Apple's Announcement: Yet Another Master Innovation!

Apple announced that it will live stream its product announcement starting today at 10:00 AM Pacific time.

Viewable only on Apple Gear

The event, which is an invitation only press conference, takes place at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco. But if you only have a Windows PC, don't bother to tune in. To watch the event at Apple.com you'll need a Mac running OS X Snow Leopard and Apple's Safari browser or an iPhone, iPad Touch or an iPad running iOS 3.0 or higher, according to Apple.

This is the first time in years that Apple has live streamed an announcement. The company didn't say why it's changing its policy, but at the last big Apple announcement where Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone 4, Jobs had to ask bloggers to log off the WiFi network because the jammed airways didn't leave enough bandwidth for Jobs to show off off the phone's Internet capabilities.

(Apple's announcement is expected
to include new iPod models
 and upgrades to Apple TV)

Apple will broadcast the event using its internally-developed HTTP Live Streaming Protocol, which requires either a Mac running Safari on Mac OS X version 10.6, an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 3.0 or higher or an iPad.[...] The HTTP live streaming protocol is a feature of the latest version of Apple's multimedia player and framework, QuickTime X. The new protocol lets users stream audio and video over HTTP. This makes things easier for broadcasters, who can use a standard Web server instead of a special media server to stream in almost-real time.

Check if you can see the stream using this HTTP Live sample stream. MacRumors has a full list of the requirements, as well as information on workarounds so that you can access the video.

There are rumors that Apple may be unveiling new versions of the iPod Touch and iPod Nano, as well as updates to Apple TV