Good afternoon (good morning to those in different time zones) and welcome our live coverage of Apple's iPhone event. I'm Shane Dingman, Technology editor for The Globe and Mail.
I'm sure you're all wondering, what are you going to do for an hour until the event actually starts? That's right, sometime after 10 a.m. PT Apple will share with us the most hyped-up device of the tech year, and that's 1 p.m. ET.
Hi everyone. My name's Omar, I'm the Globe's tech reporter
Hey Omar, tell the folks: Are you worried about having enough to talk about for the hour before the event kicks off?
I'm worried about having enough to talk about in general... Fortunately, the Web has been flooded with iPhone rumours and speculation for the past month, so we've got plenty of tidbits to pick from
Just an FYI, comments are open, but not unmoderated... we'll try to answer questions as best we can.
Nope, this event is fairly locked down even by Apple standards.
As is the case with most Apple events, there's no video stream for this one. That said, every now and then somebody manages to stream part of it from the audience (until they're caught and shut down)
In fact, it's worth noting that technically, we don't even have confirmation that Apple is actually unveiling a new iPhone, only that the company wants to talk about the device.
Of course, just about everyone expects an iPhone 5 announcement in less than an hour. Apple's media outlet of choice to leak these things to is usually the Wall Street Journal, and their tech reporters seem pretty certain the iPhone 5 is here.
Yeah, this time around there's actually a bit of a discrepancy between how much attention this event will get and how groundbreaking a product Apple will reveal.
You wrote that this is as much a launch event for Tim Cook, Apple's successor to former CEO Steve Jobs, as it is about a new device:
Here's an excerpt from your story:
"On Tuesday, Mr. Cook will step out of his back-office comfort zone and into the salesman's spotlight, as he tries to sell consumers on Apple's newest products. The man and the phone will almost certainly be a hit – a recent survey found almost half of North American smart phone owners plan to eventually upgrade to the new model, even before any of its rumoured specifications are confirmed.
But unless Apple has a groundbreaking surprise announcement in store – which may well be the case – Mr. Cook's first pitch will be of an evolutionary product, not a revolutionary one. As such, analysts, investors and fans will probably have to wait a while longer to see whether Apple can continue to churn out category-redefining gadgets under new management."
By most accounts, the iPhone 5 will likely be a relatively small improvement over previous models, perhaps with more voice command features and a better camera, but this event is of huge importance to Apple because it's Tim Cook's public debut as full-time CEO.
(Important note: Apple may have kept some stunning announcement secret until now, so maybe we will see something revolutionary).
And now Gizmodo is reporting the Apple store is down, meaning new products are imminent...
Since then, they've never invited me back...
Talk to us about the atmosphere around Apple for these events, the secrecy is unlike anything in other industries.
Apple is better than any other tech company at running these things. They tend to hold the launch events in the same place every time, so they're familiar with the layout and can run things as smoothly as possible.
They'll get everyone into their seats, and usually they get started right on time. There's normally only one person on stage at a time, talking about one thing. Inevitably these things start with a slide show about how many million units they've shipped or apps purchased.
Engadget is reporting that the head of AT&T Mobility is in the building, so I wouldn't be surprised if he got up to say a thing or two.
As an aside, Apple has perhaps the most lopsided relationship with carriers of any handset maker out there. Nobody else can essentially dictate the terms of the agreement to the extent Apple can. That says a lot about just how popular the iPhone and iPad have become.
I was just going to ask you about that.
What the WSJ reported was that Sprint has committed to buy at least 30.5 million iPhones, even though it would likely lose money on the deal until 2014 ... a commitment of $20 billion at current rates
That's an incredible investment if it's accurate...
The Next Web is now citing anonymous sources saying that this thing is going to be called the iPhone 4S, and won't look all that different from the current iPhone 4, although it'll be a lot more powerful.
This is a good question from reader Kevy, and again it is pure speculation ... does Apple have a history of sticking with its carrier champions, or doing deals with the best offer?
Kevy, generally the way this works is that, a few minutes after the announcement, all three major Canadian carriers send us what feels like the exact same form email saying they're proud to be carrying the new iPhone, but not specifying a release date.
Then, a few days or weeks later, they send us the same form e-mail with a release date. Usually it's not long after the release in the U.S. (although the first iPhone took forever to get here). But until then, they won't tell us when.
TechCrunch is reporting that Apple's Japanese site has leaked the iPhone 4S release date: October 14.
We'll make sure to share those exciting releases with you all.
Hmmm. My scribblelive just hiccuped. Ars Technica has also been stuttering, and GigaOM as well. Safe to say that because people are overwhelming their servers looking for news.
I sympathize with this perspective on the main reaction we should expect: RT @TheDailyShow: #TDSBreakingNews iPhone 4 users one hour away from looking at their phones in shameful disgust.
Now only 20 minutes away from that disgust.
Omar, typically these event produce a stock price bump for Apple, but if it's just a tweak what impact do you think that will have?
There are plenty of folks who will buy this thing no matter what it looks like, but it's worth noting that phones running on Google's Android operating system have gotten a lot better in the past year, and may actually represent some competition at the high-end of the market now.
Man, our live-blogging software is going nuts, presumably because the entire Internet is live-blogging this thing.
Man, our live-blogging software is going nuts, presumably because the entire Internet is live-blogging this thing.
