Apple introduces Cards for iOS

The Apple “Let’s talk iPhone” event is live now and among the new iOS goodies is the exciting Cards feature. What’s interesting about Cards is that it actually links your virtual life with reality in the form of greeting cards. Now, it not only lets you choose a card and customize it, but Apple will send it for you. That’s not all - you also get a notification on your phone whenever the snail mail card arrives at the destination you sent it to.

It’s really simple: "We'll print it out, put the address on it, and mail it. If you mail in the US, we can track it with the US Postal Service barcode, and we'll send you a push notification when it arrives."

Everything starts on your phone - you can choose between 21 preset designs. The rest remains Apple’s work: "You create the card on your iPhone, and we'll do the rest." The application will be available in just a week - on October 12th as a free update on the App Store.

Live Event Updates 

- Media attendees are seated and waiting for event to begin. 
- Tim Cook on stage, welcoming attendees to the campus. Going over history of Town Hall auditorium...original iPod, MacBook Air launched here. 
- Today is about innovations in software and hardware. 
- Apple has tremendous momentum. Highlighting retail stores. Shanghai store saw 100,000 people in opening weekend. Hong Kong had more opening day Mac sales than any other store. 
- Brief video of the new Shanghai/Hong Kong store openings. 
- Six stores in China with a lot more to come. 357 total stores in 11 countries. 
- Walking through each of Apple's four product areas. Starting with the Mac and Lion. 
- 6 million copies of Lion sold so far...up 80% over Snow Leopard. Took two weeks to reach 10% of installed Mac base. Windows 7 took 20 weeks to reach 10% of Windows base. 
- 23% year-over-year growth for Mac, 58 million users. 
- Now talking music. Market share has been above 70% for very long time. iPod has 78% share now. Over 300 million iPods sold. 
- iTunes Store now has 20 million tracks, with over 16 billion downloads. 
- Now iPhone. 125% year-over-year growth. iPhone 4 responsible for over half of our total iPhone sales ever. #1 smartphone in the world. But despite success, still only 5% of worldwide mobile phone market. 
- Now iPad. Highlighting customer satisfaction ratings. iPads showing up everywhere...every U.S. state has at least a pilot program for schools. Higher education too. Airplane cockpits. Hospitals. Momemtum in consumer, enterprise, everywhere. 
- iPad has 75% market share in the U.S. 
- Now over 250 million total iOS devices sold. 

- Scott Forstall on stage to talk about iOS. 
- iOS #1 mobile operating system with 43% of market. Apple has paid out $3 billion to developers. 18 billion App Store downloads. 
- Talking about new Cards app to order greeting cards. Apple will print with your photo/design and even mail them. Cards will be free download on October 12th. Cards are $2.99 mailed in U.S., $4.99 anywhere in the world. 
- Now recapping iOS 5 highlights. Notifications Center, iMessage, Reminders app, Twitter integration, Newsstand, Camera app (lock screen shortcut, volume button for shutter)