苹果WWDC 2015发布会于北京时间6月9日凌晨1点举行，下面就看看福布斯网站发表的这篇名为《Apple's WWDC Wrap Up And Analysis: Incremental Improvements But No Major Leaps》的文章。
Apple's WWDC Wrap Up And Analysis: Incremental Improvements But No Major Leaps
Apple keynotes tend to come in two categories. One is the knock-your-socks-off presentation that accompanies an exciting leap in innovation. At Apple, that often means new hardware, like the iPhone 6 or the Apple Watch. The other, I’ll call the better-faster-slicker presentation, where Apple unveils a series — often a long series — of incremental improvements. None will change the world, but collectively they amount to something quite useful, and they may even prompt millions of people to go buy more Apple devices.
Monday’s World Wide Developers’ Conference fell into the second category. There wasn’t much that was revolutionary or even unexpected, but plenty for Apple fans to chew on.
To be sure, there were a couple of big new products. The first was Apple Music, a long anticipated streaming service from Apple meant to replace the company’s faded iTunes. The app looks good and is designed to let music fans listen to what they like and discover new artists all in one place. It’s selling itself as a platform for artists to connect with fans (hey, budding rock star, upload your video here, not to YouTube or Facebook). Apple Music comes with a 24/7 “global” radio station that Apple says will be the best anywhere. It’s hard to imagine that it will be more than a platform for a handful of Apple-chosen DJs and music curators to connect with a potentially huge audience.
At first glance, it’s difficult to see what, if anything, makes Apple Music better than, say, Spotify, it’s most direct competitor. I did like that it was integrated with Siri, so you could tell your phone things like “play Let It Be,” or “play my favorite alternative album.” (Spotify must be asking Apple, or more likely, Google, for a similar kind of OS-level integration.) I also liked Apple Music’s family plan, which for $15 a month allows a group of up to six people to share the service. The individual plan cost the same $10 a month as Spotify’s. (I suspect the folks at Spotify are busy working on matching the family plan now, if they weren’t already.) One more thing I liked: Apple Music will be free for the first three months, ensuring that millions of people around the world will give it a try.
The second interesting new product was News, a slick app to read stories from the likes of The New York Times, Vanity Fair and scores of other publishers on their mobile devices. It is clearly inspired by Flipboard and borrows from the slick user experience of Facebook’s recently-launched Instant Articles. I’m sure people will like it, but it certainly doesn’t count as a major breakthrough.
The rest of the event consisted of a series of updates of iOS, OS X (now called El Capitan) and watchOS. Some mimic features already available in Windows or Android. Apple execs tried to get us excited by the fact that the watchOS revamp comes just 3 months after the launch of the device. You can look at it that way, or you can say that the initial watchOS was half baked, and Apple released it anyway because it had committed to get the watch to consumers early this year.
You can read about all the OS updates and other details like upgrades to HealthKit and HomeKit below. They appear in reverse order from when they were announced, since they were published as a part of our live blog of the event.
I’ll add my own “one more thing.” Apple CEO Tim Cook did away with the customary update — how many millions of iPhones and apps Apple has sold, how many dozens of new stores it has opened, how many gazillion customers it has delighted. Why? There was too much to cover in one keynote, Cook said. Perhaps. Another reason may be that Apple is not ready to divulge Apple Watch sales numbers, and if it had updated us on other metrics but not the watch, well, it would have looked kind of bad.
The WWDC live blog:
12:23 pm: Cook is back to wrap it up. With a live music performance, of course, by “one of the hottest new artists in music today: The Weekend.”
12:19 pm: Forget about the demo. There was some cool stuff, especially in the integration of Apple Music and Siri (play the top 10 songs in alternative; play the top song from May 1982; play the song from Selma –oops, it didn’t work the first time Cue tried it.)
Here’s the important stuff: Apple Music launches on June 30. It will cost $9.99 a month. A family plan for up to 6 people will cost $14.99 a month. Oh, an Android version is coming in the fall.
12:04 pm: I guess we’re just going to have to try it. As described by Cue, Apple Music fails to knock my socks off. Yes, there’s a music service, which as expected will have my music, stuff curated for me, and new things I will discover – and hopefully like. It has a radio station that Apple promises will be the best anywhere. And it’s place where artists upload music, videos, photos, lyrics. Cool. Even rapper Drake, on stage to endorse it, likes Apple Music. Cue is back for a demo.
11:56 am: Apple Music is 3 things: a revolutionary music service curated by the leading music experts tat we helped hand pick; a 24/7 radio station; a place to connect with fans and artists, says Iovine, before handing it over to SVP Eddie Cue to go into the details.
11:53 am: Iovine says Apple Music creates a complete experience for music fans, where they can listen, watch and follow and their favorite artists. “All you love about music in one place,” says Iovine.
Jimmy Iovine on stage to talk Apple Music (Source: Aaron Tilley)
11:44 am: Here’s the “One more thing”. Cook begins to talk about music. The big news of the day: Apple Music. “Apple Music is the next chapter in music and I know you are going to love it,” says Cook. “It will change how you experience music forever.” He brings Jimmy Iovine to talk about Apple Music.
11:31 am: Astute observers note that the $30 billion paid to developers in total means that $10 billion was paid in the last year. And that suggest growth is slowing.
Cook now moves on to the Apple Watch, which is becoming more open with a new version of watchOS. It allows programmers to write native apps for the device, so they can put an app’s logic directly on the watch, rather than having to rely on the accompanying iPhone. “For us, this is a giant moment,” Cook says. “This is how we felt when we launched the app store.”
New Apple Watch OS allows to look forward in time with “Time Travel” function (Source: Aaron Tilley)
11:20 am: Apple CEO Tim Cook returns to update us on the App Store.
“The app store has passed 100 billion app downloads,” Cook says. “The rate of growth and the momentum is absolutely staggering. We now paid up $30 billion to developers.” It’s the most profitable app marketplace on the planet, Cook says.
11:16 am: Federighi wraps up, running through a string of relatively minor improvements to HealthKit (it will measure new things like exposure to sunlight or amount of time you’ve been sedentary), HomeKit (you can now control window shades, sensors for carbon monoxide and other appliances) and Car Play (it will work without having to plug in a cord). But this is a developers conference, and the biggest applause of the day came when Federighi announced that the Swift programming language will be open sourced!
The public Beta of iOS 9 will come in July and a free upgrade for all in the fall.
11:10 am: Apple brings some intriguing enhancements to the iPad experience, especially around multitasking:
• The keyboard can turn into a trackpad if you touch it with two fingers, making it easier to edit documents, select, cut and paste, etc.
• Apple brings Split View to the iPad, so, like on the Mac, you can look at two apps side by side.
• When you are watching a video and switch to a notification, a resizeable video thumbnail remains on screen, so you won’t miss anything while you check notifications
• iOS 9 improves battery life by 1 hour from whatever it was before on each device
11:00 am: News will roll out in the US, UK and Australia. It will include 33 articles daily from the New York Times, content from 17 Conde Nast titles, ESPN and scores of other publishers and blogs.
10:58 am: Apple unveils News, a new app that’s clearly inspired by Flipboard and takes cues on presentation from Facebook’s Instant Articles. Apple VP Susan Prescott calls it “the best mobile reading experience ever.” Like Flipboard, it creates a personalized feed for you, and as tell News what you like, it suggests other things you might like. The best articles are built with News’ format, which allows for rich typography, beautiful images, photo galleries and videos.
This is expected to replace Newsstand, which publishers have complained about.
Apple News app gives publications pretty format for showing content (Source: Aaron Tilley)
10:49 am: Apple brings up the first female exec at this WWDC, Jennifer Bailey, to give updates on Apple Pay.
• Integration with Square, which launches a new reader
• Integration with Pinterest
• More cards, more locations more apps. By next month there will be 1 million retail locations accepting Apple Pay
• Apple Pay comes to the UK in July with 8 of the most popular banks, supporting 70% of debit and credit cards in the UK
• Store cards from the likes of JC Penney, Walgreen’s and Kohls come to Apple Pay
• Passbook is being renamed Wallet
• Bailey sums up a series of incremental announcements with this: “We told you last year that our ultimate goal is to replace the wallet and we are well on our way to doing that.”
Apple Pay coming to UK next month (Source: Aaron Tilley)
10:42 am: Federighi takes a not-so-veiled potshot at Google. The intelligence in Siri is done without compromising your privacy, he says. It all happens on the device, says Federighi. In other words, it’s not like Google Now, which happens in the cloud.
10: 37 am: On to iOS. In iOS 9, Siri , which serves over 1 billion requests per week, gets an upgrade (and becomes “Googlier”):
• Error rate on speech recognition is down 40% in the past year
• Search is upgraded so you can say: “Show me photos from Utah last August” and up comes Photos with the right pictures
• Better reminders. You can now say: “Remind me about this later today” and Siri figures out that “this” refers to whatever is on the screen
• Like Google Now, Siri will alert you to upcoming meetings and of when you need to leave to get to an appointment based on current traffic conditions
10:29 am: The improvements to OS X are plentiful, but relatively minor. El Capitan is available to developers today, with a public “beta” following in July and a free upgrade for all users in the fall.
10:24 am: Federighi introduces a string of El Capitan enhancements to OS X:
• Sites can be “pinned” to the browser frame in Safari
• Muting tabs that begin to autoplay in Safari with a single click
• Improvements to Spotlight that are positively “Googley” – you can search for “documents I worked on last June”
• Upgrades to Mission Control, that allow you to find and launch applications faster
• Split views that allow you to bring two apps, say Photos and Messenger, into one window
• A string of performance improvements that will enhance the experience, especially in gaming, with something called Metal, a framework that brings graphical code close to the hardware
New OS X El Capitan (Source: Aaron Tilley)
10:13 am: Tim Cook dispenses with the usual update on the Apple business. “Everything is going great,” he says. Why no update? Too much to cover at WWDC. He invites Craig Federighi to talk OS X and iOS. He introduces the new name of OSX, formerly Yosemite, now called El Capitan.
More Apple WWDC 2015 Coverage:
Apple Watch To Get Faster Apps With New SDK
Apple’s Music Streaming Service Confirmed By Sony, “It’s Happening Tomorrow”
What Will Apple Announce At WWDC 2015? Apple Watch Updates, Apple TV Cancelled, And A New iPhone
Apple Loop: New iPhone Release Date Leaked, Retailers Reject Apple Pay, Nine iOS 9 Secrets
Apple Apple iOS 9 Leaks Reveal Biggest Secret Features
iPhone 6S Release Date Leaked Via Major Carrier
Apple WWDC: Here’s What Everyone’s Talking About
Apple Pay Coming To The UK: Full Details Announced