MacDailyNews presents live coverage of Apple’s ‘Let us loop you in’ special event

Apple CEO Tim Cook and a team of Apple executives will be holding their “Let us loop you in” special event today, March 21st, at 10am PDT / 1pm EDT.

The special event will take place at Apple’s Town Hall auditorium on the company’s campus in Cupertino, California.

It is widely expected that Apple today will unveil a new 4-inch iPhone, a new 9.7-inch iPad Pro with Apple Pencil support and a new, smaller Apple Smart Keyboard, new Apple Watch bands, iOS 9.3, tvOS 9.2, watchOS 2.2, OS X 10.11.4, and an iTunes update, as per 9to5Mac‘s Mark Gurman.

Apple’s special event will be webcast live by Apple here. MacDailyNews will offer live notes during Tim Cook and company’s special event presentation right here on this page. So, just open both the webcast and this page so you can watch and comment live and we’ll see you here!

Apple’s “Hey Siri, give us a hint” special event live notes in reverse chronological order:

• End of event
• Cook thanks everyone
• Cook: Apple looking forward to moving to their new Campus and the new Apple Theatre
• Cook: This is probably the last announcement in Apple’s Town Hall: iPod and the App STore were announced in this room
• Cook sums up announcements

• iPad Pro video being shown
• Wi-Fi + Cellular: 32GB – $729, 128GB – $879, 256GB – $1,029
• Wi-Fi: 32GB – $599, 128GB – $749, 256GB – $899
• 9.7-inch iPad Pro comes in Silver, Gold, Space Gray, and Rose Gold
• 5MP FaceTime HD camera with Retina flash
• Shoot 4K video, Live Photos
• Offers an advanced camera: 12MP iSight camera with True Tone flash
• Supports Apple Pencil
• New Smart Keyboard for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro
• Supports always-on “Hey Siri”
• Apple Pencil-compatible
• Pro Audio, four-speaker system
• True Tone display: measures ambient light and automatically adjusts the display to match
• 25% greater color saturation than iPad Air 2
• 40% less reflective and 20% brighter than an iPad Air 2
• New 9.7-inch iPad Pro has a Pro display like the larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro
• There are over 600 million PCs in use that are over 5 years old. Schiller: “this is really sad.” Audience laughs
• Apple has sold over 200 million iPads with a 9.7 display to date
• New iPad Pro: 9.7-inch Retina display. Weighs less than 1 pound
• Many people are using iPad Pro as their primary computing devices
• Cook intros Phil Schiller to show off new iPad Pro
• Cook retakes stage to talk iPad

• iOS 9.3 is available as a free update today
• Education: iOS 9.3 delivers a preview of a new suite of software for students, teachers, and school admins
• CarPlay: The safer, smarter way to use your iPhone in your car, iOs 9.3 deliver improvements to Apple Music, Apple Maps
• Apple News has over 50 million active users
• Notes improvements, Health gets app suggestions
• Night Shift shifts color to warmer ened of spectrum at night, reduces blue light, helps you to sleep
• iOS 9.3 is one of the biggest point releases Apple has ever released
• Latest version of Android is running on 2% of their active devices
• iOS 9 running on 80% of active iOS devices

• Orders begin next week
• iPhone SE tarts at only $399 (16GB), $499 (64GB), free on 2-year plan, $17/month without a contract.
• New microphones
• Touch ID and Apple Pay built in (with NFC and Secure Element)
• 3X faster Wi-Fi than iPhone 5s
• LTE speeds 50% faster than iPhone 5s
• Capture 4K video, 1080
• fron-facing gets Retina flash (for selfies)
• Live Photos
• iPhone SE gets 12MP iSight camera, True Tone flash, panoramas
• Hey Siri-capable
• double speed of iPhone 5s, 3X faster graphics
• Apple A9-powered with embedded M9 motion co-processor
• Most powerful 4-inch phone ever
• Apple introduces the new iPhone SE
• Some customers want a compact iPhone. For some, the 4-inch iPhone is their first smartphone.
• iPhone. Greg Joswiak takes stage to introduce new iPhone. Over 30 million 4-inch ipHones sold in 2015

• tvOS offers folders, dictation (including usernames and passwords), Siri for App Store, Live Photos, iCloud Photo Library – free update starting today
• Cook reviews stunning Apple TV apps
• Over 5000 Apple TV apps available now
• Apple TV. Apple had the largest sale ever for Apple TV with the introduction of the new Apple TV with Siri Remote and Apple TV App Store.

• Apple Watch will now start at just $299
• New colors being introduced in sport and leather, new black milanese loop, and a new Woven Nylon Band in a variety of colors
• Apple Watch users like changing the bands.
• Apple Watch user satisfaction is very high
• Apple Watch: #1 smartwatch in the world

• CareKit, like ResearchKit, will be open source. Available in April
• Physician can update your care on-the-fly
• Post surgery care is important. Upon discharge, instead of using a piece of paper, now you can use an app for aftercare
• First CareKit app is for Parkinson’s
• Apple launches CareKit: A framework to build apps to empower people to take a more active role in their care
• Apple’s goal with ResearchKit is to improve medial research; realized it could also help with patients’ care
• Apple Watch sensors used with ResearchKit in epilepsy research
• ResearchKit studies video being shown
• ResearchKit helping in diabetes research, breast cancer, autism, Parkinson’s, and much more
• Apple ResearchKit spurred the largest Parkinson’s study in history in under 24 hours
• Cook introduces Jeff Williams to talk Health anf ResearchKit

• Bottom line: Apple cares about the environment.
• With Apple Renew, you can recycle your devices by taking them into an Apple Store or send them to Apple for free
• Recycling video. “Liam” robot deconstructs your iPhone for recycling
• Apple Reuse and Recycling program: Vast majority of iPhones end up being reused
• 99% of Apple’s packaging is coming from recycled materials or sustainable forests
• 100% of Apple’s data centers are powered by renewable energy
• Apple is 100% renewable in 23 countries around the world
• Apple’s goal is to become 100% renewable energy in 100% of Apple’s worldwide operations. Apple is currently up to 93%
• Cook invites Lisa Jackson up to talk about Apple’s environmental efforts

• Cook: We will not shrink from this responsibility
• Cook: Humbled at the outpouring of support as the company fights the gov’t to protect customers’ privacy
• Cook: We need to decide as a nation how much power the government should have over our data and our privacy
• Cook addresses government overreach
• Three are now more than 1 billion Apple devices in use around the world – an incredible milestone for Apple
• Cook: “Yes, we are about to celebrate Apple’s 4th anniversary on April 1st.”
• CEO Tim Cook takes the stage
• 40 Years in 40 Seconds video

• Webcast viewers are enjoying live music from Apple’s Beats 1 prior to the start of the keynote

Apple reveals their new 4 inch iPhone SE as the lowest price iPhone ever, and their new 9.7 inch iPad Pro in a special event in Cupertino today. Mac Daily News reports a blow-by-blow account of the event in reverse chronological order. Upgrades in the AppleTV OS and new pricing on AppleWatch and new watch bands, plus additions to ResearchKit and a new CareKit for health. — PING!

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I was pretty underwhelmed by the event. But then I’m more interested in Macs and OS X development, which has harshly stagnated in recent years.

Not really convinced of Apple’s pitch that iPads are going to somehow replace computers as productivity devices either. Give me a Macbook Pro over an iPad Pro any day.

My response to the presentation was uncertainty as to the differences between the what I will call the iPad Pro and the new iPad Pro Standard. Unless I missed something, they did not assign a distinguishing moniker to either the “old” or the new iPad.

But does the new pro have a better camera than the old one? Does it have better color palette? Seemingly the compensation for ambient lighting color and intensity is a new feature not on the old iPhone.

The way I interpret it is that the “iPad Pro 9.7 inch” is the replacement for the “iPad Air 2” and the ongoing name will be “iPad Pro” with a 12” model and a 9.7” model. I could be misinterpreting tho.. ;-)

I was pretty underwhelmed by the event.

Same here. I felt too much bandwidth was given to their "green" initiative, of renewable energy and their nod to "climate change". We could do without that, because we want a focus on the products and software.

I downloaded the update for Apple TV, it is a nice enhancement. Watched the Apple event by pulling it down via the app on the Apple TV, the features on the latest are much better than the older Apple TVs. I'm going to pull the plug on my cable offerings, because so much content is available via Apple TV.

I may go with the new iPad Pro, to replace my iPad 2 which will go to the wife to replace her iPad 1 which goes to a grandkid. Lots of nice features in the new one; the old ones are never obsolete because they're passed on to others.

Yes, it does have a better camera, 12 megapixels. . . and a better color gambit. Plus the screen has only 40% of the reflectivity of the older ones.

You are. The new iPad line-up with minimum configuration price, is the

iPad Pro 12.9" — $799,
iPad Pro 9.7" — $599,
iPad Air 2 — $399,
iPad Mini 4 — $399,
iPad Mini 2 — $269.

So there will be an “iPad Air 3” in the future? Seems like that would be an almost “dupe” of the iPad Pro 9.7”.

Good question. I don't have a clue.

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