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Posts tagged with "wwdc"

Apple Posts Initial WWDC 2012 Schedule, Releases Official App

With less than two weeks to go until WWDC 2012 kicks off, Apple has this morning released the conference schedule as well as the official iOS app and some guides for the conference goers. Developers who were lucky enough to snag tickets to WWDC ‘12 can access the schedule here. There are over 100 sessions and labs that have been categorised into six technical tracks covering:

  • Essentials
  • App Services
  • Developer Tools
  • Graphics, Media and Games
  • Safari and Web
  • Core OS

One interesting change is that the Apple Design Awards will this year be held on Monday at 3:45 PM - usually the event was held later in the event and during the evening.

The official WWDC app is also live now, featuring a detailed schedule, daily news and photos, a map of Moscone West and the ability to plan your week by favoriting sessions and detecting session conflicts. For those who might be new to the WWDC experience, Apple has also created a handy ‘Attendee Guide’ for WWDC that you can access here - it’s nothing huge but does have handy links to other resources that will likely be useful to new attendees. Lastly, there is guide to the WWDC labs including what they will cover, when and where they run and which require a reservation.

Bloomberg: Apple Announcing Thinner MacBook Pro at WWDC→

Bloomberg: Apple Announcing Thinner MacBook Pro at WWDC

Following today’s report from The Wall Street Journal about new iCloud features set to be announced at the upcoming WWDC in June, Bloomberg has weighed in confirming a rumor posted today by 9to5Mac about the company’s new MacBook Pro line.

The MacBook Pro machines, to be unveiled at Apple’s annual developers conference starting June 11, also will feature high- definition screens like those on the iPhone and iPad, as well as flash memory to cut startup times and extend battery life, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans haven’t been made public.

According to Bloomberg, Apple may also announce the release of the next version of OS X, Mountain Lion, at WWDC. Previously, Apple had simply confirmed the desktop OS upgrade would be coming “late summer”, without specifying a release date. The publication also suggests Ivy Bridge chips from Intel will be used, as previously reported. Retina displays for Macs is something Apple has been experimenting with in software releases for quite some time now, too, albeit such hardware implementation will require app and website developers to update their graphics for the new screens.

As many are speculating, two distinct reports about WWDC in one day seem to suggest a “controlled leak” by Apple to set expectations for the event, something the company did in the past. Prior to the iPhone 4S’ announcement, for instance, The Wall Street Journal pinpointed the device’s release timeframe and carrier support in the US, a move that several blogs connected to a “controlled leak” amidst rampant rumors during the summer. Apple itself went on the record saying those rumors negatively impacted the iPhone’s performances during the quarter.

WWDC ‘12 kicks off in San Francisco on June 11.

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WSJ: iCloud Getting Photo Sharing and Commenting, Video Syncing at WWDC→

WSJ: iCloud Getting Photo Sharing, Commenting, Video Syncing at WWDC

A new report by The Wall Street Journals claims Apple will be announcing a series of new features for iCloud at WWDC, including a revamped photo sharing system with support for user comments.

The new features, expected to be announced at Apple’s world-wide developer conference beginning June 11, will allow iCloud users to share sets of photos with other iCloud users and to comment on them, these people said. Currently, users can only store one set of photos in iCloud through a feature called Photo Stream, which is designed to sync those photos to other Apple devices, not share them.

The full report is available (behind paywall) at The Wall Street Journal. The publication also confirms iCloud.com will be getting support for Notes and Reminders web apps, as we previously detailed based on a “leaked” beta version of the service.

However, to say that “users can only store one set of photos in iCloud through a feature called Photo Stream” is incorrect. A feature of iPhoto for iOS called “Journals” and released in early March allows users to build sets of photos and share them publicly with a URL through iCloud. These Journals even support additional graphics such as backgrounds, text captions, and they can be viewed in any browser, allowing users to zoom in on single photos and download them. Here is an example of iCloud Journal.

Whilst it would make sense for Apple to simplify iCloud photo sharing and allow easier commenting especially from mobile devices, Photo Stream isn’t the only option to “store one set of photos”. Journals are limited to iPhoto, which is a separate app sold on the App Store that doesn’t come pre-installed on iOS devices, but they certainly show that Apple has been experimenting with iCloud-based public sharing for quite some time, even offering an API to developers for that (albeit limited to storage, with no display options as the WSJ implies here). With MobileMe approaching its deadline of June 30, it’s also worth keeping in mind that Apple’s existing solution to store and share photos, MobileMe Gallery, will stop functioning alongside the service, so it wouldn’t be a surprise for Apple to offer an alternative.

Apple’s WWDC is scheduled to kick off in San Francisco on June 11. Developers have been asking for more tools to integrate their apps with iCloud, and it’s very likely that Apple will announce additions to the service, as well as offer previews of iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion at its upcoming developer event.

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SHAPE Creates iPhone App to Get WWDC Ticket Alerts

Apple’s WWDC, or Worldwide Developers Conference, is the highlight for Apple developers working with iOS and OS X operating systems. WWDC is a great opportunity for peers to meet and greet and learn more about each other and the industry as a whole. It’s also a highlight for anyone that looks forward to hearing announcements and product reveals from Apple, such as a new iPhone and major iOS updates.

After last year’s WWDC, SHAPE met with many fellow developers and in turn the experience inspired them to continue making better apps. Tickets for WWDC can be hard to come by, last year’s event sold out in less than 10 hours and many developers missed their chance to get tickets because of travel, sleep, work arrangements, etc. This year could sell out as fast or even faster than 2011.

SHAPE took it upon themselves to develop an app specifically for WWDC ticket sales that works as an alarm. It monitors twitter for the keyword “wwdc” and also patrols the official WWDC site for changes. When announcements or keywords are triggered, the app sends a push notification and will activate an alarm within the WWDC app.

Video after the break. Read more

WWDC 2011 Session Videos Now Available

Right on schedule less than two weeks after WWDC, Apple has uploaded the session videos to its Developer portal and made them available for registered developers to download in iTunes, provided they log in with their Apple ID. Whilst the landing page for the WWDC 2011 Session Videos went live for a few minutes yesterday, the videos were not available yet. The videos are now available both in SD and HD at developer.apple.com/itunes. 109 files of sessions covering new iOS 5 topics like Notification Center and iMessage, new iCloud features, OS X Lion and memory management for developers can be downloaded now, for free and viewed on any iPhone 4, iPad, Apple TV, Mac and iPod touch 4th gen.

As usual, Apple reminds you that “content presented within the session videos and slides is Apple Confidential Information and is subject to the Registered Apple Developer Agreement.” The official Developer Videos webpage hasn’t been updated yet to reflect the changes, but the 2011 Sessions are available on iTunes.

Categories covered at WWDC 2011 include:

  • Apple Platforms Kickoff
  • App Frameworks
  • Core OS
  • Developer Tools
  • Graphics, Media, and Games
  • Internet and Web

Sessions can be downloaded as videos, or digital booklet slides.

The Best of the Best: Apple Design Awards 2011 Winners Announced

The Apple Design Awards “recognize outstanding achievement and excellence” in apps made specifically for Apple platforms and devices. For the first time, this year’s ADAs (which will be announced tonight at the WWDC 2011 in San Francisco) will award developers of applications for all iOS devices and Macs: whilst last year’s edition skipped the Mac to focus on iOS, 2011 is back at full speed to celebrate great, usable, and well-designed apps available in the Mac and iOS App Stores. For the full list of 2010 ADAs winner, check out our previous coverage here.

So what’s in for tonight? As you may be aware of we’re not in San Francisco to attend WWDC (let’s leave that to developers), but we’ll be following the events as they unfold on Twitter, also thanks to a few developer friends who are actually there to enjoy the show. We will update this story with the fresh names of winning apps and devs as soon as we get them, as well as Apple’s official statements about this year’s ADAs once the official page gets updated later today or tomorrow.

So follow us on Twitter as @macstoriesnet, come back to this post in around 10 minutes from now, and let’s wait and see who’s going to grab the prizes this year at WWDC.

You can check out the full list of winners after the break.

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WWDC 2011 Keynote Becomes 4-Minute Musical

If you’ve missed the WWDC 2011 keynote video (it’s available for streaming and download) but you’ve already read all the announcements, and yet you feel like you’re up for one of those funny recreations of Apple keynotes that usually pop up online a few hours after Steve Jobs has stepped off stage, this time we recommend checking out Jonathan Mann’s WWDC 2011: The Musical. You may remember him as the guy who puts up a new song on YouTube every day; in fact, his popular iPhone 4 Antenna song was even featured by Apple at the “Antennagate media event” last year.

The musical edition of the WWDC 2011 keynote is four minutes long, is based off MacRumors Live event transcript and it actually manages to put the right emphasis on the major and less-exciting announcements about Lion, iCloud, and iOS 5. It’s very well done, funny, entertaining. Perhaps Apple will feature it at the next WWDC opening keynote.

Check out the video below.
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iBookstore Finally Comes To iTunes

With an update to the iTunes Store, Apple is now finally allowing iPhone and iPad users to download iBooks on their Macs, and send them to their iOS devices. Announced with a banner that just went live in the iTunes Store homepage, the new Books section is available here and, as you would expect from the feature iOS users have been asking for almost a year now, it’s simply the iBookstore available on the desktop.

You can browse Staff Favorites, add items to your Wish List, check out the “Best of the month” and “popular pre-orders”. Everything seen on the iBookstore for iOS has been ported to a new section in the iTunes Store for desktop computers, which doesn’t require an iTunes update. With the new “Automatic Downloads” functionality that went live earlier today, you’ll be able to buy a book on your computer and instantly see it available on your iPhone or iPad with a download happening in the background.

At the moment of writing this, there doesn’t seem to be a desktop iBooks app, which was rumored in the past months to be in the works as an alternative for the iOS ebook reader. Check out more screenshots below. Read more

iCloud Beta for Developers Goes Live

Right on time after iOS 5 and OS X Lion developer seeds, Apple has updated the Dev Center to include the new iCloud beta for Developer pages, which lists all the instructions to get iCloud going on iOS devices, Macs and iPhoto. Indeed, Apple is including a download link to iPhoto 9.2 to test the new Photo Stream features in a separate development environment (your existing library won’t be ported over). Obviously, many of these features are exclusive to Lion and Apple clearly tells developers to go download the latest OS X Developer Preview if they want to test iCloud’s functionalities.

The iPhoto update will replace your current version of iPhoto. Your existing iPhoto Library will NOT open with this version of iPhoto. For this reason it is recommended that you work on a test/development system ONLY when using this release. You will not be able to revert the system to an earlier version of iPhoto without doing a clean install of Mac OS X and reinstalling iPhoto either from your original installation DVD or by downloading from the Mac App Store.

An iCloud Control Panel for Windows is also available to enable “Photo Stream, Contacts, and Calendar” on a PC through iCloud. A new iCloud account can be set up in the iOS 5 setup assistant or Settings app; in Lion, iCloud can be enabled from the Internet Accounts section in System Preferences – Developer Preview 4 is likely required for this action. Once installed an enabled on all devices, Apple is asking developers to test the new features and take advantage of the new APIs in Lion and iOS 5 – it will be interesting to see how devs will implement the iCloud storage API unveiled this morning.