The Apple Watch, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus - as it happened

And here’s a 3D view - clunky?

Here’s a close up of the watch for your delectation - fresh from Cupertino.

And That’s All Folks! Tim thanks the team, the press for coming and with that our guys @charlesarthur and @stuartdredge are making a rush for the hands on demonstrations which we will have up as soon as possible.

Everything - except the live stream - went according to plan. Two new iPhones, Apple Watch, Apple Pay and U2. What did you think? Let us know in comments. Tech summary coming soon.

“We are the blood in your machines oh Zen master Tim Cook,” Bono tells Apple boss. He just Beyoncéd their new album - Songs of Innocence - for free to iTunes. “We are not kidding that just happened,” says Cook. Yes it did.

Cook says half a billion iTunes customers can now download it - making it the biggest album release of all time. Now he’s showing an ad about how excited he is about it. Is this worrying anyone? U2 are getting almost as much play as the Apple Watch. Free iPod Nano to anyone who can name their last album (no, not really).

Tim Cook moves on to music. “Music runs deep in Apple’s DNA. It runs through the core of all of our products. Apple changed the way people listened to music a decade ago, and iTunes has been at the centre of that experience,” he says.

And yes - here we go - it’s U2. Tim could “not be more excited.” Which is nice for him. And of course now, when I wouldn’t mind it cutting out, my feed is perfect.

Tim Cook is making the case for a massive market for the Apple Watch. “Apple Watch requires the iPhone because it’s been seamlessly designed to work together.” It’ll work with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, but also with the iPhone 5, 5c and 5s. That means there are potentially 200m people out there who could use one.

It works with Apple Pay too.

The price? $349. When? Early next year.

Tim Cook praises former Adobe exec Kevin Lynch, and calls him up on stage to give the first demo of Apple Watch. Lynch says the iPhone “is required with Apple Watch”.

Apple Watch has a feature called “glances” where you can swipe to see specific information from various apps that you’ve set up: stock prices, meeting details, music playing on iPhone, iTunes or “the music that’s stored on your Apple Watch”.

Kevin Lynch shows Siri working on Apple Watch, and then a demo of Apple Maps. And then: “We thought hard on how to enable a new form of communication… we’ve created something called digital touch.” You can draw and tap on the screen, and the other person feels it on their list. “I’ll just do the triple-tap here for going to lunch,” he says, scribbling a blue fish on the screen to indicate ‘Sushi’

John Dingell, Michigan’s 12th district congressman and king of Twitter, is similarly underwhelmed.

Oh dear. The early reviews are in: “The watch looks like the ipod nano that I used to have on a wrist strap,” says DidntReadTheArticle in comments.

“What we didn’t do was take the iPhone and shrink the user interface and strap it on your wrist,” says Cook. “Because you wear it, we invented new, intimate ways to connect and communicate.”

There will be three collections, each in two sizes. There’s the basic Apple Watch collection, the Sport collection, with a stronger case. And Apple Watch Edition: “Made from 18 carat gold” that’s been developed to be up to twice as hard as standard gold.

The watch has a “unique charging solution” – inductive charging, requiring “no alignment or exposed contacts”.

Apple has designed a range of watch faces, with both their appearance and their “capability” able to be personalised. There are six different straps, which are easy to slide in and out. There’s also a “sport band” made from a sweat and chemical-resistant material, but there’s also a leather loop with magnet fasteners; a bright red strap with a shiny buckle; a “leather classic buckle” designed to look like a traditional watch strap; and a stainless steel link bracelet. And a snakey stainless-steel mesh loop.

Apple Watch has a flexible Retina display, laminated to a single crystal of sapphire, the hardest transparent material after diamond. The “Digital Crown” lets you navigate, magnify content, scroll and make selections. It is also very, very covetable.

“The display also senses force, quite literally adding a new dimension to the user interface,” says Ive.

They should add it to their desktops too so Apple could register people punching the screens when their live broadcasts don’t work.

The Apple Watch has a flexible Retina display, says Jony Ive, narrating a video demo. He adds that Apple has designed new input technologies; it can sense force as well as touch. It can “recognise the difference between a tap and a press: this provides instant access to a whole range of contextually specific controls.” The Watch also provides haptic feedback when you’re touching it.

“It’s essentially miniaturising an entire computer system onto a single chip,” says Ive, of the Apple Watch’s chipset.

Yes it is. It’s called Apple Watch - why not? - and it’s looking very Marc Newson, chic and modernist and actually like a watch. “It’s driven Apple from the beginning. This compulsion to take incredibly powerful technology, and make it accessible, relevant, and ultimately, personal,” says Jony Ive, Newson’s buddy and now design partner.

And here we go. Tim Cook is back. Wearables time?

“We set out to make the best watch in the world,” says Cook. “It’s incredibly customizable, so you can find one that reflects your personal style and tastes. Because you wear it, we invented new intimate ways to connect and communicate directly from your wrist.”

“It’s also a comprehensive health and fitness device,” he continues.

“What we didn’t do was take the iPhone and shrink the user interface and strap it on your wrist,” says Tim Cook.

“We’ve placed a lot of energy into creating an entirely new payments solution,” says Cook. Who introduced Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, to talk about Apple Pay.

It uses NFC - as expected. Users can scan and add a card to their iPhone and then pay at participating merchants using their phones. McDonald’s, Macy’s, Whole Foods and Disney are among the first to sign up.

Each transaction is authorized with a one-time unique number. Apple does not know what you bought.

“We have security integrated throughout both hardware and software in a way only Apple can,” says Cue.

Hmmm. We’ll get back to you on that one once we’ve spoken to Kirsten Dunst (another victim of the celebrity hacking scandal).

It’s... iWatch! Well, the Apple Watch, It’s chunky. And will come in gold...

McDonald’s is adding Apple Pay to its restaurants in the US, also Whole Foods Market, and the Apple retail stores (obviously). “And Disney: the happiest place on earth!” says Cue. It’ll also work with online stores browsed from the phone: Target will be doing it, and Uber will have a “Ride Now” feature to book cabs without having to register for an account. MLB will sell tickets to baseball games within its app too.

iOS 8 will have a new Apple Pay API available to all developers, and it launches in the US next month. “We’re working hard to bring it to even more countries.”

Now One More Thing. Cook: “We believe this product will redefine what people expect from its category.”

“We don’t store the credit card number and we don’t give it to the merchant.,” says Eddy Cue. Find My iPhone can suspend all payments from a device if you lose it. Cue says Apple doesn’t know how much you spend on an item, and the cashier doesn’t get to see your security code.

“We’re starting in the US with American Express, MasterCard and Visa,” says Cue, along with banks representing 83% of all credit card payments volume.

And now we are on to payments. Apple has been widely rumoured to be working with near-field communication, or NFC, technology for mobile payments. “Wallet your days are numbered,” the company says. They are bringing out the big gun for this one and Tim Cook is back on the stage.

Schiller also outlines the iPhone’s new video capabilities. The new devices record high-definition 1080p video at either 30 or 60 frames per second. (The iPhone 5S was 30.)

Slow-motion videos are also improved (we all love slow-mo don’t we) with a feature called cinematic video stabilization. The new operating system, iOS 8, has a time-lapse video built in - take that Instagram and your recently introduced Hyperlapse. So last month.

Schiller says the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus can shoot slow-motion video at up to 240 frames per second. And it can also shoot time-lapsed videos – Insert own Apple just killed Instagram’s Hyperlapse app comments here. There’s also now a Burst mode on the front-facing FaceTime camera. “The kids are gonna love this,” says Schiller, demoing what can only be described as a #SelfieExplosion.

iPhone 6 will come in gold, silver and “space grey” colours, starting at $199 on a two-year contract in the US for the 16GB model, then $299 for the 64GB model – a big “Woo!” from the audience at that – and $399 for a 128GB model.

iPhone 6 Plus will start at $299 for the 16GB model, $399 for 64GB and $499 for 128GB, again on a two-year contract in the US.

Tim Cook: “A great product isn’t just a collection of features: it’s how it works together. How it makes you feel.” And he shows off some ads voiced by Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon.

Apple is addressing battery life - bane of all our tech lives.

The iPhone 6’s new camera has an 8MP iSight camera, 1.5µ pixels, ƒ/2.2 aperture. And an all-new sensor. It uses Focus Pixels, a technology previously found only in professional DSLR cameras. New software improvements mean faster autofocus and advanced noise reduction.

There’s a new sensor in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus: a barometer, measuring your elevation. For example counting how many flights of stairs you’ve walked up. “Nike is working on a new version of the Nike+ running app so it can measure not only how far you run, but the elevation as well,” says Schiller.

Schiller on camera improvements in the new iPhones.: eight-megapixel Sight cameras with an “all-new sensor” and a feature called “focus pixels” based on the fast autofocus used in high-end DSLR cameras. He shows off some cameraporn: a portrait, an iguana and a close-up butterfly shot. There’s also optical image stabiisation – watch for tweets from crowing Nokia execs at this point.

Stephan Sherman, co-founder and chief creative officer of Super Evil Megacorp takes the stage to show a game called Vain Glory, which is like a fantasy Capture the Flag with a really big monster. “A world of 1.5m polygons running at 60 frames per second.”

Wall Street is so far “meh” about iPhone 6 (probably frustrated by the appalling live feed). Apple’s shares were up marginally ahead of the presentation and are now down.

Stephan Sherman, co-founder and chief creative officer of Super Evil Megacorp takes the stage to show a game called Vainglory, which is like a fantasy Capture the Flag with a really big monster. “A world of 1.5m polygons running at 60 frames per second.”

Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, is telling the crowd that iPhone 6 has over one million pixels. And iPhone 6 Plus has over two million pixels. There’s a special landscape mode for the home page. Processor performance is 50 times faster than the original iPhone.

The live stream doesn’t seem to be working out for Apple though. There’s a translator speaking over the top of the broadcast and it keeps crashing. Same old story. So many shiny new things to launch and such crap internet.

Schiller: “There’s a new generation chip: the Apple A8, a 64-bit chip, our second generation.” It’s 13% smaller than the A7, but delivers up to 25% faster CPU performance, and up to 50% faster graphics performance. “The iPhone 6 with the A7 chip is up to 50 times faster than the original iPhone at CPU tasks, and for graphics tasks up to 84 times faster.”

Phil Schiller: “The text is sharp, the colours are beautiful. It all just works.” If you’re playing Apple keynote drinking games, raise your glasses now…

We are getting two new iPhones. iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. iPhone 6 has a resolution of 1334 by 750 with 326 pixels per inch. For a more than 720p Retina HD display. iPhone 6 has a 4.7-inch display. iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch display.

The big reveal: Video of the iPhone 6 shows rounder edges, power button on the side. Looks like the link to the leaked iPhone we published earlier today was genuine.

Tim Cook is up and speaking. Says he usually has a few updates but he is dispensing with them this time “because everything is great.”

People are taking their seats. Anyone listening to this online? They are playing two songs at the same time. And not in a way that Dre would approve.

Celeb sightings confirmed...

Today is a big test for Tim Cook. Just over three years in to his tenure as Apple’s boss the company is a financial marvel. The largest company on the US stock exchanges, Apple is more cash rich than many nation states. But when you get that high, people expect a fall.

Cook’s critics charge he is a back-office genius but lacks the flair and imagination to keep Apple at the cutting edge. Microsoft and Intel similarly lost their mojo once their visionary founders had stepped down.

His answer has been to bring in more creative talent. Alongside Dre & Co. Apple recently hired Marc Newson, friend to Jony Ive and probably his closest rival for the most influential industrial designer of his generation, and Angela Ahrendts, former boss of Burberry, who will head Apple’s retail empire.

Today (probably) marks the first time Apple has launched an entirely new product category under Cook. It will be the first big test of his more team-focused approach.

Here’s our weekend profile of Cook.

Just in case you forgot Apple is as much about fashion as tech, Marie Claire is covering #AppleLive - live.

Vogue is sticking to the basics.

Rupert Murdoch is at the event! Smartwatch newspaper? After all iPad The Daily iPad really turned out well for him.

And we have it on good authority that Stephen Fry is here for the launch too - that’s a conversation we’d pay to see.

Will Dr Dre make an appearance? The hip-hop mogul was awkwardly introduced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June after Apple’s $3bn purchase of Beats. Rumor has it that U2 are also in the house. Ah! U2, father of the Holy Trinity of corporate event soundsters alongside Adele (sorry) and Coldplay (not sorry).

Our odds-on musical guests:

Evens: U2 performing their new single

3-1: Coldplay

4-1: Lorde

5-1: Beats founder Dr Dre

11-2: Adele, including Beyoncéing a surprise new album onto iTunes

15-1: Beyoncé ft. Jay-Z

18-1: Beats Music exec Trent Reznor doing ‘Closer’

26-1: Coldplay ft. Pitbull

40-1: Pitbull ft. Coldplay

50-1: Skrillex

Live! From Cupertino! (And New York and London). It’s the Apple event of the year. Follow all the events and links to our analysis here.

In 52 minutes Tim Cook will take the stage at the Flint Centre for Performing Arts in Cupertino, California to launch the iPhone 6, the latest and largest in its portfolio. We are also expecting an update to its operating system, iOS 8. But the big news will come if Cook uses his “only Apple” moment to introduce an entirely new Apple product we’ve been calling the “iWatch”.

We pretty much know what the iPhone 6 looks like thanks to heavy leaking. But so far Apple has managed to keep “iWatch” under its sleeve. It will also be interesting to see whether Cook addresses J-Lawgate, the massive leak of intimate pics of stars including Jennifer Lawrence and Kirstin Dunst that some, not Apple, have blamed on flaws in its security. It’ll be hard to avoid given that health and mobile payments - two areas where security is key - are likely to be centre stage.

Apple has a reputation for being so secretive it makes the White House look open. Under Tim Cook there seems to be a shift to more openness - the company is live blogging its own events with suitably lovely photos. But don’t expect anyone at Apple to go “off message”. You’ll have to stay here for that. Or check Twitter.

There have been a lot of leaks ahead of this launch. The new phones are expected to have 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch displays, and a design similar to the current iPads.

Guessing the specs of the smartwatch is more of a gamble. We asked for your best guesses - iTime narrowly beat iBand as the top name (maybe iWatch sounds too NSA). You are expecting wireless charging, a 1.5in screen, lots of colours and a price of £200-£249 ($322-$401).

Other leaks suggest a flexible display, protected by synthetic sapphire coating. Both types of devices will include near-field communication, or NFC, technology for mobile payments.

Here’s Charles Arthur, who is in Cupertino, on what to expect.

• Stuart Dredge’s travel and accommodation was paid for by Apple. Editorial is completely independent.