Below is a summary of the events from Apple’s WWDC conference this morning. The story is still developing, so stay tuned for updates. With the cross over in time with Microsoft’s E3 keynote, it’s been one of the most insane morning in tech I can remember. So here it is.

Mac OS X Lion

Available only via the Mac App Store, a developer preview will be available today, with the public release in July. The price.. a mere US$29.99. That’s pretty low, considering Apple says it’s a major release containing more than 250 new features.

iOS5

The next version of iOS will feature a number of important updates.

Notifications
Rather than interrupt you and demand your attention, notifications have been redone. Working much more like Android or WP7 notifications, they simply pop down from the top of the screen. Tapping on the notification takes you to more detail.

Lock Screen
Now surfaces useful info to the lock screen. This is really just catching up with other platforms.

Mail
Now supports Flagging messages, searching entire message content, draggable addresses, rich text formatting.

Camera update
You can now take photos using the volume up button. This can be done even when the phone is locked.. an idea “borrowed” from Windows Phone. Cropping, red-eye reduction, quick enhance all supported.

Updates/Sync OTA
Now delivered over the air. Now delta updates. This should mean incremental updates, not 500MB+.. finally !

Unified messaging across iOS devices
Group messaging services pretty much just died. Apple are providing a messaging platform across all iOS devices. Wi-Fi and 3G are both supported.

iPad to TV wireless
Stream the entire UI to your TV, without wires. No explanation, but clearly requires Apple TV.

News Stand
iBooks for Magazines and Newspapers

Availability
Available to developers today, released some time ‘this fall’.

iCloud

Sync Contacts, Calendar, Mail, Apps, Photos, synced across devices, for free. Mobile Me is now free.

Purchase History
Finally you can see the apps you’ve purchased before, no word on wether music has this feature. It badly needs it.

Backup
Get a new device, plug in your Apple credentials and all your content will be synced.

Photo stream
You can draw photos from the cloud. Integrates with the photos app on iOS devices, even includes Apple TV. On Windows, they integrate with the Photos Library – will be interesting to see how this plays out.

iTunes in the cloud
Download any track you have already bought from iTunes for free.

iTunes Match
Pairs your non-iTunes music, with iTunes music. Takes just minutes to match and give you permission to that music. US$24.99 per year. Saves you from uploading all the music like Amazon and Google. “An industry leading offer”.

Price
iCloud is free.

Availability
iTunes in the cloud available today, the rest when iOS5 ships.

Image credit: ThisIsMyNext

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference has just begun (3am AEST). I’ll be posting the main announcements as they happen, right here so stay tuned. As more details emerge this post will be updated. It’s expected that Steve Jobs will announce the 4th generation iPhone which is said to be called the iPhone HD. Given the developer focus of the conference and the recent launch of the iPad expect Apple to be giving lots of incentives for developers to create dedicated iPad applications. We may even see iPhone OS 4.0 software for the iPad released, stay tuned.

Update
Apple have just gone live with their official iPhone 4 site featuring a new gallery and video.

Event details:

• Over 5,200 attendees
• 57 countries
• Sold out in 8 days!

iPad details:

• 2 Million sold (One every 3 seconds)
• iPad specific apps are up to 8,500.
• 35 Million iPad apps downloaded (17 apps per iPad)
• 5 Million iBooks downloaded (2.5 books per iPad)

Apps:

• iBooks will now support PDF, coming to the iPhone (with wireless sync)
• Netflix for iPhone (US only)
• Farmville coming to the iPhone
• Guitar Hero for the iPhone
• Apple have paid One Billion Dollars to developers (and taken 30%)

 
Image source: GDGT

iPhone 4 announced

• New industrial design – ‘Really gorgeous, really thin’
• 9.3mm thick – ‘thinnest smartphone on the plannet’
• Front facing camera with LED flash
• 326 ppi resolution display, 960 x 640 resolution, 800:1 contrast ratio (4x the res of the iPhone 3G/3GS)
• Same A4 processor as the iPad
• Up to 32GB of storage
• Moving to the Micro SIM
• Improved Battery life – 3G talk (7hrs), Browsing on WiFi (10hrs), Video (10hrs), Music (40hrs), Standby (300hrs)
• Includes Gyroscope
• 5 Megapixel camera with a back side illuminated sensor [samples]
• Records HD video (1280×720 @ 30fps)
• iMovie for iPhone announced (US$4.99), export in 360p, 540p 720p.

iPhone OS renamed to iOS4

• 1500 new features including multitasking
• Bing added as a search option
• iOS4 Gold Master coming to developers today

 
Image source: Engadget

FaceTime

• Ridiculous name
• Video calling using the front facing camera
• Wi-Fi only in 2010, Apple working with carriers.

Availability

iPhone 4 will be available in 2 colors, black and white. Price is $199 in the US for the 16GB model, and US$299 for the 32GB model. 3G discontinued, 3GS will drop in price.

Pre-orders (may be US-only) start June 15th.

The release of iPhone 4 will be in 5 countries initially on June 24th 2010 – US, France, Germany, UK, Japan. In July 2010, they release in 24 more countries including Australia.

iOS4 arrives June 21st, available for free to iPhone and iPod touch owners. Some features (multitasking) won’t be supported on older versions.

More @ Apple

Tomorrow morning 3am AEST Apple’s developer conference begins with a Phil Schiller keynote. There’s a lot of speculation around as with any Apple event. Probably this time more than ever. It’s 2 years since the original iPhone announcement, 1 year since the iPhone 3G announcement and 1 year since the announcement of Apple’s newest operating system – Snow Leopard (OSX.6). There’s also many rumours about a tablet announcement, but I don’t think so, happy to be wrong on that one.

The Australian times for the keynote are as follows:

Melbourne/Sydney/Brisbane/Canberra 3:00 AM
Adelaide/Darwin time – 2:30 AM
Perth time – 1:00 AM

There’ll be plenty of people covering the event and there’s sure to be some sneaky people who get a live audio feed from the event. The race will be on to find those people.

Sources of content I’ll be watching are..

- Twitter (via TweetDeck), watching = “Apple OR WWDC”, “iPhone”, “Snow Leopard”.
- TWiT Live – http://live.twit.tv
- Tech Blogs live blogging – [engadget], [gizmodo], [gdgt]
- Mactalk [link]

I’ll be checking http://ustream.tv, http://stickam.com, http://justin.tv, for live feeds. Experience has shown that sites are bound to go down during live events, particularly Apple’s, that’s why backups are a great idea.

Did I mention having multiple monitors is great this time of year ?

For all my coverage watch http://twitter.com/techAU