Apple Announces New iPods, iTunes 10, Social Network, AppleTV 579
Steve Jobs gave his iPod keynote this morning. He started with iOS 4.1 and Game Center which will be coming out next week. iOS 4.2 will add printing to the iPad and will be out in November. The new iPod Shuffle has buttons again, and costs $49. The new iPod Nano has a tiny multi-touch screen, and an FM radio, and starts at $149. The new (thinner) Touch has the iPhone 4 screen, an A4 chip, and FaceTime over WiFi, starting at $229 for 8GB. They all ship next week.
iTunes 10 looks the same, but adds a social network called "Ping," which basically looks like Last.fm integrated, and should be out today.
AppleTV is updating: 1/4th the size, no purchases — only rentals. 99 cents for TV rentals (ABC & Fox), Netflix on Demand built in, and for $99.
Re:I am prob one of the only people here with an (Score:5, Informative)
You can stream from your computer.
Re:Market Dominance (Score:4, Informative)
OT:
I liked that quote so much, I had to look it up. According to Snopes, Jed Babbin said that [snopes.com].
Carry on.
Re:why no AM as well? (Score:4, Informative)
You do realize that AM stations, by virtue of being much further down the RF spectrum, have a much, much bigger range, right?
Re:why no AM as well? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Informative)
I suppose. For me -- and I'm really invested in Apple hardware, both for myself and my family (5 mac users) -- there's nothing here of interest.
The iPad (which yes, we own two of) still lacks cameras and IR emission, needs a flat, un-wobbly back, still has enough wasted sq inches of bezel area to fit an iPod Touch into, still is bound to AT&T, still is too low-res to properly display even 720p, still lacks CF, SD and USB connections, still syncs by cable, still charges by cable, and still has a paltry 512 mb of memory, which, when they eventually get around to implementing multitasking, means that what you're actually going to get is something on the order of windows 3.1 multitasking with a few services, not actual task switching, etc. And it still costs *way* too much.
The iPhone... still bound to AT&T, still missing features other phones have had for quite some time. Can't use it here because of the AT&T monopoly, so it isn't worth anything to me.
Mac Mini... from a $499 (barely) entry mac with a great footprint to a seriously overpriced block that eats way more desk space...
Still no reasonable desk mac or straight up tower mac (not talking macpro... talking *reasonable*.)
Still got those OSX widgets stuck back on an invisible screen, where they're utterly useless to us... (luckily, there's Yahoo Widgets, which actually work like you'd want them to)
The iPod Touch... mm, nice new display and camera, they almost got me there, but considering the ios4 fake multitasking... I'll wait for one with a couple gigs of memory and some better battery technology so the thing can *actually* multitask.
Aperture still doesn't support stacked plugins... and we're on major release 3... oy. Likewise, Logicpro... still buggy as heck, still hasn't been updated.
And as for trying to sell me 99 cent TV shows... now that's simply straight-up funny.
Honestly, I think they're losing it. I have money, I like the gear, and it doesn't even seem like they are *trying* to get me to hand it to them.
Re:Market Dominance (Score:4, Informative)
You said:
``It's better than many point and shoot cameras''
According to:
http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/specs.html [apple.com]
it has ``still photos (960 x 720) with back camera''
If it had the same camera capabilities as the iPhone, I'd agree --- but either those numbers are wrong, or it's seriously crippled as a camera.
William
Re:OSX or IOS only (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Informative)
Well if you've been an Apple fan for any amount of time you should know that they will not ever, at least as long as Jobs is around, produce a consumer tower. There has been hue and cry for one for as long as I can remember, and they ones that the clone makers made during that brief time did well. Apple does not care, they will not produce it for some reason.
As for cable charging, what other kind of charging do you suggest? Power does not travel through the air well, that whole inverse square law bites you in the ass. Tesla wanted wireless power, never could make it work for that reason. Inductive charging is possible but increases bulk and decreases efficiency, plus the device has to sit right on the charger to work. How is that better than a wire (inductive charging is normally only used for things like electric toothbrushes where water in the connector would be an issue). Cable is how power is done.
Re:why no AM as well? (Score:3, Informative)
You are right from a technology perspective, but not correct from a real world perspective.
From a pure RF perspective AM frequencies can be picked up further away at the same power levels, provided no obstacles.
In the real world, AM radio starts off at a disadvantage, a 50,000 watt limit compared to FM's 100,000 watt limit. However it also turns out that the lower frequencies are more susceptible to interference, and don't penetrate buildings as well. AM is also greatly affected by the time of day, as atmospheric conditions make a huge difference.
This is why around a major city the 100,000 watt FM station can be pretty reliably picked up in a ~100 mile radius by a car antenna, but many AM stations are completely full of static and buzz, unlistenable right downtown.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What's with the coverage on this? (Score:5, Informative)
The Apple TV hasn't ever done 1080p. Anyone who cares already knows that. And very few people have the bandwidth to stream 1080p anyway, so who cares?
h.264 support, no xvid (Score:3, Informative)
From the Tech Specs [apple.com]:
H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats.
Re:New iPod Touch missing GPS :-( (Score:4, Informative)
The reason is the way it's packaged on the iPhone is the GPS/GSM chip is integrated.
Re:I am prob one of the only people here with an (Score:4, Informative)
Sony NEX (Score:1, Informative)
Sony NEX series does HDR and panorama. Some of their regular P&S and SLRs also do that. CHDK (custom firmware for Canon cameras) does that. HDR (and sweep panorama mode) is the new thing after the megapixel war, so all the new cameras will have it.
Re:This was a test... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:iOS 4 runs like crap on my 3G (Score:3, Informative)
Go into your settings and disable all the spotlight settings. It should speed up a bit.
Re:OSX or IOS only (Score:3, Informative)
Re:iOS 4 runs like crap on my 3G (Score:2, Informative)
I think iOS 4.1 undresses those problems, a quick search shows that the beta has improved the performance, if I'm not mistaken it was mentioned in the keynote today too.
Re:Touch as VoIP handset? (Score:3, Informative)
It does have a built in mic and speaker. Every Touch since 2008 has had a speaker and the mic was added for FaceTime support.