So the iTunes phone is finally ready – Apple CEO Steve Jobs is in the process of wooing the media in attendance at today’s event at the Moscone Center, which started approximately one hour ago. The image you see is from the Cingular web site, featured prominently on the front page. I write this from the front seat of my rental car in downtown San Francisco (forgive my lack of posts over the past few days – I’ve been out in SF looking for full-time employment). Having just returned from the flagship Apple store here, I managed to snag a free wifi signal and am keeping an eye out for meter maids as buses and delivery trucks roar by. If they won’t let you attend the event, any self-respecting blogger should take things into his/her own hands, I say. If this isn’t blogging, what is, right? Updates to follow.
UPDATE (3:45 pm PST):
This is already all over the net, but since I finally secured a reliable connection (at my friend’s house) I figured I’d just post the highlights of today’s Apple announcement:
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• iTunes phone. Available exclusively from Cingular in the states, the phone is $249 with a 2-year contract. It’s a tri-band GSM/GPRS phone with a built-in VGA camera, speakerphone, Bluetooth and apparently sports up to nine hours of talk time (if true, major thumbs up). The phone can hold up to 100 songs, downloaded from your Mac or PC.
• iTunes 5. The latest version of the music app sports a few minor aesthetic changes, as well as support for the new iTunes phone, a new type of smart shuffle allowing adjustments to random playback and a few other features.
• iPod nano. Similar in appearance to its big brother, the full-size iPod, the nano apparently emerged from the ether and killed the iPod mini, taking its place in Apple’s music player lineup. Thin as a pencil and approximately 3.5 inches wide, it sports a color screen and comes with either 2 GB ($199) or 4 GB ($249) of space, in either white or black.
Those who are interested can watch this morning’s keynote here.