Apple unleashed a blast of new product announcements at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on Wednesday morning, with a new Retina Display iPad, updated apps and more. Best of all, current users won’t have to wait for these improvements -- some of them are arriving today.
Confirming recent rumors, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that iOS 5.1 will be available today, including Japanese support for Siri. The announcement came during a demonstration of Siri speaking in other languages, which culminates with a Japanese release “over the next few weeks.”
Moving on to the App Store, Cook revealed that the virtual storefront now houses 585,000 apps, with more than 25 billion now downloaded. “Great apps lead to more downloads, which leads to more great apps, which leads to more downloads,” Cook mused.
iCloud also nabbed some improvements today, with 100 million users now being able to access their iTunes movie purchases via iTunes in the Cloud at long last. iCloud users will now be able to re-download movies -- as well as music, books and apps -- on any device, with movies and TV shows finally supporting 1080p HD as well.
Apple’s media event introduced a new Retina Display-enabled iPad, a refresh to the existing Apple TV (both available March 16, with preorders starting today) as well as an all-new iPhoto app that hits the App Store on Wednesday.
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