Apple Macworld Keynote Wrap-up

See below for the liveblogging. This was all done on a Blackberry, the Blackberry which will go on eBay as soon as I get my hands on a Smartphone...

• Best line of the day: John Mayer saying "Apple makes your life better....it's like the complete opposite of terrorism..."
• Best guest star: Al Gore, for his voicemail message on Steve Jobs' iPhone which slyly mentioned his global warming presentation.
• Worst guest star: Stan Sigman, CEO of Cingular, for dryly reading a prepared speech from notecards, and totally losing the interest of the audience. Better to speak off the top of your head and keep it short.
• Smartest guy in the room: The guy next to me, who bought 5000 shares of Apple stock when he saw the iPhone. The stock promptly went up 6 points, earning him $30,000.
• Least smart guy in the room: That would have to be me, who spent time liveblogging on a Blackberry instead of buying and selling Apple shares on Etrade, which would have been far more profitable.
  
• Best new feature: A real Safari web browser, so you don't have to look at crippled web pages on your portable device anymore.
  
• Worst new feature: The $499 price tag for the 4GB iPhone. Somehow I bet those phone and data plans that come with it from Cingular aren't going to be the best deal going.
• Verdict: I want the iPhone, but getting up early and killing the whole morning at the keynote isn't the best use of time! ;-)
  

john mayer....apple keynote liveblog wrapup

One last bit of news...with the iphone launch, apple is dropping "computer" from its corporate name.

Jobs is thanking his employees and their families, because everyone has been pulling late nights on this, apparently...that's a nice note.

Ok one more bit - john mayer (one of my favorites) is going to play a song...he's singing "gravity", happens to be my favorite from "Continuum"...people loved the guitar solo...its a minimalist performance, quiet, as opposed to noisy..

Mayer says "apple inc makes life more fun...its kind of like the exact opposite of terrorism".

Now he's playing "waiting on the world to change".

Steve is saying thanks...and that's it...we're done!

eric schmidt and jerry yang at macworld keynote...liveblog

My old boss Eric S is speaking...his style is a little different - he is talking about "cloud computers" providing "html, xml, data services" - most notably says "this product is going to be hot" - really just a short little set of comments to show support.

And who comes next? Jerry Yang from Yahoo. His comments are more promoting of yahoo (as opposed to eric schmidt's more techy comments). But they are just as light, and also simply a show of support.

Having both execs on stage shows apple's increasing muscle...and that there is still consumer power in the yahoo brand (as much as they've been maligned in the past year...).

iphone, google maps, apple stock, apple keynote liveblog...

The guy next to me just bought 5000 AAPL shares the second he saw the iphone...

You can load google maps, search for Starbucks, tap the number in the search result, and call.

Jobs just crank-called a Starbucks and ordered 4000 lattes...

Yes, the Google maps satellite images work....yes the crowd oohs ans aahs when they see this, still, even though this can be done on other phones...

It is nice how you can bookmark Google maps locations...also the google earth application appears to have some apple-like enhancements, the way the pushpins "fly in" to their location when you load a page. They say they have been working closely with Google on this..

Ok, here comes Eric Schmidt on stage...

"Its the internet in your pocket."

iphone internet features...liveblog

So the big news is free imap sync for yahoo mail..this appears to be only for iphone users.

When you see a phone number in a mail message, you can touch the number to dial...

The on screen keyboard shows up again in the mail interface...

There is autocomplete for email addresses...

The browser is safari, unfortunately not Firefox...and they make the correct choice to show you the original html version of the web sites, not these crippled mobile web sites you get on phones...

Plus there is a cool zoom-in feature for web pages, by double tapping the screen to zoom in and out of pages...you can do this even when the page is still loading...

Their take on tabs is cool, hard to explain, but basically having tabs is a big win, I hate not having them on the blackberry.

iphoto on the iphone...more apple keynote liveblogging...

The crowd loves the "pinch" gesture...when looking at a photo, just put 2 fingers on the screen, and squeeze them or pinch them to zoom the photo in and out...that got the oohs and aahs...

"We have reinvented the phone".

Really its enough to make you want to work at apple, who else can do such elegant devices?

iphone has the cingular name burned in it...

At the top left, it says "Cingular" on all the menu screens.

So we are now switching to the phone features - the big thing is to use your contacts to dial, so you don't have to reenter them.

The voicemail is random access, use the screen ui to skip to the call you want to hear...

Its quad band and has wifi built in.

The ringtones sound like the music from the mac vs pc commercials.

Al gore is in Steve Jobs' contacts, by the way...

You can have your own picture show up on other peoples' phones, apparently.

They are taking a big advantage of the touchscreen for the ui - you immediately wonder why all the other phones are so shabby in their ui's today...very nice how the screen shows your call waiting choices, and a single button for conferencing....

Neat trick for long phone numbers - they don't scroll, they just get smaller...

Now we are hearing al gore's voice mail...

Sms let's you have multiple conversations at once, just navigating between them. They keyboard shows up on the screen, and has error detection built in for your typing...once the message is sent, it is shown as a conversation a la I'm interfaces...

iphone demo liveblog...

Wow its slick,,,you slide your finger to unlock it...everything zooms and slides around...

Scrolling is incredibly cool, just swoop your finger and it scrolls.

The landscape mode during itunes shows the album covers from your library...

Its a very big advancement in the ipod user experience vs the old scrollwheel and simple menus...

The videos have on-screen controls-just touch and they appear as a transparent overlay...

the iphone runs osx! liveblog...

Wow that's a surprise. So its like windows ce/mobile, right? Well according to apple this is not "the crippled stuff" you get on other phones.

Their big tagline: "5 years ahead of any other phone". And will build on top of ipod syncing to get your data on the iphone...

So contacts, bookmarks, calendar will sync over too. I wish the network would do that, but oh well, another wire on the desk...

The screen will have 160 pixels per inch, 11.6 inches thick, a 2 megapixel camera, headset jack, sim card tray, a speaker, microphone, and ipod connector.

Sensors...it knows when you are holding it to your ear to turn off the touchscreen. It knows when you switch from portrait to landscape (old mac monitors knew that trick), and a light sensitive screen...

the iphone...liveblog

"A revolutionary ui, the result of years of r&d...he says the keyboards are a problem with existing smartphones..that controls need to change for each application.

So to solve it, use a pointing device...so the device is just one giant screen...with NO stylus. Guess they learned from the newton...there will be a touchscreen that is more accurate than existing ones and can handle multi-fingered gestures.

They are touting this on par with the mouse. Oh, and fire and the wheel...

apple keynote...the big news??

Now Jobs is turning on the hype...he is looking back at the big products...the mac, the ipod, and promises 3 revolutionary products.

First..a widescreen ipod, second, a phone (crowd likes that) and the 3rd is...um...a communications device.

Ah..the joke is that it's all in one - a single device. The crowd loves this...like a revival meeting...

Now there is a visual joke...a mockup of an ipod with an old fashioned rotary dial glued onto it..

apple keynote liveblog cont...

So the apple tv ships next month and its cheap...the crowd liked the demos but the energy is low...we are waiting for the big news...

more apple keynote blogging....

Ok the itv will be called apple tv...it will hold 50 hours of hi def, use all the common wifi standards, and will autosync with the itunes from one computer. So if you buy it, it will end up on the apple tv automatically.

You can also stream from a laptop, up to 5 of them. You can stream live from apple.com as well...so now we're wacthing a trailer for "the good shepherd"...

And yes the iphoto stuff can stream there too.

liveblogging apple keynote...music on apple tv..

9:36 Ok so they play itunes on the tv...the album cover art on the screen thankfully moves to avoid burn in...they also do the corny slideshows from iphoto...

Apple Keynote Liveblog

9:25 now showing new ipod ads, nothing exciting

9:20 announced paramount will sell movies on itunes...goofed a bit on the press coverage of slowing itunes sales, showed a graph which said it is exploding...they are now selling more music than amazon..

9:18 ok there is a new mac ad making fun of vista...the pc guy is in a hospital gown about to go into major surgery...crowd loves....

Macworld Steve Jobs Keynote Delayed....

....It's past 9am and this enormous crowd is still lined up waiting to be led in...rehearsals must be taking too long, someone here is saying...demo problems? We'll have to see...

Liveblogging the Steve Jobs Keynote...

Well, since I'm attending a seminar at Macworld to get up to speed on Logic Audio, I decided to drop by for the Steve Jobs keynote tomorrow morning. I'll be heading out real early to get a seat and will bring my laptop and try to liveblog it....