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Apple WWDC: iOS 5, Lion, iCloud 662

Steve Jobs was on hand today to kick off Apple's WWDC keynote. Lion took the lead, with no surprises except a $29.99 pricetag and a July ship date. iOS is getting a new "Notification Center"; Twitter is being integrated; he announced a split thumbable keyboard for iPads; wireless syncing; and a native IM system for iOS devices, shipping in the Fall. iCloud will be free, syncing apps (Mail, Calendar, Contacts and iWork apps) across devices. Photostream is iCloud for pictures. iTunes iCloud will let you re-download your tracks at last, and iTunes Match will let you match your ripped CDs to Apple's copies.
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Apple WWDC: iOS 5, Lion, iCloud

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  • While iCloud is as expected, I am still curious to see it in action. Will the terrible file management experience of iOS devices disappear with the iCloud?

    • by roothog ( 635998 )

      It sounds like a rebranding of MobileMe (which was a rebranding of .mac). See it in action by signing up for MobileMe, and then wonder why all your email disappeared.

      • by TobyRush ( 957946 ) on Monday June 06, 2011 @03:26PM (#36354230) Homepage

        Steve himself pointed out that MobileMe was a misstep. As someone who has cobbled together a cable-based home iTunes network, Gmail (via both a desktop/laptop web browser but also through iPhone's Mail app for notifications, etc.), Flickr & iPhoto, AppleTVs, a 60GB iPod, my wife's iPod Touch, Things for to do lists, etc., etc., etc., the only thing that is not encouraging to me about this is the thought of redoing everything again. But if Apple is actually putting some energy into this (and from the data center pictures, it looks like they are), it's might be too tempting to refuse.

        And iTunes Match? Does anyone else find it baffling how they are getting away with this? I mean, for $25 I get legal versions of every single—ahem, questionably procured, shall we say— tracks in my gigantic iTunes library? Did the record companies read the fine print on this? I mean, as a voracious music consumer, I'm NOT complaining... we've all known for a long time that things were going to have to change in regard to digital media and copyright. And say what you will about them, I could see Apple being the company to make it happen. But really... how did they get away with this?

        • by leamanc ( 961376 )

          I mean, for $25 I get legal versions of every singleâ"ahem, questionably procured, shall we sayâ" tracks in my gigantic iTunes library? Did the record companies read the fine print on this?

          Lala had this feature. They called it "iTunes Uploader" or something along those lines. Of course, it didn't actually upload your iTunes library; it matched your rips with the rips Lala had in their library.

          And yes, the record labels (the big ones along with a wide selection of indies) agreed to this with Lala. When Apple bought Lala, it wasn't immediately clear that the deals that Lala had made with the labels would apply to the sale, but clearly Apple has worked it out to the labels' satisfaction.

    • by tooyoung ( 853621 ) on Monday June 06, 2011 @03:17PM (#36354078)
      I think that the idea is that users don't interact with files and the file system. They interact with songs through the iTunes interface. I know there are a million and one reasons to do clever things with the file system organization for music, but I think that 99% of users don't really care about how their songs are laid out on the FS. They think of them as songs, not files.
  • But will it run on Linux?

  • In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Admodieus ( 918728 ) <[ten.kazcsim] [ta] [nhoj]> on Monday June 06, 2011 @03:02PM (#36353780)
    ...he introduced the Apple community to Android, Windows Phone 7, Linux, Windows, and OS X Snow Leopard.
    • by roothog ( 635998 ) on Monday June 06, 2011 @03:06PM (#36353864)

      As trollish as that looks, I was sort of thinking it too. I didn't realize how far behind the times Apple had gotten, until I saw the list of coming features and thought to myself, "I've had that for years".

      • by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06, 2011 @03:37PM (#36354420)

        Apple has always been more about making things actually "just work" instead of introducing new things. Before the iPhone you could do all those things and more on Windows Mobile and Symbian phones. Before the iPod there were MP3 players with far more features than the iPod had.
        The difference is that Apple takes some existing features, and does them _really_ well. You could browse the web on Windows Mobile, but the experience was pretty painful. The iPhone was the first to make that feature actually useful enough to use all the time. Same with the iPod. I have a little MP3 player from Samsung and I can't for the life of me remember how to use it. It just isn't intuitive.

        It is changing a little though. For example the notification system was taken exactly from Android without significantly improving it. And I'm disappointed that there were no changes to the home screen to be more dynamic to allow quick access to certain features (like turning Wifi/bluetooth on/off).
        I still think the user experience is better on iOS than Android, but the gap is much smaller than it was just 6 months ago. Apple will have to be a bit more creative to maintain that lead there.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by LordRobin ( 983231 )

        No you haven't.

        This happens every time Apple announces a new product. Someone invariably claims that it's nothing new, because some half-assed crappy version of the idea exists somewhere. Then once the product is actually released, everyone is amazed at what a leap it is.

        This goes all the way back to the iPod. "Oooh, an MP3 player. Big deal. I have one of those."

        ------RM

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ibmjones ( 52133 )

      ...he introduced the Apple community to . . . OS X Snow Leopard.

      OS X Snow Leopard? Who makes that?

      • by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

        He's not wrong, though. Several of the "new features [apple.com]" are re-treads of things that exist in Snow Leopard. (Also, I note that the link I gave is likely to change over time, and be meaningless once whatever if after Lion releases. Oh well.)

        For example, "pinch to zoom." In Lion, you can pinch on the track pad to zoom in and out of webpages! Incidentally, you can also do this in Snow Leopard. And I'm fairly sure it worked in Leopard, too. Maybe even before that.

        Another "new feature" is the Mac App Store. Which

    • Didn't you know? (Score:3, Informative)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

      Apple always does it last.

      Then they do it best.

      That's the MO that they have been repeating for years.

      You just caught on?

    • by jbplou ( 732414 )

      Perhaps he actually introduced you to how the most successful computing device company takes an idea and makes it usable for the masses.

  • The comment that there will be no install media for OS X 10.7 is a show stopper to me.

    • I have heard elsewhere that there might be a burnable disc image, but no confirmation yet.

      Could be a good way to do it. The App Store downloads the image, mounts it and installs. You can go in later and burn it to disc.

    • I've heard you can burn it to a DVD if you want. It's just a disc image (in the developer preview anyway). [holgr.com]

    • The announcement said that it will be available from the online store, in addition to conventional distribution channels. There are enough reasons to dislike Apple products, without making up imaginary ones.
      • by geniusj ( 140174 )

        From the macrumors live updates:

        10:37 am Lion available only on Mac App Store

        We'll see ...

        • The Mac App Store just downloads .dmg's last I remember (or something similar). See the whole fiasco with trying to ugprade Xcode through the store - it makes you redownload the whole disk image.
    • by arcite ( 661011 )
      I have a Macbook and have used my superdrive like twice in the past year. I would rather devote that space to more battery.
  • I mean really, maybe some information beyond this vaguely twitter-esque, detail-lacking post? A picture of something? This is about as low-content as you can go while still technically providing information.

    Or at least put it in a separate "here's my live slashdot blog" section.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by roothog ( 635998 )

      Just go anywhere on the web. Anywhere. Everybody's covering this today, finding more information isn't exactly hard.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        Then why post low-content live-bloggish "articles" here on slashdot? Post an article linking to one or two of those live blogs instead, or even add some sort of editorial commentary to the post.

        What was posted, though, I expect to be signed as "Sent from my Android" or similar.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by DJRumpy ( 1345787 )

      Here's the live blog (well not so live now) of the event. It has the essential information.

      http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/06/wwdc-2011-liveblog-steve-jobs-talks-ios-5-os-x-lion-icloud-an/?sort=newest&refresh=60 [engadget.com]

  • by xjerky ( 128399 ) on Monday June 06, 2011 @03:05PM (#36353826)

    But I will definitely go for Lion at $29. The thing is, how will it be made available to Leopard users? Jobs said it was Mac App Store-only.

    (posting non-anon this time)

  • by sl4shd0rk ( 755837 ) on Monday June 06, 2011 @03:06PM (#36353860)

    I can't wait to give away my freedom. How much longer?

    • Hopefully it'll be released at the same time as flying cars and Duke Nukem Forever.

      Oh wait, scratch that last one. Just the flying cars as the last defense, then.

  • by Xunker ( 6905 ) on Monday June 06, 2011 @03:09PM (#36353902) Homepage Journal

    2001: Record labels sue my.mp3.com in to oblivion.
    2011: Record labels can't wait to suck on the iTunes Cloud teat.

    • by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Monday June 06, 2011 @03:12PM (#36353980)

      2001: Record labels sue my.mp3.com in to oblivion.
      2011: Record labels can't wait to suck on the iTunes Cloud teat.

      In between: Some major payment of money from Apple to the record companies.

  • by simp ( 25997 ) on Monday June 06, 2011 @03:11PM (#36353948)

    So for a 25 dollar "insurance" fee I can match all the mp3s that I can find op my harddisk to songs in the itunes cloud and then those (legal) itunes songs will be downloaded to all my devices? That's an offer that I can't refuse.

    And won't the music industry go apeshit over this?

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by Servaas ( 1050156 )
      I care nothing for iTunes but for 25 dollars a pardon for past download crimes even I could go apeshit over.
    • by geniusj ( 140174 )

      Well, if you think about it. You were pretty unlikely to spend *anything* on those songs again. So now they get $25 out of you that they otherwise were unlikely to get. Not a bad deal.

    • Nah, they got brought out by Apple. I have a feeling Apple pays them for every song that has to be uploaded (not in their library) which probably shuts them up. Remember, the music industry likes money, Apple has plenty. They'll make a killing off the $25 fee anyway, so there's plenty spare to throw at the labels for being idiots. Hopefully these labels will shrink over the decade anyway until they're not even worth paying off.
    • So for a 25 dollar "insurance" fee I can match all the mp3s that I can find op my harddisk to songs in the itunes cloud and then those (legal) itunes songs will be downloaded to all my devices? That's an offer that I can't refuse.

      And won't the music industry go apeshit over this?

      Sorry, no - you still have to have a legal original copy of the song. This just uses your bandwidth to copy the song to all your registered iDevices. Interestingly, this also provides a 3rd party with a proven trail that you originally owned some music you weren't supposed to - all recorded in the iCloud that you can't erase.

      This actually sounds more like Apple providing a way for your to replicate any piracy of music and provide a hard-copy of the fact, so the RIAA/MPAA can sue you many times for the m

  • I have a small, but growing stable of Macs in my house. I read on Engadget that, "it will run you just $29.99 for all of your authorized Macs." Does this mean that its $30 or $60 to upgrade the two Macs I have that are tied to my iTunes account?

    http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/06/os-x-lion-all-the-details/ [engadget.com]

    • by roothog ( 635998 )

      For Snow Leopard, the $30 upgrade disks were good for up to 5 systems, if I remember. Probably similar for Lion.

  • Untethered idevices! Apple just opened themselves up to a whole new segment of the market...those people who don't have an iMac or Macbook. This means that anyone who can afford the lowest level idevice is able to get access to the whole ecosystem to handle all of their media, user created content, documents, ect.... The iCloud makes all of this possible. The data is persistent and secure forever, for all present and future devices. It only gets better from here on out; we are finally in the 21st century b
    • The iCloud makes all of this possible. The data is persistent and secure forever, for all present and future devices.

      Simply: Wow.

      What color is the fucking sky on your world? How long do you measure forever? Five Years? How about twenty? Thirty? If Apple in 50 years even resembles Apple today, I'll eat my fucking flying car. Nevermind actually keeping this service running forever.

      I won't even go into "persistent and secure" or "all present and future devices". You apparently don't read the news enough

  • How about making it so I don't have re-download 3+GB every time a minor dot-release of Xcode is released?

  • Few surprises (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Monday June 06, 2011 @03:27PM (#36354248) Homepage Journal
    $30 for the OS is the same price as the current OS. The only difference is there is no family pack. This is because device on an Apple account is considered the same device for licensing purposes. If you have 10 macs on you account, then all 10 macs can get the Appstore Software. This is a really attractive feature of Apple software, and I am glad that all Appstore software is going to follow this model. One of my biggest issues with MS is having to buy MS WIndows at $200 a pop for every machine I own.

    We also expected the over the network OS upgrades, something I think will really separate Mac Os and iOS hardware form the MS crowd. Lack of installation media is a concern for some, but I put all my OS on HD partitions and install from the harddisk anyway. Haven't install from a DVD in years. Haven't bought a application DVD in years.

    The dig about it just working is really apropos. I tried to use Amazon music service thingy. Bought the music, put it on the web, could not download it to my computer afterwards. So I set up Amazon to download to my computer, thinking I would upload back to Amazon. Bought the lady gaga for $1, never got it to download properly, Amazon will not aswer my requests to download it again. I think this is called theft. Really wondering if I am going to do business with them when they won't give me my purchases.

    One thing I am concerned about is the transition from Mobileme to iCloud. They are not making it cheaper, 5gb for $20 is not better than the current deal. They are just giving away inexpensive services for free, just like they did with itools. Most people are not going to upload that many pictures in 30 days, and well over a decade of mail is not taking more than a few gb of space.

    The versioning on iOS is going be a huge thing, since the iOS 'filesystem' is not versionable with any current tools. OTOH, semms iworks is stil imcompatable between Mac OS and iOS so I would have liked to see some work done on that front.

    Apple is competing hard against Google and RIM, which is good, but they seem to have lost their way on some of the applications. This happened in the late 80's when they were trying to cut prices to compete with the PC. The software was spun off the claris and a lot of good applications were lost.

    • by Ixokai ( 443555 )

      Its not 5gb for $20 -- its 5gb for free. Everyone gets 5gb ... and that 5gb ONLY counts your personal data-stuff. Not your music, apps and the like which is bought from Apple's servers. None of that counts towards your storage limits at all.

      The only thing that costs anything with iCloud (which completely suprecedes MobileMe, IIUC) is the iTunes music match service. Everything else is completely free.

      I'm not sure I get your comment on applications-- they seem to be spending as much time working on their apps

  • Dear Apple (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Enry ( 630 ) <enry@@@wayga...net> on Monday June 06, 2011 @03:39PM (#36354458) Journal

    Welcome to last year.

    Love and kisses,
    Android

    Really, though all these things are good, but Apple is going for the same thing IBM and Microsoft tried in the 80s and 90s by locking users into a static platform. There's better bells and whistles now, but when Facetime can't connect with anything other than an iOS or OS X device, you'll have to say forget it and go with something more cross platform like Google Voice. Many of the new features advertised already exist in one form or another and the ones that are unique are more 'Huh. Interesting, but not enough to make my buy one'.

    • You do realize that Apple released the code for FaceTime for others to build it into their clients. And you do realize that several important pieces of the new stuff are also made available to third party developers so they can participate, too? Exactly how is releasing code for others to use locking users into a static platform?

  • by shutdown -p now ( 807394 ) on Monday June 06, 2011 @04:24PM (#36355176) Journal

    How does an IM system becomes "native", and what would it be?

    On one hand, I hope that - like iChat - it will support the One True Protocol (namely, XMPP).

    On the other hand, what with FaceTime being a new thing entirely (instead of taking one of the existing open ones, such as Google's video chat XMPP extensions), and locked down tight so far despite all the promises, I have a bad feeling about this...

  • by t2t10 ( 1909766 ) on Monday June 06, 2011 @05:55PM (#36356230)

    Wow, Apple is seriously behind the curve, as usual. Google and others have been offering "it just works" cloud-syncing for years now.

    And we'll have to see whether their iCould service is even usable MobileMe really sucked (I used to subscribe to it and canceled after a few years).

  • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @12:13AM (#36359296)

    Any song you buy on iTunes is automatically available to download on your device.
    Plus if you pay the 25 bucks a year fee,
    any song you obtained elsewhere (ripped from CD, bought from amazon, bought from allofmp3, pirated, whatever) that can be matched to a song on iTunes, you get the iTunes copy to download to your device.
    And if the song you have cant be matched to an iTunes song (e.g. songs from artists not willing to sign up to iTunes, songs from your mates band, that leaked copy of the new album that's not in stores yet etc) it gets uploaded to the cloud and can be downloaded to your device.

  • by walter_f ( 889353 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @07:33AM (#36360778)

    On Apple's web pages, the 10.7 ("Lion") version seems no longer to be referred to as "Mac OS X".

    Instead, it's called just "OS X" or "OS X Lion" in nearly all occurences.

    This might be insignificant, but then again... remember when "Apple Computer, Inc." relabeled itself into just "Apple, Inc."?

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