Keynote 2008: The Line, The Presentation
January 16th, 2008

After checking with a few people who had been to Macworld before, I decided that around 4:30 am was the best time to turn up at the keynote. Luckily, this turned out to be almost perfect, resulting in a great seat within the front half of the theatre (very close to the media in fact). However, Steve did start at 9:00 on the dot, causing those who joined the line around 4:30 to miss the first few minutes - and I suspect those 15 minutes later would have missed quite a bit more. Lining up for the keynote presentation is a very Mac experience. The people in the queue are very friendly and range from students, to the self employed, to employees of larger companies such as Microsoft. At around 6:30 we were let inside, at which time the queue was wound through the exhibit hall and attendees reminded not to all rush onto the escalator together. Overall, everything ran smoothly and it was a great experience. Photos posted below.

Lining up at 4:30:

Queuing inside at 6:30:

We’re almost there:

And we’re inside:

Steve announcing Time Capsule, a new Airport Extreme base station with integrated 500GB or 1TB hard drive for backups:

Update on iPhone market share and new features as have been widely circulated on Mac rumors sites prior to keynote - customisable home screen, triangulation for Google Maps, as well as WiFi hotspot catalogue to increase accuracy, and multiple recipients for text messages:

Next up is a completely new attempt at AppleTV, free for all current owners. Now works without computer and offers video rentals in SD and HD - pricing for classics is $2.99, new releases $3.99 and an extra $1 for HD:

And finally, the big announcement of the day, the MacBook Air - world’s thinnest notebook, full size keyboard, 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo chip shrunk by 60%, optional SSD disk drive, no removable media drive, 5 hours battery life and just 3.0 pounds.

Special guests included Fox CEO Jim Gianopulos and Intel CEO Paul Otellini:

Steve in the final moments of the keynote:

And it’s all over for another year:

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