Apple Debuts iOS 8 – HealthKit, Third-Party Keyboards, HomeKit, and Much More ::

Apple officially introduced iOS 8 at their WWDC 2014 Keynote address on Monday. New features for the mobile OS include support for third-party keyboards, improved notification features, an upgraded autocorrect feature, a new health tracking component named HealthKit, and much more.

Messaging

Messages gets some great new improvements, including the ability to name conversation threads, the ability to add and remove users from a group conversation, the ability to leave a message thread, and a “Do Not Disturb” feature to allow muting of particularly noisy threads.

Users will also be able to share their location with others in the messaging app, and will have the ability to record and send audio and video messages right within the app. Those messages can be viewed in the app, or even via the lock screen. Users will also be able to hold the phone up to their ear to reply, and the voice message will be sent automatically when the phone is lowered.

HealthKit

HealthKit is Apple’s new API that will collect and consolidate a user’s health information from multiple third-party apps and accessories. A “Health” app will monitor a user’s fitness metrics using that data to establish personalized thresholds for readings.

Apple says they have been working with the Mayo Clinic, and the system will allow doctors and patients to use HealthKit to set those thresholds, notifying doctors automatically in the case of something being wrong.

Notification Center

New interactive notifications will let users pull down notifications and respond to text messages or other notifications without leaving the current app. Users will also be able to interact with notifications on the lock screen. This will allow responding to an iMessage or Facebook post right from the on screen notification.

Keyboard Enhancements

In a move that is likely to be cheered by iOS users, Apple will now allow the use of third-party keyboards, such as Swype, system wide. The keyboards can be used in any app that the normal iOS keyboard can be used in. Apple also introduced a new native iOS keyboard called “QuickType,” which offers predictive word suggestions that adapt to the current situation. QuickType can learn a user’s habits, and language, and Apple assures privacy of the user will be protected.

Siri

Siri got some love with the iOS 8 update, as she gains the ability to be summoned by saying the phrase “Hey, Siri.” A definite plus when using Siri in the car. She also gains Shazam song recognition, the ability to make iTunes purchases, 22 new languages, streaming voice recognition to display search results as users speak, and more.

Touch ID

Developers will now be able to use Touch ID in their apps. While fingerprint data will be safely stored in the A8 processor, Touch ID will be used to automatically unlock passwords that are stored in the keychain in order to grant access to apps.

Family Sharing

The new Family Sharing feature will allow families of up to six members to share the same credit card among their Apple ID accounts. If a child attempts to make a purchase from the iTunes or App Store, the adult will receive a pop-up message on their device, asking them to approve the purchase.

Family Sharing also allows family members to share photos, calendars, reminders, and more amongst up to six users. Brady Bunch, you’re out of luck.

Extensibility 

Apple has included thousands of new APIs for developers in iOS 8, and perhaps the most exciting of those was Extensibility. This feature allows iOS 8 apps to share information with each other and with the Notification Center. The new API allows such features as the filters from third-party apps to be used in the iOS Photos app, and Apple also showed off a Safari extension that brought Bing translation to Safari.

The new feature also allows apps to install widgets similar to Apple’s own Calendar and Stocks widget into Notification Center. A demoed ESPN SportsCenter widgets displayed sports scores within Notification Center.

iOS 8 is available today as a beta for developers, and will be available to the public this fall.

Apple Agrees to Buy Beats for $3 Billion::

Apple said Wednesday it would pay $2.6 billion in cash and $400 million in equity for Beats Electronics, bringing Beats headphones, streaming service, and founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre into the company. WSJ's Scott Thurm reports. (Photo: AP)

Apple Inc. AAPL -0.26% wants to regain the beat in its music business, which is under assault from a stream of upstarts.

The tech giant said on Wednesday it is buying Beats Electronics LLC for $3 billion to bolster a music business that has lost some of its mojo, as streaming-music services encroached on the downloads dominated by Apple's iTunes service.

In Beats, Apple is getting a music-streaming service, high-end headphones and music-industry connections. Beats' co-founders, rap star Dr. Dre and music mogul Jimmy Iovine, will join Apple.

The deal will make Apple "cool" again by uniting Mr. Iovine's feel for "the culture of young people" with Apple's "many millions of young peoples' credit cards," said Sony Music Entertainment Chief Executive Doug Morris, who, as the former chief executive of Universal Music, was Mr. Iovine's boss when he carved out a sideline running Beats Electronics. "Apple was starting to lose their edge," Mr. Morris said.

Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Apple will continue to use the Beats brand, a rare move for a company that has almost always focused on its Apple brand. It became one of the world's largest technology companies by creating huge, new consumer electronics categories with the iPhone and iPad. But it hasn't introduced a breakthrough product since co-founder Steve Jobs died in 2011.

At the same time, it has lost some of its grip on the music business, as listeners increasingly turn to streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora Media Inc.P -1.33% Instead of making people pay for songs they will own indefinitely, these services let users listen to music from a huge library, in return for a recurring subscription payment or being exposed to the occasional ad in Pandora's case.

U.S. sales of single downloads slid 6% to 1.3 billion tracks last year, while album downloads were flat at 118 million. Pandora's free, ad-supported service has more than 70 million active users and it had 3.3 million paying subscribers in March. Spotify, which entered the U.S. in 2011, now counts 10 million paying subscribers world-wide.

Apple launched its own free music-streaming service, iTunes Radio, last September. It counts 40 million U.S. users, but has yet to make much of a competitive dent. Beats started its $9.99-per-month subscription music-streaming service in January and has 250,000 paying subscribers so far, according to Apple.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the acquisition will help Apple bridge divides between Silicon Valley and Hollywood.

"We think these guys have a very rare talent," Mr. Cook said of Mr. Iovine and Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre Young. "We love the subscription service that they built—we think it's the first subscription service that really got it right."

Mr. Iovine said on Wednesday that Mr. Cook told him that Apple wanted to acquire Beats during a meeting at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., two months ago. Though Mr. Iovine had been working closely with Apple for 11 years on Apple's music strategy, he said he was in disbelief.

By acquiring Beats, Apple is getting a music-streaming service, high-end headphones and industry connections. Getty Images

"I kept selling like he didn't say anything," recalled Mr. Iovine.

Apple said it would pay $2.6 billion in cash and $400 million in equity for Beats Music, a subscription music-streaming business, and Beats Electronics, which makes pricey headphones, speakers and audio software. The equity is intended as incentive to keep Mr. Iovine and Dr. Dre at Apple. Carlyle Group CG +0.92% LP, which invested about $500 million in Beats in late October, is poised to receive about double its money, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The deal, which needs regulatory approval, is expected to close in Apple's fiscal fourth quarter, ending in September, the company said. Mr. Cook said the acquisition will contribute to Apple's earnings in the fiscal year beginning in October.

Apple shares rose 24 cents to $624.25 in after-hours trading on Wednesday. The stock has climbed more than 11% so far this year and hit a 52-week high earlier on Wednesday.

Mr. Iovine said he will leave his post as chairman of Vivendi SA VIVHY -0.38% 's Interscope Records and will work full-time at Apple. Dr. Dre said he will continue to produce music, but do "as much as it takes" for Apple.

The Beats deal is an effort by Mr. Cook to place his own stamp on Apple, which is still using much of the playbook established by Mr. Jobs. However, Beats pushes Apple in an unfamiliar direction. Not only will it take two celebrities into the company—it will acquire a new stand-alone brand, in a culture where the nearly exclusive brand until now has been Apple.

The acquisition is the largest in the company's history, far surpassing Apple's $400 million acquisition of NeXT Software Inc. in 1997. That deal brought Mr. Jobs back to the company, laying the foundation for its resurgence.

Now, Apple is counting on Mr. Iovine, a longtime friend of Mr. Jobs, to nurture partnerships with the music industry and other content creators, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Iovine's personality and entertainment industry connections may help Apple with content deals.

Mr. Iovine began his career as a music producer, working with Bruce Springsteen, U2, Patti Smith and others, but he has distinguished himself with savvy and inventive marketing. When online piracy eroded music sales, Mr. Iovine encouraged Interscope executives to think of themselves as "brand managers" with an array of products beyond recordings, including clothing, electronics, and even beverages. Beats By Dr. Dre headphones represent the most successful version of that strategy.

Beyond music, Apple has been working for several years on a device that allows users to stream live and on-demand TV programming and digital-video recordings stored in the "cloud," effectively taking the place of a traditional cable set-top box. However, it has struggled to strike the deals with media companies and cable providers to make it a reality. The hope, according to one person familiar with the matter, is that Mr. Iovine can help in this process.

"Iovine joining Apple can't hurt. But this won't make the difference between unbundling HBO from a typical pay-TV package and not being able to do it," said Benedict Evans, a partner at venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. While relationships are important, he said "you do deals with an economic model and a checkbook."

Apple's share of online sales and rentals of movies and TV shows dropped to about 55% in the first quarter of this year, down from almost 75% in 2007, according market-research firm IHS. Growing competition from rivals including Amazon.com Inc.AMZN -0.21% and Comcast Corp. CMCSA -0.40% , which recently began its own movie-download service, could erode that share even further.

As with music, Apple lacks the kind of movie-subscription service that has made NetflixInc. NFLX +0.61% a major force in Hollywood. Its television strategy has remained largely limited to offering downloads of old episodes via the iTunes Store and its Apple TV set-top box.

A First Drive Google Self-Driving Car Project

Apple Close to Acquiring Beats Electronics for $3.2 Billion::

Apple is reportedly close to acquiring headphone company Beats Electronics. The company, which recently also started offering a streaming music service, was created by Jimmy Iovine, and Dr. Dre.

The Financial Times says the deal could be announced as soon as next week:

Apple will acquire Beats’ streaming music service, which launched this year, and its audio equipment business, which includes its brand of headphones and audio equipment. The Beats management team will report to Mr Cook, said people familiar with the deal. Apple and Beats declined to comment.

Apple will reportedly pay $3.2 billion for the company. At last report, Apple has around $150 billion in cash on hand, so a Beat acquisitions would barely make a dent in that war chest.

In addition to a large range of popular headphones and speakers, Beats also recently launched its own Beats Music streaming service to compete with Pandora, Spotify, and Apple’s own iTunes Radio. Beats Music is available to subscribers for $9.99 per month.

Apple has been rumored to be working on a complete overhaul of iTunes, and part of that redesign was said to include an on-demand music streaming service. It’s possible that buying Beats for their music service may have been more attractive to Apple than doing ground up build of their own service.

Apple and Beats Electronics have had a long relationship, as January 2013 saw Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine meeting with Apple executives about a possible partnership. Iovine has also been quoted as saying that he pitched a streaming music service to Steve Jobs 10 years ago, but Jobs passed on the offer.

The Financial Times says details are still being ironed out, saying “talks could still fall apart.” 

MacRumors reports that Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times have confirmed that Apple is in talks with Beats Electronics over a possible acquisition. 

Also, a (NSFW) video posted to Facebook by actor Tyrese Gibson showed Beats Electronics founder and musician Dr. Dre seemingly confirming the acquisition, however that video has been pulled from Facebook. It is still available for view, as it has since been reuploaded to YouTube by another source.

Google Glass Goes On Sale for Anyone in the U.S.

Google Glass can now be purchased by anyone in the U.S. willing to fork out $1,500. But it’s not clear for exactly how long.

The company has had a restricted beta test of the device, as well as an open one-day Glass sale last month. On Tuesday, Google said it will sell the device more broadly, but only while supplies last.

“We learned a lot when we opened our site a few weeks ago,” Google said in a post to the Glass page on Google+. “So we’ve decided to move to a more open beta.”
Glass isn’t yet a fully finished consumer product. Google is only offering an early version targeted at beta testers called Explorers.

The company said it’s still working to improve Glass on both the hardware and software fronts, “but starting today anyone in the U.S. can buy the Glass Explorer Edition, as long as we have it on hand.”

It’s not clear how many of those units Google has made already, how quickly they might run out or whether it would make more in response to demand. But anyone who likes being an early adopter, and missed out on the one-day offer, has another chance.

Then again, Glass fanciers could also wait until after it leaves the current developmental stage, which may is likely to include consumer versions incorporated into frames sold by the likes of Oakley and Ray-Ban.

Satya Nadella, Chief of Microsoft, on His New Role:

This interview with Satya Nadella, his first since taking over as chief executive of Microsoft, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. What leadership lessons have you learned from your predecessor, Steve Ballmer?

A. The most important one I learned from Steve happened two or three annual reviews ago. I sat down with him, and I remember asking him: “What do you think? How am I doing?” Then he said: “Look, you will know it, I will know it, and it will be in the air. So you don’t have to ask me, ‘How am I doing?’ At your level, it’s going to be fairly implicit.”

I went on to ask him, “How do I compare to the people who had my role before me?” And Steve said: “Who cares? The context is so different. The only thing that matters to me is what you do with the cards you’ve been dealt now. I want you to stay focused on that, versus trying to do this comparative benchmark.” The lesson was that you have to stay grounded, and to be brutally honest with yourself on where you stand.

Q. And what about Bill Gates?

A. Bill is the most analytically rigorous person. He’s always very well prepared, and in the first five seconds of a meeting he’ll find some logical flaw in something I’ve shown him. I’ll wonder, how can it be that I pour in all this energy and still I didn’t see something? In the beginning, I used to say, “I’m really intimidated by him.” But he’s actually quite grounded. You can push back on him. He’ll argue with you vigorously for a couple of minutes, and then he’ll be the first person to say, “Oh, you’re right.” Both Bill and Steve share this. They pressure-test you. They test your conviction.

Q. There’s a lot of curiosity around what kind of role Bill is going to play with you.

A. The outside world looks at it and says, “Whoa, this is some new thing.” But we’ve worked closely for about nine years now. So I’m very comfortable with this, and I asked for a real allocation of his time. He is in fact making some pretty hard trade-offs to say, “O.K., I’ll put more energy into this.” And one of the fantastic things that only Bill can do inside this campus is to get everybody energized to bring their “A” game. It’s just a gift.

Q. What were some early leadership lessons for you?

A. I played on my school’s cricket team, and there was one incident that just was very stunning to me. I was a bowler — like a pitcher in baseball — and I was throwing very ordinary stuff one day. So the captain took over from me and got the team a breakthrough, and then he let me take over again.

I never asked him why he did that, but my impression is that he knew he would destroy my confidence if he didn’t put me back in. And I went on to take a lot more wickets after that. It was a subtle, important leadership lesson about when to intervene and when to build the confidence of the team. I think that is perhaps the No. 1 thing that leaders have to do: to bolster the confidence of the people you’re leading.

Q. Tell me about your management approach in your new role.

A. The thing I’m most focused on today is, how am I maximizing the effectiveness of the leadership team, and what am I doing to nurture it? A lot of people on the team were my peers, and I worked for some of them in the past. The framing for me is all about getting people to commit and engage in an authentic way, and for us to feel that energy as a team.

I’m not evaluating them on what they say individually. None of them would be on this team if they didn’t have some fantastic attributes. I’m only evaluating us collectively as a team. Are we able to authentically communicate, and are we able to build on each person’s capabilities to the benefit of our organization?

Q. Your company has acknowledged that it needs to create much more of a unified “one Microsoft” culture. How are you going to do that?

A. One thing we’ve talked a lot about, even in the first leadership meeting, was, what’s the purpose of our leadership team? The framework we came up with is the notion that our purpose is to bring clarity, alignment and intensity. What is it that we want to get done? Are we aligned in order to be able to get it done? And are we pursuing that with intensity? That’s really the job.

Culturally, I think we have operated as if we had the formula figured out, and it was all about optimizing, in its various constituent parts, the formula. Now it is about discovering the new formula. So the question is: How do we take the intellectual capital of 130,000 people and innovate where none of the category definitions of the past will matter? Any organizational structure you have today is irrelevant because no competition or innovation is going to respect those boundaries. Everything now is going to have to be much more compressed in terms of both cycle times and response times.

So how do you create that self-organizing capability to drive innovation and be focused? And the high-tech business is perhaps one of the toughest ones, because something can be a real failure until it’s not. It’s just an absolute dud until it’s a hit. So you have to be able to sense those early indicators of success, and the leadership has to really lean in and not let things die on the vine. When you have a $70 billion business, something that’s $1 million can feel irrelevant. But that $1 million business might be the most relevant thing we are doing.

To me, that is perhaps the big culture change — recognizing innovation and fostering its growth. It’s not going to come because of an org chart or the organizational boundaries. Most people have a very strong sense of organizational ownership, but I think what people have to own is an innovation agenda, and everything is shared in terms of the implementation.

Q. How do you hire? What questions do you ask?

A. I do a kind of 360 review. I will ask the individual to tell me what their manager would say about them, what their peers would say about them, what their direct reports would say about them, and in some cases what their customers or partners may say about them. That particular line of questioning leads into fantastic threads, and I’ve found that to be a great one for understanding their self-awareness.

I also ask: What are you most proud of? Tell me where you feel you’ve set some standard, and you look back on it and say, “Wow, I really did that.” And then, what’s the thing that you regret the most, where you felt like you didn’t do your best work? How do you reflect on it?

Those two lines of questioning help me a lot in terms of being able to figure people out. I fundamentally believe that if you are not self-aware, you’re not learning. And if you’re not learning, you’re not going to do useful things in the future.

Q. What might somebody say in a meeting that, to you, sounds like nails on a chalkboard?

A. One of the things that drives me crazy is anyone who comes in from the outside and says, “This is how we used to do it.” Or if somebody who’s been here for a while says, “This is how we do it.” Both of them are such dangerous traps. The question is: How do you take all of that valuable experience and apply it to the current context and raise standards?

Q. Any final big-picture thoughts on how you’re going to approach your new role, and how you want to make your mark?

A. Longevity in this business is about being able to reinvent yourself or invent the future. In our case, given 39 years of success, it’s more about reinvention. We’ve had great successes, but our future is not about our past success. It’s going to be about whether we will invent things that are really going to drive our future.

One of the things that I’m fascinated about generally is the rise and fall of everything, from civilizations to families to companies. We all know the mortality of companies is less than human beings. There are very few examples of even 100-year old companies. For us to be a 100-year old company where people find deep meaning at work, that’s the quest.

Android Wear: Google’s Smartwatch Plans Come Into Focus:

Its new mobile operating system, Android Wear, is tailored for smartwatches and other wearable devices. The software focuses on notifications and quick responses to show you information as you need it while keeping interaction to a minimum

Google has announcedAndroid Wear, a version of its mobile operating system tailored for smartwatches and other wearable devices.

Instead of just adding phonelike features to your wrist, Android Wear will focus on notifications and quick responses. The idea is to show information as you need it while keeping interaction to a minimum. So while you’d still take out your phone to read through Facebook or write an email, you could use a smartwatch to check on a to-do list, view directions or scan your boarding pass at the airport.

Google Now, the search giant’s virtual-assistant software, will play a big role, serving up information on weather, flight times, incoming packages or upcoming reservations. Users will also be able to use voice search by saying “O.K. Google.”

But third-party apps and notifications will be just as important, which is presumably why Google is announcing Android Wear right now. Google wants Android developers to begin making their apps more wearable-friendly, though many app notifications will apparently work well without any changes. That’s a big advantage Google can wield over Samsung’s Tizen-based Galaxy Gear watches, which need to build up developer support from scratch.

Google isn’t ignoring the fitness angle either, as Android Wear devices will be able to detect speed and distance traveled.

The finer details of Android Wear’s interface are still unclear, but we can get a broad sense from Google’s developer site and design guidelines. Incoming messages will be truncated to fit on the screen, but users can tap on it to see the whole thing. Multiple messages from the same app will resemble a vertical stack of cards, which users can swipe through.

From there, users can swipe to the right to take action on a message or notification. For instance, a messaging app could offer up to five canned responses and a voice-command button for dictating a more detailed response. A calendar reminder could show meeting notes with one swipe and offer directions with another swipe.

As for hardware, Google says it’s working with devicemakers Asus, HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung and chipmakers Broadcom, Imagination, Intel, MediaTek and Qualcomm. Fossil, a more traditional watchmaker, is also on board in some capacity.According to Engadget, LG is already teasing a “G Watch” that will be aimed at developers. Motorola has also teased a round smartwatch based on Android Wear called the Moto 360.

The announcement does leave some unanswered questions and concerns. We don’t really know what the first Android Wear devices will look like or whether they’ve gotten over any of the technology hurdles found in earlier smartwatches. We don’t know exactly what screen sizes and dimensions and form factors Android Wear will support, beyond the generally square and round wristwatch screens Google shows on its developer site. And we don’t know how devicemakers will differentiate their hardware or how much leeway they’ll have to modify the software.

But with today’s announcement, we do have a sense of Google’s vision for wearable devices. It’s not a major departure from the company’s efforts with Google Glass — and maybe that was Glass’s bigger goal all along — but it’s altogether less creepy and better thought out than any other wearable software we’ve seen yet.