Keynote Live Blog – Live For Me, Not You!

8:56 AM – We’re in! Music playing. What is that? Hole? Who cares? People taking pictures. Tension building.

I’m actually sitting next to Gruber. And the universe has not exploded. Weird. Sometimes physics surprises you.

I was apparently the last person to pull out their iPhone and try to get on so I have no EDGE connection. Everyone around me surfing and I just have a little blue box with no E in it. I am the saddest Macworld attendee.

OK, not really. The dude on the other side of me is using a Dell. He’s the saddest Macworld attendee.

9:10 AM – No Jobs. I’m starting to wonder if they were able to make it through the robot blockade.

9:12 AM – Large explosions. Feist song playing. Robot parts flying everywhere! This is it! The lights dim! The Cyber Apocalyse ends now!

With an “I’m a Mac” ad.

Ah. So not with a bang but with a whimper. Well, except for all the banging.

But they did it! Apple won the Cyber Apocalypse! The robot forces have been defeated!

9:14 AM – Jobs takes the stage! He’s got a robot head in his hands! It’s Kent’s head! He rips out the Central Plexor and throws it to the ground! He stomps on it! The crowd goes wild! Outside we can hear a whirring sound as thousands of robots power down!

STEVE JOBS AND APPLE ARE TRIUMPHANT!

YAY!

OK, now Steve will tell us about 2007’s results.

He says he has 4 things to talk about today.

5 million copies of Leopard. Fabulous response. “Larry, for example,” Jobs says, “bought a Family Pack. Thanks, Larry.”

Huh? Who the hell is Larry?

All big apps native on Intel with Office release. Microsoft is this year’s Adobe.

9:18 AM – Companion product for Time Machine – Time Capsule. But is it a tiny Time Capsule? Mmm, sort of medium-sized. Server grade hard drive. Full Airport BS. You can back up all your Macs to it. If you’re into that kind of thing. Hot backup action.

Jobs says it’ll have a 500 MB drive? What? That doesn’t seem very good.

9:21 AM – iPhone! Sold 4 million iPhones to date. In the first quarter of shipment, iPhone market share was second at 19.5%. BUT, market share is like 99% among the highly coveted poser demographic.

SDK coming, but new features available today. Maps with location. Web clips, customizable home screens. SMS multiple people at once, chapters, subtitles, languages in video. Lyrics for songs. Can now get hot enough to make toast. Comes with a fruit cup. Makes its own gravy.

Steve demos. Steve says “zschoom.” We have a new sound effect! Repeat, we have a new sound effect! “Boom” is out, “zschoom” is in! Please update your Jobs references accordingly!

Steve’s SMSing Schiller, Scott Forstall, Tony Faddell and some other dude. This presentation needs more Schiller.

Steve demoes the ability to add a web clip as a link to iPhone home screen. I think his choice of using a site called “Lusty Plumpers” is a little questionable.

Oh, crap, you can move icons around on the home screen. That means my son is totally going to screw up my phone.

9:34 AM – The iPhone’s Google maps now show you where you are by triangulating your position using WiFi hot spots and cell towers. Also, Apple has someone following you. Sure. Didn’t you know that? Apple’s had someone following you for years. I know you’re shocked, but secretly, inside, it explains a lot, doesn’t it? How they know so much about you… your hopes… your fears…

You know it to be true. Search your feelings.

iPod touch owners pay $20 for these features as a software upgrade.

Start bitching…. NOW!

9:36 AM – iTunes. Sold 4 billionth song last week. 7 million movies. 1 copy of “Yahoo Serious”.

Really? Wow. There’s a call back.

Hmm.

Movies.

A better way to deliver movie content: iTunes movie rentals. They have an astounding FIFTEEN MOVIES AVAILABLE!

Steve says “Blades of Glory” was a particular favorite of his. Funny. I would have thought he’d be more of a “Superbad” kind of guy.

Oh, no wait. Lots of movies. 11 studios total – every major studio.

1000 films by February. Can watch them anywhere. Macs, iPhone, PC, iPod. In your pants.

Technology! Whisky! Sexy!

30 days to start, 24 hours to watch. 48 hours to watch any movie with Ben Afleck. Because he’s that bad. $2.99 for older releases, $3.99 for new release.

Apple TV? He didn’t say Apple TV. I’m going to ask. I’m raising my hand.

Steve?! Oh, STEVE?! Sheesh. He can hear me. I know he can. Why won’t he answer? He’s ignoring me. That is so like Jobs.

OK, he’s getting to it. It’s OK. It’s OK, everyone. He’s getting to my question.

Apple TV Take 2. No computer required. Rent movies directly. DVD quality or HD. Applause.

NERDS!

Download podcasts directly. Photos from Flickr and .Mac. $1.00 more in HD. For $1,000,000.00 more, the actors come to your house and act it out. That’s very reasonable.

Steve loves the old Star Trek movies?

NERD!

I mean, I love the old Star Trek movies. That’s fine for me to love them. But I don’t want Steve to love them. Steve should be better than that. Higher. And immutable force.

Not some pimply faced Trekkie. Trekker. Whatever.

NERD!

Steve waits until Will Farrell does his crotch grab before cutting away from Blades of Glory. Oh, Steve. You don’t need to be such a prude with us. Our hard drive are full of porn! Ha-ha!

Steve’s searching for Linkin Park. Right. First Star Trek and now Linkin Park? Can these demoes have at least some basis in reality?

Steve demoes looking at pictures on .Mac. You can see your own pictures or other peoples’ pictures. And if you click “Rent” you can rent the family!

Beautiful movie of a family scuba diving vacation on a coral reef. Where’s the movie of the drunken, bitter recriminations at Christmas dinner?

Oops. First glitch. He’s able to blame it on Flickr, though, so it’s cool. A stagehand breaths a sigh of relief as he will live another day.

Free software upgrade. THANK YOU, STEVE! I was so sure he just made my Apple TV a useless piece of crap. Not that that’s what it was. Price drop to $229. Shipping in two weeks.

First studio to sign up was 20th Century Fox. And here comes the chairman! Jim Gianopulos. Will he be this year’s Stan Sigman?

Nah. He’s a Hollywood player. He can talk, baby. Oh, yes, he can talk.

He’s no Stan Sigman. Sir, I listened to Stan Sigman. For three long hours. You sir, are no Stan Sigman.

I kid Stan, but in his defense I’m sure he’s a terrific golfer. Definitely a handicap under 10. Gotta be.

10:07 AM – THING NUMBER 4!!!!

“There’s something in the air”.

Yeah. What the hell is that? That thing in the air? Phew.

Oh, laptops. The MacBook Air. The world’s thinnest notebook. Other so-called “thin” laptops you may have heard of weigh 3 lbs, are up to 1.2 inches thick but have 11 or 12 inch screens and are only 1.2 Ghz. The MacBook Air is .76 inches at its thickest. The thickest part is thinner than the thinnest Sony. Thinny thin thin. Es muy thin. Sehr thin. Steve takes it out of an internal company routing folder. On the outside it says “TO: STEVE. FROM: DOES THIS APPEASE YOU? PLEASE DON’T FIRE US.”

13.3 inch display. iSight camera. Full size keyboard. Backlit. Each key is a delicious Chicklet. Mutlitouch gesture support. Demoing those gestures, oddly all with pictures of fabulous babes. OK, not oddly.

“How did we fit a Mac in here?” We didn’t! We left the Mac out! It’s just a mockup! 80 GB standard – 64 GB SSD. Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6 GHz standard up to 1.8 Ghz. A 60% smaller chip. So those of you who like big party-sized chips, you’re out of luck. No dip, either. Dip is a USB optional add-on. Comes in Zesty Salsa and Cool Ranch.

Paul Otellini comes up and gives Steve a chip. Mmmm. “This is awesome technology. And delicious!” USB 2, Micro DVI, headphone jack. No optical drive. Powered optional optical drive for $99.

Scott McNulty behind me is now oohing and ahhing for great effect. What a card.

Battery life – 5 hours. Probably because it’s a piece of cardboard with a printout of a Leopard screen taped to it. That’s probably why the battery life is so good.

$1799. Shipping in two weeks.

Steve’s starting to lose his voice a little. Someone get him a lozenge. STAT!

“We have an ad. Would you like to see it?”

Uh, I dunno. What about you, Gruber? McNulty? David Morgenstern? Do you want to see it? Glenn Fleishman?

Nah. We don’t need to see it Steve. That’s cool. We’re good.

Addressing the environmental concerns, Steve notes that the entire MacBook Air is edible.

That’s thing number 4.

“NOW GET OUT!”

Musical performer this year: Randy Newman.

Randy performs a politically incendiary piece which the crowd seems uncomfortably approving of. Last year John Meyer did “Waiting On The World To Change” and now this. Pretty soon Steve is just going to have people come up and harangue the crowd for 20 minutes.

“I’ll always root against corporations because that’s just the way I am. But not this one.”

9 out of 10 communists agree: Apple rocks!

Travel Day And More.

Monday was a travel day so not much to report, but the word on the street here near the Moscone Center is that the thing in the air might actually be Apple’s fleet of attack helicopters. Or, possibly, hunks of flying metal as Apple’s elite squad of lesbian ninjas destroy the robot menace that plagues us all.

For sources are now telling us that Apple has broken free of the robot blockade and, indeed, we can see flashes of light in the sky to the south indicating that Macworld 2008 will take place tomorrow, validating not only the travel plans of several thousand Apple enthusiasts but also many parking vouchers at the Moscone Center.

While the keynote tomorrow will be embargoed from WiFi access, we’ll bring you a semi-live blog in the semi-nude shortly thereafter.

Apple declined to comment for this brief story but said some shit is too cool even for killer robots to hold back.

How true.

Fourth Completely Unnecessary Sign of the Cyber Apocalypse!

Crazy Apple Rumor Site Editor-In-Chief John Moltz (hey, that’s me!) will be on NPR’s Day to Day today to give his deep thoughts about Macworld.

Takes about two minutes.

How did I fill the time? Sexbots, that’s how!

UPDATE: Audio up now here. You can go to it directly after the player loads by scrolling down on the list to the second to last item.

Friday Feature: Crazy Apple Help Desk

Every Friday, the staff at Crazy Apple Rumors Site answers common help questions based on our vast experience with Apple products and our fervent belief that we know more than you do.
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Q: Hey, I’m going to Macworld next week! Can you provide any helpful hints about making my stay more fun, enjoyable and sex-ay?!

A: You bet we can! In fact, we’ll devote the whole damned Help Desk to it!

So, buckle your seat belts, undo your fly and put your iPhone on vibrate, because…

We’re goin’ to Macworld!

Tip #1 – Hotels do not provide their own mosquito netting. I have no idea why this is but you must bring your own mosquito netting. This is very important. The San Francisco mosquito is 8 inches long and travels in packs of up to 100. They can suck a human body dry in 45 seconds.

Tip #2 – Avoiding Killer Robots. This will be particularly important this year. The best tip is to get yourself some good tennis shoes and run as fast as you can the whole time you’re there. That’ll work well against the big, clunking robots. Unless they shoot lasers from their eyes. Which most do. However, it won’t work a damn against liquid metal robots. You could cover yourself in tin foil and pretend to be one of them, but they’ll start asking you stuff like “Who won the Robot World Series?” to make sure you’re really a robot and who the hell knows that? I mean the team names are all in hex, fer crying out loud.

Tip #3 – If you’re attending the keynote, you should know that Moscone Center security – at the request of Apple – does a full cavity search. And, uh, it’s considered common courtesy to the security personnel to… um… well… “clean yourself out” before hand. Ahem. Uh, there are several pharmacies located near the Moscone Center so… Well.

Tip #4 – If you’re looking to get into the keynote and you think a good way to ensure that you do would be to kill someone with a press or VIP pass, steal their pass and then skin them and wear their skin on you to throw security off even further, don’t. I can tell you from experience that it’s a mess. If you’ve never skinned something before it’s not as easy as you’d think and all that blood is going to draw a lot of attention. Plus, then you’ve got this skin of some Apple journalist lying around your house. And who the hell wants that?

Tip #5 – When Steve Jobs announces something cool, for god’s sake don’t squeal like a little girl. You look like an idiot.

Finally, and this isn’t so much a tip as it is a request, but please, please, please, if you have a Darling Furball t-shirt, make sure to wear it.

Don’t feel bad if I pretend not to notice you. It’s just because you people kind of creep me out.

So…

See you there!

CARS Exclusive Macworld Rumor!

While others claim to have the keynote outline, CARS has received a bona fide copy including comments in the border written by Steve Jobs himself.

Check it out.

Oh, and…

MUST CREDIT CARS!

9:15 AM – While eating a large waffle breakfast at the local Denny’s with Phil Schiller, suddenly look at watch. Say “Holy shit, Phil! We’re late for the keynote!” Race out of the Denny’s as – seemingly from nowhere – banjo music starts to play. [JOBS COMMENT: I don’t get this. Why would I do this? This doesn’t make any sense. It’s stupid. It’s absurd. You know Phil and I only eat at the Waffle House. Fix this.]

9:25 AM – Take the stage to thunderous applause. Pause for a moment and then wipe strawberry jam and whipped cream from the waffles off your face.

9:30 AM – Review the successes from the last year. After doing the same financial and market share and number of iTunes songs sold crap, say “And any of you remember… this?!” and pull out an iPhone. Strike a number of dramatic poses with the iPhone. Point index finger at random members of the crowd and cock your thumb at them like you’re shooting them dead with how unbelievably cool the iPhone is. Several smiling and scantily clad women will join you on stage as confetti and balloons with “iPhone!” written on them fall from the ceiling. Just when it seems to be over, start it all again for another 15 minutes. [JOBS COMMENT: Nice. Can I do a quick costume change before this into something more appropriate than turtleneck and jeans? Like, maybe a shiny green suit?]

10:00 AM – Introduce USB Silly Putty. Demonstrate how, like copying a comic strip with regular Silly Putty, you can just jam it into the USB port of a hard drive and copy the contents.

10:30 AM – Announce exclusive distribution deal with Jay-Z. Go on and on about how great Jay-Z is. Jay-Z, Jay-Z, Jay-Z. Bring Jay-Z up on stage. Isn’t he awesome? Thanks, Jay-Z. You’re great. [JOBS COMMENT: Yeah, OK, someone’s going to have to point out who the hell Jay-Z is to me. Unless he’s going to be wearing a sweat shirt or a sign or something that says “I’m Jay-Z”. I have no idea who he is. This whole thing was Joz’s idea.]

11:00 AM – Introduce new iPhone. New Tablet. New ultra-light laptop with docking station. Introduce people in the first row to the people in the second row. Introduce oranges to the Visigoths. Introduce Rob Enderle to the business end of your Nikes. Introduce pudding as a new Tuesday afternoon Snack Break at Caffe Macs. Finish by introducing a new dance called “the Stevetusi”.

11:30 AM – Ah, fuck, it’s John Mayer again. [JOBS COMMENT: Shit. I’m so sick of that jackass.]

See? That’s a keynote outline.