11:32: Sony's pumping electronic music between audio feeds of the six games people are playing on stage. Metal Gear Solid 4, Pixeljunk Eden, GT5 Prologue, GRAW2, Ecochrome and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

11:33: What could Sony pull out to top Wii Music? It's going to be pretty difficult, if you know what I mean. Seriously, it's the epitome of gaming and developer should just go home at this point.

11:35: It's starting! A bunch of Sony PlayStation shapes are scrolling across the six screens.

11:37: The excitement level is definitely higher than Nintendo's which was laid back and totally casual-oriented.

11:38: The stage is definitely very well designed. Very pretty. Jack Tretton, Emperor of Sony, is coming on stage.

11:39: Jack is talking about all the stars that have been on this stage, including Jack Bauer and Jack Pallance. And then he made a crack about how Jack Pallance is dead, followed by slight shock and boos from the crowd.

11:41: It was 10 years ago that Sony introduced the PlayStation, and they're taking the crowd on a journey through the PlayStation brand—including all the more notable games.

11:43: Now Sony is talking about other features, like videos and photos, plus the @home research program that helps to cure diseases.

11:44: They're talking about how the Blu-ray won the next-gen disc format war against the HD DVD. And part of that is because of the PS3. A big part.

11:45: Grand Theft Auto 4, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue are three examples of great games (sequels) on the platform, says Jack.

11:47: A five second video just went up showing an image of the PS3.

11:48: Jack Tretton is much better this year than last, where he was fairly awkward. He played off his awkwardness well this time.

11:48: Here comes Resistance 2 being demoed in real time.

11:48: There's a gigantic ugly alien stomping around a city like the Cloverfield monster.

11:50: It's definitely very cinematic, but the environment graphics don't seem all THAT fantastic. Definitely a good looking game though.

11:52: The game is set in Chicago in the 1950s.

11:53: There's eight-player online co-op and 60 player online-multiplayer.

11:55: They're playing a trailer with a Kennedy-esque president making a speech about how aliens are winning the war. Kotaku will have more on this later.

11:56: Next up is Little Big Planet. It's a game with pretty large social networking and user-created content.

11:58: Jack's using Little Big Planet to talk about the business updates. Very clever. Using the little guy (Sack Boy) to illustrate what would otherwise be Powerpoint slides. Woo!

11:59: A lot of $29 discount titles are announced as well.

12:02: Little Big Planet is coming October 2008.

12:02: Hats off to Sony for making a dry business presentation interesting with Little Big Planet.

12:03: Now, the PlayStation 2.

12:03: There are still 130 titles coming to the old system, in case you still haven't updated to a next-gen system yet.

12:06: Buzz, the quiz show, is coming to PS2 and PS3.

12:06: Singstar, the karaoke game, is still going strong on the PS2.

12:07: Later this year, a Lego Batman PS2 bundle will be $149 and also include a DC movie DVD.

12:08: Next up, the PlayStation Network. All PlayStation users will have a single sign-on over PC, PS3 and PSP.

12:09: Jack is talking about the amount of downloads on the PSN, which is up to 180 million pieces of content downloaded since Nov. 2006.

12:11: New game announcement: Rachet & Clank Future: Quest For Booty. It's a shorter game with a lower price, and was rumored before. It's a continuation of the Rachet & Clank game that's already out now.

12:12: It's darker than the original R&C, and he's got a new wrench tool.

12:13: $14.99 later this summer. See Kotaku for more.

12:13: Here's a dig at Xbox Live Arcade: "We're not interested in filling up our store with games nobody wants to play just so we can say we have more games."

12:14: And now a montage of upcoming PlayStation Network games. Hit up Kotaku for details on these.

12:15: A bunch of car TV content is coming to Gran Turismo 5 Prologue in October, including car shows like Top Gear and various Japanese racing events.

12:20: Now, PlayStation Home. Jack assures people that their patience will be rewarded when Home finally expands to wide beta.

12:21: He's talking about various game companies and their promise to provide content for PlayStation Home and utilize it in their games.

12:22: They're showing a bunch of game spaces like Warhawk and Resistance 2, which are basically like command-rooms that you can view some decorations based on the game and even launch it.

12:23: The PlayStation Network video network will have various content providers like MGM, Warner, and a bunch of others (including Sony Pictures.) Both standard def and high def TV, and pricing will be $2.99-$5.99 for rentals and $9.99-$14.99 for purchases. We've posted on Sony's PSN video before, but the pricing seems new. Once you purchase it for the PS3, you can load it on your PSP as well.

12:25: Eric Lempel of Sony is showing how the video store will work. It's located inside the PSN store now and looks pretty much like a video store would.

12:26: Downloading an SD movie takes an hour to get a two-hour movie, but you can start watching it after you've downloaded about a minute's worth.

12:28: HD rentals are more expensive (usually about $5.99).

12:28: There are two ways to get content onto the PSP. One way is going through the PS3 and transferring via USB cable, another is through the PC.

12:30: The video service is going up tonight, July 15.

12:30: Rachel & Clank Size Matters Entertainment Pack is coming soon at $199, with a Memory Stick and National Treasure 2.

12:33: Now, they're showing off a Resistance game for the PSP. It's called Resistance Retribution.

12:35: And now a highlights reel of PSP games. Hit Kotaku if you want a list of them.

12:37: Jack is talking about Google, with uploading clips onto YouTube automatically (only in some games).

12:40: Jim Lee, executive creator of DC Universe Online, is coming on stage. He's doing some one-arm pushups. Nice!

12:42: They've been working for three years building DC Universe Online, which includes Superman and BATMAN, of course.

12:42: You can HELP Batman, but not BE Batman. You can also be a villain and be beat up by Batman too.

12:46: Price drop! 80GB PS3 goes to $399 later this year. It's got the same functionality as the 40GB one now, but with a larger hard drive.

12:50: Sony's showing a montage of developers talking about how powerful the console is and how they're getting used to programming for it.

12:53: Another montage of upcoming and already-released PS3 games.

12:56: Yes, another montage is coming. This time including God Of War 3.

12:58: And Infamous, where you play a good or bad superhero.

12:59: Andy Beaudoin from Zipper Interactive is up on stage, talking about an as-of-yet unannounced multiplayer game. Wait, it's called MAG (Massive Action Game). Battles of up to 256 players at a time.

It's a combination of small, squad-based gaming with the numbers of an MMO.

1:05: And that's it for Sony! Thanks for reading. Let us know what you think in the comments.

8:44: Nintendo's music is much less annoying (and loud) than Microsoft's.

8:44: Mark says he's happy we're not sitting next to anybody stinky today. Well, except the guys at Kotaku. Check out their liveblog as well.

8:50: I wonder how Miyamoto preps for these things. Slapping his subordinates around with a Wii Fit, most likely.

8:51: THAT *slap* POWERPOINT *slap* NEEDS *slap* MORE *slap* BULLET *slap* POINTS!

8:52: Here's a question. Do Nintendo execs dance around in their underwear at home while thinking about how much money they have?

8:54: Mark update: I wish that words could convey the melodious techno music filling my ears/heart. The subsequent adrenaline rush can only be described in cans of one's energy drink of choice.

8:54: Mark update: (I'm at like 2.5 cans of Red Bull right now)

8:54: This might not be true, but we overheard that Reggie ate his way to the top of Nintendo. Like, he ate everyone in his way until he was the only one left in the managerial chain.

8:56: That's how he got to be head of Pizza Hut before, but he had a few more topping options over there.

8:57: Mark says the stage is like a dual screen, because there's one screen...and then another screen behind it. Excellent observation Mark. That's why you shouldn't substitute a Heineken for your orange juice in the morning.

9:01: Should start any second now. Miyamoto might or might not be the first one on stage. How many of their classic franchises do they have left to milk into next-gen motion-sensing games? Four.

9:03: Anyone have any price predictions for that MotionPlus add-on? $19? $29? $39? Three easy payments of $49.99?

9:04: I *think* one of the images Nintendo is using for their "look at how many casual users we have" is of NY Gov prostitute Kristen. Or Kristin. We forget. It's shot in NY.

9:05: Mark update: Wow, i cant believe I'm in the place they shoot American Idol! I feel so important right now.

9:05: It's starting!

9:06: It's another montage with "regular people" playing Nintendo games.

9:07: Cammie Dunaway is now coming on stage (exec VP of sales and marketing). Not Reggie (the toddler eater).

9:08: "Bringing home video games is probably safer than the other things you can do to impress your kids." Like body piercing. Or snowboarding and breaking her wrist, if you're talking about things that actually happened.

9:09: They're pulling out snowboarder Shaun White for the Wii Fit-based Shaun White snowboarding. Looks like you use a combination of Wii Fit and a controller. He's got no shoes or socks on.

9:10: Shaun White's Mii looks like a teenage girl.

9:12: The game looks very easy for casual players, as you'd expect.

9:13: This demonstration would have been HILARIOUS if she fell off the Wii Fit board and hurt her wrist.

9:13: Satoru Iwata, the KING of Nintendo, is coming on stage.

9:14: He's talking about 2003, the first year that he addressed E3. He seems kind of bitter about the "pessimistic view" people had of Nintendo back then. He asks who knew that the market could have shifted so much that they could have sold millions of bathroom scales.

9:15: Iwata wants to discuss what has really changed in this new gaming paradigm. First apparently is the long tail, software that sells for years at a time. Examples: Brain Age, Nintendogs, Mario Kart DS and Super Mario Bros. DS. Basically, simpler games whose graphics don't age as badly.

9:16: He says not everyone searches for better graphics and more deep content. But, Nintendo recognizes that some people do look for that.

9:18: "The marketplace has expanded. Take a look at this picture. And this one." He then proceeds to show a picture of two old ladies and then a young woman at a stylist. So...female players are new?

9:19: Iwata claims that in Europe, people are buying 200,000 units a week, as if every week was a holiday. Yes, to Nintendo execs, every week is Christmas.

9:20: Guitar Hero III on Wii is outselling all other console versions, apparently. Iwata is using this as the main evidence that the gaming paradigm has shifted.

9:21: "We must find more ways for players to feel engaged. Different ways for them to be enriched."

9:22: Mark predicts: Nintendo Eee PC!

9:23: Nintendo's announcing Animal Crossing City Folk. It's similar to the Sims, but more Animal Crossing-like. When you're not playing the game, the world inside the game still keeps going.

9:25: Yup, definitely like The Sims.

9:26: There's a new accessory called WiiSpeak, a group microphone attachment that lets people in one room talk with people in other rooms.

9:27: It's not a one-to-one microphone headset like the Xbox 360, but more like a group chat.

9:28: Reggie is now on stage. The WiiSpeak is going to be bundled with Animal Crossing later this year.

9:28: The Wii has sold 10 million systems and the DS has sold 20 million. These together make up $5 billion in sales.

9:30: Nintendo predicts that there will be 100 million DS units after 2008.

9:31: Lifetime sales of Pokemon titles top 180 million units.

9:31: Reggie says that according to NPD sales data, the DS has overtaken the Wii this year. They spin it as the DS having more "evergreen" titles, but it could also be taken as the Wii not having very many must-have titles.

9:33: "No system has sold more games in its first 19 months of availability."

9:34: Nintendo is going to show off three new games today. First, Star Wars the Clone Wars. Wii Lightsaber duels with your Wiimote. It doesn't seem like it's 1:1 lightsaber action.

9:37: Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party is a party game (obviously) with various incarnations already on systems now.

9:37: Call of Duty World At War is the third. It's got simultaneous co-op mode, which looks like two players using the same FPS screen with two crosshairs on screen at once. Similar to gun games like Time Crisis.

9:39: They're showing a chart of DS "recipients" comparing females to males, and in 2007, females were up to 48%. So, female gaming is pretty big for Nintendo.

9:40: Nintendo DS is also getting a Guitar Hero On Tour Decades that follows the original On Tour game. You'll be able to "song share" between different versions of the game.

9:42: DS is also getting Spore Creatures. Those monsters still look pretty gross, but are slightly cuter on this version. Not the bulbous abominations of nature that we saw on the PC.

9:43: Pokemon Ranger Shadows of Almia (Nov 10) is the new Pokemon Ranger game. It's that game where you have to draw circles around your Pokemon.

9:43: Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars is coming to DS. No screenshots yet, however. It's set in Liberty City, like GTA IV.

9:44: DS and Air Travel. Why can't they connect together? (I don't know, why can't they?!) Nintendo is currently testing connectivity with airports to get travel information like luggage claim and local restaurants when you deboard.

9:45: Cooking Navi, a cookbook "game", is also coming some time this year for the DS.

9:46: Now Reggie is back on stage showing off the Nintendo WiiMotion Plus. It makes the Wiimote "more precise," he claims.

9:47: It "renders every slight shift of your wrist or arm."

9:47: It's a "worthy successor" to Wii Sports and comes with "Wii Sports Resort." (Mark called it.) It also comes with an extended Wii Jacket.

9:48: The demo in Wii Motion plus is showing off a frisbee game where you chuck one to a dog. The new WiiMote knows exactly where your WiiMote is in space. It still requires you to point the WiiMote at the screen, it seems.

9:50: Reggie is demoing a Wave Race type water racing game with the new add-on.

9:51: Sword Fighting! Hold the Wiimote with both hands and cut at things with your on-screen sword.

9:52: "How often do you get to do this with your boss?" Well, I don't know, I 'swordfight' with people at Giz all the time.

9:52: Reggie is taunting the poor woman with a broken wrist.

9:53: Other "resort" games will show up in the title as well.

9:54: Launch date is next Spring.

9:54: From what Reggie is saying, you can't play the new Wii Sports game with your current Wiimotes.

9:55: Some guy is on stage showing off a game that includes a drum-simulator that works with the Wiimote, Nunchuck and Wii Fit Balance Board.

9:56: Miyamoto is on stage, with a sax sim played with the WiiMote. It looks kind of silly, but you play it with the face buttons.

9:57: The game is called Wii Music.

9:58: They were designing this game alongside Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Fit.

9:58: Miyamoto is saying that most music games make you press buttons in time with the music, but Wii Music lets you free-form your music depending on whatever you want. Just move the WiiMote around as if you were playing the instrument, and the game translate that into "music".

10:00: Fifty different musical instruments total. Piano, violin and guitar.

10:02: The drums are a separate mode that includes the Wii Fit board.

10:03: You can play with up to four players simultaneously.

10:05: Now all four people on stage are playing the Super Mario theme, with Miyamoto on cowbell. That's certainly an interesting interpretation of the theme. With Cowbell.

10:06: From what it seems like, you just have to shake the WiiMote in kind of the same way as you play the instrument and music comes out. So it's like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, except even easier because you don't have to play it in time.

10:07: They're wrapping up the announcements today.

10:08: Praphrased: "You guys called the DS a fad? It's not a fad. Consumers are saying it's not a fad."

10:09: That's it. The thing we can take away from this is that Nintendo is stressing that their games are not fads. NOT FADS!!

10:10: Thanks for reading! See you guys soon at Sony's press conference.

9:25 We're here in line waiting for the doors to open. An interesting observation: If you compare the games journalists to the tech journalists we usually see at Apple, games journalists are much younger.
10:05: We're inside. Microsoft's playing some much funkier electronic music than we're used to at Apple's Coldplay-featured events.


10:16: The pre-game show is a bunch of man-on-the-street interviews with kids, teens, Xbox players and non-gamers. No new hardware leaked during the videos, but there is a big emphasis on more casual gaming like Rock Band.

10:21: Post your top 3 predictions for announcements today in the comments. Ours: Karaoke accessory, new Xbox Live/Xbox Live dashboard, Xbox 360 Wiimote announced, called the JiggleJiggle.
10:27: It's getting close to starting.
10:30: Maybe it's because we're getting old, but this loud music is giving us a headache. Can we turn it down slightly? No need to go EXTREME all the time, Microsoft.

10:31: Don Mattrick is coming on stage. It's started.
10:32: Don's talking about their game lineup for the last year, and their upcoming games for this year. "Welcome to the fun", he says. "These are intense games, and many are not for the faint of heart."

10:34: There's an ad for Fallout 3 complete with post-apocalyptic robots. Robots!
10:37: A developer is showing off the gameplay of Fallout 3, but what we're interested in is the tech inside that they imagined people would use after a nuclear strike and 50-100ish(?) years inside a radiation vault. Apparently one of those is a wrist-mounted computer.
10:42: Now the producer of Resident Evil 5 is on stage. For more on this game, hit up Kotaku.
10:46: Graphically, it looks like this next-generation of Xbox 360 games are losing the whole glossy-plastic skin texture problem that launch and first-gen games suffered with.
10:48: Peter Molyneux from Fable 2 is now on stage.
10:52: The trend that many games are taking now is adding co-op on Xbox LIVE, which is something we'd love to see even more of if it's possible.
10:55: Cliffy B of Gears of War is on stage, showing off Gears of War 2. Uh oh, the game froze! They had to restart the section!
10:56: Another trend we're seeing more of is drop-in-drop-out co-op gaming, meaning your friends can come in at any time and join your game, then leave it at any time without affecting your progress.
10:58: The main character is still voiced by John DiMaggio of Bender fame, which is nice.
11:04: Don Mattrick from Xbox is back on, talking about how how well the Xbox 360 is doing.
11:05: Don threw down a gauntlet. He said the Xbox 360 will sell more consoles this generation than the PS3. Bookmark this page for future reference, because you'll want to know where you were when he made this prediction.
11:06: They're also focusing on downloaded content as opposed to Blu-ray.
11:07: Microsoft also has new content partners for the console, starting with NBC, Sci-Fi and USA Network.

11:08: This also includes Universal Movies, which belongs to NBC Universal.
11:09: John Schappert, head of LIVE Software and Services is on stage.
11:10: He says the Xbox Live dashboard will be completely re-invented through software. New Xbox Live Dashboard, complete with Nintendo Mii-like avatars.
11:11: The update is coming in the fall, which includes the My XBox channel, and encompases Games, Photo and Video. Also a gamercard.
11:12: Avatars are called...Avatars. Dress up your guy with clothes, hairstyles, and lipstick. Mini John Schappert actually looks like John.
11:12: RARE, the Microsoft-owned company, is responsible for the Avatar scheme. They're also importable into other games as well, if they want to use them (like Nintendo Miis).
11:14: Avatars: instead of a friends' list, you have a community of people online that represent your friends that are currently connected.
11:15: There's also a "party" option of up to 8 people so you can chat with 7 of your friends no matter where you go.
11:16: There are also game shows like 1 vs. 100 that you can play as a "party" with your friends, using your avatars. This is called "Primetime".
11:18: You can drag your party around into regular games (XBLA) games as well. They just demoed taking a 4-player party into UNO.
11:20: Sneak teaser of Portal: Still Alive for Xbox Live Arcade as well, later this year.
11:21: South Park XBLA game in 2009.
11:22: Netflix! Xbox 360 will let people use the Watch Now feature (which is actually already possible if you have a Media Center). You can also share your Netflix movies WITH your Xbox Live party so you can watch stuff together. Neat.

11:26: Whether or not everyone in your party needs Netflix is unknown. We'll try and find out.
11:29: They're also showing a new Scene It? Game using the Scene It? controller.
11:32: Another game called You're In The Movies uses the Xbox Live Vision Camera to capture video of you acting like a clown, which are then edited into clips of yourself on screen doing funny things.


11:37: Now Microsoft is talking about Guitar Hero 4. Being able to create music and 8-player band battles are some of the features.
11:42: Microsoft's playing a demo video of the Lips Karaoke game accessory. It's Karaoke and looks a whole lot like Singstar for the PS2/PS3. There's Zune integration somehow!
11:43: Confirmed: It's called Lips and it's coming this holiday.
11:44: Why is this special? Because you can sing from your own music collection. Wireless mics that let you play the tambourine when you're not singing because they're motion-sensitive.
11:45: A singer is on stage singing her song (sorry, didn't catch who it is), but she might not be using the lips Mic. I think it's just a regular mic. We don't see any glowing rhinestones on the bottom.
11:48: Duffy is the name.
11:49: Alex Rigopulos of Harmonix is coming on stage for Rock Band 2. They're going to have 82 songs on the disc, and this image is the full tracklist of the game.
11:50: Some notable songs: Guns N' Roses debuting a track here. Dylan is also giving up one of his tracks. AC/DC as well with Let There Be Rock.
11:53: President of Square Enix Yoichi Wada is coming on stage.
11:56: It doesn't seem like there's any Xbox 360 Wiimote news today, but the Lips accessory is very cool. We can't think of any other Karaoke game that lets you plug in any song you own and sing it. I guess you'll have to have Lyrics support somehow? We're not sure exactly how it's going to work and how it'll be scored.
12:00: The Square guy is pulling out a "One More Thing" of his own, and it's...
12:02: Final Fantasy 13!
12:03: Final Fantasy 13 is coming to Xbox 360 at launch, simultaneously with the PS3 version.
12:05: It's a pretty historic announcement that Final Fantasy is going non-Sony Exclusive.
12:06: That's it! Thanks for reading. We'll have more information on Xbox Live and the new dashboard improvements later today. See you then!

1:06 AM - One opportunistic young gentleman named Henry is selling his 7th place spot in line ... for a cool $150.

1:10 AM - People are dropping like flies. A couple just left when they found out they'd have to sign up for contracts.

1:35 - Surprisingly, there aren't many people who waited here for a phone last year. However, I did find Matt, who waited last year in Richmond, VA. He's in town on business but got so caught up when he walked by the line he decided to hop in. He conveniently broke his original iPhone last week in a "Brazilian party accident", and he's pretty excited to get a new one.

1:58 - I asked some people what apps they were most excited about, and I got the same answer over and over: Super Monkey Ball. Other than that, people are looking forward to Remote, AIM, Facebook, and Whrrl.

2:25 - PACKER! He's here, but not for the iPhone. He's planning on sleeping in the park tomorrow to get Bon Jovi tickets. He says he won't be the first in line, but he'll be close. Special thanks to my new best friend Henry for coming to tell me he's here.

4:15 - News crews are starting to show up, so you know it's getting serious. I've seen trucks from CW, ABC, Good Day New York, along with reporters from the Wall Street Journal and DVICE.

4:20 - Update: Packer is asleep like a little baby.

4:45 - Sleepiness is setting in for me too, but I have a whole slew of energy drinks to get me through the final push. So far I've had an açai banana-mango concoction that was awful going down but had a delicious aftertaste, and a Venom Mojave Rattler that smelled like Robotussin and tasted like battery acid. I still haven't tried Stamina-RX, whose can promises "Extreme Sexual Experience".

5:30 - The line has stretched all the way down 59th St. to Madison Ave.
5:40 - The sun is starting to rise over NYC, people are getting excited.

6:20 - Everyone is getting interviewed about the iPhone 3G by radio stations, TV stations, and newspapers. What's left to say? We want our phones!
6:45 - People are getting antsy, they keep moving around to stay awake and excited. This last hour and change is going to be a challenge.

6:50 - The line is moving, people are walking in! Will updated ASAP.

6:55 - Phew! Almost lost my spot in line, but here it is, the final few feet until they open the doors and let all of us here loose on the Cube and the prize we've had our eyes on for hours.

7:50 - Frucci's all the way down the block and he told me that the line is firmly wrapped around Madison Ave. again.
7:55 - A bunch of people in orange iPhone 3G shirts just stepped outside, and the crowd started cheering.

8:00 - One of those hippies who's been waiting a week to (allegedly) buy a phone got in trouble for something and now it looks like he can't come in.
8:05 - The doors are open and people are going in! I'll be back with more after I buy mine to let you know how it goes.

8:07 - Just got down here and there are at least 100 Apple employees cheering everyone on. It's nuts!

8:15 - Buying my phone, I'm thisclose to tearing the box open right now.
8:27 - Mission accomplished!
8:28 - The SIM ejector tool is a lot fancier than I expected.

Twitterific: Works just like the desktop version of Twitterific (it gives you access to Twitter), and also uses the iPhone's location-aware features to geotag your tweets. What it doesn't do, like Twinkle, is give you a feed of Twitter users from around you. It does, however, let you attach photos to pics and let you know if your friends Tweet from a nearby location. Overall, pretty good. Ad-supported version is Free; Ad-free version is $10.

PhoneSaber: Lightsaber application similar to the one on Installer.app. Five choices of iPhone colors and slightly better accelerometer detection for better lightsaber sounds. Free.

Midomi: Song Recognition App that actually works well enough to know when it's being Rickrolled. Free

iTunes Remote: Remote control your iTunes and iTV. It's very, very good, and can even rate songs directly from the phone. Pretty much the perfect iTunes remote. Free.

NetNewsWire: Similar to the RSS Reader on the desktop, which we use daily, NNW on the iPhone lets you read RSS feeds. It doesn't scale images like the web-based Mac RSS reader, so you're going to have to do a bit of panning and scrolling. Other than that, no real complaints. It even syncs with your NNW online account so you can keep your desktop feeds and iPhone feeds the same (in terms of knowing what you already read). Free.

Google Mobile: Location aware searching with auto-suggest, contacts searching as well as local business search (typing in pizza gives you an option to search for pizza near you). Unfortunately, as Lifehacker pointed out, it only searches your contacts, not your calendar or email. One step at a time. Free.

Yelp: Pretty much exactly the same features as the online yelp.com portal, but in a readable format for your iPhone. Search for pizza places, coffee shops, bars or gas stations and you'll be able to check out its hours, the location, the phone number and read reviews. You can drill down from the home screen to Restaurants, Bars, Coffee & Tea, Banks, Gas & Service Stations or Drugstores, or just type in whatever you want. Everyone should download it just to have. Free.

Facebook: Just like the iPhone-customized Facebook webpage, except crashier (crashed when I tried to view the friends list the first time). You can search your friends, do Facebook chat (nice), view your messages and do everything else you could do on the web-based portal. It just crashed when I tried to view my profile too. Free.

Pandora: Your standard internet radio—you pick an artist you like, it recommends similar songs which you then rate to hone its selections. Like always it's better for well-known artists, but its explanation for why certain tracks were picked ("intricate melodic phrasing, a clear focus on recoding studio production, heartbreaking lyrics") are priceless. Pandora claims CD-quality but several tracks sounded compressed. A plus is that streaming works well with very little lag even over EDGE. Album art comes in with that nice page effect; good thing, because that's all you'll be seeing since the app can't play in the background. Free. – John Mahoney

IGN Reviews: Easily get IGN game reviews on the go, either by searching for the game title or browsing a list of recent reviews. If you don't trust IGN for reviews, it's not a huge help, but it does give you a decent idea of what's good and what's not if you're at the game section of Best Buy looking for something to take home. Free.

Save Benjis: Think Pricegrabber or Google Products for the iPhone. Search for a particular product you want and it will throw up a list of prices from various retailers. Useful for going shopping and not knowing whether the TV you're buying will be cheaper online (it usually will be).

Mixmeister: Allows users to perform scratches over the music in their playlist using one of ten available vinyl scratch sounds. I'm not a DJ, but it was easy to pick up and get a decent scratch going right away. Bottom line: it's fun. Free. – Sean Fallon

MotionX-Poker: An addictive dice and poker game that shakes virtual dice by actually sampling your shake of the iPhone and simulating the roll. It's the best original game for the iPhone yet. $5 – Brian Lam

Weight Track A weight log of how much you weigh every day that syncs w/ the website, but also gives you a history of your weight loss. Pretty much just a fancy alternative for a pen and pencil, but not bad if you're trying to lose some weight. Comes with sluggish graphics and animations. Free.

AIM: It's as solid as you'd expect, supporting away statuses, marking contacts as favorites so you can easily find them, groups, away messages and saved messages while you're away from the app. Because background IM notifications won't be here until September, you'll have to go into the app to check whether or not you have new messages. Still, it's good that you don't lose any. Oh, and that really annoying traditional AIM sound is still here and is still super freaking annoying. Don't see a way to turn that off. But there is a system option to sign off when you exit. Free.

MySpace Mobile: I have never used MySpace Mobile on another platform, but I can say that the version for the iPhone is very solid. It ran smooth and provided easy access to every option you could find on the regular site. It sure as hell won't make me want to use MySpace again, but addicts who have an iPhone will undoubtedly be thrilled. Free. – Sean Fallon

Whrrl: Think Yelp, but more-map based and social networking-like. Go to your current location and you can see markers signifying places of restaurants or stores. Click on them to see reviews, write reviews, or place markers saying that you've been there, wanted to go there or that you're there now. This could be cool if you have enough friends using it, but otherwise you're playing around with strangers. Free.

Tiny Violin: A virtual "world's smallest violin" to play to whiners. It plays two tunes which get old fast. Much like the idea itself. $1. – Brian Lam

Bejeweled 2:If you're a fan of the Bejeweled game, you will love this iPhone version. There are two different game modes, Classic and Action. The only difference in between the two is Action mode has a time limit. Game play works as it should, you touch a jewel you want to move then touch the surrounding spot you want it to move to. There's a Hint feature that will advise you to the best jewel to move. The game uses full use of the iPhone's accelerometer, allowing play at any angle. The graphics and sound FX are great, and overall gameplay is smooth without any problems. $10. -Chris Mascari

Box Office: Very simple, incredibly useful—gives you a full list of movie showtimes sorted by name, your location (manual zipcode entry or GPS/celltower reading) or Rotten Tomato rating and kicks you to Fandango to buy tickets. So much better than hitting Google for showtimes in Safari. Free. -John Mahoney

Dial 0: A directory of service 800 numbers with instructions on how to reach a real person for each one, all of them I tried being some variation on "press 0 over and over again." Kind of handy to have all the numbers you might need in one place, but not fantastic. Free. -John Mahoney

Band: Holy Crap this app is fun. There are five different instruments that all play in landscape mode: Rock Kit, Funky Drummer, Bassist, Grand Piano, and 12 Bar Blues. It's able to record every instrument one track at a time, and each time a new instrument is recorded it replays what's already been recorded. Basically you can make a complete musical masterpiece one instrument at a time. There's even audience sounds for added ambiance. While it has the ability to save all your recordings, sadly there is no way to get those recordings off the iPhone. $10. -Chris Mascari

World 9: Start the app and put it in your pocket. As you run and jump it makes Super Mario brothers noises. Free and awesome. -Brian Lam

Shazam: Will also identify songs through the iPhone's mic—doesn't handle humming and singing as well as Midomi, but is tops at picking up ambient background music. -John Mahoney

AOL Radio: Features over 200 stations spanning more than 25 genres of music and over 150 local radio stations from across the US. You can bookmark favorite stations, artists and even link up to iTunes or AOL music when you find a song you like. All-in-all it works well. The sound quality is good, its easy to navigate and you can control the volume right in the app. It also stops playing when you remove your headphones. You can't run it in the background, however. Free. -Sean Fallon

Sketches: The best drawing and photo mockery tool for the iPhone. You can choose different photo or solid or map backgrounds and drop various icons or draw on images and export them out. No text tool. A little slow but worth $8.-Brian Lam>

Comic Touch: Overlay text bubbles on images, and warp faces. Unlike the Sketches app, it has a text tool, but that's it. $5.-Brian Lam>

Crazy Eye: Yeah, this is a program with 10 animations of different eyeballs (dragon, pirate, etc) that switch and move around. You're supposed to hold it up to your face and it's supposed to make you look like a monster or something. It gets old in about 1 minute and costs a buck. -Brian Lam

AP Mobile News Network: A great way to browse the wires for news, photos and videos (really reminds me in a way of the presentation on the Wii, sans the spinning globe sadly). Videos kick you to YouTube. But am I the only one that still remembers AP promising some kind of game-changing user-submitted news submission process at WWDC? That seems to be missing in this version, at least. Free. -John Mahoney

Mosquito: This is an audio/motion game, where you listen to a mosquito buzzing and when it gets close, you swat it by swinging your iPhone. Clever, but for $2, there isn't enough pay off. -Brian Lam

Urbanspoon: If you're hungry but don't know where you want to eat, Urbanspoon makes finding a restaurant pretty fun. It's like a slot machine, listing neighborhoods, cuisines and price ranges in the three columns. When you shake the iPhone, it spins the wheels, delivering a random restaurant to you. You can lock on any or all three of the columns to get something more specific if you want, and clicking the restaurant name brings you to more info about it. Could be fun if you aren't the pre-planning type. Free. -Adam Frucci

Etch-a-Sketch: The Etch-a-Sketch game is essentially a doodling app, allowing you to draw free-form with your fingers on the touchscreen, changing the colors and other such things using the controls at the bottom. If you're a purist, you can use the knobs, but that's just as annoying as it is when you're using the real thing. As you can see by my masterpiece above, doing it freehand lets you use separate lines and you can really make great stuff that you can then send to your friends/boss. Just like with a real Etch-a-Sketch, you erase simply by shaking. $4.99. -Adam Frucci

NY Times Viewer: Basically the same as the AP viewer—but seems a little more clunkily implemented (it's slow, images don't always load, crashed a few times during test). Not as much video. But still a nice way to grab news for reading offline. Free. -John Mahoney

Telegram: This is the only app I didn't buy before writing a review. The $10 app promises to send voice messages between people on your friend list or email. I call it expensive visual email. -Brian Lam

iZen Garden: Ok, I lied, I didn't review this either. Here's a Zen rock garden game for $8. Last time I checked rocks and dirt were free, so fake rocks and dirt should also be free. -Brian Lam

Graffitio: This is supposedly a location aware app that allows you to leave virtual message boards according to your location. You can go to a restaurant and say, "the eggs are great!" and the next user. It's free but I wasn't impressed yet. -Brian Lam

South Park Imaginationland: Help Butters through Imaginationland by making him jump on mushrooms, collect rainbows, and fly. It's even worse than it sounds; the controls suck and by the time I figured out how to play, I was already bored. Still, the sound effects are great and I love South Park, so let me know when there's a Fingerbang game. $10. -Benny Goldman

Battle of Waterloo: This is a choose your own adventure text game. About the battle of Waterloo. "Join the Infantry!" or "Lie Down and Take Cover!" Either way, "Save Your $4 Bucks!" $4 -John Mahoney

Routsey San Francisco: Basically a Next Muni app for your iPhone. You select the SF Muni line you are interested in, and based off your location it will show you the closest stop with arrival times. For some reason the app displays the schedule for the closest stop only. So there is no way to check info for a stop you are not near. $3. -Chris Mascari

LifeGame: Based on Conway's Game of Life, this must be the easiest game ever; simply press play, and it runs itself. Watch and be mesmerized as patterns of black dots form into... something. We're still not quite sure what we're watching, but it looks sweet, like a binary iTunes visualizer. Make and play your own patterns for extra fun. Free. -Benny Goldman

MPG: MPG lets you keep track of how often you fill up your tank and how much you're spending on gas, just in case you somehow forgot. It's slow as hell on the phone we're testing it on, even though it's a pretty simple, but that might just be because we've overloaded this poor iPhone with apps. When it does work, it lets you keep track of your MPG from tank to tank. If you're working on hypermiling, you can find out just how efficient you've been since the last fillup and see how much you've cut back on your driving. $0.99 -Adam Frucci

Zen Pinball: Rollercoaster is a pretty straightforward pinball game. The graphics are nice, and it's pretty smooth. Essentially, you tap the right side of the screen for the right bumper, the left side for the left bumper, and flick on the ball release to fire another ball. You can nudge the table by shaking the phone as well. It's fun enough, but you'd be hard pressed to find this exciting for more than a few minutes. $4.99 -Adam Frucci

Bomberman Touch: The Legend of Mystic Bomb: The developers who totally nail traditional d-pad-plus-two-buttons controls for iPhone games will do everyone a favor—sadly, Bomberman hasn't. Your thumb blocks your Bomberman more than it should. Plus after the first level anyway, gameplay is too slow—not nearly frantic enough to rival the classics. $8. -John Mahoney

Aqua Forest: This water moving game uses both the touchscreen and accelerometer of the iPhone for controls. With five different categories, Tilting, Touch, Drawing, Warm/Cold, and All Functions there are 50 different puzzles that require either tilting, touching or both. There is even a Free mode, where you can create your own little atmosphere of stuff like water, fire and ice, and then by tilting/shaking the iPhone you can mix it all up. -Chris Mascari

Mobile Flickr: Full-featured Flickr app, you can browse your photos by sets, tags, and more. Photo browsing is comparable to the iPhone's built in browser, and you can even assign a picture to a contact. It was slow to take pics and save them, but uploading to Flickr over Wi-Fi was fast. The only problem? The picture was upside down on Flickr! $3. -Benny Goldman

Exposure: This app is just designed for looking at Flickr pics, and has no upload feature. It shows recent pictures taken by others near your location which is cool, but browsing was slow and it only shows one picture per line. Skip this app, it's worth shelling out the $3 for Mobile Flickr, especially when Exposure Premium costs $10 and only removes an ad banner. Free. -Benny Goldman

CityTransit: The undisputed king of the NYC subway map apps. It's the only one with the officially licensed maps, it'll plot your nearest subway stations on a Google Map for easier navigation, includes service advisories, includes LIRR and Metro North as well as an antique map, looks beautiful—does it all. And at $2.99 it's the cheapest—don't touch the other two, especially the $15 one. $3. -John Mahoney

Alarm Free: Alarm Free is a pretty simple, and pretty stupid, app. Basically, it's a picture of an alarm. If you shake your phone, the alarm goes off and makes an annoying noise. Touch the screen to make it stop. Apparently,
it's designed as a self-defense program, and you're supposed to hold it up to an attacker to scare them off. If you hold this up to an attacker, they will steal your iPhone, then probably give you an extra hard beating for assuming they were dumb enough to be scared by flashing lights on your phone. Free. -Adam Frucci

GuitarToolKit: A companion app for your guitar that has many different tuning pre-sets (it detects sound via your iPhone's mic), standard tone generation, a metronome and chords. Tuning my bass guitar that I've been too lazy to tune for a year and a half was fast and easy, and the tone generation was useful to remember which note each string was supposed to be. Chords and metronome will be great when I get around to playing it again. $9.99 is about the price of a cheap tuner, but this is even better since you have your iPhone with you always.

Sudoku (The EA Version): There are an infinite amount of ways to make a Sudoku game, some of which are fast and easy, some of which are good and well thought out. This is definitely the latter. EA shows off its decades of game experience with slick menus, smooth animations, good touch sensitivity and even an opening intro. There's even Japanesey background music to help you concentrate. The game itself has intuitive controls as well—intuitive for entering numbers that is. $7.99. Not too steep.
Scrabble: EA's version of Scrabble supports playing against the computer or multiplayer, but only in the sense that you take your turn and pass the phone around. No wireless gaming, which is something we would have liked. Otherwise, there's quite a bit of polish, including a slightly over-long intro movie and the ability to drag letters from your tray into the correct slot. You can play with a grand total of four friends, which is great since each one will be able to chip in $2.50 for this somewhat steep price. $9.99.
Bank of America Mobile Banking: Lets you access your account information to see recent statements, transfer money or find BoA locations. This sounds like it has great potential if it were developed al in the iPhone's UI, but only the login procedure is. The bulk of the application is just their mobile banking web page, which looks really ugly, and doesn't fit in with the iPhone's UI style at all. It's free, but we wouldn't use this unless you really needed to see if some transfer came through while you're outdoors. BoA needs to go back and re-do everything correctly.
YPMobile: Free Yellow Pages access app that can use your current location to find whatever it is you're usually looking for in the Yellow Pages. Each entry has a star rating and its distance from you. You can also look up events, make a custom list of your own "plans", or add a business to your favorites. It's free and should be quite useful.
Enigmo: It's the same physics-based game where you used various objects to deflect water and lasers from a starting point to an ending point that people have been playing on the Mac for years. The graphics aren't great for the Mac, but they're perfect for the iPhone. Everything runs smoothly and dragging objects around feels natural. You'll have to do a bit of scrolling around because the screen isn't quite as big as you'd like, but it's definitely a fun game. $9.99.
Jared: A stupid yellow face that sings at you. Good thing this is free, because it gets old fast.
WeatherBug: It's like the default Weather app, but trades slick brevity for ugliness. However, with that ugliness comes a whole lot more information, like the heat index, humidity, dew point, rain amount, wind speeds and wind direction. There's also radar, which didn't actually work for us for some reason, and cameras, which you can use to spy on the high schools and elementary schools that have weather cameras installed. Wait, this sounds kinda pervy. Do you really need all that information? Probably not. It's free though, so if you're some kind of curious monkey, here you go.
Currency: A quick currency converter that shows how much one amount (default s dollars) is in 9 other currencies of your choice. Easy to use and useful when either traveling or when you have to convert money for some reason. Free!
RotaryDialer: The idea is good—an old school rotary dialer that you use via touch—but the execution sucks. Where's the noise that a rotary dialer makes??! Seriously? You're going to make this app without that noise? Go back and do this again. Free, but disappointing.

Trism: A sliding puzzle game that's slightly similar to Bejweled, but actually uses the iPhone's acclerometer to detect which direction is down. This affects gameplay by changing which direction triangles fall when you've made a match. For $4.99, it's a pretty sweet game.

Jott: It records voice memos and converts them into text notes. Swipe a task after you complete it, and it strikes through the words. I'm more likely to keep track of tasks now that I can speak them instead of tapping them in on the keyboard, but for Jott to be consistently useful they must improve speech recognition and recording length, add more of the features offered in their phone-based service, and send crossed out notes to the trash. Free. – Benny Goldman

GoLearn Fitness Plus: This fitness app combines trainer videos that gives you tips about exercising at the gym, running, hiking or cycling. Each workout comes with a demonstration so you know you're doing it right, plus has a log tracker so you can enter in your reps or your miles/time for running and hiking. At $19.99, the "Plus" version incorporates all the other workouts of the four individual versions at half the total price. An hour with an actual fitness trainer like our Sean Fallon costs more than $19.99, and they won't even show you what to do all the time or remember every set you've ever done. There's also a home workout if you're not really the gym-going type. Seriously, $19.99 is cheap for getting in shape and not dying early.

eBay: A basic looking but extremely well rounded eBay app for the iPhone. By signing in you have the usually My eBay options of displaying what is being watched, sold, etc. What makes this app amazing is its iPhone specific eBay item / page browser. Scrolling through listings is easy and loads fast. Once at an item age, the iPhone displays the most important information with links to bidding, buying, watching, description, and pictures. The pictures page has a gallery style display, which is very nice. Free. – Chris Mascari

PayPal: This app is pretty limited and doesn't feel like a finished product. With only two real features, ability to check your PayPal balance or send money, this app is kinda useless. Free. – Chris Mascari

Expenses: Expenses by Nexonia is a free download, but it actually isn't free. Super lame. You have to pay $10 a month to their subscription service, which isn't worth it unless you're really heavy into expenses for your company and they don't already have a system in place, you can easily keep track of your expenses with the default notes application. $10 a month = no thanks.

Cro-Mag Rally: This game is pretty fun but definitely takes some time to get used to. It's basically Mario Kart for the iPhone with a caveman theme. Steering uses the iPhone accelerometer and actually works well once you get the hang of it. There are 9 different race tracks and 11 different vehicles to drive, which combined with the superb graphics, makes this game a good time. $10.

CowToss: The self-proclaimed worst iPhone app ever, CowToss lets you bounce a static animation of a cow up and down on your screen. That's it. Shamefully overpriced at $0.99, unless electronic irony is your thing. - Dan Nosowitz
iMilk: This little app uses the iPhone's motion sensor to tell when the phone is being tipped, like a glass. So if you tip the phone forward, the "milk" inside will drain out pretty realistically. If you shake the phone, it'll foam up like milk. A fun show off app but pricey at $2.99. - Dan NosowitziPint: Just like iMilk, only with a more "mature" substance, a 3.5-inch tall glass of beer. Definitely worth the free download, though you must be 17 to order. - Dan NosowitzCrazy Mouth: Similar to Crazy Eye, but with animations of mouths like a robot and a cheerful whistler. The animations are a little more elaborate than Crazy Eye and a little more entertaining. Worth the $1 if you've got it to toss around. - Dan Nosowitz
Banner Free: Turns your phone into a scrolling LED-style banner. I can see this becoming annoying pretty quickly, when someone downloads it and only communicates with the outside world via scrolling banner. Still, it's fun for now, and free. -Benny Goldman
Shakespeare: The complete works of Shakespeare condensed into a ~3MB app. Adjustable font size and easy to navigate menus are good, but I'd like to see search and highlighting capabilities. It's free, which is a refreshing change from so many other public domain books that are going for $1 in the app store. -Benny Goldman
G-Park: G-Park uses the A-GPS to mark where your car is parked. When you want to return to the spot, press a button for turn-by-turn directions. If you constantly get lost in the parking lot, it's worth the $1. -Benny Goldman
Mindwarp: "Duuude! Stare at this trippy swirly picture for 30 seconds and then, like, check out your hand! It's insane!" Sorry, I ran out of whatever drug I needed for this a long time ago. $1 -Benny Goldman
Scribble: A simple drawing application with four colors and one brush size. Pictures can be saved to your photo library, but can't be edited once you leave the app. Not the best sketching app we've seen, but it's the most free. -Benny Goldman
Frisbee Golf: This game takes the only good part of playing disc golf—going outside, maybe drinking a beer—and ditches it. Too hard to aim, too much unnecessary 3D and not very fun. To the hippies that would buy this: You're better off saving your money for what you normally spend it on. $3. -Benny Goldman

Loopt: A location based social network app that will display what your friends are doing and where they're at. There are a slew of features like uploading pictures to show what you are doing and even integrated Yelp! reviews on the map. Overall the app works great and is pretty fun but will drain your battery like a motherfucker. Free. -Chris Mascari

Cube Runner: Cube runner follows the Monkey Ball style of using the accelerometer for tilt-based controls to navigate your...um...arrow through a drab-looking mess of cubes. It's intuitive and fun, but once you get tired of chasing the high score, there's little reason to go back to it. Free. -Adrian Covert

Tetris:Let's be honest - Tetris isn't exactly the most ambitious project for a company like EA Games. That's probably why the company's iPhone port is a little overdone. The basic gameplay functions are well thought out and the touch-focused controls are completely intuitive, though we'd be pretty disappointed to find any kind of learning curve for a Tetris game. EA obviously wanted to use a bit of the iPhone's rendering capability, but the graphics are gaudy to the point of distraction. Anyone looking for a simple, clean port like Tris (from the jailbreak days. See you soon, Tris...) should probably pass, but if you need a fix now I guess you don't have much of a choice. At $9.99 you can expect a decent competitor to pop up at a lower price point, if not for free. -John Herrman

Twitterific: Great implementation of the service - smooth menus, fast updates, can embed photos and locations in your tweets natively. And it looks great. Free with ads, $10 without. -John Mahoney

Twittelator: Gets the job done, but it's buggy. Occasionally can't connect to the server, and the interface is not nearly as polished as Twitterific. Free. -John Mahoney

Twittervision: Cool visualization of tweets from around the world in real time that matches the website of the same name. Also lets you track location-tagged tweets that are in your area and provides very basic updating. Fun, but use it with Twitterific, not instead of. Free. -John Mahoney

Mocha VNC Lite: Mocha is a VNC client that supports full QWERTY and safari-like zooming as well as landscape mode. Double click works, but right click doesn't, but there is no official App store equivalent so this is your desktop remote client of choice. -Brian Lam

Twinkle: This Twitter app oneups Twitteriffic by not only showing who's twittering, but where they're doing it. Paired with a great UI, Twinkle is a winner. Free. -Matt Buchanan

Aurora Feint: Aurora Feint is a bastard mix of Bejewled, tilt controls and an RPG (laying the groundwork for an MMO). Sounds weird, but it's pretty damn fun. -Benny Goldman

MealSplitter: MealSplitter is a tip and check splitting app to help you figure out who owes what at the end of a meal. Unfortunately, it evidently does a lousy job, unable to calculate separate meal prices correctly: one person's expensive item will be split evenly among everybody. - submitted by Kenny Crochet

iRetrophone: Rotary phone UI for the iPhone. You enter numbers and hit call. Funny, great sound effects, but not worth $3.

NetSketch: Cool Bonjour-like collaborative drawing app for passing notes and crude anatomical sketches over Wi-Fi. See our video review here. $8

Where: Yet another geo device, this one linked to yelp, starbucks, zipcar, skymap and gasbuddy locations, each on different maps. It even has buddy beaconing, but I'd rather just use yelp and loopt for buddies. Bad news: Doesn't always work. Good news: It's free.

Crash Bandicoot: Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D is a Mario Kart-like 3D racer with Crash Bandicoot at the wheel instead of the chubby Brooklyn plumber. For $9.99, we expect better.

All reviews written by Jason Chen, unless otherwise noted.

This is the unmistakable iPhone outline on top of the word "Mobiles," found in the "Quiet Zone" carriage in the Chiltern Line, while I was traveling down to London from the English countryside. Not a generic standard cellphone with a keyboard, which is what we have been using for the last two decades, but the iPhone.

It may seem like a capricious selection by the designer, but I've seen the same use everywhere: a newspaper chart showing some generic data about the cellphone market, a sign in a shop, advertising from companies completely unrelated to Apple... it's everywhere, like a virus, popping in printed and TV material, and also affecting the look of other generic products—like the original iMac or the iPod did—not only other cellphones.

The fact is that—whether you like it or not—the iPhone has become The Cellphone. Not just The Smartphone, but The Cellphone, a benchmark that serves to measure every other terminal out there. Anything new with a big screen from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, or LG are now iPhone-killer wannabes. The theoretical market leader, Research In Motion, is now seen by analysts and the public as "struggling" to catch up with the iPhone, even while its executives try to minimize the impact of Cupertino's iconic gadget.

One random example: I was buying a new SIM card last week, and I overheard a client talking to a shop clerk who was showing to her one of the latest LG touch smartphones. Her comment was something like:

"...but the touch screen doesn't work well. It just doesn't. It's not like the iPhone. It's not... smooth, you know?"

The shop guy looked at her and nodded "I know, it's not very good, but unfortunately we have no more iPhones, you'll have to wait."

It may be anecdotal evidence, but it is true. Of all the touch cellphones I have tried, the only one that feels right, smooth and perfect, has been the iPhone. And every other person I've asked is saying the same thing, friends, colleagues, family, people who I know were Apple haters, and people who I know were complete gadget newbies. All of them swear by their iPhones, even while they recognize what it lacks, and want more from it.

We will see if His Steveness gives them what they want today, live at Gizmodo.

(And by the way, don't forget that if you have the iPhone, you can go into the Quiet Zone too and avoid Apple by clicking here.)

We also recognize that not every reader gets as worked up about Apple news as we do, so here's a link to a version of Giz avoiding all Apple news. What's new this time? All our international sites will be joining in with live translations, along with some other new tricks (and sacrifices to the Gods of server stability) to make the liveblog faster and better than at Macworld. [live.gizmodo.com]

(And by the way, all our international sites will be joining in with live translations.)

7:39 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Gizmodo Live at Macworld 2008 Keynote. The keynote starts Tuesday, January 15 @ 9:00 AM PST (12:00 PM EST), but we're going to start liveblogging hours before that, giving you color commentary on the area, the attendees, and any secrets we can glean from uncovered banners.

7:59 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen:
We're here! It's dreary as hell (even for San Francisco standards), but we're here, in line, waiting for the keynote to start. There's definitely something in the air, but to us it smells like the pungent desperation of various media types who were forced to wake up at way too early.

8:02 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Crazy. Instead of a Pikmin-like blob of people massed outside the giant aluminum shutters, we've actually got an orderly line.

8:04 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen:
And here's it is. $5 if you can spot Mossy/Waldo.

8:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen:

And since there's no comment field here in the liveblog proper, feel free to discuss the upcoming proceedings over on the other liveblog post.

8:17 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: We see all our normal friends here: Wired, Ars...I guess that's all the people I know. OH, Macrumors. Can't forget them.

8:25 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen:
Someone's excited about what Steve's going to announce today.

8:36 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Top 3 guesses on what's going to be announced today. My guess: new laptop, Apple TV media news and Apple buying out Diebold and leading the way to electronic voting we can trust. Put your guess in the comments.

8:44 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen:
There's Something in the Air Update 1: The orderly line has dissolved into a scene outside Britney's first car-cooter-exposure: everyone's in a mob, pushing each other around with cameras, randomly shooting a shot off hoping to get something worth publishing. What's in the air? Sweat. And greed. And more than a little desperation.

8:46 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Lightning Review. The Gadget: The food.
The Verdict: The orange juice dispensed from a water cooler is classy, but the blueberry scones put it over the top. Definitely worth the money ($0) we paid.

8:59 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Update 2: Mark here, we are trading off the duties of "laptop bitch," making one another hold the computer so we don't need to risk life, limb and foul-smelling crotch on the floor to bring you these updates.

9:03 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: We're in! We've done this many times now, so we can safely say that Coldplay is the band Apple designates as the official soundtrack to the "running of the media" every single time.

9:03 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:05 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: It's 9:02, people are still filing in, so it's going to be a minute or two before the keynote gets started. Can you taste it? CAN YOU SMELL IT!?

9:08 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Steve's added a new song to his playlist this year. Kanye. No one can say Steve Jobs doesn't care about black iPods.

9:13 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Here's a question for you: do you like the Macworld keynote during CES like last year, or after CES like this year?

9:13 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Still no Steve, but Feist's 1 2 3 4 is on. And the lights are dimming! Exciting!

9:14 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Steve's most likely waiting for Feist to end. Nobody cuts off Feist...bitch.

9:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: It's starting! A new Mac vs. PC commercial: Happy New Year 2008. And Steve Jobs takes the stage.

9:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: "Welcome to Macworld 2008. We've got some great stuff for you. There's clearly some great stuff in the air today."

9:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:16 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Steve's taking us on a retrospective of 2007. iPhone, iPod, etc. He's thanking everyone for an extraordinary 2007.

9:17 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:17 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: He has four things he wants to talk to us about today. The first is Leopard. Over 5 million copies sold, and about 20% of Mac OS X's install base has upgraded to Leopard. Now Steve's quoting Mossberg, Pogue, Ed Baig and PC Magazine for quotes on Leopard. Two thumbs up, as it were.

9:17 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:20 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:20 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Time Machine: Leopard works great with a desktop machine, but it doesn't work well with laptops because you have to keep plugging and unplugging a USB drive. Now he's introducing a new backup station with 802.11n and server-grade backup station. It's an AirPort Extreme station with ports in the back, allowing you to back up your macs wirelessly to Time Capsule.

9:21 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:22 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:23 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Time Capsule will be sold in a 500GB version and a 1TB version for $299 and $499. It ships February. It also looks exactly like an Airport Extreme, except with different ports on the back.

9:23 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: And that's the first thing! The second thing: The iPhone. Today is exactly the 200th day that the iPhone has been on sale. Apple has sold 4 million iPhones to date, which means 20,000 iPhones sold per day on average. What does this mean compared to the overall smartphone market?

9:26 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:27 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:27 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam: Jobs: Joo! (Boom substitute),

9:27 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: And today, he's introducing new iPhone features:
Maps with locations, webclips, customizable home screens, SMS multiple people at once, chapters, subtitles, and language support in video, and lyrics support in audio.

9:30 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Here are the numbers for the iPhone's first full quarter of shipping (Q3 2007). RIM has 39%, Apple has 19.5%, Palm has 9.8%, Motorola has 7.4%. In just one quarter, they managed to grab second place.

9:31 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:31 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:31 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Webclips: On the iPhone's Safari browser, just pick out a website, hit the "+" button, and hit "Add to home screen", and it'll be added as an icon on your home screen. Hit the button from the home screen and it'll fire up Safari and take you there. You can even customize the shortcut to a specific part of the web page.

9:33 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Rearranging icons: Hold down an icon and all the icons on the screen jitter (the leak was right!), allowing you to drag stuff around to rearrange. You can now have 9 different screens to hold all your apps or webclips (internet shortcuts).

9:34 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:35 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: All these updates are available today, for free, for all iPhone users.

9:35 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: So how do you get locations without GPS? Apple's partnering with Google and Skyhook. Google helps you triangulate cellphone towers, and Skyhook helps you triangulate Wi-Fi data. When you go past a Wi-fi hotspot or a cell tower, the phone remembers the data and uses it to calculate where you are.

9:36 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:36 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: How about the iPod touch? They're adding Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes and Weather. For existing iPod touch users, it will cost $20. If you buy a new iPod touch, it'll be free and built-in.

9:37 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Multiple recipient SMS: Just as you'd expect. Pick different recipients at the top, type stuff, hit send. It's also customized for the iPhone's "conversations" because it remembers all the recipients under that one "conversation", so you can send multiple messages to the same people easily.

9:38 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: The third thing Steve's talking about today: iTunes. They've sold 4 billion songs, 125 million TV shows and 7 million movies. TV shows and movies have sold more than "everyone else put together", but "did not meet our expectations". "There's a better way to deliver movies over the internet." What is it? iTunes Movie Rentals.

9:38 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Here are the studios involved: Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, New Line, Lion's gate, Fox, WB, Disney, Paramount, Universal and Sony. What's missing?

9:39 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Steve says "We have every major studio", and that they'll have all the great first-run films.

9:40 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:41 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:41 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: 1000 films by February, and movies will be available 30 days after the DVD release. You can watch them anywhere: Macs, PCs, iPods and iPhone. You can watch instantly, meaning streaming. You'll have 30 days to "start" watching it, and then 24 hours to "finish" watching it once you've started to watch it. You can watch the first half on your computer, transfer the movie to your iPod, then watch the rest of the movie on the airplane. Here's the cost.

B. Lam:

9:43 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Old releases: $2.99. New releases: $3.99.

9:43 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:43 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: iTunes movie rentals launches today, and it's a free software update for iTunes. Free update for iPods and iPhones in order to support this. Support for the US comes today, but international support comes later this year.

9:44 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:44 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:44 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:45 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:46 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: But how about the AppleTV? It was designed to be an accessory for iTunes, but people wanted it to be "movies, movies, movies". Here's AppleTV, take 2. It still syncs with your computer, but no computer is required for AppleTV. You can rent movies directly onto your AppleTV and watch them on your HDTV. You can rent in either SD quality or HD Quality with 5.1 surround sound.

9:46 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:46 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: You can also view audio and video podcasts on the AppleTV, photos from Flickr or .Mac, YouTube videos (>50 Million), Buy TV shows and music (which will be streamed back to your computer), or play iTunes content & photos streamed from your computer.

9:46 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: HD Rentals pricing: $3.99 for old titles and $4.99 for new titles. $1 more than SD.

9:47 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:48 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: There's a new interface for AppleTV (picture coming in a sec). The UI is centered around the movie rental experience.

9:48 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: HD Rentals pricing: $3.99 for old titles and $4.99 for new titles. $1 more than SD.

9:49 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:50 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Steve's demo-ing a sample movie, Blades of Glory. Once you've queued up enough of the movie, AppleTV will pop up a message saying that it's ready to play. He says it usually takes about 30 seconds before something's ready to play.

9:51 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:51 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: He's now showing a scene from Die Hard, featuring Justin Long (the Mac guy).

9:51 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Damn, they cut it off right before Justin Long came in!

9:52 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:54 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:54 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:55 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Now Steve is demoing podcasts and music video downloading. Podcasts queue up and stream just like you'd expect, and music videos work the same way they do on iTunes on your PC.

9:55 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Fake Steve is also liveblogging this AS REAL STEVE, which may or may not blow your mind. Check it out.

9:56 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

9:56 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Slideshows stream directly off the .Mac servers, which means you may be able to view your friends' pictures directly on your TV.

9:58 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

B. Lam:

9:59 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Flickr: You can view a friend's pictures, or even their friends' photos. Of course, this is all set to music from your own iTunes library. Uh oh, tech demo problem alert! No photos, just music. The screen is blank (because of flickr). WE SWEAR IT'S NOT US.

9:59 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam: Boom count: 1

10:00 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:00 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:01 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Apple TV: The new software will be available via free software upgrade, which means you don't need to purchase a new box. Nice!

10:01 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:03 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: New pricing as well. It's $299 now, but they're kicking it down to $229 starting today. They're shipping the free software update to existing owners and new units in just 2 weeks. (Polite applause follows.)

10:06 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: "The first studio that signed up with us for iTunes movie rentals was 20th Century Fox". Now, he's introducing Jim Gianopulos, the Chairman & CEO of Fox. Jim's taking the stage and talking about movies and business.

10:06 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:07 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Non-Steve Jobs intermission, essentially. Jim, the Fox CEO is talking about formats, and business models, and giving people choices. "The next format will be Blu-ray, apparently."

10:08 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: We were right! Jim says his movies will have a free iTunes version of the movie residing on the DVD that you can transfer onto your portable devices by copying it over. The first movie that has this: Family Guy's Blue Harvest, their Star Wars parody episode.

10:08 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: And now the fourth thing they want to talk about today. "There's something in the air. What is it?" MacBooks, apparently!

10:08 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:09 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Today they're introducing a third kind of notebook, MacBook Air. "It's the world's thinnest notebook."

10:10 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:10 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: What does this mean? The Sony TZ series are thin. "We looked at all of them out there. They generally weigh about 3 pounds." In Sony's case, it weighs 3 pounds, 0.8-1.2 inches thick, and a 11-12 inch display. They also have miniature keyboards, and they don't "run them as fast as they could."

10:11 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:11 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:12 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Thinness: MacBook air goes from 0.76 inches down to 0.16 inches at the thin end. The thickest part is thinner than the Sony TZ Series. 0.76 vs. 0.8. It's so thin, it even fits inside a vanilla envelope. Steve whips out a manilla envelope.

10:14 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:14 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Out comes the MacBook Air. It's silver (aluminum?), has black keys, is super super thin, and Steve can hold it easily with his fingertips. "It's the world's thinnest notebook," he reiterates. It has a 13.3-inch widescreen display. "And the display is gorgeous." It's an LED backlit display that's instant-on. It also has a built-in iSight camera, and a full-sized keyboard. Backlit too, with a trackpad and multi-touch gesture support on the trackpad.

10:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:15 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: You can turn on different types of gestures in the settings, like moving around a window with your finger, panning around a photo with two fingers, rotate a photo by twisting a finger, swipe between photos with three figners, and zoom in and out with pinching.

10:16 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: "How did we fit a Mac in here?"

10:17 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Here's what's inside. 1.8-inch hard drives, like in the iPods. There's also an optional 64GB solid state disk. What else is in there? A complete Mac board, which is a little wider than the length of a pencil.

10:18 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:18 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:19 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Here's the CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo Inside, 1.6 GHz standard, with a 1.8GHz upgrade available. Apple asked Intel to shrink their Core 2 Duo processors down to a package 60% smaller in order to fit it inside the MacBook Air. And here's Intel's CEO Paul Otellini to talk about it.

10:19 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:21 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: Paul says: The CPU is the width of a dime, the thickness of a nickel, and we didn't think we could do it.

10:21 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: The other features: flip-down door that has USB 2, microDVI port, and a headphone jack. The other side is a MagSafe connector. As for wireless, it's got 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. It doesn't have an optical drive internal, but you can buy a separate USB-powered SuperDrive that's especially made for the MacBook Air. $99.

10:22 am ON Jan 15 2008
B. Lam:

10:22 am ON Jan 15 2008
Jason Chen: What do you do with an optical drive? Play movies, install software, make backups, burn CDs. What's Apple's alternative? iTunes movie rentals, Time Capsule for backups, iPods for listening to stuff in your car, and a new feature called "Remote Disc" for installing stuff via CDs and DVDs.

10:22 am ON Jan 15 2008