Walt, after all, is the basis for this. And this. Microsoft should be very proud, or we should all be very scared. [WSJ]

Unfortunately for Palm, Apple has both a new iPhone operating system and new iPhone hardware coming, likely available within a month, that could obviate many of these advantages.

AND

I'd note that the new iPhone to be unveiled next week will have lots of added features that could alter those calculations.

It's not like everybody didn't already know that new iPhone hardware was coming soon, but for Mossberg to say it in a review, it's all but certain. One, he doesn't just make things up. Two, he has that special relationship with Apple we talked about earlier that lets him get seated at Apple events early, with the VIPs. It's safe to say he knows what he's talking about. [WSJ Pre Review via Dave Zatz's Observant Twitter - Image Credit]

And our own Palm Pre review

In the second part Kamen talks about how the arm's control systems were developed, simplifying an 18-degrees of freedom movement space so that it could be controlled almost subconsciously by the user.
Part three is where Kamen talks about his not-for profit scheme to get young people interested in science through robots: "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology" (FIRST); "like sports, nobody ever walks around saying 'I wanna be second'."

Interesting stuff, as I said, and the Luke arm seems to have a pretty astounding future ahead of it. I can't help thinking I'd've asked a few more direct questions though. Is the arm dexterous enough for it to let a wearer/user use the toilet? When the Luke arm gets to that level of sophistication—and, more importantly, when its developer/users trust it enough to do intimate tasks like that with it—that's the point at which I reckon the arm will stop being a science-technology showpiece and really make a difference in people's lives. Over to you in the comments. [Kara.AllthingsD]

Walt Mossberg of the WSJ has been testing it "for a couple of weeks" and sees that surfing on the faster 3G is between three and five times the speed of the original iPhone. However, Moss found that browsing on the 3G network drained his battery much faster than browsing on the original. Externally, he says the speaker was "much louder" (YES!) for both music and speakerphone, but otherwise pretty much the same as the original. One bug/feature he ran into was that you can only sync your calendar and contacts with either Exchange or your personal accounts, not both.

In Mossberg's own battery tests, he got 4 hours and 27 minutes (short of 5 hours) of talk time, which is three hours less than his test on the original iPhone. Using 3G, he got 5 hours and 49 minutes, which is slightly better than Apple's own claim. He couldn't test any apps on his iPhone 3G, but did on his old iPhone—they worked pretty much as advertised. He concludes with pretty much what we've all known: it's slightly more expensive on AT&T due to the higher price plan, but satisfies people who really need that 3G speed. What's weird is that Mossberg didn't test the GPS functionality at all, so we're left wondering how that is. [All Things D]

Ed Baig of USA Today also tested the iPhone 3G and claims both that it was worth the wait, but still not perfect. His complaints of the first one—no video capture, no Bluetooth stereo and no voice dialing—are still there. Also, AT&T's 3G coverage was nonexistent in his New Jersey home, which kinda negates the whole "iPhone 3G" thing. He notes that the new plastic backing helps reception, and the new flush headphone jack is "a welcome development." Unlike Mossberg, Baig does have something to note on the GPS. He says he was quite impressed by its accuracy when searching for pizza places while driving, and hopes that there will be a third-party add-on for turn-by-turn live directions.

Baig also says that the speaker is improved, but notes strangely that you can't directly charge the new iPhone 3G in some old accessories, such as a Bose SoundDock or a Belkin car kit. There's actually an adapter coming that will enable charging on those. Weird. He finishes up with his wishes for the next generation: Flash, Java and WMV support, removable battery and an expandable memory slot. All in all, a pretty positive review. [USA Today]

David Pogue of the NYT says that the audio quality is much improved, and notes that both incoming and outgoing sound is better than before. "In fact, few cellphones sound this good." The curved back makes the phone feel better in your hand, which is a definite plus. However, he says, the missing "standard cellphone features" from the first generation are also missing from this one. He hopes that the third-party Apps from the iPhone App Store will help fill in the gaps, but some of the ones we've seen—finding parking spots, free phone calls at Wi-Fi hotspots, random restaurant recommender, expense tracker, Etch-a-Sketch and tip calculator—don't exactly make up for the missing MMS, video recording and cut and paste features. Pogue also noticed the GPS does not support turn-by-turn navigation.

Pogue doesn't have much else in the way of benchmarks or impressions, but comes off seeming like he really likes the phone because of the iPhone 2.0 software; something old iPhone owners will be able to get for free. [NYT]

Notes: We have to say that Mossberg's review was the best in terms of completeness (save for the GPS omission). Normally, Newsweek would have a review up for the iPhone along with these three guys, but both they and Wired don't have an early review. This, we think, is because Steven Levy (the old Newsweek guy) at Wired, and Fake Steve Jobs (who hasn't quite started at Newsweek) didn't get the nod from Apple. We had our own hands on with the phone back at WWDC, which covers a lot of the exterior hardware elements as well as some of the software details.

The study, by Gerard J. Tellis—from the University of Southern California—and Joseph Johnson—from the University of Miami (well, hello there alma mater), points out that the average change in actual stock valuation is $200 million down (a 5% drop) for bad reviews and $500 million for good product reviews.

Abstract:
Product quality is probably under-valued by firms because there is little consensus about appropriate measures and methods to research quality. We suggest that published ratings of a product's quality are a valid source of quality information with important strategic and financial impact. We test this thesis by an event analysis of abnormal returns to stock prices of firms whose new products are evaluated in the Wall Street Journal. Quality has a strong immediate effect on abnormal returns, which is substantially higher than that for other marketing events assessed in prior studies. Moreover, there are some important asymmetries in the effect. We discuss the research, managerial, investing, and policy implications.

When they say policy implications read "send Russian mafia thugs to Walt's flat." [SSRN via Business Week]

Kevin basically responds that there isn't enough subsidation in the US.

Mossberg moves onto openness of the networks.

Kevin Martin is saying that both consumers and entrepreneurs want it. So in the last auction, they put a condition in that the spectrum needs to be open to any handset or application. And our willingness to embrace that is important. We're not completely there yet, so that every major carrier is embracing openness.

Kara: Would you have done this openness thing before Google spoke up?
Verizon: You see in Japan and Korea that what networks can do when open. But in the past, customers wanted to do things like downloading apps to their phones. And that increased as the broadband speeds picked up.

If someone builds a device that isn't efficient, or uses too much bandwidth, we have to be careful. The shared resource [of the wireless network] is not like a DSL line. (Funny, isn't that what the Net neutrality enemies are saying is a shared resource, too? B.L.)

Mossberg: Will rates be the same for plans using phones that we didn't buy from you?
Lowell: They will be the same, but the functionalities might be different, because of your handset. (Obviously —B.L.)

Mossberg: So you're purely a provider of network services then?
Lowell: Yes.

Mossberg: Let's talk about cancellation fees. How to you justify charging people $175-$200 to cancel plans that have already worked through their subsidation.
Lowell: We don't do that anymore, as of a year ago. In Italy, they don't allow subsidization for these reasons. We tier our termination fees so that over time they get lower. And we sell all our phones without any subsidies as an option but 98% of the people choose the contract. If subsidies were outlawed, we'd have no problem and no other carriers would, too.

Kevin: It should be declined over time if its a recovering fixed cost. There should be a reasonable amount of time to take your phone/service home and try it out. There's a 14-day allowance for this. Some people are wondering what restocking fees should be, too.

Kevin on Net netrality: We have to allow carriers to manage their networks without limiting consumers access to info, but not only info but innovation.

Verizon on Wireless EVDO and 3G vs HSDPA (ATT claimed that EVDO's roadmap is limited): We study a lot of competitor claims. I've got an engineering background and there aren't a lot of miracles out there. We're reliable and fast, and we're not going to relinquish that. (Fluff, didn't address the competitive question.—B.L.)

Martin: For the first time in 10 years, we enforced the rule that the cable companies needed to open up and that probably contributed to Sony's news this week in collaboration with the cable companies.

Lowell on Coverage maps: What DB level constitutes coverage? There's no standard, and I'd be fine if some rules were made. Same with dropped call data. We need those rules before we can get fair comparisons between companies.

D is Done!
[All Things D]

Dean says that fatalities are down because of battlefield tech and triage methods. But that many soldiers are coming back missing limbs. He wanted to make an arm to replace their missing ones. He wants it sensitive enough to pick up a grape or allow soldiers to use a razor to shave, but be self-contained in terms of power. And a two- year deadline.

He say that a year later, they built an 8.9-pound arm using titanium, custom motors, and so on. There's 18 degrees of freedom, and they're now seeing a demo of a man who is scratching his nose. Dean says he did this in one year.

The control techniques are revolutionary. He's playing a video of a guy who didn't have both his arms for 18 years, and learned how to use the arms effectively in less than two dozen hours of training. He's showing a video that shows a guy who knows how to punch, pass a Ping Pong ball to his friend and pour a drink for another man who is holding a cup with the same type of arm. Then the video shows Chuck, the man with no arms, for the first time in 13 years, feeding himself cereal.

Holy shit, now he's showing a video of a guy using the arm using only his MIND. He learned this technique in two days, but Dean says it was more like the system learned how to interface with the human.

Looking at what he's doing, the guy drinks and people applaud. It's been two days. But the amazing thing is that he's put the cup down so it's become a lower brain stem function in two hours of doing cup functions.

Attaching the arm directly to nerves required a lot of surgery.

But there are limited arm functions, even if it's very complicated. Learning how to control a back hoe, with four controls, takes years. And the arm has 18 degrees of freedom. But people don't learn how by using each degree. In fact, it's more efficient, Dean says. There are three degrees of freedom, so they did macros. With this, a man learned how to pick up bottles, nails and other items.

Attaching the arm was a challenge, day to day. Nine pounds on an arm is heavy over a few minutes, let alone a day. So they knew that no one would wear them because of that. So Dean designed air bladders that shift the weight on the body when passive (like fidgeting in a chair) and inflate to be hard when the servos in the arm detect load.

When they did a demo for the secretary of the Army, they showed a man picking up 12 grapes and eating them without breaking or dropping any.

You can literally use infrared light, reading signals going through the skull without any invasive insertion. That's what we're working on next as a controller.

Dean is taking five minutes to explain the plight of the modern world and the responsibility of the smart, rich people in the world to help change that. I'm not sure I have the words to express his thoughts, so I'll wait for the official D video and embed it here later.

Vid from All Things D:

[All Things D]

Mossberg asks what's the difference between your work here and at Microsoft?
Melinda says that there's a lot of crossover because of advances in tech that aren't available to the developing worlds. The skill set is very transferable.
Mossberg: What's the difference between your Foundation and others like it? More money?
Melinda Gates: We can take risks. There's a market failure for malaria vaccines, so no one's done anything on this in a while. (There's a traveler's market only.) But we can take on some of that risk and work with the pharmaceutical companies and then distribute through government. We can show them that there is a market.

Melinda says they could tap their entire budget by attempting to fix the problems in the education system alone. Their mission is more to help take on that risk that governments can't in fixing problems.

Mossberg: How do you work with countries with governments that are more part of the problem (corrupt, poor) than part of the solution?

Mossberg: Are you applying business principles? More organized than others?
Melinda Gates: We take a very economic and business approach, which doesn't mean we don't pay attention to the social issues.

(Bill and Melinda go through a list of diseases and evaluate where they can be most effective.)

Mossberg: Do people tell you how to spend the money?
Bill carried around a letter in his briefcase for a month about a kid who needed a new liver. It's hard, but we try to treat all lives with equal value. And the world does not do that. So with that in mind, it's easier to focus on that.

Melinda: Why does it take 25 years to put a vaccine's technology in Bangladesh compared to here, today?
There's no world fund for getting doses to the developing world. There's a lot of infrastructure problems. And we've been adding new vaccines like tetanus and hepatitis. Several million kids die from measles a year, and now it's less than 300k. (From the vaccines they've helped get out there.)

Bill and Melinda don't want to do the day-to-day stuff, but they've had a lot of help from people like Bill Gates Senior. She spends a lot of time setting strategy with Bill Junior.

Mossberg: Will having Bill around in 30 days full-time be annoying? (Jokingly.)
Melinda: I knew that Bill wouldn't wear a tool belt around the house when he retired. He'll take a sabbatical this summer, he'll spend a day on special projects at Microsoft that Ballmer wants him to work on and 2-3 days at the foundation a week. And some time being curious and learning about science, education, etc. We love working on the foundation together and not many days go by at home that we don't talk about this. Vacations are huge for talking about the foundation, too.

Re: education, the US loses a million or so as drop-outs. The foundation worked on data measurement. For example, that million only counts senior-year drop-outs, while it should be measured from freshman year. The other problem is that many graduates aren't ready for college.

Walt sends his kids to public school. It's fine, but maybe that's because of the affluent area.

Melinda: The top 10% of the kids do well in whatever school. The schools track them into their own curriculum. Those parents fight the change and ignore the remainder of the kids. There are parents who demand a better system, but they get no traction because the money is going in the wrong direction. One of the things they learned is that you can't just get a good urban school started without working with the city, district and state because the system will just pull it back down. (You can see how these successful people in tech have started applying similarly huge scale system thinking to the education and healthcare system problems —B.L.)

They are focusing in NY with Bloomberg and Joe Klein (who formerly led the case against Microsoft as a monopoly, I believe). Because they're willing to be bold and think of things in a business-minded way and shut down schools that don't work and rethink labor incentives. The best teachers are currently not treated well in the current school system.

They can't change the minds here and make it change long term. They focus on changing the system, so the negotiation can't happen at the labor level, but has to be at the district level.

Question from the crowd: What's the time frame?
Melinda: We take this lesson from Microsoft: a long-term approach. We're saving lives today, but we have a long horizon. Once we get an HIV vaccine, we'll try to distribute. Why not a 200-year perspective on helping the world? They believe that the wealth Bill and Melinda have will be gone in 50 years or so. And Warren Buffet stipulates in his will that 10 years after his death his money needs to be spent out. That's so that they can give back to people now.

We're working on banking for people who live on less than $2 a day. As tech goes cheaper, this stuff will make a huge difference in the world.

Question from the crowd: How do you deal with violence in schools going from students to teachers?
Melinda says that comes from facelessness in big schools. She's seen schools with three cop cars in front and two metal detectors. You can see the gangs going through schools and once the teachers recognize the kids, the kids act a lot better. Once the teachers know the kids' names, these things fall into place. She's seen schools that have fixed this in NY be able to lose their metal detectors, and graduation rates go up profoundly (up to 78%).

Done!
[All Things D]

8:19 Jeff is on stage.

8:20 Mossberg: Why sell hardware like the Kindle?
Bezos: How we get there is by putting our customer's needs as a priority instead of what we're already good at. You need to renew yourself with new skills. When we looked at ebooks, you needed a microscope to find the sales. What we thought is that what people needed was a frictionless way to buy ebooks. And that required us to build a whole new skill set that would take us like 10 years.

8:22 Mossberg: We're in an time where you need to have factories to make hardware.
Bezos: We hired people who knew what they were doing but it still took them time to work as a team. Books needed to be cheaper, too. And we have a competency that is making the experience easy to use.

8:25 Mossberg: I liked the seamlessness of buying books, even though I had hardware reservations. How many have you sold?
Bezos: We haven't shared this number before so maybe it qualifies as news for you...Kindle sales are 6% of books on the 125k titles available on Kindle.

8:27 Mossberg: Why did you sell out?
Bezos: We underestimated. And we're dropping the price to $359 from $399. Mossberg: Clearing stock for a new model?
Bezos: No.
Mossberg: How many versions? Bezos says many more.

8:28 Mossberg: Kindle is the best ebook reader and I've seen them all. It's the best because of the back-end service, like the iPod and iTunes. But what about the whole idea of people reading on a screen with navigation controls? Are you convinced that books will be shifting to digital formats, as newspapers are?
Bezos: Yes, but books won't go away much like horses won't go away. (Crowd laughs.) It's hard to find a tech that's stayed in its original form for 500 years. And anything around that long is going to be hard to improve. But that's what we see with Kindle, even though the book has stayed the same for 500 years. And Kindle is good, because it disappears as you get into the flow of the story.
Mossberg: Unless the leather case falls off.
Bezos: Right! There are things about old books, like loud pages turning when your spouse is sleeping, or the book gets too heavy over time; Kindle is 10.3 ounces. It can't beep at you, like this microwave I had that at 30-second intervals would beep over and over again after my food was done. I call those self-important devices! I'll get my food when I'm ready! But you can't outbook the book, so you have to improve on it, doing things like dictionary lookup. And changing the font size, very simple thing but much appreciated. But there are big whoppers like delivery of a book in 60 seconds. Mossberg: To me, that's the thing. You guys should have made a better case, but that is the brilliant stroke.

8:33 Mossberg: Could you separate Kindle's whispernet from Sprint?
Bezos: We have to think globally, so yes.

8:34 Mossberg: Are you going to have handwriting recognition?
Bezos: There are issues with using a stylus on an e-ink display, and putting something like a digitizer causes visibility reductions.

8:35 Mossberg: People love books and the tactile feel of them.
Bezos: Yes, people love horses but aren't going to ride them to work. We're trying to improve on books.

8:38 Mossberg: This is your first hardware device. How do you limit feature creep and define the product?
Bezos: This is purpose-built for reading. If people want features and they don't detract from that, then we'll consider them.
Mossberg: What about web browsing?
Bezos: E-ink is not great for that without color and bad refresh, etc. But e-ink is unsurpassed for reading.

8:41 Bezos: You might consider the web the ultimate book that you'd choose over everything else.
Mossberg: You might want to go to Amazon.com and order the Kindle Shoe Edition.

8:43 Bezos: When we talk about making products, we talk as missionaries, because missionaries make better products. Someone asked me how much we would spend on making Kindle and I said, how much do we have? We wanted to do this right. Now that 3g and e-ink are coming together, Kindle has a place in the world. The server side too. There are a lot of pieces being pulled together.

8:45 Mossberg is talking about downloads. How serious is Amazon?
Bezos: Very serious. There are a lot of competitors. And music and movies have that glamour element, which is unfortunate, because it attracts people (competition).

8:47 Bezos just announced a web streaming video download service. The system would be pay based.

8:48 Bezos: We've got 5.2 million tracks in MP3 format.

8:49 Mossberg: Are the studios right to be fighting with Steve Jobs?
Bezos; I'd frame it differently and say it's in their best interest to have a multitude of partners and distributors.
Mossberg: I think you're the best positioned to challenge them, even if your marketshare is low.
Bezos: If you're a content owner, you want to get it out there in as many ways as possible. That's why you make chocolate and vanilla.
Mossberg: So iTunes is going down?
Bezos: Laughs, "That's not what I said."

8:51 Mossberg: Can you talk about your cloud storage and computing product, S3? Bezos: These are our infrastructure web services. They allow you to build services in the cloud without owning any hardware. We live in a weird era now, and people build their own data centers. I went on a tour for a 300-year-old brewery, and 100 years ago, they had to make their own generator to make their own power. It didn't make their beer any better to make their own electricity, so they went on the grid as soon as possible. This is just like that. You can scale up and importantly, scale down.

8:53 We had a client who went from five users to 5000 users in three days, and then back down a bit, and you can't scale that if you own your servers.

8:54 Mossberg: Why are you doing this? Will Walt think of Amazon as the people who made elastic computing huge instead of the retail giant in a few years?
Bezos: If you're a programmer, maybe. It could be a meaningful thing for us over time, especially if you are an engineer.

8:57 Mossberg: The economy, are you worried about it?
Bezos: Our business is doing well and there are some things that help us in this economy, as we've been obsessed with low prices for a decade, and as gas gets expensive, driving a 2,000 pound car to pick up five pounds of stuff.
Mossberg: But your packages come in a truck, too.
Bezos: But a route by a postal worker or other is more efficient.

8:59 Questions by the crowd: What about Kindle's DRM? Why, when Amazon does MP3s without drm. The default on Kindle is DRM free, but publishers get to choose. You can't loose things on the Kindle, because we store your books on the cloud. Without thinking about it, you can delete anything on a Kindle and not worry about it. We have the rights from the publishers to let you redownload it again. With music, we had to work with the IP owners over three years to get to the DRM free solution. My own view is that DRM free would not slow down sales.
Man in Crowd: But if you go to another reader, you lose your copies.
Bezos: At the end of the day, it's their decision.

9:02 Another little question: Amazon.com keeps recommending the Kindle to me, even though I own it. That pisses me off.
Walt: That's because you only own one.
Man in Crowd: How good are you at personal recommendations, and are you going to get better?
Bezos: We've been working on it for 12 years and we still make dumb recommendations, but we're pretty good at it. We're trying to create serendipity. Say you're coming to the website and 1-in-100 times a person says "I really like that!" [The challenge is for us] to take that 1% chance and take it to 2% and then 3%. (He's making the numbers up but that's the philosophy.)

9:05 Question: Why should we have different boxes for movies and music?
Bezos: I believe it's intermediate; one day, this stuff will be built into TVs.

[All Things D]

Guys like us avoid monopolies. We like to compete.

[9to5mac—thanks Ted]

Here are the main points of the Lenovo X300, compared to the MacBook Air, according to Señor Don Walt Mossberg:

• Is thicker than MacBook Air. Winner: MacBook Air.
• Is heavier than MacBook Air. Winner: MacBook Air.
• Has less battery life in both tests and normal use (so much for SSD.) Winner: MacBook Air.
• Has way more ports. Winner: Lenovo X300.
• Has built-in DVD possibility. Winner: Lenovo X300.
• Has SSD drive built-in. Winner: Lenovo X300.
• Has WiMax connectivity. Winner: Lenovo X300.
• Has USB Wireless. Winner: Lenovo X300.
• Has GPS location-finding. Winner: Lenovo X300.
• Has higher screen resolution. Winner: Lenovo X300.
• Has a screen that stands up higher, leaving less viewing angle while travelling on plane. Winner: MacBook Air.
• Has slower processor. Winner: MacBook Air.
• Doesn't use Mac OS X Leopard. Winner: MacBook Air.
• Is more expensive at $2,476 with half battery and without DVD. It has SSD, but it doesn't add any advantage. More popular configuration is $3,000 with full battery and DVD drive. MacBook Air base model is $1,799. Winner: MacBook Air.

That's seven wins each. Does this mean there's no winner? It may look like technical tie, but my feeling is that he prefers the MacBook Air. At the end, it's all about the software and Walter Mossberg preference for Leopard (which could be debatable, even while I agree with him) plus the price, physical specs and battery life, makes the MacBook Air come ahead.

Still, it seems that both computers are right and wrong. At the end, it all depends on your personal taste, priorities and pet peeves. Or as Caesar Mossberg politely puts it: if you have the money and "you're happy with Windows," the Lenovo X300 is a "notable engineering accomplishment." [All Things D]

It's the first Windows computer that I would put in the same class or even sightly ahead in terms of its hardware design

And if you think this is one of our Onionmodos, you can see The Mighty and Goateetastic Mossberg telling you all about it face to face. We had to watch the video twice:

His reasons are good, although I'm not so keen on the design of the Dell myself, which I find plain and vulgar. He's also right when he brings up two issues to declare that, overall, the Apple iMac still wins. First, he argues that Mac OS X Leopard is a faster and better operating system than Vista (most of us in the Giz agree on that one.) Then, he adds that the Dell is a more expensive machine than the iMac, which admits no denial: even while you add the same memory and wireless keyboard and mouse to the iMac price, the Dell XPS One is $100 more expensive than the Apple machines.

His overall verdict: best machine a Windows user can buy.

Next in the path to Apocalypse: David Pogue ditches his iPhone for a Windows Mobile Samsung, Brian Lam sells his MacBook and buys a Sony and random angel plays the fourth trumpet. [All Things D]

However, despite the upgrades, ol' Walt thinks Microsoft is competing with last-gen iPods rather than the current batch. He think the Zune gets blown away by the iPod touch (I would think they shouldn't be compared, as they're totally different, but what do I know) and is also outclassed by the nano and classic, which offer slimmer profiles and bigger screens (at least on the nano).

And he still likes the iTunes Music Store over the Zune Marketplace, which is certainly understandable. A music store lives and dies by its selection, and iTunes is clearly the winner here.

And while the Wi-Fi syncing is nice, it sucks up too much juice for Mossy's tastes. So his verdict, unsurprisingly, is to go with an iPod. [All Things D]

• Pogue's NYT review
• Ed Baig's USA Today review
• Mossy's WSJ review

I am glad he credits Apple with trying to do the right thing as far as the SDK and openness go. I just wish he was a little more skeptical of Apple, given that they now share revenues for monthly charges and I'd assume, ringtones and maybe future apps. My point is that I hope that Mossberg has a plan of action for journalists and consumers to fight this one and enacting some change, rather than just a theoretical bitch much like the 2005 column and the great craplet article from last year. Maybe journalists covering the topic should base their ratings on all phones in part by checking how tarted up a handset is by a carrier, and regular joes can buy unlocked handsets. But I'm unsure of what else can be done. So, Walt, lead the charge and we'll follow. What can we do to fight the machine? [AllThingsD]

...it seems ridiculous to me to sell a powerful device with Wi-Fi and a huge screen, and to leave out things like an email program, even though you can use Web-based email programs. I assume Apple was concerned that the less costly Touch might compete too much with the iPhone if it had these features.

While he thinks it's slicker than most Linux distros, downloading codecs, no built-in DVD software, hardware issues (with an iPod and Kodak camera) earn it usability knocks, with an underlying subtext nudging people toward OS X at the end. Since Mossberg is a champion of ease of use above all else, the review's not exactly surprising.

It won't have much (if any) impact in Linux or geek circles, but given his influence it could be a tipping point for people looking to leap from Windows who are tempted by Ubuntu but unsure if they have enough geek juice to run it. What are you thoughts on the review? Fair or an overly harsh judgment? [All Things D]

"

Parallels has more features than Fusion...But I found Fusion puts less strain on the computer overall.

Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions.

The iPhone's most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use, Walt — who did most of the testing for this review — was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly.

Then Mossberg complains about some missing features:

The iPhone is missing some features common on some competitors. There's no instant messaging, only standard text messaging. While its two megapixel camera took excellent pictures in our tests, it can't record video. Its otherwise excellent Web browser can't fully utilize some Web sites, because it doesn't yet support Adobe's Flash technology. Although the phone contains a complete iPod, you can't use your songs as ringtones. There aren't any games, nor is there any way to directly access Apple's iTunes Music Store.

It's too soon for a review, but Mossberg kind of commented on the keyboard.

And I can tell you that in the first hour it works a little better than I thought, but I'm still not sure it works as well as a regular keyboard—and the first hour is not a very fair test, so I'm going to keep going at it.

For those of you counting (me) that's 18 days before day 0. When he scooped the world on Apple TV, he had it 10 days ahead of the rest of the press. –Brian Lam

Mossberg has an iPhone [Wired]

Wednesday was intense. 5 hours of liveblogging, inside of a 20 hour work day.
• Ballmer and the Surface Table, with Mossy
• Mossberg and Foleo unveil by Jeff Hawkins
• Mossberg and Steve Jobs
• Afterwards, basking in the glow of the Jobs interview, Ryan Block from Engadget and I got up on stage and sat in the D Chairs when no one was looking. (Photo here)
•And then my accidental Steve Jobs meeting.
•And of course, Mossberg and Swisher talking with Gates and Jobs. (Videos here)
•Not to mention the Gropes of the Surface Table and Foleo.

Afterwards, I bumped into Mossberg, and there was a little friction.

When I saw Walt and Kara, I thanked them for inviting me, and shook their hands. Walt then told me, a little bit indignant, that he was tired of being called grandpa and uncle. I felt bad about it. Factually, he is older than most in this industry...Jobs even made a crack at his age on stage. But I'd agree that it doesn't make sense to tease him for it while he's running around full of energy, wrangling CEO after CEO, while I'm dragging ass trying to merely liveblog his show. The guy's age isn't an factor when it comes to him kicking corporate ass. We're still going to photoshop him, of course. Maybe onto of a young, strapping Baywatch lifeguard's body, though.

The other thing that's interesting is that the WSJ has such pride and competitive spirit when it comes to their work...vs the NYTimes. I heard more than one comment in regards to that, from unnamed reporters.

When you work that much, its hard to get good rest afterwards. So I took Thursday to sleep in, and eat some crispy fish tacos down near the beach, while the rest of the Gizmodo gang covered the news. Thank God for them. – Brian Lam

All Things D [Gizmodo]

7:19: No one's on stage, but there's a video on screen, of the Macintosh dating game. The year is 1983, and Microsoft needs Apple to make half its revenue. Jobs is introducing Bill, and Bill has scripted lovely things to say about Apple. It's stable. It's wonderful. He loves it.

Fast-forward to the year 2007, at All Things D. Jobs and Gates are about to appear, and Mossberg and Swisher are about to grill them. I'm convinced, after the earlier sessions, that Mossberg has the strength of 10 bulls, and the wit of 100 elephants. Cyborg elephants. They are going to get these guys talking. And maybe fighting.

The second video shows Jobs at the 1997 Keynote, announcing the reestablished relationship with Microsoft.

They both look like Goobers. God, I'm glad no one has '80s footage of me.

The first comments are happening, and they're all softballs. Jobs is kissing up, saying Gates started the first software company, and was ahead of everyone in that regard. Now the potshots, right? RIGHT? Shoryuken?

Wrong. Gates is saying that Jobs was a stud for taking a risk on the Mac. And that he respects that. OK, where are the body blows? Killing with kindness?

He does deny being Fake Steve. Please. No one suspected you had the style to write like Fake Steve, Bill. No one.

Now they're thinking about the old days. Remember the disk drive and the 128KB of RAM?
Mossberg remembers the time when only thousands had found the Mac. And when the Apple ][ had Microsoft software inside. Remember the Alltair? Me? I can't imagine the punchcards. I'm too young.

7:34 Gates is telling the story of how they started working together, totally geeking out. And then Jobs CUTS him off. "Let me tell the story." [You shmuck.] Basically, Jobs needed Gates' floating point BASIC. And gates thought it was a BLAST delivering the data on tapes.

Steve thought his PC was going to be cheaper...Gates is laughing while saying this..."but it was mine."
(I see why he's laughing! Money!)

Gates is moving a lot. He's twitching his left foot. Jobs is moving his left foot. They cross their legs the same. Like ladies, kind of. But in opposite directions. I'm only writing this, because they're talking about how much memory the old computers had again. 28k? 128k? This is like when you try to get Pokemon to battle, but they don't listen to you.

Steve and I launched Excel together in NY. That was fun.

Apple didn't differentiate their product. When Steve wasn't there, things were slower.

Steve J

Bill Amelio had a saying. Apple was a ship with the hole in the bottom, and my job was to point it in the right direction.

Mossberg doesn't want to go through the whole history. Jobs thanks him.

7:40 Apple was in very serious trouble, and if the game was a zero sum game, then Apple was going to lose. But a lot of people's heads were in that place.

Jobs:

Apple wasn't going to beat Microsoft. It didn't need to. It needed to remember that Apple was Apple. And Microsoft was the biggest developer for the Mac at that time. It was crazy.

Swisher lobs a feeler. Do you consider yourself rivals? She likes PC guy better.

The art of those guys is not to be mean, but for them to like each other.

7:44 Mossy fires the right hand for a second taunt: How often is Apple on radar as a target? (Since Apple is tiny.)

Zune thinks Apple is a competitor. And Jobs fires back that he loves Zune team because they're all competitors. Here we go.

Steve is Soooo known for his restraint

Mossberg and Swisher are still pushing. Do you follow Vista?

Jobs repeats his software mantra....hypnotically: An iPod is software. Beautiful box, but it's software. A Mac is OS X. A Mac isn't going to take over 80% of the market. But Apple is a software company. And there aren't a lot of them left. Microsoft is one of them.

Mossberg breaks in to go back to his last blog post, from nearly three weeks ago. Software and hardware lines are blogging. Jobs responds with a quote from someone.
People who love software want to do their own hardware.

Bill says naaah aaaah, he can resist. He sounds almost afraid of that. So really, what's going on with Zune and Xbox? That doesn't sound very confident.

Moss: Could you have more marketshare? (Basically, Mossberg is asking him if he's ashamed of the marketshare, and if he has any regrets.)

Personally, I find it absurd that the marketshare is so low. Seriously. It confuses the hell out of me. It's like watching people fight to be in the Matrix.

Gates helps him save face, reminding him of the inverse positions in the music player market. More hugs.

"Let's talk about today, before tomorrow." Swisher directs Jobs towards addressing reality. Ladies and gents, she just shut down the Reality Distortion Field. Totally cockblocked.

Mossberg:

You guys represent the rich client, the personal computer. And the room might agree that this is all going to the cloud. Maybe one of you would think about you two as rivals, but maybe as...

Dinosaurs?

7:56 Gates: "

You're always going to have rich local usability. Use the richness with the richness that is elsewhere.

7:57: Jobs talking about Google maps, and how much he loves it. But that his iPhone client is way better than the computer version that Google had. Jobs:

And you can run a rich client on a lower and lower devices.

Mossberg:

You use a tablet

Yes. This is like Windows 1992. It has yet to take off....I think.

8:03 Gates starts swings his arms around. A lot. he's explaining what his ecosystem of devices would look like. It's totally confusing. He's talking about projectors everywhere, and devices. And he's confusing everyone.

Jobs basically feels, quite simply, that the PC will continue to be with us, as it morphs. Into the post PC era.

Gates is talking about scrolls in pocket devices.

8:08 Mossberg:

What will be on the pocket device of the future?

I don't know. Five years ago, I wouldn't have predicted maps.

Jobs:

There's a zillion interesting things going on. The most interesting things are the new services. Things that help you navigate through life more easily. I think you'll see more of that in the next year or two.

YES!. Mossberg is taking a shot at .Mac. He thinks it could have been utilized more. And Steve agrees, and promises to be doing more in the near future, make up for lost time.
And now he's taking Gates to task for not advancing Live Anywhere. Gates nods.

And Mossberg delivers a follow-up question. After all the cloud talk, he asks if he thinks the hardware guys are going to lose to the service clouds, with 10 employees, who are starting like those two are started.

Gates justifies his position. Jobs repeats the message from before. That Apple is just Apple. They'll focus on their thang. And partner with the new people who are good at what they do.

BTW, rich tech geniuses do lots of weird things with their hands as they talk. Like Italian mamas.

8:15 Gates:

We're not an entertainment company.

8:16 Mossberg is asking about Apple's role in entertainment, Disney stuff aside.

8:17 Jobs replies that it'll be a driving force, but I'm not sure that's a different answer than Microsoft. Look at Xbox's Marketplace, which is pretty damn nice.

Mossberg is building up for a big question. The build up suggests that there's a really hard question at this. "Is there a new paradigm for the personal computer?" HA! That's what I asked Bill at CES. He said no then. Now let's see what he says. He's talking about 3D, and books in a library. I'm lost. He's getting lost in the nuts. He didn't flat-out say no. Actually, I'm not sure what he said.

Mossberg pulls us back to reality with a firm question about multitouch. Will we see it in laptops?

Now he's talking about cameras everywhere. And playing tennis...

Mossberg jumps in, pulls him back to firm ground again. He's speaking at length to clear Gates' buffer.

Gates is going off about ink. 3D. Vision.

I'm going to stop typing until the thoughts are clear....give it five minutes.

I think Jobs has been meditating while Gates was rattling off a bunch of unintegrated random tech.
He's there, with both hands together. Speaking slowly, clearly.

They don't want a car with six wheels. They want to drive with a steering wheel. Not a joystick. Sometimes you have to augment, sometimes to have to rethink. It'll happen with these post-PC devices.

Swisher: What's the greatest misunderstanding about your relationship?

Jobs:

We've kept our marriage secret for over a decade.

Gates is going off again, but I think he means to say that it's nice that Jobs has been around as long as he has. And has the guts to take the risk to do something new.

Jobs:

When Bill and I worked together in the early days, generally, we were the youngest guys in the room. I'm about six months older. And now we're the oldest, generally. Which is why I love being here.

Jobs

To quote the Beatles, You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead, and that's definitely true here.

Standing ovation for Jobs. Nice grab and use of the Beatles quote. I wonder if he's allowed to use those lyrics, legally. I wish I could clap, because I'm moved, but I'm typing. A lot.

Question session is here.

Sony pictures guy, ready to serve up a self-interested question, I'm sure.

My life has been better by fewer standards...can we simplify the standards and systems in life, things can be better.

Gates notes that the industry is good at making standards and then weeding out the old ones.

There's a good question about legacy: Could Gates' philanthropy work dwarf his Microsoft work?

Gates: Software is my life's work.

My brain is filled with software.

To Jobs: Do you envy his second act?
Jobs

I think the world is a better place for him not working to be the richest guy in the cemetery.

We're the luckiest guys in the planet, and we found what we love to do, and were in the right place at the right time. It's hard to beat that. Your family and that. I don't think about legacy much.

8:38 Advice to the people starting out in business?
Gates:

The excitement wasn't driven by economic value. We didn't think we'd have to be a big company to be in every house. We thought about every doubling as the last.

What did you learn about starting your own business that you saw in the other guy?
Gates:

I wish I had Steve's taste. In people and product. It's magical. In that case. Wow.

Because Woz and I started the company by doing the whole banana, we weren't good at partnering. Microsoft was one of the few who was good at that.

This question is being done by the Simpson's comic book guy.
"We all share our science fiction roots, the metaverse, etc. What will we see in the next five years?"
Gates:

Steve is going to introduce his transporter.

Just give me Star Trek

I don't know what we'll see. And that's why I'm so excited to go to work every day.

Finish.

– Brian Lam

All Things D at Giz [Gizmodo]

Anthony Michael Hall, who played a perverted panty-sniffing geek in both Weird Science and Sixteen Candles plays Bill Gates. Noah Wyle, pretty boy doctor from ER, plays a young Jobs. This movie was made far too early, if you ask me. Someone needs to do a proper sequel.

Pirates of Silicon Valley [IMDB]
Pirates of Silicon Valley [Wikipedia]
Pirates of Silicon Valley [Amazon]

He's taller than I thought he would be, and pretty tanned. Hawaii. I go to introduce myself and then think that he's probably busy and doesn't want to be mobbed. I go get some salad, think that its my job to be at least a little aggressive with these things, so I put down my plate, and I finally squeeze by the crowd to introduce myself. No banter, just wanted to say hi, I'm Brian from Gizmodo. And you made the iPod, right? (I didn't say that second part.)

Then Steve got really excited and Happy.

And he tells me that he reads the site. Actually, 3-4 times a day, since it doesn't sit still for very long. I told him that I appreciate the clicks, and that I'll keep buying iPods if he keeps clicking. It's his favorite gadget blog. It was a really, really nice moment. His face scrunched up with genuine excitement. I must have looked like one of those gals front row at a Beatles concert, as much as I tried to be "professional."

Because honestly, I thought the guy would be totally worked up about Jesus's awesome Photoshops of Steve Jobs. The man has a sense of humor.

It was an honor to have a man who is extremely focused on quality and doing things in his own way approve of our work here. Especially with all the typos I make on a daily basis. For the record, he didn't invite me over to smoke with him. But believe me, I think it's pretty cool to have met the guy. – Brian Lam

All Things D at Giz [Gizmodo]

12:15 We're at the fluffy intro
12:21 WM When you made the change to Apple from Apple Computer, people wondered if it was the exit. Are you committed to computers?
SJ Totally. WWDC is big. Leopard is coming in October. we love it.

12:22 WM Are you planning a big iPod change?
SJ You mean since last Sept?
WM Yes
SJ Fast-moving business!
WM Well, it wasn't completely new.
SJ....
WM I wasn't taking your feelings into account.
SJ We're working on the best iPod ever and its awesome.

WM You have a phone?
SJ Yes (whips it out) best iPod we've ever made. Best phone we've ever made!
WM Coming out end of June, last day?
SJ Uh, yeah. I'll send you one. (giggles)

12:26 WM Selling it through the stores and Cingular?
SJ Yes, Cingular, which is the new AT&T.
WM Just like the old AT&T. You're a lot nicer to the phone companies now.
SJ Well, yes, We haven't sold one yet but they broke a lot of rules. And we did the same. We wouldn't show it to them. And we took a gamble on each other. I will never forget that.

12:27 WM Why did this work? They wanted your brand to go along with their new brand?

SJ So far, music's not doing well on phones. On phones, you have 3G, but not good ways to use it. You get the baby Internet and the mini Internet, but nothing real. We're doing that in an entirely new way. We'll see.

12:28 WM Any feature in the iPhone you'd like to announce that you haven't yet shared?

SJ Uh, no.

[iTunes Plus Songs now]

SJ [Pretty simple UI, you can upgrade old music as long as its available.]

WM Any other movement on the record labels?

SJ Well you know that record labels sell 90% of their stuff online (goes into the details in the open letter to music industry)...

WM Was that letter you wrote something you thought up or was it a thing already in movement? [We reported that EMI sent the letter first.]

SJ People say iPod locks down music. But we never said that.

WM The iPod is your business, and your music is a little bit of that.

SJ There's 3 pieces to it. There's iTunes, which is free, there's the iPod, and there's the online store in the cloud.

WM But the iPod is the biggest part.

SJ it makes the most money...but most of the music money goes to the music company.

WM Do you risk that money as you break the DRM tie?

SJ The iPod wins because its the best music player, and we have to keep doing that.

WM Is the iPhone a phone with an iPod inside or is it the iPod with a phone inside?

SJ It's 3 things. It's the best iPod, a remarkable phone, and the Internet in your pocket.

12:34 WM how much back and forth is there inside, developing. I assume its like the UN where you have a veto.

SJ It's not like that. If you want to keep talented people you can't tell them what to do all the time...much.

WM How much debate about a physical keyboard?

SJ None.

WM Really? In ALL of Cupertino?

SJ. Yep.

SJ [Makes comment about the photographer that sounds like a machine gun in the audience.]

SJ I'll bet you dinner, after a few days, after you get one, you'll think its great.
Once you learn to trust it, you fly. And the screen UI can change as you come up with new ideas.

SJ Cingular said we need this button. They hadn't seen it yet. Oh, I said that we'll do that after we ship. They said, huh?

SJ Why is Apple popular? Because the preeminent Japanese gadget companies couldn't do software.

The iPhone is software wrapped in a beautiful package. And the companies couldn't make that leap. And that's why Apple has that success with the iPod.

If you look at hardware manufacturers for handsets, they haven't been able to make the leap.

The usual suspects will try to copy the hardware. But the software is hard to do; 5 years ahead of anything we've seen. We started with an OS we've been working on for well over a decade and a browser, Safari, which is regarded by many as the best.

12.41 WM But it doesn't have the entire OS X software inside, or Safari.

SJ Yes, it does. A lot of it is data. Desktop patterns, audio files. It has real desktop email, Safari, OS X. And we took all that, and put a new UI on it. It's an amazing amount of software.

WM On the technical side, could an OS X app run on the iPhone?

SJ We don't think that's a good idea. The phone has its own UI.

12:43 WM One of the holy grails is to have the Internet in your pocket. And TV in the living room. Microsoft does this. Why do you describe the living room as a hobby?

The living room might be the peas on the side. The entree might be the things that you'd get on the Internet.

I brought something to show you...[something new for Apple TV?]

[Showing Apple TV now, movie trailers for Ratatouille]

WM Works on a regular home network? [Snowball questions, if you ask me.]

WM The device won't do high-def?

SJ No HD, for the trade-offs in download time and quality.

[BTW, Steve jobs is wearing gray New Balance shoes and a black turtleneck.]

[And showing TVs now...The Office, and more old stuff. He's playing with old stuff, described as Peas. Where is the entree yet to come?]

SJ But we're going to introduce today is...

12;51 Wouldn't it be great if you could see YouTube in your living room. YOUTUBE ON APPLE TV

12:54 SJ I would have waited a few weeks for this announcement, but you know...
WM But This is D.

SJ Shows related videos when you're done.

[ Robot Dance Video playing]
WM Did you ever think that after you started Apple, you'd be associating with the robot guy?
SJ It's funny, we've been watching a lot of these vids.
WM Does that mean Leopard is slipping again?!
SJ *Chuckles....[in a sinister way.]
[Showing search, fumbling]

12:54 WM Oh yeah, you're not very good at public speaking [sarcasm]
[Showing human slingshot video.]

WM How about other stuff on the Internet?
SJ Sure, that's a great idea?
WM When?
SJ Over time.

SJ People don't want a normal browser in the living room.

WM Even with the human slingshot...

SJ That's my species!

WM But you're committed to the living room with this set-top?

1:00 SJ It's not a set-top box. Once you get into that space, you get into a whole 'nother thing. There's a lot more DVD players out there than DVD players. We don't have to be replacing the set-top box. We're replacing the DVD player. It's the DVD player for the Internet.

WM How many copies of iTunes [which is what you need for Apple TV]?
SJ Lots. Several times.
WM 100 million ipods, so 300 million?
SJ That, or more.
WM So you're a huge Windows developer?
SJ That's right. People have written us saying iTunes is their favorite app on Windows.

SJ It's like giving a glass of ice water to someone in hell.

SJ We never though we'd ship 100 million.
WM Even you, with your humility?
SJ 100 million is a lot.

WM You said at one point, people didn't want portable video. Even after shipping.

1:05 SJ I was more skeptical than the customers, and they've proved us wrong. Video has been the first or second reason why people have bought it.
WM On iTunes or iPods?
SJ Can't find out unless we ask, and its both. This will grow.
WM But you don't have a video service that allows you to natively download, over the air, to an iPhone.
SJ No.
WM Why not? It's a big deal, carriers are trying it.
SJ It's failed. The phone is not the best UI to discover media, and it costs more. Then you have to sync it back to your PC, so its backed up so you don't lose a few hundred dollars of media. You can do it from your PC with a big screen.

WM So no store plans for the iPhone? iTunes store on a phone?
SJ Certainly nothing we have to do today.

Questions: What do you look for in talent?
SJ: That's a long question. We don't build four billion semiconductor factories. All we are are people. And all we have is the people, and recruiting is the heart and soul of what we do.

1:10 Question: This is a 2.5G device. You said that there aren't any 3G Apps. Can you comment?

Sure. Our phone switches to Wi-Fi automatically, if you've joined it before. But when you're in a new place, it lets you know if there's a new signal around. There're everywhere. Some of personal ones you can ride on. It's everywhere. Fifty signals in Palo Alto. And there's 10x points out there than I thought.

Some weird comment about orifices.
1:14 Question: We'd love to write apps. Will it open up?
SJ This is a very important trade-off between security and openness. We want both. We've got good ideas, and sometime later this year, we can open it up to third-party apps, and keep security.

1:16 Question: I work with Japanese companies, and they ask us to help with battery life.
SJ When you talk about anything portable, like an iPod or a phone, it's all about battery life. We have experience with this making notebooks. We brought that tech into the phone. That's one of the key problems with portable devices.

1:18 Question: You had a bad time a two years ago. How are you now?

SJ I'm still vertical! Thank you.

Question: [Some guy asking wonky question about AAC being a limited form of DRM.]
SJ First of all, MP3 plays fine on iPods. Secondly, AAC is a better file format as far as quality. We don't own it, people license it from it.

Question: I work for a camcorder company. Are you entering the field? [More or less]
SJ We don't plan on entering the camcorder industry.

1:24 Question: I was going to ask if you read the Fake Steve Jobs blog.

SJ I have read a lot of the Fake Steve Jobs posts, and I think they're funny. But I don't know who it is.

Question person: I don't write it.

[He asked a real question, but it was not as interesting as his fake one. ]

Done! More Steve Jobs tonight, along with Gates, Mossy, and Swisher.

– Brian Lam

All Things D at Giz [Gizmodo]

Read more in the liveblog.

– Brian Lam

All Things D at Giz [Gizmodo]

YouTube Coming to Apple TV

CUPERTINO, California-May, 30, 2007-Apple® today announced that it's bringing the Internet's most popular originally-created content from YouTube to the living room with Apple TV™. Beginning in mid-June, Apple TV will wirelessly stream videos directly from YouTube and play them on a user's widescreen TV. Using Apple TV's elegant interface and simple Apple Remote, viewers can easily browse, find and watch free videos from YouTube in the comfort of their living room.

"This is the first time users can easily browse, find and watch YouTube videos right from their living room couch, and it's really, really fun," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "YouTube is a worldwide sensation, and Apple TV is bringing it directly from the Internet onto the widescreen TV in your living room."

Thousands of the most current and popular YouTube videos will be available on Apple TV at launch in mid-June, with YouTube adding thousands more each week until the full YouTube catalog is available this fall. With Apple TV's stunning interface and simple Apple Remote, users can easily navigate through YouTube's familiar video browsing categories or search for specific videos. YouTube members can also log-in to their YouTube accounts on Apple TV to view and save their favorite videos.

Apple TV seamlessly integrates with iTunes® to wirelessly play a user's favorite content from a PC or Mac® on their widescreen TV, including movies, TV shows, music, photos and podcasts. Apple TV users can choose from over 500 movies and 350 TV shows in near DVD quality; over five million songs; 5,000 music videos; 100,000 podcasts; and 20,000 audiobooks from the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com). Users can enjoy their favorite music on a home entertainment system and view slideshows of their photo albums on a widescreen TV.

Apple today also announced that it is offering a new Apple TV build-to-order option with a 160GB hard drive. The new larger hard drive offers four times the storage for up to 200 hours of video, 36,000 songs, 25,000 photos or a combination of each.* Apple TV is easy to connect to a broad range of widescreen TVs and home theater systems and comes standard with HDMI, component video, analog and optical audio ports. Using high-speed AirPort® 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking, Apple TV can auto-sync content from one computer or stream content from up to five additional computers right to a TV without any wires.**

Pricing & Availability
Apple TV, which includes the Apple Remote, is available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $299 (US). Apple TV with a 160GB hard drive will be available tomorrow for a suggested retail price of $399 (US). The YouTube feature for Apple TV will be available as a free software update in mid-June.

Apple TV requires iTunes 7.1 or later running on a Mac with Mac OS® X version 10.3.9 or later, or a Windows PC with Windows XP Home/Professional (SP2).

An 802.11b/g/n wireless network using AirPort, AirPort Extreme® or 10/100 Base-T Ethernet networking is required. Internet access is required and a broadband connection is recommended, fees may apply. Apple TV requires an enhanced definition or high-definition widescreen TV. iPod® games will not play on Apple TV. The iTunes store is available in the US and select countries.

*Video playback based on 640x480 iTunes video content. Music capacity based on four minutes per song and 128-Kbps AAC encoding. Photo capacity based on Apple TV viewable photos transferred from iTunes. Actual capacity varies by content.

**Based on an IEEE 802.11n draft specification. Compatible with 802.11b/g/n, wireless video streaming requires an 802.11g/n network.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and will enter the mobile phone market this year with its revolutionary iPhone.

Would I buy one? No, I'm not a smart phone junkie.
– Brian Lam