Apple's WWDC keynote is now behind us and if they're not at E3, tech journalists around the blogsphere are taking a rest. We didn't get a new iPhone or any new hardware, but Apple rolled out the company's new iCloud service, its Lion OS, and iOS 5, the latest version of its mobile operating system.

We've detailed the full list of changes in our iOS 5 first take--and frankly, they aren't terribly extensive--but we also downloaded the developers version of the update for a test drive. Keep in mind that the final consumer version of iOS 5 may show changes when it becomes available this fall, but this gallery will give you at least a taste of what's to come. We've only started investigated so we'll add additional conversations and "Easter egg" features (Apple says the update will bring 200 new features) as we find them

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

The introduction of the iCloud at today's WWDC keynote symbolizes Apple's shift to cloud-based backups, syncing, and moving files seamlessly between all your devices whether you have an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac, or PC. While there are some similarities with Google's offerings (Doc and Calendar syncing, and Picasa, as examples), iCloud is more of a one-stop shop for all your media, apps, music, documents, calendars, and more, and it's all synced up automatically.

As usual at Apple's keynote events, Steve Jobs was not the only person on the stage demonstrating the latest and greatest from Apple. Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, came up to talk about multitouch gestures on the Mac, for example. Craig Federighi, senior vice president of Apple software, then came up to demo some of the new features of full-screen apps. But when it was time to talk about iCloud, it was Steve Jobs who did the talking. In other words, however you feel about iCloud, it seemed to be the "main event" that Apple seemed to be most excited about.

iCloud is Apple's move toward making your most important data and content available on all your devices. If you buy a song on iTunes, it will be automatically pushed immediately to devices under the same account, for example. For more on iTunes and Apple's iTunes Matching features, read Donald Bell's coverage.

Similarly, when you take a photo, your image will immediately become available under your Photo Stream on all devices and desktops. Read more about the new Camera app and iCloud Photo Stream features in Lori Grunin's post.

Beyond those two multimedia additions, you'll also have what Apple calls "all-access apps." This means that regardless of what device you used to buy the app, your purchase info will be sent to the cloud and that app can be pushed to all of your devices. What's more, if you lose your iPhone or buy a new iOS device, you'll be able to get all your old apps and info onto the new device wirelessly.

Along with all-access apps, you'll have the same type of access to your iBooks. Just like with apps, when you buy a new book, it is first sent to iCloud, then sent to all your iOS devices, desktop, and laptop computers under the same account. As an added bonus, if you're reading an iBook and place a bookmark or highlight text you want to look at later, when you visit the same book on another device you'll be able to pick up reading where you left off, and all your highlighted text and notes will be there.

iCloud will also save and distribute all your documents to all your devices. This means you'll be able to edit a document in any of the iWork apps (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) and the content will be pushed to your other devices and desktops. Google Docs already has this functionality (as a Web-based offering, you're always working in the cloud), so as far as currently available office apps, Apple has done little new here and you'll initially need to buy the iWork apps to use these functions. But Apple also announced the availability of the iCloud tools for developers to use in third-party apps, which means that future office apps, work done in other supported specialty apps, and even games will seamlessly sync across all your devices and computers.

A new regular backup feature will send all your data on your iPhone to iCloud once a day. So, beyond your app purchases, iBook reading and bookmarking, and other iCloud features mentioned here, there will also be a daily backup of docs, iTunes music, your calendar, contacts, and app data, so you always know every device has the latest data.

In addition to the daily backup, your Mail, Calendar, and Contacts will be backed up to the iCloud. Similar to the Google app experience, but on iOS devices, you'll now have all your Mail, appointments, and contacts automatically pushed to every device. It even works with Microsoft Exchange server, so Office (Windows or Mac) users can have e-mails automatically pushed to Outlook.

When you're able to set up iCloud this fall, you'll get 5GB of data storage for free and a free @me.com e-mail account.

Overall, it looks like Apple's free iCloud service will make syncing your data and media a painless, wireless task. While some features offered with iCloud mimic what Google Docs already offers, additional features like wireless iOS upgrades, wireless buying and sharing music and photos, and the ability to keep every device up to date with the latest data, make it an excellent upgrade for iOS users. It will be interesting to see what pitfalls emerge with what will be an enormous amount of traffic initially and if Apple is able to pull it all off when iCloud and iOS 5 become available this fall.

At WWDC 2011, Apple finally revealed its plans for taking the pain out of using its bloated iTunes desktop software. Apple's solution: let it rot.

Maybe that's an indelicate way to phrase it, but in essence, Apple is carving out multiple ways users can sync their precious iTunes content (photos, music, apps) across all their iOS devices without physically connecting hardware to a computer and dealing with any of the old headaches of the iTunes desktop software.

To make this happen, Apple is adding wireless Wi-Fi syncing to all iOS devices with iOS 5, along with a new suite of features under the umbrella of iCloud that will push your music purchases, photos, calendars, contacts, and other content across all your iOS devices. Best of all, these new cable-emancipating capabilities come free of charge.

You'll need to wait for the fall release of iOS 5 to enjoy Wi-Fi syncing and the instant push of iCloud media, but there is one new feature you can start enjoying right now. In the current version of iOS (4.3.3), users can now activate a Store setting that enables automatic downloading of purchased music to registered iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch). Switching this on makes it so any iTunes music purchases made on your computer or any other iOS device will be automatically downloaded and saved on your device over Wi-Fi or 3G. Song downloads are still high-quality 256kbps AAC files, and there is a limit of up to 10 registered devices.

If you don't feel like downloading all of your previous music purchases, a new tab within the iTunes Store app will allow you to selectively download any previously purchased songs or albums.

That's all well and good for music you've purchased through iTunes, but what about the rest of it? For those songs that you've either ripped from CDs, downloaded from other online stores, or acquired by questionable means, Apple has a paid service called iTunes Match.

If you are willing to part with $24.99 every year, Apple will scan your music collection, identify the songs it has in the iTunes Store, and match them with 256kbps AAC files. After that, the service will individually upload the rest, and serve it all back down to you and your devices from the cloud (via download, not streaming).

For those of you with large music collections, Apple's fast-acting song ID approach and its flat-fee pricing offer a compelling alternative to Amazon.com's and Google's cloud music offerings. For those with smaller collections and smaller budgets, we recommend giving the free options a try before having Apple host your collection for a fee. We have a separate CNET blog post comparing the three cloud music services against each other.

Is there a catch to iTunes Match? Well, there is a 25,000-song limit that may affect some of you music hoarders (though iTunes purchases are not counted against the limit). We've also yet to learn what happens if you let your yearly subscription lapse. Are the songs you've synced using iTunes Match wiped from your devices, or are you simply prevented from adding new music? Time will tell.

Overall, Apple's iTunes announcements at WWDC are a notable step forward for music fans and anyone who has cursed at Apple's iTunes desktop software. There is still some room for improvement, though. One glaring omission is iCloud's inability to back up your purchased movie and TV downloads (a feature available from competitors such as Amazon).

For more on iOS 5, iCloud, and WWDC, check out CNET's comprehensive coverage.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Apple unveiled iOS 5 today at the company's 2011 Worldwide Developers Conference to much fanfare. iOS 5 boasts 200 new features, 10 of which were demonstrated onstage. New iOS 5 features include Notifications, Newsstand, tabbed browsing in Safari, Reminders, quicker access to the Camera app, an improved image editor, integration with Twitter, in-message search in Mail, and wireless syncing.

But despite all these changes, there are those of us who still aren't satisfied. We've compiled suggestions from our staff and from our readers as to which iOS 5 features they wanted but didn't get. Tell us in the comments if you agree, or if you can think of more iOS 5 features you wanted but didn't see today.

Facebook integration--Apple announced Twitter integration today with its core iOS apps, like the camera and photo gallery, so you can send tweets directly from those apps. However, we didn't see any mention of Facebook integration, which some people might prefer.

FaceTime over 3G--It's a little curious that we didn't hear anything about FaceTime during the iOS 5 announcement. One of the features we wanted was FaceTime over 3G instead of just Wi-Fi, but we suspect this has more to do with the carriers than with Apple.

Native voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation--This is a feature that has been coveted for some time, and we have yet to see this on the iPhone. Of course, there might be some political issues here due to Google Maps being, well, a Google feature, but this is certainly a missing feature that has had many people opting for an Android phone instead.

Widgets--Another feature that some people like in Android is widgets that provide information at a quick glance. Though iOS 5 does provide stock and weather information in the notifications drop-down, some people were hoping for lock-screen or home-screen widgets that are closer to effortless.

Application trials--One of the more annoying things about buying apps from the app store is that you can't really ask for a refund. One way Apple could get around that annoyance would be to provide a grace period in which customers can return the app for a full refund. Android has a 15-minute trial period, for example.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

No one outside of Apple's glittering fortress knew for sure what iOS 5 would bring, but we did have hints and clues pointing to notifications, group messaging, and Twitter integration.

Apple presented 10 of the reportedly 200 additions and enhancements, including a long-awaited update to the way iOS handles obtrusive notifications, and the ability to cut out the USB cord for over-the-air system updates.

While all the new features mark happy tidings for Apple fans, many of the features have been seen before on Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7. Here's a look at how the major updates Apple's most proud of compare to rival mobile platforms. We've included dates and the names of Apple's new features when available. iOS 5 updates on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch this upcoming fall.

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	Apple iOS 5	Android	Windows Phone	BlackBerry OS
Grouped notifications	Notification Center	Notifications pull-down (2008)	Live tile updates (2010)	Notification icons on home screen
Group, multimedia messaging (free within ecosystem)	iMessage	Standard messaging; Third party apps (Kik, GroupMe)	Standard messaging; Third-party apps	BlackBerry Messenger 5 (2009)
Twitter sharing, integration	iOS 5, fall release	Sharing an original Android feature; status updates via apps	Coming with Mango update in fall	Twitter photo-sharing available
Over-the-air updates	iOS 5, fall release	Original feature (2008)	Original feature (2010)	BlackBerry OS 5 (2009)
Magazine, RSS subscriptions	Newsstand	Third-party apps	Third-party apps	Third-party apps
Reminders lists	iOS 5, fall release; includes geolocation	Third-party apps	Third-party apps	Third-party apps
Browser reading mode	iOS 5, fall release	Third-party apps	Third-party apps	Third-party apps
Rich text formatting	Mail app	Third-party apps	Office documents	Third-party apps
Camera shortcut on a locked phone	iOS 5, fall release	HTC Sensation has a lock screen shortcut	Hold and press shutter from sleep position (Pocket-to-picture; 2010)	Must wake up phone
Games recommendations, see achievements	Games Center	Not available	Xbox Live (Achievements; 2010); enhancements with Mango	Not available

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Apple has finally entered the music-in-the-cloud arena with the introduction of iTunes on iCloud, making it a competitor to Google's Music Beta and Amazon.com's Cloud Player. Here, we compare all three services. We'll update and amend the chart below as we get more information.

	Music Beta by Google	Amazon Cloud Player	iTunes on iCloud
Storage capacity	20,000 songs. All songs need to be uploaded to Google's servers.	Unlimited for Amazon purchases. For songs that weren't bought from Amazon, the limit is anywhere from 5GB to 1TB (that works out to around 740 to 152,000 songs, assuming each song is around 4 minutes long recorded at 255Kbps). Songs need to be uploaded to Amazon's servers.	Unlimited for iTunes purchases. Everything is stored in the cloud. If you subscribe to iTunes Match, songs not bought on iTunes are "scanned and matched." You only have to upload the songs that can't be matched. There is a limit of 25,000 songs for songs that are not purchased on iTunes. A separate 5GB cap applies only to documents, mail, and backup.
Cost	Free and invitation-only for now.	5GB storage for free; $20/year for 20GB and $1000 a year for 1TB. Songs bought on Amazon don't count against the limit.	Free for iTunes purchased music. Apple offers an iTunes Match service that will match up non-iTunes songs with its library and upgrade them to 256kbps AAC DRM-free, and the iTunes Match songs are shareable with up to 10 devices. However, iTunes Match is a service that requires a $24.99 annual subscription
Streaming	Yes	Yes	No; download only
Offline options	Recently played songs are automatically cached for offline listening on Android devices. You can also manually select songs/albums for offline listening. But you can't download songs to a different computer.	You can download the songs to a different computer/device without a problem.	Any song can be downloaded to any authorized device at no additional charge. There's also an automatic download switch so any song bought on iTunes can be pushed to your mobile devices. iTunes Match songs are shareable with up to 10 devices.
Free music	Google provides some free samples during initial setup	Yes; some songs are offered for free occasionally.	Yes; some songs are offered for free occasionally.
Store	None	Yes	Yes
Mobile	Android app; playable on iOS via the browser	Android app; playable on iOS via the browser	Integrated into iTunes on all iOS devices.
Requirements	Google account	Amazon account	iTunes account
Other features	Custom playlists that can be synced with the cloud, intelligent mix	Amazon's Cloud service extends beyond just music.	iCloud extends beyond just music into documents, photos, mail, calendar, and contacts.

At the Worldwide Developers Conference today, Apple announced some enhancements to the camera app as part of iOS 5 as well as its cloud-based tools for photo synching across devices. This was after stressing that the iPhone 4 is growing to overtake the Nikon D90 as the most popular source of uploaded photos on Flickr.

Most interestingly, Apple stole a leaf from Taptaptap's book; you'll be able to use the volume-up button on the iPhone to snap photos, something Apple rejected that developer's VolumeSnap app for doing last August.

iOS 5 will make the camera a lot faster to get to, as well, via an icon to the right of the unlock slider. It will load even if you have a password set. I sense a lot of pocket photos in the iPhone's future. Other controls include grid lines, pinch to zoom (digital), and touch-scrolling for exposure compensation. If you have the iPhoto app, you can pass the photos through for one-click enhancement.

The iOS 5 update will be available in the fall and compatible with the iPhone 3GS.

It also looks as if Apple is encroaching on Eye-Fi's territory with its free iCloud-based Photo Stream services. Basically, Photo Stream works via the Photo Roll app to upload your photos to Apple's servers, where they're redistributed to your Apple devices--such as iPad or AppleTV--via the relevant photo app. It applies not only to iDevice photos, but to any photos imported with Photo Roll. It will only sync via Wi-Fi, so as not to suck up your 3G bandwidth or battery life.

Note that it's not a sharing service--a photo will only be stored for 30 days (on iOS it will store the last 1,000 photos). However, I can't imagine that Apple won't find some way to morph it into subscription plans for long-term storage. Also, while Apple didn't talk about links with third parties (think syncing with Flickr), that's the point of preaching to the developers at WWDC. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

We'll have more details on all of this as the software becomes available, natch.

Originally posted at Crave

The version of the Safari browser that will ship in iOS 5 in July will come with some enhanced features, Apple announced today at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. The most visible change is the introduction of tabbed browsing, long a staple of the desktop version of Safari and other browsers. However, other significant changes have been made as well.

The feature for saving stories to be read at a later time, popularized by the Read It Later and Instapaper browser add-ons, will now come as a standard feature in Safari mobile. Reading List provides a more modern, simpler way to bookmark Web sites to be read at a future date. It's most often used for articles, especially lengthy ones, although it can be used to save any site on the fly.

The desktop Safari's Reader feature for streamlining lengthy articles or slideshows is also coming to mobile Safari. Originally introduced at last year's WWDC, Reader streamlines lengthy articles, stripping out ads but not relevant images, and darkens the edges of the browser to make it easier to focus your attention on the story at hand.

Most notably for Twitter users, you can now send tweets from directly within Safari. It's no longer necessary to open the Twitter app separately. This is part of the deeper system integration of social media into iOS. While it doesn't have a major impact in-browser, it's likely to change social networking across many apps that do core tasks like iTunes or the camera app.

Originally posted at News - Apple

A round of applause (among many) filled the room at WWDC this Monday when Apple's Phil Schiller announced that the next operating system, Lion, would be priced at a modest $29.

"I was hoping you were going to like that," Schiller said after giving the price tag and July release date.

Although developers rejoiced at the disc-free, 4GB upgrade, the reality for current Leopard users is sinking in: Lion will only be available for download in the Mac App Store.

It seems like those currently running Leopard must first upgrade to Snow Leopard ($29) to gain access to the App Store, through which they can purchase Lion. Price at checkout: $60.

It's not unusual for companies like Apple to prohibit users from skipping software upgrades; Apple previously required those running Tiger to purchase Leopard before moving onto Snow Leopard. Some users have been able to leapfrog upgrades in the past (which violated the TOS), but with the new, disc-free upgrade, Leopard users seemingly have no choice.

We're waiting for confirmation from Apple regarding this process, but logic points to a 2-step upgrade for Leopard users.

Needless to say, many users aren't happy. Here's what they're saying on Twitter.

Originally posted at News - Apple

Just as promised, Apple unveiled iOS 5 today at the keynote address of the company's 2011 Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. CEO Steve Jobs opened the event, but he turned to Scott Forstall, Apple's senior vice president of iOS, to show off 10 of the promised 200 new features for the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad, and iPod Touch. Developers will get their version of iOS 5 today, with customers receiving the update this fall.

Though not every predicted feature came to pass, the update includes long-rumored additions like a better notifications system and wireless software updates. Some of the new features are cool, and a few were a long time in coming, but the update remains incremental when compared with previous iOS updates. That's not to say that the additions aren't useful, but most are relatively small.

Notifications
Forstall started by announcing this update, which drew a lot of applause from the audience. Instead of the current system of pop-up menus that interrupt your work, a new Notification Center will combine messages, missed calls, app updates, a stock ticker, and the current weather in a single place. You can access it by swiping your finger downward from the top of the screen (sound familiar?) and notifications will appear on the lock screen as well. You then can jump directly to the related feature for each notification and delete items by tapping the small X next to each line.

Though not exactly original--the pull-down menu has long been a hallmark feature of Android--the ability to see all notifications in one place is nonetheless welcome. Since the first iPhone's debut four years ago, the iOS notification system has remained largely unchanged. It's simple, yes, but the current application is unusable until you dismiss the message, and several messages in a row quickly became annoying. So it's about time we got this change.

Newsstand
This app will bring together magazine subscriptions in a central place. The concept is similar to iBooks, even down to an icon that looks like the periodicals shelf at your local library. As you subscribe to a publication through a new channel in the App Store, new issues will be delivered in the background, eliminating the need to manually grab them when they publish.

Twitter
Thankfully, users now will be able to post photos to the social networking service without leaving the image gallery or camera application. It's a nice change given that it will end the need to take a photo, switch to the iPhone Twitter app, and then post the photo. You'll be able to add a location, sync Twitter with your contacts list, and tweet directly from YouTube, Safari, and Maps.

Safari
The mobile version of Apple's Web browser will get the Reader option that was announced at the 2010 WWDC. As you'd expect, it will streamline multipage articles in an RSS-like view while stripping out ads (but leaving photos). You'll also be able to e-mail the entire text of a Safari page to a contact (presently, you can send only a link).

In other Safari news, tabbed browsing will come to the iPad at last and you can bookmark a Web page on a Reading List list for future perusal. The latter feature can be synced between multiple Safari devices and should work very similarly to browser add-ons like Read It Later and Instapaper.

Reminders
This handy addition will let you store multiple to-do lists with dates for each event and categorize reminders by location. So, for example, if you have a reminder of "Call home when I leave work," the app will use GPS to note when you're on the move and send the reminder. Reminders can be shared between devices and sync with iCal on the Mac with CalDAV, and on Windows with MS Exchange.

Camera
iOS 5 will add a shortcut on the lock screen that will launch the camera immediately, even bypassing the lock code. You then can use the volume control to snap the photo. Inside the camera you'll get grid lines, pinch to zoom (instead of using the slider bar at the bottom of the screen), autofocus, and the ability to change the exposure and add granular controls.

After taking photos, you can edit your shots with crop, rotate, and red-eye reduction. Also, one-click enhancements from iPhoto will add quick color correction. Though we welcome these additions, Apple is late to the photo-editing party as this functionality has long existed on basic phones. We'll have to see how Apple makes it all work when iOS 5 is available, but we doubt it means the demise of third-party apps like Photoshop Express.

Mail
Coming to the mail app are rich text formatting, better indent control, flagging of messages, and the ability to drag addresses between to, cc, and bcc lines. Also, you now can search within the body of a message instead of just in the from, to, and subject lines. Thanks for that.

'PC Free'
Arguably the most notable change, "PC Free" will bring over-the-air software updates and device activations. So as on Android, Windows Phone 7, and BlackBerry OS 5 devices, you'll no longer have to plug your device into a computer or even own a computer at all. The updates will serve only the changes, so they'll be shorter, and you'll be able to sync, back up, and restore your device using the new iCloud feature. You'll also find new features within apps, like wirelessly editing photos, managing e-mail folders, and creating and deleting calenders.

Game Center
Additions for gamers include profile photos, achievement point comparison, friends of friends, recommended friends and games, support for turn-based games, and a way to buy games directly from Game Center.

iMessage
Apple takes a shot at BlackBerry with this instant messaging app that will work across all iOS 5 devices. As with BlackBerry Messanger (BBM), you'll be able to exchange unlimited text messages, photos, and videos with your friends, family, and colleagues. Also, your messages won't cost you anything and they won't count against the monthly allotment of messages form your wireless carrier.

Other features include group messaging, an indicator to see if someone is typing to you, delivery and read receipts, secure encryption, and conversation syncing that is pushed to multiple devices. iMessage will work on 3G and Wi-Fi networks.

What else
Forstall quickly mentioned a selection of other updates. They will include new multitasking gestures for the iPad, hourly weather forecasts, Wi-Fi sync with iTunes, a split keyboard for the iPad, a new iPad music app, an iTunes ringtone store, AirPlay mirroring for the iPad 2, a personal dictionary, alternate routes in Maps, Emoji emoticons, and custom vibration patterns.

A big deal or no?
Compared with previous WWDC keynotes, there's no escaping the fact that this one was quite low-key. Unlike in the last three years, we didn't get a new iPhone and we still have no clue as to when the iPhone 5 (or is it the iPhone 4S?) will get here. Even when you consider the software only, iOS 5 isn't terribly exciting either. Sure, it adds some welcome features that will benefit users, but it's not quite the whopper that iOS 4 or even iOS 3 was.

What's more, even the most die-hard Apple fans have to admit that some of the new features simply bring the iPhone in line with options we currently see on other smartphone operating systems or in third-party apps. On the other hand, Apple has always excelled at taking existing features and creating a different user experience and that may be the case here.

Indeed, we'll have to use iOS 5 before we give a real assessment of its features. There may be more spectacular changes that Apple has yet to announce, but we don't see iOS 5 as a reason to switch to iOS if you haven't done so already. We'll stop short of saying that we're disappointed, as even Apple doesn't have to wow us every time it has an announcement. It's just that you tend to get your hopes up for events where Jobs is scheduled to appear.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas