Just read the letter from Steve Jobs and die Apple Community. It’s a pity, that Steve cannot give “his” keynote today, but no problem to get over that. But it’s shocking to hear that it’s because of health problems.
So: I absolutely appreciate his decision – health comes first! I wish you a speedy recovery! Great, that the Apple Board of Directors is just on the same track.

In the last days, there is a lot of whispering: Here a Chinese iPod skin manufacturer publishes a small iPhone skin on his website, an analyst wishes for an iPhone for the mass marked … and bang, everybody is expecting an iPhone nano to be announced. Then the news is spreaded, that Steve Wozniak – second founder of Apple – will join the presentation of the newest modbook at the Axiotron booth at MacWorldExpo … it’s a MacBook transformed into a tablet Mac. That increases the desire and spins the rumor mill even faster for an iPod tablet or MacBook touch. However, the market positioning of such a multitouch-gadget will be tricky:

• If Apple stays with the walled garden iPhone version of Mac OS X they would have the existing and vital iPhone developer community committed to multitouch and gesture control … and by the way an exclusive distribution channel for applications with the AppStore. The main focus probably would be gaming and entertainment. But the gadget will loose the “pants pocket factor”.
• If Apple uses a full Mac OS X version they could use the experiences of Axiotron and have to count on the Mac OS X developers, that they implement the benefits and potentials of multitouch and gesture control within their (existing) applications. The gadget would be more like a “MacBook Air Touch” than an iPod tablet and would more likely suite and target the business customers. En passent this would explain why there is so little spectacular information about the new Mac OS X Snow Leopard features leaked out.

What ever Phil Schiller will present on his Keynote at the Moscow-Center at MacWorldExpo in San Francisco on January 6th … and what is hidden behind the concealed exhibition banners … I’m thrilled and I’m really looking forward to it

If you can trust the Apple job postings the first retail Apple Store won’t be located in the German capital Berlin – but in the beautiful city of Munich Wonderful: finally a Genious-Bar nearby!
There is just one open question – will the rumors prove right, that the flagship store will be situated directly in the center of Munich at the Marienplatz?

[Update] Today, Georg Albrecht, head of PR Apple Germany, confirmed, that the first German Apple Flagship Store will be located in Munich.

Sources & Graphic: Apple and fscklog

Apple just put the Quicktime-Stream of the 2008 keynote online. So enjoy the show!

The hot news from the Macworld Keynote 2008 of Steve Jobs in brief:

• Intro: new Get-a-Mac commercial.
• Leopard Mac OS X 10.5: Steve presents the Leopard success story: until now over 5 Million Macs run on Mac os X 10.5, alias Leopard. No other OS version reached that fast market penetration rate before.
• TimeCapsule: Airport Extreme base station is extended with a server-scale hard drive to a new wireless NAS (Network Attached Storage) system. It’s now called TimeCapsule. It’s the missing piece for TimeMachine, the integrated Backupsolution of Mac OS Leopard. 500 GB USD 299.00. 1 TB USD 499.00.
• iPhone: Until today more than 4 Millionen iPhones have been sold worldwide. Smartphone market shares in the US: 1. RIM (39.0%), 2. Apple (19.5%), 3. Palm (9.8%) … Apple surpasses Palm from the beginning and is second biggest player in that market. The iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit) will be released in February. Softwareupdate for the iPhone with lots of new features … most of them have been posted on rumor sites in the last days. Available today for all existing iPhone users.
• iPod touch: iPod touch Update for USD 20.00 including 5 new apps: Maps, Mail, Stocks, Notes, and Weather
• iTunes Movie Rental: the rumored movie rental is introduced to iTunes. All major film studios joined. Basic rule: 30 days to start watching, 24 hours to finish. US Rental will start today, international rental will start later this year. 2.99$ / 3.99$ for new releases. Movies should be available 30 days after DVD release.
• Apple TV Version 2: The new generation works as a stand alone solution without a computer. The improved Apple TV solution can play DVD and HD quality (with Dolby 5.1 Sourround Sound) movies. In addition it’s possible to consume audio- and video-podcasts as well as Flickr & .Mac photos.
• MacBook Air: The Thinnovation of the day is the MacBook Air, Steve Jobs revealed at the end of the keynote. The thinnest notebook in the world with a 13.3 inch widescreen display, a backlit keyboard and a multitouch trackpad. But Apple cuts off some "od technologies": No optical drive anymore, no Firewire, no Ethernet. It’s a real wireless device – every CEO will get jelious. The 80 GB version with a state of the art hard drive costs USD 1,799.00 – the 64 GB SolidState harddrive is priced at exclusive USD 3,098.00 and is the dream of every CTO … and the nightmare of every CFO.