Section: Apple News, Conferences, Macworld, Features, Live-Blog

Here we go. 2-1/2 hours away from the keynote, and our live blog is up and running. Stick with Appletell ongoing commentary leading up to, during, and after the keynote, complete with images and some video later on. The countdown begins now.

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Chris Seibold and I are here at MacWorld and we are going to do something a little different this year. We are going to live blog the keynote, providing context and opinion on what is, and what isn't announced today. Join us at 9 AM PST!

 

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FROM GADGETELL - This is where we call out the tech moves that seem odd, out of touch or just plain straight up smokin’ crack.  This special edition points out the posturing, positioning and flat out insanity that came and went with 2008.   MORE »

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So, after months of sometimes morbid speculation, the story about the condition of Steve Jobs has finally been revealed in a brief statement posted at Apple’s site. The key and optimistic paragraph states: “Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been ‘robbing’ me of the proteins [...]

It’s quite easy for a tech writer to tell you what a certain company ought to do to become successful or at least remain successful. But the only thing is that if any of us really knew what was really necessary, we’d be making the big bucks as an executive at one of those companies. [...]

For most of you, a motor vehicle is an appliance. You put in the key in the slot, turn on the ignition, place it in gear and away you go. Or at least that happens most of the time — and please don’t remind me about the keyless ignition systems some cars sport nowadays. When your [...]

The Night Owl presents news and views about the tech universe for 2008 and some fearless predictions for 2009. Ace Mac troubleshooter Ted Landau is on hand to talk about the iPhone, the future of Macworld Expo and some of the things he’d like to see introduced by Apple Inc. Macworld’s Jim Dalrymple will join us to deliver his progress [...]

Despite Apple’s mixed signals of silence and denial, rumors continue to grow that CEO Steve Jobs is seriously ill, perhaps about to breathe his last, and that he can no longer continue to run the company he co-founded. Now rumors are a dime a dozen, I suppose, but just what is contributing to this one, which [...]

A large part of the speculation about Apple Inc. for 2009 covers the hardware. You just know that the iMac is overdue for a refresh, and the long-neglected Mac mini is likely to get one as well. Beyond that, perhaps there will be a unibody version of the 17-inch MacBook Pro, some new Apple displays [...]

When you’re number one in a market, the pressure is always on to somehow remain on top, or even expand the difference between you and number two. Apple has to worry about that primarily with the iPod and iTunes. But since both are so far ahead of the rest of the market, it doesn’t seem likely [...]

If you can believe Microsoft, they frequently put groups of users in little test rooms — or some sort of testing environment — and expose them to the new features in a product. By gauging their reactions, they decide whether those capabilities deserve to go into production. Now if you look at Microsoft’s shipping products, it [...]

At one time, Apple had to endure the accusation that they were overcharging for their products. You had to pay the alleged “Apple Tax” if you went Mac, whereas the PC was clearly a whole lot cheaper. Well, these days that’s not quite true. When you compare a Mac with name-brand PCs with similar hardware and [...]

It appears that no company is immune from economic woes. Toyota, now the world’s largest automaker, was once thought to be bulletproof, yet the company is about about to suffer from the first financial loss in its history. Apple appears to be cutting back on production for this quarter, although it seems certain they’ll still [...]

So here’s the deal: Whenever Steve Jobs doesn’t emerge from his office or subterranean hiding place for a few weeks, the rumors about his health begin anew. Certainly his expected lack of visibility at the forthcoming Macworld Expo, where marketing VP Philip Schiller is slated to deliver the keynote, fuels the speculative files still further. [...]

You’ve heard it time and time again. Apple won’t enter the low-cost PC market because they don’t want to produce “junk.” Steve Jobs said that himself as recently as the last phone conference with financial analysts in October, when asked whether Apple planned to release a netbook. Since then things have changed in the marketplace, and [...]

As I’ve reported over the years, I’ve never had a Mac OS X update come back to bite me. On the other hand, I can tell you that one friend, a client named Don, encountered an installation glitch when I ran the 10.5.6 update on his brand new MacBook. Normally, running Software Update on new Apple [...]

All right, Paul Kent, head of the Macworld Expo, is doing his level best to put a positive spin on the loss of Apple Inc. He promises that the event will continue regardless, and that they are already promising great things for 2010. That’s just fine and dandy, and you have to expect that sort of [...]

All right, so if I heard someone tell me that Steve Jobs not only wasn’t going to deliver his famous keynote at the next Macworld Expo and that Apple itself would pull out of the event after 2009, I would tell them they were probably drinking too much Kool-Aid. Yet, that’s precisely the news that was [...]

Unless Apple is planning on unveiling an iCar, an iHome or an iBrain at Tuesday's Macworld Expo in San Francisco, the media focus will remain squarely on Steve Jobs; his absence, his health, his successors. That's as it should be, even with the "Dear Apple Community" letter from Jobs that the company released Monday, and an accompanying statement of support from Apple's board of directors. Still, I feel sorry for anyone who's wearing a press badge in the Moscone Center audience.

This is Mac360's Almost Live coverage of Apple VP Phil Schiller's keynote presentation at Macworld 2009. From my home base in San Diego, and between diaper changes and feeding schedule, is my compiled view of what's happening at Macworld's biggest (and last) show of shows.