Today, my brother showed me the back of Sports Illustrated, and there was a cool iPod Touch Advertisement.

I’ve put together a quick video showing off the loot we pulled together at the Apple Store opening. Made mostly late at night, so it came out a bit strange, but feel free to comment.

The speculation is now behind us: the Apple community has confirmed that the Apple TV was not a success this year, selling approximately 400,000 units. Some blame it on the hardware or the lack of iTunes video content, but the real issues with the Apple TV and other “Media Centers” are the consumers.

At this point in time, television is in a different arena from computers and the internet’s digital content. Television has dominated home entertainment for decades and not until recently, the last 5 years or so, are computers beginning to play a large role in media consumption. Like MP3 players in 1999 that attempted to bring digital music away from the computer, ‘Media Centers’ haven’t taken off. So where is the iPod of the ‘Media Center’ industry?
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All the recent rumors and hype surrounding replacement of Steve Jobs have prompted me to start thinking about the inevitable again. The day Steve Jobs leaves Apple, Inc. will be a sad day in technology. While I think we have a couple more years (hopefully more) left, Sir Steve himself will eventually have to let go.

I used to ponder that inevitable day, years back, and would always come to the conclusion that we still had many years to come and that it was too hard to tell where Apple would be. Those years have disappeared in a cloud of iPods, iPhones and Macs, and Apple is on an upsurge. It’s making more money than ever before. All of this, from the creation to the rebirth can be attributed to Steve Jobs. No one needs me to remind them of that.

I think everyone at Apple knows this, and are doing something to keep Apple from repeating what it did when Steve Jobs left the first time. Frankly, he can’t return to save Apple again, though I’m sure the when the time comes Steve isn’t going to be out the door like last time. The process will probably be similar Bill Gates being removed phasing himself out of Microsoft: slowly, and over a period of years. This gives Jonathan Ive Eric Schmitt Tim Cook Phil Schiller whoever takes over a chance to become accustomed to how Steve sees the company, how to handle things internally and externally, and to get guidance from the one and only. Who knows, Steve Jobs might even stick around on the Board of Directors, or pull a Woz and just linger (didn’t you know that he is still an Apple employee?).

However it happens, we should be confident that the right choice will be made. As daunting as it seems, eventually it will happen, and we will have to face it. We will most certainly never forget Steve Jobs or his contributions to Apple, Pixar and NeXT. After all these years of searching for the answer, the best man for the job, instead I have found faith in Apple — faith in Steve Jobs. For whatever reason, be it the recent success of Apple or just time (and age), I feel confident that the right choice will be made for Apple’s next CEO

New: A video of the loot has been posted (click here)!

Some people are wondering what was given out in those black tubes, or what the T-shirts look like. Some still think that the first 2,000 people in line got free iPhones (I wish!). Lets just set the record straight. This is how it went down.

Pictures after the jump.

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So, after all the waiting and cold-ness, we have put together a video of the experience of the Apple Store @ West 14th Street. Check it out! Let us know what you think!!

So the day has come and passed, and now it is time to reflect. We left New Jersey for the city at about 1:30 PM, arriving at the Apple Store a little before 3 PM. When we arrived, the line was fairly civil and it was lightly snowing.

Contrary to some queues where you sit at your place, by the order in which you arrived, we were stuffed between two barricades, about 2 feet wide, which allowed for interesting queueing. As the line would move, groups of people would ‘cut’ others, sometimes purposely or sometimes inadvertently. Especially as the time passed, the line became increasingly packed which added to the fun. Sidney and I were separated close to opening, because selfish people who decided to knock down one of the barriers cut into the line, thus splitting us apart. Of course, this only added to the already prevalent pushing, chaos and general madness. Security personnel were present with the NYPD, but they were not doing a good job of crowd/queue control.

While waiting, it was funny to hear the confused people talk and even fight over the ‘free stuff’ supposedly being given away at the ‘iPod Store’. “I want some of those free iPhones!” or “Move out of my way, I’m getting a free iPod!!” were commonly heard throughout the four or so hours we waited. Some people even were reporting that everything in the store was free. However, Sidney and I were generally quick to correct the misinformation. While it is always Apple’s distinct style not to disclose these kind of things (such as detailed information regarding Grand Opening events), I thought that the general public could have been better informed.

However, once we got inside the doors — about 1 hour after the 6 PM opening time — things all went uphill. All the Apple staff were very courteous and cool (as per usual) and the store was just awesome. Quite possibly my new favorite Apple Store, dethroning SoHo. The DJ and dancing taking place on the third floor was cool, so we chose to chill there for the few hours we stayed inside. In fact, we were even approached by a few staff who conversed with us about the site (as we were filming, taking pictures, Live blogging and editing in Final Cut) — shoutout to you guys who were curious enough to ask!!

So in total, a great day, but for some flaws regarding the line to get in. I hope someone from Apple can read this. 😉

Sidney here. I’m up a bit earlier than usual today, and with a purpose: The iLife is heading to New York City to join in the opening-night celebration for Manhattan’s newest, largest, and most impressively designed store. (Fine, the 5th Ave Cube may still hold the “impressive” title, but this comes close.)

We’ve loaded our bags with equipment to bring you up-to-the-minute pictures, video, and stories from the line and the party. Stay tuned: we expect to be in line shortly after 3PM. (Admittedly later than the 4AM the top-ten had to shoot for, but not too shabby.)

Live updates after the jump.

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So, as we are now approaching less than one month until Macworld 2008, the rumor mills are starting to churn out those crazy pre-Macworld rumors (do I hear ultra portable MacBook?) and I am preparing to attend! Being my first year as an attendee at Macworld I have started to prepare the LiveBlogging/rapid uploading of pictures throughout the keynote, for the site. Also, seeing that I live in New Jersey, I have a couple hundred thousand miles to travel and things to work out. I will certainly keep you all posted, and don’t forget that TheiLife.com will be your one stop Macworld 2008 source!

The iPhone. The most anticipated cellphone, or even, Apple product of all time. To be the Macintosh of cell phones. Now approaching 1 year ago, the rumors were finally put to rest as Steve Jobs officially announced the iPhone at Macworld 2007. It’s now November 2007, and Apple is still lost in the cell phone industry which is a strange, messy world. Arguably more confusing then even the computer industry, not to mention a couple years younger. If Apple plans to continue making iPhones and gain significant market share, they need to stop making ignorant mistakes mainly- forgetting about the users!  Now let me preface this with the fact that I’m no expert, nor do I consider myself one. I am simply offering advice for Apple. But before I bash Apple, lets put this into context. The cell phone industry has the tendency to only care about themselves- and this comes at the users expense. This is almost reminiscent of Apple coming into the computer industry. The iPhone has shaken up the cell phone industry- there is no doubt to that. But Apple’s management and decisions sometimes reflect that of a typical cell phone company such as Motorola or Verizon. Apple needs to start acting more like Apple and less like them.

For example, although the justification was correct, the no SDK, use Safari route was not happening. Apple has since realized this and in February the iPhone SDK will be available (which took some fighting). Another poor decision was the initial pricing, some people cringed over a $499 and $599 phone. It was among the major criticism against the iPhone, besides that the carrier (AT&T). And when iSuppli revealed that it only costed Apple $245.83 and $280.83, for the 4GB and 8GB respectively, people wondered why it was priced so expensively. I would still think of this as irrelevant had the price stayed the same. When Steve Jobs announced in September that the 8GB iPhone would be $399 and the 4GB would be scrapped, this came to joy of non-iPhone users, but for the faithful who had purchased one within the initial two months were in dismay. I’m not arguing that this price drop was necessary, it will definitly boost iPhone sales, I just think it should have come a few months earlier. Imagine in to June, if Apple had cut the price last minute!? It would have fed the already media frenzy surrounding the iPhone even more- and the claims of it being too expensive would have disappeared. Plus, they would have sold more iPhones!

But even with that aside, the iPhone has been highly successful. Thousands are sold every day, and now with the launch in European countries, the goal of 10 million by the end of 2008 seems achievable.  So what am I saying? To appeal to customer, Apple needs to remember not to make ignorant decisions. They need to focus on making the best products, and deliver that promise all the way through to the end user. That means being able to add calendar appointments on the phone (do I hear 1.1.2?) or being able to run Applications off the phone itself, varies by person. Be it AT&T’s pressure or internal mishaps, Apple needs to remember to be Apple.