new iphone update! they said they have been working on this for two years now what could it be?
starbucks?
10:56am - "So, not so bad for the new iTunes WiFi music store." Applause. "The new music store will be available internationally in every one of those 22 countries Apple operates in. We're gonna do something else, too: we're gonna bring it to the iPhone." Big applause.
10:57am - "It's going to come later this month with a free iPhone update -- everyone with an iPhone is going to get this too. We're really, really excited about this. There's even ONE MORE incredible part of this. We've been working on this for two years."
10:58am - "I can't tell you how much pleasure it brings me... we have a GREAT partnership with Starbucks we're announcing today. We love Starbucks. It's an incredible phenomenon in our culture. We want to combine our great iPods and our love of music and their great coffee and their great love of music."
10:59am - "When you get near a Starbucks a fifth button will come up in the WiFi music store -- you may have been in a Starbucks wondering what song is that playing? Now you can buy it with a tap of your finger. And if you just missed it, you can still find it..." Is anyone else underwhelmed by this "feature"?
11:01am - "It will be right on my iPod touch, and sync right back to iTunes when I get home. We're really, really excited about this partnership. It's my great pleasure now to welcome Howard Schultz, founder and chairman of Starbucks." Big applause -- but why? Pretty weak, if you ask us.
"Thanks Steve, I was NOT back stage visiting the store, but I was waiting for you." Har. "Let me provide you a snapshot into the global reach and ubiquity of Starbucks." Yeah, we get it, Starbucks is like air for their customers.
11:02am - "We open 7 stores every single day." The room sounds like someone just hit everyone in the gut. Over 14k stores, 50m customers per week, 18 visits per month per customer. Yowza.
11:03am - "Who would have thought that a coffee company could win a Grammy? Let alone 8, when we co-produced with Concord Ray Charles's last album."
11:04am - He's going on about how this is going to transform the marketplace. Dude, let's not delude ourselves here. It's big, but it's not that big.
11:05am - Free access to the store while at Starbucks.
11:07am - It's exclusive with iTunes -- we wonder how T-Mobile feels about partnering indirectly with Apple. Ok, rollout plan: 5800 WiFi enabled stores nationwide. Starting October 2nd: New York and Seattle. 600 stores, followed up in November with 350 stores in SF.
11:08am - ...then LA and Chicago in '08. By 2009 they hope to have all WiFi Starbucks completed. [Our customers] are really going to respond to this." Oh really?
Ok, Steve's back on. Big, big applause.
11:10am - "We know a lot of people that are going to be happy with this new combination of coffee and iPods." Heh. "It's one of the three apps using WiFi built into the new iPod touch. So let's look at our lineup for this holiday season: the iPod shuffle in 5 great new colors. The iPod nano. The renewed iPod classic with up to 40k songs in your pocket. The revolutionary iPod touch that you've seen here today."
"We think this is going to set a lot of peoples' worlds on fire. And I'm going to include the iPhone, because as we've said, it's the best iPod ever."
11:12am - "But we want to get even more aggressive with this. Take a look at the iPhone. You know, the surveys are in: the customer satisfaction numbers on the iPhone are off the charts. They're higher from iPhone owners than any Apple product. Ever. They LOVE them. We want to make the iPhone even MORE affordable for even more people."
"So we're going to do something about that today. We're on track to ship our 1mth iPhone this month -- to get ready for the holidays here's what we're going to do. It's clear clear customers want the 8GB model -- it's not going to sell for 599 anymore.
"Starting today effective immediately, we're pricing it at just $399." HUGE applause.
from engadget
