Verge staff was on-site hours before the doors opened to try to beat the mad rush to secure a good seat in the Flint Center for the Performing Arts.
Apple's keynote opened with a video that focused heavily on design and shifting perspective — figuratively and literally.
Tim Cook appeared on stage and kicked off the keynote with a brief introduction, but skipped right past the company's usual roundup of statistics.
Cook dove right into hardware announcements with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the company's two new flagship phones. At 4.7 and 5.5 inches respectively, the phones' specifications are remarkably similar.
Even though the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have the biggest screens of an iPhone to date, Apple has also managed to make its thinnest phones yet, measuring 6.9mm and 7.1mm respectively.
With more screen real estate than ever, Apple finally introduced a long-desired feature by allowing the iOS home screen to adjust according to the orientation of the phone. Unfortunately, the feature is only available on the iPhone 6 Plus.
Apple introduced the M8 motion coprocessor that promises to be able to do things like calculate elevation or distance, and tell the difference between cycling and running — something even the best fitness trackers today have trouble distinguishing.
Always a leader with its phones' cameras, Apple announced a few upgrades along with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The iPhone 6 Plus will feature optical image stabilization, and both phone models will have the ability to shoot 60fps at 1080p and 240fps at 720p.
Apple loves to tease new advertisements during its keynotes, and this event was no exception as Tim Cook showed off two different commercials that featured voiceovers from Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon.
The mobile payment industry got another big boost when Apple announced Apple Pay, an NFC-based payment platform that is included on every device that the company announced today.
For the first time since Steve Jobs' last keynote, Apple and Tim Cook used the company's famed "One more thing..." line in the latter half of the keynote to further tease the announcement Apple Watch.
The Apple Watch comes in two sizes and has multiple band and frame customization options, but won't be available until early 2015.
Once the announcements were done, U2 joined Cook on stage to announce their new album — free on iTunes — and perform for the crowd on hand.
With that, Cook wrapped the keynote at almost two hours on the dot. What started as a faster-than-normal paced event eventually turned into a deep dive into Apple's new hardware.