AllThingsD » MLB.com

Xbox Grows, With Users, Beyond Videogames

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:32:43 +0000

With Internet-connected TVs, add-on boxes like Apple TV or Roku, and iPads resting on coffee tables, tech companies are trying harder than ever to capture space in your living room. Microsoft wants to take advantage of something that’s already in a lot of homes: Xbox.

[ See post to watch video ]

Microsoft claims its Xbox Live users spend more time consuming media—videos and music—than playing games. Over the past five months, the company has brought more than 20 new apps or improved versions of apps to Xbox specifically to entertain nongamers. So if you are a person who put up with looking at someone else’s Xbox console stored under the TV for years, you’re finally getting something out of the deal.

The apps, available from the Xbox Apps Marketplace, provide easier ways to watch movies or video, play music or get updates on favorite sports. Icons are large and easy to see from a couch. I quickly navigated to my recently opened apps from the Xbox home screen.

I’ve been testing the Xbox 360 with a focus on nongaming apps, and it’s clear that Microsoft is serious about them. All apps are free to download onto Xbox, though some, like Netflix and MLB.TV, require paid memberships and others, like HBO Go, require an existing cable account with a specific channel or service. Most apps require an Xbox Live Gold account to use, and this costs about $60 a year for one person or $100 a year for a Gold Family Pack that four family members can share.

A frustrating aspect of using these Xbox apps was that I needed to download updates for them almost immediately after I initially downloaded the app. This happened on several occasions with all kinds of apps. And the Xbox console is a bulky, expensive box compared with palm-size competitors like the $50 Roku and $99 Apple TV, which offer some of the same entertainment apps and don’t require annual fees like Xbox Live Gold.

The Xbox apps I tested work with an included wireless controller or with a Kinect sensor, which responds to gestures and voice commands. A smaller $20 Media Remote also does the job and is sold separately. If you don’t already own an Xbox 360, the 4-gigabyte console will cost you $200; it holds 20 to 25 apps, depending on size—which should offer enough storage for nongamers. For another $100 you can buy the $300, 4-gigabyte Xbox 360 with a Kinect sensor, or for $400, the 250-gigabyte Xbox 360 with Kinect.

Apps for the Xbox bring more types of video entertainment to the TV.

The ESPN app, one of my favorites, let me scroll through several video clips using a Mini Guide, which appeared at the bottom of the TV screen with thumbnail images and descriptions when I touched a button on the Xbox controller. I could watch one highlight clip on the screen, or use a split screen to watch video while scrolling sports stats.

A double tap on the Xbox controller’s Y button showed a full-screen grid of highlight clips and displayed a category called My Sports. Here, I selected tennis, and My Sports quickly filled with thumbnails representing future tennis events I could set reminders to watch, as well as highlight clips and entire matches that had already taken place. On April 9, I used the ESPN app to watch the final match of a tennis tournament called the Family Circle Cup, even though the match aired April 8.

I tested the MLB.TV app by logging into an existing MLB.TV Premium account, which costs $125 a year. I quickly skimmed through baseball team statistics and watched the live season opener between the Phillies and Marlins. Each time the game went to a commercial, a message appeared on the screen saying “Commercial break in progress.” The MLB.TV app let me choose favorite teams for quick access to stats and news about those teams.

Some, like the MLB.TV app, pictured, require a paid account.

With the HBO Go app, I watched movies and HBO shows from my Xbox. When I navigated away from the app and opened it again, the show started from where I left off. When I found a show or movie I wanted to watch at another time, I added it to my Watchlist, which is accessed via a tile on the HBO Go home screen along with Last Played, which reminded me of the last episode I’d watched in a series.

Some shows available on a computer aren’t available within Xbox apps. When I searched Hulu Plus for NBC’s “Today” show to see a specific episode, an on-screen notification said, “Sorry, we don’t have the rights to stream this show to your device. It is available at Hulu.com on your computer Web browser.” I later found the clip in the “Today” app made especially for Xbox.

Likewise, several apps—including HBO Go, Netflix, Hulu Plus and Cinema Now—required me to authenticate the Xbox for use by logging into my Xbox account and then entering a code into my computer’s Web browser. This process is usually done just once per app, but stepping back to the PC was annoying.

I fooled around with DailyMotion and TMZ video apps. I watched “Ghostbusters” on Netflix and “Saturday Night Live” clips on Hulu Plus; both services charge $8 a month. Two music apps that work on Xbox 360 are iHeartRadio and Last.fm. Neither charges a subscription fee.

The Xbox continues to grow up and appeal to more people. A smaller, more stylish console would make the device even more welcome in the living room.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com

Mobile Media Mavens Like Funny Videos, Baseball

Peter Kafka — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:28:37 +0000

The ad dollars may not be there yet, but the eyeballs are certainly arriving. Here’s more evidence that mobile phone (and iPad) users are consuming lots of entertainment on their gadgets, via two media company data points/press releases:

Break Media, the dude-centric content/ad network that revolves around Break.com, says it is now generating 10 million monthly “mobile visits” and 100,000 visits from its mobile app every day. Break says video views on mobile devices and other gadgets now account for 12 percent* of its overall total; it also says users have downloaded its Apple iOS and Google Android apps 1.5 million times in the last 18 months.
Meanwhile, MLB Advanced Media, pro baseball’s digital arm, says that more than half of its traffic came via mobile apps and mobile Web sites last month. That’s the first time MLB.com has seen mobile beat out wired views.

Important to remember that we’re also seeing evidence that “mobile” doesn’t necessarily mean on the go — lots of mobile views are apparently being generated by devices people are using at home or at the office.

[Note: An earlier version of Break's press release said the company was generating 22 percent of visits from mobile devices.]

The Financial Times Tries an Apple End-Run

Peter Kafka — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 12:33:59 +0000

The Financial Times, one of the most outspoken opponents of Apple’s new iTunes subscription rules, is now doing more than complaining: The publisher has created a Web-based app that lets it deliver the paper to iPad and iPhone users, and sell them subscriptions, without going through iTunes.

The move is important because:

It’s the first major attempt by a publisher to create an HTML5-based Web app that for all intents and purposes works exactly like an iTunes-purchased app.
It gives the FT a real alternative to iTunes if the FT doesn’t want to accept Apple’s subscription terms.

Apple’s subscription rules have rankled many content owners because they require them to hand over 30 percent of all subscription revenue, every month, for all “in-app” subscriptions sold through iPad and iPhone apps. Even more problematic for print publishers like Pearson’s FT is Apple’s insistence on keeping subscriber data like credit card information to itself.

But since Apple announced the new rules in February, a growing number of content companies, from the New York Times to MLB.com, have announced that they’ll accept them,

Some publishers, like Conde Nast and Hearst, have been able to wring small concessions out of Apple that give them a bit more flexibility, but the general gist remains the same; many content companies are now hoping that they’ll be able to convince most customers to subscribe to their content outside of iTunes, which will let them keep 100 percent of revenue and all subscriber data.

Apple’s deadline to accept the new terms kicks in later this month, and the FT has yet to declare if it’s going to play along. The FT, citing FT.com managing director Rob Grimshaw (registration required), says the paper has “no plans to pull out of any apps store,” but that’s not the same as saying it plans to stick around, either. Note opening lines in the promotional video for the app’s, below: “The FT app is moving.”

Spokesman Tom Glover tells me the publisher is “still talking to Apple about the terms for selling subscriptions through iTunes.”

The Web app only works on iOS devices for now, but the paper says versions for Google’s Android platform are in the works. More technical details here.

UPDATE: The FT’s news reminds me that it’s a good time to check in with the Wall Street Journal, which like this Web site is owned by News Corp. The Journal, which has played up its success on Apple’s platform in the past, hasn’t said what it’s going to do about Apple’s subscription rules, and a spokeswoman says that hasn’t changed: “We’re exploring our options.”

Q&A: MLB.com Boss Bob Bowman on Android Owners, Facebook Video and Apple's Subscription Rules

Peter Kafka — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 17:25:13 +0000

It’s odd to talk about baseball when part of the country is still getting fresh snow. But yesterday was indeed opening day, which makes it a good time to check in with Bob Bowman, who runs Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the digital business jointly owned by all of pro baseball’s teams.

MLB.com boasts one of the most successful subscription businesses in digital media; last year, the company reported 1.5 million subscribers, and expects that number to hit 2 million this year. So it’s worth listening to Bowman’s take on Apple vs. Android, his company’s recent Facebook experiment, and why mobile advertising is taking off.

Peter Kafka: You’ve complained publicly before about the difficulty in supporting multiple flavors of Android for your apps. But this year you’ve expanded the number of Android handsets you’re supporting from 6 to 11. Did you ever consider not working with Android at all?

Bob Bowman The short answer is no. But what we have done is that we don’t support every Android phone. Because at some point, it’s diminishing returns. The Android user typically is less likely to buy, and therefore the ROI on developing for Android is different than it is for Apple.

Why do you think an Android owner behaves differently than an iPhone owner?

The iPhone and iPad user is interested in buying content–that’s one of the reasons they bought the device. The Android buyer is different.

It’s a great phone–make no mistake about it. But if you really want first rate digital content on a device, your first look will probably be an iPhone. And on the tablet, an iPad.

Do you think you’ll be supporting either the BlackBerry Playbook or HP’s WebOS?

We want them to succeed. We don’t want there to be just one company out there. Obviously there are a lot of customers out there that still use the BlackBerry. So if there’s a tablet out there that they are more comfortable with, vs. the iPad, Hallelujah.

I think we will support the Playbook for sure this season. Blackberry’s been a partner of ours for a long time.

Last month you started streaming spring training games, for free, on Facebook. Did that generate any new business for you, and will you keep doing it?

As a conversion tool, it was de minimus. But that didn’t bother us, because we were using it as a promotional vehicle, to get people excited about baseball. And to see how many people would take time out and watch it. We had tens of thousands each day doing it.

[But] we’re not going to do the embeddable player for the regular season. What we found was during the past few weeks, as many people clicked the link (back to the MLB.com site) as clicked the embeddable player.

One might think that the embeddable player would get a lot more clicks. But a lot of people are so used to seeing video on a full screen, with full features, that they ended up back here.

You sell subscriptions internationally, and YouTube has been working on its own international sports deals. Is there a way to work with them?

We’re big fans of Google. And Claude Ruibal, who’s over there at YouTube and YouTube Sports, we’re big fans of his, too. So we’ve initiated some conversations with them. As yet, unfruitful. But in the end, people do deals, not companies, so we’ll see how it goes.

You’re primarily in the subscription business, but you sell ads, too. How’s that going?

Good. We’ll get 15 to 20 percent of our revenue from sponsorships this year. The most pleasant surprise for 2011 is wireless sponsorship. With all the eyeballs going to mobile–45, 50 percent of our eyeballs will be mobile this year–you have to execute advertising. Otherwise all you’ve done is trade a dollar for 70 cents.

Where does the 30 cents go?

Because with wireless subscription products, you’re losing 30 percent margin to Apple.

Ah. So you’re selling via Apple’s new in-app subscription rules. But you’ve decided you can live with them?

We’ve been living by them since March 1st. We don’t view them as a dramatic change from where they’ve been in the past. We’re hopeful that over time, the margin will fall from 30 percent, but we don’t know if it will.

But make no mistake about it, Apple’s been a great partner. Last I checked, they created the iPhone and the iPad.

Facebook Takes Another Swing At Web Video: Live Streaming Major League Baseball

Peter Kafka — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:53:59 +0000

Last week, you could rent a movie on Facebook. Today, you can watch a live pro baseball game on the site.

Still think Facebook can’t be a big player in Web video?

You can watch the game, a pre-season matchup between the Dodgers and the Rangers, right now, for free, via Major League Baseball’s page, for a little while longer — it’s in the bottom of the 8th as I’m publishing this. The game isn’t a nail-biter — again, it’s a pre-season game — and you can’t expand the video beyond the smallish box in the newsfeed.

If you click on the image, you’ll be directed off-site, where you can sign up for a (free) account and watch the game on a full screen. And maybe you’ll end up liking it so much you’ll end spending up to $120 for a season-long subscription to MLB.TV’s digital video package.

Which is really the point of this experiment, says Bob Bowman, CEO of MLB.com, pro baseball’s digital operation. Bowman says the free games on Facebook, which began yesterday and will run until opening day at the end of month, are merely supposed to test Facebook’s promotional power. (The folks behind Ultimate Fighting Championship have been trying the same thing, by showing some of their preliminary matches for free and trying to upsell viewers on a pay-per-view buy offsite).

It’s possible that the league will keep running a single free game a day on Facebook during the regular season, too. MLB.com has tried that in the past on mobile phones, and will be doing it on its own Website this year as well.

But Bownman says there aren’t plans to give MLB.TV subscribers full access to games via Facebook, and doesn’t plan on selling individual games on the site, either.

“What we’re trying to do is figure out who these fans are, whether they like it, and whether they share it,” he says.

So in case you were planning on panic-selling some shares tomorrow: This move doesn’t threaten any established distribution business any more than Facebook’s one-off movie rental threatens Netflix. For now.

Still, just because Bowman and company are starting with a toe-touch doesn’t mean they couldn’t take a deeper plunge later on. And live sports seems like something that lends itself quite nicely to Facebook’s platform — much more so, really, than watching movies like “The Dark Knight”.

And unlike the “The Dark Knight” experiment, there’s no e-commerce angle here for Facebook. Users don’t need to use Facebook Credits to watch the game, and if MLB.com generates some subscriptions, Facebook won’t get a lead-gen fee.

But again, it’s easy to imagine ways that Facebook could participate in this if they wanted to elbow their way in.

For now, though, the site seems content to let developers like Warner Bros, and MLB.com experiment with interesting ways to deliver video — and potentially, all sorts of entertainment — via their platform. Smart. And worth watching.

A New Gig for George K: Hearst Digital Exec Running Hearst Start-Up

Peter Kafka — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:08:12 +0000

George Kliavkoff, who went to work at Hearst two years ago as as a digital media executive, has a new job.

Same employer, though. Kliavkoff will be running Manilla, a new online billpaying service, wholly owned by the publisher.

Kliavkoff more or less created the job for himself. That’s because he helped create the service at his former job, where he was tasked with building and buying interesting companies for Hearst using the geyser of cash it gets from a minority ownership stake in Disney’s ESPN.

Manilla is getting its formal debut at the DEMO conference today, but you can get a good sense of what it’s trying to do from this Business Insider post from last fall.

Bill payment doesn’t seem to have a direct connection to Kliavkoff’s resume, which include stints at MLB.com and NBC, where he helped set up Hulu. But he insists “it’s the biggest start-up opportunity I’ve ever been involved with.”

Hearst has promoted Neeraj Khemlani, formerly “vice president and special assistant to the CEO for digital media” to Kliavkoff’s old position, which reports to entertainment head Scott Sassa.

Another Cable Company Shows You How to Live Without Cable

Peter Kafka — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:43:38 +0000

Cablevision would very much like its three million cable TV subscribers to keep subscribing. But while it fights with News Corp.’s Fox over programming fees, it’s going to show its customers how to live without cable, if they must.

Here’s the email that Cablevision sent to its customer base last night, explaining how they can get legal streams of the World Series delivered to their homes on the Web, via MLB.com. It’s a fancier version of the message I delivered two weeks ago, except that this time Cablevision is promising to pick up the $10 fee, too:

Is anyone going to take Cablevision up on the offer? A note from RBC Capital Markets this morning guesses that perhaps 150,000 subscribers may go for it, which would generate a $1.5 million bill for Jim Dolan and company. I’ve asked Cablevision if it can provide any numbers for the offer, which kicked off last night before Game 1 of the Series. UPDATE: “Thousands” of customers have sent in receipts for reimbursement, says a Cablevision rep.

Of course, the real risk for Cablevision isn’t the one-time payout it may have to fork over. It’s that increasing numbers of consumers learn to live without cable and get their video fix over the Web.

But that’s a risk for Fox, too: Like all of the broadcast networks, it wants the cable guys to start paying it for its programming, and if people start cord-cutting in real numbers, then the cable guys won’t have much to hand over.

Which is why it’s surprising that this rights-fee fight has lasted as long as it has–there’s no ideological difference between the two sides here, only a money gap. But the longer it remains open, the more both sides have to lose. (Disclosure: News Corp. also owns Dow Jones, which owns this Web site).

News Corp. Vs. Cablevision = Another Installment of "How to Cut Your Cord"

Peter Kafka — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 18:35:31 +0000

Nothing new with the Cablevision-News Corp. face-off. We’ve seen the cable guys fight with the programming guys again and again and again. And we’re sure to see it again, too.

But! It does give us the opportunity to rerun the “how to cut your cable TV” video and guide that Time Warner Cable helpfully prepared last year.

And this time the instructions will be particularly helpful to Cablevision’s customers who live exclusively in the New York area.

They’ll still be able to watch their smug, overpaid Yankees take on the Texas Rangers on cable today, since those games are being carried on Time Warner’s TBS.

But if News Corp. and Cablevision don’t settle by early Saturday evening, Cablevision subs won’t get Fox’s Phillies-Giants game (Halladay! Lincecum!) via their cable box tonight.

Which means they’ll need to either break out the rabbit ears for an over-the-air signal or break out their credit card and pay MLB.com, which is offering live “companion coverage”: $9.95 gets you streams for the rest of the playoffs.

Either way, they’ll want to review the instructions below. (Disclosure–News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this Web site):

TV_to_PC_TWC –

Facebook Won't Spend Much Bread on Hot Potato

Peter Kafka — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:08:37 +0000

Another “buy them instead of hiring them” deal: Facebook is about to pick up Hot Potato, a start-up that specializes in organizing chats about “real time” events.

The transaction hasn’t closed yet, but the social network is set to pay something in the $10 million to $15 million range for the company, people familiar with the deal tell me. That will mean a modest return for the investor consortium that put $1.4 million into the firm last year, but it will still be a return.

Facebook, meanwhile, will presumably get the services of Hot Potato’s small team, led by CEO Justin Shaffer, a longtime veteran of pro baseball’s well-regarded MLB.com site. The most logical place for them to end up would be working on the social network’s mobile products.

Shaffer declined to comment; I have yet to hear back from Facebook PR. TechCrunch first reported on the pending deal.

Hot Potato launched last fall with a well-known team of backers, led by RRE Ventures, Betaworks and Ron Conway, and the plan didn’t call for an exit this soon, at this price. But the service never got significant traction, despite a push at the South by Southwest conference in March.

And given that the problem the Hot Potato crew was trying to solve–how to curate a stream of chatter/commentary for events as they happen–was something that Facebook itself should be tackling, it makes perfect sense for them to end up at the social network.

Here’s an interview I conducted with Shaffer in November, as his service was starting up, followed by a shorter chat with Kara Swisher in May at an event hosted by General Catalyst Partners, and Hot Potato’s own description of what it’s trying to do.

[ See post to watch video ]

Apple iPad Event Liveblog

John Paczkowski — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:00:40 +0000

After months of feverish speculation and as many years of wishful thinking, Apple uncrated its tablet computer–the iPad–at an invitation-only event in San Francisco this morning.

Liveblog

9:13 am PT: Quite a scene here this morning; the queue for media credentials is nearly as long as some of the iPhone 3G launch lines I saw a few years back. Moments ago, an Apple PR rep slipped through the doors of the Yerba Buena Center to ask that the press waiting outside take two big steps back. The last time that happened to me, I was at a Jesus Lizard show.

9:54 am: The doors open and the press enters the event hall. Initially, at least, the scene is pretty crazy. “This is like the subway in New York,” an attendee behind me jokes. More like the subway in Tokyo, I think to myself.

A Bob Dylan soundtrack plays as media and guests file in. It’s momentarily interrupted by a “please take your seats, our event is about to begin” announcement.

10:00 am: Interesting stage set-up today: Instead of an empty stage or a simple table, there are a black leather chair and side-table. Lights are dimming….

And Steve Jobs takes the stage to a standing ovation.

“We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical product, but first a few updates….A few weeks ago we sold our 250 millionth iPod…I didn’t want to let that moment pass without recognizing it.”

10:05 am: Jobs offers a quick overview of Apple’s retail operations and some of the new stores it has opened recently before moving on to the iTunes App Store. “A few weeks ago we announced that three billion applications had been downloaded from the App Store–that’s in 18 months…amazing.”
He notes, as he did in the company’s earnings release the other day, that Apple is now a $50 billion company.

Apple is a mobile devices company, says Jobs, “the largest mobile devices company in the world now. Larger than Sony’s mobile device business, larger than Samsung’s and, astonishingly, Nokia’s as well.”

10:07 am: A quick historical overview now. Jobs touches on the first PowerBook, introduced in 1991. He moves on to the MacBook and then the iPhone.

“All of us use laptops and smartphones, now. And the question has arisen lately: Is there room for a device in the middle?…We’ve pondered this question as well.”

This “middle” device, says Jobs, must be better at doing certain tasks than either the laptop or smartphone. If there’s going to be a third-device category, it must be better at browsing the Web, video, photos, music, etc.

“Some folks say this device is a netbook…. The problem is, netbooks aren’t better at anything.”

10:10 am: But we have something that is, says Jobs, “and it’s called the iPad.”

Photos of the device appear on the giant screens. Very thin. Very slick. “IPad offers the best Web browsing experience there is–way better than laptops.” There is no camera that I can see. That’s not going to go over well with folks hoping for a device that supports video iChat.

10:13 am: Further details: The “iPad is a dream to type on,” Jobs says, pointing out its life-sized onscreen keyboard. It’s also an awesome way to enjoy media. iTunes, iTunes University and YouTube HD support are built in.

10:14 am: Jobs sits down to demo the device: “Using this thing is remarkable. It’s so much more intimate and capable than the laptop.” He loads Safari and surfs over to the New York Times (NYT). The iPad loads quickly and Jobs is able to easily navigate the page, loading stories and zooming in on articles.

10:15 am: Demonstrating landscape and portrait now. “This device adapts to the way I want to use it.”

Definitely an impressive browsing experience. Fast and elegant.

Now, an overview of Mail. Also elegant. Nice split-screen presentation. Hit compose, and a nice onscreen keyboard pops up. Jobs types out a message to his colleagues at Apple. Seems relatively easy.

10:19 am: Moving on to iPad’s photo capabilities. It supports iPhoto’s Events, Faces and Places features. It also offers built-in slideshows complete with soundtracks and transitions.

Running a slideshow demo, Jobs pauses and looks out at the audience with a Chesire Cat-wide grin. He’s clearly relishing this moment.

10:22 am:: The iTunes experience on iPad is much as you would expect. Similar, if not identical, to what the software currently offers. Calendar and Contacts apps are also nice and, again, similar to what you’d find on a MacBook or iPhone.

10:24 am: Demoing Google Maps now. The iPad supports Google Street View and the implementation is very slick.

10:25 am: Moving on to video. Jobs calls up an HD clip from Google’s (GOOG) YouTube and displays it in both portrait and landscape. That finished, he fires up iTunes and loads “Star Trek” to demo the device’s video features, scrubbing, etc. Then he shows us a clip from Pixar’s “Up.” Tap to go full-screen. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

10:27 am: Watching that is nothing like actually having one in your hands, says Jobs.

iPad is one-half-inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds, and comes with 9.7 inch IPS display–“very high-quality display”
Full capacitive multitouch
16GB-64GB flash storage
iPad is powered by our Apple’s custom silicon–“We did it inhouse and it just screams,” says Jobs.
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, accelerometer, compass.
Battery life: 10 hours.

“And in addition to 10 hours of battery life, iPad offers a full month of standby time,” Jobs notes. “It’s also a good environmental citizen,” he adds, noting that it’s a very green device.

10:31 am: Jobs invites Scott Forestall to the stage to talk about apps on the device.

“We built the iPad to run virtually every app in the App Store right out of the box,” Forestall says.

Evidently, a built-in pixel-doubling feature automatically scales iPhone apps to full-screen iPad apps.

10:35 am: Forestall runs an unmodified racing game from the App Store. He first demos it in the screen size of an iPhone. Then, using the pixel-doubling feature, he blows it out to full screen. Very slick.

“So you can buy the iPad, take it home, hook it up and download all your iPhone apps and run them with no problem at all,” he says.

Forestall announces a new iPhone software development kit specifically geared to the iPad. He notes that iPad-specific applications will be featured “front and center” in the App Store.
He then invites Gameloft’s Mark Hickey to the stage to demo some new games the company has developed using the new SDK.

Hickey notes that the iPad’s additional screen space is a boon for developers, particularly those building games. He demos a first-person shooter that showcases this. “We’re now able to interact with the game world in ways that we weren’t able to before.”

10:40 am: Next up, the New York Times. Martin Nisenholtz takes the stage to talk about its iPad effort.

After talking up the Times iPhone app, Nisenholtz segues to the the paper’s new iPad app: “We think we’ve captured the experience and essence of reading the newspaper.”

The app is largely what you’d expect. Tap to resize text, zoom, breaking news updates, video. “This is everything you love about the paper and everything you love about the Web.”

10:44 am: Now, a painting application called Brushes that was famously used to create a New Yorker cover.
The app is impressive enough on iPhone; it’s even more so on the iPad. It supports “playback” of paintings, and as the presenter notes, brings us one step closer to a real virtual painting studio.

10:46 am: EA’s Travis Boatman take’s the stage. The topic of his presentation: Need For Speed.

“Building for the iPad is a little bit like holding a high-def TV screen a few inches from your face,” he says.

The iPad version of Need for Speed boasts a number of touch-activated enhancements: Tap on the car to view its interior, tap on the rear-view mirror to look behind you.

10:52 am: Up next: MLB.com’s Chad Evans. He demos the outfit’s iPad-optimized app, which uses the device’s additional screen space to display video excerpts and MLB TV.

MLB TV can be streamed like and enhanced with onscreen stats and data. “This big display really allows us to create a much more immersive experience,” Evans says.

10:52 am: Forestall returns to the stage to make another brief plug for the SDK before Jobs takes over for him.
“Let me show you another one of our apps that we’re very excited about,” Jobs says. “An e-book reader.”

Behind him a photo of Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle appears. “Amazon did a great job with their reader and we’re standing on their shoulders here….Today we’re announcing the iBooks store,” says Jobs, adding that it will be supported initially by Penguin, Simon & Schuster and a number of other big publishers.

The iBooks Store interface begins with a simple bookshelf view. Tap the screen and it loads a more iTunes-like view. Purchase a book and it’s added to your bookshelf with a slick little animation.

The reading experience seems very appealing. Much more book-like. From where I sit, the pages look like they’re written on paper.

“We use the e-pub format, the most popular open-book format in the world,” says Jobs. “We think iPad is going to be a very popular e-reader not just for bestsellers, but for textbooks as well.”

10:58 am: And here’s another new product announcement: A new version of iWork tweaked for use on the iPad. Jobs invites Phil Schiller on stage to demo it.

“We have a completely new version of Keynote, a completely new version of Pages and a completely new version of Numbers–all optimized for multitouch.

Schiller demos Keynote first. Creating presentations appears intuitive and simple–a slide navigator on the left, tap to load individual slides in the main window, drag to rearrange.

Nice use of multitouch gestures to enhance the app. Pinch to resize photos, tap to insert animations and transitions. These are all fairly advanced techniques and the device seems to handle them well.

11:05 am: Moving on to Pages now. Also impressive, though creating a written document on a tablet device like the iPad seems like it might be a drag. A nice tool for editing, though. Simple controls.

11:07 am: Moving on to Numbers. This application also makes good use of multitouch gestures and boasts a data-entry keyboard along with some 250 built-in functions. The software’s gesture capabilities makes Excel look antediluvian.
Powerful and fast.

So what’s Apple going to charge for iWork? $9.99 each, says Schiller, who notes that all three applications are compatible with their Mac versions.

Jobs returns to the stage, grinning. “Isn’t that great?” he asks for what’s easily the 10th time. iPad, he says, will synch to Mac or PC via USB.

11:14 am: Evidently, there will be two iPad models–one with Wi-Fi-only and one with Wi-Fi and 3G. The 3G device will come with two plans: 250 MB per month for $14.99, unlimited data for $29.99.

And who’s the carrier? AT&T.

A small groan ripples through the audience.

Jobs allows that AT&T is also throwing in free Wi-Fi at its hotspots. He follows that up by noting that there are no contracts for the iPad. You can cancel at anytime.

All iPad 3G models are unlocked and they use new GSM micro SIMS, so chances are they will just work, Jobs says, after noting that Apple hasn’t yet worked out international carrier deals.

11:16 am: Now a quick overview as a wrap-up. Jobs touts the overall tablet experience along with the new iBook app and iBook Store. “This is an amazing product with tremendous breadth. What should we charge for it?…When we set out to develop the iPad we not only had aggressive UI goals, we had aggressive price goals, because we wanted to put this in the hands of as many people as possible….IPad pricing starts not at $999, but $499,” Jobs says to a huge round of applause.

$499 for 16GB base model.
32GB for $599.
64GB for $699.
Adding 3G requires an additional fee.

Apple will ship Wi-Fi models in 60 days and 3G models in 90.

11:20 am: Apple has created new accessories for the iPad: A standard dock and a second dock with a keyboard attached to it. “Keep one of these in your den and you can write the next “War and Peace” on it.” The final accessory, a new case that doubles as a stand.

Running a video now. It features a number of Apple execs enthusiastically talking up the iPad.

11:25 am: Let me circle back here for a moment to pricing. Adding 3G to iPad requires an additional $130. So we’re talking $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB and $829 for the 64GB version.

Designer Jon Ives on the iPad: “In many ways iPad defines our vision, our sense of what’s next.”

11:32 am: Jobs returns to the stage and recalls the “middle device” scenario he mentioned earlier today. “Can we create this new category? The bar is set pretty high, but we think we’ve got the goods.”

“This is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” he adds. “The reason the iPad is going to be so great is because Apple has always strived to be at the junction of technology and liberal arts.”

And with that he concludes. Lights go up and Dylan begins playing over the speakers again.

View the slideshow

PREVIOUSLY:

Apple’s Tablet: A $2.8 Billion Business?

Apple’s Tablet: MacBook Airbus?

Apple Announces Jan. 27 Special Event: “Come See Our Latest Creation”

Major Apple Product Announcement Set for Wednesday, Jan. 27

Apple Pitching Tablet to Publishing Industry; Spring Launch Expected

Time (Finally) for the Tablet? Apple Developers Supersizing Their Apps for January Event.

The Apple Tablet Is Delayed? So What?

$1.9 Billion in Capex? What’s Apple Planning?

Apple’s Tablet: Read Different?

Imaginary Demand for Mythical Apple Tablet Exceeds All Estimates

Apple Tablet Coming to AT&T?

New From Piper Jaffray Analyst Gene Munster: The Apple iPad

Rumored Apple Netbook Actually an E-Book?

iTablet: Apple’s Killer App for Higher Ed

iFugly

Investors Bet on Another Real-Time Start-Up. Next Up for Hot Potato: Product, Users.

Peter Kafka — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:16:34 +0000

Here’s a good way to get your hands on scarce venture capital money: Create a start-up geared around “real-time” sharing and conversations.

That’s the core of Twitter’s pitch, of course, and it has helped the microblogging service raise $155 million, a $1 billion valuation, and forge partnerships with Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT). Not surprisingly, investors are looking to place money on related bets, from search engines that parse real-time data to location-based social networks with real-time updates, and even real-time photo-sharing sites.

The newest entrant: Hot Potato, a buzzy start-up that’s supposed to let users converse about a particular event, whether they’re attending it in person or watching from afar. When it’s up and running, that is. The five-man crew doesn’t have users or a product just yet.

But that hasn’t prevented the Brooklyn, N.Y-based company from raising about $1 million, sources say, in a round led by First Round Capital and RRE Ventures. A group of smaller investors, including Betaworks, the incubator that specializes in real-time companies, and Ron Conway, the angel investor best known for his Google bet, are also backing the company.

Hot Potato is led by Justin Shaffer, an eight-year veteran of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, pro baseball’s well-regarded Web unit. Shaffer has recruited three other MLB.com employees (one of whom subsequently left to get an MBA at MIT) to join him.

Shaffer wouldn’t comment about his funding round, but was willing to discuss his start-up’s general plans. They are finishing an iPhone app and plan to submit it to Apple (AAPL) in the next few weeks, he said, and will open their doors once that’s approved.

The big idea is an interesting one. People are already using Facebook and Twitter to converse about events in real time–think about Barack Obama’s inauguration, or Balloon Boy, or last night’s Yankees-Angels game.

Shaffer’s critique of those platforms, though is that “they break at scale–there’s no good way to filter the chatter so that you, your friends, and a group of strangers with something relevant to say can all connect. Hot Potato, he says, will offer a “curated stream” in real time of all the data coming out of the event in real time. What we’re really focused on doing is bringing together the entire audience of an event, whether they’re at the event or watching at home.”

Business model? TBD, of course. But there are a couple of obvious ways to go. For instance, Shaffer thinks people who opt-in to a particular conversation–say, about an NFL game or a U2 concert–would be okay with seeing “in-stream” ads, as long as they were relevant.

But that’s a problem that’s best tackled once the service is up and running. We’ll check back then.

Coming Soon to Your iPhone: Major League Baseball for a Dollar a Game

Peter Kafka — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:10:41 +0000

If you’re out of town and on the move and still want to watch your favorite baseball team, Major League Baseball is about to make you a very interesting offer: The ability to watch a game streamed live to your iPhone, for 99 cents a pop.

Bob Bowman, CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media–pro baseball’s standalone digital media company–tells me iPhone and iPod touch users will soon be able to buy individual games. The feature will be added to the company’s existing MLB.com app and will roll out as soon as Apple (AAPL) finishes approving the update, which Bowman expects to happen within the next few days.

As far as I know, that will make baseball the first pro sports league to sell mobile access to live games on an on-demand, a la carte basis.

The current version of the MLB.com app, which sells for $9.99, gives users the ability to watch a couple of live games each day, but MLB.com selects the games. And those who own both the app and subscribe to baseball’s MLB.TV–an all-you-can eat subscription service–can stream any live game they want to their phones. iPhone and iPod touch users have bought about 250,000 downloads of the app.

Bowman, not surprisingly, says he’d prefer to sell the app-plus-Web subscription together, but says he’s offering the games a la carte as an experiment to gauge demand. The test will run through the rest of the regular season, which ends Oct. 4.

News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and Time Warner’s (TWX) Turner, the two networks that own the rights to the baseball playoffs and World Series, have a Web blackout for the TV broadcasts of those games. (Bowman says he is working with both networks to offer a compromise to iPhone app users–a “four screen” version with live, stationary feeds of the game–so that, for instance, you may be able to see the dugout, etc. Pricing, if any, still undetermined.)

There is one other restriction to the offer, and it’s the same one that exists with the Web subscription service: You can’t watch games that are broadcast in your home market. That is, I can watch the Minnesota Twins play on an iPhone if I’m in Brooklyn, but not in Minneapolis.

Steve Jobs at WWDC 2008: iPhone 3G for $199, on Sale July 11

John Paczkowski — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:59:39 +0000

Apple’s much lauded iPhone captured 28 percent of the smart-phone market in the States by the fourth quarter of 2007–just six months into its launch. Today it holds something less than that–about 19.2 percent. But to look at the headlines, you’d think it controlled the market in its entirety. A quick search on Google returns 19,035 results for “iPhone”– from Jun. 2, 2008 to today. Why? Because in a few hours, Apple CEO Steve Jobs will address the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, at which he is expected to unveil the next version of the company’s iPhone.

And for Apple’s (AAPL) sake, I hope he does. Because with expectations running this high, I’d hate to see what happens if he doesn’t. Although the new Apple Store housed in a life-size replica of the Golden Gate Bridge pictured in the invite would certainly take some of the heat off …

Anyway, I’ll be live-blogging from inside Moscone West in San Francisco starting at 10 a.m. PDT. Here’s something to read while you wait …

From Moscone West: This is crazy. They just opened a single door to let cameras in and the media rushed the gate. Its like that 1979 Who concert in Cincinnati.

The hall in Moscone West is filling quickly to the sounds of Jerry Lee Lewis. From the looks of it media and developers are here in equal numbers.
Jobs takes the stage. I’m sitting about 20 rows back, but even I can see he’s looking pretty thin from here. He gets right into it, pulls up a slide of a stool and describes Apple as a three-legged company. Macs, music and the iPhone.
Jobs will spend the morning talking about the iPhone. This afternoon Apple will discuss OS X “Snow Leopard.”

Talking about iPhone SDK: In the past 96 days, 25,000 people have applied to Apple’s paid developer program. It’s had 250,000 downloads of the iPhone 2.0 software SDK.
Three parts to iPhone 2.0: enterprise, SDK, “new features.”
Apple has built exchange support into iPhone 2.0: push email, push contacts, push calendar, auto-discovery, global address lookup, remote wipe. Also supports Cisco VPN security.
Everything enterprise has told us they’ve wanted in the iPhone, we’ve built into it right out of the box, he says.
35% of Fortune 500 companies have participated in iPhone 2.0 beta: top five banks, securities firms, 8 of 10 top pharma companies, 6 of 7 leading airlines. Lots of support from higher-ed market as well.
Cutting to video now: Execs from Disney (DIS), Genentech, U.S. Army discussing iPhone 2.0 beta: all of them talking about the extraordinary demand for the iPhone among their employees.
“iPhone 2.0 is extraordinarily well-integrated with Microsoft (MSFT) Exchange.”
Video goes on: Talking about security now. Army rep talking about how important remote wipe is. Disney exec describes iPhone as “an enterprise-level device that packs the power of a laptop into a device the size of a phone.” Video ends.
Moving on to iPhone SDK. Jobs welcomes Scott Forstall to the stage to discuss the SDK. “We’re opening up the same developer tools we use internally,” he says. “Developers will create applications in exactly the same way we do.”
Core OS: Core operating system of iPhone uses the same elements as OS X. Offers a quick overview of Cocoa Touch, Xcode, Interface Builder, Tethered Debugging, Instruments and other developer tools, before moving on to a quick demo of Interface Builder.
Launches Xcode and creates a new project in Xcode. App will use built-in address APIs as well as core location APIs to locate contacts within a 10-mile radius of the iPhone.
He opens Interface Builder and drags and drops some buttons and fields onto an iPhone test screen on his desktop.
The UI finished, he opens the iPhone simulator to test it out. It works.
He links the UI features up to the code he’s written and bang, it’s linked up and ready to go. That’s it.
Forstall says developer response to the iPhone SDK has been enormously positive. He refers to a number of developer quotes that really lionize the platform: “It blows away anything we’ve seen from RIM” says one.
Forstall invites a Sega rep up to the stage to demo some of their work for the iPhone. Sega’s Ethan Einhorn offers a bit of background on their Super Monkey Ball project. He notes that the company was able to demo an early version of the game after just a few weeks of work at the iPhone SDK launch announcement. Now, after a few more months of work, they’ve managed to create a full-featured version of the game.
Super Monkey Ball will be available at the launch of the App Store for $9.99.
Up next: eBay’s Ken Sun. The iPhone has become the No. 1 mobile device for accessing eBay, Sun says.
Six weeks ago, eBay began developing a new interface for the iPhone and was able to quickly pull one together.
The application supports auction watching and bidding. Bids placed on an iPhone are instantly registered in eBay’s system. The eBay app will be available for free when the App Store launches.
Loopt’s Sam Altman takes the stage to talk about the company’s location-based social-networking app: “We make serendipity happen.” Pffft. He pulls up the app and uses it to locate a friend and a list of the thing’s she’s done today. He notes that the friend is close by at a cafe and sends her a quick message asking if she’s available for lunch.
Next up: TypePad and its mobile blogging application. Michael Sippey takes the stage and after talking up TypePad as a blogging platform, he moves on to the company’s new iPhone app.
Demo will focus on photoblogging. He browses the photos on his iPhone, selects a picture, crops it, adds it to a blog post, publishes it to his blog, taps view and Safari launches and displays his new post. Very fast, very slick. Oddly, no mention of a cut-and-paste feature.
This app will also be available at the launch of the App Store for free.
Associated Press follows TypePad. AP’s Benjamin Mosse describes AP’s Mobile News Network, which uses the device’s location API to provide location-based local news, photos and video.
The app also supports citizen journalism and permits AP readers to send the news agency their own photos and news reports. This app will also be available for free at the launch of the App Store.
Next up: Brian Greenstone from Pangea software. The company has ported two of its games from OS X to the iPhone.
The first is Enigmo. The second is Cromag Rally–a 3D caveman racing game. The graphics in both games look great. Greenstone notes that in this particular game, the iPhone itself is the controller–in this case, the steering wheel.
Greenstone really talking up the SDK, says porting the game was almost a no-brainer.
Forstall welcomes Moo-Cow-Music’s Mark Terry to the stage to demo Band. It’s a collection of virtual instruments that allows users to create music on the iPhone. He pulls up a keyboard and plays the first few bars of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
He moves on to a drum kit, and then to a “blues interface” that includes all the instruments you need to play the blues. And now the bass; he plays a few bars of Pink Floyd’s “Money.” He notes that tracks can be recorded and mixed together to create songs individually or collaboratively.
Onstage now is Jeremy Schoenherr from MLB.com to demo an app developed exclusively for the iPhone. The app offers real-time updates of game info and also nearly real-time video highlights. Videos will reportedly be uploaded minutes after a play is made.
Next: Modality, which will demo the first of two apps designed for the medical industry. S. Mark Williams takes the stage to talk about a learning application for med students. Looks like they’ve created an iPhone version of “Netter’s Anatomy.” All the graphics have been ported to the iPhone, and you can zoom in and out, and use touch to locate different areas of the body, the same way you use the Google maps application. Modality says that within weeks of the App Store launching, it will be offering this application as well as others for different education markets.
Mark Cain from MIMvista onstage now. Looks like we’ve got a medical imaging application. Onscreen now is a CT scan and a PET scan overlaid on an iPhone screen. (My god, this is really cool.)
The application relies on the iPhone’s pinch, slide, touch and drag to navigate images. You can also toggle to a planar view as well. Whoa–it supports movies as well. Cain stresses that this is a highly complex and computing-intensive application that’s been ported to the iPhone. And his company was able to do it with relative ease.
Up now: Digital Legends to demo another game. They’ve developed Krull, a fantasy action game, on the iPhone. Accelerometer is used to move the character, to jump, swing weapons, etc. The graphics are very impressive.
The person demoing notes that in some cases they’re better than those of handheld gaming platforms. The app will be available later this year. What we were just shown–which was damn impressive–was pulled together in just two weeks.
Forstall back onstage. He’s talking about one feature that developers have requested that wasn’t included in the SDK: The ability to run applications in the background as well as the foreground.
He pulls up a Windows Mobile task manager to demonstrate the wrong way to address that request. “This is nuts,” he says. Apple has come up with a far better solution: We’ve developed a push notification service.
Apple will maintain a persistent IP connection to the iPhone through which third-party applications can push notifications to the device. These can be badges, text notifications and audio notifications. There is also a unified push notification service for all developers that preserves battery life, maintains performance and works over the air. This will be available in September, but Apple will begin seeding it soon.
Jobs strolls back onstage to discuss some new features.
The first: Contact Search. Your standard contact search.
Second: Full iWork document support: pages, keynote. MS office support as well: Word, PowerPoint. (Cut-and-paste support?)
Third: Bulk delete and move.
Fourth: Save images from email.
Fifth: A landscape view of the calculator.
Sixth: Parental controls.
Seventh: Languages: there are two forms for Japanese, two forms for Chinese (simplified and traditional) including one that allows you to draw the characters with your finger. “One of the great advantages of not having a bunch of plastic keys on your keyboard,” says Jobs.
What about 8, 9 and 10? Cut-and-paste, chat and a better camera? No? Damn.
“iPhone 2.0 raises us to a whole new level,” says Jobs. “We’ll release it in July. It will be free to all iPhone owners, and $9.95 for iPod Touch users.
Moving on to the App Store. It will be on every iPhone, and it supports wireless downloads, automatic installs and automatic updates. Developers can set the price of their apps. Developers take 70%. No credit card or hosting fees. Apps will be DRM’d for FairPlay.
If a developer chooses to offer their app for free, Apple won’t charge them anything. Apps under 10 MG can be downloaded over the air. Apps above that size can be downloaded over iTunes or via Wi-Fi.
Apple has also developed an enterprise version of the apps store that will allow companies to distribute their custom applications only to their employees on their phones.
There’s another distribution method as well: Ad Hoc. Developers can mail apps to up to 100 users.
Now we’ve got something entirely new: It’s called MobileMe. Phil Schiller takes the stage to talk about it. What’s MobileMe? “It’s like Exchange for the rest of us.”
(Haha.) He just slipped up and called active sync “active stink.”
With MobileMe, iPhone users can have mail, calendar, etc. pushed to their phones. Information is stored in the cloud and then pushed to all a user’s Apple devices. Change a meeting on your phone, the update is pushed to MobileMe, which then pushes that update to your laptop and the machines of the people who are scheduled to attend it.
All this is done over the air. MobileMe works directly with Apple apps. It also works with Outlook for PC users. Apple has also built a suite of Web-based applications. You’ll find them at me.com. The applications look pretty robust. More like those you’d see on the desktop than on the Web.
Mail, contacts, calendar, photos–which can be sent directly to MobileMe from the phone–iDisk for storage.
He’s demoing it now: supports drag and drop. Also supports real-time contact search with links to Google (GOOG) maps for directions.
Calendar supports drag and drop as well. Want to reschedule a meeting? Drag it to another date and time.
Moves on to iDisk, which has a new interface. All this is tightly integrated with the iPhone. He checks a push email on his phone, saves the sender as a contact. Now he checks his MobileMe account online. The email and new contact are already there.
Now he creates a new calendar entry on his laptop. He check his phone and there it is. Now he leaves the iPhone view up on the screen behind him, walks back over to the laptop and adds another meeting to his calendar. A few seconds later, the iPhone screen updates with that new meeting. He demonstrates the same thing with a photo.
MobileMe will be available for $99 a year, with 20 gigabytes of storage. It will be available in July. And yes, MobileMe does replace .mac. Mac users will be automatically upgraded.
And what about that cut-and-paste support? No? Anyone? Bueller?
Jobs back onstage. In a few weeks, it will be the iPhone’s first birthday, he says.
He shows some photos of the crowds outside the Manhattan Apple store.
Jobs: “This is the phone that has changed phones forever.” He says the iPhone has 90% customer satisfaction; 98% of iPhone users are mobile browsing; 94% are using email; 90% are text messaging; 80% are using 10 features or more. “You can’t even find 10 features on other phones,” he adds.
Apple has sold 6 million phones so far, Jobs says. Now we need to address our next challenges:
1. 3G
2. enterprise support
3. Third party applications
4. more countries
5. more affordable.
Jobs notes that everyone wants one, but 56% of consumers Apple surveyed said it was too expensive.
iPhone 3G announced to roar of applause, camera flashes.
iPhone 3g is thinner, full plastic back, solid metal buttons, but same display, camera, a flush headphone jack, dramatically improved audio. “Feels even better in your hand, if you can believe that,” Jobs says.
How does the iPhone 3G tackle the challenges I just mentioned?
Video of EDGE vs. 3G pageload on Safari: 3G takes 21 seconds, EDGE still grinding away. Web site is National Geographic, very image heavy. EDGE still grinding; audience begins laughing. EDGE takes 59 seconds; 3G is 2.8 times faster than EDGE.
Jobs notes that 3G speeds approach those of Wi-Fi. Apple compared the iPhone 3G to two other state-of-the-art 3g phones, and the iPhone is 36% faster than Nokia N95 and Treo 750.
Video of same comparison with an email attachment: 3G downloads it in five seconds; EDGE takes 18 seconds. 3G is 3.6 times faster.
Talking about battery life now: iPhone 3G has 300 hours standby. 2G talk time: 10 hours; 3G talk time: five hours–that’s an industry-leading metric.
Five to six hours of browsing. Seven hours of video. Twenty-four hours of audio.
One other thing that benefits from fast data is GPS, and we’ve built that into the iPhone 3G, Jobs notes
Jobs talking about how location based services for the iPhone are about to explode. He’s demoing GPS tracking now. Jobs tracks a car driving down San Francisco’s Lombard Street.
Now, he circles back to enterprise support, third-party apps, and international distribution. Apple hoped to put the iPhone in 25 countries. World map appears on screen. Theme from “It’s a Small World” plays as countries in which the iPhone is distributed are quickly colored in. Half-hearted “Small World” sing-along fades after a few verses.
Lots of applause for this: “We’ll be rolling out the iPhone 3G in 70 countries over the next few months.” The next time you’re in Malta and you need an iPhone, it’ll be there.
Deals for all these countries are signed, sealed and delivered, according to Jobs.
Moving on to price: iPhone 3G will sell for $199 for 8GB version. Huge applause.
“With think at that price point it will be affordable for everyone,” Jobs says. The 16GB model will be $299 and will be available in black and white. Apple will start rolling the iPhone out in 22 of the largest countries on July 11.
on to a new ad: “It’s finally here. The new phone that beats the iPhone–it’s the iPhone 3G.”
The ad’s tagline: “Twice as fast. Half the price.” You can almost feel the early adopters in the audience wincing.
Jobs after ad ends: “Isn’t that nice? Would you like to see it again?” Audience roars; Jobs plays the ad again. “Just like the first iPhone, this new iPhone is one of the most amazing products I’ve ever had the pleasure of being associated with.” Jobs asks iPhone team to stand. Lots of audience applause.
Looks like that’s it. “Take advantage of the great sessions and go make some great products,” says Jobs. And the keynote ends. Sadly, there’s no “one more thing” moment today — no video-chat support, no chat support, no cut-and-paste.