Apple held their traditional September “Stevenote” this afternoon.

In the “something different” department, Apple decided to live-stream the event online. In a suprising move, you had to be tuning in using an Apple device to see the live stream. Windows users were SOL unless they found some kind of geeky workaround. The theory was that this was a move to test out Apple’s HUGE new data center in North Carolina.

Being that I am a Mac user, I was able to tune in. And here are the details, noted on the fly as the event was going…

• It begins with Steve showing some of Apple’s newest stores in areas around the world. He then goes right into iOS.
• 120 million iOS devices shipped so far. Includes Ipod Touch, Iphones and Ipads. About 230,000 iOS devices activated per day.
• 6.5 billion apps downloaded from the App Store. 250K apps in the store. 25K of them are Ipad.
• iOS 4.1 released. Fixes a bunch of bugs.
  • High Dynamic Range photos. Automatic combines photos of different exposure levels to create a composite photo which is much better in terms of exposure. Really impressive stuff, actually.
  • HD video upload over wifi.
  • TV shows rentals.
  • Game Center debut. Basically creating a social network of gamers. Play people remotely. Will auto-match you with other players if you don’t pick people directly.
• Sneak peak at iOS 4.2. For the Ipad. Brings all the iOS 4.x stuff to Ipad (finally). Coming later this year.
  • Wireless printing.
  • AirPlay. AirTunes changing name. Be able to stream music and video over wifi.
  • Release in November. Free update.
• They’ve sold 275 million Ipods. Wow.
• All new Ipod designs for all models.
  • iPod Shuffle. The buttons come back. Smaller, but has voiceover, buttons and playlists. More square looking now. Very small. 15 hours of music. Availability in 5 colors. Sells for $49.
  • iPod Nano. Has multi-touch. Looks kinda like iOS (it probably is iOS). Very small. Pretty much all screen. Steve calls it cute. $149 for 8GB, $179 16GB.
  • iPod Touch. The most popular model of iPod. #1 portable game player in the world. Outsells Nintendo and Sony players combined.
    • Thinner design. Retina display. Apple A4 processor (same as Iphone 4). iOS 4.1. Front-facing camera and Facetime. Rear camera with HD video recording. 40 hours of music playback. 8GB for $229. 32GB for $299. 64GB for $399.
  • All devices shipping next week.
• He shows some of Apple’s new TV ads. Very well produced as usual. Apple has always excelled when it comes to marketing.
• He extols the virtues of iTunes. #1 online media store in the world.
• iTunes 10.
  • Looks better. In his opinion, anyway.
  • New iTunes logo and icon. Most reactions in real-time on Twitter were negative.
  • Ping. A social network about music. Find out what your friends are downloading and listening to. Kinda reminds me of Last.FM. Twitter mixed with music, in a way. If Myspace wasn’t dead already, it is now. Myspace was clinging to life with the musicians. Apple just killed it.
  • Ping also available on the iOS devices.
• One More Thing… Apple TV.
  • Never been a huge hit. In fact, nothing like it has really taken off in the market.
  • People want Hollywood movies and TV shows… not amateur hour (hello Youtube!)
  • People don’t want another computer. They want entertainment. They don’t want to manage storage. They don’t want to have to sync to a computer. Needs to be silent, cool and small.
  • New one is 25% the size of the old one. Very small. Very impressive.
  • No power brick. One HDMI connector. Ethernet port. Built in wifi.
  • All rentals, no purchase. Interesting. No storage because you’re just renting everything.
  • $4.99 HD movie rental. First run movies.
  • $0.99 HD TV show rental. ABC and Fox shows. I’m assuming more are coming.
  • Netflix streaming. Youtube streaming. Flickr photos. MobileMe stuff. Stream from your computer.
  • AirPlay to stream content from any iOS device to the iTV.
  • $99 for the new Apple TV.

No huge suprises, but a steady progression for the world of Apple.

I’m disappointed that the Apple TV is as stripped down as it is. Apple’s view is simplicity without the hassles of typical computing devices. I can understand that. However, I think there was a lot of room for iOS and the App Store on the Apple TV. In my view, they dropped the ball not to do that. Lots of things they can do with Apple TV. And they didn’t.

Will people want to pay Apple to watch every show on the Apple TV? Speaking from my viewpoint – no. Might as well use Pay Pay View on your cable box.

So, there you have it.

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