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.
Market Dominance (Score:2, Insightful)
The new iPod Touch is going to dominate the market. It's better than many point and shoot cameras, it's better than pretty much every other media player, it beats out flip video recorders, it has extensive gaming platform options, and it's good enough for watching media on.
I don't love Apple, but it looks like they've created the gadget for teenagers or people who rely on a non-iphone as their primary phone.
Re:why no AM as well? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Facebook dead (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't tell if you're being serious or not, but I'm more inclined to believe you are.
First off, they are not going to overtake the likes of Facebook by following it, and the first thing I thought when I saw the Ping design is, "What, did they reskin Facebook or something?"
Second, integration with iTunes does not a social network make. It's a good start making it extraordinarily convenient to a lot of people, but what ultimately makes or breaks a social network is two things: 1) how many people actually make use of it, and 2) how the owners handle people who cause trouble, whether being disruptive, destructive, or dissident. In that second regard, Apple has a somewhat dubious history.
The top things AppleTV users requested... (Score:5, Insightful)
They listed the top things users were requesting for a new AppleTV, but I have a sneaking suspicion that their users were maybe the content providers.
Seriously... the number one requested feature is a frick'n DVR!!!
Re:Really? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No iTunes yet but... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know your apple fandom has gone to far when you are angry that you are getting married because it means you can't turn on the MacBook for a few days. Seek help.
Re:Market Dominance (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Market Dominance (Score:5, Insightful)
It has two cameras. One is 0.3 megapixels, one is 0.6 megapixels. Both have cheap, plastic, fixed focus, fixed focal length "lenses". Both have absolutely tiny sensors like the typical cellphone cam, vastly smaller than even a cheap entry-level point-and-shoot camera, and microscopic compared to the sensors in many cameras.
It doesn't "beat out" Flip's products, either. It just barely matches them on feature set -- not a difficult task, because the Flip recorders are likewise extremely poorly specified, and sold mostly on hype.
The iPod Touch isn't a replacement for even the cheapest dedicated camera. It will slightly edge out absolute bottom of the line camera phones, and that's about it.
Maximum HD resolution is 720p (Score:1, Insightful)
And why is it still limited to 720p (Apple TV Tech Specs [apple.com]) as the maximum HD resolution>? I under stand the iTunes store currently only offers 720p HD content; however, since you can also stream from your own computers it would be nice if you can watch 1080p content from them on a large screen HDTV via this device....
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Q. User - How do I get (Linux/Apple device/whatever fanboi loves the most) to do $foo?
A. Fanboi who won't admit that his precious can't do $foo. - Why would you want to do that?
Why would you want to cut and paste on an iphone? Why would you want to print from an ipad? Why would you want your email client to integrate with your calendar? Why would you want to move the "song name" column in itunes..........
Re:The top things AppleTV users requested... (Score:4, Insightful)
They listed the top things users were requesting for a new AppleTV, but I have a sneaking suspicion that their users were maybe the content providers.
Seriously... the number one requested feature is a frick'n DVR!!!
Call your cable company - the system that was *supposed* to make it possible to build DVRs that worked on any network (CableCard) is an unmitigated clusterfuck, mostly due to providers not wanting to give up the $5/mo "box rental" business.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, someone better answer the question eventually: Why would you want to print from the iPad? You bitches whine about your jetpacks and flying cars, but some of us just want that goddamn paperless office already.
Christ, it's 2010 and I'm still dealing with fucking fax tech. Tired of this shit.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
I sometimes think Apple is a social experiment that is trying to see how far it can push people to buy things they didn't ask for but now want because they've seen them.
As for the charging thing... maybe they were referring to a cable connected to a computer instead of a wall outlet?
New iPod Touch missing GPS :-( (Score:4, Insightful)
Even though a large percent of apps in the iTunes app store are location aware and require GPS to work properly, it is very disappointing that the new iPod Touch (and the current WiFi only iPad) does not have a GPS receiver yet. It is very useful to have turn-by-turn GPS navigation, current location weather forecasts, gas prices, and other services all running on an iPod Touch and WiFi iPad as well as they run on the iPhone and iPad 3G.
Re:appletv = fail (Score:4, Insightful)
FFS, the standard Slashdot reply to a new Apple product has made it to the thread. This device just works. Failure is not defined as not using your particular connection method. This device connects to a standardized ecosystem, streams h.264 video and reaches out online to a couple of reputable for-pay services. It's incredibly compact and affordable. I can put Apple TV units in a few rooms of the house for the price of a PC strung up to a single TV without the hassle of VLC and none of the weight of a chip on my shoulder.
Re:Maximum HD resolution is 720p (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe because no one can tell the difference between 720 and 1080 anyway? It'd be a waste of everyone's money to put any effort into supporting it.
My dad watches analog TV that looks like it's snowing on his gigantic HDTV, as do the vast majority of clueless people sold these specious upgrades.
You may as well be asking why Apple isn't supporting 3D. It's a niche that no one actually cares about.
Re:The only thing I was hoping for (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Market Dominance (Score:3, Insightful)
The automated HDR looks like a very cool feature, and addresses what I find to be the biggest limitation of simple cameras--the limited dynamic range with automatic exposure. I don't know of any point-and-shoot camera that does this.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't actually force you to print stuff even if the support is being added.
Personally, if I were to buy an iPad, I would certainly print train tickets and perhaps flight confirmation and check-in slips. I could have the information on the iPad (or something I'm actually using), but I kind of enjoy not having to worry if I'll run out of battery with surfing, playing videos and so on..
Re:Market Dominance (Score:2, Insightful)
I liked that quote so much, I had to look it up. According to Snopes, Jed Babbin said that.
Made even more hilarious since they're both American.
Ssh, if you bring up the fact that the U.S. couldn't have won the revolutionary war without the help of the French half the population's heads will explode, and the rest of us will have to spend all Labor Day weekend cleaning up the mess!
Re:OSX or IOS only (Score:1, Insightful)
Put it in Quicktime for Windows.
Re:TiVo still has one big advantage... (Score:3, Insightful)
Tivo also has a huge disadvantage of the requirement of a $55.00 to $99.00 monthly service fee to get content. Oh and it's $13.00 a month guide service fee.
Honda Civic = fail (Score:5, Insightful)
* You cannot haul a California king size mattress (without a hitch and trailer)
* You cannot haul 12' x 4' sheets of drywall (without a hitch and trailer)
* Passenger space is very limited. For example: you cannot easily transport 6 children in it
I think you're better off just getting a Ford F-150 with a king cab and bench seats... unless of course you like Honda dictating what can and cannot transport in your vehicle.
As someone who uses a number of Apple devices where they make sense (my laptop and my music player) and other stuff where they don't (my gaming machine and my phone) I don't know why people freak out about Apple products doing what they always do. My mom doesn't give a shit about xvid or divx. She doesn't rip her DVDs. She doesn't store them digitally or download torrents. She certainly isn't going to configure anything or care about storing rentals.
My parents can plug this box in and be GOOD TO GO. Like most Apple products, this is an appliance and marketing and targeted as such. I really wish I could have fails like the Apple of late. My car would be a lot nicer!
Yes, the device is a fail at doing things it was never designed for. Most devices are. My pencil, for instance, is an epic fail when my toilet gets clogged.
Re:appletv = fail (Score:3, Insightful)
99% of users: "What is a codec?"
Re:I've never gotten it (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps because the things other companies make are utter shit in comparison, even taking into account the things Apple might leave out that you would like?
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
you know, reading is a good thing. In your case, you didn't.
I was not stating that they didn't need to be able to print, I asked separately why do people need to print anything these days, really.
That's not for or against feature inclusion. read the fucking post before you comment on it please.
Re:I've never gotten it (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't seem to understand the concept of: It works best (for the particular person in question) among all of the alternatives. That may mean the person still complains about it.. A LOT. Since they're using it, they know about what they like and don't like about the product.. and most people complain more than they praise.
You could be negative and say "least bad". There are TONS of things I would improve about Tivos for example, but they still do what I want(*) as well as any of the alternatives I've seen. (Even saying that, I'm *vaguely* interested in the Ceton 4 tuner card, and I don't do Windows anything.)
(*) Record TV shows conveniently, mostly. I've also done a bit of video podcast playing from the Tivo and lately transferred more stuff to computer -- sometimes to make podcasts to listen to on my phone.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
You've made a bad assumption here. I don't mind buying gen-1, imperfect hardware; it encourages the manufacturer. If they came out with (for instance) an iPad that had 2 gb of ram, real multitasking... I'd buy a pair of them immediately, too, and hand off the old ones to someone who could use them. Then when they come out with one with an IR port... you guessed it, I'll buy another pair. And so on. But see, right now, they haven't come with *any* improvements, so I'm not even thinking about buying. Get it now?
One more thing: That the iPad needs improvements, sure, I'm all about that. I posted here because this is one of Apple's brag days for the device, and because the upshot of it was a big yawn to me, and I think that's significant because I *am* a pro-Apple person and a potential buyer.
But if you ask me if the iPad is a technology / device that enables me and improves my life, I could bend your ear/eye for many, many paragraphs while saying yes, yes, yes. I am HUGELY pro-iPad. There's nothing like it out there (yet), and even if you duplicated or exceeded the hardware, the app space... wow. All I can say is good luck. And I *knew* I was getting something great, because we had iPod Touches prior to the iPad and *those* were just stunning little gems of tech. Which ALSO needed improvement (and are getting a little love this time around... camera, for instance.)
I don't know why people think you have to become a blind supporter just because you buy something, or why you're supposed to claim a device is perfect as-is, or why you're not supposed to buy it if it isn't absolutely exactly what you want. Something weird about all that I just can't connect with.
New Nano? (Score:4, Insightful)
Did anybody want a touchscreen Nano? Better yet, what good does a touch screen that's about an inch and a half square do anybody? I have a feeling that my stupidly large hands would be completely unable to operate the new Nano, and I know I can't be alone there.
This seems like a design regression. I know that touchscreens are sexier than the old wheel was, but was there really anything wrong with the old Nano design that warranted throwing it out entirely?
Re:I am prob one of the only people here with an (Score:2, Insightful)
what else does AppleTV do?
Work with your year-old plasma TV for only $100?
Re:I am prob one of the only people here with an (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't new TV's basically have "AppleTV" built in? Newer Sony TVs (and I imagine other brands) can stream from computer (DNLA), stream from Internet (including netflix, with Hulu joining next month), can play pictures/movies from USB storage... what else does AppleTV do?
Link with your iTunes account for a seamless movie buying^Wrenting experience. Link with Mac and iTunes for photo album and music album playback. Have a pretty UI. Provide a monoculture with a large enough installed base for snazzy apps to be developed.
Now I don't like the piece of bloat that is iTunes/iTMS and thus won't purchase any product that requires it -- but there are tens of millions of people who do (and tens of millions more who won't even know what iTunes is, but would love an easy-to-use old-people friendly movie rental machine).
Re:Could have been (Score:3, Insightful)
[[Actually if it had had the 5MP iPhone 4 camera, (which is probably what he assumed since I assumed it too until I looked at the tech specs) he would not have been joking, that could replace a P&S for most people.]]
You don't understand the difference between "better than" and "willing to settle for."
People who are replacing their digital cameras for the iPhone 4 camera are not doing so because it is better than their point and shoot. It's not. They're giving up a number of features they don't understand, don't know how to work, or don't find important for a single button, slower operation, and lower image quality.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Look at your post, now look at mine, now look back at yours and wonder what's wrong with it, and then look at mine to find out: :)
- cameras - why does the iPad need "cameras" (plural)? Do you want to be "that" guy holding something the size of a book up to take a picture?
- IR emission - I'm guessing you want to replace your remote control with the iPad for some reason. I guess you've never owned a Palm Pilot or a Windows CE device with their IR emitters that were next to useless. If you really wanted to replace your remote, you need both a transmitter and receiver to capture IR codes that aren't supported
- Bezel wastage - go complain about that on every other device you own that has a screen - your TV, your laptop, your cellphones, your alarm clock. If you cut that bezel off, try using your iPad without blocking the screen.
- AT&T - I'm sorry you live in the US of A - us other Americans don't have this problem. There's also the option of not getting the 3G model.
- 720p - the iPad is 768p. 720p 768p in terms of vertical lines.
- CF - really? You really want to support that? I'm sorry you bought an SLR from 4 years ago - a form factor that is nearly fully dead. Nonetheless, a slot that size in a device that small is asking for gunk to end up in it.
- USB - there's a simplicity in not having this: it prevents people from asking how come device X doesn't work. It's a bus where almost anything can be attached. It draws power. You'll notice that Apple sells the cable connector add-ons with a USB port as a "camera connection kit". It's to weed out the guy who attaches his USB powered nerf gun.
- 512 mb of memory - Each iPad you have has only 256MB of system memory. You did say you had 2 iPad's so maybe you meant together
- multitasking - Your comparison to Windows 3.1 begs me to believe you don't understand how multitasking works on iOS 4.x. Feel free to Google.com it to understand more. Comparing to the iPad specs, back when Windows 95 launched, the fastest processor was a Pentium running at 233MHz and having 64MB of RAM would have been amazing. If applications for desktops were written with more care, you wouldn't have to keep buying a faster CPU and more memory every 2 years to run the same family of applications.
Anyhow, I'm on a horse ...
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why I want printing from the iPad is so I can talk some relatives into getting one as their main computers. The iPad is pretty close to everything these folks need, which is light word processing, email, web surfing, and mindless games.
Yes, I know you need to pay $99/year to program one, and the app selection is limited, but most people don't really care about that. Coincidentally, the people who don't care about that are the ones most likely to host botnets if they're allowed real computers on the Internet, and I'd rather like to get those people on iDevices for all of our sakes.
So, if they can use iPads as their main computers, I don't get stupid tech support questions. I have some confidence that they can figure out their email without my assistance. Heck, even my most technophobic relatives can probably have fun with one. They can browse the web without becoming part of a botnet.
Re:Apple TV will own the market. (Score:1, Insightful)
If a 24 hour rental isn't enough, you can still buy the show at the normal price and stream it from your computer / iWhatever.
I know many people who pay $100+ a month on TV service, and watch fewer than 30 shows a month. If they could somehow just pay $1 per show for the shows they watch, whenever they want, that would suit them better. No commercials is just icing on the cake.
The problem right now is they are apparently only offering ABC and FOX programs, both of which are freely available over the air or online. If they can get more pay networks in there, especially CNN, Comedy Central, ESPN (for the shows, the sports would be more complicated) that would go a long way. Another 6-12 networks on board would be enough for a LOT of people.
Re:New Nano? (Score:4, Insightful)
Did anybody want a touchscreen Nano? Better yet, what good does a touch screen that's about an inch and a half square do anybody?
That's dead easy for anyone who spends more than 10 seconds thinking about it: how else do you build a device that compact with both a display *and* a control interface, save by combining the two?
Re:Question for Apple fans.. (Score:3, Insightful)
People should also stop believing marketing. I guess your nick is quite appropriate
I buy devices on what I need. That's why I don't have an iPad. Unlike you, I can see that people who buy one are doing so because it meets their needs not mine. Geeks like you fail to understand that you do not represent everyone. You represent yourself. Apple's success must be so disconcerting to your world view. That's why Apple's success must be solely attributed to marketing. Otherwise you might have to admit that you don't understand people.
Your entire problem is that you can't understand that some people don't want a laptop. If they wanted one, they would have bought one. All you see is the technical capabilities and think that is the entire sum of a user needs. You're not thinking about what users want in terms of user experience. Technically if I want to drive 500 miles a 1978 beat-up truck will get me there. I will enjoy the trip more in a new luxury sedan. Buy you would quip about how I can't haul a stack of wood with my luxury sedan and not understand why I didn't buy truck.
I'm sorry but here we use Metric measurements. Lets assume 2KG, if you have a problem lifting 2KG spend that A$700 on a gym membership and plenty of 13" laptops come in at under 2 KG. Most netbooks come in at under 1 KG.
I'm sorry here we accurately convert measurements. It takes like a second to look up Google that 1.5 lbs = 0.68 kg and Google is free. The problem with netbooks is that they are essentially a smaller laptop. There are cheap ones. There are light ones around 0.68kg. But few of them are both.
Plus they will have a keyboard, not require a separate machine for activation, loading music, not tie you into Apple's distribution channels, have networkable storage (using CIFS and NFS) as well as being completely interoperable with all your other kit. Oh and can be used in any type of secure business enviroment. Because the Ipad does none of the above.
Again, do you not understand the concept of "purpose"? Apple didn't design the iPad to be a replacement for any netbook or laptop. And people do not buy it because they wanted a laptop. Before if people wanted a portable device to read email, play music and surf the web, the only choices they had were laptops or netbooks. Now they can get something optimized for those purposes not a general device.
As for being a tablet, the Ipad is a complete failure because it cannot interoperate with other devices (mass storage) or other networks (join domains, network protocols like CIFS), everything requires a separate machine with Itunes so it cant be shared around (back to mass storage). Either the entire tablet fad will blow over or the Ipad will be killed by more functional Android or even WebOS tablets (as unlikely as it is for WebOS to get off the ground) which may even offer such functionality as joining a domain, connecting directly to a projector or becoming an input device for laptops and desktops.
Tablets have been around a long time but have been less than successful in the market place. Care to guess why? While they might do more than the iPad, they sure cost more. They were basically a desktop shoved into a small form factor with little thought that a user might need a different UI concept. I am interested how Android and WebOS will enter the market and they are more solutions to the same problem that tablets have failed to address.