If you’re interested in following Apple’s 2010 WWDC keynote address, which is happening now, check out the live blogs on MobileCrunch or ZDNet. I have both open in tabs right now.
Highlights:
- You can now use the iPad’s iBooks application to read PDFs. The app will also see some navigation and usability fixes.
- Apple’s really getting behind HTML 5. Really.
- The App Store sees 15,000 submissions a week. Jobs brags that 95 percent of apps submitted to the App Store are approved within seven days.
- Netflix is coming to the iPhone this summer. (It’s already on the iPad, where it is quite popular, the Netflix CEO told the crowd.)
- I’m not so keen on this, but it is a highlight. A Farmville app is on the way by the end of June.
- Also coming soon: Guitar Hero for iPhone.
- App developers receive 70 percent of their sales on the App Store. So far, Apple has paid out more than $1 billion to developers.
- According to Nielsen numbers, the iPhone has 29 percent of the smartphone market. Android comes in at only 9 percent.
- Apple will release a new iPhone. It’s similar to the one that leaked back in April. It’ll be 9.3 millimeters thick, 24 millimeters thinner than the iPhone 3GS. It will have a front-facing camera and a camera with an LED flash on the back. The stainless steel band around the phone serves as its antenna.
- iPhone continued:Â The screen has something Steve Jobs called a “retina display.” The screen has a resolution of 326 pixels per inch. The human eye can’t see much improvement past 320 pixels per inch on something like a phone, Jobs said.
- iPhone continues: The new iPhone also has the Apple-designed A4 processor. Combined with a bigger battery, this means that battery life has improved about 40 percent, Jobs told the keynote crowd. That comes out to about 7 hours of 3G talk, 6 hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of Wi-fi browsing, 10 hours of video and 300 hours of standby.
- iPhone continued: The new iPhone has a three-axis gyroscope, for pitch, roll, yaw and rotation. This means a lot better control for games and augmented reality apps.
- iPhone continued: The unit will also have a big, ol’ 5 megapixel camera and some other photography enhancements. The big, cool thing: It can record 720p HD video and do some built-in video editing via iMovie for iPhone.
- Apple also announced the fourth version of its mobile operating system, to be named iOS 4. It will have multi-tasking, smart folders, a unified inbox in the Mail app and other features.
- iBooks will be offered on the iPhone.
- Apple will offer an advertising system for its app developers called iAds. The ads will go on sale July 1.
- Oh, and the iPhone can do video calls. It works via wi-fi only, iPhone 4 to iPhone 4. They call it FaceTime.
Sigh. It’s such much cool stuff. I just wish we had the ability to get iPhones in Bozeman (without jailbreaking them, that is).