Apple’s “Back to the Mac” event kicks off today at 10:00 am PT (1:00 pm ET). The company announced this morning that it would provide a live video stream, but since not everyone will be able to view it, we decided to provide a text-based live update.
[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]Please refresh this page beginning at 10:00 am PT to get the latest updates from the event. The posts will be in reverse chronological order (newest on top). Enjoy the event.
The event has ended.
Both available today.
$999 11.6- inch 64GB; 128 GB $1,199;
A second model that has an 11.6 inch screen. 5 hours battery life and 30 days of standby.
Battery life: 7 hours; standby 30 days.
No optical drive and no hard drive. SSD storage.
13.3-inch LED backlit display, 1440 x 900 pixels, Core 2 Duo processor, Nvidia GeFore 320m.
At it’s thickest point it’s 0.68-inch thin, tapering down to 0.11 inch, weighing 2.9 pounds. Complete unibody construction.
It’s the new MacBook Air. We think it’s the future of notebooks.
What would happen if an MacBook met an iPad?
One more thing…
Steve is reviewing what was talked about today.
We’ve decided to put out the Mac App Store within 90 days.
Our plan is to release Lion in the summer of 2011.
Steve is back.
You can add folders just like in the iOS.
LaunchPad opens to a full screen grid in the Finder. It also has iPad style pages, so you can go left or right to view more apps.
Looks like the iOS App Store. Not surprising.
Craig is demoing the App Store.
Mission Control is a way to view every thing running on your Mac in one window.
LaunchPad will be home screen for Mac apps.
Mac App Store: one-click downloads, free and paid apps, auto installation, auto app updates, Apps licensed for use on all your personal Macs.
7 billion apps downloaded from the App Store.
Touch surfaces want to be horizontal not vertical.
App Home screens, Auto Save, Full screen apps, auto resume when launched.
App Store has revolutionized how people get apps. Why not on the Mac too?
Multi touch gestures can be really important on the Mac.
What we’ve done is start with Mac OS X and created from it, iOS. We’ve perfected it over the last several years. we’d like to bring them back to the Mac — MAc OS X meets the iPad. That’s what Lion is all about.
We’re really happy with Snow Leopard but we know how to take it even further. Today we can going to show you Mac OS X Lion.
Mac OS X is next.
Beta of FaceTime for Mac released today.
FaceTime on Mac turns the display to match what the iPhone is using.
Steve is demoing FaceTime from his Mac.
Another Mac, iPod touch or iPhone 4 in full screen.
In the last 4 months Apple shipped 19 million FaceTime devices. No. 1 request is FaceTime on the Mac. Today we are introducing that.
Next up: FaceTime.
iLife ’11 is free with every new Mac. $49 upgrade for existing users. Available today.
5 million people using GarageBand.
Steve is back.
Every time you complete a performance, GarageBand compiles a history to let you track how you’re doing.
You can play along with the piano lesson and it will show you in red which notes you messed up.
Learn to Play is in full screen.
New lessons built into GarageBand for guitar and piano.
Flex Time allows you to make audio longer or shorter just by dragging.
GarageBand also has Flex Time, which was introduced in Logic.
It looks at the drum track, which sound good, and pulls the other tracks in line. Basically quantizing, but it leaves the human feel of the drums.
He is showing how to fix instruments with Groove Matching technology.
Xander Soren showing the new GarageBand.
Steve is back.
YouTube, Vimeo and CNN iReport uploading built-in.
That video trailer was amazing!
Face detection technology is in iMovie to automatically choose clips with people in them.
Went to Abbey Road Studios and recorded the Long Symphony doing the music for the themes.
There is an outline view to fill out information. You can add cast members and their gender. You can add a studio logo (5 included) and a credits page, which looks like a movie credit page.
15 movie trailers.
It also puts an instant replay banner on the top of the clip.
You can choose a segment and make an instant replay that will slow down the movie. Very cool.
You can turn up the volume on each clip. As you increase the volume, the waveform moves. You can edit segments too.
Randy is demoing iMovie.
Do extremely sophisticated editing for everyone. One step effects, People Finder, News and Sports Themes.
No. 1 request was for better audio editing.
iMovie ’11 is a great release.
Phil is done and Steve is back.
Video tutorials are built into the app.
Project view is a wooden bookshelf. It shows cards, books, etc.
Pages can be reorganized however you want.
The cover of the book uses the key photo for the album. It uses the higher starred photos for the larger photo pages. Lots of automatic stuff going on.
Of course, anything can be edited.
Creating a book brings you to a full screen window that lets you pick a theme and lays out your photos.
New sharing panel that tells you what you did with the album including if you uploaded it to Facebook and comments your friends made, all without leaving the app.
An email is made with a template, so they aren’t individual pics, but it looks like a one-page book. Very cool feature.
Entirely new way to email photos.
Phil said Facebook, but then changed it to Flickr. Not quite sure if it reads albums from both services or not.
Album view reads your Facebook albums and shows them in iPhoto.
Some very cool slideshow show themes. Much more rich media than previous themes. Animations and zooming, all automatic.
You can see all photos from a place on the map.
Phil Schiller is demoing iPhoto.
Adding letterpress cards as well.
iPhoto now has full screen mode, Facebook enhancements, emailing photos is easier, new slideshows and a big leap in books.
Same apps. He is going to look at three of them.
It’s why some people buy a Mac. We keep improving it and we have a new version today.
Steve is talking about iLife.
Steve is back.
The momentum on the Mac has never been more.
The stores in China are the highest trafficed of any store.
Key thing behind Mac momentum is the retail stores. 75 million visitors last quarter. 2.8 million Macs sold. 50% of those were new to the Mac.
Customer reaction has been great. Apple has been No. 1 in a lot of customer surveys.
Tim is talking about gaming and that companies are bringing games to the Mac and PC simultaneously.
The Mac outgrew the market for 18 quarters in a row or 4 and a half years.
If it were only a Mac company it would be 110 on Fortune 500 list.
The Mac made up 33% of Apple’s revenue last year or $22 billion.
I’d like to start with the state of the Mac. I’d like to invite Tim Cook to discuss that.
We’ve got some fun stuff to share with you this morning.