What you’ll see if you visit Apple’s online store right now.
As I write this, Apple has placed the traditional “We’ll be back” message on their online store, signalling the announcement of new products at WWDC 2012. At 1 p.m. Eastern (10 a.m. Pacific), Apple CEO Tim Cook (and presumably marketing chief Phil Schiller and iOS kahuna Scott Forstall) will take the stage and deliver the WWDC keynote. You can follow all the action on the following liveblogs:
- Ars Technica’s liveblog
- CNET’s liveblog
- Engadget’s liveblog
- Gizmodo’s liveblog
- The Globe and Mail’s liveblog
- iMore’s liveblog
- MacRumors’ liveblog
- Ubergizmo’s liveblog
- The Verge’s liveblog
The banners seen at Moscone Center, WWDC’s venue, confirm that they’ll be announcing iOS 6. You’ve probably heard that one of the biggest changes will be Apple’s own 3D maps, which will replace Google Maps, as well as Siri being made available on more devices than just the iPhone 4S. There are also rumours that AppleTV will get an SDK, enabling iOS developers to truly take over the living room.
According to digital marketing and research firm eMarketer, there will be 53 million iPad users in the US by the end of the year. They say that by 2015 — although we should remember to be suspicious of such predictions — that there will be 91 million of them. That’s just under one in three people in the US right now or three times Canada’s current population.
iOS 5 captured approximately 75% of all iOS users in the same amount of time it took Gingerbread to get 4% of all Android users. Even more astounding is that 15 weeks after launch iOS 4 was at 70% and iOS 5 was at 60% while Ice Cream Sandwich got to just 1% share at the same age.
The post may be old, but it’s making the rounds now thanks to Scoble, and it’s relevant right now.