Apple January 27th Special Event Live Blog [Finished]

THANKS:
A big thanks to Engadget, Ars, Gizmodo, and Macworld for their coverage. Especially to Engadget who managed to stay up for most of the keynote.

Engadget 11:32
"This is a magical device, at a breakthrough price."

"We've always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts -- we want to make the best tech, but have them be intuitive. It's the combination of these two things that have let us make the iPad."


That's it.


Gizmodo 11:28
The backlight for the display is LED, but otherwise they use IPS technology, for better off-angle viewing, claims Apple.

And the chip inside is the Apple A4 chip made by their hardware team. They didn’t say this was worked on by the company they purchased last year, but it might be.

“This defines our vision, our sense of what’s next.” – Jon Ive


Steve Jobs “Do we have what it takes to establish a third category of products?”

“We think we got the goods.”

“Because they’ve shipped 75 million iPhones and iPod touches, there’s 75 million people who already know how to use the iPad.”

So, iBookstore, App Store and iTunes store. 125 million accounts with credit cards that can purchase from the store.

"We are ready for the iPad.”

Steve says the iPad is “our most advanced technology in a magical & revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.”


Gizmodo 11:23
There’s no camera on the back, and there doesn’t seem like there’s a front camera either.

“It’s going to change the way we do the things we do.” Phil Schiller

Jon Ive says “there’s no wrong or right way to hold it.” “I don’t have to change myself to fit the product, it fits me.”

The demo video also shows how to type on the thing: like a laptop’s keyboard. “It’s practically the same size as a laptop keyboard.”

Oh, so you can sync the apps you already downloaded to your iPhone to the iPad as well, so you don’t have to pay twice.

“There’s going to be a whole new gold rush for app developers.”

There’s over 1000 hardware sensors on the device for multitouch sensitivity.








Engadget 11:22
Third one is a case


Engadget 11:21
"We've got some really great accessories. First one is a dock. You know the slideshow I showed you? When it's in the dock you have a great picture frame. We have another dock that's interesting... the keyboard dock." What!?






Engadget 11:15
"WiFI plus 3G if you want it. So iPad. It's phenomenal. Email is fantastic, best device for photos, great for music, great for video. It runs almost all of the 140k apps on the app store, as well as a whole new generation of apps."

"And the new iBooks application. You can carry literally thousands of books around. And the iWork suite of apps with the best UI we've ever seen for something like this."

"What should we price it at?"

"If you listen to the pundits, we're going to price it under $1000, which is code for $999. When we set out to develop this, we had ambitious tech goals, but we had aggressive price goals."

"And just like we were able to meet or exceed our tech goals, we have met our cost goals... iPad pricing starts at $499."

"So $499 for 16GB of iPad. That's our base model. 32GB is $599, 64GB is $799. 3G models cost an extra $130. $629, 729, and 829 with 3G."


Engadget 11:12
"Isn't it great?" Some slight hesitation. "A few other things. I'd like to talk for a minute about iTunes. The iPad syncs over USB just like an iPhone or iPod."

"Now I'd like to talk about wireless networking. Every iPad has WiFi... but we're also going to have models with 3G."

"Now what does it cost for the data plans? Well in the US carriers charge about $60 a month. We have a real breakthrough. Two awesome plans for iPad owners. The first one gives you 250MB of data a month for $14.99."

"We have an unlimited plan for just $29.99 a month."

"We have a breakthrough deal with AT&T."

"So how do you turn this on and manage it? You can activate this right on the iPad. And there's no contract -- it's prepaid."

"So we have a breakthrough deal in the US. We hope to have our international deals in the June / July timeframe. However, all of the iPad 3G models are unlocked, and they use the new GSM microSIMs."




Ars 11:11
$9.99 each for the iWork applications. Amazing new user interfaces, three totally new apps, compatible with Mac versions, easily connect to projectors. Priced at $9.99 each, available on App Store on iPad.

Ars 11:05
Now showing a document created on the iPad (I believe we're demoing Pages now)

If you tap on the text, the keyboard pops up, as well as the ruler. You can turn it horizontal and get a bigger keyboard if you want. Can change the layout of the text, wrap around images, etc. You can view many spreadsheets in Numbers at once with tabs along the top. Showing how to create tables and adding rows to create graphs




Gizmodo 11:02
He’s showing off making new presentations by tapping a new presentation, and it brings up a new layout format with slide navigator on the left and the current slide on the right.

Phil’s showing off how you can drag and drop slides around. You can also pick up multiple slides by holding one slide and tapping others, to put it into the pile.

You can also resize and move elements around on a slide by just tapping and dragging, just as you’d imagine it would work.

You can also add animations and transitions by picking a pre-generated one from a list.

I suppose the iPad would be a pretty good presentation device, letting you see the screens on your device and controlling it while it’s being projected onto a wall through the 30-pin dock connector. (Video out is still unconfirmed, this is just my guess.)


Engadget 11:02
They've really redone this interface. We don't know about you, but using iWork wasn't one of our fantasies when we thought about what an Apple tablet would be like. This is nice... but it's iWork.


Gizmodo 10:58
But, how about iWork? There’s iWork for the iPad.

The question was whether or not a tablet could power iWork (the answer is yes, obviously), and “whether or not they could come up with a completely new user interface.” The answer to that is also yes.

And now, Phil Schiller, with his standard Phil Schiller outfit to demo iWork.








Engadget 10:57
"So iBooks again, a great reader, a great online bookstore. All in one really great app. We use the ePub format. We're very excited about this."

Ars 10:56
Steve is tapping on a book to get more detail, looking at reviews, and can get a sample (just like Kindle), but he's gonna buy it. Book downloads to your bookshelf (looks like a real bookshelf) where you can select it and read it. you can tap pages, or drag them if you want, there are actual page animations. Black and white or color, there can be video if the publisher wants. Can change font size to read, you can change the font itself.




Engadget 10:54
"It has a bookshelf. In addition there's a button which is the store -- we've created the new iBook Store. You can download right onto your iPad."


Ars 10:53
Amazon has done a great job of pioneering this, btu we're going to stand on their shoulders and go step further

The new app is called iBooks. Looks suspiciously like Classics iPhone app. iBook store, fully integrated with the iBooks app. Five of the largest publishers in the world involved with books. Steve is now demoing the iBooks app


Engadget 10:52
Scott: "While we wait for those apps to come out, we can all run our existing apps... and that is the app story for the iPad."

Gizmodo 10:51
There’s the “live game experience”, which looks at scores, and even stuff like the trajectory of every pitch thrown, being able to tap on the ball to see details, or tapping on a person to see their baseball card.

You can even replay games in a small window on the screen. There are game controls, to see the box score, the field, the matchup and the lineup.

You can even watch live with your choice of home or away announcers.


Engadget 10:50
Chad Evans from MLB.com -- "We were excited to build something for the iPad. We had to create a whole new experience for this display."

Gizmodo 10:48
EA says the first thing they wanted to check out was the device’s performance, and for that, Need For Speed. They’re showing off a BMW M3, which looks quite good (definitely better than the iPhone), but not as good as on a PC. It looks somewhere inbetween, which is kinda the point of the device. Though it’s closer to the iPhone. “It’s like holding an HD screen up to your face.”

The game is also “fully touch enabled.” To see inside the car, just tap inside the car, and swipe up and down on the shifter to change gears, and tap on the mirror to look behind you.

Now he’s showing off the framerate, which is pretty smooth actually, even if the graphics aren’t very impressive compared to a laptop.




Ars 10:47
Travis Boatman from EA on stage. "As gamers, the first thing we wanted to check out was this device's performance"

Ars 10:43
Next demo is from Brushes (an iPhone painting app)

My personal interpretation of the NYTimes demo is that it's very Kindle-like, but much more rich with more media and touchscreen capabilities)

okay, now for the Brushes demo... "artists of all skill levels can produce countless paintings with their fingertips"




Ars 10:42
New York Times on the iPad looks just like... a newspaper on a tablet

Again, you can go from landscape to portrait and back, resize text with a pinch, tap to go through columns, look at slideshows...

You can turn on updates to get breaking news in all sections




Engadget 10:40
"The iPad version of Nova ships later this year..." Interesting. Scott is back. "Next up, the New York Times."


Ars 10:38
Gameloft starting first. Gameloft demoing Nova on iPad (versus iPhone). Size gives flexibility when it comes to controlling the game, lots more room to slide controls on the screen, etc.

Ars 10:37
"We re-wrote the user interface of every one of our apps (Apple's) to take advantage of the large touchscreen"

Really excited about possibilities for developers on the iPad, so we invited a few developers to give them a sneak peek at the iPad to see what they could create in a couple short weeks




Ars 10:34
now demoing ESPN's Snocross. Just talking about the graphics hardware. "This is an unmodified game right off the app store". Steering with accelerometer, can take games fullscreen. Developers are gonna want to do the same thing. We've enhanced the iPhone SDK to support iPad development. Devs can go to Apple.com today to get it and get going. SDK even includes iPad simulator

Engadget 10:31
Scott Forstall, "Morning. The app store has been a huge success. Already our customers have downloaded 3b apps." Can run all iPhone apps unmodified out of the box. "We can also pixel double and run the apps full screen." "Let's start with Facebook. It just works." He's showing off the non-pixel doubled version, a small app in the middle of the screen. It's kind of silly looking. A lone app in the center of a black screen. The scaled up app looks silly as well, especially in Facebook.

Engadget 10:29
"It's powered by our own silicon. The 1GHz Apple A4 chip. It screams."

Available in 16GB, 32, 64...

"What is the battery life like? We've been able to achieve 10 hours of battery life. I can take a flight from San Francisco to Tokyo and watch video the whole time. And it has over a month of standby time."

"Now, let's go back to software. We've seen some great built in apps. Let's talk about third party. Let's talk about the app store."










Engadget 10:27
"So that is video on the iPad. It gives you an overview of what the iPad can do."

"Let's go back to the hardware." .5 inches thin, 1.5 pounds -- 9.7 inch IPS display




Engadget 10:24
Steve is in Maps now. Zooming looks super fast -- no idea what this chip is, but it has no trouble handling pretty graphically intense stuff. Everything looks polished -- zero hiccup. "Now here's street view..." Wow. Big applause for that. "Now let me show you video."

"It just all works. And of course videos... we've got movies, TV shows, music videos."

Engadget
"So that's browsing the web. Let's go to email."

"Now if I want to send a message, I hit compose -- up pops this gorgeous keyboard."

"Next, photos... this is what photos looks like. I can look at everything as a list of photos. I can tap on it..."

"If I'm on a Mac, I can get events, places, and faces from iPhoto here."

"You get the idea."

"Let me show you a few other things. The iTunes store is built right in. I can sample music, buy songs."






Gizmodo 10:14
First up, he’s showing up Safari, going to Apple.com. Now he’s visiting the New York Times website. The page renders just like a browser’s, and there are the navigational buttons on the top.

Jobs clicked a story and there is a missing plugin error (is this flash? Does this mean that the iPad won’t have flash?)

Now, Time Magazine. Next, Fandango, because Steve Jobs wants to buy some tickets for a movie. “Grab the tablet that’s in the kitchen, go to the iPad and buy your tickets.”







Engadget 10:11
"So, gonna give you a little overview. It's very thin -- you can change the homescreen to whatever you want. What this device does is extraordinary. You can browse the web with it. It's the best web experience you've ever had."

"Way better than a laptop, way better then a phone. You can turn it any way you want. To see the whole page is phenomenal."

"Phenomenal for mail."

"Album, photos... you can look at all of them, flick through them, it's a wonderful way to share. Calendar... months..."

"We have the iTunes store built right in. YouTube, and YouTube in HD."

"And it's awesome to watch movies and TVs... let's take a look at the device."



Engadget 10:09
"What kind of tasks? Browsing the web. Doing email. Enjoying and sharing pics. Watching videos. Enjoying music. Playing games. Reading ebooks."

"If there's gonna be a third category, it has to be better at these tasks -- otherwise it has no reason for being."

"Now some people thought that was a netbook -- the problem is that netbooks aren't better than anything!" Big cheers! Ha!

"Let me show it to you now." Wow -- looks like our leak!


Engadget 10:07
"Let's go back to 1991, when we first shipped our Powerbooks. The first with a TFT screen, the first with palm rests, and had an integrated pointing device. Just a few years ago in 2007 we reinvented the phone... and a few years later we got the iPhone 3GS." "SO all of us use laptops and smartphones... the question has arisen; is there room for something in the middle. We've wondered for years as well -- in order to create that category, they have to be far better at doing some key tasks... better than the laptop, better than the smartphone."

Engadget 10:06
"Now where do we get this revenue? iPods, iPhones, and Macs. What's interesting is that iPods are mobile devices, the iPhone is, and most of our computers. We're a mobile company. That's what we do. How do we stack up against all the other companies that sell mobile devices? We're the largest mobile device company in the world. Larger than Sony, bigger than Samsung...." "And by revenue... it's even bigger than Nokia." "So those are the updates that we have today." "So let's get to the main event."


Engadget 10:04
"Next update -- the app store. We have over 140k apps, and a few weeks ago we announced a user downloaded 3b apps." "Lastly -- we started Apple in 1976 -- 34 years later we just ended our holiday quarter with 50.6b dollars of revenue..."


Engadget 10:03
"But first I have a few updates. A few weeks ago we sold our 250mth iPod. The second update is about our stores -- we now have 284. It's amazing. Last quarter we had 50m visitors."


Engadget 10:01
And Steve is out! Huge applause... and a standing ovation from some audience members. "Good morning and thank you all for coming." "We want to kick of 2010 by introducing a magical and revolutionary product today... but first I have a few updates."


Engadget 10:00
The lights are going down... here we go!

Macworld 9:56
There's a leather easy chair on stage, with a small circular white table next to it with something on it....


Gizmodo 9:56
People are taking their seats, and the announcer is asking us to silence our cellphones and paging devices.

Engadget 9:54
Everyone is really all smiles here. Sure, the WiFi just went out, but generally everyone seems to be quite excited. Makes sense, gadgets and money will be flowing like sweet summer wine when this thing is all over. Right?

Macworld 9:49
Room has three large canvases on either side, with paint splatters and two Apple logos

Engadget 9:42
Okay! We're in our seats and there's some Dylan playing on the sound system!


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Apple has announced a "Come see our latest creation" special event on January 27th. The event will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco at 10AM Pacific Time

We will be live blogging the event here, compiling coverage from the various media sources that manage not to go down during the keynote.

Come back at 10AM PT, 1:00PM ET