Apple

Promotional page for iTunes LP, which appeared in the iTunes Music Store on Wednesday.

(Credit: Screenshot by Matt Rosoff/CNET)

I'm following Apple's "It's Only Rock and Roll" event along with the CNET staff, but even before the event started, I saw that Apple has revealed its new LP format for iTunes.

It's called iTunes LP, and you can access it by clicking the top item on the "More to Explore" box in the left side of the iTunes Store front page. The new format includes more album art, lyrics, writing about the record, video (such as interviews with band members), and perhaps additional songs.

There are only a handful of albums available in the format right now (see screenshot for the six that are advertised on the iTunes LP page), but I'm sure that more are coming.

So far, I haven't been able to download the iTunes 9 software, but it's available in earlier versions as well.

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As expected, Apple has officially confirmed that it will host an event next Wednesday, September 9.

Invitations went out Monday. The music-themed event in San Francisco will be held at 10 a.m. at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, which is next door to Moscone Center, where Apple's much-larger Worldwide Developers Conference takes place every June.

Apple's invitation for next week's event.

(Credit: Apple)

Based on the image of the classic iPod advertisement art and the tag line, "It's only rock 'n roll, but we like it," this will be the company's annual music-focused event. Apple has hosted a new product introduction of its iPods every September for the past few years, and this year doesn't look to be any different. Besides new iPod Touch models, Apple is also expected to discuss its new interactive album format, known as Cocktail.

Because the date is a Wednesday, as opposed to Apple's traditional preference for events on Tuesdays, it's possible there could finally be an announcement regarding a Beatles catalog coming to iTunes. September 9 is also the day The Beatles' remastered digital albums and Rock Band video game will be released.

CNET News will be live-blogging the event, so be sure to come back for our full coverage.

It looks like the annual Apple music event will be held on September 9 this year, according to AllThingsD.

Though it had been reported earlier that the event would take place sometime that week, a source now tells AllThingsD that the exact date will be September 9, and that it will focus on music, meaning no tablet announcement.

If the date is correct, holding an event on a Wednesday would be a departure from Apple's habit of holding these types of events on Tuesdays. The date also gives more credence to the rumor that it might be the day when the Beatles catalog at long last comes to iTunes. September 9 has already been announced as the day that the music of Fab Four will make its debut on the video game Rock Band.

CNET News reported last week that the September event will be music-focused, and will include an introduction of a new digital album format from Apple, called Cocktail. Apple is also expected to unveil changes to its iPod lineup.

The event's main speaker is still unclear, though it would be a prime opportunity for CEO Steve Jobs to make his first public appearance since returning to full-time work. If the Beatles are involved, it's hard to see how Jobs couldn't be present.

It's happened every September for the past few years, and it appears it's on track again: Apple is planning a keynote event rumored to take place the second week of September, according to AllThingsD's Peter Kafka.

Almost time for a tuneup for the iPod Touch?

(Credit: CNET)

He says he has heard from "multiple music industry sources" that there will be an Apple event held sometime during the week of September 7. Now, this isn't a huge surprise since Apple has held an event announcing the latest upgrade to the iPod and iTunes around this same time every year. But this year there are some interesting variables in play.

It's essentially guaranteed that Apple will announce upgrades across the iPod line, including the iPod Touch and Nano, and perhaps even kill off some older models.The iPod Touch is rumored to be getting a camera, digital compass, and microphone. Other clues have pointed to the Nano also getting equipped with a camera.

Of more interest perhaps is whether Apple will use this event to debut the oft-discussed and long-rumored Apple tablet. Different sources have pointed to a 10-inch touch-screen device that's essentially a giant iPod Touch being available either this fall or in early 2010. It's rumored to have a music element to it, through a new album format supposedly called "Cocktail," making its introduction at a music-focused event seem plausible. The timing would also make sense if Apple wanted to establish some solid pre-holiday buzz before the annual winter shopping season.

And finally, many are wondering if Apple CEO Steve Jobs will use the September event--if it happens--to make his first public appearance since returning from medical leave earlier this year. Apple executive Phil Schiller has filled in for Jobs at these keynote-style events since January, but since Jobs has been officially back at the company's helm since the end of June, the September event would be the first opportunity for him to return to the spotlight.

CUPERTINO, Calif.--At Apple's headquarters here at 10 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, the company held an event focused on its laptops. A redesigned MacBook and MacBook Pro were announced, as well as upgraded graphics. And as expected, Apple is releasing its first sub-$1,000 notebook. Here is how it all unfolded.

Tim Cook talks sales.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

9:57 a.m.: We're here, and the event should start momentarily.

10 a.m.: Steve Jobs enters, wearing the standard outfit. He says he's going to cover the "State of the Mac." Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook takes the stage to do so.

10:01 a.m.: The Mac lineup today is clean, focused, and successful, Cook says. Mac adoption is growing at two to three times the pace of the PC market because Apple's computers are "superior."

10:03 a.m.: He's taking us through features of the Mac. Leopard, iLife, iWork, and compatibility. Talking about Boot Camp, Cook says seeing Windows on a Mac "sends shivers up my spine," but that the fact is, "it's working." The fourth reason he gives for why Macs are selling: Vista. It hasn't lived up to what Microsoft hoped it would and has "opened doors" to switch to the Mac, he says.

10:06 a.m.: Cook talks up the "I'm a Mac" ads, and he shows us the one in which the PC is dressed as a king and sitting in a throne. Half of the Macs sold in Apple's retail stores are to first-time Mac buyers, according to Cook.

Cook talks about the use of Macs at universities.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

10:07 a.m.: Cook says the Mac has outgrown the industry in 14 of the last 15 quarters, the exception being the quarter in which Apple switched to Intel chips.

10:10 a.m.: Cook finishes up his discussion of the Mac's momentum. Steve Jobs is back on stage. First, he says he wants to talk about a new way to build notebooks in new ways. He brings up senior vice president of design, Jonathan Ive, to talk about it.

10:12 a.m.: Ive says Apple has had a "breakthrough" in designing and building notebooks. He's going to show us first how Apple builds the current 15-inch MacBook Pro. A significant challenge in building thin and light computers is making it durable, he says. The aluminum casing is just a small part of the structure. It's more about the magnesium die-cast frame on the inside.

Jonathan Ive, senior vice president of design.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

10:14 a.m.: Then there are stiffening plates, more internal frames that support the trackpad and keyboard. The current MacBook Pro is great, he says, but Apple has been looking for a better way of making it for years. It all came together with the way it made the MacBook Air, he says.

10:17 a.m.: But the design is more relevant than to just the MacBook Air, he says, as he leaves the stage. Steve's up again, ready to talk about new notebook graphics. The Nvidia rumors were true.

10:18 a.m.: Nvidia combines chipset and graphics processors all in one part. They were originally designed for the desktop. Apple says it asked months ago if they could be used in a notebook. The resulting chip is called the GeForce 9400M.

Jobs says new graphics chips are coming to its notebooks.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

10:19 a.m.: "It's an amazing chip," Jobs says. Seventy percent of the die area is GPU; the rest is chipset. There are 16 parallel graphic cores, and it delivers 54 gigaflops of graphics performance. It's a "stunner," he says. It will provide five times faster graphics than the integrated graphics chips Apple has been using, he says.

Compared to graphics shipping in the MacBook Pro, they are now 55 percent better in 3D graphics performance. "This is huge," according to Jobs.

10:21 a.m.: There is a new trackpad for notebooks too; a multitouch glass trackpad Apple has been working on for a long time. It'll provide a 39 percent larger tracking area, he says. The entire trackpad is the button. You can add multiple buttons in the preferences section. He's going to take us through the new gestures added. Single, two-finger, three-finger, and now four-finger gestures are now supported, enabling users to get into Expose and switch applications.

New MacBooks.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

10:22 a.m.: Today, Apple is indeed introducing a new MacBook Pro. Slightly thinner, it has a black bezel and an LED display. It is thin, with a rounded lid and all connectors on one side, as well as black keys.

The new MacBook Pro gets aluminum casing.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

10:24 a.m.: It is all aluminum, using the new process. Mini DisplayPort will be in all Apple's notebooks now. The new process means that there are half the major structural parts to the MacBook Pro. He's bringing out the unibody, and it's being passed to the audience. We have to give them back, he says.

10:24 a.m.: Yep, it's light.

10:26 a.m.: There is a silence as everyone in the audience gets a turn to touch the keyboard enclosure. It's show and tell. Steve wants everyone to hurry this up, he says.

10:27 a.m.: The GeForce 9400M will be used in the new MacBook Pro, but it's not the best Apple could do, Jobs says, adding that the GeForce 9600MGT provides "state of the art" mobile graphics, with 32 parallel graphics cores and 120 gigaflops. The are both in the MacBook Pro now.

The new unibody enclosure is passed around.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

10:30 a.m.: The Mini DisplayPort is the new industry standard, Jobs says. A solid-state drive is now available in the MacBook Pro. One can take the battery out and the hard drive out, and put in a solid-state drive, making it totally accessible.

10:32 a.m.: It's thin, at 0.95 inches, and it comes in two models. One, at $1,999, is 15.4 inches, with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and the Nvidia chipsets he discussed. The second model is $2,499. It has a 2.53GHz processor, 6MB of L2 cache, 4GB of memory, and a 128GB solid-state drive. Both models are shipping today and will be in stores tomorrow.

New MacBook features.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

10:34 a.m.: There are no toxic chemicals in the new MacBook Pro, he says. No mercury, arsenic, or PVC. It includes more recyclable materials, and the packaging will be cut down by 32 percent.

10:35 a.m.: There is also a new MacBook Air. It will also have a GeForce 9400M, which is four times faster than the current processor. It has a 120GB hard drive now and a 128GB solid-state drive as an option. It also will have a Mini DisplayPort. The standard model is $1,799, and $2,499 will buy you the 1.86GHz processor and a bigger SSD. It will be available in November.

The new MacBook Air.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

10:36 a.m.: There is also a new cinema display. At 24 inches, it has LED backlighting. It's Apple's first, with the same black bezel as the new MacBook Pro.

10:37 a.m.: It has a single cable with three branches, a MagSafe power adapter, a Mini DisplayPort, and a USB cable. It'll be $899, released in November. "Of course, that 'one more thing' is the MacBook."

10:38 a.m.: It's the best-selling Mac ever, Jobs says. Apple is reducing the entry price to $999, selling its first sub-$1,000 Mac notebook. It'll also have a metal enclosure, faster graphics, and an LED display.

And the price drops below $1,000.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

10:39 a.m.: Introducing a new-generation MacBook. It has an all-new design, with the black-bezel glass display like the MacBook Pro and Cinema Display. It also has a multitouch glass trackpad and Mini DisplayPort. With the same construction, it uses 42 percent of the structural parts as are included in the previous model, he says. It also uses the 9400M graphics processing unit.

10:41 a.m.: The new MacBook has a five-hour battery life, and it is also made without toxins such as arsenic, PVC, and mercury. The new models: $1,299 for a 13-incher with a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB of DDR3 memory, 9400M graphics, and a 160GB hard drive. The $1,599, 13-inch model has a 320GB hard drive.

As expected, Nvdia chips will be used.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

10:41 a.m.: Jobs is going to show us a video now. It begins with Ive talking about the MacBook's design and engineering, with more of the same they've already discussed here today.

10:45 a.m.: The video is over, and Steve's back up. Now there will be a Q&A with Jobs, Phil Schiller, and Tim Cook, but they're reporting earnings a week from today, so they cannot answer any questions about the current quarter. Jobs also gives his blood pressure: 110 over 70.

The MacBook keyboard.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

10:53 a.m.: The audience claps and laughs. "That's all we'll talk about with Steve's health today. Want to see (his blood pressure) higher? Just ask him more questions," he says, talking about himself in the third person. More laughs.

10:55 a.m.: Steve says Apple will be the only computer company using Nvidia's new chips for a while. Apple didn't go with HDMI because it can't drive the 30-inch high-resolution display, he says. That's why it went with DisplayPort.

10:56 a.m.: Regarding the Blu-ray Disc high-definition format: "It's a bag of hurt," says Jobs. Not from a consumer point of view, but rather because the licensing of the technologies is so complex. We'll wait till things settle down, and Blu-ray really takes off in the marketplace, he says.

Jobs' blood pressure. That'll be all about his health, he says.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

10:56 a.m.: Schiller takes this opportunity to plug iTunes.

10:58 a.m.: There is a question about the new MacBook's weight. It weighs 4.5 pounds instead of 5 pounds.

A QA session for Jobs and co.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

11 a.m.: Apple is sticking with glass screens for a while. No matte screens, Jobs says. Glass provides crisper images and brighter colors.

11:03 a.m.: Netbooks are a nascent market, Jobs says: "We'll see how it goes."

What about touch screens on laptops, someone wants to know. "Hasn't made a lot of sense to us," Steve says.

And that's the end. Thanks for reading. Make sure to stay tuned for CNET's analysis and hands-on, as well as first reviews of the new products.

For complete coverage of the Apple notebook news, see "Apple polishes up its MacBook line."

CNET will be live-blogging the event from Apple HQ in Cupertino, Calif.

(Credit: Apple)

It's that time again: Apple has invited reporters down to its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters for a special notebooks event, which means CNET News will be there to live-blog the whole thing.

The fun starts at 10 a.m. PDT Tuesday at this link.

Apple says the focus of the event will be on notebooks. A redesigned MacBook and MacBook Pro are all but assured, but there are likely to be some other surprises too. Will Apple opt for Nvidia chipsets? Will there finally be a Mac sold for less than $1,000?

Come back here Tuesday morning to find out. Plus, later in the day, we'll have some analysis on what Apple does announce, and CNET's laptop experts, Dan Ackerman and Michelle Thatcher, will have a First Look and hands-on video.

As with any Apple event, there's plenty of rumor and speculation to go around. The lead-up to Tuesday's event in which "the spotlight turns to notebooks," according to the event invitation, has been no different.

The Mac maker has invited journalists down to its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters to get a look at its new round of notebooks Tuesday morning. But what exactly Apple CEO Steve Jobs will unveil is anyone's guess.

We have a few clues in the form of purported "spy shots," or leaked photos, of the redesigned notebooks that have made the rounds on blogs, but of course those should be regarded with skepticism. Still, the consensus is that we'll see a major redesign to the MacBook lineup which is more than 2 years old.

There could be some interesting interior changes too. On Sunday, a new round of rumors cropped up that Apple may be switching to Nvidia's graphics chipset, while maintaining Intel CPUs.

It's been rumored for months that the lower-end MacBook will take on aluminum casing, which would make sense since it's already used for the MacBook Pro, but we could also see a move to LED (light-emitting diode) backlighting as Apple has already has done with the MacBook Air.

Both new chipsets and new casing could increase the cost of building the MacBook and MacBook Pro. But on the other end of the spectrum, Apple might be showing off a lower-priced option, too.

There has been a lot of chatter lately that Apple will offer a notebook for $800. The prevailing opinion is that it would be a completely new model, not a price-reduction to a current product--possibly an under-featured version of the current MacBook model, sans the optical drive or less RAM, smaller hard drive, and fewer ports while retaining the look of the current MacBook as well. But it's just a guess. That price tag, though, would put Apple in the same price range as a wide variety of notebooks from every other major PC maker.

Though we're clearly in the midst of an economic meltdown, it would be odd timing for a company that has never felt the need to compete on price with the likes of Dell and Hewlett-Packard, a practice that arguably hasn't been hurting Apple.

Apple's prices on the MacBook, for which it charges $1,099 for the current base model, aren't drastically different than similarly featured notebooks from Dell (like the XPS 1330 series) or HP (like the Pavilion dv3500t series), though market leaders Dell and HP have traditionally offered more customizable options than Apple, and often for cheaper. For example, HP charges $75 to upgrade 4GB of memory from 2GB. Apple charges $200.

Steadily gaining market share
Despite that, Apple has continued to outgrow those two in sales. It increased sales by 38 percent in the U.S. during the second quarter of this year, compared with U.S. leader Dell's 11.5 percent growth, and HP's 6 percent, according to IDC.

And while Apple still lags far behind those two in market share, it's steadily making gains.

For those reasons, a cheaper notebook at this point doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since people have clearly been willing to shell out for Apple's current notebook lineup at $1,099 and up.

At the same time, there is a precedent here for Apple offering a lower-end, less-expensive alternative model in a product category. Take the iPod. Apple started with the first iPod in 2001 at $399 for 5GB; the company then expanded the line to include the 4GB iPod Mini three years later at $250; then in 2005 a $199 2GB Nano came along, as well as the $79 Shuffle.

The company knows what it's doing when it comes to filling in those price gaps, said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD Group.

"They have the experience of how to manage that and do it in a sort of competitive market," said Baker. But he still questions the timing. "Eventually they have to (offer a lower-end model notebook), but I don't see the evidence that they need to find new buyers now that aren't willing to spend over $1,000."

If Apple did decide to make a notebook for less than $1,000 for the first time, it would be a bigger deal for the company itself than for the market. The rest of the industry made the leap over a year ago, many already selling 15-inch notebooks for around $500. So while something like this would definitely grab its competitors' attention, and could be a major motivating factor for people unsure about switching to a Mac to finally make the leap, it's not like buyers haven't already had the option of getting a sub-$1,000 nicely configured laptop elsewhere.

"If they do it, it will be interesting to hear why they're doing it," said Richard Shim, notebook and desktop analyst at IDC. "At the very least it's a no-lose situation (for Apple) from purely a market standpoint, from gaining share."

For complete coverage of the Apple notebook news, see "Apple polishes up its MacBook line."