Welcome to live coverage of MacWorld Expo San Francisco 2005. Hit Read More below to access the newsfeed (reloading is required on your part to stay up-to-date).
5:45 AM If you see the following picture, I am under it.
Needless to say, the media natives are outraged, self included.
7:20 AM Well, we are sitting here, waiting for the expo to begin, so here’s some live shots of the (empty) room.
9:17 AM Apple re-re-re-confirms Mac OS 10.4 this year. Demoing previously announced features, Spotlight, etc…
9:20 AM – Spotlight is now dynamic, integrate-able to other applications and search results dynamically recompile as files change…
9:23 AM – Steve system’s crashed when he called up a slideshow (using a never-before-seen slideshow tool)… he isn’t happy… clicked a switch and called up a backup system…
9:25 AM The finder now has Smart Folders, a combination of Spotlight and the Finder windows… lets you make folders with search results dynamically updating…
9:26 AM Mail updated, with Spotlight and a new interface, and the same slideshow function that crashed the previous system…
9:30 AM QuickTime 7, “most major upgrade of QuickTime in a decade”, Live Resizing, full surround sound, full HD, MPEG-4 compliance, H.264 support. H.264: Best, really compressed video out there (HD DVD, Blu-ray)
9:31 AM Dashboard (aka Konfabulator ripoff), re-introduced
9:33 AM Steve shows off a lot of widgets Konfabulator had or could support with 15 minutes of coding… but gives Dashboard a widget dock…
9:38 AM iChat 10.4 supports multi-conferencing with up to 4 people with H.264
9:42 AM Mac OS 10.4: “Long Before Longhorn”
9:43 AM Steve proclaims 2005: “Year of HD Video”, introduces Final Cut Express HD… supports iMovie migration…
9:44 AM iLife ’05, “Major Upgrade” to everything but iTunes. iPhoto supports much larger photo databases, increased format support, advanced “you won’t need to leave iPhoto” editing. Multiple album support (finally). iPhoto now supports RAW and including videos into albums.
Dashbard integrated into iPhoto, supports advanced editing abilities. Timing can now be set for each slide.
9:48 AM iPhoto now has straightness controls to straighten pictures off-balance…
9:54 AM iPhoto also supports double-sided printing for book print orders, and advanced layouts and effects.
9:58 AM iMovie includes, non-destructive trimming, MPEG-4, automatic movie creation with Magic iMovie. iMovie is HD.
10:02 AM Steve lets slip his support for Blu-ray.
10:08 AM iDVD, 15 new themes with drop zones, automatic dumping of camcorder-to-DVD, full format (- and + R/RW) DVD burning.
10:13 AM GarageBand now supports up to 8 track recording, real-time music notation, pitch and timing fixing, loops are as flexible as software (MIDI), vocal transformer, personal loop creation
10:16 AM Steve: “We can really screw up music this way”
10:21 AM iLife 2005: $79.99, Ships 1/22
iWorks introduced, replacement to AppleWorks. iWork includes Keynote 2, new themes, animated text, animated builds, presenter displays, Kiosk mode. Full integration in OS X and iLife.
10:23 AM Keynote 2 supports Flash. New word processing app, Pages. Everything MS Word has, plus desktop publishing.
10:31 AM iWork is Keynote + Pages, $79, available 1/22
10:33 AM Mac mini. Cube cut in half. DVI & VGA, half the size of an iPod mini. Was sitting on Steve’s desk the whole time.
BYOKD – Bring your own Display, Keyboard, Mouse
10:35 AM The “no excuses” Switcher mac. $499 for 1.25 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB HD, Combo. $599 for 1.42 GHz G4, 80 HB HD. Available 1/22.
10:37 AM iTunes has sold 230,000,000 songs to date, 1,250,000 songs a day. iTunes has a 70% market share, despite new offerings. Apple has 70% of the global music market covered. Over a million prepaid cards sold since Thanksgiving.
10:39 AM iPod. Apple has sold over 4.5 million iPods for the 2004 Holiday Quarter, compared to 733,000 for the year before. Apple has sold over 10,000,000 iPods. Over 8.2 million were in 2004. Steve has the 10,000,000th iPod.
10:41 AM Apple has announced eight car manufacturers will release iPod adapters in 2005.
10:44 AM Cell Phones. iTunes client. Pictures posted on the newsfeed are correct. Spring 2005 release for first Motorola iTunes phones. No demonstration of production hardware.
10:45 AM One more thing… iPod has increased market share to 65% from 31% a year ago, eating away over half of flash based players thanks to iPod mini.
Mainstream flash player, cannot have tortured user interface, AAA batteries, small display, no click wheel.
iPod shuffle, click wheel with no display. Smaller than “most packs of gum”. Weighs less than an ounce. LED responses. Playlist/Shuffle control by switch. USB2 on the bottom built-in. 12 hour rechargeable battery.
10:52 AM Autofill now with iTunes. Detects usage of music in iTunes and creates playlist based on it.
Two models. 512 MB, 120 songs, $99. 1 GB, 240 songs, $149. Ships today. Accessories to ship within 4 weeks.
