9:14 a.m. James Brown’s “I feel good” wraps up and Jobs takes the stage, to huge applause, declaring, “We’re gonna make history today.” He’s talking now about the “heart transplant” with Intel processors.
9:18 a.m. He’s almost uncharacteristically spreading credit around for the seven-month turnaround to Intel, thanking Intel, third party developers “and our users.”
Half of all Macs are now selling to people who never owned a Mac before, he said.
Big laugh line: “Here’s one who might be buying one soon,” with a photo of Microsoft exec Jim Allchin, who said he’d buy a Mac if he wasn’t working for Microsoft.
9:20 a.m. Jobs starts talking music, bragging about iPods and iTunes. “We have crossed a major milestone,” he said. “We have sold over 2 billion songs on iTunes.”
“We are selling 5 million songs a day.”
“We sell more music than Amazon.”
9:23 a.m. Video is obviously a tougher sell than audio, as proven by some of Jobs’ stats. A hint — they’re not measuring in billions.
“We have sold 50 million TV shows. In first three months of selling movies, sold 1.3 million movies. I think that is amazing.”
“Today we have a new partner to announce — that is Paramount,” he said to applause.
“We are going to be moving up from the 100 movies we offer so far to 250 movies, getting up as fast as we can over the next week or so.”
The keynote liveblog continues after the jump…
9:29 a.m. What was announced with the code name iTV in September Jobs now unveils as AppleTV.
It’s got Wi-Fi, up to 720p high-def video, 40 GB hard drive, and — big applause — runs on all standards. Has an Intel chip inside, can auto-sync with one computer and stream from five computers.
9:40 a.m. Jobs brings out his neighbor Phil, who syncs his Macbook to AppleTV Live and shows a hilarious clip of Alec Baldwin and Heather Graham in “30 Rock.”
“We think this is pretty cool — AppleTV,” Jobs says.
It’ll cost $299, and “we’ll be shipping them in February and taking orders starting today.”
“Enjoy your media on your big screen TV. We think this is going to be pretty special.”
9:45 a.m. “This the day I’ve been waiting for 2 1/2 years,” he says, citing Apple’s world-changing Macintosh computer from 1984 and the iPod from 2001.
He says he’s got three products in this class.
1. A wide-screen iPod.
2. A revolutionary mobile phone.
3. And a breakthrough Internet communications device.
“These are not three separate devices.”
“We are calling it iPhone.”
9:50 a.m. Jobs says smart phones aren’t smart enough. He disparages buttons and styluses. The iPhone will have a wide screen and use touch-screens.
He says Apple has patented it, and puts it up there with other earlier Apple “revolutionary interfaces,” the mouse and the click wheel.
He says he’s got a software breakthrough that “is at least five years ahead of any other phone.”
“IPhone runs OS 10,” he says, referring to the Apple operating system.
People in the crowd have been gasping and cheering right through the presentation. They are eating it up.
10:04 a.m. The iPhone will sync with iTunes, as well as with all data, including things like calendar and addresses. It has a 2 megapixel camera. It has a speaker, an iPod connector, and some sensors.
It has three advanced sensors built in. One is a proximity sensor that turns off the touch screen when you’re talking.
Jobs is showing all his albums and playing music from the phone, and then playing TV and movie clips, and controlling everything from a touch screen.
How many times has he used the word “cool”? “Incredible”?
“It’s the best iPod we’ve ever made,” he says. “Here’s some album art I just put up. No matter what you like, it looks pretty doggone gorgeous.”
But, he says: “The killer app is making calls.”
Photos, phone, calendar and SMS messaging — “four things you find on a typical phone, in a very untypical way.”
He says Apple’s “visual voicemail” will enable people to skip through their six voicemails to the one they really want to hear.
Then comes an Alexander Graham Bell moment of sorts.
“I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to make the first public phone call with iPhone,” Jobs says to Apple’s famed designer Jonathan Ive.
“I’ve got another call coming in!” says Jobs.
It’s Apple exec Phil Schiller,saying, “I thought I was going to be the first call!”
With some easy touch screen buttons, he puts Jony on hold, then Phil, then creates a conference call.
The crowd goes crazy.
10:20 a.m. I didn’t really expect to hear Jobs say the words options backdating in this speech, but he came close in demonstrating visual voicemail. He checked and lo! There was a message from former Vice President Al Gore, who headed the Apple board’s investigation into backdating.
But Gore just said he was training people to give his famous global warming slideshow, and that he wished he could be at the keynote, and that he thinks the iPhone ss really cool.
10:24 a.m. More on the phone: It has the Safari Web browser on it, Google maps, HTML e-mail, widgets like weather and stocks (and more to come).
It’ll also have “full desktop class e-mail running on a mobile device” thanks to a partnership with Yahoo mail, which Jobs called the most popular email service on the planet.
He then demonstrated Safari, showing the whole New York Times Web site. He even turned the phone on its side to see the page in landscape mode.
He tapped on the page, zooming in on the text. “Unbelievable.”
10:30 a.m. Still playing with the new iPhone, Jobs switches to satellite images, and shows the Washington Monument, the Eiffel Tower and the Colosseum in Rome. “Satellite imagery, right on the phone,” he says. “Unbelievable.”
The man loves his products, that’s for sure.
“This is a breakthrough, an Internet communicator built right into a phone. We’re very very happy with this.”
“It’s the Internet in your pocket for the first time ever.”
10:31 a.m. Jobs says you can’t think about the Internet without thinking about Google — and then he brings out Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO.
Schmidt jokes that now that he’s joined Apple’s board, “Why don’t we just merge the companies and call them AppleGoo. But then, I’m not a marketing guy.”
10:33 a.m. “Steve, my congratulations to you. This product is going to be hot,” Schmidt says.
“As a board member, you’ll get one of the first ones,” Jobs says.
He then says you can’t think about the Internet without thinking of Yahoo, and he introduces Jerry Yang, co-founder and chief Yahoo.
Yang good naturedly declares, “I’m not a board member … but I’d like one of these, too.”
10:37 a.m. Yang says it’s like having a BlackBerry without the exchange server.
He says it fits with many things that Yahoo has been announcing, including its mobile services.
It’s rather remarkable to see Yang and Schmidt nearly bump into each other on Apple’s stage — a testament to how Apple and Jobs are at the center of the computing universe.
10:41 a.m. He’s listening to a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and gets a phone call from Apple exec Phil Schiller (again), who wants a photo e-mailed to him.
So Jobs searches and finds the photo on his phone. Taps a few buttons and up comes the e-mail and he sends the photo.
Then Schiller says, let’s see a movie tonight. So Jobs goes to his browser where he has Fandango in his bookmarks and they agree to see a flick (“Night at the Museum” — is that a Disney flick?).
He switches back to phone, hangs up — and the Chili Peppers pick up where they left off.
10:47 a.m. The iPhone will have some Bluetooth accessories, as well as standard iPod headphones that are outfitted with a voice.
He boasts that it will have five hours of battery life and 16 hours of audio playback.
“There’s an immense amount of high technology in iPhone,” he says.
“Miniaturization, more than we’ve ever done before,” he says.
“We’ve been innovating like crazy for 2 1/2 years, and we’ve filed for more than 200 patents, and we intend to get them,” he says.
“It’s like having your whole life in your pocket,” he says. “It’s the ultimate digital device.”
“How will we price it?” Jobs coyly points to $499 iPods and smart phones and says how the iPhone has so much more.
The iPhone will cost $499 for 4 GB model, and $599 8 GB. It’ll be shipping in June, once Apple gets FCC approval.
The phone will be available exclusively with Cingular.
10:53 a.m. Cingular CEO Stan Sigman says he agreed to the deal without ever seeing the phone, testimony to how badly carriers want Apple’s mojo.
Sigman also talks about how Cingular is becoming part of the new AT&T, as well as its vast network of retail stores. “You’ve got unmatched distribution,” he says.
It’s a multi-year exclusive partnership, Sigman says.
“Ours is a unique relationship that lets Apple be Apple and Cingular be Cingular,” he says.
10:57 a.m. A closing bombshell (kinda). Jobs says: “We’re announcing today, we’re dropping the computer from our name, and from this day forward we’re going to be known as Apple Inc.”
11:09 a.m. Musician John Mayer comes out and gives a few props to his sponsor; at age 29, he is a Macworld veteran, performing the last few years.
“Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. just make life more fun. It’s like the complete opposite of terrorism,” he says. “It’s 3,300 hours until June 1, and I’ll just keep playing until then.”
And he launches into one more song: “Waiting on the World To Change.”
11:10 am It ends as it began, with the late great James Brown’s “I feel good.”
On to the showroom floor.
Think they’ll have any iPhones? Or more realistically — think I’ll be able to get anywhere near one?
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=12435#ixzz1CqJlMt5Q