We still believe deeply in this category, Cook says. So that starts with OS X and a demo from Craig Federighi -- Apple's Mac and iOS software chief.
It's encouraging to hear Apple's commitment to the desktop, despite it being a platform of diminishing importance. Of course, it's still incredibly important to us. I don't see anyone liveblogging from an iPad...
Craig just called this OS X update a "doozy." Get ready.
Federighi talking about Mavericks, which was shown off last June. He's going to focus on technologies, features and apps -- all things that changed in this release.
The release was about squeezing more out of battery life, memory, and CPU performance.
13" MacBook Air now with Mavericks gets up to an hour longer Web browsing, and up to 1.5 hours more iTunes movie playback.
That's roughly a 10% increase in battery life, which is indeed quite impressive. I'm curious to see what it's like on older machines, though. (I'm typing on a 2012 Air, FWIW, and would love a little more battery life.)
Changes are happening in memory too, with a feature called compress memory, which will scrunch down RAM, so you effectively get 6GB of RAM even when you only have 4GB installed (that's a big claim).
Have we gotten to a point where CPUs are so overpowered that we can afford to compress our memory, one wonders? Again, can't wait to test that out.
"Kyle" the drummer is jamming along. He is, appropriately, faceless. Presumably he'll be replaced after the first album, too.
Demo's going over the drummer feature, a carryover from Logic, which can give you drumming accompaniment based on what you've already recorded.
"Kyle" has no feelings. He does not complain about being too tired for the encore.
14 more drummers and instruments can be added with an in-app purchase. Each of these drummers has a different style.
We just switched over to "Gavin" the drummer, who has a mustache and soul patch. He still has no soul, though.
Cue's back up to wrap it up. All of these apps will be free with the purchase of any new Mac or IOS device. And all those updates are going out today.
Enough with iLife, onto iWork.
"The biggest updates of iWork ever."
Pages, Numbers and Keynotes have gotten reworked for iOS 7, and now completely rewritten for the Mac. Cue says iWork now has "full file compatibility."
Some new tweaks like content sensitive keyboards on iOS, as well as an inspector on the side of the screen in the Mac App that puts contextual controls there, based on what you're doing.
Cue moves to Numbers, Apple's Excel competitor.
We're getting a thorough demo of Pages. Maybe Apple will do that video where the dude recreated iOS 7 in MS Word.
And then onto Keynote (Cue's flying through here) -- he notes that the entire presentation's been doing from within Keynote. New features include "more realistic" physics with transitions.
Shirt jokes appear to be the new hair jokes in today's keynote.
We're getting a demo of iWork now. Eddy's standing across from Roger Rosner, Apple's VP of iWork apps, and Rosner's dressing up a Pages doc with a headshot of Cue for a made-up music concert.
Rosner talking up the new sharing feature which lets you share documents through Apple's iWork Beta service online.
New today to iWork for iCloud is online collaboration, something to better compete with Google, Microsoft, et al.
Collaboration is a hugely powerful feature of the competition and one that will surely be well-received here.
Apple updates iLife, iWork for iOS and OS X news.cnet.com
