It's either an incredibly elaborate hoax or Apple Inc.'s CEO Steve Jobs is one unhappy camper this morning: It appears notes for his highly anticipated Macworld keynote address may have been leaked onto the internet last night, posting on the popular online encyclopedia web site Wikipedia.
No one knows whether the purported "draft notes" of the keynote are legit since Jobs' keynote is normally one of the best kept secrets in the tech world. But these notes mirror much of the speculation making the rounds about what to expect when Jobs takes the stage Tuesday morning in San Francisco.
Among the highlights: Jobs will begin with an iPod/iTunes sales update, saying "iPod has been extremely profitable for us this holiday season... Our new models are doing better than ever." He'll say today: 30 indie labels releasing their entire catalogs in iTunes Plus.
About the iPhone: Best iPod ever; sales beyond our wildest dreams; much more than the 1 percent market share we asked for in January; starting today: 8GB $399, 16GB $499; four times the memory as original iPhone for the same price; iPhone is coming to Japan in March with NTT DoCoMo. Jobs will also unveil the software developers kit for the iPhone allowing third party software creators to write their own applications for iPhone, something the developer community has been clamoring for. With Apple splitting the revenue 70/30 in their favor.
On the Mac side, Jobs will say that sales are getting better and better every day with Leopard selling extremely well; estimated to overtake Tiger in terms of marketshare by June if you only count the new Macs that come with it preinstalled; even quicker if you include boxed copies. Version 10.5.2 will be out today.
On the new MacBooks: Completely aluminum body like MacBook Pro; 13" screen at 1440x900; two colors: Black and Silver; looks gorgeous at 0.8" thin; a major feat of engineering - patents abound; DVD drive pops open on side when eject button is pressed; new on all notebooks and iMac: iSight HD (720p); new backlit keyboard based on recent Apple Keyboard revisions (keys slightly lighter than that of laptop casing, colorwise); new matching MagSafe cable; new matching Apple Remote (slightly smaller with larger overall buttons); Intel GMA X3100 graphics; 3 models, completely phasing out the combo drive on all product lines today; BTO models can upgrade all the way to 2.6GHz/4GB Memory/320GB hard drive; 4.5 hours of battery life; starting at $1199.
His "One More Thing": a new partnership with YouTube and iTunes.
I'll tell you, this all looks good. I'd be far more swayed if there were actual iPod, iPhone and Mac sales figures in here. So I'm not totally convinced. But wow, if this is the real deal, it's unprecedented. And in a way, it makes watching the keynote today all the more interesting! We shall see!
I'll be live blogging the Jobs speech from San Francisco starting at around 12 noon EST. Don't miss it.
