Apple shows off software updates

Yosemite, iOS 8 revamp company’s operating systems

Craig Federighi, Apple Inc.’s senior vice president of software engineering, speaks to Beats co-founder Dr. Dre via an Apple computer Monday at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
Craig Federighi, Apple Inc.’s senior vice president of software engineering, speaks to Beats co-founder Dr. Dre via an Apple computer Monday at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple kicked off its worldwide developers conference Monday morning by talking about the newest versions of its desktop and mobile operating systems, OS X Yosemite and iOS 8.

Monday's keynote began with a video celebrating developers and the mobile applications they build for Apple's devices. Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook then arrived on stage and maintained that theme, thanking developers for their work to expand and improve the Apple ecosystem.

"We now have 9 million registered developers," Cook said, explaining that the total increased 50 percent in the past year, the largest developer growth in Apple history.

Cook announced that the newest available version of Apple's desktop software, OS Mavericks, is running on more than half of Mac desktops less than a year after its introduction. He compared that with Windows 8, which he said is running on just 14 percent of Microsoft computers.

Cook returned to that theme later, showing that 89 percent of Apple mobile devices were using the latest iOS, while only 9 percent of Android users have the newest version of Google's mobile operating system.

Apple software executive Craig Federighi showed off the coming version of OS X, which will be called Yosemite. Apple last year began naming its operating system rollouts after places instead of animals -- Mavericks takes its name from the famed Peninsula surfing spot. Federighi's highlights of the new operating system included many features familiar to users of Apple's iOS mobile operating system, including translucent backgrounds and a converged search feature.

Bundled with Yosemite will be an update to iCloud called iCloud Drive, which allows users to see their saved files in folders on Apple and Microsoft devices, and new email features including the ability to send larger files and manipulate photos and documents such as PDFs. Apple also featured a revamped Safari Web browser that Federighi promised would be more power-efficient and faster than rivals Firefox or Chrome.

Federighi also showed off Handoff, a new feature that simplifies transitions from mobile devices and desktops with the ability for users to signal they are switching devices and interact with the same data. The converged interface also works with text messages and phone calls, allowing users to answer a call or respond to an SMS message to their iPhone without leaving their Mac.

A developer preview of Yosemite was made available immediately, with a public beta arriving this summer before Yosemite rolls out in the fall; Mavericks was officially released in October 2013.

Cook came out after the Yosemite introduction to debut iOS 8. He had Federighi come back to demonstrate the operating system's new features, which include the ability to respond to alerts without leaving the current app.

Apple focused on new wrinkles to its Messages app, one of the most used features of the iPhone. IOS 8 will include the ability to send audio and video messages without leaving the Messages app, as well as the ability to take and send photos without changing to the Camera application.

The conference's annual keynote addresses were the home of iPhone debuts until 2011, when those highly anticipated events moved to their own schedule. Since then, Apple has mostly used the conference to show off new versions of Apple's mobile and desktop operating systems and new software offerings -- in 2013, Apple debuted the beginnings of its CarPlay automotive offering as well as its iTunes Radio streaming service along with iOS 7 and OS Mavericks. Several cars were parked within the event center Monday morning, suggesting Apple would again focus on in-car offerings this year.

Apple investors, developers and fans had high expectations for the event despite expectations that no new gadgets would appear.

"While Apple's software-only events have rarely captured the same level of excitement as its hardware launches, we believe this should change," Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope wrote in a note late last week. "Indeed, with the potential for substantial hardware differentiation and few new hardware categories that can substantially impact Apple's $175 billion revenue base, iOS platform differentiation is becoming increasingly critical."

Reports leading up to the event suggested Apple would roll out new software that helps users control their homes or monitor their health, along with possibly providing more detail about the future of Beats, the headphones and streaming-audio company that Apple plans to purchase for $3 billion, its largest-ever acquisition.

Apple enters its conference on a Wall Street roll, reaching 52-week highs in each of the past five trading sessions ahead of a 7-to-1 stock split expected to take place next Sunday for investors who owned shares as of Monday.

The gains ahead of Apple's annual event are nothing new, as BTIG Research analyst Walter Piecyk pointed out in a note Friday: Apple has gained an average of 4.1 percent in the month leading up to the conference in the previous six years, but has fallen or failed to move on the day of and day after the event in each of those years, with average declines of 1.4 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.

"However, this time around there doesn't seem to be high expectations for any major new product releases," Piecyk said in his report.

Business on 06/03/2014

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