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January 10, 2007

events

MW07: The Keynote (and live-blogging it)

Posted Jan. 10, ’07, 9:35 AM PT by Scott Silverman
Category | Apple » Events

Mwkeynote07Yesterday’s Keynote was the second one I’ve attended, and while perhaps it wasn’t quite as exciting as last year’s (which saw the introduction of Intel Macs), it was still nothing short of dazzling.

Derik and I sat in one of the media rows (near the front, of course) connected by a five-foot ethernet cable. This allowed us to simultaneously edit the same document using SubEthaEdit. Every minute or so as new information was released I would save the document. This would cause Transmit to automatically upload the live document via FTP to the page which you were (hopefully) refreshing every twenty seconds. As there is no Wi-Fi in the Keynote room, we used a cell phone modem via Bluetooth. This allowed nearly instant live updates which we hope you found informative. Live-blogging was a thrill and I wish there were more opportunities in life where it could be done.

Aside from live-blogging, there was certainly a thrill associated with the Keynote itself. Derik has already given us his personal thoughts, so I won’t bore you too long with my own, but let’s just say that the iPhone is amazing. Watching Steve demo the features of the iPhone—everything from “pinching” the screen to zoom an image (my favorite) to browsing the web in Safari—made six months feel longer with every second passed. The device is phenomenal and I think it’s safe to say (as it is with most Apple products) that there’s absolutely nothing else like it in the world.

Other updates and releases I deem less significant and important. The tv (AppleTV) for example is cool, but really nothing that we all 1) didn’t already know was coming and 2) couldn’t already do in some form or another. New ads were released for the Mac and the iPod, but really nothing new there. A new AirPort Extreme was released as well, but was for some reason mysteriously absent from the Keynote address. Really the most significant event of the Keynote aside from the release of the iPhone was, in my opinion, Apple re-christening itself Apple, Inc. from Apple Computer, Inc. We should, however, be seeing some significant Apple releases in the next few months.


2 Comments

Kris said:

I just have to say that your collaborative live blogging was awesome. By far the best live blog coverage that I found. Great job, guys.

January 10, 2007 11:04 AM
Brendan said:

Thanks for the updates. Having real time info from the Keynote was fantastic. Can you give me some info on how you used your mobile phone to connect to the internet? I haven't been able to get it to work with my Powerbook. Thanks

January 10, 2007 2:25 PM

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