Apple Announces iTunes 9, "LPs," Video Camera For the iPod Nano 521
Apple just finished their latest press event, and they revealed a number of new services and features for their products. They kicked things off by saying that iPhone OS 3.1 is now available. It will add the Genius recommendation technology to the App store, giving users suggestions on which apps they might find useful based on what others with similar needs use. They're also adding 30,000 ringtones that users can purchase. Next, they announced iTunes 9, which will use Genius to make mixes by analyzing songs in your library to see which go well together. iTunes is also seeing UI improvements for things like app management, and syncing utilities. You'll be able to easily transfer apps, music, and videos from one of your local devices to another, and there is integrated support for Twitter and Facebook if you want to send music as a gift. Another big new feature: iTunes LPs. These LPs will be a digital album with cover art, lyrics, videos, and other customized content created by the artists themselves. Moving on, they showed off a few new games: an Assassin's Creed sequel, an FPS called Nova that had impressive graphics and multiplayer capability, Riddim Ribbon, a futuristic driving/music game that lets you remix your songs by how you navigate the course, and Madden NFL 2010. Next, Apple announced a price cut for the 8GB iPod Touch and a doubling of available storage for the other models. It's also getting OpenGL 2.0. The iPod Classic is getting a storage upgrade from 120GB to 160GB. In addition, there are headphones that have a controller for the Shuffle. Finally, Jobs got down to his "one more thing": Apple will now be building a video camera into the back of every iPod Nano. Apparently it will be a simple matter to sync videos to your computer or put them up on YouTube, and they're building in an FM radio as well. A detailed liveblog of the event with a ton of screenshots is available at Engadget.
Re:What an innovative price cut! (Score:3, Informative)
I just can't legitimize spending that sort of money on something like that with the Zii Egg and the Zune HD around the corner. They're a lot more powerful... and for some reason I can't get past the hardware of handheld devices.
This may sound silly on slashdot, but I am actually comparing it to the Zune HD.
iPod touch with camera (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Small print (Score:5, Informative)
Nice try at trolling. This was debunked [eff.org] shortly after the March 2009 story you're pimping.
Epic Fail!
Re:30k Ringtones (Score:5, Informative)
Re:30k Ringtones (Score:1, Informative)
Apple doesn't advertise this feature very often, but Garageband allows you to use arbitrary audio sources to create ring tones that can be exported to iTunes for free. No idea what the non-OSX solutions are, but I'm reasonably sure they exist too.
Re:Double standard (Score:3, Informative)
Re:FLAC support? (Score:2, Informative)
Songbird has had FLAC support for years.
Re:30k Ringtones (Score:5, Informative)
To add to your comment, you can customize to any point in the songs by right clicking them in itunes, selecting get info, going to the options tab, and setting the start and stop time to whatever you want. Once you have the section of the song you wish to have as your ringtone, hit ok to save the changes, right click the song and select convert to AAC this time. Doing so will make a new .m4a of the section you defined with the start and stop times, and then you can just right click the new song in itunes, select show in finder (show in explorer on windows?), and change the file extension to .m4r instead of .m4a, and double click to open the new m4r file. It will add the new file to itunes under the ringtones section and sync up with your iphone automatically then (and don't forget to uncheck the start and stop times in the original file then).
If you have a razr or any other phone with bluetooth and bluetooth on your computer, you can do the same thing to make ringtones for those also, you just have to use whatever bluetooth sync program your phone uses (and you probably have to convert to mp3 instead of AAC, which is changeable in itunes preferences, and skip the m4a -> m4r section).
Re:What day is it? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What day is it? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't understand how a nano can pick up FM radio. According to my research [google.com], FM band radio in the US can have a wavelength of 3.4 meters. How do you pick that up on a device that's less than 10 centimeters long?
Between Fractal Antennas [wikipedia.org] and using the headphone cable as the antenna there are several possibilities for how they get FM into that small package.
Re:FLAC support? (Score:2, Informative)
Android with FLAC support would be amazing. It's been done through 3rd party mods. There is some interesting info in this thread, including more informed observations about processor issues:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1461 [google.com]
FAIL ! (Score:3, Informative)
You should check the specs before shooting from the hip. The new iPod Nano vid camera has a 640x480 resolution @ 30fps with 8GB memory and costs $149. The Flip Ultra also has a 640x480 resolution @ 30fps but only 4GB memory and also costs $149. The Flip HD versions cost $199.
Re:and THIS is why... (Score:4, Informative)
Maemo is not another platform. It's a lightweight Debian.
Yeah [maemo.org].
Re:and THIS is why... (Score:3, Informative)
For the love of all that is holy, Apple does NOT sell drm'd music.
Re:What an innovative price cut! (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt it. For the Zune to be a turn-around product will need to be one of the following.
1. A LOT better then Apples products (not a little bit better) and about the same price as apples products.
2. A LOT cheaper then Apples Products (not a little bit cheaper) and the same quality as the apple products.
Right now the Zune is relegated to Ripoff iPod Wannabe status. Any advantages is replaced by Apple larger market share advantages (more apps, more music).
Apple as far as product quality hasn't done much to waver most people trust. Microsoft record is much more shaky.
Screenshots? (Score:5, Informative)
You know, you don't really take "screenshots" of real life. Most people just call them "photos".
Re:and THAT is why... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:and THAT is why... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What an innovative price cut! (Score:3, Informative)
What a douchey comment... what are you basing this on?
Are you just mad? Are you mad that I don't like macs? >:( I'm sorry, eDouche. There's nothing "legacy" about XNA.