It’s that time again! This morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook will take the stage at the company’s own Worldwide Developers Conference to unveil everything they’ve worked so hard to keep secret for the past many months.

We’ll be seeing iOS 7 for the first time — thats pretty much certain. But what else? Will we see a new version of OS X? New MacBooks? Apple’s fabled Pandora competitor, perhaps?

You’ll have to tune in to find out. We’re live at the keynote, and we’ll be bringing you all of the news as it breaks with our up-to-the-second live blog.

The keynote is scheduled to begin at 10 AM PT (12PM Central, 1 PM Eastern, 6 PM London), but we’ll be bringing you photos and commentary from the scene beginning at about 9 AM — so get here early!

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

It seems all you tech people are obsessed with making conferences work better, perhaps because you seem to go to a lot? Thus there are numerous “conference startups.” There are apps to schmooze at the event itself, like Bizzabo, Presdo, Oleapark, Shpare, Schmooze, CrowdVine, Eventasaur and Omyconf, not to mention generic location-based networking apps like Highlig.ht, Sonar, Ban.jo and Intro. And there are platforms for the conference organisers to get the word out, like ConferenceHound, AllConferences, Cvent, ConferenceAlerts and Lanyrd. Today Conferize joins them, claiming to be a full service content marketing platform for the conference industry.

Its Conferize Highlight Player is designed to enable event organizers to easily present an interactive version of their event by finding the relevant multimedia content from sites like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Slideshare and more. It’s like an About.me for conferences, I guess.

It then displays everything related to the conference or event in one central place without the need for the user to jump around. Sounds quite like Lanyrd then.

Supported content formats include YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Instagram, Twitpic, Yfrog, Twitter, Slideshare, SpeakerDeck and Prezi, as well as any live-stream service available.

Conferize monetises by offering a Highlight Player on a freemium basis to event organizers, speakers, venues and members of the press. It can then be shared to a site.

Conferize was founded by Martin Ferro-Thomsen, and launched at DEMO.

Ferro-Thomsen says “the idea for the new Conferize came from watching the flood of tweets from TC Disrupt last fall. We wanted to follow the best and most engaging stuff in a visual and fluid way that was more true to the conference format, and not just a gazillion tweets organized with a timestamp.”

Taking a look at the service it does seem pretty comprehensive. However, we feel Lanyrd has the platform head of steam right now, while Bizzabo and Shpare look like the ones to watch in the apps space. That said Conferize looks slick and probably serves a slightly different purpose, and it runs automatically whereas Lanyrd is much more manual and only presents links — no previews.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is only a little over a week away, and that means we’re already seeing a lot of buzz surrounding what will and won’t appear at the conference. Apple itself has dropped hints, and recent comments from CEO Tim Cook while speaking at AllThingsD’s D11 conference last week indicate developers should be especially excited about what’s on tap for the annual conference – which, after, is designed specifically to cater to that crowd.

Cook suggested that Apple would be going a lot further than it has before in terms of opening up API access to make iOS more flexible and customizable for developers. That’s a pretty general statement, but he also suggested they wouldn’t go so far as to allow something like Facebook’s Chat Heads to become a system-wide feature, but he also did seem to indicate that there would be a much greater ability to offer things that just weren’t possible before.

The Obvious Targets

There are a few key things that Apple could unlock and provide access to for developers which have seemed like low-hanging fruit for a few iterations of iOS now. The list will likely be familiar to developers who’ve dreamed of accessing these features since they were first introduced.

1. Siri

Developers have been looking longingly at Siri since Apple bought the tech – integrating apps within the virtual personal assistant would be massively beneficial to devs, since it could theoretically funnel users to their services and generate a lot of additional revenue, particularly for things like event, travel, restaurant and sightseeing bookings.

Apple has done some loosening of the Siri ecosystem, by allowing select partners to gain entry, like OpenTable, Yelp and more. But it hasn’t flung the gates wide; there’s still no API available to developers to plug into its services and voice recognition powers, beyond the straightforward dictation abilities built into general text entry fields. Which is unfortunate, because Siri would likely be much more powerful with the many more information sources that would come from wider developer availability.

Siri could use developers as much or more as developers could use Siri, but there’s a potentially problem with allowing devs to use it freely and become a potential end point for users. Namely, how do you filter and make sure not to overload users with results, and how do you choose between two competing apps that can answer the same query! That’s why Apple has been reluctant to offer Siri to devs, and why we probably won’t see it open things up entirely. But in-app specific use of Siri could still be immensely beneficial to user experience.

2. Notification Center Widgets

Apple introduced widgets with real-time updating information for the Notification Center when it released that feature itself. These exist for weather and for stocks, two built-in iOS services, but they make a lot of sense for any developer who wants to show a user constantly updating information. Android developers already have access to this kind of thing via homescreen widgets.

I don’t think we’ll see Apple bring live updating information to the home screen, but it does make sense for them to offer that to devs in the Notification Center. It could potentially reduce the total number of steps a user has to go through to receive crucial information, and might even be a way to save battery life. Plus, given unfettered access, developers might be able to take Notification Center widgets in a direction that Apple hadn’t even envisioned for the feature.

3. User-Selectable Defaults

This is another thing that both devs and users have been wanting for a while. It’s perhaps most obvious when it comes to browsers, as there’s no way to use anything other than Safari as the default app for opening websites on your phone. Google has released APIs that allow other apps to make its Chrome mobile browser the default, but that applies only to those apps with that feature enabled, and there’s no way for a user to set it as the preference system-wide.

For power users, it would be ideal if Apple would just allow each person to set a default app for basically any action, the way you can on Android. But for the general public, that’s a degree of choice that has the potential to confuse and frustrate, as you lose any ability to ensure that an app users pick as a default for any action is actually going to provide a good user experience.

I don’t think Apple will open this feature up to developers in any kind of unqualified or unlimited way. But for certain system features, I can see it beginning to lower the barriers. Don’t expect to see the Phone, Email or Browser app get opened up just yet, but we may see a way to enable a certain type of third-party keyboard system-wide, for instance. Having different software handle calendar appointments might be another tentative step. But as with the way Siri currently works with outside devs, I’d imagine we’d see this fairly tightly controlled at first.

More Power, More Responsibility

Apple may not add more flexibility in the areas described above, but I do think we’ll see them relax restrictions and open up more and more previously private APIs. But if it does open up the ecosystem significantly, that will mean it’ll be watching extra close for interpretations of that openness that threaten the good reputation of iOS with consumers. Even so, we should see a net gain for developers, and hopefully that results in a similar net gain for users, too.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Next week, you’ll have the opportunity to hear the secrets to mobile monetization from industry experts, learn about the latest trends lighting the app world on fire, and showcase your app or brand in front of top talent and investors. The action is all happening at the Inside Social Apps Conference & Expo on June 6-7 in San Francisco.

Leading marketers, executives, developers, and strategists representing top companies such as Facebook, King, Applift, and PocketGems and will explore best practices for distributing, designing, and building a community for your app. Featured sessions include:

• Platform Opportunities for Social Apps
• Solving Mobile App Discovery with Facebook’s Doug Purdy
• Developing Cross-Platform
• International Opportunities: Asia, Europe and the Middle East
• Monetization and Payments in Non-Game Apps

View the full program here.

Additionally, you’ll be able to connect with other industry innovators during sessions, coffee breaks, exhibit hall hours, and an onsite cocktail reception.

Time is almost up, so don’t delay: Save $200 when you register by Wednesday, June 5. The Inside Facebook staff will be on site—we hope to see you there!

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company will be tripling its supercharger coverage throughout the country at the D11 Conference today. By the end of this year, Musk expects that it will cover most of the metropolitan coverage, allowing electric car owners to drive coast to coast, from Los Angeles to New York City.

The technology was developed because traditional charging happens too slowly, so they made something that was quick to charge, Musk said. The chargers are available in California and on the East Coast today, but the company plans to heavily expand coverage by the end of the year.

Musk was planning on announcing the expansion of the network on Thursday, but gave the office at the conference a bit of a sneak peek a day ahead. A map of the new superchargers should be available at the announcement, but it should give increased coverage in existing metropolitan markets, as well as coverage throughout the country. That will enable electric car owners to drive cross-country, from Los Angeles to New York City, Musk said.

Not just that, but updates to Tesla cars will enable drivers to have instant access to see where superchargers are located nearby. They’ll be able to enter their final destination and, along with GPS, to show superchargers along the way. That should help get more people interested in electric cars, since they won’t feel worried about running out of power.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the company will continue to innovate and has more game-changing products ahead. Today in a keynote conversation at the D11 Conference, Cook said the same people who brought you the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and maybe even the Mac will have new products coming soon.

Two weeks ahead of Apple’s own Worldwide Developers Conference, speculation has grown about new hardware that could be released at the conference, as well as updates to Apple’s mobile and tablet developer platform with the upcoming release of iOS 7.

“Many people now say that innovation means a new category,” Tim Cook said. “Yes, we’re still a company that’s going to do that… We have some incredible plans that we’ve been working on for a while.”

When pressed on the future of TV, Cook declined to talk about any future products, but he said that there’s a big opportunity to offer a more compelling experience there. Apple has now sold more than 13 million Apple TV devices, about half of which during the past year. But there’s still more that can be done, according to Cook.

“When you look at the TV experience, it’s not an experience that people love,” Cook said. “It’s not an experience that’s been brought up to date for this decade.”

What about wearables?

Cook said he thinks it’s going to be difficult for something like Google Glass to take off. He also said that, while he wears a Nike FuelBand, there’s nothing really out there that is compelling from a wearable perspective that does more than one thing well.

“I would say that the [wearable devices] that are doing more than one thing, there’s nothing great out there,” Cook said. And as a result, “There’s nothing that’s convinced a kid that doesn’t wear glasses, or a band, or a watch, to do so… It’s an area that’s ripe for exploration.”

At the same time, there are questions about whether or not Apple has lost its mojo, especially as competition from companies like Samsung is growing. Cook defended Apple’s place in the world, saying that the company has always faced formidable competition, but tries to make the best products in each category.

He said that the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, consistently have the highest customer satisfaction rating in all of those categories. It might not sell the most in each device category, but it always has the devices that people use the most, he said. He gave examples both in the amount of web traffic that comes from iOS devices, as well as the amount of commerce that happens on its platforms.

“For us, winning has never been about making the most” of a product, Cook said. “What the numbers suggest is that people are using our products more.”

Photo source (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Today, a day after discussing his voice issues, Google CEO Larry Page took the stage at I/O keynote. He skipped last year’s conference and a few earnings calls after it due to those same voice problems, which he has noted are improving. Page even did something a little new for I/O — taking questions at the end of his talk.

At I/O, Page discussed how important it is for both the developers and Google itself to keep dedicating themselves to technology, to make sure that people everywhere can get access to it. He also discussed his relationship with his father, and how important that was in influencing him when it comes to innovation:

My dad was really interested in technology. He drove me and my family all across the country to go to a robotis company. Then we got there, he thought it was so important his son would go to the conference.

He moved on to discuss how important it is to be able to put all of its work on every single device, making Google a platform to build from. Page notes that adoption of technology is now “much, much faster” and the smartphone itself shows that. Page wants technology to do the hard work, meaning that consumers should be able to use technology, not be used by it. Google’s latest design choices and product announcements reflect that line of thinking, specifically the ease of use that comes with Google Now.

His philosophy can be best summed up with this quote: “We should be building great things that don’t exist.” This is why Google doesn’t pay attention to competition who is working on similar products, it tries to stay one step ahead with things like self-driving cars and Glass.

Page being on stage is a big deal, as it shows that the company is unified under his direction, regardless of his medical condition.

When asked about freedom of information, Page said that in hundreds of countries in the world, Google is speaking to leaders of countries, specifically its Chairman, Eric Schmidt, to keep dialogue open about protecting users’ privacy as well as keeping your freedom of speech intact.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

If you’re attending Google I/O this week, you will be a part of an experiment from the Google Cloud Platform Developer Relations team. On its blog today, the team outlined its plan to gather a bunch of environmental information happening around you as you meander around the Moscone Center.

In the blog post, Michael Manoochehri, Developer Programs Engineer, outlines his team’s plan to place hundreds of Arduino-based environmental sensors around the conference space to track things like temperature, noise levels, humidity and air quality in real-time. This was spawned due to a fascination with wanting to know which areas of the conference were the most popular, so it will be interesting to see what the information the team gathers actually tells us.

At first glance, this seems a little bit creepy, but it’s no different than a venue adjusting the cooling system based on the temperature inside at any given moment. As with anything that Google does, this could have implications for tracking indoor events or businesses in the future, as Manoochehri shared:

Networked sensor technology is in the early stages of revolutionizing business logistics, city planning, and consumer products. We are looking forward to sharing the Data Sensing Lab with Google I/O attendees, because we want to show how using open hardware together with the Google Cloud Platform can make this technology accessible to anyone.

Notice the wrap-up of wanting to show people how open hardware combined with Google’s Cloud Platform benefits everyone. Ok, sure. What could data like this mean for businesses, though? Well, a clothing store would be able to track how many people came in and browsed, which areas of the store were hot-spots for interest and then figure out how their displays converted. It’s like real-world ad-tracking. It makes sense, but still seems a long way off.

What will be interesting is not each dataset that is collected, but what all of them tied together tell us about our surroundings:

Our motes will be able to detect fluctuations in noise level, and some will be attached to footstep counters, to understand collective movement around the conference floor.

Of course, none of this information is personally identifiable, but the thought of our collective steps, movements and other ambient output being turned into something usable by Google is intriguing to say the least…and yes, kind of creepy.

If this particular team can share all of the data it collects in an easy to digest way, then businesses will be clamoring to toss sensors all over their stores and drop the data on whatever cloud platform that will host it the cheapest. Google would like to be that platform.

During the event, the team will hold a workshop on what it calls the “Data Sensing Lab,” so if you’re interested on learning more about what the team is gathering as you walk around, this would be the place to go. You’ll also be able to see some of the real-time visualizations on screens set up throughout the conference floor.

We’ll be covering all of the action as we’re being covered by Google.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Dropbox doesn’t want to be a storage service. It wants to be the data layer uniting your information on all apps. To get more apps and enterprises integrated with its platform, today it announced DBX, the six year-old startup’s first developer conference. To be held July 9th at San Francisco, you can request an invite for a $350 ticket to, DBX which could help Dropbox drive enterprise sales.

Dropbox tells me the three focuses of the one-day conference will be learning about newly launched features on its platform, giving developers a chance to meet and get help from Dropbox API engineers and designers, and highlighting what third-parties have built on top of Dropbox so far.

One thing pretty unique about the conference is that you can’t buy your way in. You have to request an invite and wait to hear back if you’re accepted, then pay the $350 price. The format means it can pick and choose who is in attendance to maximize impact with developers and enterprises it wants to add to or keep on its service. Going invite-only is in stark contrast to other developer conferences like Apple’s WWDC with open ticket sales which can sell out quickly, leaving developers with a real need to be there out in the cold.

Developer conferences have become all the rage with companies in the enterprise — a distinction Dropbox is chasing. Many think of it more as a consumer-facing cloud storage service with its magic folder where you can put files to make them accessible from anywhere. But Dropbox has spent the last year touting itself as a serious, secure backend for big operations.

In April it renamed Dropbox Teams to Dropbox For Business, and in February it rolled out a new set of permissions and visibility controls to serve hierarchical IT companies. Expect enterprise offerings to be a big part of DBX. The conference could help elevate it to the level of respect of enterprise-focused startups like Box and long-standing providers like Google with its Drive and Microsoft and its SkyDrive.

Dropbox hit 100 million users and 1 billion files saved a day last year, and recently acquired beloved email management app Mailbox. It’s still committed to the simplicity consumers need. But if it wants to be a financial juggernaut as well as a household name, it needs more enterprise sales. A developer conference with all the wooing that comes with it could win it those big contracts.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Tickets for Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference went on sale today at 10 AM Pacific, 1 PM Eastern, and as expected, sold out in record time, at just under 2 minutes. Tickets for the developer-focused event at San Francisco’s Moscone West, which features presentations and one-on-one time with Apple’s own in-house engineers, sold out in just two hours in 2012, in under 12 hours in 2011, and in eight days in 2010.

Apple’s tickets sold out 95 percent faster than Google’s tickets for its own annual I/O developer conference, which is taking place May 15 – 17 this year, and which took 49 minutes to sell out. I/O 2012 tickets sold out in just 30 minutes, however, as things took longer this time because of a general inability to complete the check-out process for a large percentage of users early on.

WWDC 2013 marks the first time Apple will be making conference video available during the conference itself, instead of after the event. That should alleviate some of the need of actually being there on the ground for registered Apple developers who want to take advantage of the sessions. This year also marks the first time Apple has provided advance notice regarding when tickets would go on sale, which almost definitely contributed to the faster-than usual sell-out this time around. Imagine a crop of millions of developers around the world hovering over their computers, waiting for the buying process to go live.

The quick sell-out is made more impressive by the fact that sales of the $1,599 tickets were limited to just one per person, and five per organization, tracked by individual Apple ID. During a previous keynote, former CEO Steve Jobs said that there were over 5,000 attendees at the show, which means that Apple potentially just made as much as $8 million in roughly 90 seconds in gross revenue from the event.

Apple’s developer economy is now a massive industry, having paid out $9 billion in total to developers, at a rate now of around $1 billion per quarter. Both iPhone and iPad audiences continue to grow, and Apple’s tablet especially showed tremendous progress during Apple’s most recent fiscal quarter. While Mac sales seem to be either flat or on the decline, the global growth of the iOS user pool more than makes up for that, and iOS as a platform is still the primary revenue driver when it comes to mobile apps and advertising. Combined, those factors mean interest in tickets for WWDC isn’t likely to flag anytime soon.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch