Live from the Steve Jobs Keynote -- "One more thing…"
The thinner all-in-one iMac. Ok, punks, it's the day we've been waiting for: in a few short minutes His Steveness will reveal exactly what it is they have cooking. Engadget bestest buddy Paul Boutin is there at the California Theater in San Jose covering the event for us live. Stay tuned, we'll be rolling shortly.
Act I:
The iMac G5. We sold over a million of them in its first year. What better place to put the computer than right behind the display? Today we're introducing and all new iMac. [It looks extremely similar] Three great new features.
It's even thinner. The 20-inch is now thinner than the 17 used to be.
iSight videocam. The new mac has an iSight built in. The camera has even better specs. Right out of the box videoconferencing without any extra stuff. We wrote a new app called PhotoBooth. [Demo: It has a built in flash - the entire display flashes. There are special effects including "Warhol" and effects that morph your face goofily.]
Front Row. It s a new way to experience the media on your computer. It's an incredible way to enjoy your music, your videos, and your photos … from your sofa. We've done a remote control, Apple style. It's got six buttons. [Demo: He presses remote and a menu for Music / Photo / DVD / Video zooms in. There's a giant iPod-style interface for music. "I can enjoy my music from across the room and see the artwork."
Photos navigates through everything in iPhoto with slide show effects for albums.
?Now, a lot of people watch DVDs in their iMac, and it would be nice to control them from across the room. Now you can.? [Loads DVD of The Incredibles with menu that blurs out the typically unusable menu on the DVD with an iPod-style menu. Movie posters and trailers in HD format streamed from apple.com] This remote control, I just wanted to point something that to me captures what Apple is all about. [Shot of huge button-congested remotes next to the tiny 6-button Apple remote]
Specs: Bluetooth, Superdrive, Mighty Mouse standard. 17-inch $1299. 20-inch $1699. Available today.
Act II:
The iPod. We announced yesterday that we had shipped almost 30 million iPods. Our market share, 75% of all MP3 players shipping. Five weeks ago we introduced the iPod nano. And you know what? We shipped over a million iPod nanos in the first 17 days, and we could not meet demand. But what about the white iPod? It?s been a huge success for us. And therefore, we?re going to replace it. The new white iPod. And yes, it does video.
Specs: Same width and height as current model, but thinner. QVGA (324 x 240) pixel 260,000 color 2.5-inch display. h.264 and MPEG-4 at 30 fps. TV out. 30GB and 60GB models. Same width and height. 30GB is 31% thinner than the curent 20GB model [Making it 0.44-inches thick?say wha?]. 60G is 12% thinner than 20GB. 30G up to 75 hours of video, $299. 60G up to 150 hours video, $399. Shipping in one week.
And, by popular demand, we make it in black. They also come with a nice carrying case, to keep ?em all perfect. [Thin plastic sleeve?aw shucks]
[AD: U2 performing live. Oh wait ? it?s on an iPod! New silhouette ad with Eminem ? it?s not silhouette but a limited color palette. Steve likes the ads so much he runs each one twice. ]
The new iPod will be 30% thinner than the current 20GB iPod (making it 0.44-inches thick?say wha?), and will feature a 60GB version (which should be thinner than the current 0.63-inch thick 20GB iPod), and editions of both in black.
What?s the device named, you ask? The iPod. That?s it, just The iPod. Well spare you the Prince jokes. The iPod will have TV out.
Act III:
iTunes. You know, we have distributed over 200 million copes of iTunes now in the world, and those are only the copies we know about. iTunes in the US has an 84 percent market share for all legally downloaded music. We released iTunes 5 just five weeks ago, but a lot has changed. And so today we?re introducing iTunes 6. We?ve been busy!
Gifting. This has been the most requested feature. You can gift (i.e. buy) iTunes songs for someone else by song, album, or playlist.
Customer reviews.
Just for You. Personalized recommendations. We?re going to be recommending albums and singles based on what you?ve bought before. It?s going to be a beta, we?d like your feedback on it.
Video. If we?re going to be able to play video on the iPod we?re going to need away to buy video. Starting today we have 2,000 music videos for sale.[Shows Madonna catalogue]
What do they cost? $1.99 each. But we didn?t stop there; we?re adding some other videos you can buy. Pixar is putting up six of their award-winning short videos. $1.99 each. We are downloading videos 320 x 240, which is the native resolution of the iPod. They?re about the size of six songs. All songs are governed by FairPlay. You can play them on up to five computers. They?re not rentals. You own them ? they never time out. [Demo of gifting, customer reviews, Just for You, and videos including ?Vogue,? a U2 live exclusive. Demo of watching U2 video using Front Row on an iMac, playing photos and videos from an iPod on a big screen]
One more thing?
We have one more thing today, a pretty big thing. We?re announcing one more thing that you can buy off the iTunes store today, and that is TV shows. What?s the number one show on TV? What?s the second? Lost. And who has these shows? ABC. And who owns ABC? [Disney logo on screen.] I know those guys!
Lost, Desperate Housewives, Night Stalker, That?s So Raven, The Suite Life.
Yes, you can buy current episodes, and you can buy them the day after they are broadcast. They?re ad free so you don?t need to fast forward through the commercials, 320 x 240 again. An hour show is about the size of five albums. Depending on your speed it?s about 10-20 minute to download an episode. What are they going to cost? $1.99 an episode for current season and past seasons. We have free previews on every episode.
Thanks everyone!
Our correspondent Paul Boutin would like to thank Splunk (maker of network indexing software) for giving him the day off.
