[Macworld 2008] Official Thread

3 words. IT'S NOT VISTA.

 

Here is the latest...from Engadget @ Macworld

iphone stuff:

9:31am - "I can create up to 9 home screens, and I can move between them with the flick of my finger. So how do we do some of this stuff? Let's take maps... how do we do that? Well, we're working with two companies. Google, and Skyhook wireless -- we've driven the US and Canada and mapped WiFi hotspots, they have 23m hotspots in their database."

9:30am - I want to customize my home screen -- I can touch any icon for a couple seconds, and they start to shake!" Chuckles. "They start to get restless!" Icons move around, new pages, dots on the bottom just like the Summerboard hack.

9:29am - The list shows an icon to the group -- "It's pretty nice. So that's sending SMSs to multiple people. Webclips! I'm gonna go to Google because they have really cool apps that work with the iPhone -- now I have a plus button and I can just push this and I can just hit add to home screen."

9:28am - "We love working with Google. So... I want to SMS more than one person at once!" Let's bring up a new message here. I want to send it to Phil and Scott, maybe Tim..." they're all coming up, just like an email to multiple people. Friggin finally. Still no sign of MMS, though.

9:26am - Maps demo now -- page curls up, search and directions buttons now -- if you've seen the 1.1.3 demo vids, this is exactly it. "Schoom. And there we are." as it locates Steve in the Moscone. "I can flip right into directions, and it uses my current location to start..." calcing the route back to Apple HQ.

 

more iphone and ipod touch. itunes movie rentals...

9:38am - "We've never offered a rental model in music because we don't think people don't want to rent music. But your favorite movie -- most of us watch once, and renting is a great way to do it. It's a great way to do it. We've got participation of great studios. Touchstone, MGM, Miramax,... and these six too. Lions Gate, Fox, WB, Walt Disney, Paramount, Universal, Sony..." Everyone! Huge applause

9:37am - "And we've sold 7m movies, again, more than everyone else put together. But it didn't meet our expectations, I have to tell you. We think there's a better way to deliver movie content through iTunes. So today, we're introducing iTunes Movie Rentals."

9:36am - "Ok, number three. This is a good one, too. Number three is about iTunes."

"I'm really pleased to report that last week we sold our 4 billionth song. 4 billion songs. On Christmas day we set a new record -- 20m songs in one day. Isn't that amazing? That's our new one day record. We've also sold 125m TV shows -- that's WAY more than everyone else put together."

9:35am - "All the same stuff we just heard about on the iPhone -- on the iPod touch. Starting today we're going to build it into every new iPod touch, for existing iPod touch users it's going to be just a $20 upgrade." EXCUSE me?! You have to PAY for this? This is SO weak.

"iPod touch, and the iPhone -- major software updates. And that's the second thing I want to talk about." Big applause.

9:34am - "The iPhone isn't standing still, we keep making it better and better. That's the iPhone. But what about hte iPod touch. What can we do for the touch? We decided to add five apps to the touch. Mail, maps, stocks, notes, and weather!" [About freaking time! - Peter]

9:33am - "They pick up beacons, triangulate the beacons, and tell you where you are -- and Google is doing the same thing triangulating cell towers -- we're using both of them, and it works pretty doggone well. We have this new add to home screen button... add our apps right to the home screen."

Demoing lyrics, chapters, languages, all the new multimedia features on the iPhone. "All of this is vailable today as a free software update for every iPhone." Big applause. v1.1.3!

 

itunes movies and APPLE TV TAKE 2

9:39am - "We're gonna have all the great first run films -- REALLY, really great films. I'm sure you saw a lot of these in the theater. We've also got great library titles, Red October, Matrix... lots of library titles, all the great new ones from this last year..."

"What's it going to cost? To rent a library title will cost $2.99 -- new release? $3.99" Big applause.

9:40am - "Now, so what's the deal? We're gonna launch with 1k films by the end of February -- 30 days after DVD release. Watch anywhere, PCs, Macs, iPods, iPhone..."

9:42am - "Here's how it works -- I'm on iTunes, looking at a movie I want to rent, I hit rent movie, and it adds to my rented movies category in my iTunes library...." Sorry for the technical difficulties everyone! We're at 10x the traffic of our last keynote, but things are coming back online.

9:41am - "Watch instantly! In less than 30s..." it streams. "The rules -- you have 30 days to start watching it, and once you start you have 24 hours to watch and finish it. As many times as you want. You can transfer films to another device in the middle -- transfer to your iPod and watch the rest on the iPod on your flight."

9:43am - "It launches today! Free software update for iTunes, iPods, iPhones to support rentals. Rolling it out in the US today, we're dying to get this out internationally. But what about this? What about the flat screen TV? I'd like to watch the movies there too."

"We learned what people wanted was about movies. Movies. Movies. We weren't delivering that -- we're back with Apple TV Take 2 -- It still syncs to your computer, but no computer is required

9:48am - Star Trek! I love the old Star Trek movies..." Chuckles. Blades of Glory: "Fun movie -- I can read about the movie, see the actors, directors..." shows recommendations based on what others have viewed.

9:47am - "All these features and an entirely new UI." Demo time! "This is the new UI -- one menu, it couldn't be simpler. Let's go into movies..." Man, this is a sexy interface, no doubt.

9:46am - "And, of course, play iTunes content. So all of this stuff on the new Apple TV. Let me focus on the HD movies for a minute... the library titles are $2.99 and $3.99 -- for just a dollar more rent them in HD, $3.99 and $4.99 -- there are over 100 titles available today.

9:45am - Here's what you can do with Apple TV: rent movies directly on widescreen TV with Apple TV. Rent them in DVD quality, rent them in HD with 5.1" HUGE applause! Screaming.

"Dolby 5.1 surround. The quality is unbelievable. You can also view audio and video podcasts right on ATV, choose from 125k podcasts and see them right on your widescreen. Get photos from your computer... get them also right over the internet from Flickr and .mac." Flickr support, good gawd yall.

"And, of course, YouTube -- we've expanded the selection. There's now over 50m videos from YT, This has worked out so great, our customers love this. Buy TV shows and music right from your TV. And if you're using a computer it'll sync BACK to your computer."

9:44am - "I'd like to say all of us have tried. We have, MSFT, Amazon, TiVo, VuDu, Netflix, Blockbuster -- we've all tried to figure out how to get movies over the net onto the TV. We've ALL missed. No one's succeeded yet. We tried with Apple TV -- it was designed to be an accessory for iTunes and your computer. But that's not what people wanted."