Apple Media Event Follow-up
September 2, 2010 | Thursday at Three | 1 Comments
Courtesy of GDGT
I am going to be completely honest. Yesterday, my idea for live blogging the highly anticipated Apple announcement came from my curiosity surrounding the next generation iPad.
I am in the market for an iPad, but one of my pet peeves is making a purchase only for it to go on sale or worse, having a better version released within the month of my purchasing it.
But, alas, if you followed my live blog (found at my twitter account: @kymalino), or watched the keynote speech via the live feed provided by apple, you would know that we all have to anxiously wait until November for news on the latest iPad developments.
However, all was not lost in watching Steve Jobs’ keynote speech. Amongst a bevy of Apple announcements, news, and an appearance by Chris Martin from Coldplay – there are some pretty cool and exciting developments coming soon from Apple.
Courtesy of GDGT
The first was the complete overhaul of their range of iPods. The Shuffle, Nano, and Touch will all be changing shortly both in design and software.
The Shuffle is seeing a design overhaul most notably by the re-introduction of control buttons. In his demo of the new Shuffle, Jobs commented that the feature missed the most by Shuffle users was the clickable control pad on the face of the device. Another addition will be “Voice Over,” or a feature that allows the device to announce the title and artist of which ever song you’re listening to. This development also enables the iPod to tell the user how much battery power is remaining and has 25 language capabilities.
The iPod Nano will see a smaller, lighter design overhaul with the addition of a touch screen and a clip (similar to the Shuffle).
Apple’s iPod Touch is basically being turned into an iPhone… just without the requisite cell phone carrier plan. The new Touch will come with not one, but two cameras. This will enable the device to record HD video and chat via the coveted FaceTime (presumably added because of the lack of iPhone4 users to find other iPhone4 users to chat with). The new design will also feature a higher-quality, Retina display.
Jobs’ keynote speech stayed right on cue with the music theme-pun intended-in his announcement of iTunes10 and Ping, Apple’s music social media community. Ping will enable iTunes users to follow each other and trade tips and recommendations about the media found in the iTunes store. Jobs described Ping as ‘Twitter and Facebook, meets iTunes.’
The majority of the developments announced yesterday are welcomed changes to the Apple line-up of devices. However, there was some news announced yesterday that just left me scratching my head.
- The Nano was cut down and thinned out essentially to the size of the Shuffle. In his speech, Jobs mentioned Shuffle users having missed the control buttons. My confusion is this: Why even bother having both the Shuffle and the Nano when the only thing separating them is price point and touch screen? Make a 2GB Nano or add a touch screen to the Shuffle and eliminate product and pricing disparity.
- The iPod Classic was mentioned briefly by Jobs and this model did not see any changes. Nevertheless, did you even know Apple still sells the iPod Classic? I didn’t. Now, I know there are some Apple purists out there but why would I spend $20 more on the 160GB iPod Classic than the smallest iPod Touch? Personally, the ability to carry 40,000 songs, 200 hours of video, or 25,000 pictures is unnecessary and trumped by the features and capabilities of the Touch.
- The new icon to accompany iTunes10 is ugly and cartoonish… a far cry from the sleek and minimalistic feel of Apple products.
- AppleTV. Jobs was not shy in announcing that this is his pet project. But frankly, I don’t know a single person with AppleTV, do you? Honestly, I don’t see why I even need an AppleTV if I have OnDemand features from my cable provider. Call me crazy, but I don’t anticipate spending $99 to be able to watch Netflix or Youtube on my TV… when a VGA cable is $7. In fact, when this product debuted in late 2007, Popular Mechanics announced it was in their “Top Ten Worst Gadgets” list. The effort spent on AppleTV developments could have and should have been spent else where… like on the next generation iPad.
-Kym
Today’s Apple Announcement and Live Blogging
September 1, 2010 | Thursday at Three | 0 Comments
Well, it is neither Thursday nor three o’clock, to accompany this week’s live blogging from GlobalFoundries Technology Conference, Thursday at Three will attempt the same for today’s highly anticipated Apple Announcement; slated for this afternoon, September 1st, at 1:00 PM EST.
Photo: Kimberley White
Not one of the fortunate tech people or Apple fanboys/girls picked to attend this announcement presentation?
Don’t fret: Apple announced that they would be live streaming video of their September media event across the web. The news, however, was somewhat dulled by the fact that Apple announced that the stream will only be viewable on an OS X 10.6 Mac or an iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad). The reason for the limitation isn’t entirely arbitrary, as Apple is using a new streaming technology called HTTP Live Streaming which was introduced alongside Snow Leopard’s QuickTime X and iOS 3.0.
Here are the major rumors heading into the event:
- Apple TV – A next generation Apple TV based on iOS, priced at only $99, as well as support for Apps.
- iPod Touch – Backside camera, mic, new shape, front facing camera, possible 3G and even a Retina display.
- iPod Nano – Smaller, square shaped design with a 3cm x 3cm touch screen. Case manufacturers have already been producing covers for the unannounced device (see above).
- Other updates to iTunes including TV show rentals and longer song previews.
Speculation
Meanwhile, here’s a collection of fun speculative content that we can’t verify, but in the run up to the event may inspire some interesting discussion:
- iPad 4.0? – We expect Apple will announce their plans for the deployment of iOS 4 for the iPad during the event. It’s unlikely Apple will be able to launch tomorrow as they still await developers to update their apps. So, hopefully we’ll get a roadmap and a developer beta of iOS 4 for iPad.
- 2.8″ iPod touch? iLounge suggests that perhaps we will see the long rumored 2.8″ iPod touch emerge to fill the gap left by the former iPod nano.
- iPhone as Apple TV Remote? iLounge’s Charles Starrett speculates that the rumored $99 Apple TV might actually require an iOS device to serve as a remote. Beyond his speculation, we’d actually heard unconfirmed whispers of the same, so it seems within the realm of possibility.
- iLife Mystery App is a Make Your Own App Tool? Rumors of iLife ‘11 suggested a brand new app would be introduced with the iLife ‘11 suite. We’ve heard an unconfirmed rumor that the new app could actually be a way for end users to create simple apps and deploy them directly (not through the App Store) to their iOS devices. Is Apple returning to their Hypercard roots? It’s hard to say how feasible this would be.
-Kym
Apple’s Anonymity ‘Glitch ‘
April 20, 2010 | Today's Headlines | 0 Comments
Just in case you missed it, Apple reversed course today and approved Mark Fiore’s political satire app, Newstoons, for sale in the iPhone store.
This was not unexpected, especially after Lauren McGann of the Nieman Journalism Lab let it slip that Apple had rejected the Pulitzer Prize winning online journalist’s app on the grounds that it ‘ridiculed public officials’. This was, of course, prior to learning that he was famous. Apple CEO Steve Jobs was quick to spin the rejection as a ‘glitch.‘
Good for Fiore. I enjoy his cartoons and I’ll download Newstoons within the next couple days. However, I take a bit of offense to Job’s characterization. I, for one, never thought not being famous was a ‘glitch’.
-Mike
Google China Out, Google Hong Kong In, Could a Contract-Free iPhone mean a new iPhone is coming?, Foursquare Vs. Gowalla
March 25, 2010 | Thursday at Three, Today's Headlines | 0 Comments
This past Monday, Google announced they will be shutting the door to Google China and opening the door to Google Hong Kong. Over two months have passed since Google first announced they would end the self-censorship they originally obliged too in China and now they are following through on that threat. When visitors try and access Google.cn they are automatically redirected to Google.com.hk, which is the new, uncensored search engine. The future is still unclear for Google and China. They will either make peace, allowing Google to stay uncensored in Hong Kong, or Chinese authorities will eliminate all ties with Google, leaving the 400 million Chinese internet users in need of a new search engine.
Apple just recently announced that they will be selling their 3G iPhone unlocked, which means customers will be able to purchase the phone without an AT&T contract to back it. While there are some people excited about the news others are still wary. Predictions have been made the only reason Apple is doing this is to reduce inventory and to make room for a new 4G iPhone which will allegedly be launched in June or July. Apple pulled the same stunt last year at this time when they announced the release of the 3G iPhone. So customers will just have to wait and see if history will truly repeat itself.
At last year’s SXSW conference the rage was foursquare, the new location based technology that allows people to share their exact locations with friends. Again, this year all the rage was location based applications that allow people to share their locations with others. The two big competitors that came out on top were Foursquare and Gowalla, which are two different applications which basically allow users to do the same things. Before the start of the conference there were an estimated 100,000 foursquare users now they have managed to gain another 120,000 users in the past 10 days alone. Gowalla isn’t too far behind, they saw an average of 135,000 check-ins during the conference in and around Austin, TX.