Special: MWSF ’08 Live Keynote Coverage
| 10:42 AM PST | That looks to be about it – Randy left, Steve Jobs told people to go see the new products, and we’ll be back in a little bit. Thanks for staying with us! |
| 10:33 AM PST | Randy Newman’s here as a special treat…in Europe, people don’t like us very much so he wanted a quick song to make people like us…look at some of the bad leaders from history. I’d lake to say a few words in defense of our country – Caesars making horse vice-president, Spanish Inquisition, Hitler, Stalin, King Leopold of Belgium destroying Congo. This is getting a bit “message”-y. Media focuses on companies, not people being hurt…not against Apple (well, duh), will be playing a song from Toy Story…He was impressed by audience knowing about the notebook before it was announced. Now it’s time for “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”. |
| 10:30 AM PST | It’s 2008, and in 2 weeks, Apple has introduced the MacBook Air, Time Capsule, Movie Rentals, and updated the Mac Pro, iPod Touch, iPhone, and Apple TV. 50 more weeks to go. |
| 10:29 AM PST | New Ad: can fit in envelope, glossy screen, case is fully recyclable, mercury- and lead-free display, arsenic-free glass, packaging box is 56% smaller than before. Greenies rejoice! |
| 10:25 AM PST | 5 hours of battery life, 2GB RAM standard, $1799 – preorders today, shipping in 2 weeks. |
| 10:23 AM PST | Wait, it seems I spoke too soon…Remote Disc feature lets you access drives of PCs/Macs on your network and access their optical drives with the MacBook Air. You can use a PC to install Mac software wirelessly. Just as if you have a local optical drive. (What about OS reinstalls?) Is there FireWire? |
| 10:21 AM PST | Back to the MacBook Air: MagSafe, flip-down door for USB 2, micro-DVI, headphone jack. 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, no optical drive standard – $99 for USB SuperDrive. Dumb. |
| 10:20 AM PST | Apple asked Intel to shrink the Core 2 Duo – they did by 60%. Intel CEO Paul Otellini takes the stage. The processor is as thick as a nickel and as wide as a dime. |
| 10:17 AM PST | How did we fit a Mac in here? 1.8″ 80GB hard drive standard, 64GB SSD optional, Core 2 Duo – 1.6GHz standard and 1.8GHz optional. |
| 10:12 AM PST | Apple thinks weight is right, but no other compromises. Thinner than Sony TZ, fits into manila envelope…full-size black keyboard and display. Basically a MacBook Pro flattened w/ 13.3″ widescreen LED backlit. Latched with a magnet, built-in iSight. Large trackpad with multi-touch support, and keyboard is best they’ve ever shipped (backlit, too). |
| 10:11 AM PST | They looked at thin notebooks – 3 pounds, .8 to 1.2 inches thin, small display, mini keyboards, slow processors. |
| 10:10 AM PST | Jobs is back on stage – “Fourth thing: There’s something in the air…As you know, Apple makes the best notebooks in the industry. Today, we are introducing a third kind of notebook. It’s called the MacBook Air…The world’s thinnest notebook.” |
| 10:05 AM PST | Chairman and CEO of Fox, John Gianolpulos takes the stage to talk – first studio to sign up with Apple. Fox wanted movies to get into as many hands as possible, consumers wanted the same thing. “Video rentals aren’t a new thing, but Apple is doing it in an intuitive, insightful, etc. way. This will be a transformative version of the rental model.” Also, Fox will include a digital copy on DVDs for the ability to move it onto portable media. First to include: Family Guy: Blue Harvest. |
| 10:00 AM PST | The Apple TV will sell for $229, too. This will make it “more accessible”. (You can spend the money you save on the cables to hook it up.) |
| 9:56 AM PST | You can search for, demo, and buy stuff with the Apple TV. Also, .Mac media (photos, iMovies, etc.) can be accessed on the Apple TV. Best of all, this is a free software upgrade…now people can stop hatin’ on the Apple TV a bit. |
| 9:54 AM PST | Live Free or Die Hard being demoed in HD on Apple TV. |
| 9:45 AM PST | Apple TV Take 2: No computer required, rent movies, DVD quality, HD + Dolby 5.1, audio/video podcasts, photos from flickr & .Mac, synchronizing with iTunes, HD rentals $4.99 – 100 titles today. There’s a new interface, too! |
| 9:38 AM PST | iTunes Movie Rentals: Touchstone, Miramax, New Line, Lionsgate, 20th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal, WB, MGM, andall the others. Over 1000 on launch at the end of February, 30 days after DVD release, can be watched on Macs, PCs, current iPods, iPhones. Watch instantly – 30 seconds on broadband. 30 days to start watching, 24 hours to finish – as many times as you want. $2.99 – library titles, $3.99 – new releases. |
| 9:37 AM PST | Third thing: iTunes. 4 billion songs sold, 20 million sold on Christmas day – a record, 125 million TV shows sold, 7 million movies – both above competitors, but below expectations. |
| 9:35 AM PST | iPod Touch: Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes, Weather added…$20 upgrade (!) for existing users. |
| 9:30 AM PST | Maps with locations work based on cell phone tower locations, rather than GPS. Jobs is demoing other iPhone features. |
| 9:25 AM PST | “We want to give folks something today. New software.” Maps with location, Webclips, customizable home screen, multiple recipients of SMSes, chapter support on videos, lyrics. |
| 9:22 AM PST | Second thing: iPhone. 200 days = 4 million sold, 20,000/day average. The iPhone is now the #2 smartphone behind RIM (19.5% of US market). |
| 9:19 AM PST | Time Machine: Time Capsule – backup appliance w/AirPort Extreme & a hard drive – “server grade”. 500GB – $299, 1TB – $499. Now we get to see the Mac/PC ad with Time Machine. |
| 9:19 AM PST | Micrsoft will be shipping Office 2008 – last big app to move natively to Intel (big surprise?). |
| 9:18 AM PST | Jobs reviews 2007, new everything basically, 4 major items to talk about today. 20% of users have upgraded to Leopard – 5 million copies in 3 months, most successful release ever. |
| 9:17 AM PST | “There’s clearly some great stuff in the air today.” Yeah – it’s called geeks with money burning a hole in their pockets for some mystery item. |
| 9:16 AM PST | The lights are dimming…get excited…Mac and PC are back with a New Year’s commercial…Steve Jobs is on stage. |
| 9:10 AM PST | Apple Store has been down for a few minutes (for obvious reasons). I think this has been the longest it’s been for a keynote to start in recent years. |
| 9:00 AM PST | People are piling in still – it seems that with CES not overlapping with Macworld, there are more people waiting to see what Apple introduces. Well, the music selections are a bit different this year – not the standard iPod commercial playlist. |
| 8:09 AM PST | With little less than an hour to go until the Keynote, we’ve officially switched both sites to this this feed. |
This post has been filed in News, Special Coverage