macworld expo

Apple Introduces the iPhone and Apple TV at Macworld Conference and Expo
by www.iPodNanoShuffle.com

January 10, 2007 - It all began at the Moscone Center in San Francisco with a recording of James Brown singing, "I Feel Good." The lights dimmed and Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage. Everyone in the crowd was anxious to hear what he had to say, shown by the loud applause. Many have been predicting what will take place. Announcements made during the keynote address by Steve Jobs included a movie deal with Paramount, the Apple TV, and the iPhone.

Steve Jobs opened by saying, "Thank you for coming. We're going to make some history today. It was just a year ago that I announced we were going to switch to Intel processors," said Jobs. "I said we'd do it in the coming 12 months. We did it in seven months. It's been the smoothest and most successful transition that we have seen in our industry."

Jobs noted that half of all Macs in the United States are now being sold to people who are first time Mac users.

"2007 is going to be a great year for the Mac, but this is all we're going to talk about the Mac today," he added.

And now to the good stuff! Everyone knows that the iPod is the world's most popular music player, and, of course, the iPod nano is the world's most popular MP3 player. Jobs said that Apple has sold more than 2 billion songs on its iTunes Store to date.

The iTunes Store and movies
"There was an article recently that said iTunes sales have slowed dramatically. I don't know what date they're looking at," said Jobs. "What we see is iTunes sales were really up this year. We doubled the number of songs we sold in 2006. We are selling over 5 million songs a day. Isn't that unbelievable? 58 songs every second."

According to Jobs, the iTunes Store has sold 50 million TV shows. The service has sold 1.3 million movies within four months. "Which I think has exceeded all of our expectations," he added.

A big reveal! Apple has made a deal with Paramount. "We're thrilled because they have some awesome movies: Tomb Raider, Patriot Games, Star Trek, Red October, School of Rock," Jobs said. He said that 250 movies are now offered on iTunes. "We're getting them up as fast as we can in the next week or so," Job said. "We hope to add more movies as other studious throw in with us in 2007."

Apple TV
The product first revealed as iTv in September, 2006, will be called Apple TV. Jobs said that the Apple TV wireless connects your digital media to your widescreen TV. The Apple TV includes power, USB 2.0, Ethernet, built-in Wi-Fi, HDMI, component video, audio and optical audio ports on its back. The Apple TV is capable of displaying 720p HD video, and incorporates its own 40GB hard drive, capable of storing up to 50 hours of video, said Jobs. He also said that the Apple TV uses the new 802.11n draft standard. "And it has an Intel processor in it, so it's got processing horsepower to do the kinds of UI we like to do," Jobs added.

"Just like you can set up an iPod, you can set up an Apple TV," Jobs explained. Working directly from iTunes, the Apple TV auto-syncs content from one computer and can stream content from up to five computers. Users can watch steamed content live via the network. Nothing is stored on their drive.

"When it's playing a song, the album art appears and there's an iTunes-like interface. Every ten seconds or so it flips the positions so it doesn't burn in your LCD TV," he said, commenting on the ability to use the Apple TV for digital images and music.

Jobs said that starting today, Apple is taking orders for the Apple TV priced at $299. Shipping will begin in February, 2007.

The iPhone
"This is a day I've been looking forward to for two and a half years," said Jobs. "Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything." In 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh. In 2001, Apple introduced the iPod. "Well, today, we're introducing three revolutionary products of this class," said Jobs. "The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. The third is a breakthrough Internet communications device."

"These are not three separate devices," said Jobs. "This is one device. And we are calling it iPhone. Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone."

Jobs explained that smartphones provide phone and e-mail and what he called "the baby Internet. They're not so smart and not so easy to use." "We don't want to do these," he said. "We want to do a leapfrog product that's way smarter than these phones and much easier to use. So we're going to reinvent the phone."

The iPhone uses new technology called "Multitouch" instead of a keyboard or a stylus. "We're going to use the best pointing device in our world," said Jobs. "We're born with 10 of them, our fingers." According to Jobs, Multitouch is far more accurate than any touch display, ignoring unintended touches and supporting multi-fingers gesture. "And boy, have we patented it," he added.

"We start with a solid foundation," explained Jobs, iPhone running Mac OS X on the iPhone. "Why would we run such a sophisticated operating system on a mobile device? It's got everything we need," he said. "It's got multitasking, networking, power management, awesome security and the right apps. It's got all the stuff we want. And it's built right in to iPhone. And has let us create desktop-class applications and networking." iPhone synchronizes media, contact information, calendars, photos, notes, bookmarks, and e-mail accounts through iTunes. "All that stuff can be moved over the iPhone completely automatically," said Jobs.

The iPhone features a 3.5-inch, 160 dot-per-inch color screen at a remarkable 11.6 millimeters thick, or should we say thin, thinner than any smartphone out there, according to Jobs. There is a small "Home" button on it. Then, on one side, the iPhone sports a ring/silent switch, volume up and down controls. On its silver back side is a 2 megapixel digital camera. The bottom features a speaker, microphone, and iPod dock connector.

A proximity sensor automatically deactivates the screen and turns off the touch sensor when you raise the device to your face. Brightness levels will be adjusted by an ambient light sensor. The accelerometer can tell when you switch from portrait to landscape mode.

"We want to reinvent the phone," Jobs restated. "What's the killer app? The killer app is making calls! It's amazing how hard it is to make calls on phones. We want you to use contacts like never before." The iPhone is able to synchronize contacts from a PC or Mac. "Visual Voicemail" was described as "random access voicemail" that allows you to navigate directly to the voice messages that you are interested in.

iPhone is a quad-band phone that operated on GSM and EDGE networks, integrating Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity, automatically switching from a cell phone data network to Wi-Fi when it gets in range. The iPhone includes a text messaging interface similar to iChat, with the user dialogue being encased in bubbles and a touch keyboard below. The iPhone's photo management software allows you to use a "pinching" motion to zoom in and out of pictures.

Apple has included its Safari Web browser, Jobs calling it the "first fully usable HTML browser on a phone." The same  "Internet connectivity includes HTML-capable e-mail that works with any IMAP or POP-based e-mail service. The same "pinching" motion zoom in and out of images on Web pages viewed with Safari.

"When you get a message, it'll push it right out to the phone for you," Jobs said, when Yahoo is used with its free "push" e-mail capabilities using IMAP to all Yahoo! Mail users. Dashboard widgets are supported on the iPhone, starting with weather and stocks. "This a breakthrough Internet communicator," said Jobs. "It's the Internet in your pocket."

Accessories for the iPhone that were introduced include stereo headphones that include a microphone and switch and a Bluetooth headset. The battery lasts for five hours of talk time, video or Web page browsing, or 16 hours of audio playback.

"So what should we price it at?" Jobs pondered. $499 with a two year contract will get you a 4GB model, and $599 for an 8GB model. Unfortunately, it will be released in the United States in June. Jobs said Apple anticipates bringing the iPhone to Europe in the fourth calendar quarter of 2007, and Asia in 2008.

Cingular has been chosen to be Apple's exclusive service partner. "They are the best and most popular network in the country," said Jobs, adding that Cingular worked with Apple to develop the Visual Voicemail technology, which required the development of technology both for the phone and network.

Apple Inc.
"The Mac, iPod, Apple TV and iPhone. Only one of those is a computer. So we're changing the name," said Jobs. "We're announcing today that we're dropping the 'Computer' from our name, and from this day forward we're going to be known as Apple Inc."

"The iPod changed everything in 2001," he said, "and we're going to do it again with the iPhone in 2007." Jobs then asked the Apple employees to stand up and the audience to applaud for "these folks who worked on these products." "Thank the families," he added. "They haven't seen a lot of us, especially in the last six months."

Singer John Mayer closed the proceedings playing his hit songs "Gravity" and "Waiting On the World to Change." "Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. just make life more fun," said Mayer in between songs. "It's the exact opposite of terrorism." At the end, Jobs thanked everyone for attending and added, "We'll see you all soon."

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