Steve Jobs live -- Apple's "The beat goes on" special event
By Ryan Block 
posted September 5th 2007 12:57PM
posted September 5th 2007 12:57PM
9:20AM PDT - They kept everyone outside a little longer than we would have liked, but they're finally admitting. This is the Moscone West -- we're assuming the huge hall Steve launched the iPhone in back in January.
Hold me closer, tiny dancer
9:32 - We're upstairs, the press is gathering. All the usual suspects are here; Mossberg just cruised up. This event space seats thousands, so we're a little surprised Steve's doing an event here for just a few hundred journalists. We're expecting a lot of empty seats... or a Cirque du Soleil performance on the open floor.
9:55am - It's pretty well full up, but definitely not crowded to the brim. White Stripes, Alicia Keys, cameras on cranes and booms to film the event, all the familiar sights and sounds.
9:57am - "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this special Apple event. We'd like everyone to take a moment to turn off ALL electronic devices." Apparently this special privilege is reserved for Stevie, and Stevie alone. Well, this isn't an airplane, and if they think we're NOT going to liveblog this, they've got another thing coming. But yeah, we'll def switch off our ringers.
9:57am - "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this special Apple event. We'd like everyone to take a moment to turn off ALL electronic devices." Apparently this special privilege is reserved for Stevie, and Stevie alone. Well, this isn't an airplane, and if they think we're NOT going to liveblog this, they've got another thing coming. But yeah, we'll def switch off our ringers.
10:01am - Lights are dimming, here we go! Music's over, lights go up, Steve takes the stage!
10:02am - Rounds of applause and cheering. And more. "Thank you." He's grinning. "Today we get to talk about music, so let's start with iTunes." "iTunes is a pretty amazing phenomenon." Facts and figures: 600 million copies of iTunes distributed. Over 3 billion songs bought on iTunes. "We're pretty amazed at this." Giggles. "This is the number one music store in all 21 countries we operate in."
10:06am - Big applause. "We're going to do ringtones in our own special way. Of course these are for the iPhone. What we want: rather than let someone else make ringtones, we people to be able to make their own." Build your own from songs bought in iTunes, 500k participating songs...
10:07am - "Our ringtones are going to cost just $.99 in addition to the song." Psh! You have to pay a second time to use a purchased song as a ringtone?!
10:08am - "Here's how it works... when you plug in your iPhone a new column will pop up with bells -- that shows how many songs you can make ringtones out of." Any segment up to 30s long, fade ins/outs. "When you're ready to buy, push the buy button and for 99c you have a ringtone." Demo time.
10:09am - "I like Aretha Frankin's Respect -- I can just tell this is going to make a great ringtone. I can put it on my iPhone, make it my default ringtone. I'm going to assign this one for when my wife calls..." laughter.
10:10am - Steve's grooving to R-E-S-P-E-C-T on stage. "There we go, that's what I want, and I'm going to just buy this ringtone right now." The clip appears in the ringtones folder along with other clips of music Steve didn't mind buying twice.
10:12am - "You can assign it as your default ringtone, or to your favorite people when they call... custom ringtone maker built in, over half a million participating songs, sync 'em right on your iPhone. We're going to turn this on next week. You'll need the new version of iTunes we're going to ship tonight. So that's the first thing today." Applause.
10:13am - "Let's start out easy... iPod shuffle. Refresh for this product. Holiday 2007 we're going to give it some new colors, when you see these in person you're going to love them. We also have something called the PRODUCT(RED) nano..."
"Games. More storage, and a full metal design. We're introducing a new nano here today... let me show it to you." It's the fatty!
10:16am - "It's incredibly tiny, this is the new nano, it's incredibly thin. It's REALLY nice." Huge applause. "Let me show you some bigger pictures of it... comes in beautiful colors. So what's the video like? New nano: larger 2-inch screen, it's going to look the same as it did on the iPod video, it's the same QVGA resolution. We've achieved this with a screen with the highest pixel density we've ever shipped."
10:17am - "We've also got an enhanced UI. It's going to show you album artwork floating by. When you're on videos... photos... it will even show you what you're going to get when going to extras. And we've got Cover Flow. Take your thumb, roll it around the wheel, it looks really nice. It's pretty stunning, all in such a tiny device. We're really, really happy with this."
10:18am - "We're also including 3 games bundled in with the nano. Let me show you one now, it's called Vortex." Demo time -- it's basically Arkanoid made circular. "We've also done some other games we're selling on iTunes."
Demoing EA's Sudoku game.
10:20am - "Isn't that incredible? All in a product this big. Video, new UI with Cover Flow, games... let's take a look at the new iPod nano." Demo time again, Beatles album artwork in screen. He does this every time!
He's scrolling in Cover Flow -- it looks decent, but a bit choppy and slow. Not super surprising considering the nano doesn't exactly have a lot of horsepower under the hood. Don't expect the iPhone Cover Flow experience, people!
10:21am - "It's that simple to browse your music collection." Doing video now. "I love Jon Stewart, I hope all of you watch his show. It's the best place to get the news every day." Showing the John Hodgman clip on net neutrality, trying to get Hodgman to admit to being a PC. Highlarious.
"These new nanos have left our factories, they've shipped and will be in our stores by this weekend."
10:27am - "A little video for everyone, that's what we set out to do with the new nano. We hope you love it as much as we do... That brings us to the iPod. The iPod... it's got a... it's got a funny name. It's got a funny name. It's time to give it a name: we're calling it the iPod Classic because it's the original iPod." Ha!
"When we introduced the iPhone in Jan, we said it was the best iPod ever. and iPhone owners agree with us, it's incredible with its multi-touch interface, it is the best iPod ever. People have been asking us when we're going to bring this technology to the iPod. The answer is we're going to do it today. And this is what the product looks like." It's a friggin iPhone!
It's called the iPod Touch.
10:32am - "It's the same size screen as the iPhone, but it's even thinner. It's 8mm thin. Unbelievable. The new iPod touch. It's one of the 7 wonders of the world." Laughter.
10:33am - "It features our revolutionary multi-touch interface that you've come to know and love on the iPhone. If you've used an iPhone you'll feel at home, it's exactly the same. Scroll through the artists with a flick of your finger. Turn it into a landscape position, it goes into Cover Flow, it's just magical."
10:34am - "All on this 8mm device. Let's look at video... all on this gorgeous 3.5-inch widescreen display. And photos... just like the iPhone this is the best way to share photos on a portable device. Ever. Flick through them, pinch them to make them larger or smaller."
Demo time!
Steve's browsing by Cover Flow -- note: it has WiFi! The WiFi meter is up at the top where it would be on the iPhone.
10:37am - Steve's watching, um, Wild Hogs. He's not having a mid-life crisis, too, is he?
10:38am - "Let's take a look at photos here... it's great, let's go into an album... I can just go like this, flick through these photos. There's just never been a better way to share photos with friends on the go. It's sooo nice. Turn it back. Boom." Icons: calendar, contacts, clock, calc, settings, music, videos, photo..."I showed you the clean side... I was keeping a secret. We've built in WiFi to the iPod touch." The antenna looks, um, bad.
10:39am - 802.11b/g -- "Others have done this and it's failed. We understand why it's failed, and we know what to do make it successful. Well, what's the problem with WiFi? Well, part of the problem is getting onto WiFi... you may be fine at home and the office, but anywhere in between can be challenging."
10:40am - "You may log in but you'll get a screen. Even walking through Stanford University you get a login page... so you can build in the hardware but you can't get the network [without the page]. So what do you do about that? We're going to add an application to the touch: the Safari web browser."
10:41am - This really is the phone-less iPhone. "But besides being able to log into WiFi, you get an incredible web browser! It is the best web browser on any mobile device, and it's built in to the iPod touch."
10:42am - "We're very, very excited about this. First time EVER on a music player to have a browser built in." Uh, totally not true: look at Archos. "Why stop there?" YouTube's on the Touch as well.
Looking on the NYT. "We can go over here... boom." Aw, it was a little boom that time.
10:45am - Bookmarked videos... "You get the idea, this gives you a feeling for what Safari and YouTube are like on the new iPod touch. We've built WiFi in and we've made it USABLE. We're REALLY excited about this."
10:46am - Connector on the bottom, but no speakers. "This is a worldwide product, the first touch product Apple's going to ship outside the US, it's going to be shipping all around the world."
"The battery life is fantastic: 22 hours audio, 5 hours video playback. All in something this thin. It's... it's... amazing to me. The new iPod touch."
10:48am - So, 8GB is $299... the price for the 16GB is $399." Less applause on the second one. "Both models are available in just a few weeks... they'll be shipping this month."
10:49am - Not shabby -- and thankfully no more Orba Squara iPhone music. But there is one more thing... if you'll bear with us for a few more minutes.
Four buttons: featured, top tens, search, downloads... "If you see something you like, tap it, free preview of the song." "You are now downloading the song... when it's done you can listen to it on your iPod touch, and it syncs back up to iTunes." Applause.
10:52am - "You can search for anything in the entire iTunes store. You can search for any artist, any song name, any album name, preview it, and if you love it go buy it. This is the new iTunes WiFi music store. Let me show it to you now."
10:53am - "Demo time: This is live coming over WiFi. I love John Lennon... so I'm going to buy this. It's now downloading... it takes a few seconds and once it's downloaded I can go to the downloads playlist and I can play it with album art and everything else. This is all live."
"Isn't this incredible?" Applause and cheers.
10:54am - He plays a wacky R&B track: "Ooook." Chuckles. Now he's listening to Coco -- "That's now being bought, as you can see. I want to search for something, so of course I'm going to search for Dylan. Live search comes back from the store...
10:55am - "WiFi, as you may know, is faster than any 3G cellular network, so it's really fast." Zing!
10:56am - "So, not so bad for the new iTunes WiFi music store." Applause. "The new music store will be available internationally in every one of those 22 countries Apple operates in. We're gonna do something else, too: we're gonna bring it to the iPhone." Big applause.
10:58am - "I can't tell you how much pleasure it brings me... we have a GREAT partnership with Starbucks we're announcing today. We love Starbucks. It's an incredible phenomenon in our culture. We want to combine our great iPods and our love of music and their great coffee and their great love of music."
Demo time. "So they just built a Starbucks back stage." Laughter. "They're playing a KT Tunstall song... I can go in here and preview it."
11:03am - "Who would have thought that a coffee company could win a Grammy? Let alone 8, when we co-produced with Concord Ray Charles's last album."
11:04am - He's going on about how this is going to transform the marketplace. Dude, let's not delude ourselves here. It's big, but it's not that big.
11:07am - It's exclusive with iTunes -- we wonder how T-Mobile feels about partnering indirectly with Apple. Ok, rollout plan: 5800 WiFi-enabled stores nationwide. Starting October 2nd: New York and Seattle. 600 stores, followed up in November with 350 stores in SF.
"We think this is going to set a lot of peoples' worlds on fire. And I'm going to include the iPhone, because as we've said, it's the best iPod ever."
11:12am - "But we want to get even more aggressive with this. Take a look at the iPhone. You know, the surveys are in: the customer satisfaction numbers on the iPhone are off the charts. They're higher from iPhone owners than any Apple product. Ever. They LOVE them. We want to make the iPhone even MORE affordable for even more people."
"So we're going to do something about that today. We're on track to ship our 1 millionth iPhone this month -- to get ready for the holidays here's what we're going to do. It's clear customers want the 8GB model -- it's not going to sell for 599 anymore.
"We want to put iPhones in a lot of stockings." But what about the 4GB? Does that mean it's being discontinued?
11:13am - Applause... "A lot of people at Apple have worked on these products. Some are here today, some are watching from our campus in Cupertino. I'd like those folks to stand up..." Wow, this is like half the audience.
11:16am - Her drum machine messes up: "Technology, eh?"
11:19am - KT's performing on stage.
11:21am - KT: "I'm very much looking forward to the 'iLoop pedal'." Waaah. "It's fantastic that Steve Jobs is making it more fun to pay for music than steal it!"
11:22am - Looks like that's it! We're out of here!
You've never had a product go down in price after you bought it?
What a sheltered life you lead.
Not drop by 33% two months after I bought it!!!
WOW just amazing i am going to get the ipod touch. It looks great!
Whiners, it's called the 'bleeding edge' for a reason...early adopters...geesh!
Just be glad iPhone wasn't rendered obselete with a feature that you can't use.
It may be time to buy one...
why would you want more than 16gb on the Touch? You are going to have to charge it everyday with that battery life. Charge it at your computer, everyday meanwhile update your playlist, remove videos you saw, and songs you didnt enjoy. Simple. Or do people really want to carry their 150gb of music with them?
What? No Beetles? He is such a tease!
"Not enough storage. Not enough storage. Damn you Steve. Might as well get an iPhone. May look at Archos now."
I see the Archos marketing team is posting in full force today. Welcome, boys!
Thanks to the Engadget crew for a phenomenal job of keeping us informed to the minute.
MS needs to answer this by making a Zune Marketplace client for Windows Mobile phones (especially now that Urge is out the door).
You whiny little bitches. Don't you realize that this is an EDITORIAL??? It's going to have comments, that's what a freaking editorial is. Why are you even on the Engadget site if you don't like the way Ryan and the others write? F*ing babies, go get the news later today from some boring drab piece of crap website.
Keep it up Ryan!!
I was hoping for Activesync for iPhone, but guess we will have to wait till iPhone version 2.0.
Now that this is over, I'd like to say thanks to Ryan for turning a media event into an editorial.
You want to be considered a reporter? Act like one.
So livid right now. I worked my butt off for the extra $600 to buy the iPhone JUST OVER A MONTH AGO. Now it's down $200
$200 bucks cheaper than the original price!? I love Stevie....he can piss people off and make just as many people happy within the same sentence!!
Sucks to be all you "I have to have the first iPhone dweebs!" I'll go get my cheaper iPhone just so I can say I got it for $200 bucks off!!
Ryan and co. excluded though.
so wait .. The ipod touch is the same price as the iphone??? did they miss something .. i guess you're saving the cost of the service plan but you're also losing some functionality as well and paying the same for the hardware?? ..
comments?
-sun
Dang it. Right before they announced the capacities of the Touch , I was really looking forward to having it. 16GB will NOT cut it for me.
Archos, Here I come. :(
now give them away, engadget!
Wow, STFU...
Admit it, this event was fantastic... you have to reach so far up your ass to find complaints that you're whining about price drops and lack of "innovation".
FACE IT, YOU TAKE RISKS AND YOU ALWAYS ALWAYS PAY HIGHER PRICES BY BEING AN EARLY ADOPTER - that's the cost of being the first on your block with a cool new device.
great!! more than great :D
Now I need to buy the new Touch, The Fatty Nano, and the 160 Classic :D
I don't get it. People *knew* the iPhone would eventually drop in price AND they knew Apple was making a crap load on it. So what's the problem? You must have thought it was worth 600 bucks when you bought it but NOW you're outraged when they lower the price. Give me a break...
"Give me a break?" Price drops are inevitable and expected, but it's an entirely different story when a device gets a HEFTY price drop after only being on the market for 60 days. All the iPhone users who bought theirs at the higher price have a right to be angry. Don't preach from your high horse, getting off at the misfortune of others. You aren't that one that just got shafted.
Actually I have a 8 GB iPhone...so I got the shaft just like everyone else.
The price drop makes a lot of sense when you think that the iTouch is basically the iPhone - it uses the same screen and probably 80% of the rest of the parts are the same. By rolling out the iTouch Apple increases sales on the same hardware, allowing them to reduce consumer cost. Hate to think what would happen though if something went wrong at their supplier - no iAnything for a while.
Shan't we forgert the High Tech mantra: "If You want to live on the edge of high technology, be prepared to bleed...and that includes all the frustrations, short comings, bugs and of course C-A-S-H!! It's the American way. Bigger, better, more for less!
Fuck'in deal with it!
With Apple, price drops are indicative of a new model coming out, so I may wait a bit on my iPhone.
With the WIFI on the iPhone and the Touch, does that mean it can hook up with the Airport Express to play music? No more Laptop to carry around with iTunes on it in order to play the music???
Any one notice that .Mac mail is down, IMAP-wise?
Yup. It is.
Just checked, and it's back up and running now...
How do you know the iphone is going to be £200 in uk? I talke dto a lady in carphone warehouse hQ yesterday and she told me to keep an eye on orange when i asked about the iphone
Who pays your bills Boris because right now I feel like I'm in an exciting marketing strategy meeting for Clear Channel
I feel like I was just robbed, this left me jaw dropped allright. What an asshole!
Here's whats amazing: APPLE is a multi-BILLION dollar company and Archos is what? Not quite sure but its not that high. Archos has more functional products and Apple skimps everywhere. I do realize Archos has to fight harder to make its money but Apple definitely can combine everything into the most kicking product ever and always comes up screwing someone. It's inevitable but sad.
REBATES NOW!!!! I am pretty bitter with Apple right now. Everyone told me to wait and I figure if they did a price drop, it would be 50 bucks or something. $200 is absured! I want my $200 back! Or at least a credit towards an iPod. How bout that?!
How is it THEIR fault that YOU took your money to them, gave it to them, were happy with your iPhone until today?
It's their product, they can price it anyway they want. They owe you nothing.
It's called business. Buyer beware.
there are 32GB and 64GB SSD available in the market... why cant they go for it...? too disappointed with 8GB and 16GB flash based iPod Touch. Guys, wait for few months ,, Steve will release 64GB iPod Touch for $299... Apple shares down by $3.39(as now now)... yeah everybody bit disappointed
F'ing bastard! Lowering the price of the iphone! I wonder if I can still take my back, and get the $200 difference?!?!
I got hosed too, I could have used that $200.
Holy fucking iShit. I'm getting that iPod touch!!!!!!!
16GB????
What good is that??
There is no need for making this thing play videos, I can't even have my music collection on it... Stupid people..
I think i LITERALLY paid the price for being an early adopter. I'm not mad at Apple, and neither should any other schmoe who camped out or called every store in their metropolitan area or drove 600 miles for this device.
We know the risk of consumer electronics and we should've known this price break was going to happen. Does it sting? Yeah, a little in my groin. But i'm going to get over it because I can now make ringtones without having to hack my phone and soon i'll be able to buy music without having to sync up with my computer.
My question is...can we download podcasts as well? I'd love to be able to download and delete podcasts without having to sync up. This is your early adopter speaking...keep the $200...just give me podcast action.
Sure, everybody expected to pay something extra to be the first to have the iPhone. But Apple never drops prices by 33% within two months of launch. Something is seriously wrong. Check Apple's pattern of price reductions and you'll see this is way off the charts. I would have been fine with a $50 drop now, or $100 after a couple more months in time for the holidays, followed by additional drops. This premature drop just makes me feel ripped off.
Just a quick point. If iPod users are using their iPod in Starbucks, surely they'll be listening to their own music so won't hear the music in store.
Starkbucks and Apple is a perfect pairing, though.
I bought the 8GB iPhone on launch day. It kinda sucks that it dropped by $200 so quickly, but oh well. It would be cool if Apple gave us early adopters some credit on the iTunes store, like $50-$100 worth.
Apparently AT&T didn't get the memo from Apple about the immediate $399 iPhone pricing:
$499 (4GB)
$599 (8GB)
Love all the comments from all the people with limited vision. The Starbucks deal is huge, as several people have been keen enough to point out, not because in and of it self, but because of its potential. What if they integrated something like this at your favorite club? (Ministry of Sound, Pacha, Cielo, etc.) Favorite bar? Restaurant? Cafe? It could change how we buy music. But of course all the nearsighted people can't see that and just spew shit and whine. You're same people who thought that the original 1st Gen iPod was shit and doomed to fail.
And people bitching about HDD capacity of the Touch. Jeezus fucking christ, what did you expect? 160GB HDD with a 3.5in multi-touch screen in a thin enclosure that'll get you, what, 2hrs of video and 8 hours of audio? Remember the iPhone WITH NAND flash is rated at 8 hrs of usage.
An people who are like "What good is 16GB!!!?" YEAH, you are so insightful. That's why the iPod nanos have done so poorly on the market.
pause
pause
pause
NOT!!!!!!
Cause if I am at a club or a bar I am really going to want to have my $300+ ipod with me.
I do not think you have quite the grasp on the market that you think you do. The Nano has done so well because it's incredibly small and thin and makes the perfect workout or jogging device. It can go just about anywhere, slip into any pocket, and is completely solid-state so impactive activities won't kill it. That's where the Nano shines, though it's also great with just about everyone else who just wants a smaller capacity device they can slip unobtrusively into a pocket or strap to a sleeve. The Touch is not aimed at that market. It is aimed at the iPod market who want the flash and pizazz of the iPhone without the phone part. It is DESIGNED for video and audio, what with that big touchscreen and all. It is MADE to display gorgeous video and imagery, that is its primary selling point. Everything else -- web browsing and such -- is secondary. So with that in mind, tell me again how 16 gigs is more than anyone would ever need to store all kinds of audio and video for that wonderful display. It isn't. It's ridiculous. 32 gigs, sure, I can see that as the lowest point the bar should be set, but 16? It is quite simply insufficient for what that device is designed to do and the market segment that it is aimed at.
Nobody, by the way, ever said it had to be as thin as it is right now. Absolutely no one is going to complain if they have to make it thicker in order to accommodate a larger battery and a hard drive.
In Italy when we are at bar or clubs whe like having chiks and not iPod close to us...
the ipod touch is nice
but the samsung yp p2 is still competitive for apple