WWDC 2011: Apple keynote liveblog

At 6pm (GMT) today, Steve Jobs and his Cupertino clan will try to cleverly distract the gaming community from events over at E3 by holding a keynote presentation in San Francisco.

We've already reported on what we imagine the King of the Turtlenecks will announce later this evening during his Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, but in case you've already forgotten, here's our WWDC 2011 keynote preview again.

[Refresh page] 11:58: The keynote is over. Sorry. No iPhone 5...

11:57: This our third data center - shows photo. "We are serious about this."

11:56: Compared iTunes Match with similar offerings from Google and Amazon.

11:54: iTunes Match - for tracks you ripped youself, Apple will upload them to iCloud for you at 256 kps AAC DRM. iTunes Match cost $24.99 annually.

11:53: iCloud will ship with iOS 5 in the autumn

11:52: Running a beta version of the iTunes with beta iOS.

11:51: iCloud goes live today wrt developer SDK.

11:50: How do you get iCloud? Get iOS 5 and log in. You can turn iCloud connection off and on. Get 5GB of free storage, but that doesn't include music, photos, books.

11:49: Can share iTunes music among 10 Apple devices.

11:48: Playing the Foo Fighters, about to buy Bruno Mars.

11:45: Anything I bought or will buy from iTunes, I can download to any of my devices at no extra charge automatically or manually.

11:44: iTunes in the cloud.

11:43: i.e. iCloud (in this photo case) isn't about file storage but about file distribution.

11:40: But how to deal with the file size of photos? Apple is storing the last 1,000 images on iOS devices, and everthing on the iCloud for 30 days. Desktop/laptop will store everything for ever because they have larger hard drives.

11:37: Photo Stream for photos in the cloud. Camera roll automatically saved and distributed to Apple devices. It's built into the Photo app. Also built into AppleTV.

11:37: iCloud Storage APIs will be available for developers.

11:35: We've been working for 10 years to get rid of the file system. In iOS, the app manages the presentation, but the key pieces is how to move those documents around, which is solved by iCloud.

11:31: Three more iCloud apps. Documents in the cloud.

11:30: Daily backup to iCloud, which acts as an upgrade path for future devices.

11:28: iCloud support added to all apps on the App Store and iBooks. Any purchase is sent to all iOS devices, things like bookmarks are stored and shared.

11:27: Little dig at Google. No ads in Mails. iCloud access will be available for free.

11:25: Calendar, Contacts and Mail (via me.com) integrated into all iOS devices and shared automatically via iCloud.

11:24: MobileMe was not our greatest hour, but we learned a lot.

11:24: Some people think the cloud is a hard disk in the sky, but we think it’s way more than that. iCloud stores you content and wirelessly pushes it to all your other devices. Everything happens automatically and there’s nothing new to learn. “It just works.”

11:21: All devices contain some data so we need a better way to sync between them. "It's driving us crazy."

11:20: Steve is back to talk about iCloud.

11:18: Developer seed version of iOS 5 released today. OS not coming for constumers until the autumn/fall for 3GS and above hardware.

11:13 iMessage built on top of push notification infrastructure.

11:13: New iMessage service, which is basically an extended rip of BlackBerry Messenger, which is synced across all your iOS 5 devices. You can see receipt of messages as well as when the other person is responding, including photo and videos.

11:12: Added features - avatar photos, compare your points to friends, see friends of friends, friends of friends recommendation and game recommendation, which means you can download within GameCenter. Turn-based game support is now integrated into iOS 5.

11:12: 11:10: More than 100,000 games on the App Store. In nine months, we have 50 million Game Center users.

11:09: Updates are now over the air and only required delta changes to the app, not a total download of the entire app.

11:07: iOS 5 is PC free. Gets biggest cheer of the day.

11:05: Can split the keyboard for thumb use.

11:03: Next Mail, (yawn). Flag messages, drag names, search entire messages, Swipe to inbox, can bold, italics and indent... Scott is actually going to demo iOS email. Where's the soul Steve?

11:02: New in-camera editing options for cropping, colour tone, red eye reduction etc.

11:00: iPhone 4 camera will soon be the most popular camera uploading to Flickr. Has lock screen shortcut for faster access just for taking photos. And can use the volume up button as a hardware shutter button.

10:57: Reminders app. Audience is confused by this. Is this really a key feature of iOS 5? They like the geo-cache feature so Scott doesn't forget to call his wife. Wonder what his wife thinks?

10:54: New reading and email options within Safari. Also has Reading List (basically a bookmark), which shared across all iOS devices and Safari devices. And added tab browsing.

10:53: Next up Safari, which Apple says is 64 percent of mobile web browsing market.

10:51: Twitter is incredibly popular apparently. Apple is adding single sign-on for any app you download off the App Store. Neat. Also integrated as an option into Safari, YouTube, Maps, Contacts, camera etc.

10:50: People clapped background download feature.

10:49: Scott is telling us that there are lots of newspapers and magazines. There's one called Wired apparently.

10:48. Next - Newstand for magazine subscriptions.

10:47: Notification Center has stocks and weather across the top. Holds all text messages too. Go direct to the app that sent you the notification

10:45: Notifications: We done 100 billion push notifications, but customers want a better UI - notification center, which combined together all of your notifications.

10:45: iOS 5 is a major release with more than 1500 new APIs and 200 new features.

10:43: 225 million iTunes accounts

10:42: 425,000 iOS apps and more than 90,000 made for iPad. 14 billions apps downloaded from the App Store. Apple has paid out more than $2.5 billion to App Store developers.

10:40: 25 million iPads in first 14 months. Sold 15 billion tracks on iTunes. More than 130 million books on iBooks.

10:38: Sold over 200 million iOS devices. The no. 1 operating system with more than 44 percent of the market. Android 28 percent.

10:38: Scott Forstall on iOS 5.

10:37: Lion costs $29.99. Crowd cheers...

10:36: 3,000 new APIs in Lion. Lion will be available only in Mac App Store, 4GB download, self installing, work on all your Macs.

10:32: Let's hope Apple's lulling us into a false sense of boredom. At least iOS 5 and iCloud will be interesting. But iPhone 5 annoucements... seems highly unlikely.

10:30: Airdrop peer-to-peer document transfer and all-new email. Calm my beating heart.

10:26: Have to say, this is not setting the audience alive with excitement, fun as the new auto-save state save feature is.

10:21: Seems the themes of iOS App Store are being spread throughout Mac OS in terms of icons and how you launch programs/apps etc.

10:20: Mac App Store built into Lion. Adds in-app purchases, sandbox mode etc

10:19: Mac App Store. In the last six months, it’s become the number channel for Mac software. Autodesk Sketchbook Pro has seen a 1 million. Doubling revenue for Mini Ninjas game.

10.18: Some Mac Store facts for you all - In 6 months it's become the number 1 software channel for Mac applications

10.15: Live face-tracking in Photo Booth on Lion. I wonder if this will make its way to the iPad as well?

10:11: Quick clarification - Jobs introduced this section, but it's currently Phil Schiller doing this presentation

10.10: A lot of these features appear to be taken from iOS, including multi-touch gestures and the like. I think my hat is safe for now.

10.09: 250 new features in Lion. Sounds impressive. If there's that many announced for iOS 5 I'll eat my hat, though

10.08: Jon's connection is down at the moment so I'm going to step in (Will). Jobs is on stage, but he's sounding a little quiet and less the 'showman' - not a great sight to witness.

Currently being walked through the successful growth of the Mac desktop/latops in prep for the new OS - Lion, including the intresting statistic that Mac growth was 28% last year compared to -1% for the PC.

Not useful for us, mind, but still interesting to know.

10:00: Jobs onstage. Hardware is the brains, but software is the soul, he whispers.

09.55: The WWDC wi-fi keeps dropping. Just keep whistling....

09:45: So here we are in the Moscone. The music is funky