Press likes the iPod. Steve is proud of the Apple retail stores, hit the 25 stores by 2001-end-of-year mark (27, actually). Point of stores if to try to convert “the other 95%.” 40% of retail Mac buyers are new Mac owners. 800,000 visitors in December to all Apple stores. State of Maine equipping all 7th…

Steve takes to the stage, the SteveNote begins.

FACT: I’m really hungry. I eat some apple muffin and have some Bottled Frappuccino�. The keynote has not yet started, but there’s some nice Peter Gabriel music to tide us over.

Okay, 11:55 EST, here we go� The requisite 4 Macs/PCs are on a table on stage for the inevitable speed-tromping tests. Another Mac is on stage, 90 degrees to the audience for Steve’s also-inevitable OS X demo, hopefully for 10.2, but that’s where I end my speculation. Everything from here on out is hard, solid…

Apple Hype Watch� Day 8: “Watch the live webcast in QuickTime.” Personally I think Apple’s gone a little overboard with this whopper of a tagline. I mean, I have some Windoze using friends who can’t seem to figure out how to install QuickTime on their machines (possibly because it requires an “administrator password”), and apparently…

Apple Hype Watch� Day 7: “Just one more sleepless night [for the web team].” Personally, I plan on sleeping until noon. There’s nothing worth getting up for until the keynote anyway. 😛

I’ve got it� It’s a time machine. Yes, for our special Apple Hype Watch� segment, we have decoded Apple’s clues to bring you Monday’s mystery product a full two days early! A time machine is big, time is related to counting (no, not the awful puns in the Count of Monte Christo trailer), it’s beyond…