Apple News Roundup |
Wednesday, 2010 September 1 - 4:03 pm |
From today's event (streamed live on apple.com; the streaming held up pretty well, with only a few blackouts): - New iOS versions announced (4.1 now, 4.2 in November)
- All-new iPod lineup (except the Classic)
- iTunes 10 with “Ping” (social networking for music)
- New $99 streaming-only, rentals-only AppleTV with cheaper TV content
Full details after the jump.
Apple Store Update - There are now 300 Apple Stores in 10 countries
- On some days, Apple Stores get more than 1 million visitors
- 80,000 One to One classes per week
- 50% Mac purchasers are first-time Mac buyers
iOS Updates - News:
- There have been 120 million iOS devices sold
- There are 230,000 new iOS activations per day. (Hey Android: this does not include upgrades, mmkay?)
- There have been 6.5 billion apps downloaded from the app store. 200 apps are being downloaded per second.
- iOS 4.1
- Bugs fixed: proximity sensor, bluetooth, iPhone 3G performance
- HDR photography (very cool!)
- Ability to upload HD video over wifi
- TV Show Rentals
- Game Center: play games with friends online. Steve: “If you don't have any friends, it will auto-match you.” New game from Epic Games, “Project Sword”, uses the Unreal engine; looks pretty stunning.
- iOS 4.2
- For iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch (finally updates iPad to iOS 4)
- Wireless printing
- AirPlay: stream audio, video, photos over WiFi (... to new AppleTV, below)
- Coming in November
iPod - There have been 275 million iPods sold
- All new iPods across the board - all available next week
- Shuffle
- New model brings back the buttons; keeps voiceover and playlists
- It's very tiny, not much bigger than a quarter
- 15 hour battery; 5 colors; $49 for 2GB.
- Nano
- New multi-touch interface; no more click wheel.
- Use two-finger gesture to rotate the screen (no orientation sensor)
- Made to look like it runs iOS (but does it?)
- Half the size of the previous generation nano; includes a clip attachment (“no more armbands&rdquo); still has a dock interface, though.
- VoiceOver, FM radio, Nike+
- Shows photos (but no longer has a camera, so it no longer takes pictures or records video)
- 24 hour battery; 6 colors; $149 for 8GB, $179 for 16GB.
- Touch
- The iPod Touch has become the most popular iPod (no surprise there)
- It's also the number 1 portable game player in the world, outselling Nintendo and Sony combined (now that is surprising)
- New model is thinner; has the iPhone 4 Retina Display; uses the Apple A4 Chip; includes a gyroscope; has a front-facing camera and FaceTime video conferencing; also has rear camera with HD video recording. (Interesting thought about FaceTime: you can make video calls to iPod Touch and iPhone 4 users without any wireless carriers; all you need is a WiFi connection. Is this a potential attack on wireless carriers?)
- 40 hour battery (if listening to music); 8GB for $229, 32GB for $299, 64GB for $399.
- The iPod Classic was not mentioned. It's still available at the Apple Store... for now.
iTunes - 11.7 billion songs downloaded, 450 million TV episodes, 100 million movies, 35 million books
- There are 160 million iTunes accounts... with credit card numbers attached to them
- iTunes 10
- New application icon… no more CD. (Different than the existing iTunes icon on the iPhone too.)
- New social networking for iTunes: “Ping&rdquo.
- (Looks like a direct assault on MySpace, not Facebook... this is crying out for a Facebook integration app, thogh.)
- Can generate custom Top 10 lists from people you follow.
- “Privacy is super simple to set up” (o hai Facebook)
- Works on iTunes 10, and also on iPhone, and iPod Touch. (Presumably on the iPad with iOS 4.2.)
- Available today
One More Thing Hobby: AppleTV - What do people want?
- Want Hollywood movies and TV shows, not “amateur hour” (ahem YouTube)
- Want HD
- Want lower prices
- Don't want a computer on their TV
- Don't want to manage storage
- Don't want to sync to a computer
- Want a device that's silent, cool, and small
- New AppleTV box is one quarter the size of the previous model! And, it's black.
- No external power supply. Ports: AC power, HDMI, optical audio, USB (debug only?), ethernet. Also has WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n.
- Same Apple remote as before.
- All HD (720p, according to specs), all rentals; no storage or syncing (all streaming). (You can still buy movies on your computer, but you stream them from there to the AppleTV.)
- $4.99 first run HD movies
- $0.99 HD TV show rentals (commercial free); ABC and Fox so far
- Netflix streaming (“by far the best implementation of NetFlix&rdquo); YouTube; flickr; MobileMe; streaming from computer. (No Hulu or Boxee.)
- RottenTomatoes reviews built in to movie descriptions
- Stream from iPad or other iOS device to AppleTV, wirelessly, via AirTunes. Easy zero-configuration setup.
- Apple A4 processor. (Probably running iOS, but no ability to run apps yet.)
- $99. Available in 4 weeks.
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Posted by Ken in: techwatch |