NVinNYC

Check out the new iPhone 3G ad and see if you can guess the narrator.

Need a hint? He’s an iron man.

Sweetness.

KPCB - iFund Initiative FAQ:

The iFund is a $100 million venture capital investment initiative that will fund innovators developing applications, services, and components for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch platform. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) has earmarked $100 million for this initiative and it will be managed by KPCB’s partners. Apple will provide KPCB with market insight and support.

More info on their site.

MWSF is in only a few hours from now since I’m doing this in the middle of the night so most of you won’t see this first but I present my bets here for posterity’s sake. Look for more through analysis elsewhere. In any case, here are my thoughts:

Update: Now with correct-o-meter.

The Yes

• New Small Form Factor Notebook: external optical drive, regular (non-flash) hard drive (though it may use flash memory on the motherboard to cache the hard drive & improve speed/battery life). Correct.
• iTunes Movie Rentals: DRMed? Very. HD? Maybe a few titles. Correct (number of HD titles remains to be seen).
• Managed iTunes DRM Movies on DVDs: Although few discs will have this feature. Correct, it slipped through the Keynote cracks though.  Unfortunately only on select Fox discs (what, no Disney?), see details here.
• Time Machine Supports Wireless Backup: Expect to hear lots about Time Machine during the keynote, but I wouldn’t expect new hardware. Correct, but wrong about new hardware (Apple couldn’t help themselves with Time Capsule).
• AppleTV Upgrade: Software only (no new hardware). Correct, free update for existing users, cheaper entry price.
• iPhone 16 GB: Easy yes. Wrong, look for this in a February Media Event with the iPhone Dev Kit release.
• Mac OS 10.5.2, iTunes 7.6, & iPhone 1.1.3: With demos (especially for iPhone), see above for reasons. Correct.

The No

• iPhone 3G: See you in Q3 (AT&T doesn’t have the HSPDA backbone for this yet). Correct.
• New Cinema Displays: Still in the pipe. WWDC perhaps. Apple wouldn’t have dropped the new Mac Pro models last week without them. Correct.
• More DRM Free Labels: Not the big ones. They want to leverage that power to Amazon. The indies are all in though. Correct.
• Tablets or Newtons: If it’s not an iPhone or iPod touch, you wont hear a peep. Correct.
• iPhone SDK Demo or Details: Sadly nothing firm on the SDK. Correct.
• New iWork/iLife: Obviously still too soon. Latest versions are 2008 anyway. Maybe next year. Correct.

The Maybe

• The Beatles on iTunes: If not now then certainly soon (perhaps an iTunes/iPhone media event in February for the iPhone SDK). Not yet.
• iPhone Third Party Developer Demo: I’m thinking they’ll demo with Sling or Google (Gears or Docs perhaps?) if anything. (Note this is different than SDK details.) Didn’t happen.

Overall, a pretty good batting average.

Feist stars in the new iPod Nano Ads.

Some people are not pleased with this.

I am, so far, conflicted. Don’t fuck with my Feist.

This morning Engadget published some pictures of a new Apple keyboard. It takes more than a few design queues from the MacBook keyboard and is extremely thin.

I’m inclined to believe that the shots are of a prototype keyboard as discussed by Erik Barzeski and DF. I will say that it looks fantastic and I would love to have one even in it’s current unperfected state. I recently ordered myself a USB (full-size) keyboard of laptop style keys and, though I’ve yet to use it, my experience using a MacBook has converted me to prefer well made scissor keys over the plunger keys found on most keyboards.

In any case it will be interesting to see how the final keyboard revision turns out. This might be the first Apple peripheral that I have to pick up…