I have been camped outside Moscone Center, waiting for Macworld Expo to open, since 4:00 in the morning. Not this morning, since 4:00 in the morning January 4th. I had to be in line so I could be among the first to hear what new products Steve Jobs would announce. Getting a report two minutes after the announcement from someone's blog or Macworld.com just wouldn't do. I had to be FIRST. I had to hear it FIRST, directly from Steve Jobs.
This day could change my life.
When I got here on January 4th, I thought I'd be the first one in line. That there would be NONE before me. How wrong I was. There was already a woman in a Klingon costume waiting to get in. I couldn't believe that someone had beat me to position #1 in line.
I am not worthy.
It turned out that the Klingon woman was in line waiting for the WonderCon 2008 convention to start -- in February! Can you believe it? Some people should get a life already.
I'm inside the grand hall now. There's an intro. Steve will be on stage any minute now.
Oh. My. God.
It's STEVE JOBS. I'm in the presence of STEVE JOBS. Oh my God, I just came in my pants.
He's announcing OS/X LEOPARD! Waitasecond. That's not new. Steve says that it has already shipped five million copies. Nice.
Here's the new Timecapsule wireless backup device. 500GB and 1TB versions allow you to backup all of your Mac data wirelessly. That's nice, Steve.
DAMN IT! I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE! UNVEIL THE LIFE-CHANGING DEVICE ALREADY!
iPhone sales are up. iPhone is the #2 smartphone on the market, behind RIM's Blackberry. There's some new features out and a new version of the iPhone OS. Yeah, yeah, I saw that last week on GeekBrief.TV with Cali Lewis, on my iPhone. Come on, get to the good stuff.
More iPhone news. Text messaging to multiple people. Google Maps. Show where you are on Google Maps. Find out where other people are on Google Maps with an iPhone app called iStalker. That's kind of cool. I can use that to track down Steve after the keynote.
Send text messages to multiple people at the same time from an iPhone. Personalize the iPhone home page. Icons can now shake and wiggle? WTF? I'm not sure if Steve is showing a new feature or if his iPhone just went on the fritz. One of his minions is going to get canned for this for sure. Hey, that means that Steve will have an opening on his staff. Sending resume to Steve Jobs now...
New iPod Touch apps are available now: Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes, Weather. Like anyone here doesn't already have these on their iPhone.
iTunes is going strong. iTunes just sold their 4 billionth song. That's $3.96 billion dollars of 99 cent songs. If iTunes sold songs for a buck rather than 99 cents Apple would have pulled in an extra $40 million dollars. Apple stockholders are going to be pissed when they hear about this.
iTunes movie rentals and AppleTV. No one wanted AppleTV, so Steve is changing it into something that maybe people do want. Behold a movie player that lets you download movies for TV, HD, widescreen, you-name-it, and you pay Apple for the movies instead of Netflix. If you were using Tivo, you'd be paying Amazon for your movie downloads, so this is really different. You can also play Podcasts and YouTube videos on TV, just like with Tivo. In two weeks the price will drop to $229 for AppleTV, but you won't be able to record or pause live TV.
It almost sounds like AppleTV is just a crippled Tivo.
This makes me sad. I want Apple to have the BEST products. I NEED for Apple to have the BEST products.
My faith has been shaken.
Steve is talking. He's saying something. This is it.
HE'S ABOUT TO UNVEIL THE TECHNOLOGY THAT WILL CHANGE OUR LIVES FOREVER.
Oh my God he's unveiling a SUPER THIN LAPTOP.
It's REALLY thin. I mean REALLY THIN. I mean REALLY REALLY REALLY SUPER THIN.
Comes with an 80GB hard drive, but you can swap it for a solid state 64GB flash drive. 802.11n WiFi. No DVD or CD-ROM drive, but you can install software from another Mac's drive using something called RemoteDisk, or get an external optical drive. 5 hour battery life with WiFi on. Backlit keyboard. iSight camera. 2 GB memory. 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU. 0.76 inches thick at the thickest point, 0.16 inches thick at the thinnest point. Aluminum case. Arsenic-free and mercury-free backlit 13.3" LCD screen. Less than 3 pounds total weight.
It's called the MacBook Air. $1799, pre-orders accepted today, starts shipping in two weeks. Can I wait that long? Remember to breathe now.
My pants had finally dried, and now there's a brand new wet spot on them.
