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... is taking place now. Follow a live coverage (transcript, photos) at MacRumors Live.

Update: Watch the video of Steve Jobs Macworld 2007 Keynote (QuickTime).

iPhone is here!

From the keynote speech:
9:42 am: 1984 - first mac; 2001 first ipod;

Today - introducing 3 revolutionary products:
9:42 am: 1st - widescreen ipod
9:42 am: 2nd - revolutionary mobile phone
9:42 am: 3rd - internet communicator
9:43 am: one device, not 3 separate

iPhone features Mac OS X, WiFi and GSM, a full web browser (Safari), a wide screen with MultiTouch interface (that's cool!) and 3 modes of work - an iPod, a phone, a communicator. Full sensor screen, use the best pointing device you have (your fingers), MultiTouch gestures, can "touch" your music.

Priced at $499 for a 4GB model, with 2 year service plan.

There is no question that this product will change the landscape of phones and mobile devices as we know it. The question is - how? What will happen to such products as Palm Treo or Nokia 770 Internet Tablet?

How will competition respond? One thing characteristic to Apple is that users will be tied into iTunes and its DRM therefore an interesting field to watch will be more open devices or development platforms that will inevitably turn up.

By the way - its not all cool and amazing. Many of things are already out there, in other devices. The really cool part is the "touch" interface, full screen size and the web browser / communicator part of it. But even then "nobody needs a stylus" part raises questions - entering text by tapping fingers on a virtual keyboard is slow and messy, using a stylus and Graffiti handwriting recognition is much faster.

Let's see what will happen. I want one of those anyway!

Apple Keynotes - Behind the Scenes

It is amazing to see Steve Jobs and Apple marketing and PR machine at work. Such a show does not happen in one day and there is an incredible amount work put into creating such a presentation (not to speak about the amount of work that goes into products themselves).

Read a first-person account of this process: The Guardian article "Behind the magic curtain"

Macworld Conference & Expo 2007 starts today at the Moscone Center in San Francisco and will run until January 12.

What new things will be presented there this year? Looking forward to find out more on the MacNN (Mac News Network) and elsewhere.

To make this event more fun participate in the "Steve Jobs Keynote Bingo": "Bingo templates are randomized out of a pool of 50 possible keynote events. When one event happens, press a button. If you get five buttons in a row, column or diagonally you scream: bIngqo!! (Because only a Klingon is prepared for what Steve has in store this year.)"

Check out our photos from Macworld 2006:

See also some photos from the MAKE and #joiito MacWorld 2006 Meetup.

P.S. Between the time I started to write this blog post and the time it was finished the current date in Latvia switched from January 8 to 9. Therefore, let's clarify - the conference starts on January 8, and the expo starts on January 9.