7:30pm – 10pm
Apple’s diminutive little iPod, the shuffle, is now available in colors other than your basic brushed aluminum. There aren’t any official names but taking a cue from the past let’s go with: strawberry, lime, blueberry and tangerine. And at least at the moment engraving is free.
Hmmm, seems to me I’ve heard something like this before. Anyone for a flower power or dalmatian iPod?
Thanks to our President Mike Bloom for discovering this article on the Technically True blog:
a pretty good summary of what’s known about the Apple versus Cisco “iPhone” trademark issue.
Lest you think it was written by an Apple fan-boy check out his previous posts including Dumb Product Of The Day: Apple iPhone featuring section titles: “Phone + Music = Sales Disaster”, “Truly Bad Investment For Apple” and “This Is Reality, People, Not Flame Bait”. I’m not terribly impressed with his arguments, much of it seems to echo criticisms of the original iPod when it was released, but at least it feels like honest opinion rather than just an attempt to drive up site traffic. And there is one point where we agree:
Note: If you are reading this and don’t comprehend the angst I speak of most people feel regarding using an earpiece with a cellphone, you are likely just among the nerdly few who see no issue with the idea. Believe me, the rest of us really do laugh at you when you walk by us in the mall with that gawky Bluetooth earplug sticking out of the side of your head. Really.
Presumably this issue will play itself out in a protracted court battle no matter what the facts may be. Worth a read anyway.
Judy will give us a demonstration of iWeb, the web site editing component of iLife 06.
The Internet is calling. Answer. Use iWeb to create websites and blogs — complete with podcasts, photos, and movies — and get them online, fast. Just drag, drop, and design using your choice of web templates, then publish live to your .Mac account.
Presentation topics may change so be sure to verify on the day of the meeting. Got questions you’d like to have answered? Feel free to post them here as comments before the meeting so the presenters have a chance to prepare.
OK, I’m not even going to bother trying to do real justice to today’s announcements in a post, there’s just too much to cover (there is a nice blow-by-blow recap at this page on Engadget.) Watch the keynote whenever Apple posts it (look for 2007 MacWorld San Francisco) and in the meantime here is a micro-capsule summary with links:
The iTV now AppleTV product is pretty much what was announced previously except more polished and possibly the mention of an internal 40GB hard drive and confirmed support for 802.11n, the next generation super-fast wireless local networks. $299, can order now but ships in February.
The use of “Apple”in the name would appear to indicate that they’ve resolved their trademark issues with Apple Records. Previously the word “Apple” could not be used in Apple Computer’s entertainment products thus we got “iTunes Store”. Maybe that means we’ll soon be seeing the entire Beatles catalog on iTunes?
And Paramount movies will be added to the iTunes Store.
Oh, and the Tech Specs page at Apple lists iTunes 7.1 or later as a requirement. And the current version is 7.0.2. So expect a major iTunes update between now and next month when the AppleTV ships!
Yes, the iPhone is real and it does run Mac OS X! Beautiful multi-touch interface, cell phone, iPod, Internet access, email, totally integrated, ahh forget it there’s just too much. Prices: 4GB model – $499, 8GB model – $599, available in June. This is Apple’s answer to the question “what comes after the iPod?” and it looks amazing. Watch the keynote or check Apple’s site.
Just plain old Apple, Inc. Again, this certainly seems to indicate the name trademark squabble with Apple Records has been resolved.
Surprisingly missing was any mention of Mac OS X 10.5 a.k.a. “Leopard”, also no mention of iLife 07 or iWork 07. I guess in retrospect it shouldn’t be a surprise since Apple tends to not dilute its presentations with too many major announcements and there’s no way they’d want to steal any thunder from the iPhone.
The iLife 07 and iWork 07 updates have been unofficially confirmed by a slip at Amazon (they supposedly posted placeholders for both products by accident.) Worst case we’ll have to wait until the next WWDC in July but March 24th will be the sixth anniversary of the release of Mac OS X 10.0 so I’m betting we’ll hear more before then.
This didn’t even get a mention in the keynote but Apple has also introduced a new design for their Airport Extreme base station. Now a flat rectangle instead of a gumdrop, it appears the new features include:
$179, ships in February.
Note that the 802.11n support is required by your computers as well. The new Airport will include “802.11n enablers” for some recent vintage Intel based Macs. It has previously been reported that the latest Intel Core 2 Duo based machines include chips that will support this standard so “enabler” support may be limited to those.
Steve Jobs will be interviewed on ABC’s Nightline at 11:35PM tonight. Might be a good way to catch an iPhone demo!
Apple has added a podcast with a high quality version of the MacWorld SF ‘07 keynote to the iTunes Store! At over a gigabyte its a much higher quality version than the Quicktime streaming version. Its free and I suspect DRM-free though I haven’t checked that yet. This link will launch iTunes and open the podcast:
It only took about a half-hour to download for me, your mileage may vary as more people start grabbing it.
“Welcome to 2007.”
That’s what you see right now above an image of an apple flavored sunrise (or is it an eclipse?) when you visit Apple’s home page. Simply a positive sentiment for the new year or a hint that Big Things are coming?
Will we see the “real” iPhone cell phone? How about the iTooth dentally implantable music player? Or the iAye laptop for reclusive Madagascarian Lemurs? Credulous rumor site readers want to know!!
Unfortunately we’ll have to wait until next week’s MacWorld San Francisco keynote to find out.
The show runs from January 9th – 12th with Steve Jobs’ keynote speech scheduled for Tuesday the 9th, at 12:00 Noon East Coast time. No word yet on live feeds but if nothing else there should be liver coverage by various Apple news sites.
Forget the social, welcome to the future.
UPDATE: UneasySilence has a page listing all the other sites that intent to provide live (blogging) coverage of Tuesday’s (1/9/07, 12:00PM EST) MacWorld keynote. Apple hasn’t announced a live video feed so this will probably be the only way to learn about the announcements as they happen.
FURTHER UPDATE: At some point after the keynote, anywhere from a few hours to the next day, you should be able to watch it via streaming QuickTime&tm; feed posted on this page:
Again, it won’t be streamed live but Apple generally posts the recorded video fairly quickly after the actual event.
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: The best sites to view a live blog of the keynote seems to be http://www.macrumorslive.com/ and http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/live-from-macworld-2007-steve-jobs-keynote/, they even include “live” photos!