Live Coverage of Steve Job’s 2004 Macworld Keynote Speech

We covered Macworld NY last summer live (one of the only sites to do so) and we covered the in store Music event last fall. Check back at 12 noon E.S.T. on January 6th for AppleMatters’s coverage of Steve’s San Francisco keynote. Pending any technical difficulties live coverage will start then.

11:37 Just got to the Cambridgeside Gallery store here in Cambridge, MA. It’s already full. Airport access and battery notwithstanding we should be all set!

12:00 Things are going to start in 3 minutes

12:03 Things are starting! Steve is on stage

12:05 talking about how Apple reinvented the personal computer with the Mac, and that it was 20 years ago today.

12:08 Reviewing the history of the intro of the Macintosh.

12:10 Talking about the running of the 1984 ad. He is running it again.

12:12 The ad has the iPod doctored in!! The runner is running with an iPod. Everyone is laughing.

12:13 He is reviewing OS 10 Panther. There are now over 9.3 million OS X users, over 40 percent of the Mac user base. This is a good thing.

12:14 Final Cut Express 2 is launcing today. A revision on the application. It is based on Final Cut Pro 4 technology. Composite up to five DV streams in real-time, optimized for Panther and the G5. Richard Kerris is coming up to give a demo.

12:15 Final Cut Express 2 costs 299 and the upgrade price is 99.

12:20 Microsoft Office 2004 is being announced today. Roz Ho from Microsoft Mac Business Unit is talking about Office 2004. Chris Barton, head of Excel development is going to show off some features. All the features are “Mac First” features.

12:25 Kind of a yawn with Microsoft announcing upgrades and features to Office 2004.

12:27 Huge sighs of relief here at the Apple store as Microsoft gets off the stage!!

12:30 Now talking about the G5. Talking about what Virginia Tech did with the G5 cluster. Presenting a video about the project.

12:32 Xserve’s are being introduced!! G5’s. It is a 1U factor, single or dual 2.0 ghz processors, dual gig ethernet built it, and much more. Ships with Panther server and unlimited licenses. Starting at 2999. They are all shipping in February.

12:27 Also updating the raid. 14 hot-swap bays. Gone to 3.5 terabytes of data storage. SFP connectors, Raid set slicing, up to 16 per single xserve raid. Now can use fiber channel switches. Xserve Raid is now able to work with Microsoft Server and versions of linux.

12:40 Talking about iTunes. Over 30 millions songs have been purchased and downloaded. The gap is getting bigger and bigger between iTunes and the competitors. Getting close to a 100 million song a year rate.

12:42 Latest Nieseln soundscan shows 70 percent marketshare for iTunes. The top spender has spent over 22,000 on the iTunes music stare! (laughter)

12:44 Reviewing audiobooks sales (over 50k), gift certificates (over 100,000 gift certificates have been sold). AOL’s 25 million members can now use iTunes (this isn’t an annoucement, just reviewing what has been accomplished)

12:46 New features on iTunes. Adding Billboard charts to iTunes. Adding over 12, 000 classical tracks from Decca, Gramaphone, and others. There are now over 500,000 songs available for download which makes iTunes the largest in the world.

12:48 Pepsi and Apple review, giving away 100 million songs legally.

12:40 Now talking about iLife ‘04. It includes the latest version of iTunes, iPhoto (which now can handle up to 25,000 photos with no waiting, time based organization, photo rating, smart albums, enhanched slideshows, rendezvous photo sharing)

12:53 Steve is now doing a demo of iPhoto with over 25k of images. Sepia tone effect, much better and much faster. Now looking at time-based organization. It automatically gives a meta-structure based on time, all photos in 2004, 2003, etc. Nice way to organize images as you bring in a new roll. Can now have different effects for disolves between images as well as more than one song.

12:59 Now going over rendevous file sharing for iPhoto so, just like with iTunes, you can share images between computers on the same network.

1:00 Steve now just bought a song, it is showing up in iTunes, then in iPhoto where he attaches it to a Rendevous sharing image library! Phew!!

1:01 picture ordering from iPhoto will soon be availble in Japan and Europe.

1:03 Now reviewing iMovie. You can now trim clip directly in the Timeline.

1:58 After some technical difficulties I’m back!! Steve is leading up to the intro to the mini-iPod.

1:58 iPod mini!! It is a 4gb drive. It’s going to cost 249. The new iPod mini is the size of a business card and it is .5 inches thick. Same user interface as the regular iPod. Comes with USB 2.0 and a firewire cable and a new belt clip. Can also get a dock and an armband.

2:00 It is designed to go over the high-end flash market. They also comes in color! Annodized aluminium. Runs on Mac or PC.

2:02 Steve is reviewing the keynote now. Saying that this is going to be the beginning of a lot of great products from Apple.