Advertisement

Macworld 2007 Keynote Liveblog

Welcome to the TUAW liveblog for Macworld 2007. Here's where you'll find all our updates, so open a window with this post and keep refreshing as needed. There is no "auto update" on TUAW so unless you refresh (please be gentle!) the page will not change.

11:10 PT. John and Steve hug. No "one more thing"

11:05 PT. What we didn't see. Leopard ship date. iWork. iLife. Core 2 Duo mini. Oct-core pro's. Universal Apps. High Def at the iTunes store. Any computer hardware outside the new iPhone. .Mac updates or revisions. Adobe.

11:00 PT. Steve cheers his employees. Points out the engineers, other employees, and their families. And cheers for them. So dang cool! "And we've got a really special treat today." John Mayer alert. Again. Mayer has 5 Grammy nominations this year. (He takes the stage. Starts playing solo. The song might be "Gravity" but David doesn't recognize it.) Mayer: "Steve Jobs and Apple Inc... just make life more fun. Just the opposite of terrorism." Now playing "Waiting on the World to Change."

10:55 PT. The Mobile Market Steve: "We come from different worlds and yet we have worked wonderfully together. We love these guys." And then Steve's "clicker" dies. And a lot of people backstage start scrambling. And cursing. And someone in the audience shouts: "BINGO!" Steve tells a story about his misspent youth with the Woz to pass the time as technicians see their pink slips dance before their eyes. 26 Million game consoles in 2006. 957 mobile phones in 2006. Goal: 1% of market share = 10 million iPhones in 2008. "Today we've added to the Mac, ipod, Apple TV and iPhone. The Mac is the only one you really think of as a computer". So Apple is going to drop "Computer" from their name. Apple is now "Apple Inc." Because they're all grown up and a real company and it's time to discard that childish "computer" thing anyway. "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been - Wayne Gretsky. This is all presumably part of the deal that they hammered out with Apple Music and the Beatles.

10:50 PT. iPhone Details. "It's a real honor for Cingular to be partnering with Apple today. Cingular became a new part of the AT&T family. Today Cingular and Apple are truly raising the bar. Visual Voicemail was a key technology development during this merging of Cingular, AT&T and partnership with Apple on iPhone. One of the most eagerly awaited wireless products ever." Apple and Cingular have a multi-year exclusive partnership. And AT&T has apparently bought Cingular. This "lets Apple be Apple and Cingular be Cingular. Apple and Cingular are changing the way companies work together."

  • Price: $499 4GB. $599 8GB.

  • Ships June. Intro'd early because the FCC would've intro'd it once they approved the device anyway.

  • 2 Year contract. Cingular. Unique partnership because of advanced technologies (like Visual Voicemail), will be selling both through Apple and Cingular stores

10:45 PT. Price: $499 4GB. $599 8GB. Ships June. (He starts by comparing it to other devices.) iPod: $199. Smartphone $299. iPhone: Video, widescreen, multi-touch, wi-fi, Safari, HTML email, Cover Flow - "we thought long and hard about it..."

10:45 PT. Accessories Accessories will include stereo headphones (like those for the iPod) with a tiny microphone built in, a bluetooth headseat (incredibly small), automatically pairs with the iPHone. Battery: 5 hours talk/video browsing, 16 hours playback of audio. It's all "High Technology--advancing the state of the art." Low power, OS X miniaturization, advance sensors, desktop class applications, widescreen video iPod. "We've been innovating like crazy for the last few years on this," Apple has 200+ patents. The iPhone: "having your life in your pocket"

10:45 PT. Man. Is there going to be any time to even get to iLife 07 and iWork 07? Let alone a ship date for Leopard?

10:40 PT. Returning to the iPhone summary "Internet communicator, iPod and a phone - let's see what you can do in a real-life scenario." He listens to the Red Hot Chili Peppers--he loves those guys--and a phone call comes through. The music freaking. fades. out.. Phil, on the phone, "I was hoping you could send me a picture so I can make it a wallpaper" emailing a pic from iPhoto (on phone, remember) while still on call with Phil. Take THAT Zune. Laurie adds: "I'm trying to sell my Blackberry to the expo crew out here. No takers." Steve finishes his phone call and the music freaking. fades. back. in. The audience goes wild. Steve: "this is what it's like when you put it all together". David: "Anybody want a BlackJack? Good shape, cheap?" Steve: "After today I don't think anyone's going to look at [traditional smartphones] in the same way"

10:35 PT. Yahoo Introduces Jerry Yang, co-founder and Yahoo chief. Jerry: "I would love to have one of these too, what a great device, hopefully partnering with a whole variety of other services from Yahoo!" He talks about putting Yahoo!'s "one search" onto the phone as well, with local news, maps, weather all in one place. It's practically like having a Blackberry without the Enterprise server." Jerry Yang is done and we're back to Steve: "It's great having the two greatest companies on the web, right down the block". I bet he didn't order Lattes for them, though. Just for us Apple weenies.

10:30 PT. Google! "You can't think about the internet without thinking about Google" Dr. Eric Schmidt, Google CEO taking stage. (He is also on Apple's board of directors, FYI.) He jokes about "AppleGoo" and the partnership between the companies. Apple and Google apparently have similar cultures, and he's not talking about yogurt. "Steve showed a little bit of some of the components and things you can do... it comes together seamlessly... this is the first of a whole new generation..." He congratulates Steve on the iPhone. "This product is going to be hot." Steve: "As a board member you'll get one of the first ones"

10:30 PT. Summarizing the iPhone features and abilities.

10:30 PT. David: "All the guys around me in the audience are saying: 'Quick! Buy stock!'"

10:25 PT. Widget overview. Demo. Stock Widget. He shows the AAPL stock quote, which the audience responded to with a big cheer. (AAPL up 2.40). Now showing the Weather Widget, with multiple locations. And Google Maps "Something truly remarkable: Google Maps on iPhone." Great UI with extra animation effects. Boom! Shows Moscone Center in Google Maps. Searches for Starbucks, and calls them right from the Google Maps app. "Yes, I'd like to order 4000 lattes to go please." *hee*!!! (Hey? Where's my Latte? Don't we get some quality Caffeine here in the TUAW trenches?) Satellite images in Google Maps. Zooms in on Washington Monument because... Okay. We're just not going to go there on a family blog. But the geeks are very impressed. "All these amazing things, this is a breakthrough"

10:20 PT. Boom. "Now Im' going to show you something incredible". He's loading New York Times site, and the entire site loads not some wimpy WinCE mobile version. He switches to landscape on the fly. Uses the "pinch" gesture with his fingers to zoom in and read stuff. User Interface experts everywhere just give up, sigh, and fall into a happy faint. Also: Tabbed browsing. He pops over to Amazon.com. "I like it when Disney DVDs are on top." Returns to the New York Times site with some slick page thumbnail function. Nifty.

10:20 PT. Email Split view for e-mail with a list of messages above and the preview below. The split view is optional. Otherwise it's a full message list. He demos composing an e-mail.

10:15 PT. iPhone ability summary... "Now let's take a look at an internet communications device We've got some real break-throughs here". Rich HTML eMail. Any IMAP or POP e-mail service. Safari web browser on the phone. GOOGLE MAPS!!!! WiFi + EDGE networking will autodetect Wifi. He lists some popular e-mail services like Yahoo Mail "biggest mail service in the world with a quarter-billion users." There will be free Yahoo!push IMAP email to iPhone customers. Boom. He demos rich text e-mail with inline photos.

10:15 PT. App #3: Photos Steve swipes through full-screen pictures just like scrolling and swaps between normal and landscape modes. Steve then takes his fingers and "pinches" on the screen to scroll into and out of pics. The audience goes wild. He also sets pics as his wallpaper with a clock overlay. WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0. Woot!!!

10:15 PT. Voicemail demo UI displays voicemails in a list. "Now I want to show you SMS texting." Multiple sessions, on-screen qwerty keyboard, and the message UI looks like iChat.

10:10 PT. Conference calling. He calls Phil. Merges call to unite John and Phil calls. Puts Phil on "private" and continues speaking to "Jonny". Now demoing dialing the phone with the touch keypad.

10:05 PT. Revolutionizing Voice Mail. Visual voicemail. Quad-band GSM+EDGE phone. Caller ID. Ringtones. "I want to show you the Phone app, photos, a calendar and SMS messaging"..."Push the phone icon...and BOOM!" He calls Jonathan Ive, OBE, "Jonny". Ive-fangirls around the world squee. The first public call has been made on iPhone.

10:00 PT. Demo. Steve plays a TV show on his phone. (Erica adds: Please let there be 3GPP connection to download to the phone. Please please please please.) iTunes 7-like controls when in a video. Now demo'ing Pirates of the Carribean. Just double-tap the phone to switch between widescreen and 4:3 format. Cingular is appearing on the phone. In a demo to internal Apple employees, one quipped: "You had me at scrolling." Of course, the Killer app is making calls, right?

10:00 PT. Audience loves it. Ooooooooh.

10:00 PT. Coverflow. Coverflow kicks in automatically. Steve refers to his phone as his "unit". There is no talk about "squirting music." And the iPhone is not brown.

10:00 PT. David: "It is hard, honestly, to explain how awesome this is." We love you, David!

9:55 PT. Phone Demo Going on now. "Use your finger to unlock the phone via 'gestures'". "Boom." (*hee*) He slides his finger across the bottom of the display to unlock--something that won't happen by accident in your pocket. The Home screen has square apps icons. Uses core annimation, as things lide on and off screen. You can wave orscroll your finger across display to scroll through artists in iTunes. BEATLES!!!!

9:50 PT. iTunes 8? And continuing: DESIGN: 3.5" screen. 160 ppi screen. One button on the front. "Home". Really thin, thinner than any smart phone. 11.6mm. Ring/silent and volume controls on the side. 2MP camera on the back. Top has a 3.5mm headseat jack, SIM card for GSM, extra speakers on bottom with a BUILT-IN MIC (I am so glad I haven't bought that mic yet), lots of "stuff you can't see", a proximity sensor built into the phone, when taking phone call it turns off the display and touch sensor, ambient light sensor to save power, accelerometer, to sense when you switch from portrait to landscape and... (NERDGASM!)...you can "touch your music." (I'm not sure if this causes blindness.)

9:50 PT. Ahead of the rest. The iPhone is 5 years ahead of anything else. It syncs with iTunes just like the iPod, including all iTunes media and a *lot* of data including notes, bookmarks, email accounts, movies, photos, audio books and calendars.

9:50 PT. Manditory Alan Kay quote "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware." - Alan Kay

9:50 PT. Epiphany. A chorus of angels starts singing as OS X rises to the...no wait. Back to the liveblog. "OS X has everything we need. It has desktop class applications and networking and it's all in the iPhone."

9:45 PT. Steve disses PDA styluses. (Styli?) (Stylae?) Multi-touch technology "works like magic". (Laurie notes: "I have a draw full of styluses.") It ignores unintended touches, multi-finger gestures and has patents. Or something like that. I think I jumbled things there a little bit. It is built on top of revolutionary interface with software that calls current mobile phones "baby software" and then mocks them. Yes, the iPhone runs OS X, children!!! W00t!

9:45 PT. Steve continues: "These phones all have keyboards that are there whether you need them or not. And they have buttons and controls that can't change if you want to add an idea to the product six months down the road." i.e. Touchscreen, kiddies.

9:40 PT. And they're calling it? The iPhone. Yes! Most advanced phones are called "Smart Phones" but they're not so smart, and not so easy to use. We leapfrog with a product that is way smarter and way easier to use with a revolutionary UI with years of research and development behind it. (David adds: "Man! Ryan of Engadget really hit this right on the head.")

9:40 PT. And they're all in ONE "We reinvent the phone". (Then shows the pun of the iPod with the rotary dial.)

9:40 PT. #3: "Breakthrough Internet Communicator"

9:40 PT. #2: iPhone

9:40 PT. #1: Widescreen Video iPod. With touch controls.

9:40 PT. THE NEXT BIG THING. "This is a day I've been looking forward to for 2.5 years new "revolutionary" product that "changes everything". The iCoaster. (Just kidding.) In 1984 there was the Mac. In 2001, the iPod. Today: 3 new products!

9:40 PT. Apple TV Price $299. I want one. Ships February. Taking orders today. "Enjoy your media on your big-screen TV."

9:40 PT. Phil Schiller, THE Apple Marketing VP aka Mr #2 of Apple, is brought on stage for a demo of Apple TV's ability to stream from more than one source. Right now, they're loading "Phil's MacBook".

9:35 PT. John Mayer alert. Steve is demoing photos and music, showing the Front Row capabilities of Apple TV. And now live iPhoto streaming. Excellent!

9:35 PT. Apple TV demo Now demoing Heroes. I love Heroes. Don't you?

9:30 PT. Apple TV demo Steve demos pulling trailers down from Apple.com, right to the Apple TV. The Zoolander demo is a big hit with the audience. But then again, they've been all standing outside in the cold since 2AM.

9:30 PT. Steve goes "Boom." (*hee*)

9:25 PT. 720 progressive HDTV. 40 GB HD confirmed. B, G & N! (That is to say, 802.11a/b/g/n.) How sweet to be right! Can stream from up to 5 machines and sync to 1 machine including your iTunes library. Both Mac and PC. Can "Autosync", i.e. take the 10 most recent unwatched vids and send them to the TV. UI is similar to an updated Front Row.

9:25 PT. iTunes + Mac + iPod + Apple TV = Power, USB, ethernet connections, built-in WiFi, HMDI, Component video, Audio and Optical. Woot!

9:25 PT. Erica runs out to restock on exclamation points.

9:25 PT. iTV!!!!!! AKA "Apple TV". Steve says he'll probably slip up and call it iTV several times today. Whatever. We love you Steve. iTV!!!!!!!

9:25 PT. A second ad It's the same song and dancers from the first ad, but different animation. It's more grungy, still using silhouettes. Kind of like the Eminem ad.

9:20 PT. The Zune. "So how did the Zune do this season?" (This is Erica pointing out that Gates claimed that the Zune was #2 in his CES keynote.) iPod had 62% of the market coming into the holidays. (They show a new iPod ad. The Silhouettes are colored and the background is black, kind of the inverse of the normal iPod ad.)

9:20 PT. New Movie Partner. Paramount is confirmed with titles like Patriot Games, Italian Job, Red October, Lemony Snicket and so forth, with 250 movies on iTunes over the next week.

9:20 PT. iPod update. David: "iPod is world's best mp3 player and most popular video player". 2.0B songs sold on iTunes. That's 5 million songs a day and 58 songs every second. iTunes is selling more music than Amazon, and has sold 50 million TV shows.

9:15 PT. Mac and Vista. David: "Keeping an eye out for Jim Allchin, Microsoft. Showing a new Get a Mac ad for Vista". PC is in hospital skivies. Audience loved the ad.

9:15 PT. David: They're herding people into the keynote and it's standing room only now; I think they're about to start asking us to sit on laps.

9:15 PT. Intel transition and thanking developers. David: "Switch to Intel in 7 months instead of 12, most successful transition in Apple history." Steve is profusely thanking Intel for help with the transition. Another thank you to 3rd-party devs. Retail: selling over 1/2 their macs to people who have never owned one before in all US channels, over 1/2 to new Mac owners.

9:15 PT. David: I got in line at 4:30 AM and we're back in the last 1/4 of the room - this venue seats 3000. Keynote is starting. Mr. Jobs has taken the stage. "We're going to make some history together today."

9:10 PT. Laurie: I am in the Expo hall, standing right in front of the big black curtain that surrounds Apple's booth..

9:10 PT. David: A live pic of everyone waiting to get into the keynote.

9:00 PT. Showtime. Scott: Scott sends me a live picture from the press room. Here's Dan Lurie, looking super excited to be in San Francisco.

8:50 PT. David: "We're conjecturing something might have gone wrong during rehearsal; it's 15-to and they stll haven't seated most of the thousands of us that are in here. Interpret that as you will."

8:45 PT. David: "Nevermind a phone or iLife: I'm most looking forward to: sitting down. A seat! Tha's my biggest request after standing in line for 4 hours."

8:40 PT. Scott reports: I'm chatting with Scott who tells me that he's made it to the press room and is ready to start blogging.

8:40 PT. David reports: "We're still herded downstairs. They don't seat us for a little bit yet."

8:40 PT. Belgium Store down. They're dropping like flies, all around the world. Keynote is in the air.

8:30 PT. Dan reports. Just chatted with Dan who tells me that it's all very quiet in the official press room, which is still mostly empty as the majority of reporters have yet to show up. Nothing much to report from the Press front.

8:25 PT. The Apple Store is down. "We are busy updating the store for you and will be back shortly." US and UK stores confirmed down. Thanks Jose C and everyone else who let us know.

8:15 PT. David reports. "Believe it or not, there are still people coming into the hall. It's amazing. There's a crowd of people here and we're pretty much all standing around making friends. They won't let us into the keynote until about 20 to the hour. The general mood is that people are excited. We're happy to be here. We're hopped up on caffeine because we didn't get any sleep last night and we're busy poking fun at Apple because Steve Jobs was wearing Nike shoes at the last announcement. More later as things happen."