Below is a complete transcript of iLounge’s live coverage from Apple’s Rock and Roll media event, held on September 9, 2009. Updates are presented in reverse chronological order; photos from the event can be seen on iLounge’s Flickr account.
11:03 AM: Seven colors shown. But there’s silver and black too. Last year’s colors, but polished. 8GB $149 16GB $179. Available today. Ad: showing off video recording on different colored nanos with people in different outfits matching the colors. “nano shoots video.” Each one has a silver camera on the back. Environmental report card up. Nothing being mentioned about iPod touch video camera. That’s it. He is now praising great teams at Apple and noting they love music. Intro of artist. Norah Jones. We’re going to end live coverage for now, so look forward to our upcoming pictures and videos of the new iPod models. Pictures are still being uploaded to Flickr, so check the link above! Thanks for joining us!
10:58 AM: One more thing… Video camera. YouTube now has 1b video streams a day. They’re being created by Flip Video, he shows… Flip sells a 4GB model for $149. Apple wants in on the market. 8GB – you get it for “Free” by adding it to the iPod nano. New nano is glossy. Looks just like the pictures we posted months ago on iLounge. Speaker now built in as well. Retained the small size – 6.2mm. Now good is it? Video looks a lot like iPhone 3GS video. The nano pictures are on our Flickr account. (See link above.) One click to send to YouTube from a computer. Looks to be 640×480. Nano’s screen is now wide. 100 million units sold. By far the most popular music player in the world. VoiceOver is in there, “same as the iPod shuffle,” plus Genius Mixes. Now will have an FM radio built in. And voice recorder app is built in with built-in mik, plus built-in pedometer. You can now sync up to Nike+ with your pedometer data. Larger 2.2 display. Polished anodized aluminum.
10:56 AM: VoiceOver was added for multiple playlists, provides status information on battery, etc. What’s new: new colors black, silver, green pink and blue. $59 price for 2GB. 4GB model at $79, both in five colors. All shipping today. New all chrome special edition version – all polished stainless steel, $99, available on Store and Retail Store only. Nothing on nano – “that’s the new iPods,” Schiller says, turning it over to Steve.
10:53 AM: Ads shows games. Including two sets of hands playing games together. Then three. Next level fun. The funnest iPod ever. iPod touch. iPod classic. Great for customers with a large music library. Today, it’s 160GB for $249, same thin profile as 120GB version. iPod shuffle. Talking up how easy it is to use. Third-party headphones coming out with integrated controller, plus adapter to let you use any headphones with it—not from Apple.
10:49 AM: Schiller’s back. It’s the most affordable gateway to the App Store, he says.
Puts $229 price on screen, no subscription required. iPod mini was dropped from $249 to $199, he notes – sales doubled. $199 is a magic price point. With that price, they can reach more people. iPod touch $199 for 8GB. $299 32GB. $399 64GB. The top two versions will be up to 50% faster. OpenGL ES2.0 added to them. New ad.
10:46 AM: EA. Travis Boatman. Already three #1 selling hit titles on App Store. Next title is one of the largest franchises: Madden NFL 10. All 32 teams and the players. Real stadiums. New kicking interface for the iPod touch looks simple. Graphics in the game look alright – pretty plain field, simple stadium much like Gameloft’s NFL title. But tapping on receivers after pitching the ball seems pretty easy. And there’s commentary from Madden playing. You can draw plays right on the screen how you want them to go. You can also slow the action down to make catches. Available today in the App Store. Command + Conquer, NBA Live, and Need for Speed Shift are coming, as well.
10:43 AM: Gameloft. Now has 35 titles in the App Store. Nearly 20 million downloads makes it one of biggest devs. Mark Hickey from Gameloft. First-person shooter called Nova. Looks like Halo. A LOT like Halo. Twin joysticks and all the little Halo touches. First level is jungle stage just like start of first Halo. Even the soldiers who approach you from your side look like Master Chief.
10:40 AM: Tapulous, Bart Decrem. Founded solely to create games and titles for iPod + iPhone. Music and racing merged into a new game. New Tap Tap Revenge 3.0 around the corner. Riddim Ribbon is new game, though. You are racing down a ribbon, and need to follow the groove or you lose the background music. The tracks look boring, but you can drive down different paths to get remixed version of the music. Goal is to try and drive down the center of the track, hitting hoops to keep the music going, and hit checkpoints. Every time to play, you can be creating mixes of tracks. Launching October, will come with three Black Eyed Peas tracks.
10:35 AM: How many titles per platform? iPhone OS has 21,178 titles, 3,680 Nintendo DS, PSP 607. (Yeah. Okay.) Here’s what iPod touch games have become, in a video – Real Racing, Hero of Sparta, Assassin’s Creed, Resident Evil 4, Star Defense, Sims, Top Gun, Doom Resurrection, sports titles. All basically older stuff. Developers are coming up to show a few things. Ubisoft is first. Ben Mattes to announce next Assassin’s Creed : ACII, Discovery. The game’s camera angles look a lot more flat than the original’s. Animations are good, though. You can put your face on wanted posters on the walls. The controls are basically a slider rather than a joystick, and buttons. November 11 debut.
10:30 AM: First: it’s a great iPod. It’s a great video experience.
It’s great for discovering new music, because of Wi-Fi and iTunes Store, and Genius. Second thing: it’s a great pocket computer. It has the first great mobile browser in Safari, e-mail, contacts, plus apps to do desktop-like things – Facebook, Twitter, etc. Picture of Dell Mini not fitting into a pocket, which iPod touch does. Third thing: It’s a great portable game player, as well. Comparing it to the PSP and Nintendo DS, saying what they lack, how expensive their games are, absence of App Store, no iPod. People paying $25-40 for their titles, and the buying experience at a store stinks (shot of Gamestop).
10:27 AM: Applause. Steve is back. iTunes 9 available today. iPod: Phil Schiller will come up to discuss. Now on stage. iPod sales: 220 million iPods sold to date. One of the most successful products in history. Latest market share: iPod 73.8% US marketshare, followed with Other, Sandisk, and Microsoft at 1.1%. Over 50% are new to iPod customers. Fastest growing is the iPod touch. 20 million iPod touches sold to date – smaller than the 30 million iPhones. Wow. Why so quick? So many? Three things set it apart.
10:23 AM: iTunes LP extras. Interactive, animated with fades and scroll bars with lyrics. It’s just a way to interact with the album’s content while you’re listening to the music, essentially. A photo gallery is included within the Doors iTunes LP, including exclusive videos recorded for the LP. Multi-layered animated artwork; DMB’s includes art drawn by Dave Matthews himself, font based on his handwriting. iTunes Extras will be the equivalent for Movies. It’s a DVD-style interface with extra features, including (for Wall-E) 3-D set fly-throughts, details on different robots, etc.
10:20 AM: New navigation bar is at the top of iTunes Store, providing one-click access to different parts of the store, plus drop-down menus to dig into different sections of the store. You can also now preview and buy right from the top charts; Quick View and previewing of albums has been made easier. An arrow next to buy buttons lets you create wishlists (!), gift this album, and share links on Facebook and Twitter, directly from iTunes. iTunes LP.
10:19 AM: Home Sharing. You are able to see other computers within the house and stream their content, or drag and drop it into your own library. All the additional home shares appear under Shared in the left hand pane of iTunes. You can also auto-sync new purchases for Music, Movies, TV Shows, Audiobooks, or Applications, so when one computer gets it, another can, too.
10:16 AM: Jeff Robbin, VP for iTunes, up to give a demo. The resolution on the screen here is stunning. Don’t know if it’ll look like this at home, but iTunes is being rendered with incredible pixel detail, as is the whole Mac OS interface. Demoing organizing apps on the iPhone/iPod. Sync Applications screen lets you drag and drop from a list of apps to add it to your iPod or iPhone sample screen. You can move your entire page—say, a Games page—up to the top or wherever you want in the list. This does not radically change the home screen of the iPhone or iPod, just makes it easier to manage.
10:14 AM: LPs didn’t include just music, but also photography, liner notes, essays. Most of it disappeared when CDs faded. iTunes LP gives you an interactive, DVD-style presentation of the content. You can see for the Grateful Dead a chronology of prior albums… examples of a number of different bands. Artists can get involved in creating these things so that they can bring their creativity to the listeners. (Applause.) The tools are being given to the artists + labels.
10:11 AM: Improved syncing. You can now sync by artist automatically, or by genre, in addition to playlists. For photos, you can now sync Events and Faces in addition to Albums. For videos, and applications…. now a way to manage applications on the iPhone… you can see previews of the screens, arrange them however you want, then change them on the device. Home Sharing. Rather than just streaming music… today, you can copy iTunes content to 5 authorized computers in our house. You can see items that are in your library, only items shared in the house that isn’t in your library. Redesigned iTunes Store. New artist pages, movie, and TV pages that are cleaner and better, he says.
