All Things Digital

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Looks like Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s second estimate of Apple’s weekend iPhone sales underestimated demand just as badly as his first. Apple didn’t sell 500,000 units of the iPhone 3GS over the weekend, as Munster first predicted. Nor did the company sell 750,000 as he said in a research note this morning. It sold over one million. Moreover, downloads of Apple’s new iPhone 3.0 software, launched last Wednesday, have already reached six million.

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Schiller announces iPhone 3Gs. S is for speed. “This is a really fast iPhone.” Loads apps and Web sites very, very quickly. NYTimes.com loads more than 3x as fast. Schiller says its about 2x faster than the iPhone 3G. As expected, the device features a brand new 3 megapixel autofocus camera. Auto-focus. Auto-white balance. Auto-exposure. Tap-to-focus. Improved low-light sensitivity. Auto-macro. “The best thing about this camera is it also captures video.” 30 FPS VGA with audio. Auto-focus, etc. Quick demo of video shows that quality is impressive. Videos are stored alongside pix in the picture application. Edit and share videos with the tap of a finger. “And if my carrier supports it, I can even send these things via MMS,” Schiller quips in a poke at AT&T.

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Apple (AAPL) is also updating the MacBook air. Two new configurations starting at 1.8 GHZ. “Great hardware deservers great software,” says Schiller. And with that he welcomes Bertrand Serlet to the stage to talk about OS X. Serlet immediately begins talking smack about Vista and Windows 7. “No end user should ever have to know about disc defragmentation,” he quips. Windows 7 is “fundamentally another version of Vista. “It’s the same old technology. This is so very different from OS X.”

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10:01, and lights dim to reveal a movie screen. Onscreen: John Hodgman, as PC, welcoming attendees to WWDC and encouraging developers to slow down iPhone App development. Increasingly frustrated Hodgman finally fires off a raspberry. Replaced by Mac guy, who welcomes everyone to WWDC. Phil Schiller takes the stage now. “Can’t you feel the love in this room.” 25 million active OS X users in the past two years, he says, talking up Leopard. Installed base has tripled in the past two years.

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This morning we learned that Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference does not herald the return of CEO Steve Jobs. Now comes word that it may not herald the announcement of company’s next-generation iPhone, either.

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Macworld 2009 is over, but the rumors that prefaced it and were then left unaddressed, remain. Two in particular: an updated iMac and a redesigned Mac mini–both of which failed to make an appearance during Phil Schiller’s Macworld keynote, though it was widely believed they would. The refresh may happen yet, however. Apple has on many occasions uncrated new products on the heels of Macworld.

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There’s got to be a joke somewhere in the fact that Macworld, the Consumer Electronics Show and the AVN Awards (the “Pornies”) all happen during the same week. Maybe even one that hasn’t been played out 10 times over. All Things Digital was too busy covering two out of three this week to think of one.

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Was it a great keynote? Well, no. Phil Schiller actually did a great job delivering it. Has anyone watched CEOs from other companies? They’d be lucky to have their keynotes delivered by Schiller, let alone Jobs. Apple followers are spoiled.”
— The Macalope puts “the worst Macworld ever” in perspective

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Analysts expecting Apple’s Macworld 2009 keynote to be light on revolutionary products or otherwise “modest” or “neutral” were not disappointed. Well, they were disappointed, but they knew they were going to be disappointed going in, so it shouldn’t have come as a shock, right?

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Despite its relatively tame product announcements and the absence of Steve Jobs, Apple’s final Macworld keynote wasn’t without a highpoint or two: changes in pricing and digital rights management for the iTunes store, a new 17-inch MacBook Pro with an eight-hour battery life, and a surprise appearance by crooner Tony Bennett, among them. After the jump, the event in pictures courtesy of ATD’s crack photojournalist, Adam Tow.

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Looks like today’s keynote will include a “One More Thing” moment after all, even without Steve Jobs to deliver it. And it will focus on iTunes. Three big updates to the iconic software, today. Plus, Tony Bennett to close out the keynote with two of his most familiar–and given the venue, appropriate–songs.

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Next up, the new and expected 17-inch MacBook Pro. Before introducing it, Schiller notes that the MacBook has been the No. 1 notebook computer in the states.

The new machine is largely as predicted. It boasts Apple’s new unibody chassis and a glass touch trackpad. At 6.6 pounds, it’s the world’s lightest notebook. It has a hi-res backlit display. “The best display we’ve ever shipped in a notebook,” says Schiller, with a 60 percent greater color gamut than other machines.

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Number two on Phil Schiller’s list of three announcements: iWork ’09. The next iteration of Keynote, Apple’s presentation application, offers some new object transition features: object zoom, a swing transition (Schiller demos it with a Bush-to-Obama slide that gets a laugh from the audience). There are also some new text transitions and chart animations. Finally, Apple’s offering a Keynote Remote application. It’s an iPhone app, of course.

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