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Daily Update for October 14, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Siri hackage proceeds apace
I love Siri. You love Siri. We all love Siri -- and we want it on our iPhones 4 and 3GS, not just on the 4S. Numerous iOS hobbyists including limneos, Gojohnnyboi, and iH8sn0w have been hard at work trying to bring Siri over from the 4S to other platforms. After weeks of work -- this effort predates the iOS 5 release and the 4S debut -- they have made substantial progress. What you're looking at here represents some preliminary results, enabling the assistant in the device settings. The Siri-porting team is still working on launching the background daemon, providing the interactive magic dialog "pocket" and other system features. Can you expect Siri on your jailbroken iOS device any time soon? I'd say you're probably looking at weeks rather than months or days at this point, and that is contingent on the team's ability to pull together many working parts including frameworks, daemons, Mobile Substrate overrides, and more. Stay tuned.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me drive with Siri
Dear Aunt TUAW, I was super-excited about Siri, especially for use when driving. But I was very surprised to discover that the "Maps & Directions" feature of Siri is sneakily labelled "U.S. Only" - (look really, really closely). As a Brit, does this mean Siri won't provide me any location services? Why? I thought it just pulled data off Google Maps, which is international? The Apple UK iPhone 4S page has identical screenshots to the US one, but minus all references to location features... Why this injustice, Aunt TUAW? Your loving nephew, Jack Dear Jack, You guys in Blighty already get fried Mars bars, Phil & Kirstie, Marmite, and the staggeringly wonderful "The Fades". All this, and you worry about turn-by-turn directions? Unfortunately, it seems like full world-wide deployment of Siri features is going to be delayed as Apple adds both language support (sorry non-English/French/German-speakers) and full Maps and Directions over time. Remember, Siri is in beta for now as Apple points out emphatically on their website. Auntie thinks that Siri is going to be knock-your-knickers-off (is that a Britishism? Auntie can't tell) successful. If so, Apple will surely roll-out these options as they can. In the meantime count your blessings. You speak a language that already has iPhone 4S support. The poor Central Siberian Yupik speakers probably never will get any Siri support at all. Hugs, Auntie T. p.s. Did you know that Siri is a highly endangered Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Bauchi State, Nigeria? Auntie didn't.
Siri limited outside the US; international improvements coming in 2012
Siri, the intelligent voice recognition software in iOS 5, is the biggest feature of the new iPhone 4s, which launched today. However, it's slowly becoming apparent that users outside the US are finding limitations on what Siri will do. MacStories has done a good job of rounding up some of the limitations of Siri's advertised features outside of the US: Business lookup (with Yelp integration) is not available outside the US. Map directions and traffic data is not available outside the US. Besides US, UK, and Australian accents, Siri may have some trouble with "very specific" English accents. Wolfram Alpha integration is only available to English-speaking countries at the moment. This is nowhere an exhaustive list as I'm sure we will see more reports of Siri's limitations flow in from other countries the 4s launched in today (the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, UK, France, and Germany). To be fair though, Apple has labeled Siri as "beta" software from the beginning and is sure to add features for other countries as time goes on. Matter of fact, Apple has already noted on Siri's FAQ that "Maps and local search support will be available in additional countries in 2012" and "In 2012, Siri will support additional languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish." [Image credit to MacStories]
Horn Bike: the bike-mounted passive amplifier for iPhone 4
My favorite way to get around in London is cycling. And everyone knows that an iPhone with its GPS is a cyclist's best friend while navigating a city. But the drawback to cycling with an iPhone is obvious: if it's held in your hand you're going to A.) drop it eventually, or B.) fall off your bike trying to catch your iPhone when you drop it eventually. That's where Horn Bike comes in. The all-silicon device lets you ride in style like it's 1899. Horn Bike is multi-purpose. Its primary feature is that it allows you to mount your iPhone on your bike and amplify your iPhone's speakers by about 13 dB, which allows for earbud-free riding (riding a bike with headphones in your ears in London -- and most other places -- will get you pulled over by mounted police). Yeah, the horn part looks really retro, but the design works. Unlike other bicycle speaker and mounting systems, the Horn Bike has no moving parts, has no electronics, and requires no power. If it gets dirty, run it under water to clean it off. Best of all, because the Horn Bike uses a phonograph-like passive amplifier system, the amplified sound is directed towards you and not blasted into the ears of other pedestrians. But playing music isn't why I'm excited about the Horn Bike. I'm excited about it because it's going to make riding with my iPhone and using it for navigation that much easier because I'll be able to hear Siri speak while I'm cruising down Regent Street. The Horn Bike is available in a number of retail stores in the US, Asia, and Europe and is also available at Fruitshop.com. It comes in white, black, or blue and costs US$29.99. [via Wired]
Poll: Have you upgraded to iOS 5?
We've heard plenty of you are receiving various error messages while attempting to install iOS 5, and some of us haven't had much luck either. But have you been able to upgrade? Let us know in the poll below, and jump past the break to sound off in the comments.%Poll-69801%
iOS 5 review
Snow Leopard review Apple: Six million copies of OS X Lion downloaded since launch Auto-suggestion keyboard found hiding inside iOS 5 Now well into its fifth year of life, iOS has always been known for its exceptional polish -- and also, its glaring feature holes. But, just like clockwork, each year since its 2007 debut, those shortcomings have been addressed one by one in a sweeping annual update. In 2008, the platform was opened up to developers giving us the App Store, 2009 saw the introduction of copy and paste -- which we'd argue is still the best implementation to date -- and last year "multitasking" finally made a presence. So what has Apple chosen to rectify in 2011? Well, for starters, notifications gets a complete overhaul with Notification Center, tethered syncing dies at the hands of iCloud and messaging gets a do-over with the birth of iMessage. If you recall, we first got acquainted with iOS 5 in May after downloading the developer preview, but how does the final release stack up? And does it have the chops to compete with the latest from Mountain View and Redmond? After drudging through seven betas, we're ready to conquer all that the final release has to offer, so join us, if you would, past the break.
Video of Siri working perfectly for users with a variety of accents
Are you excited about Siri? If so, this video on Stuff.tv is going to knock your socks off. In the video, users ask Siri to open a website, send an IM to someone, ask it about the weather both locally and in San Francisco, set an alarm, do some currency conversions, and find the distance to the Moon. Be sure to watch the end of the video, where a young woman asks "Is it going to rain tomorrow?" and Siri responds with "Looking at London weather, it doesn't look like it's going to rain tomorrow." It's obvious in the video that the users switch between the English-US and English-UK settings, as Siri's accent goes between American and British depending on the speaker. In every case, Siri provides a correct answer and does an amazing job of taking dictation. When Siri isn't exactly sure, it responds "This might answer your question." It certainly works much better than this voice recognition. I ... can't ... wait!
5 iOS features that OS X needs
iOS 5 is set to launch this Wednesday and the beta testers I've talked to say it's a monumental leap forward. iOS 5 adds over 200 features to an already polished mobile operating system, which is arguably the best on the planet. As many Mac users know, Mac OS X Lion is no slouch either. Features like Mission Control, Launchpad, and full-screen apps make Lion the most powerful, intuitive OS Apple has ever released. However, that's not to say that Lion can't be improved. Apple only needs to look to iOS for further inspiration. Below is my list of five iOS features that I hope will migrate to OS X. Feel free to leave your requests in the comments. 5. iBooks I actually just added this one in because I know a lot of people have asked for it. Even paperback fans can't deny that ebooks are the future. Though they may not be quite up in Kindle territory, iBooks and the iBookstore are growing more popular by the day. While users can access their iBooks on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, there's no way to get them on the Mac...yet. This is one area where Apple needs to take a play from Amazon. Kindle owners can read their books on the Kindle, the iPhone, iPad and Android phones, as well as with Mac and Windows apps and a web browser. While reading an iBook on a desktop might not be the platform of choice, it would be nice if iBooks users had the option. This is especially true for people who buy research or school books through iBooks and want to reference the book on the same screen as an assignment in progress. 4. Notification Center The Notification Center is one of the big new features of iOS 5. It allows users to see all their texts, emails, news alerts -- nearly every kind of notification -- all in one place. Currently OS X relies on numbered icon badges to show users notifications on a per-app basis. And while there are third-party apps like Growl that do a good job at alerting users to notifications, a dedicated Notification Center would further solidify the link between iOS and OS X and make it easier for users to see the things they need to attend to all in one place. 3. Reminders The great thing about OS X's and iOS's Mail and Notes app is that a user's email messages and notes sync between iPhone and Mac. However, iOS 5 offers a dedicated Reminders app that allows users to set reminders with an impressive array of notification options. While a dedicated Reminders app makes infinitely more sense on a mobile device, OS X Reminders integration would be a welcome feature. After all, many of us will use the app to set reminders for tasks to be completed at our desks. Why not be reminded by the computer we are working on? I'm not suggesting a dedicated Reminders OS X app. But what I would like to see is the Reminders app features and UI built into OS X's Mail app, much like Notes is today. [Note: Many readers have rightly pointed out that Reminders.app reminders are synced with iCal on your Mac. However, my take on it is that the array of ways to set reminders in the iOS app and the app's UI should be integrated better with OS X.] 2. iMessage FaceTime was perhaps the coolest feature of iOS 4. When it first came out it allowed iPhone 4 users to video chat with each other. Then Apple added iPod touch support and iPad 2 support. But, for me, FaceTime didn't become really useful until Apple released the FaceTime app for OS X. When they did, FaceTime brought unity to the entire Apple ecosystem (which, incidentally, is the common theme of all my feature suggestions in this article). iMessage in iOS 5 is arguably cooler than FaceTime because many people text a heck of a lot more than video chat. iMessage is great because it allows free texting among iPhone owners. But what's even more impressive is that it also allows iOS users to text people on Wi-Fi-only iPod touches and iPads. Like FaceTime before it, the last piece of the puzzle is adding iMessages to OS X. It's a lot easier for me to reply to a text from my iMac while I'm working on it than to stop and pick up my iPhone. Of course, the arrival of iMessage and FaceTime presents somewhat of a problem. I've had a lot of people who aren't the most Mac-savvy users say they are confused about the differences between FaceTime and iChat's video conferencing. If Apple would add an OS X iMessage app, that would probably only broaden the confusion ("Is an iMessage the same thing as an AOL IM?"). While I think Apple needs to absolutely add iMessage functionality to OS X, it needs to do so without adding more clutter and confusion to its messaging (be it IM, video, or texting) apps. Do they scrap iChat in favor of an iMessage app? Or do they add iMessage support to iChat? Dedicated apps are simpler, but all-in-one apps are more convenient. It's a tough call. 1. Siri Siri, iOS 5's AI personal assistant, is the start of the future for smart phones. It takes dictation, and lets you do dozens of other things using only your voice. But it's not just voice recognition software. It's powerful AI that knows what you want based on syntax, history, and context. There are no rigid voice commands needed. You can talk to it like you do to a human being and it figures out what you want it to do. Right now Siri is only available on the iPhone 4S. That's because it requires quite a bit of horsepower under the hood to accomplish its tasks. Or, quite a bit of horsepower for a phone. Every Mac sold today has more than enough memory and processing power to support Siri integration. And when Apple adds Siri to OS X it will be the start of a revolution in personal computing. Indeed it may one day even lead to the elimination of (or drastic reduction of) the keyboard and mouse. And don't get me started (yet) on a Siri-integrated Apple television set. Goodbye remote control. But first, let's get Siri into OS X. Imagine being able to talk to your Mac like you do a person, saying things like: "Pull up the Keynote for my April meeting." "Take me to Apple's website." "Revert to the Version that I was working on last week." "Show me all the photos from my trip to Berlin." "Organize all my Word files into a folder and then sort them into sub-folders based on month created." The possibilities are almost endless. Hello OS X 10.8.
Video reportedly shows Siri in action, settings, and benchmarks
Just as the sun always rises in the morning, every time a new iPhone is about to come out, somebody gets one just before the official launch and ruins the fun for the rest of us. In this case, a video from AppVV.com appears to show an iPhone 4S running some benchmarks and also demonstrates how to change Siri settings. In the video, the phantom user opens Settings and demonstrates the Siri settings interface, turning the feature on and off, changing language settings, and more. What's even more fascinating is that the user runs the BrowserMark benchmark, and shows a score of 89567. Running BrowserMark on an iPhone 4 with iOS 5 showed a result of 52433, so Safari on the iPhone 4S is about 70% faster than on the iPhone 4. Some TUAW readers are reporting that they're receiving early ship notices for delivery on the 14th. How about you? Tell us in the comments.
Why Siri should (and probably will) come to iPad 2
Since the iPhone 4S features the same A5 processor as the iPad 2, owners of Apple's current-gen tablet have wondered if it's possible that Siri, Apple's new voice assistant, might be offered on the iPad 2. While my colleague Erica Sadun's answer to that is "Don't hold your breath," I only agree with her up to a point: I don't think there are any technical hurdles whatsoever to running Siri on an iPad 2, and the fact that the device doesn't currently feature voice controls is meaningless. I think Siri will come to the iPad 2 eventually -- certainly not right away, but possibly within the next six months. Voice Control as it now exists on the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 doesn't function on the iPad or iPad 2, but there's a reason for that: the existing commands would be essentially useless on those devices. The pre-Siri version of Voice Control allows you to use voice commands to control music playback, dial phone numbers or initiate FaceTime calls, and ask the device for information about the current time or currently playing song. That's about all Voice Control does. Those functions are all useful features on a device that spends much of its time in your pocket, but on an iPad they make very little sense. On the other hand, Siri's commands would be immensely useful on the iPad. The same things Apple showed off at the "Let's talk iPhone" event, like setting up Reminders and Calendar events or looking up information on Wikipedia or Wolfram Alpha, would be very handy to have -- so handy that I don't see why Apple wouldn't offer them. Apple has long been a company that designs products its own workers want to use, and it's hard to imagine that no one in Cupertino has thought about how Siri could vastly expand the power and capability of the iPad 2. Since the iPad 2 has both a microphone and the same A5 as the iPhone 4S, there shouldn't be any technical reason why Siri wouldn't function well on that device. Some have speculated that the iPhone 4S has 1 GB of RAM to the iPad 2's 512 MB (a claim that will have to wait for an iFixit teardown before it can be proven or disproven), but my TUAW colleagues don't believe that Siri's functions should be so RAM-intensive that they require such massive amounts of memory. In fact, we've done some digging into Siri and found that most of the actual work of understanding voice commands gets offloaded to external servers. In essence, the iPhone 4S and its built-in processing functions determine what you said, while Apple's servers translate that into what you meant and send that information back to your iPhone. The pre-processing that takes place on the device itself may be too taxing for an A4 processor, but the iPad 2's A5 should theoretically be able to handle it just fine. Perhaps even better -- Apple has a habit of underclocking CPUs for the iPhone in the interest of power management, so the iPad 2's A5 is likely to outperform that of the iPhone 4S for many functions. The fact that Apple hasn't yet said one way or another whether Siri will come to devices other than the iPhone 4S also doesn't mean much. The iPhone 4, 3GS, and newer iPod touch models had an exclusive on multitasking for almost exactly six months before iOS 4.2 debuted and brought that feature to the iPad, and the same thing may end up being true for Siri. Here's what I think is the most likely scenario: Siri will remain an iPhone 4S exclusive at least until the third tier of international rollouts completes in December. In fact, Apple will probably wait until after the end of the holiday quarter and bring Siri to the iPad 2 in the first quarter of 2012. Not only will this give market incentive for people to buy the iPhone 4S by having Siri as a device-exclusive feature during the holiday period, it'll also give Apple's servers and Siri's algorithms time to adjust and scale to the number of inquiries it'll receive. Once Siri's beta period ends and international rollouts for the iPhone 4S are reasonably complete, that's the perfect time to bring Siri to the iPad 2 in a dot-update to iOS 5. By that time Siri and its supporting infrastructure will be more mature and able to handle the extra load of adding support for one more device type, and it should also help alleviate the typical post-holiday quarter sales slump. As for the other devices in Apple's iOS stable, like the iPod touch, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS, I don't expect them to ever see support for Siri. Siri's developers have already confirmed that many compromises were required to get the service running on the iPhone 3GS, and it's probably the same story for iOS devices with an A4 processor. The 2012 model iPod touch will likely be updated to an A5 processor, however, so we might see Siri support for next year's iPod touch. For the time being, Siri remains an iPhone 4S exclusive and one we have yet to test for ourselves. We look forward to putting this innovative feature under our interrogation lights once the iPhone 4S is released on October 14.
Top ways to punk Siri
We get giddy after a big announcement day. Alcohol may or may not be involved. And then we start getting creative. We start thinking about new techologies, like Siri, and how they might be punked. In that spirit, we put our inebriated minds together to come up with a list of the worst things someone could shout over your shoulder as you were trying to use Siri. This is where we always wish we had in-house artists. We don't, so just imagine the cartoons that go along with them. Perhaps the Oatmeal will help us? They are (in no particular order): "MESSAGE MY WIFE YOU'RE DUMPED" "PLAY JUSTIN BIEBER" "SEND CONTACT MY GIRLFRIEND TO MY WIFE" "TELL MOM I'LL BE THERE IN TEN MINUTES" "TEXT ALL CONTACTS AND SAY THE STD TESTS WERE POSITIVE" "TELL MY BOSS THAT I QUIT" "MOVE MY 3PM MEETING TO 3AM" "DELETE ALL CONTACTS!" "OPEN THE POD BAY DOORS" Have more suggestions? Add them to the comments.
Nuance reportedly buying Swype for $100 million
It's only been about a year since Nuance traced Swype's finger gliding input method with QuickType, but it seems like the firm is ready for the real deal: Michael Arrington says it's nabbing the Seattle-based startup to the tune of $100 million. With competition heating up in the voice command space after Apple's Siri assisted iPhone upgrade, Nuance could be stocking up on more traditional input methods, or at the very least edging out the potential for more competition. There's no word just yet if Swype will replace or fade away in lieu of the firm's own traceable input brand, but we'll be sure to let you know if we hear something official.
Will Dragon speech apps remain in the app store for iPhone 4 owners?
It was a bit of a shock to learn yesterday that the terrific Siri app, now owned by Apple, will get pulled from the app store. It's being done, I'm sure, to encourage people to get the Siri technology built into the new iPhone 4S. Although an interview with the co-founder of Siri indicated that they had to cut some corners to get the app to work on "older" hardware. Still, it seems, shall we say, small of Apple to kill an app that seemed to work just fine, and did some of the tasks that the new incarnation of Siri will do on the iPhone 4S. One bright spot for those sticking with their current phones are the Dragon apps from Nuance. Dragon Dictation will take your voice and turn it into text for a note, an email, or a text message. Dragon Go!, which we have reviewed very positively, does much of what Siri does, connecting to Yelp, Google Maps, Open Table, various search engines and other web services so you can ask about a weather forecast, directions to any destination, and even the latest sports scores. Like Siri, the Dragon apps are powered by Nuance speech recognition software, and the processing is done in the cloud. Both the Dragon apps are free and work fine on the iPhone 4, 3GS, 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch, and the iPad. A Nuance spokesperson assured me today that both apps are doing very well, and the company has no plans to pull them from the App Store. Together the apps can give you a rough approximation of what Siri on the iPhone 4S can do, but it doesn't have the same integration with iOS as Siri so it won't be as slick. I'm hoping Apple will reconsider what I think is a customer hostile decision to yank Siri. How about you? Do you think Apple should have pulled the plug on the Siri app?
iPhone 4S: What can you say to Siri?
Curious about the iPhone 4S's new voice assistant feature? So were we. TUAW tracked down a set of example phrases that the new Siri voice assistant is capable of understanding. It turns out that Siri can handle many categories of voice interaction. Without further ado, here they are, ordered by interaction category, along with Apple-supplied examples of using each category. Address Book Querying Contacts What's Michael's address? What is Susan Park's phone number? When is my wife's birthday? Show Jennifer's home email address Finding Contacts Show Jason Russell Find people named Park Who is Michael Manning? Relationships My mom is Susan Park Michael Manning is my brother Call my brother at work Calendars Adding Events Set up a meeting at 9 Set up a meeting with Michael at 9 Meet with Lisa at noon Set up a meeting about hiring tomorrow at 9am New appointment with Susan Park Friday at 3 Schedule a planning meeting at 8:30 today in the boardroom Changing events Move my 3pm meeting to 4:30 Reschedule my appointment with Dr. Manning to next Monday at 9am Add Lisa to my meeting with Jason Cancel the budget review meeting Asking about events What does the rest of my day look like? What's on my calendar for Friday? When is my next appointment? When am I meeting with Michael? Where is my next meeting? Alarms Setting Alarms Wake me up tomorrow at 7am Set an alarm for 6:30am Wake me up in 8 hours Change my 6:30 alarm to 6:45 Turn off my 6:30 alarm Delete my 7:30 alarm Checking the Clock What time is it? What time is it in Berlin? What is today's date? What's the date this Saturday? Using a Timer Set the timer for ten minutes Show the timer Pause the timer Resume Reset the timer Stop it Email Sending Messages Email Lisa about the trip Email Jennifer about the change in plans New email to Susan Park Mail Dad about the rent check Email Dr. Manning and say I got the forms, thanks Mail Lisa and Jason about the party and say I had a great time Checking Messages Check email Any new email from Michael today? Show new mail about the lease Show the email from Lisa yesterday Responding to Messages Reply Dear Susan sorry about the late payment Call him at work Friends Checking Up on Friends Where's Jason? Where is my sister? Is my wife at home? Where are all my friends? Who is here? Who is near me? Maps Directions How do I get home? Show 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino California Directions to my dad's work Local Businesses Find coffee near me Where is Starbucks? Find some burger joints in Baltimore Find a gas station within walking distance Good Mexican restaurants around here Messages Sending Texts Tell Susan I'll be right there Send a message to Jason Russell Send a message to Lisa saying how about tomorrow Tell Jennifer the show was great Send a message to Susan on her mobile saying I'll be late Send a message to 408 555 1212 Text Jason and Lisa where are you? Reading Texts Read my new messages Read it again Replying to Texts Reply that's great news Tell him I'll be there in 10 minutes Call her Music Playback Play The Light of the Sun Play Trouble Play Taking Back Sunday shuffled Play Alicia Keys Play some blues Play my party mix Shuffle my roadtrip playlist Play Pause Skip Notes Creating and finding notes Note that I spent $12 on lunch Note: check out that new Alicia Keys album Find my restaurant note Create a reading list note Add Tom Sawyer to my reading list note Phone Phone calls Call Jason Call Jennifer Wright mobile Call Susan on her work phone Call 408 555 1212 Call home FaceTime Lisa Reminders Requesting reminders Remind me to call mom Remind me to call my mom when I get home Remember to take an umbrella Remind me take my medicine at 6am tomorrow Remind me to pick up flowers when I leave here Remind me when I leave to call Jason Remind me to finish the report by 6 Stocks Checking Stocks What's Apple's stock price? What is Apple's PE ratio? What did Yahoo close at today? How is the Nikkei doing? How are the markets doing? What is the Dow at? Weather Checking the Forecast What's the weather for today? What's the weather for tomorrow? Will it rain in Cupertino this week? Check next week's forecast for Burlington What's the forecast for this evening? How's the weather in Tampa right now? How hot will it be in Palm Springs this weekend? What's the high for Anchorage on Thursday? What's the temperature outside? How windy is it out there? When is sunrise in Paris? Websearch Looking up information Search the web for Bora Bora Search for vegetarian pasta recipes Search the web for best cable plans Google the war of 1812 Search Wikipedia for Abraham Lincoln Search for news about the World Cup Bing Alicia Keys Using Wolfram Alpha How many calories in a bagel? What is an 18% tip on $86.74 for four people? Who's buried in Grant's tomb? How long do dogs live? What is the Gossamer Condor? What's the square root of 128? How many dollars is €45? What was the Best Picture of 1983? How many days until Christmas? How far away is the Sun? When is the next solar eclipse? Show me the Orion constellation What's the population of Jamaica? How high is Mt. Everest? How deep is the Atlantic ocean? What's the price of gasoline in Chicago?
Daily Update for October 5, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
iPhone 4S was top online buzz generator yesterday
Online marketing and analytics firm Webtrends kept a close eye on the Apple event and announcements yesterday. Not surprisingly, the iPhone 4S was a huge buzz generator for the day, with almost half (585,306 out of 1,223,060) of the total online mentions made about Apple. Excitement or curiosity about Siri followed the iPhone 4S at a distant second place with just 77,220 mentions, followed by the iPod touch announcements. The improved camera in the iPhone 4S also garnered a good amount of buzz -- after seeing the beautiful gallery of photos from the iPhone 4S on the Apple website, I can see why. What got the least amount of interest from the announcements? Newsstand. That seems to mirror the widespread malaise of online newspapers and magazines that will be readable through Apple's portal beginning with the availability of iOS 5 on October 12.
Apple's Knowledge Navigator, Siri and the iPhone 4S
Back in 1987, Apple produced a concept video describing a product known as Knowledge Navigator. Knowledge Navigator is a computer app with bow-tied personal assistant that would let you interact with your device using your voice and natural language. You can check messages, find appointments, share documents and more. Sound familiar? It should as it's surprisingly similar to Siri, the natural language personal assistant Apple introduced at its iPhone 4S event yesterday. Not only is Knowledge Navigator like Siri, the scenario in the concept video also takes place in September 2011. As Kickstarter's Andy Baio pointed out on Waxy.org, there's a remarkable alignment of the dates here. Look at the date on the professor's calendar; it says September 16 and he's looking for a five-year-old article that was published in 2006. This September 16 date, which was chosen 24 years ago, is eerily close to Apple's October 4, 2011 announcement. Check out the video below, I think you'll enjoy it. Corrected to acknowledge source of the timing comparison.
Daily Update for October 4, 2011: Special "Let's Talk iPhone" edition
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. Today, we bring you a special edition dedicated to news of the Apple "Let's Talk iPhone" event. You'll get all the highlights of today's announcements in just seven minutes. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Roundup of today's iPhone event coverage
Here's a summary of what happened today during Apple's iPhone event, with links you can follow to more in-depth coverage. You can check out Apple's keynote for yourself if you like, but our summary will probably go a lot quicker for you. Apple announces the iPhone 4S: The top story for today, Apple's next-gen iPhone is an all-internal upgrade that looks externally identical to the iPhone 4. The handset will be available for pre-order on October 7, and it launches in the US and a few other countries on October 14. As virtually everyone expected, the iPhone 4S will launch on Sprint in addition to AT&T and Verizon. Evidence on Apple's site suggests unlocked models will be available, but pricing info for contract-free handsets isn't available yet. The iPhone 4S has a faster A5 processor with much-improved graphics performance, improved battery and wireless performance, and a vastly improved 8 megapixel camera. Exclusive to the iPhone 4S is Siri, a new and powerful voice interface. Speaking of which... Apple (re)introduces Siri as iPhone voice control assistant for iPhone 4S: By far the biggest new feature announced today, Siri looks like it will revolutionize voice control on the iPhone. Siri is able to understand natural language inquiries and quickly look up information, generate appointments and text messages, and even take dictation. You may never need to type on your iPhone again. Reportedly the existing Siri app will go dark on October 15, so the service will definitely be exclusive to Apple's newest iPhone after that. iOS 5 available October 12: The iOS 5 "gold master" seed was released today to developers, and it will be available to everyone else on October 12. iOS 5 will be a free download that will run on the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPhone 4S; all models of iPad; and the third- and fourth-generation iPod touch. Apple's free replacement for MobileMe, iCloud, is also going live to everyone on October 12. Meanwhile, the App Store is now officially welcoming apps compatible with iOS 5. Apple refreshes iPod touch lineup with new colors: With the only apparent changes being a new white model and a price drop for the entry-level model, the iPod touch received only a very modest update today. No mention was made of the iPod touch being updated with the A5 processor, which marks the first time the line hasn't kept pace with the iPhone's processor. Apple refreshes iPod nano, lowers price: The iPod nano also received a very modest update; aside from new clock faces, integrated fitness functions, a slightly revamped UI, and a price drop, the nano is largely the same as last year's model. The new UI and clock faces appear to be available to 2010 model iPod nanos via a software update, so if you have last year's model already there doesn't appear to be any reason to upgrade. 8 GB iPhone 3GS now free with contract, iPhone 4 price dropped: You can now pick up Apple's two-year-old iPhone 3GS for free if you sign up for a two-year contract. That may sound like a great deal, but by 2013 the iPhone 3GS is probably going to seem like it's a UNIVAC. You're better off spending the extra $99 to get an iPhone 4 instead; it's the same capacity, but with a much-improved processor, Retina Display, and a far better camera. Sure, the iPhone 3GS is free, but in our opinion you get what you pay for with that model. Other new services and products: Apple announced a Find My Friends app that will work via iCloud, which should make stalking locating your friends much easier -- no more "I'm over by the thing, next to the other thing" directions. Another new app that had us alternately scratching our heads and cracking jokes: Cards will enable you to send photos to Apple, which it will then turn into postcards and mail out for you for a modest fee. To comply with EU standards, Apple will release a dock connector to micro USB adapter on October 14. Available on Apple's online UK store, it's relatively inexpensive at only £8. The sequel to Chair's hugely popular Infinity Blade will be released December 1. Infinity Blade 2 demonstrated the hugely improved graphical performance of the iPhone 4S -- I can't wait to see how this looks in person. Apple kicking butt, taking names: Apple's largest store in Asia had over 100,000 visitors in its opening weekend. OS X Lion has sold 6 million copies since its July 20 debut, 80 percent more than Snow Leopard. The iPhone 4 accounts for half of all iPhone sales, ever, and iPhones now account for 5 percent of worldwide handsets -- not just smartphones, all phones. iPads are "showing up everywhere," including 80 percent of US hospitals and 92 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Despite arguably stagnant features over the past couple years, the iPod still accounts for 70 percent of the portable music player market, and iTunes is the number one music store. The App Store has served more than 18 billion app downloads, with more than 500,000 total apps and 140,000 iPad-specific apps. To be honest, with the exception of Siri there doesn't seem to be much new and exciting coming out of Apple's event today. The iPhone 4S is, as the name implies, an iterative update to the (admittedly hugely successful) iPhone 4, while the iPod lineup has seen only very modest updates. Given Apple's massive success as of late, the company can afford to rest on its laurels for awhile -- but not for too long.
