Special: Let’s Rock Coverage
New iPods, a new version of iTunes, and some new accessories were the focus on Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event in San Francisco today. Steve Jobs talked about the state of Apple’s music side and showed off the new gadgets. Below is the live coverage of the event:
| Time | Entry |
| 11:01 AM PST | Jack Johnson played a couple of songs, thanked the crowd and Apple. |
| 10:51 AM PST | Things are wrapping up, Jack Johnson is the special guest (#1 selling male artist in iTunes history). |
| 10:50 AM PST | iPhone/iPod Touch 2.1 Firmware: available this Friday – free to all iPhone owners and iPod touch 2.0 owners ($9.99 for 1.x), big update, fixes bugs, fewer dropped calls, big battery life improvements, no crashes with apps, backing up is faster. |
| 10:46 AM PST | “The Funnest iPod Ever”: 8GB $229, 16GB $299, 32GB $399 – available today. Ad shown—new video game device?! “It’s the best portable device for playing games…” — Nintendo Who? Sony PS-What? |
| 10:45 AM PST | Jobs is back on stage: iPod touch: 36 hours of music, 6 hours of video, environmentally sound design |
| 10:43 AM PST | Phil Schiller is demoing Spore Origins, Real Soccer 2009, and Need for Speed… |
| 10:34 AM PST | App Store: 100 million apps downloaded, only open for 60 days, some demoing going on right now… |
| 10:30 AM PST | iPod touch: same screen, thinner, stainless steel design, volume controls in the side, built-in speaker—improved UI, Nike+ built-in |
| 10:29 AM PST | New accessories: armband, headphones w/pause/play/volume/microphone for $29, in-ear headphones w/2 drivers (woofer/tweeter) for $79. |
| 10:28 AM PST | nano prices/colors: bright blue, purple, orange, green, pink – $149 (8GB), $199 (16GB)—available in the next few days (8GB) or this weekend (16GB). |
| 10:25 AM PST | New iPods to be more environmentally-friendly: arsenic-free glass, BFR-free, mercury-free, PVC-free, highly recyclable. |
| 10:15 AM PST | iPod: 73.4% of the market, 5,000 accessories—thriving ecosystem. Total sales since the first iPod are over 160 million. iPod classic: 1 model, 120GB, $249—30,000 songs in your pocket! iPod nano:updated to look like various spy shots around the ‘net—tall, like 1G and 2G models, same screen as 3G, but rotated—new UI (more like iPhone/iPod touch w/CoverFlow), accelerometer, Genius functions, shake to shuffle—24 hours for music, 4 for video. |
| 10:14 AM PST | Everyone is getting a demo of HD TV (The Office) and more Genius fun. |
| 10:09 AM PST | “You’ve got your music library, you turn on Genius — it sends information about your library to iTunes. We can learn about your musical tastes… but completely anonymously… but we’re going to combine your info with other users, and as that happens Genius gets smarter and smarter.” |
| 10:07 AM PST | “Let’s say you’re listening to a song, Bob Dylan, and you push the Genius button — 25, 50, 75 or 100 songs. They’re amazingly good. You can bring up the Genius sidebar which makes recommendations from the iTunes store.” |
| 10:06 AM PST | iTunes 8: HD TV shows, accessibility, voice over, new browsing, “Genus” – makes playlists from songs in your library that go together. |
| 10:04 AM PST | 8.5 million songs, 125,000 podcasts, 30,000 TV shows, 2,600 movies, 3,000 apps for iPhone and iPod touch—65 million customers = #1 music distributor—new content: HD TV shows for $2.99 (SD is $1.99). Also, NBC is coming back to iTunes. |
| 10:02 AM PST | Steve Jobs is on stage and wisecracking about the obituary published about him and moved right into talking about iTunes… |
| 10:01 AM PST | “Touch me” by the Doors is playing…coincidence? |
| 10:00 AM PST | Event set to start… |
This post has been filed in News, Special Coverage