Live From Apple's 'It's Only Rock And Roll' Event

8:53AM Well... we're here. It's still pretty early (just before 9AM here on the west coast), but we wanted to make sure no one snaked our sweet spot at Yerba Buena. We're holding tight in line right now, but we'll keep you updated on this breathtaking event as it happens. Stay tuned!




11:14AM An Norah is off -- time to grab some face time with these things!

11:11AM "So glad that Steve is back. You know, backstage there's a lot of secret passageways and secret knocks... I'm bad at keeping secrets."



11:08AM Norah has a really nice Fender Mustang.



11:07AM "This is the earliest I think I've ever played."

11:07AM Norah is out. The smooth music will begin shortly.



11:07AM "Now, we've got great teams of people that work hard to create these products. One of the thing that drives us is that we love music. There's no better way to remind us of that than by having live music at these events... so Norah Jones is going to join us." Yes! We are going to be so chilled out after this.



11:05AM "So that's what we wanted to show you..." Looks like we'll be doing a hands on.



11:05AM "So, the new iPod nano joins the classic, touch, and shuffle. And of course we pay attention to the environmentals as well."









11:04AM Ah ha... an ad. With people dancing. And iPods. Very cute.





11:04AM Two models, and 8GB for $149, 16GB for $179. And they're available today.





11:03AM Rundown: built in camera, 2.2-inch display... and it comes in super bright, super glossy colors.







11:02AM "And we're building in a pedometer -- and you can sync that to Nike."





11:02AM "The nano is the most popular player in the world, we've sold over 100m. We're adding some things, like Genius Mixes. We've also built in an FM radio."







11:01AM This is nice and everything, but really worthy of the "one more thing"? We're not sure about that.

11:01AM "So you can watch it on your nano, and you can sync it to your computer. And with one click, you can send it to YouTube."



11:00AM "So how good is it? Turns out it's great. Let me show you some video."



11:00AM Almost forgot about the nano there. In our defense, it is thin.



10:59AM Ah ha -- not quite done with the iPods!





10:59AM "How are we going to do that? We're going to build a camera into the back of every nano."



10:59AM "People are using these portable SSD cameras..." He's showing off the Flip. "4GB, $149. We want to get in on this. SO what are we going to do?" Well we're going to start with 8GB, and we're going to lower the price... to free." "This is the new Apple, isn't it?"







10:58AM What? "That thing is a video camera."

10:58AM This feels crazy... one more thing!

10:58AM Wha oh.





10:58AM Steve is back.

10:57AM Oooh, new special edition -- totally stainless steel and polished. That's it for iPods!

10:57AM New colors for the shuffle, pink, green, blue, silver and black. $59 for 2GB and $79 for 4GB.



10:57AM The creepy iPod shuffle voice now tells you when your battery is full, and when it will close the airlock.



10:56AM Oh no, Beats by Dre? C'mon Apple, don't drag this event down.

10:56AM "Customers have asked us to expand the headphones you can use with the shuffle. New headphones will come out and all have the controller for the shuffle." Wow. Minds: blown.





10:55AM "Next -- the iPod shuffle. It's the smallest music player in the world. It's the easiest to use." Looks like they're not phasing this out as rumored.





10:54AM "Next, the iPod classic. This is a great device. Today we have a thin version that 120GB... today we're upping the capacity to 160GB, same price. $249."











10:54AM Let's see. Stark visuals of the iPod being used, check. Funky dance music, check. And... the funnest iPod ever! It's back!

10:53AM And now they're showing off a new ad!

10:53AM "We're making it faster too. We're bringing to power to run Open GL."





10:52AM "8GB $199, at $299 we're doubling the memory... and at $399 we're doubling to 64GB"



10:51AM "We learned something a few years back in the iPod business. We asked engineering to get the costs down -- when we did that, the sales doubled. We learned that $199 is a magic price point... so that's what we're going to do with the iPod touch."





10:51AM "The touch is the most affordable gateway to the App Store. And there's something for everyone there. For anything you want. It's affordable at $229, and there are no monthly fees."



10:49AM And Phil is back. Okay. Let's do this thing.

10:49AM SF just scored. The audience seemed to like that. Madden is available today.



10:48AM Sports fans should be sufficiently stoked. We love these game demos and everything, but we do wish they would get to the meat here. And by meat, we mean new iPods.







10:47AM Alright -- the 49ers versus the Steelers!



10:47AM "We're excited to be back to talk about one of the largest franchises. It's coming to the App Store... Madden NFL 2010."

10:46AM Finally, EA. Travis Boatman is taking the stage.



10:46AM You can listen to your iPod music while playing the game. The game will have multiplayer over Bluetooth and WiFi.

10:45AM Wow. These graphics are amazing. Very Halo like. Really stunning graphics on this game, and the frame rate looks solid.



10:44AM Mark Hickey from Gameloft. "We're giving you a sneak peak of our latest product, an FPS called Nova."

10:44AM Big cheers for that. "Next up, Gameloft. Today they ship 35 titles in the App Store. They have almost 20m downloads."

10:43AM The music changes based on how well you're doing. If you screw up, it sucks the bass out. "Thank you, and rock on!"



10:42AM Wow, it's like a combo of Wipeout and Rock Band.

10:42AM He's introducing a new game: Riddim Ribbon. This looks pretty fun. The demo song is Boom Boom Pow.

10:41AM "Good morning. When we launched a year ago, our crazy goal was to get 1m users... we got that in 3 weeks!"

10:40AM Next up, Bart Decrem from Tapulous.

10:40AM "We're bringing this to market on the day and date with the other console versions."



10:39AM Ha! You can put your own photos on wanted posters in the game.

10:39AM The game is very Prince of Persia -- it's a bit more of a straight up sidescroller than the previous one it looks like.





10:38AM Ben Mattes, Assassin's Creed producer. "Apple has created a world class gaming experience on this platform." He's showing off the sequel to AC.

10:37AM "We're going to ask some devs to come on stage and show you some things. First off, we're going to bring up Ubisoft."

10:37AM Big cheers for that. You know who hates this? Sony and Nintendo.



10:36AM Demo video of all the games! With some... rock and roll.

10:36AM He's discussing the high prices and bad experience of buying standard console games... and that leads into some props on the App Store. Rightfully so, it is revolutionary for this kind of content. "There are 21,178 entertainment titles in the App Store."









10:34AM "And people are starting to see what a great gaming device this is. When you think about the companies that came before us... when you played those other systems, they seemed so cool, but now when you look at them, they don't stack up against the iPod touch."





10:34AM "All this power in this little computer. And it really fits in your pocket." Oh! Ha -- a pic of someone trying to cram a netbook in their pocket! Burn Phil, burn.



10:32AM "Customers have figured something else out, it's a great pocket computer. If you can get on WiFi, you can get on the internet and have a desktop-like experience."





10:31AM He's really selling us on how great this thing is. It sounds great, really.

10:31AM "You might ask: why so many, why so quickly? First it's a great iPod. Great for music and videos. It's great for discovering new music, like this new Green Day album."





10:30AM 'The fastest growing product in the line is the iPod touch. Now I'm proud to tell you that we've sold 20m touches. Couple that with 30m iPhones -- this technology is taking off so quickly."



10:29AM "And in the rear... Microsoft has about 1.1%." Oh you guys. Can't help yourselves, right?





10:29AM "Good morning everyone. If you haven't heard, the iPod has been a big hit. We've sold over 220m iPods to date, and growing. It's incredible. Customers love it. If you look at the latest market data, the iPod is at 73.8%"

10:28AM "iTunes 9 is available today. That's iTunes. Now, let's move on to the iPod. Phil Schiller is going to come up and tell us about iPods."





10:27AM "So those are just some of the new features of iTunes 9." And Steve is back!

10:27AM "One last thing I want to show you -- something we're calling iTunes extras. Just like music, we have it for movies." This is basically extra DVD content, but also some more interactive stuff. Does this thing have an SDK?





10:26AM Now he's showing off a Dave Matthews record. Hand drawn art from DM himself -- looks really nice. Every song has its own illustration. Apple has officially reinvented the 12-inch.

10:25AM Wow. Ray Manzarek talking about how they came up with the name The Doors. Ha. "You mean like the doors in your mind... right."





10:24AM Some of this content looks a lot like what Microsoft is doing with Zune content... looks like Apple is making a play for the same action.

10:24AM "So that's the iTunes 9 store. So Steve mentioned LP. Here are 5 albums I bought from the store... let me show you the Doors." Full screen images here, big song pages with lyrics, photos of the band, liner notes. Nice, Break on Through and Light My Fire. Things are getting mystical in here.







10:22AM "You may notice these arrows next to 'buy', well you can gift music, you can add to a wish list -- and I can send directly to Facebook or Twitter."

10:22AM The new music section is now a long horizontal slide window. It dos quick view and previewing of albums and tracks without loading up separate pages.

10:21AM "Let's look at the store now. It's got a clean look." The store looks much more spacious and open -- it's a welcome improvement.





10:20AM "The thing you can't do with regular streaming, is to select the tracks and drag to your library." Is Apple saying it's okay to just pay once for an app even if it's on two devices? This is blowing our minds.



10:19AM "Now I want to show you home sharing. I turn on my sharing -- my wife's is already on. Her list shows up in this list on the left, and everything is available to me. Even Apps."





10:19AM You can rearrange whole pages by sliding them up and down on the right. Looks extremely useful.

10:18AM "On the left you can see all the Apps in the library. If I double click on it, it will take it right to your iPod." You click delete as you do on the phone or iPod (little black Xs)

10:17AM "When I click on Apps, I can see everything that's on my iPod. If I want to rearrange, I just click and drag. Drop it on another page, or I can select more than one at a time and drag those."

10:17AM "Here's iTunes 9. I'm going to begin by showing you one of my favorite features -- App organization."

10:16AM Demo time!

10:16AM Big applause. "We think this is going to be outstanding. These are just a few of the features in 9... and Jeff Robbin is going to give us a demo."













10:16AM "That shouldn't be the case. That's what we're doing with LP. You bought a great album in the past... you can get it again. Here's American Beauty by the Grateful Dead. A great record." There's all kinds of added content here, lyrics, photos, writing.

10:15AM "And finally, something I'm going to love... iTunes LP. LPs were great -- you got music, photography, liner notes, essays... most of that left us when we went to CDs."





10:14AM "Next up is a redesigned Store. Cleaner. New artist pages, new movie pages. It's a much cleaner layout."





10:14AM "We make it easy by showing what isn't in your library. It's really nice."



10:14AM "Home sharing: we're going to let you copy songs, TV shows, etc. with up to 5 computers in your house. You're going to see all the computers you can share with, and you'll see the contents -- you'll be able to drag that and copy it to your library."



10:13AM You can arrange your home screens and move apps around through iTunes. So long coming, so great to see.





10:13AM "The biggest thing we're doing is allowing you to manage your apps in iTunes."

10:12AM App management in iTunes!

10:12AM "In photos, on a Mac, you can sync albums with events. Same with movies. I want the last 3 movies I rented..."





10:11AM "Next, improved syncing. When you want to sync, we can make it better. When you sync music now, you can say I want to sync a particular playlist, but you can also sync everything by Dylan, or everything in the rock genre."



10:11AM "Imagine a genius DJ that plays endless mixes of songs from your library that go great together. You just click on one of the mixes, and start playing it -- and it will go on and on and on. It's like a great radio station."





10:10AM "I want to cover a few features of 9. First off, we're applying Genius to another area. People have submitted over 27m libraries. Over 54b songs. The Genius database has gotten smarter and smarter. They've enabled us to make Genius playlists. Well, we're applying that same tech to something new called Genius Mixes."









10:09AM "Today we're introducing iTunes 9"

10:09AM "We've sold over 8.5bil songs. But a more amazing stat is that we've recently crossed over 100m accounts on iTunes. All with credit cards."





10:08AM "So let's move on to music. Well to start, let's start with iTunes. We love it, we use it everyday. So do people around the world. It's in 23 countries, and iTunes is the #1 music retailer in the world." Big applause. The faithful are here!





10:07AM "3.1 is free, and it's available today."







10:07AM "The second thing we're adding is ringtones -- we'll have over 30,000 ringtones, and they'll be sold for a breakthrough price for ringtones, at $1.29"

10:07AM "You turn it on on the iPhone." He's showing off the list -- just an added section in the Store for Genius.

10:06AM "I want to highlight a few things -- first off, the Genius function. We've applied that tech to apps in the Store. Wouldn't it be great if the Genius could make recommendations to you based on what you own. It's really nice."



10:06AM "Today we have something new for iPhone and iPod touch owners -- iPhone OS 3.1."

10:05AM "And that doesn't include updates."

10:05AM "During the last year, one of the reasons has been the App Store. We have over 75000 apps in the store. Users have downloaded 1.8bil apps. Isn't that incredible?"



10:05AM "In a little over two years, we've sold 30 million iPhones."

10:04AM "So today, we're going to talk about music. Phil Schiller will join me, as well as Jeff Robbin. Before we dive in, I want to talk about the iPhone."

10:04AM "So, I'm vertical, I'm back, I'm getting to work with our teams to come up with some great new products."

10:03AM "I'd like to thank everyone in the community for the support, and Tim Cook and the exec team at Apple. Thank you." Big cheers for that.





10:03AM "I'm very happy to be here today with you all. As some of you know about 5 months ago I had a liver transplant, so I now have the liver of a mid-20's person who died in a car crash. I wouldn't be here without such generosity. I hope all of us can be as generous and become organ donors."

10:02AM The applause is continuing -- Steve looks very pleased.

10:02AM Wow -- people are psyched right now. He looks good, and he's definitely soaking this in.

10:01AM The music has died down, as have the lights... Steve is out! And he's getting a standing ovation!

10:01AM The lights are slowing dimming. It's getting moody in here.

9:59AM Of course, It's Only Rock and Roll.

9:57AM Wait. The music is back, and it's the Stones. And it's good.

9:57AM And the music is down... something is happening. Something awesome.

9:56AM "Good morning ladies and gentlemen -- please take your seats and turn off all mobile devices. Thank you."

9:56AM So here's what happening on stage: big Apple logo, of course, and a couple of iMac demo stations. Something tells us we're going to be run through some new iTunes stuff. Just a wild hunch.

9:55AM Things are getting nasty in here. Jimi Hendrix -- Fire!

9:54AM For those asking, it's Baba O'Riley.



9:51AM Now... The Who.

9:47AM Now Green Day. This is easily the rockingest rockfest that's ever rocked the Yerba Buena center.



9:46AM Okay -- and we're in! Looks like it's going to be a full house. Go figure. Anyhow, there's some Aerosmith blaring from the sound system here. Rock indeed friends.



9:24AM So Apple is being really helpful to bloggers lately. At this event there's WiFi that actually works (for now) and power strips in some of seat rows. They've done the latter previously, but it's nice that they're thinking of us hard workin', hard bloggin' livebloggers. Thanks guys. Now release a tablet or something.

9:18AM People are starting to circle the doors... there could be a media stampede at any moment.





9:09AM Ah ha -- celebrity alert. Greg Grunberg of Heroes fame is here. We understand he's going to use his powers to get a free bagel from the snack cart.

9:06AM Okay, now we're corralled into another waiting area with media and associated characters. Lots of handshaking, baby kissing... you know, the regular.



8:53AM Well... we're here. It's still pretty early (just before 9AM here on the west coast), but we wanted to make sure no one snaked our sweet spot at Yerba Buena. We're holding tight in line right now, but we'll keep you updated on this breathtaking event as it happens. Stay tuned!