Apple's Town Hall iPhone Event Live Blog

09:55AM PDT - Brian and I are seated in Apple's Town Hall at the Cupertino campus

09:55AM PDT - Brian is on photos, chiming in with his usual excellent analysis - I'll be on text today

09:56AM PDT - First, the obligatory speed test on Apple's WiFi

09:57AM PDT - 55.22Mbps down, 63.2Mbps up: http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/2957576268

09:57AM PDT - and 5GHz as always

09:57AM PDT - Al Gore is here again

09:58AM PDT - A shot of Brian and I from Engadget's live coverage: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/09/wp20130910093525pro.jpg

10:00AM PDT - Music stopped, event is about to begin

10:01AM PDT - Tim Cook just took the stage

10:01AM PDT - This is our first time at Apple's Town Hall - the venue is much smaller and more intimate than previous Apple events

10:01AM PDT - "Really excited to show you a few things this morning that we're really proud of"

10:01AM PDT - "Few things" as in more than just two phones? :)

10:01AM PDT - Recapping the iTunes festival

10:02AM PDT - "7th year in a row we've been running the festival"

10:02AM PDT - 30 nights of live performances in London

10:02AM PDT - iTunes festival is free

10:02AM PDT - That's pretty cool I didn't know that

10:03AM PDT - 20 million people applied for tickets

10:03AM PDT - "it's like an opening weekend for a product"

10:03AM PDT - We're live streaming the concerns to over 100 countries

10:03AM PDT - Playing a video of the concerts

10:04AM PDT - If you're just tuning in, no new hardware stuff yet - just recapping the iTunes festival

10:06AM PDT - Now on to retail

10:07AM PDT - Talking about new Apple store close by

10:08AM PDT - We've been hard at work on completing iOS 7

10:08AM PDT - Next month we will ship the 700 millionth iOS device

10:08AM PDT - "iOS 7 will quickly become the world's most popular mobile OS"

10:08AM PDT - Craig taking the stage to talk about iOS 7

10:09AM PDT - I wonder if Apple chooses Town Hall as its venue for updates that are more silicon focused rather than big device changes

10:09AM PDT - Talking about the iOS 7 lock screen

10:09AM PDT - Big focus on animations and new icon style in iOS 7

10:10AM PDT - Talking about the iOS 7 parallax effect

10:10AM PDT - iOS 7 learns when and where you commute, learns where you need to go and how long it'll take to get there

10:10AM PDT - Analogous to what Google does in Google Now these days

10:11AM PDT - Now talking about new weather app and styling for iOS 7 apps

10:11AM PDT - ...and new multitasking UI

10:11AM PDT - We went over all of this in our WWDC coverage earlier this year

10:11AM PDT - iOS 7 is definitely an updated face on the OS

10:11AM PDT - Demonstrating iOS 7 siri now

10:11AM PDT - Siri can now draw on the latest tweets

10:12AM PDT - "great new high quality male and female voices"

10:12AM PDT - Siri can now draw on info from wikipedia, inline websearch and photo search

10:12AM PDT - New iOS 7 ringtones as well

10:12AM PDT - Craig is demoing some of their new ringtones

10:12AM PDT - I can't really liveblog sounds yet

10:12AM PDT - New notification sounds being played now

10:13AM PDT - Classic sounds are also remastered (wee)

10:13AM PDT - Moving onto the camera app in iOS 7

10:13AM PDT - Collections of photos in iOS, grouped by location/time

10:13AM PDT - Managing tons of content on these mobile devices is a real issue

10:14AM PDT - Can share via AirDrop in iOS 7

10:14AM PDT - We finally have a way to directly send files between two iOS devices on the same WiFi network

10:14AM PDT - Music app demo is up next

10:14AM PDT - iTunes Radio is built in to iOS 7

10:15AM PDT - iTunes Music: Apple's Pandora competitor

10:15AM PDT - Playing Daft Punk (naturally)

10:15AM PDT - Create a new station based on artist, genre or song

10:15AM PDT - Over 200 features in iOS 7

10:16AM PDT - Now showing off 3rd party iOS 7 enabled apps

10:16AM PDT - Updating iOS apps to the new iOS 7 styling is very critical to the OS' adoption

10:16AM PDT - Moving on to iOS 7 on the iPad

10:16AM PDT - iOS 7 will be available for free, starting on September 18th

10:17AM PDT - Moving onto iWork

10:18AM PDT - Talking about Keynote (app) now

10:18AM PDT - ...and Numbers

10:19AM PDT - Now onto iPhoto, still nothing new at this point

10:19AM PDT - Just recapping how you can use iOS for productivity

10:19AM PDT - "iWork is a really key advantage for a customer's productivity, and iPhoto and iMovie are great for creativity"

10:19AM PDT - "No other platform has any apps like these"

10:20AM PDT - Today we are announcing that we're making all five of these apps free

10:20AM PDT - One touch - download all the free new apps

10:20AM PDT - When setting up any new iOS 7 device

10:21AM PDT - Talking about iPhone now

10:21AM PDT - iPhone 5 had most successful first year of any iPhone

10:22AM PDT - In the past when we've announced a new iPhone, we've lowered the price of the current iPhone

10:22AM PDT - This year, we're not going to do that

10:22AM PDT - Here comes the iPhone 5C

10:22AM PDT - Business has become so large that this year we're going to replace the iPhone 5

10:22AM PDT - Replacing it with not one, but two new designs

10:22AM PDT - This makes sense since the iPhone 5's construction likely doesn't scale down well in terms of pricing

10:22AM PDT - Phil Schiller takes the stage

10:22AM PDT - Phil is awesome, he gives an unusual amount of detail at these things

10:23AM PDT - iPhone 5C announced

10:23AM PDT - Playing a video, showing all the different colors of the iPhone 5C

10:24AM PDT - Green, white blue, red and yellow

10:24AM PDT - New color design

10:24AM PDT - Volume buttons, switches, all colored

10:24AM PDT - Back and sides are made of a single part

10:24AM PDT - (plastic)

10:24AM PDT - The front is one glass multitouch surface

10:25AM PDT - New line of custom cases for the iPhone 5C

10:25AM PDT - soft feel silicon rubber cases

10:25AM PDT - circular cutout patterns in the case so you can see the underlying 5C color

10:25AM PDT - Color/customization is becoming a big part of mainstream phone sales

10:25AM PDT - Hard coated polycarbonate material

10:26AM PDT - Steel reinforced internal structure

10:26AM PDT - Part of the antenna system as well as for structural integrity

10:26AM PDT - 4-inch retina display, full sRGB standard, integrated touch

10:26AM PDT - A6 SoC

10:26AM PDT - Battery inside the 5C is slightly larger than what was in the 5

10:26AM PDT - 8MP iSight camera

10:26AM PDT - backside illumination, 5 element lens, hybrid IR filter

10:27AM PDT - New FaceTime HD camera, larger 1.9µ pixels

10:27AM PDT - 1.9µm

10:27AM PDT - Props to Phil to talking about pixel size

10:27AM PDT - 100Mbps LTE

10:27AM PDT - 02.11a/b/g/n, 2.4/5GHz, BT 4.0

10:27AM PDT - 802.11 that is

10:27AM PDT - Runs iOS 7 obviously

10:28AM PDT - Five colors, blue, white, pink, yellow and green

10:28AM PDT - Starts at 16GB at $99 on 2 year contract, $199 for 32GB

10:28AM PDT - Cases are $29 each

10:29AM PDT - Playing a video talking about the 5C

10:30AM PDT - Ultimately the 5C is a way of tempting the mainstream and making Apple's two-iPhone strategy work while still shipping metal devices at the high end

10:30AM PDT - Apple has shipped two iPhones for a while, this time the iPhone 5 just didn't scale well cost-wise, so the 5C was necessary

10:31AM PDT - Taking us through the manufacturing process of the 5C

10:31AM PDT - "solid, dense feel"

10:32AM PDT - Apple has mentioned more LTE bands on the 5C than any other phone in the world a few times now, interesting

10:33AM PDT - Still watching the 5C video

10:33AM PDT - Video is done, back to Phil

10:33AM PDT - iPhone 5S

10:34AM PDT - Showing the gold trimmed iPhone 5S now

10:34AM PDT - I want a gold one (on a chain)

10:35AM PDT - iPhone 5S, made of a high grade aluminum with diamond cut, chamfered edges

10:35AM PDT - "The gold standard in smartphones"

10:35AM PDT - Silver, gold and a new space grey

10:35AM PDT - 1st innovation: performance

10:36AM PDT - Brand new A7 processor

10:36AM PDT - Here we go

10:36AM PDT - 64-bit!!!!

10:36AM PDT - WOW

10:36AM PDT - I can't believe they did it

10:37AM PDT - "64-bit desktop class architecture"

10:37AM PDT - modern ISA

10:37AM PDT - x general purpose registers, 2x fp registers, over 1B transistors, 102mm^2 die size

10:37AM PDT - iOS 7 completely re-engineered for 64-bit

10:37AM PDT - 64-bit kernel, libraries and drivers

10:37AM PDT - ll built in apps re-engineered

10:37AM PDT - Xcode support as well

10:37AM PDT - 32/64 compatibility is enabled

10:38AM PDT - Up to 2x as fast on CPU tasks

10:38AM PDT - Up to 2x as fast in GPU perf

10:38AM PDT - Up to 40X faster than the first iPhone

10:39AM PDT - OpenGL ES 3.0 support in iOS!!

10:39AM PDT - This is nuts

10:39AM PDT - Wow I seriously can't believe the 64-bit move

10:39AM PDT - Donald Mustard from Epic games is taking the stage

10:39AM PDT - You gotta bring out the big guns for new silicon

10:39AM PDT - Donald co-founded ChAIR entertainment - the infinity blade guys

10:40AM PDT - conclusion to infinity blade trilogy

10:40AM PDT - Showing a video demo of Infinity Blade 3

10:41AM PDT - If the 5S doesn't have a ton of RAM, then this move is purely to enable the dev community - Apple being very proactive on dealing with the 64-bit navigation

10:41AM PDT - 2 hours to create a 64-bit build of Infinity Blade 3

10:41AM PDT - once the 32-bit version was ready that is

10:41AM PDT - OpenGL ES 3.0 support in Infinity Blade 3

10:41AM PDT - "lens flares that would make JJ Abrams proud"

10:42AM PDT - Dragons in infinity blade 3

10:42AM PDT - Naturally need to add dragons since you have 64-bit

10:42AM PDT - Seriously I want the 5S now, need to dissect A7

10:42AM PDT - So just to be clear, the 2X increase in performance is not from the move to 64-bit

10:43AM PDT - It's clear that the 5S/A7 has an updated Swift architecture

10:44AM PDT - Infinity Blade 3 will be available alongside the iPhone 5S

10:44AM PDT - Incredible - I wish it had a built in benchmark :)

10:44AM PDT - M7, new part in the iPhone

10:44AM PDT - Motion coprocessor

10:44AM PDT - Continuously measures motion data, accelerometer, gyroscope, compass

10:45AM PDT - Analogous to Qualcomm's sensor fusion hub

10:45AM PDT - New CoreMotion API, identifies user movement, optimizations based on contextual awareness

10:46AM PDT - Battery life is equal or greater than the iPhone 5

10:46AM PDT - "That's the first of our breakthrough technologies"

10:46AM PDT - 2nd: camera system

10:47AM PDT - Huge advancements in 5S camera tech

10:47AM PDT - New 5 element lens, F2.2

10:47AM PDT - New sensor, 15% larger active area

10:48AM PDT - Larger pixels??

10:48AM PDT - Bigger pixels, Klug is happy

10:48AM PDT - 1.5µm pixel size

10:48AM PDT - Used to be 1.4µm

10:49AM PDT - When you launch iOS 7 camera app, the app automatically sets exposure and white balance

10:49AM PDT - Creates a dynamic local tone map around the image

10:49AM PDT - for better highlights and shadows

10:49AM PDT - AF matrix metering with 15 zones

10:49AM PDT - Multiple exposures when you take a picture, picks the sharpest and displays it

10:49AM PDT - New True Tone Flash

10:50AM PDT - When you take a flash picture, ambient light varies in its color temperature, whatever color your flash is it'll clash with room lighting color

10:50AM PDT - 5S flash solves for this by using two LEDs

10:50AM PDT - One is cooler white, the other is warmer amber

10:50AM PDT - Over 1000 unique color variations of flash

10:50AM PDT - World's first on a camera of any kind

10:51AM PDT - Showing impact of new flash on skin tones

10:51AM PDT - Auto image stabilization

10:51AM PDT - EIS likely, not OIS

10:51AM PDT - Multiple photos, combine them and select parts of the image that are sharpest

10:51AM PDT - New burst mode

10:52AM PDT - There's clearly a new ISP in 5S

10:52AM PDT - 10 fps burst mode

10:52AM PDT - In real time as you take burst photos, the photos are analyzed for sharpness, exposure, face detection, etc...

10:52AM PDT - In the camera roll it auto presents you with what it thinks is the best photo out of a burst shot

10:53AM PDT - Picks out a couple photos from action sequences

10:53AM PDT - all in real time, all automatically

10:53AM PDT - 120 fps slo-mo mode

10:53AM PDT - 720p120

10:54AM PDT - You can select both 30 fps and 120 fps portions of the same video

10:54AM PDT - Showing off unedited iPhone 5S photos

10:55AM PDT - Showing off 28MP panorama taken with the 5S

10:55AM PDT - Can adjust exposure level as you pan the scene in panorama mode

10:56AM PDT - 3rd feature: security

10:57AM PDT - Apple's Touch ID

10:57AM PDT - Fingerprint sensor

10:57AM PDT - Touch ID capacitive sensor, 170 microns thin, 500 ppi resolution

10:57AM PDT - scan sub epidermal skin layers

10:57AM PDT - 360 degree readability

10:58AM PDT - You can teach it about more than one finger (right/left handed for example)

10:58AM PDT - Rotation agnostic

10:58AM PDT - Sensor integrated into the home button

10:58AM PDT - Same tactile switch, touch ID sensor, then stainless steel detection ring, laser cut sapphire crystal cover

10:58AM PDT - Touch ID built into iOS 7

10:59AM PDT - Just touch the home button to unlock once you've taught it your fingerprint

10:59AM PDT - You can use it to make iTunes purchases instead of password

10:59AM PDT - Video of the iPhone 5S in action is next

11:02AM PDT - All fingerprint information is encrypted and stored in a secure enclave in the A7

11:02AM PDT - Accessible only by the Touch ID sensor, never stored on apple servers or backed up to iCloud

11:02AM PDT - "Technology is at its best and most empowering when it simply disappears"

11:03AM PDT - 16GB config at $199

11:03AM PDT - 32GB at $299, 64GB at $399

11:03AM PDT - all on 2 year contracts

11:04AM PDT - New cases for the 5S as well

11:04AM PDT - Leather cases, five colors

11:05AM PDT - The 4S will stick around at 8GB for free on contract

11:06AM PDT - Available September 20th

11:06AM PDT - preorders for the 5C start on the 13th

11:06AM PDT - 100 counties by the end of the year

11:06AM PDT - over 270 carriers

11:06AM PDT - I guess no LTE Advanced for iPhone 5S

11:06AM PDT - Tim Cook is back on stage

11:07AM PDT - Recapping the event now

11:08AM PDT - Playing some of the 5C/5S ads now

11:09AM PDT - Returning to music for a moment before we close

11:09AM PDT - "We do really love music and we love celebrating with great artists"

11:10AM PDT - Hmm special musical guest

11:10AM PDT - 3 decades, 29 albums, widely viewed to be one of the best singer/songwriters of our time

11:10AM PDT - hmm who could it be

11:10AM PDT - Elvis Costello takes the stage

11:11AM PDT - Listing to Elvis Costello now, the live blog is over, we'll be back with hands on time asap. Thanks for reading!