Speaking of that keynote, while the AtAT staff continually thanks providence that we were able to witness the event live and in person, the vast majority of souls who saw it were tuned into the QuickTime webcast instead. What you may not know, however, is that last week's webcast marked the first time Apple streamed content specifically tuned for high-bandwidth lines, meaning that the company was pushing a simply ridiculous amount of data out over the 'net. In fact, the numbers have since been tallied, and Apple (and its bandwidth-tuning partner Akamai) found them impressive enough to justify a press release.

Here's the deal: last week's keynote webcast set a new record for "the delivery of content at broadband rates." According to Apple, "more than 6 terabytes of content" were splurted out across the 'net in the space of an hour and a half. (Doing the math, we figure that's an average of about 1.2 GB every second. Yikes.) So where did all that data go? Into the systems of some "95,000 unique web visitors," of course. At the pipe-bursting peak of the event, Apple and Akamai reportedly streamed "more than 4.3 gigabits per second" of broadband video to "more than 21,000 simultaneous viewers." As they said in Ghostbusters, "that's a big Twinkie."

But on the other hand, we've got to say this: terabytes, shmerabytes. We won't be overly impressed until Mac fans can enjoy a Stevenote webcast without complaining afterwards about frequent disconnections, dropped audio, dropped video, and an overall unpleasant experience. Personally, when we're stuck watching Steve via QuickTime, we're happy for whatever we can get, but by the sound of things, plenty of people last week experienced major frustration while trying to tune in to Steve's charming visage, even over a broadband connection. Not that things aren't improving-- they are. But right now, such is the nature of the medium, we're afraid, and Apple and Akamai have a long way to go before they can claim frustration-free webcasts. (Once they figure out how to push a free Pro Mouse to everyone who tuned in via the 'net, we'll be really impressed.)

By the way, the keynote is still available as video-on-demand, and now that millions of rumor-crazed Mac fans aren't all trying to tune in at once, you may have excellent luck grabbing and holding a crystal-clear stream from beginning to end. Sure, it's not exactly news anymore-- but it's still Steve. And maybe-- just maybe-- you'll be able to hear the AtAT staff spontaneously curse in disbelief when the low-end iMac's new price is revealed. What could be more fun than that?