Apple to stream today’s ‘iPad mini’ event live to Apple TV

We turned on our Apple TV this morning and were greeting with a new channel called “Apple Events.”

Included within the channel listings:

Apple Special Event – LIVE
Tune in at 10:00 a.m. on October 23 to watch this event live.

October 23, 2012
10:00 1.a. (Pacific)
California Theatre, San Jose, CA
(HD)

UPDATE: 9:20am EDT: Apple to stream special event online via Safari for Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and via Apple TV starting at 10am PDT.

Besides “iPad mini,” other possible products to be unveiled today include: 13-inch MacBook pro with Retina display, iTunes 11, iBooks 3, the new iMac, and Mac mini.

If you’ve got an Apple TV, make sure to tune in LIVE!

MacDailyNews Note: As usual, we will be covering the event with live notes starting at 10am PDT/1pm EDT here

MacDailyNews Take: What a great idea:

Besides all of the obvious stuff (increased quality, larger content library, ability to buy directly, etc.), Apple could sell more Apple TVs if they simply streamed Steve Jobs’ keynote presentations from Macworld Expo, WWDC, and the special events throughout the year LIVE — exclusively for Apple TV owners.

Just as they now stream movie trailers on-demand to Apple TVs, Apple should stream live Apple events to those with Apple TVs.

It’s possible. Just set up the necessary bandwidth with Akamai and add an “Apple Events” button to the menu. The cost of streaming a few events each year only to Apple TV owners should be easily exceeded by increased Apple TV sales. I’m not saying this will sell millions upon millions of additional units, but it would sell some Apple TVs. If nothing else, it would be a nice perk for the Apple faithful.

The only way to see these events as they happen is to go there in person (either by paying admission to the events that are open to the public or by getting invited as a member of the media) or — imagine it — by owning an Apple TV.

Based on the interest that exists for viewing Jobs’ presentations, adding that feature alone would sell more Apple TVs, set a precedent, and also allow Apple to test delivery of live content. (Of course, Apple TV owners would also be able to watch the keynotes after the fact; streamed at their convenience like the movie trailers.)

Oh, sure, there might be a technical glitch during a keynote, but Apple and Jobs are very prepared and usually handle them well when they arise. They’re rare and they’d get reported anyway, so I don’t see that as much of an issue.

If you don’t own an Apple TV, would having access to live Steve Jobs keynotes increase the likelihood that you’d buy one?

If you already own an Apple TV, wouldn’t you like to have such a capability?SteveJack, MacDailyNews, September 5, 2007

Related articles:
MacDailyNews presents live coverage of Apple’s October 23rd special event – October 23, 2012
Apple to stream special event online via Safari for Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and via Apple TV starting at 10am PDT – October 23, 2012

16 Comments

    1. Work needed me to switch my days off this week to help them out over the weekend… I got “screwed” into having tuesday off. (have to work Saturday)

      damn… Now I guess i’ll have to sit on the couch and watch the Apple event, Live. 😉

  1. It’s here… What a cool deal. You won’t see something like this coming from Microsoft because who wants to see Ballmer’s poor fashion choices, Ballmer T. Clown’s bellowing & clumsy delivery, devices that don’t work or fail during demo (if you see them at all) and introduced products with no ship or availability date or prices? Probably do more damage than good for the general public to see the Redmond Emperor has no clothes more than it already does.

    1. Of course they’ll do something like this! If Apple does it it *must* be a part of the success recipe. If Microsoft really cared about what consumers thought their history would be very different than what it is.

  2. Did anyone watch the iTunes Festival live streaming from London through Apple TV or on the iPad/iPhone app? The quality was amazing! The concerts were presented live of course, and were available to watch afterwards too (at least some of them were). I think Apple is testing this as a new delivery method for live events (e.g., think live sports!) to see how it can scale with demand on their server farms, etc.

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