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:

iTV is now AppleTV

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!

The iPhone

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.

• The PvP comic strip has a great take on the iPhone
• And its the text more than the strip at Penny Arcade
• Dave Pogue has an iPhone hands-on experience
• And so do the Gizmodo folks
• Get in line for an iPhone at Cingular

No Longer Apple Computer

Just plain old Apple, Inc. Again, this certainly seems to indicate the name trademark squabble with Apple Records has been resolved.

I’ll See You at Another Show, When There are Just Cats

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.

And New Airport Extreme Base Station!

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:

• Supports super-fast 802.11n wireless standard
• Can operate as a file server by plugging in an external USB hard drive
• THREE hardwired ethernet ports instead of just one
• Parents can limit children’s network access to specified times

$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.

Catch The Steve on Nightline Tonight

Steve Jobs will be interviewed on ABC’s Nightline at 11:35PM tonight. Might be a good way to catch an iPhone demo!

Download the Keynote from the iTunes Store!

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:

• High Quality iTunes Store Keynote Podcast

It only took about a half-hour to download for me, your mileage may vary as more people start grabbing it.