Apple Special Event: All The News
Once again Steve Jobs was present to unveil some new products for the Apple family. It seems that this time every year a major iPod update is announced but as many wrongly predicted, no iPhone or VideoiPod -– like the former is ever going to happen anyway.
The event was a little smaller than last year with around 400 people in attendance, whether this was down to lack of interest (I doubt it) or purely through lack of seats, I’m unsure.
Facts
First on the agenda was the facts and figures that would surely make even the smallest of updates seem interesting later on at the conference. As many are aware, iPod car connectivity is becoming a standard in many newly designed cars these days and according to Apple, almost 70% of cars manufactured in 2007 will feature iPod car connectivity. So for those who are interested, perhaps it’s best to put off buying a brand new motor until next year sometime.
More facts that should impress a large variety of sports fanatics out there is the Nike + iPod sports kits. According to Foot Locker, who were “blown away” by sales, over 450,000 kits were sold within 90 days. Quite an impressive feat.
I do like how Apple stages these events actually. It seems that they start it off with something rather mundane and uninteresting to most, usually a hoard of facts and figures that they are quite obviously (and understandably) impressed with, to minor updates on products currently released followed swiftly by something to blow your socks off. This year was certainly no exception.
iPod Update
For those of you who’ve literally just purchased an iPod in the past few days, or even hours, how I feel sorry for you. Apple have updated, with immediate effect, their iPod range to include brighter screens, 3.5 hours battery life whilst watching videos, gapless playback and remarkably, new headphones. Whether the headphones have increased performance I’m unsure, but the shape has apparently changed. iPod fanatics will also be pleased to know that the new models feature instant searching, similar to OS X’s spotlight.
For those that love games, such as Texas Holden, Mini Golf, PacMac and the ever popular Tetris, be prepared to see these little beauties available on the iTunes music store to be played on the new iPods. Each game is priced at a fairly reasonable $4.99 a piece.
New image on Apple website showing a colour version of Tetris on the ever popular iPod
At this point, Apple also introduced a much much larger iPod with an incredible 80GB hard-drive tucked up inside. It ships today and can apparently hold over 20,000 songs. I don’t even know of 20,000 songs personally!
iPod Nano Update
The new iPod Nanos are upon us and shinier than ever. After seeing a huge success in the multi-coloured and seriously missed iPod Mini, Apple have introduced a thinner Nano, constructed from aluminium and now available in a variety of colours (blue, pink, green, silver and black). The updated Nanos now feature a whopping but some-what normal (for other MP3 players) 24 hours battery life, something that will surely annoy critics – they’ll have to find something else to moan about now.
iPod Nano now in a variety of colours
The new Nano now ships in three formats, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB and in all the colours mentioned above. However, the 8GB Nano will only be available in Black. I think Apple are making their highest end products in black now to make them stand out a little from the rest.
Trying to keep up with saving the environment, something that Apple have been criticized for in the past, they are shipping the new Nanos in much smaller packages which will apparently result in 52% less volume and thus reducing the amount of fuell burned to ship the devices. The small things do count I suppose.
On of the first things I quibbled about when my cousin received his iPod Nano last year was the size of the charger, it hadn’t changed at all and didn’t complement the Nano’s lusciously tiny looks. That’s all changed now, however, as Apple today announced a much more compact charger, 40% smaller than it’s predecessor.
iPod Shuffle
Yes, that little rascal is still doing its rounds in the iPod family for the time being. Some have asked for it to be scrapped with the release of the Nano, but Apple clearly has a soft spot for it. The Shuffle, following suit of the Nano, is now to be shipped in an aluminium casing with a clip and on/off buttons firmly attached.
iPod Shuffle - “smallest MP3 Player in the world”
Steve Jobs claims this to be the smallest MP3 player currently in the world, something to boast about I suppose. The Shuffle will now be shipped with a tiny dock that will work with both Macs and PC’s, feature the insanely loved ‘click-wheel’ and come in 1GB only.
See close up
iTunes 7 and Disney Films
Apple quickly jumped back upon the ‘facts and figures’ bandwagon by informing us humble consumers that iTunes now has around 88% market share for legal downloads in the United States with over 1.5 billion songs being purchased. iTunes hopes to jump from 5th to 4th spot next year by replacing Amazon in the ranks of the largest legal reseller of music in the U.S. For those of us outside of America, you’ll find Apple still holds number one spot in over 21 countries. If you can just think about that for one moment, you’ll realise just how impressive that is.
After the facts, Apple quickly launched into a couple of new features of the iTunes 7 software, including:
Album Cover Flow – which automatically locates album art for missing album art provided you have an iTunes account
Source List now includes library for all media including the store and other attached devices having their own section.
You’ll also be able to transfer songs to and from PC’s and Macs using the iPod as the medium – something to cheer up those who want their music collection on more than one computer with ease.
Now for the big one. Remember those rumours about movies being available for download and allowing video content on your Mac being transferred wirelessly to your TV?
Apple announced, finally, the introduction of full length near DVD-quality movies on the newly named iTunes Store. Films will be available in a resolution of 680 x 480 (TV shows included) and on a DSL or Cable line of around 5 to 6MB will take roughly 30 minutes to download. However, movies can be watched whilst downloaded using the new download manager.
The pricing and availability? Pre-ordered movies (which will be available for download at the same time DVD’s are released) will cost $12.99 thereafter costing $14.99 for new releases. However, older films (I’m assuming) will cost $9.99. At present, only 75 Disney films will be available to download, including Pirates of the Caribbean and Cars. Unfortunately for those of us outside the U.S, we’ll have to wait until next year before Apple announce movie downloads internationally.
One More Thing
To coincide with movie download service, Apple are introducing a fantastic new piece of hard-ware, half the size of the Mac Mini, that will allow users to watch content from their Mac or PC’s on their TV’s. Using the Apple Remote and Front Row, you’ll now be able to easily connect this box to your T.V and have it wireless receiving signals from your Mac – all for $299. Apple haven’t yet mentioned anything regarding TV tuning and with the name ‘iTV’, I can only assume they’ll shortly be getting letters from the U.K TV Broadcaster ITV demanding a swift name-change.
Apple’s iTV - wirelessly watch content from your Mac on your TV
www.engadget.com
All in all, the long-standing rumours were once again thrown in everyone’s face, much to my enjoyment, but the products and services Apple have unveiled today don’t really excite me much, possibly because I’m a U.K consumer.
What are your thoughts?
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Comments
Most of yesterday’s announcements were top notch to me. I was waiting forever to upgrade my iPod, now I can get 80GB at a good price, and a sweet Shuffle to go along with it. The new Nano is also cool, doesn’t suit me though.
iTunes 7 takes care of a lot of complaints, very well.
iTV shows Apple is thinking straightforward regarding the digital hub. No expensive & noisy mediacenter in the livingroom. No messing with the format war regarding HDDVD vs. BR. The Mac stays at the center. Good connectivity too. I think I will get one, even if I do not intend to buy movies off iTunes at the moment. It’ll be cool for trailers, music, photos.
... so movies… 640x480 is a nice improvement for shows, no doubt about that. For movies it seems a little lackluster. Same for dolby surround (assuming it really does mean dolby surround, which is basically stereo, and NOT dolby digital 5.1). I do believe these limitations are due to the bandwidth issues in the US. Plus I am very sure studios have their thumb on HD as long as the iTV is not out, offering HDMI encription. I would assume these things will change, and sooner or later we will see 720p with 5.1 audio from iTunes, and hopefully some rental model as well.
All in all I am very pleased with the announcements. There is nothing to really complain about. Too bad there was no iPhone though
I’m most impressed with the degree to which Apple appears to have considered people’s requests with this update. They have really focused on the most often-cited criticisms - gapless playback being the one I read and hear all the time, and battery life. Also, how surprising to have a product preview! Especially about such an unusual product!
Both these points also being most out of character for apple…
PS Not convinced about the new shuffle. I suppose it won’t scratch as much as the previous one. But the pictures look… well… the colours make me feel positively ill.
*noto convinced about the new NANO. *love* the new shuffle!
Well, what is there to say? First up, I love my Mac, love OS X and Apple’s stuff in general. Today’s ‘improvements’ include finally giving the iPod the ability to play songs without a gap between them?!? Like a £20 CD player can! That’s not a new feature, that’s a missing prerequisite!
The new nanos look nasty (at least in the images provided), but the Shuffle looks cool.
As for the ‘iTV,’ isn’t that simply an Airport for video? And how good are those 640x480 TV quality broadcasts going to look on a 47” HDTV?
I also worry about the quality of the kit in the UK. PAL broadcasts at 576 lines, not 480 like NTSC. That video footage is going to look pretty crappy on anything except a tube TV. Think how poor a DVD looks on a 20” Cinema Display at full screen… then drop the res. of the image and increase the size of the screen…
My rundown:
iTunes 7 - overall some nice improvements with organization and interface. The way it works with the iPod is much improved, as is video implementation. The bump from 320x240 to 640x480 with videos in the Store is one those “it’s about time” things.
iPod 1.2 - if you haven’t already upgraded, you get every feature now available in the 80GB except search and the brigher screen (or the capacity, obviously). But, ironically, I used the new brightness setting to DIM my backlight to save battery life.
iPod Nano/Shuffle - meh. I liked the design of the 1G Nano better. And Shuffle has never appealed to me in any way. At least I can now tell the difference between the Shuffle and the Front Row Remote.
iTV - the most interesting, and only really NEW product, was the one that isn’t available yet of course. It’s a great idea and a nice form factor, but with Apple supposedly on the forefront of HD technology, I hope they allow for HD resolution video and not just up-rezzed 640x480 from iTunes. Otherwise, it’s nice but a step behind when the world will soon be moving to HD-DVD and Blu-ray.
As for the ‘iTV,’ isn’t that simply an Airport for video? And how good are those 640x480 TV quality broadcasts going to look on a 47” HDTV? -evilcat
640x480 resolution is meant for a progressive vertical scanning. To translate that to NTSC and PAL interlaced horizontal scanning, some digital magic has to be performed for both’s native scan lines.
BTW, PAL has 625 total lines scanned in 15.625kHz (50/2*625) and NTSC has 525 total lines scanned in 15.75kHz (60/2*525). As you can observe, neither NTSC nor PAL can fit any of the SD or HD resolutions, but they are close. Remember 480p is the lowest HD-quality res in the standard.
As for your question re:iTV to 47” HD. Well, how does your regular SD TV look on your 47” HD? It will be close if not better since it is natively encoded as progressive (480p?).
BTW, PAL has 625 total lines scanned in 15.625kHz ...
Whoops, yep, I was thinking of DVD resolutions
Remember 480p is the lowest HD-quality res in the standard.
In Europe it’s 720p to be classed as HD.
As for your question re:iTV to 47” HD. Well, how does your regular SD TV look on your 47” HD? It will be close if not better since it is natively encoded as progressive (480p?).
Well, here in Europe they introduced 16:9 TV long before HD… about 10 years ago, in fact. So our std res has been a lot higher for a while. My American in-laws, meanwhile, have a satellite system which broadcasts movies letterboxed rather than anamorphic even though their TV is widescreen. I can see why the iPod/iTV resolutions don’t seem so bad to the US audience, but for us it’s pretty poor.
And poor is how that res looks stretched!
I also wonder if the studios will go to the effort of encoding movies from a progressive source. DVDs are not progressive, and neither are the majority of sources used as their masters. I hope Apple et al don’t simply do a conversion…
And I also wonder if they will be letterboxed, anamorphic or pan’n'scan?
$300 just seems a lot of cash for what they’re offering.
Not that we really have any details
I think the interesting thing here is not what it has, but what it doesn’t have. It iTV doesn’t have a TV tuner, which means it isn’t a DVR (as everyone was expecting any Apple set-top box to be), which means that Apple might be betting the farm on video on demand, and betting that broadcast TV is basically dead.
well, the itv has HDMI, so that means that Apple is thinking for the future in mind with the HD resolutions, although that would depend on storage space I suppose as a device like the iTV isn’t meant for streaming video from the net (not that you could really pull off HD resolutions atm over the net).
I would figure that with a device like the iTV, it might be possible to see a day in the future where you could watch tv shows on demand for free where you’re forced to watch ads, be they mass market or targeted, not unlike how the networks are doing it with the flash video offered on their websites.
I’m reluctant to pay 300-350 for a device that would only play content that I have to pay as much as I would for a DVD except without the special features and portability of the medium. Plus, with a device like this you would be able to know exactly how many people are watching your show, unlike the lackluster ratings system we have now.
Personally, I view tv differently than I do movies and music. The latter two the customer is used to paying for and owning the content. The former is a commodity which has typically fallen out of favor after it goes off the air, never to be seen again unless in syndication.
If Apple were able to somehow pull off some sort of a coup where all of the networks gave away their shows so long as you watched the ads (perhaps have some sort of option to buy so that the ads no longer play) they would attract a much larger audience to a device like this, as it could become the tivo for the masses where you don’t need cable anymore.
Of course, the networks would never do that because then you won’t need cable anymore, thus destroying the traditional markets and ushering in the era of ‘tv is dead’. Something like this will take the market a fair amount of time to adapt, but once the ISPs boost up their service and all tv broadcasts are digital, it will be devices like this that will make such transitions possible, and in the mean time, shows like Ask a Ninja, MacBreak, Cranky Geeks and The 1-Up Show might see new competition as more content producers make the leap to the internet, away from traditional distribution.
If podcast subscriptions through iTunes go up into the millions for individual shows, perhaps the media conglomerates will take notice then. Until that point, I’m sure they don’t want to kill the golden egg that is season box sets of tv shows. I think they could make a lot more off of say the George Reeves Superman show off of ads than by selling the dvd, if people were willing to watch it and could at a decent quality for free, legally and without having to go looking all over the place for it (one of the great things about iTunes).
Anyways, I’m going on for way too long and it’s way too early in the morning, so I’ll just end it here. Future is bright…
I’m reluctant to pay 300-350 for a device that would only play content that I have to pay as much as I would for a DVD except without the special features and portability of the medium.
And the iTV doesn’t play anything anyway. It is basically a wireless device to stream content from your Mac or PC to your TV. And that’s it. It doesn’t do anything else. No storage or anything like that.
I just heard about an almost identical device that will sell for about $50. The caveat is that it only works across the room, but it doesn’t seem like it would take much to add wi-fi or full compatibility with WMC (since iTunes would probably be out of the question).
And the iTV doesn’t play anything anyway. It is basically a wireless device to stream content from your Mac or PC to your TV. And that’s it. It doesn’t do anything else.
I don’t know what you mean by “doesn’t play anything”, but since it has an HDMI connector, it probably contains a very considerable amount of processing power in order 1. to decode full-HD movies in real time and/or 2. to up-scale content to HD resolutions. That is, the “playing” will not take place on the computer, which merely supplies the encoded media stream, but on the iTV, which receives the stream, prob via 802.11n, decodes it, and displays it on the TV.
Upscaling DVD players, which do not have to cope with the much higher processing demands of h.264-encoded HD streams, generally sell for ~£100 and higher in Britain.
It makes sense to me to sell a more future-proof iTV that has capabilities which considering today’s downloads’ standards seem overkill, but when the resolution of downloads inevitably increases, people won’t have to throw theirs away and buy a new version.
If the iTV doesn’t have true-HD capabilities, then I agree, the quoted price is much too high.