MacDailyNews presents live coverage of Apple’s March 2nd special event

MacDailyNews will present live coverage of Apple’s March 2nd special event beginning at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern right here on this page.

Live notes will be presented in reverse chronological order:

• Thanks for coming – End of event.
• Jobs thanks Apple teams, asks them to stand for applause; thanks their families, too.
• Jobs: “The hardware and software ned to intertwine more than they do on a PC. We think we’re on the right path with this.”
• Jobs: Apple stands at the intersection of Technology and Liberal Arts.

• Jobs: “We think 2011 is clearly the year of iPad 2.” (shows iPad 2 intro video featuring Jony Ive, etc.)

• Recap: iPad 2:
– Apple A5 processor
– Faster, lighter, thinner
– Cameras and gyro
– iOS 4.3 + FaceTime and PhotoBooth
– Improved AirPlay
– iMovie and GarageBand ($4.99 ea.)
– Over 65,000 iPad apps now in App Store
– 3G on both Verizon and AT&T
– Same 10-hour battery life

• Quick, if you want to keep the sidewalks clean, lock up the windows in HP’s, Motorola’s, Samsung’s, etc. corner offices! (MDN Ed.)

• GarageBand: US$4.99. Vying nicely for Software Bargain of the Decade honors. (MDN Ed.)
• Xander: This can record up to 8 tracks. Let’s put that in perspective: Back when The Beatles did Sgt. Peppers, you could only do four tracks, and the machine was the size of a washing machine.” Now it’s on an 8.8 mm thin iPad.
• Smart Instruments: Anyone can play. You can’t play a wrong note. (You’ll have to see this in action when Apple posts the video – MDN ED.)
• Wow, just wow. The fake iPad assemblers have nothing to match this. These are mature, very full-featured apps from Apple designed expressly for iPad’s capabilities. (MDN Ed.)
• Playing piano, the sound is different when you tap softly or with force thanks to iPad’s accelerometer.

• Xander Soren takes stage to demo…

• Touch instruments (grand piano, organ, guitars, drums, bass)
• Guitar amps and effects
• 8-track recording and mixing
• 250+ Loops
• Email AAC file of your song
• Compatible with Mac version of GarageBand

• Jobs: Introducing GarageBand for iPad

• iMovie for iPad looks amazing! And amazingly useful, too. (MDN Ed.)
• US$4.99 for iMovie for iPad. That may well be the software bargain of the decade. (MDN Ed.)
• Send project to iTunes
• Share videos via YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, CNN iReport.

• Randy Ubillos demos iMovie for the iPad…
• Announcing iMovie for iPad:
– Precision editor
– Multitrack audio recording
– New themes
– AirPlay to Apple TV
– Share your videos in HD
– Universal app (iPhone and iPod touch, too)

• Jobs retakes the stage: Photo Booth and FaceTime are built-in. We have two more. We like doing apps; setting the bar high for developers.

• iOS 4.3 release: march 11th for iPad, iPhone (GSM) and iPod touch (3rd and 4th-gen)

• And, of course, FaceTIme: works between two iPads, and iPad and an iPhone, and between and iPad and a Mac.
• iPad 2’s cameras mean new apps: PhotoBooth. Forstall demos…
• Personal hotspot – for iPhone 4 only
• Significantly increased Safari performance – Nitro Javascript Engine
• iTunes home sharing
• Airplay improvements
• Preference for iPad switch (USers choose to assign mute or rotation lock)

• Scott Forstall takes stage to talk about iOS 4.3

• The Smart Cover hinges in three places to form a stand for your iPad
• Comes in many colors, attach magnetically to iPad frame – video…
• Poly case – $39, Leather – $69
• Automatically wakes iPad when you open it, puts it to sleep when closed
• Smart Cover – not a case, a cover
• Jobs: We thought we could improve on original iPad case

• Oh, BTW, HDMI mirrored video out via $39 cable
• Up to 1080p
• works with all apps!
• Supports rotation
• No setup or configuration
• Charges your iPad while using

• Ships March 25 in 26 more countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finladn, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK
• Ships March 11th in USA

• Jobs: “We think 2011 is going to be the year of iPad 2.”

• iPad 2 WiFi: $499 (16GB), $599 (32GB), $699 (64GB)
• iPad 2 WiFi + 3G: $629 (16GB), $729 (32GB), $829 (64GB)

• Same prices!

• Works on both Verizon and AT&T networks
• Comes in white and black. “And we’re shipping white from day one!”
• Gyroscope
• Same 10 hour battery life (ovr a month of standby)
• “When you get your hands on one, it feels totally different. Nothing approaches this.”
• Front and rear-facing video cameras
• 8.8 mm is thinner than iPhone 4 (9.3 mm)
• 8.8 mm thin vs. 13.4 mm for original iPad; 33% thinner

• Dual core processors
• Up to 2X faster CPU
• Up to 9X faster graphics
• Same low power as A4
• First dual core tablet to ship in volume

• We haven’t been resting on our laurels: Introducing iPad 2
• Jobs: If we did nothing, maybe, but…
• Jobs’ slide: “2011: Year of the copycats?” (surrounded by logoso: Android Honeycomb, Samsung, HP, BlackBerry, Motorola.”

• Schiller: “This is just the begining.”
• iPads are even being used to work with Autistic children
• Teachers and students, doctors and nurses, pilots and copilots… everybody’s using iPads
• Nobody predicted how huge iPad would be
• Jobs shows video of how 2010 was the year of the iPad…
• Android Honeycomb tablets have 100 apps from which to choose
• Over 65,000 apps specifically for iPad now in App Store
• Jobs’ slide “Competitors flummoxed”
• iPad has over 90% market share
• $9.5 billion in iPad revenue in 2010
• That’s more than very Tablet PC ever sold.
• 15 million iPads sold in 2010 (9 months, April-December)
• Over 100 million iPhones have now been sold
• Over $2 billion pad to app developers
• 200 million credit card accounts on iTunes
• Users have downloaded over 100 million books in less than a year
• Random House adding over 17,000 books to iBookstore
• Jobs: “We’ve been working on this product for awhile. I didn’t want to miss it.”

• Steve Jobs! (standing ovation)
• Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for…
• Please silence your iPhones
• The event is due to begin soon.

—

• Links to other sites planning live coverage:

– AllThingsD
– AppleInsider
– Ars Technica
– Engadget
– Macbidouille (in French)
– Reuters
– TechzTalk
– The Loop
– Webwereld (in Dutch)
– Wall Street Journal

Please send us live coverage links here and we’ll add them to our list.