Macworld San Francisco 2004 Keynote Webcast Summary

I am watching the Macworld Keynote live webcast right now, a first for me. Mostly because I was at home waiting for the duct cleaner to come. Was, because he came, but the machine was on the fritz...so he's gone, and I've got a free day, and it is cold as hell outside right now.

Anyhow, Steve Jobs started the keynote with a re-running of the original Macintosh commercial from the 1984 Super Bowl. The theme is obviously the 20th anniversary of the mac. I love the commercial, which Steve calls the "best commercial of all time".

First debut: a new version of Final Cut (did not pay close attention as I don't do video).

Next: Microsoft Office 2004! w00t! New features to Word, Excel, etc. Due to be out this spring.

OK, I'm jealous. I'd love to be there right now. I love these kind of conventions: checking out the stuff in the booths, free cool schwag... I am really going to have to go to one of these.

Steve says 9.3 million OS X users and 10,000 native apps.

This post is getting long, so click to see more.

G5 news:
- First up: talking about the Virginia Tech (my Ph.D. alma mater) G5 supercomputer cluster. The third fastest supercomputer in the world. $5.2MM. Cheapest of the top three. A neat video presentation by the Blacksburg guys. First large scale project using Apple hardware. Ten Teraflops, 1100 boxes, 2200 processors. First academic machine to break the 10 TFlop barrier.

- Next: G5 Xserve. All the bells and whistles. OS X server 10.3 with unlimited client license. Single or double 2.0 GHz G5's.

- New X-serve RAID. Something about "Virtualization Thing-um-a-bobs". Steve's quote, not mine. $3 per GB for storage.

iTunes news:
- 30 Million songs downloaded since April. Almost 1.9 MM songs per week (=100 million per year). 70% market share. "Feels great to get beyond that 5%" to much laughs. Top spender single user = $29,500. OMG.

- eBooks, Gift Certificates. AOL users can purchase through their accounts. iTunes essentials: different compilations to introduce people to different music.

- New Features: Billboard Charts by genre, current and historical. New addition of Classical tracks. Over 500,000 songs total (for purchase and download) on iTunes now. Pepsi and Apple giving away 100million songs startign Feb 1st. 1 in 3 caps wins a free song. Kickoff: SuperBowl Sunday (pun intended).

iLife News:
- iLife '04: "Like Micrsoft Office for the rest of your life, when you are not at work".

- New iTunes in the Box. Seamless connection to other apps.

- iPhoto: better utilization for large numbers of photos. Supports up to 25,000 photos. New organization: time/date based, enhanced slide shows, smart albums. Fast preview. Demo was pretty damn amazing. New and faster effects: better sepia, etc. You can setup a music playlist for long slideshows. New transitions on slideshows. Rendezvous photo sharing.

- iMovie 4: updated. Improved navigation, transitions, titling. Ability to trim clips "in place". iSight importing. Easier to share to a website.

- iDVD4: 20 new themes. Enhanced menus. Enhanced Slideshows. Pro encoding: 2 hours per DVD. Ability to build and archive on one machine, take to another to burn.

- New fifth app. "Garage Band" turn your mac into a musical instrument and recording studio. Digitally mix up to 64 tracks. 50 software instruments with a MIDI keyboard. 1000 pro audio loops (adjustable tempo and pitch). 200 pro audio effects. Vintage and modern guitar amps. Steve brought John Mayer out to help him with this. Piano, bass, choir, organ, guitar... very cool. I can tell that Steve really loves this because he's taking FREAKING FOREVER on this. And I guess you can tell that while I think this is cool, it is not much my thing. However, he had John Mayer lay down a live track with some of the looped stuff to create a neat composition on the fly. Exported it into iTunes, loaded it to his iPod. Apple is amazing me with the integration of their software.

The bottom line on this..how much? $49. Available 1/16. Sign me up. Also free with every new mac. Boy is Kevin going to be cheesed. Also available with be a JamPack plugin and a USB keyboard for Garage Band. $99 each.

OK, have I mentioned how cool this whole webcast thing is? I also am having fun updating this post.

New Commercial for iLife: with Elijah Wood (iPhoto), Tony Hawk (iMovie), Cheryl Crow (Garage Band).

I think this is leading up to the new iPod announcement, if there is going to be one. I checked out the Apple Online Store while this is going on: currently closed for updates. So, no sneak previews. A good idea.

Here it comes:
- Last quarter: 730,000 sold. Over 2,000,000 in two years. An incredible sales curve. Market share for Oct/Nov: 31% units, 55% revenue. Expected even higher when December is included. This is the ENTIRE .mp3 market. Including FlashMemory market.

Updating 10GB to 15GB, no price increase: $299. Starting today.

New in-ear headphones: $39.

He's holding something blue. Talking about high-end flash market...256MB, 60 songs, $199. Actively in use. Leading up to something...

Introducing the new iPod mini: 4GB, 1,000 songs, 0.5 inches thick. $249. Smaller than the regular iPond. Seriously cute. Size of a business card. Same iPod user interface. 4 buttons added to scroll wheel, to save space. Firewire and USB2. Can charge battery on either. Accessories: dock and armband. Shipping in February in the U.S.

It comes in colors, anodized aluminum: silver, gold, blue, pink, and lime green.

Finally concluding: Wow. Pretty amazing stuff. I like the iPod mini, but still really do not need one. For $150, I might've bought one on a whim...but not at $249.

End.