I think every Mac nerd in the world just experienced some form of out-of-body nirvana-like experience.

Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote (which isn’t even finished) has just confirmed that Apple are releasing a mobile phone, it will indeed be called iPhone, and it is quite literally years ahead of what other phone manufacturers are putting out.

So awesome is iPhone that its announcement will overshadow the even bigger news from MacWorld — the Apple TV set-top box, which is equally game-changing, and Apple’s new partnerships with both Google and Yahoo, which IMHO will mark a big shift in the computing industry.

But back to the phone: it’s tiny! It has 8Gb of storage for music and movies! The reports say it runs OS X! (though it appears to be a mobile version thereof.)

And it has a multi-contact screen, so you can move or zoom or rotate things by touching them!

I was going to resist, but the nerd in me just has to post about this.

Steve Job’s big “Showtime” media event has just finished, and aside from some major (but hardly earth-shattering) software upgrades to iTunes and the iPod, he announced two very significant new bits of hardware. If there was any doubt that Apple were going after Sony’s turf and transforming into a consumer electronics company, it is put to rest as of right now.

Announcement one is the ridiculously tiny, and very aggressively priced, new iPod shuffle. Expect to see buses and trains near you absolutely littered with these things in a month or two.

Number two: the “iTV” is so new it lacks a real name, but it’s basically a device that plugs into your TV and runs an upgraded version of Front Row. In other words, it’s an Apple media centre.

It’s due for release early next year, looks like a Mac Mini, and has Ethernet, HDMI, and wireless. The networked home-theatre PC world has so far solely been the preserve of geeks with homebrew setups; for Apple to move into this space is a very big deal.

If it takes off, I dare say this thing is going to be big, like iPod big. And even if it doesn’t, Steve has now played enough of his hand that we know his new plan for world domination, summarised nicely in this slide from the talk.

So what’s Zune? It’s Microsoft’s new, holistic approach to music and entertainment.

Wow, Microsoft (finally) confirmed the existence of their ‘iPod killer’ today.

Few details about the device(s) beyond what’s already known, but there’s some vague info on the semi-official blogs of Cesar Menendez (source of the quote) and Richard Winn, two of Zune’s marketeers. Said blogs feature videos from YouTube, have a very Scoble-esque personal touch, and even link to various unofficial Zune blogs. This is definitely not the Microsoft of old.

The only other official announcements are a teaser ad and a slightly disturbing Flash animation.

It’s obviously far too early to pass any serious judgement on this thing, but the early signs are that Microsoft (or at least this product group) actually get it. They’re talking about moves straight out of the playbooks of MySpace, Last.fm, and perhaps also Pandora. If that’s the case, I’d be worried for the iPod — I dare say that even Apple’s mindshare monopoly over the word ‘cool’ is no match for the power of properly-executed social media services.

(via TechCrunch, et al.)

So now that I have a functional blog … maybe I should do what all the other crazy kids do and use it as a diary-type thing so that anyone who reads this can see how shockingly engrossed I am with myself. In the spirit of narcissism, then, the last week of my life looked somewhat like this:

• I finished all three assesments that I had … except that one was a day late, which is the first time I’ve handed anything late, so I feel all naughty and rebellious now. Actually, I lie, I’m just scared about how much the deducted marks will hurt me. In my defence, it wasn’t my fault! At least, not entirely …
• I spent a day at work, configuring printers, loading paper, and playing with our twiki. Alas, it would have been more fun if I had more stuff to write. The Arts student in me wants to write, dang it!
• I received a funky certificate to say, “yay Hourann, you’re cool!” because I spent a few days mentoring first-year students earlier this year. Reminds me of when I was given certificates in high school …
• I attended a lecture in which we were told that our set of assessments for that unit followed the pattern of the Tour de France. I don’t see the resemblance.
• And most importantly, I received the iPod mini that I’d bought on eBay a few days earlier. I am now torn between the cynical “oh look I have succumb to materialism and Apple’s idea of cool” ideas in the back of my mind, and the very superficial “oh, look, shiny!” that dominates the rest of my thinking.