Apple has unveiled updates for iPhone, Apple Watch and a host of other products – as well as its most powerful computer ever: the Mac Pro.
The company made the announcements at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC, in California on Monday.
It revealed all the major software updates that it will push out to the Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV later this year.
Unlike other events such as the iPhone reveal, none of these new updates will require paying up for new products. Instead, they will come in the form of operating system updates, which will bring a whole host of new features to most existing iPhones.
Apple unveiled iOS 13, for instance, the new software that will power the iPhone. It brings with it a new dark mode, better multitasking features, and changes to the way the phones store health data.
Everything gets started in about seven hours – that's at 6pm in the UK, 1pm eastern, or 10am local pacific time in California.
Apple has been putting the finishing touches to the huge convention centre in California's San Jose, where the event will kick off later today.
But everything really got started yesterday, when attendees arrived to register and get checked in. That's when they received the jackets and pins you can see in the picture above.
Here's a wider pic of all that decoration on the front of the building. It's much more colourful than last year, when Apple went for a black and white look – but it's also much darker, which could be a hint at the presence of dark mode in this year's iOS...
You can read more about dark mode here – and even see what it might look like.
Just stumbled across this photo, while searching for something to illustrate a story about iTunes. Yes – that's Steve Jobs and John Mayer, introducing the iPod Mini in 2004.
If you're waiting with nothing to read about Apple for the next few hours, how about this long read from last week, about Apple's privacy protections?
There are rumours that today's keynote is going to last 2.5 hours. Two-and-a-half hours!
Not clear whether that's because there's a lot to say or they're just going to take a long time to say it. (There's not always a correlation between length and content with these things.) We'll just have to wait and find out.
In the meantime, get comfortable!
Tim Cook is up early:
(So is everyone else attending the keynote today: queues are already huge despite the fact there's three hours until everything kicks off!)
Leaker Ben Geskin has revealed this image of the redesigned Reminders app, which shows not only the new layout but also how it will look in dark mode.
Normally, these couple of hours before the event can see a flurry of leaks, as new people are briefed on secrets and they then accidentally spill out into the world. There's not been much of that, just yet, but Apple has been rumoured to be cracking down to keep things secret.
With less than half an hour to go until it all kicks off, the hall of the San Jose McEnery Convention Center is filling up. It's been a long wait for many, with our man David Phelan telling us there have been "phenomenally long" queues to get in since before 7am local time.
Here's a picture he shared of the long lines
And inside the convention centre as it fills up
With just minutes before the event, a leak might have revealed that Apple is introducing a new operating system: ipadOS. This from a developer called Steve Moser who has spotted a change in some terms and conditions.
Until now, the iPad operating system has always been a variant of iOS, the software originally released with iPhones. (It was even renamed from iPhone OS to iOS early on, to reflect the fact it was used across different products.)
This would essentially mean creating a whole new operating system, even though it will presumably be similar to iOS. That could in turn finally allow the iPad to get some of the powerful features that users have been asking for over recent years, such as more powerful multitasking and other more pro tools.
Tim Cook is 10 minutes away from taking to the stage, and it's been a very busy few days for the Apple boss.
In the build up to WWDC he met with app scholarship students who have made their way to California for the event.
The Independent's David Phelan was with them when Tim Cook paid a surprise visit.
More pictures from inside the convention centre. We're almost ready to begin...
Apple's livestream of the event has begun. You can watch along with us here: https://www.apple.com/apple-events/livestream/
And we're off! Apple begins with a video montage of the night-time habits of software engineers.
It signs off with the tagline, "While the world sleeps, you dream."
Tim Cook is on stage, welcoming the normally nocturnal software engineers and developers with the words "you make the world a better place".
Please allow a moment for the live blog to load.
