WWDC 2011 Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud summary

Apple Worldwide Developer Conference 2011

Steve Jobs is not going to miss this WWDC 2011, but I am still surprise that Steve Jobs presenting the keynote. Steve Jobs suppose to take medical of absence since January 2011 for unknown period of time. Steve Jobs appear on the stage to introduce iPad 2 this March.

For the opening of WWDC 2011, Steve Jobs is presenting the keynote again, the keynote contents like iCloud was announced officially much earlier this time.

A brief summary of the keynote. I may have skipped some features and products. Apple has release the keynote video.

If you lazy to watch the video, there is a live blog from Engaget.

The keynote talks about OS X (10.7) Lion, iOS 5 and iClouds. Lion and iOS 5 was presented by other managers, iClouds keynote by Steve Jobs himself.

Mac OS X Lion. 250 new features, they just pick 10 and shows it. I just pick a few. Before that, just a few  statistic (from Apple keynote), Mac has grown for the pass few years, but PC shrink 1 percent last quarter.

Lion use more multi-touch gesture like scroll and zoom. Not on the display screen but on (notebook) trackpad. It should works on Magic Trackpad, if you are using the desktop.

Be it multi-touch gesture, Mac App Store or Launch Pad, Lion brings the user experience from iOS to the desktop. You may have probably get the sneak peak of Lion in the last year 'Back to the Mac' media event.

Autosave and version. Autosave is not new, it save and keep the old version. Modified history is not stored on the document. That means if you send the document to the others, they can not check the modified history from the receiving document file.

AirDrop (is AirDrop an Apple version of Dropbox?). Share document within users on the same network.

Lion will be available (only) through Mac App Store for USD29.99 (than normal price $129), available July 2011.

iOS 5, has new notification system, which looks like Android. Apple should came out something different, not just looks like Android notification system.

iOS 5 with build in twitter integration, reminders (todo list). Apple made some enhancement to the camera features, like using the volume button as the press and shot button, the crowd seems to like it.

iOS 5 is PC free. You don't need a PC to sync iOS 5 devices. Software updates are OTA (Over the air).

After watching WWDC 2011 keynote, there are people saying on the internet, Apple is going to put a few companies out of business, companies like twitter client, dropbox, BlackBerry, Instapaper, Evernote, Remember the Milk etc. I think companies need to improve themselves to compete and survive.

iCloud. Apple is going to sync data on iOS devices to the internet, and name it iCloud. iCloud will replace mobileme, and iCloud is free (for 5G storage).

Apple already have a mobileme service which sync contact, calendar and mail data information to the internet, iCloud sync these data and more.

iCloud sync and backup data includes apps, iBooks, photos, setting, apps data, documents. Photos will be keep in iCloud for 30 days and it will sync to all your devices.

One more thing... small thing, iTunes match.

iTunes match is a service to 'backup' your songs to iCloud, it cost $24.99 for 5,000 songs per year. It will take a long time like weeks to upload your music data to iCloud, Apple write a software to scan and match the songs with Apple Music Store library. It doesn't upload the music if is already in the library, it only upload those which is not.

iCloud service will be available when the i-device upgrade to iOS 5.

If you check your App Store, you already can down your purchased applications from iCloud.

That's it for the keynote summary.

Post processing mp4 with Subler Mac OS X

Subler is an open-source mp4 muxer and editor software on Mac OS X. I use it to edit soft subtitles, chapter information and add movie (or video) information.

What is soft subtitles? 

Soft subtitles are subtitles that are not embedded in the video or image. It can be turn on ond off by the software.

In VLC player, enable from main menu - Video - Subtitle track. In Quicktime player, enable from main menu - View - Subtitles.

In iPhone/iPod video player, there is an extra icon if the mp4 video has soft subtitles.

If the mp4 video does not have soft subtitles, the icon will not appear.

The subtitles can be added into the mp4 video when you create or convert the video. Or it can be added after the mp4 video was created.

I have tried to use muxo and iHex editor to add in the subtitles. Using Subler is much easier.

Subler quick tutorial 

Add soft subtitles

To add a soft subtitles, click on the (+) button, choose the external subtitles (current support srt format). If you are using double byte subtitles file, prefer to save it as UTF-8 encoding.

If the subtitle not sync with the audio, you may need to adjust the offset of the subtitle. Select the subtitle track, menu - edit - offset. Adjust the time with +/- value (in milliseconds). eg. +1000ms will delay the subtitle by 1 second.

Movie info and artwork

You can add your video (or movie) description into the mp4 file, by clicking the (+) button at the bottom. The information will be displayed at iOS players or iTunes software.

To make your job easier, you can get movie information online, from menu - File - Import Search metadata online. Search the movie information by name, if the movie is found, the information and artwork can be downloaded from the internet.

Create chapter info


The last function I want to show here is to create chapter information using Subler.

Chapter information supported by VLC, Quicktime and iOS player. The chapter information can be added in when you create the mp4 file. 

create chapter info with handbrake software

Sometimes chapter information is not available, you can add in using Subler, from menu - Edit - Insert a Chapter Every (nn minutes).

If the chapter information created by the software (eg. handbrake) is not supported by Quicktime or iOS players, save the mp4 file with Subler again will solve the problem.

Conclusion

Subler is powerful and easy to use open-source software. I just show a few feature of the software. There are more features and functions came with Subler, you need to explore it yourself.