Liveblogging Apple's Special Event

Unfortunately, TUAW wasn't able to send any of us to San Francisco today (rumor is that McNulty cleaned out the petty cash to buy an iPhone for himself just so he could play NES), but we've got the next best thing-- like true Apple faithful, we're liveblogging the liveblogs. So stay tuned for updates, live from my apartment here in Chicago, on what's happening at the Apple campus in Cupertino.

If you want to see it straight from the source, we'll be watching Engadget, Mac Rumors, Gizmodo, SlashGear, Mac Observer, Stuff, and Macnews.de. I've also got a tab open refreshing the Apple Store, just in case it goes down-- as of this writing, it is open for business just went down at 12:50pm EST. Sure, you could watch all those sites yourself, but why not settle down on this post and let us do it for you? Think of it as one-stop shopping for all your liveblog news.

The event itself starts in about 10 minutes, and our liveblog kicks off right after the jump. Save the Mini!

12:50pm: See, we've got exclusive news already! An anonymous tipster just dropped us this "itinerary" for today's event. Take it with a softball-sized grain of salt.

10:05AM: Recap of Quarter and Results

10:10AM: .Mac update featuring new MobileSync feature and iPod integration. Available directly after the event.

10:20AM: Announcement of iLife '08. A new application called iStroke is included, which is comparable to a VERY lite version of Adobe Illustrator. Available on Friday.

10:35AM: Announcement of iWork '08 including new Charts program. Available on Friday.

10:50AM: Announcement of Apple Display. iSight is built in, and it comes in 20 inches, 24 inches, and 30 inches. Available Wednesday.

11:05AM: End

"iStroke." Riiiiiiiight.

12:50pm: Apple store downnnnnnnn!!!

12:51pm: Erica thinks we need a song about the yellow sticky. "The Apple store's down again/ New products are in the wind/ What'll it be? I don't know/ I just hope it has CoverFlow."

12:54pm: I should mention that I'm chatting with the TUAW staff as I write this, so you'll get their commentary as well. It's like a big Apple event party, and you're invited!

12:57pm: All right, seems like everyone is on the scene and shuffling in (except for Gizmodo, who's still in the bathroom). Event should start soon.

12:58pm: Ooooh big black covered thing on stage, pic via engadget

12:59pm:Stuff has a wide angle picture. wtf is that?

1:03pm: Steve's on stage. "Thanks for coming."

1:05pm: Today, we're going to talk about the iMac

1:06pm: "We will make it even better," using glass and aluminum, because it's recycleable and durable, says SlashGear

1:07pm: "New iMac is much thinner than before." So a new iMac then. Goodbye, 17 incher?

1:08pm:Engadget has a nice pic of a growth chart. Scott in our chat: "Wonder if he made that chart in iStroke?"

1:10pm: iMac has black back and black border. glossy display only . 20 and 24". Add mem with just one screw. USB 2.0, Firewire 400 and 800.

1:11pm:Mac Observer has gone down. Gizmodo's video has gone down (that's what you get for depending on Justin.tv)

1:12pm:Engadget's got pics. Looks like the iMac with a black screen and a black back. Also a new keyboard-- "you might have seen this on the web."

1:13pm: Super thin keyboard (here's our post), wireless, Bluetooth 2.0, dedicated keys for expose, media, volume controls, two USB ports. PRETTY!

1:17pm: No more 17" iMac (Erica was right), replacing it with a $1199 20" model. 24" will be $1499. All available starting today.

1:18pm: Looks like Slashgear just folded under the pressure, go Engadget and Stuff, go!!

1:19pm: iLife 08!

1:20pm: iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iGarageband, iWeb and... a new app...

1:22pm: iPhoto is getting "events." Albums are organized around days-- all photos together in a day. More than one event per day? Use two "events."

1:24pm: Just seems like automatically created albums, put together by day. Sounds OK, but maybe, like most software stuff, it's more exciting when actually used.

1:26pm: Whew, looks like Mini survived it. Also, I didn't see Steve saying it, but our commenters are pretty sure there'll be 10gb available on .Mac August 14th. Where are you guys seeing that?

1:27pm: You can now hide photos you don't want others to see, says Stuff. Also, events automatically get a picture to represent them.

1:28pm: Full .Mac integration with iLife apps, from the .Mac homepage, which is down at the moment.

1:32pm: Steve is talking about girls with balloons when he could be talking about .Mac! Also, me wanty one of those keyboards.

1:33pm: .Mac and iPhoto BFF. Share pictures from iPhoto on the web, and anyone with a browser can see them and get print quality downloads.

1:36pm: Wow. Send to .Mac web gallery via the iPhone. Very cool.

1:37pm: And apparently iPhoto syncs back up with the web gallery. Really like that, although it does require a .Mac subscription. In other news, Gizmodo is back up with pictures, and a learning experience about Justin.tv.

1:41pm: And you can do iPhone to iPhone, too-- Phil sends a pic to Steve's web gallery, and that pic gets downloaded onto Steve's iPhone. Imagine what it'll be like when they do this with everything on the iPhone.

1:43pm: iMovie is an all new app, meant to do the same things that Final Cut Pro is supposed to do. New app, new icon.

1:44pm: A star icon with a camera (bye bye, dramatic blue "take my hand if you want to live" clapboard). Steve promises a quality home movie in 30 mins. We'll have to get the old stopwatches out for that one.

1:46pm: Wow, you can put the movies directly into iTunes, or on the .Mac web gallery. Crazy. If the new iPhoto/.Mac is Flickr, does that make iMovie/.Mac Apple's YouTube? And I thought the old YouTube was Apple's YouTube.

1:48pm: Oh, ok, you can also upload directly to YouTube from iMovie. Thought so. Also, says can export in higher resolution than DVD.

1:53pm: He's showing snowboarding clips. Someone paste Jobs' face on a snowboard and tip it to us pls kthx.

1:54pm: Now he's claiming you can make a "higher res than DVD" movie in 20 minutes. Big talk, Steve. We'll be timing you on that when this thing comes out. Boom!

1:58pm: Phillip kindly sent us this pic of .Mac before it died. 10gb baby!

1:59pm: Oh, it's still going on? iWeb <3s Google-- integrated Google Maps and Adsense. Media index page. Personal domain support. iDVD ("because some people still want to make DVDs") gets pro encoding, new themes.

2:02pm: Garageband gets multi-take recording, 24-bit audio, visual EQ, basic notation priting. (via Gizmodo)

2:04pm: iLife '08, $79, Available Today. Boom!

2:05pm: iLife ships with all new iMacs today, Steve confirms .Mac gets 1gb storage-- no wait, 10gb storage. $99.95 for 1 year subscription.

2:08pm: Next up: iWork.

2:09pm: Keynote: Instant Alpha, take out background of a photo. Easy animations, lots of choices. Pages sounds pretty much the same-- use it as a word process or a... page layout-er.... and works fine for both.

2:12pm: So here's the roundup: Apple Store: Down. .Mac: back up, but showing the old page?, Gizmodo: having trouble. Slashgear: Iffy, but almost there. Engadget is doing great. Stuff has been a little slow, but they're up. MacOSRumors is MIA.

2:16pm: Numbers is the new spreadsheet app (apparently iStroke didn't make the cut haha). Looks pretty, done in the style of Pages and Keynote. Not super exciting, except maybe to accountants.

2:18pm: Numbers, Pages, Keynote: iWork '08. $79. Available today.

2:22pm: from the Q&A: "We're refreshing the mac mini today." ! Making it even faster. It's in the online store. Woot! The Mini lives!

2:24pm: Other Q&A tidbits: Apple <3s Google, iMacs are super thin, Apple doesn't want "Intel Inside" stickers on their stuff, iPhone is doing really well (duh)

2:26pm: Apple TV news "soon," but not today. iMac growing in business, simply because more and more of business is communication.

2:28pm: Steve says cameras today can't do HD, but just under it, and Apple supports the "best you can do under $10k." Hmmm, sounds like a "very sweet solution" to me.

2:31pm: Engadget keeps posting great questions with no answers! Drives me nuts. The latest is "Multitouch on the Mac?"

2:32pm: The answer is "makes sense on the iPhone, but not on the Mac." Not yet it doesn't, anyway. Not yet.

2:35pm: This is a good closer, straight from the fine fellows at Engadget:

Steve: "Goal is to make the best PC in the world, and make something we can recommend to family in friends. There is some stuff in our industry we wouldn't be proud to ship. We can't ship junk. Thresholds we just can't cross. But we want to make the best personal computers in the industry. Our products are usually not premium priced. Price our competitors' computers, and add in all the extras, we're competitive. We don't offer stripped down products. We compare favorably. Thank you very much for coming today."

Annnnnnd we're done. So, to recap: iLive and iWork '08 out today. New iMovie, with super fast super easy HD. Buffed up .Mac, with 10gb, iPhoto and iPhone integration, has a Web Gallery and can hold movies and photos from the Mac. Mac Mini lives! And oh yeah, there's a new thing called an iMac, with a little different design, and apparently a new keyboard (you may have seen it on the Internet). Also, RIP 17" iMac. Long live the Mini!

Thanks for reading, everybody, and stay tuned for official news about everything.