I am finally finished with the keynote at this year's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2015, at Moscone Center, San Francisco.
If the photos look close up to you, it's because I managed to score a fourth row seat in the hall, which is pretty close. I could almost see Tim Cook's nostril hair.
Updates on iOS 9, OS X El Capitan and watchOS 2 were announced.
Apple Pay is rolling out to the UK. I am happy for them, really. But still nada for Singapore. I would love to tap my iPhone or Apple Watch to pay for my Bak Chor Mee or my bus fare. Apple, make it happen please.
The new Notes app can now do drawing in-app and you can drag and drop photos, videos, web and map clippings. It will work across iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan. I use Notes a LOT and this is a nice enhancement.
Split View in OS X will put two apps side by side on your Mac automatically and there will be a Spaces Bar in Mission Control that will let you park your windows. I am not a big user of the multiple desktops feature but this may appeal to users who do.
I got most excited when they showed some of the iOS 9 iPad features. Multitasking is more enhanced, and you can use the new Slide Over feature to simultaneously work in a second app without leaving the first, in a Split View mode,
And with Picture-in-Picture, you can continue a FaceTime call or the video you were watching, while using some other app, like Mail. You can see this in action in the photo below.
I am also quite excited to see the new Apple News app, a Flipboard competitor that will customize your news for you, and also feature magazine-like articles natively, like Facebook's Instant Articles. That may actually make me use the iPad Air 2 more.
Public transport info now comes to Apple Maps. Which is about bloody time. I don't see Singapore on the list of roll-out cities though, so it will still be Google Maps for us public transport users.
Apple also added more little touches to iOS 9 to give more input options to iPads. Two fingers on the iPad keyboard and you get a virtual track pad to select things. That will certainly please those of us who travel and type a lot on our iPads.
Even before we get the Apple Watch in Singapore, Apple is already talking about version 2 of watchOS. There will be more third-party support and you can now reply to emails from the Apple Watch.
With Photo Face and Photo Album Face, you can now make any photo, or set of photos, into a watch face. Now you can look at your children or pet chinchilla as a watch face.
As usual, there is always One More Thing at Apple events. And this one was already leaked by Sony Music's big mouth CEO.
Apple Music is Apple's new music streaming service to compete with Spotify, Deezer, Pandora and Tidal. For US$9.99 a month (first three months will be a free trial), or US$14.99 for the whole family (up to six people), you get to listen to the entire iTunes catalog.
Will it topple the streaming darling Spotify? It remains to be seen. I do like the human curation and the new 24/7 Global Live radio station called Beats 1, fronted by BBC Radio 1 host Zane Lowe, that will stream from New York, L.A. and London, supposedly the music capitols of the world.
Why not also stream from the music capitol of Lorong Ah Soo? My housing estate is also quite hip what (we have artisan coffee there now).
Another feature, Apple Music Connect, will be the in-platform social media service for musicians to reach their fans. Who knows, maybe you can see the new lyrics of a song by Taylor Swift before it is recorded, or a Behind the Scenes video of a Behind the Scenes video of a Maroon 5 music video, or a photo of Snoop Dogg smoking weed.
I think it is nice to have all those fan-connecting functionality under one roof, but most music makers already know how to use Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Will there be exclusives on Apple Music Connect? That may be key.
Remember the sad fate of iTunes Ping? Wait a minute! Connect is the new Ping!
If I become an artiste on Apple Music, I will certainly try to share the exclusive and intimate details of my two-hour coffee breaks at the kopitiam downstairs. Anything for the fans.
Rapper and artist Drake came out to say some stuff about Apple Music, but Kanye didn't show, much to our disappointment. Rumour was that Kanye would be dropping by the WWDC to launch his seventh album SWISH, and it was even Kanye's birthday. But nope, The Unsmiling One did not show.
Instead, The Weeknd performed at the end of the keynote. I cannot say I am familiar with his work, but I asked my friend Henry of Stuff NZ and he told me how to spell this singer's name correctly. So that is not a typo, it really is The Weeknd.
Personally, I say forget Kanye. I was hoping Taylor Swift would be the surprise One Last Thing. She is my musical muse and she can Apple Music Connect with me anytime.
