "the Stig" who isn't.

19.29 Facetime update: now over cellular data (3G) not just wifi. Users will be able to unify phone numbers and Apple IDs. This means if you're called on your phone, you can receive a Facetime call on your iPad.

19.27 Another new feature of iOS 6 centres around calls. If you cannot answer a call, reply with a text instead or set a reminder to return the call later. There is also 'Do not disturb' - which turns off updates for a certain period and allows certain phone calls but not others. It allows 'repeated calls'.

19.23 Tim Cook has kept to his word and ended the Facebook row. (read our story) Facebook integration is now being detailed: Users will be able to post to Facebook from pretty much any app. They will also be able to post to Facebook or Twitter from Apple's notification centre

19.21 'Eyes-free' Siri integration coming in the next 12 months. Compatible cars will be able to control Siri from the dashboard. Siri is also coming to the iPad too.

19.19 Just another note on Mountain Lion from Apple's press team: Facebook integration will be available in an upcoming software update to Mountain Lion - following on from Tim Cook, Apple's chief, recently saying he would 'end the fight' with the social network.

19.18 The new Siri will be able to launch apps and is loaded with more information about films, including trailers.

19.17 Siri has been made 'more intelligent' about restaurants through parterships with the likes of Yelp and Open Table. However, it is unclear as to whether this type of info will extend to the UK.

19.13 iOS 6 will incorporate a more intelligent Siri. Siri has learned "about Sports". For example - if you ask Siri: "What was the score of the last Giants game?" A scoreboard will now come back with the answer on it and Siri will announce the headline result.

19.12 And now a little attack on Google, the competition. According to Forstall, 75 per cent of iOS customers are "very satisfied" compared to less than "50 per cent for Android".

19.11 Scott Forstall, senior vice president of Apple iOS, now on stage talking about the iOS update. First up an obligatory stat:

365m iOS devices sold to date.

19.10 The new Mountain Lion is out next month for $19.99 via the Mac App Store. The Mountain Lion upgrade is free with new laptops.

19.09 The Stig jokes are flying now:

https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/212244359209426944

19.05 Someone called Mr X, who according to Shane Richmond, looks a lot like The Stig, is now playing CSR Racing against Craig Federighi:

Mr X is wearing a tinted crash helmet and a white racing suit. Now watching Mac v iPad race transmitted over AirPlay to the big screen.

Mr X won and now he's gone again. i guess we'll never find out who the mystery man was.

19.02 Last couple of new Mountain Lion features: AirPlay on Mac lets you stream what's on your Mac to an Apple TV, as with iOS devices.

And Game Centre:Keeps track of your gaming progress on all your devices, including across platform between iOS and Macs.

19.00 Craig Federighi, Apple's Mac chief announcing a new feature called PowerNap:automatically refreshes the data on your various devices while the computer sleeps. if you plug the computer in to charge it will back everything up too.

18.58 Some tech enthusiasts are already getting sad about the new, better laptop.

18.57 Here's a close up of that fancy new MacBook Pro. Yep, looks like a laptop.

18.55 According to our man on the ground, Shane Richmond:

Sharing is built right across the [new Mountain Lion] system too - share direct to Twitter from all kinds of apps. And Safari has been redesigned with a chrome-style universal bar. 'iCloud tabs' saves all the pages you have open on every Apple device. Start browsing on iPad, carry on on your Mac.

18.54 The WWDC crowd are now being shown the new updated Mountain Lion for the first time - which has "a beautiful new glass dock" says Schiller.

Key changes:

iMessage comes to the Mac

Notifications slide in and then disappear

Alerts won't disappear until you dismiss them

Both can be turned off if you don't want to be interrupted

And they are automatically turned off if you connect to a projector

Dictation is coming to the Mac

Dictate to your word processor, if you want

18.51 The new version of OS X will let users sync documents stored in the cloud between Macs and iOS devices.

18.50 Schiller is now talking about OS X, Mountain Lion. 40 per cent of all Mountain Lion users are running Lion after 9 months since release.

18.47 Right let's talk cost of a new MacBook Pro:

A new one with 8GB RAM and 256GB flash storage wil set you back: $2199. The new models are available today.

18.43 Here's Phil Schiller showing off Apple's new top-of-the-range laptop.

18.40 The WWDC crowd are being shown a video about the new laptop. The newly knighted Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple's design guru, says of the new MacBook Pro:

To create something that is genuinely new, you have to start again. It's without doubt the very best computer we've ever built. We set out to design something extreme and this led us to rethink everything about our process...

18.37 Our man on the ground, Shane Richmond, delivers his first verdict on the new MacBook Pro:

The next generation MacBook Pro looks extraordinary. If the screen is as good as it appears to be here, it has the potential to have an even bigger impact on the industry than the MacBook Air, which the is the laptop the rest of the industry is currently trying to imitate

.

18.33 Here are some more specs about the new MacBook Pro:

quad-core i7

up to 16GB memory

GeForce GT 650 M

up to 768GB of Flash storage

up to 7 hours battery life

18.32 The new MacBook Pro will let you watch full-size 1080p video on it "with over three million pixels left over"

18.31 Here's Phil Schiller introducing the next generation MacBook Pro.

18.29 Philip Schiller says the new laptop has:

The world's highest resolution notebook display.

18.28 The new MacBook Pro is slightly lighter than the 13'' MacBook. Here are the details:

It has a retina display

2880x1800 on a 15" display

5,184,000 pixels

18.27 Philip Schiller says the new MacBook Pro is, wait for it:

thinner than my finger.

18.25 Announced: a new Apple laptop: the next generation MacBook Pro.

Schiller describes it as:

The most beautiful computer we have ever made.

18.24 New MacBook Pros Airs to ship today

18.23 MacBook Pros to get:

Faster graphics and memory

60% faster graphics

USB 3

2.5Ghz i5/2.9Ghz i7 - 13"

2.3Ghz/2.6Ghz quadcore i7 15"

18.22 Pictures are coming through. Here's Tim Cook on stage.

18.20 Phil Schiller announces the latest MacBook Air stats:

Up to 2.0GHz dual-core i7 - up to 3.2GHz

Up to 8GB RAM

512 GB Flash

FaceTime HD camera

$100 cheaper than previous MacBook Airs

18.19 Phil Schiller on MacBook Air:

MacBook line-up "is by far the best in the industry...The MacBook Air has revolutionised the very idea of the modern notebook. [...] It is a breakthrough and everyone is trying to copy it."

18.18 Phil Schiller, Apple's marketing chief, now out on stage.

18.17 Tim Cook now thanks developers for their work and confirmed there will be new MacBooks.

We want to deliver more innovations so you can take your ideas even further. Today we're announcing new changes in our notebook lineup, and new versions of our OS and iOS.

18.16 And Tim Cook, is back on stage:

It's (the video) a great reminder of what it's all about and why all of us do what we do.

18.15 Toca Boca apps, (which Shane Richmond wrote about for The Telegraph last year), getting a shout out for helping a girl with speech difficulties to practice her talking.

18.13 Apple has now got some businesses talking about how the app store has helped their business. First up its AirBnB, the room rental service, from San Francisco.

18.09 Shane Richmond, our man on the ground:

Now we are watching a video of a blind man using a voice navigation app to walk in his local forest.

18.08: Tim Cook:

It's [the Apple App Store] an economy in itself. It operates in 120 countries around the world. And I'm pleased to announce that we're adding an adittional 32.

18.07 Tim Cook:225,000 apps have been made especially for the iPad and a total of 30bn downloads from the Apple App Store. Apple has paid developers a total of £5bn.

18.06 Tim Cook is now going through some figures: 400million accounts on the App Store and giving some praise to the Apple developer community.

18.05 Apple's chief Tim Cook is now on stage to lead proceedings.

18.04 Little sarcastic joke from Siri: "I'm excited about the new Samsung. Not the phone: the refrigerator."

18.03 "Hello and welcome to WWDC. I'm Siri, your virtual assistant and today I was asked to warm up the crowd," says the video.

18.01 And we're off - with a video focused on Siri, Apple's humble voice assistant, playing out to the crowd.

17.59 Comedian weird Al Yankovic has tweeted his warped take on the event:

17.58 Apple have opted for Paradise by Coldplay for the final countdown.

17.57 There are a couple of MacBooks up on stage which several bloggers are speculating could be 'new models'.

17.55 A few tech bloggers reporting that upbeat indie music, like The Shins and Two Door Cinema Club, is playing inside the centre.

17.46 A little quip from Mr Richmond:

Wifi getting weak. I hope this isn't because everyone is streaming the England match

17.45 Shane Richmond sets the scene with 15 minutes to go:

It's the usual in the hall: white on black, Apple logo and a stage that appears to be empty apart from the table with the presentation computers on it.

17.42 Latest from our man Shane Richmond who is now inside the venue:

A small buzz of excitement has gone round the British journalists and PRs, having heard the England score but our excitement has been dampened by the German PR manager with news of France's equaliser.

17.38 If you paid $1,600 to attend WWDC as a developer, you did indeed receive a WWDC-branded jacket. Black with a white 12 on the back. The die-hards Apple followers are wearing theirs from '08' inside the centre.

17.33 Our man Shane Richmond is now finally inside the Moscone Centre and ready for WWDC to begin in just under 30 minutes time. Here's the latest inside information from him:

Wifi is flaky. (ironically) There are posters downstairs for iOS6, Mountain Lion and iCloud. There are some signs up here outside the main hall but they are still covered. (Well-known tech bloggers) Robert Scoble and John Gruber are among those loitering outside.

17.28 I really like this tweet from Danny Sullivan, the editor of SearchEngineLand.com - a blog all about, you guessed it, search engines.

I may live blog the live blogs at WWDC. I feel like Joan Rivers should be doing a red carpet bit right now, though.

17.25 Hi there - while we wait for England to score - Apple speculation is mounting. The team behind technology site Cnet "highly doubt" that Apple will announce an iWork update.

17.18 I'm handing over to Emma Barnett for a while. I'll leave you with the news that according to the chiefs this liveblog, in which nothing has technically happened yet, is currently beating the England match liveblog for traffic. Boom.

17.07 Most are betting against the introduction an Apple television today, but it would make sense as part of Apple's strategy of tying consumers in to its hardware with content. Here's analyst Jeremy Davies of Context.

More and more of us are happily allowing ourselves to be trapped in the Apple eco-system and content; the way we store, access, share and consume that content, is at the heart of this. Devices like the iPhone and iPad are intertwined because of content; our apps, music, podcasts, films, books and photos just won’t work elsewhere, and – actually - don’t need to.

Having created this benevolent closed loop, Apple’s iCloud now ensures that content bought on one device can be saved in the cloud and shared across all devices, while Apple TV provides a single platform from which to listen or watch your media. Upcoming revisions to iOS will tighten that integration, and achieve complete coverage when the long-rumoured television from Apple finally debuts.

16.52 A question for the tech support staff out there. If one were to try and run a memory-hungry liveblog on an asthmatic Pentium 4 PC which is about 10 years old, then open an IPTV app to keep an eye on the football, what would happen? Asking for a friend.

16.48 Apple at least thinks it's got surprises to spring. Some of the banners at the Moscone Center are swathed in black sheets, we're told.

16.32 The team at Engadget, the other big blog for gadget obsessives, have meanwhile been dreaming of new features they'd like to see in iOS 6. Personally I'd like the Apple email app to stop giving me multiple error messages every time I open it without a data connection. None of my other apps do. It's really annoying.

The Engadget guys want the option to add new keyboards (Android-style), better iCloud syncing, a better native camera app, and to allow iMessage to communicate with other free mesaging apps.

Let's put some options to a scientific poll.

16.16 Some updated MacBooks seem a dead cert now. Gizmodo is hoping for a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro, with a MacBook Air-style solid state drive and 15-inch Retina display. Other new MacBook Pros, which seem more certain to be unveiled, will get new Ivy Bridge processors, it's claimed. (This liveblog brought to you by a TMG-issue HP Compaq Pentium 4 and the letters X and P, alas.)

16.02 And our man Shane Richmond is among the early birds over there. After, presumably, overnight Jobsian/zen meditation on Apple's plans in a mid-priced downtown hotel room, here are his latest thoughts on what to expect.

The queue for the keynote already stretches all the way around the block as Apple fans wait for the chance to get the best seats once Cook comes on stage.

The posters announcing iOS 6 are in the conference centre and have been widely photographed so it will be no surprise when that is announced later.

Expect a re-run of the already announced Mountain Lion (OS X) features too, perhaps with a couple of new ones thrown in.

Additional features for iCloud seems like a certainty too. After that, all is guesswork.

An API for Apple TV is certainly possible, as is an API, in a limited capacity, for Siri.

As for other hardware - new iPhones, mini iPads, TV sets and the like - put those somewhere between very unlikely and no chance at all.

16.01 Here's the scene at the Moscone Center, before 8am local time. Weather looks nice, eh?

15.43 Meanwhile for newcomers to the circus, Time magazine has a nice retrospective on WWDC, including Steve Jobs famous appearance on his return to Apple, struggling in 1997, when he just took questions from disenchanted developers.

There's also video of the bizarre 2002 presentation, when Jobs presided over a mock funeral for OS 9, "complete with a heartfelt eulogy and open casket".

15.31 For those keen to play along at home, Scottish developers Patrick Mason and David Moss have put together an "Apple Keynote Bingo" web app for jaded WWDC veterans.

When to start

1. When your Twitter feed goes mental with people saying that the Apple Store is down, this is your cue to Tweet that the Apple Store is down.
2. Finish what you are doing; if you are working in Windows, save your document. If you are working on a Mac, just stop. It’ll save it whether you bloody want it to or not.
3. If you are on Pacific Time, get yourself a coffee. If you are in England, it’s almost 6pm. Get yourself an alcoholic drink. If you are in Scotland, you should already be drunk. Get yourself another drink, and why not open that second bottle of red wine to let it breathe.
4. Your aim is information overload. Ensure that your Twitter app is open and Growl is enabled. Open seven or eight live blogs – they will crash, so start with as many as you can. Make sure you have the Gizmodo one open, so you can laugh at how bitter they are that they haven’t been invited.
5. Fire up your bingo card. You can refresh for a different selection of words, if you think you’ve been dealt a poor hand. It’s not cheating – I’ll never know.

15.20 Ovum, one of the tech analyst houses, has piped up with its views on what Apple ought to focus on at WWDC. Here's their chief telecoms analyst Jan Dawson.

To start, Apple needs to do two things in the TV space. Firstly, create a subscription model that combines the back catalog of Netflix with the timely content of Hulu for a single price. Secondly, it should create an software development kit followed by an App Store for the Apple TV device to allow third party apps to proliferate there as they have on the iPhone and iPad. What it does not need to do is launch a television set.

Elsewhere, Apple needs to begin to evolve the iOS user interface on iPhone and iPad, which has been the inspiration for many other platforms, but at five years old it’s beginning to show its age. Proper support for widgets (including third party widgets), whether in the Notification Center or the main screen, is critical. Apple also needs to add a broader set of APIs to allow better cross-app interaction akin to what is possible on Android.

Finally, Apple must find a way to replace the remaining third-party services, which are core to many users' experience on the iPhone, with its own. It is likely to fix this problem with Maps in iOS 6, but it has a similar problem in web search, in social networking, and in PIM (email, contacts and calendar). Without really compelling offerings in each of these areas, Apple's users will become increasingly ingrained in third party services which may be better supported on other platforms.

15.15 On Twitter, which might be best avoided later on if you have a low tolerance for excitable football and/or Apple fans, the WWDC buzz is building. The online Apple store has shut in preparation for the announcements, as is traditonal.

9to5Mac, a middlingly-reliable source of Apple rumour mill grist, says it has the specs for some new MacBooks.

And apropos of not much, there was an amusing observation this morning on the Guido Fawkes blog about Alistair Campbell, who has gone to work for Portland Communications, an Apple PR contractor.

Guido is not quite sure why Apple will bother to retain Portland for thousands per month when one of their big name fixers takes to Twitter to lambast the company to his 150,000 influential followers:

15.13 There has been some speculation that Apple will introduce its long-rumoured television. Shane Richmond says its likely there will be tools to help developers create apps for it, which would be tacit confirmation of the project. We're unlikely to get a glimpse of a shiny Apple-branded idiot box, alas.

Other speculation is somewhat wilder. There have been suggestions for months that Apple is planning to launch its own television set and some observers feel that Cook and his team will announce it today. More likely is an update to Apple TV, the company's set-top box, perhaps to allow developers to write applications for it, as they can do with the iPhone and iPad.

15.10 WWDC is Apple's annual shindig for the community of devlopers who create apps for iOS and OS X. Inevitably then, the focus is usually on software rather than blockbuster hardware announcements.

Last year Apple used the event to announce iCloud, its online storage product. The keynote, which we liveblogged here, turned out to be Steve Jobs' last.

Today Moscone center is festooned in its regular Apple livery for the WWDC 2012.

15.02 To kick us off (football references end here... probably) here's a preview from our head of technology, Shane Richmond, who is out in San Francisco and will be reporting for us live from the keynote, which starts at 18.00 UK time.

Apple's chief executive Tim Cook will open WWDC San Francisco today where he is expected to announce iOS and, possibly, upgraded laptops.

Cook will kick off the Apple WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address that is expected to set out plans for iOS 6, the new version of the operating system that powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, and further details of Mountain Lion, the next version of the Mac operating system.

Facebook integration with iOS is considered likely after comments by Cook last month suggesting that relations between Apple and the social network had warmed. In 2010, the two companies failed to agree Facebook integration with Ping - Apple's iTunes-based social network.

Also expected is an upgrade to the maps application in iOS. It is thought that Apple will drop Google's maps service and replace it with its own, adding 3D maps in the process.

As always with Apple, even these announcements are not certain and there are rumours that new hardware could be unveiled too. Top of the list are new MacBook laptops with very high resolution screens, which Apple calls 'retina displays' in its iPhone and iPads.

15.00 Good afternoon and welcome to the build up for the main event this evening. The kit is ready, the time for speculation is over and The Telegraph is poised to cover every angle.

Yes, it's the keynote at WWDC, Apple's developer conference at the Moscone center in San Francisco. (Apparently there is also a football match on in a bit, but that needn't concern us here).