Yesterday Apple Touted iOS, Mocked Android & Friended Facebook… Finally

Guest post by Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

Any doubt that Apple’s goose was cooked when Steve Jobs was replaced by Tim Cook after Jobs’ untimely passing should have dissipated by the end of today. At its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Monday, Apple rattled off some impressive plans and statistics surrounding iOS 6 that should have the Android folks worried.

For starters, by the end of March, Apple had sold over 365 million iOS devices. That’s more dinners than you eat in a year, times a million.

Apple senior vice president of iPhone software Scott Forstall said that and more at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, which is intended to alert developers as to what they can do with Apple’s new devices and operating systems, but which has transformed into a general media spectacle where Apple announces a slew of new products.

He added that 80 percent of iOS users use the latest version of the operating system, which makes many of these devices work better than they did when people bought them. By comparison, said Forstall, more than three quarter of Android users are stuck on version 2.3 of that operating system, and only 7 percent use the latest version 4. Ouch.

The Android japery didn’t stop there. Forstall also said over 75 percent of people say they are satisfied with iOS, while under 50 percent of Android users are satisfied with that operating system. That would make most Android users unsatisfied. Double ouch.

Here are some more iOS treats and tidbits from Apple’s WWDC today:

• Siri will be able to launch apps now, so you should soon be able to say stuff like “Play me everything Javelin [or any other band] wants me to hear today.”
• Twitter usage has tripled since it integrated with iOS 5 at a deep level, so that you can tweet links to web pages and from various in-app elements. Not all of that growth can be due to iOS 5 integration, but you can chalk some of that up to Apple, surely. And Facebook is about to get the same treatment, as apparently Apple and Facebook have made friends again. This should boost Facebook usage too (remember, this is over 365 million devices we’re talking about).
• The iTunes app store just got more social, thanks to the new Facebook integration. You can Like apps and see what apps your Facebook friends Liked. This is notable because Facebook was supposed to be in iOS 5 too, until the two companies had a tiff over the details of how that would work. Thanks to this reversal, you might consider the iPhone “the Facebook phone,” because it lets you talk to your Facebook friends via Facebook over your phone’s regular 3G connection.
• Apple is releasing versions of iOS in some new languages, according to Wired.com, taking its conquest into new territories: “In iOS 6, English and French for Canada (eh? Forstall says to chuckles) and Spanish for Spain, Mexico, and the US. They’re also adding Italian. For Switzerland, Italian, French and German. Also adding Korean, and different dialects of Mandarin and Cantonese.”
• As @nlogmusic points out, the new Do Not Disturb mode in iOS 6 could be nice for music apps. We agree this could help, because it means calls, texts, tweets, Facebook messages, and notifications about your roof being on fire won’t interfere with your hot disco jams.