Not only does being shown in an iPod commercial lead to fame and fortune for many artists, but Canadian singer Leslie Feist apparently got something else out of the deal: she got American citizenship. We have no idea how that works, but she says as much in this clip of her appearing on Stephen Colbert's show. When he mentions that she's from the Great White North, she says that she's actually a dual citizen now. Colbert asks if Steve Jobs really stepped up to make her an American and she says yes, that's pretty much how it worked: "They offered me citizenship, that was part of it."
Is she joking? Or has Jobsy actually got the ear of the government now and is giving out citizenships as part of Apple contracts? Either way, we know this: Leslie Feist rocks. We'll have her as a citizen any day, via a backroom Apple deal or otherwise.
The rumors are apparently true, after a fashion -- despite reports of Jobs' opposition to the idea, Adobe has told the Wall Street Journal that after reviewing the iPhone's SDK, their CEO says they can bring Flash to the device all by themselves. It'll be super interesting to see if Adobe tries to make an end run around Apple to get their platform on the iPhone via the SDK, or if Apple cooperates to let them do it (Flash, for all of its foibles, is definitely a big part of the current internet).
But at this point it seems like Adobe is dead set on getting Flash on the iPhone whether Apple consents or not. We'll watch this one as it develops obviously -- by the time the rest of the SDK-driven apps come around in June, browsing Flash sites might be the last thing on everyone's minds.
MacNewsWorld has a pretty good in-depth overview up about Mac gaming: where it's at and where it's headed. The basic story is that the three things that have historically held Mac gaming back behind PCs (the technology differences, the OS, and the smaller installed base) are slowly disappearing. With Apple's switch from PowerPC to Intel, the introduction of Boot Camp and increasingly easy development in OS X, and the growing popularity of the platform, gaming is actually bigger on the Mac than it's ever been.
But there is still a huge obstacle, and that is DirectX. Though there are ways around it (Freeverse actually mentions the Unity engine in the article), many developers are stuck developing in DirectX, and that leaves the Mac platform out of the loop. And there really isn't anything comparable to it in OS X, either. Graphics hardware remains a problem, but that just harkens back to the biggest problem of getting games on the Mac: support from Apple. Some developers say that there aren't games on the Mac because Steve doesn't want them there, and until Apple shows evidence to the contrary, PC will always be the gamers' platform of choice.
We heard it from a guy (thanks, Jeff K!) who heard it from another guy who basically speculated from comments made by two otherguys that, surprise surprise, NBC and iTunes are on the road to reconciliation. Ok, so it isn't really a surprise-- the odds are really good that as long as there is NBC and iTunes, they'll eventually end up together. There's been some posturing in their past, but really, both have way more to gain together than apart.
Not to mention that the NBC Direct service never quite panned out correctly. Of course, neither NBC nor iTunes is clearly hurting for one another. But there's so much benefit for both to make a deal that it's not hard to expect them back together by the time new Office episodes get back on the air.
HD is the next best thing to being there, and if you weren't fortunate enough to be in the audience of Steve Job's Macworld 2008 keynote, than this is for you. Apple has just made available a HD stream for your viewing pleasure. The stream is 720p (that's 1280x720, just what the Apple TV supports) and requires a fairly fast machine to watch (Apple says you need a 1.8 GHz or faster G5 at the very least to watch the stream, and at least 256 MB of RAM).
I just watched the first few minutes and it looks great.
Don't have enough time to watch the whole keynote from the other day? Worry not-- our good friends (including Veronica Belmont) at Mahalo Daily have condensed Steve's whole 90 minute presentation (including the musical stylings of Randy Newman) into this quick sixty second breakdown. Thrill to the announcement of Time Capsule! Gasp at the reveal of the MacBook Air! Wonder idly just who Randy is singing to during that song from Toy Story.
I of course read our liveblog as it happened, and was planning to watch the video separately, but after seeing this, I've seen all I have to. Now if only we could make the wait to the next Stevenote (and the reveal of the iPhone SDK?) go as quickly.
If streaming isn't your thing you can now download Macworld 2008's keynote from the iTunes Store. It is, once again, in the Podcast section and clocks in at 889.8 MB. Surely it is worth it though to see the MacBook Air introduction and rock out with Randy Newman.
TUAW didn't get a chance to sit down with Steve Jobs after yesterday's keynote for some reason, but Mr. Jobs did find time to chat with the New York Times (it is a small paper out of Manhattan) where he talked about what Apple introduced, and gave his thoughts on some other happenings in the tech sphere.
Jobs is a big fan of the MacBook Air.He thinks it is the best Mac Apple has produced and he'll be the first in line to buy one (Come on, Steve, didn't you pre-order one after the keynote like the rest of us?). After talking about the MacBook Air Steve said that the Kindle, Amazon's eBook reader, is doomed to fail because no one reads (which explains why all bookstores are closing), and that Bill Gates' retirement is a big deal. He didn't offer up any hints as to when he, himself, will step down from being CEO of Apple.
As he usually does, Steve went on CNBC after this morning's keynote presentation to pitch his company's newest goodie. In this case, the MacBook Air. He talks about the size, of course, but also the relationship between Apple and Intel as well as the process of building the MacBook Air:
"...We built probably a hundred models to get to this ... If we could make this real, we would all just lust after this. And we did ... It's been two years of work to make this."
Most interestingly, CNBC reports that the supposed failed negotiations between Apple and China Mobile amounted to nothing more than a single visit to Cupertino by a single representative; hardly the contentious relationship we thought existed.
Reading about the keynote is fun, but watching the video is so much better. See the demos, marvel at the shiny hardware, revel in the crowd's "oohs" and "aahs." Finally, whip out your credit card!
Thanks, Sebastian!
Update: Apple seems to have removed the video. We're sure it will be back up later. Keep your eyes on the Special Events page.
Carry it around with you and use a marker to check off Steve, Woz, Uncle Walt, Andy Ihnatko (and his hat)...even The Reality Distorted Geek (warning: this could be you), The Schwag Whore and The Guy Who Still Runs Mac OS 8 (I used to work with that guy).
We can't help but wonder why there's no TUAW love on the list. Just look for the Hawaiian shirt.
The introduction of the iMac. This is my favorite Macworld memory, as it's the moment that "saved" Apple. That round, plastic design became iconic, and you know the rest.
Noah Wyle appears as Steve Jobs. Fresh from playing Steve in The Pirates of Silicon Valley, Noah took a break from the ER set to briefly play Steve on stage at the start of the scheduled keynote. Watch Steve chastise him for not opening a bottle of water before beginning to speak.
Steve introduces Mac OS X. I didn't see the public beta of Mac OS X, so I was floored by this presentation. I bought 10.0 the day is was made available.
Here are four more great moments from Apple history. While they weren't filmed at Macworld, they still have a place in our retrospective.
Mac OS 9's funeral (WWDC 2002). So long, extension conflicts, system freezes and Platinum Sounds. We'll miss you. Kind of.
The introduction of the iPod (Special media event). I clearly remember thinking, "An Mp3 player? We're supposed to be all excited over an Mp3 player?!?" What do I know?
The introduction of the Macintosh (Shareholder's meeting). Another great moment. Watch the crowd lose their collective minds when the tiny Mac "talks." Hey Steve, nice bow tie.
The iPhone continues its trek across the world-- the next country to have a rumored release is Japan, and sources there say that DoCoMo will likely be the company to release the Gadget of the Year there. But both NTT DoCoMo and Softbank Mobile have spoken with Apple, and DoCoMo, says a local news agency, might not want to be as generous with sharing the subscriber revenue as some other companies Apple has worked with before.
Then again, is Japan really that excited about the iPhone anyway? They've had some pretty awesome personal communication devices for years, and while the iPhone is definitely a quality device, my suspicion is that it won't stick out nearly as high above the rest of the options over there. Of course, on the third hand, Apple may consider the Eastern market all bonus cash anyway, and may take a dive on the subscription rates just to get what they can.
All speculation at this point, of course-- it's up to DoCoMo and Apple to decide what they want to do and how they want to do it.
Forbes is playing it safe with the Macworld predictions this year. Everything you've ever heard rumored about Apple in the last five years? Yeah, it's all here in their Macworld speculation guide. From the sub-notebook, to the iTablet, all the way to the Beatles, an Apple car, and even the old Apple gaming device, they cover pretty much all the bases.
In a way, it's good, because at least it means that Forbes has exactly no idea what's coming at the big event. Don't get me wrong-- I'm sure we'll still see it leaked a few days ahead of time by the Washington Post or the New York Times. But at least now, before the holidays, they're as clueless as everybody else.
So what is coming to Macworld? At this point, I would be surprised not to see the sub-notebook, and as we said in last week's Talkcast, it would be nice to see an update to the mini and/or the Apple TV. But let's face it: we won't know what Steve is going to talk about until he actually stands on stage and talks about it.
Despite what Jobs told us at WWDC earlier this year, Apple isn't as committed to gaming as they'd want us to think. GamedailyBIZ has an interview up with id software's John Carmack (makers of Quake and the new Rage, set to premiere simultaneously on Mac and PC), and he says that he and Jobs have had arguments about gaming on the Mac, including a "...fairly heated argument" at WWDC.
Carmack says he would love to develop on the Mac-- and who wouldn't-- but that the problem is that Apple just doesn't care. Carmack mentions the iPhone as a platform he'd love to see some great games on as well, but points to the iPod as a place where Apple failed gaming-- they made developers work on an emulator, and there were many "horrible decisions."
As Carmack says, you can't exactly fault Apple for their choices. From a business perspective, they are going gangbusters. But with Jobs' feelings on this coming to light, we must look past specific developers, and Apple themselves-- why are Jobs and his company so opposed to solid game development on their platform?
The 
MacNewsWorld has a pretty good in-depth overview up 
We heard it from a guy (thanks, Jeff K!) who heard it from 
HD is the next best thing to being there, and if you weren't fortunate enough to be in the audience of Steve Job's 
TUAW didn't get a chance to sit down with Steve Jobs after yesterday's 
As he usually does, Steve 
Well, that didn't take long! Roughly one our after Randy Newman sang at the end of Steve's Keynote presentation, 
Yesterday we shared some 
We had fun talking about our favorite moments from Macworld keynotes during 
The iPhone continues its trek across the world-- the next country to have a rumored release is Japan, and sources there say that 
Despite what Jobs told us at WWDC earlier this year, Apple isn't 
