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External Mic Makes New Apple Headphones Interesting

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I was immediately intrigued by the new headphones announced at Tuesday’s “big event” in San Francisco. Initially, I was excited by the prospect of the new “in-ear” style that will retail for $79 when they begin shipping next month. I have always found the ear buds on Apple headphones quite uncomfortable, especially for wearing an extended amount of time. The new “in-ear” style seems promising, since they will feature separate woofer and tweeter drivers, which should make for a higher-fidelity listening experience than is available with the standard headphones.

The remote play/pause/skip and volume control available on these new optional accessories (a lower-fidelity version with standard ear buds, available now, sells for $29) is another handy feature, but possibly the most interesting development, which Steve Jobs and many analysts either glossed over or failed to mention entirely, lies in their built-in microphone. At yesterday’s keynote Jobs mentioned in passing that the headset mic will enable voice note recording with the new iPod Nano, which is certainly a value add to that device. But a check of the headphones’ specs on the Apple website indicates they are supported by the iPod Touch and the new 120GB iPod Classic as well.

When I got my first iPod 5 years ago, I longed for a mic/line in so I could record directly to the device and wondered why in the world Apple had passed up the opportunity to produce a cool digital recording device when it was sitting right in front of the design team from the very beginning. Has it finally come to pass?

As usual, the answer is unclear. Comments in a MacRumors forum thread suggest great interest among iPod Touch and iPhone users for the utility of an external microphone, both for the VoIP applications it could enable, as well as for the music recording possibilities (GarageBand Lite, anyone?) it creates. The company makes no claim these new headphones are supported by the iPhone, although it says that iPhone headsets (which also include an external mic) work with iPods.

Stay tuned: when the new high-end headsets become available I’ll be getting a pair to see if my dream of an Apple digital recorder has indeed come true.

Galllery of Images – iPod Touch 2G Disassembled

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Check out this gallery of images, courtesy of the Apple hardware experts at iFixit, who meticulously recorded their disassembly of the new device yesterday.

Of particular note in the new iPod Touch are the external speaker, support for Bluetooth, and support for an external microphone.

iPod Touch 2G iPod Touch 2G insides iPod Touch 2G battery
iPod Touch 2G logic board with speakeriPod Touch 2G with wi-fi antenna and Broadcom BCM4325 Bluetooth chip. iPod Touch 2G - all the parts

For more images and details on the disassembly see iFixit’s forensic report.

Gallery of Images – iPod Nano 4G Disassembled

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Check out this gallery of images, courtesy of the Apple hardware experts at iFixit, who meticulously recorded their disassembly of the new device yesterday.

Of particular note in this iPod model is the real glass covering the 240×320 resolution LCD screen and the impressive feature set packed in this “thinnest iPod ever.”

Apple's iPod Nano 4G iPod Nano 4G - The thinnest iPod ever, if you happen to have a micrometer handy. Nano 4G insides are difficult to remove from the casing.
Nano 4G's LCD screen has 240 x 320 resolution. Nano 4G's logic board. The main processor appears to be an Apple-branded ARM processor manufactured by Samsung with DRAM on-pack iPod Nano 4G - all the parts.

For more images and details on the disassembled parts, see iFixit’s forensic report.

Consumers: Apple’s secret plan for the enterprise

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The cult of Mac is growing as Apple emerges as the key computer for US consumers, amongst which it is now the fourth-ranked computer manufacturer, according to new research from MetaFacts.

Brand loyalty, the report claims, is at an all-time high with Apple’s chain of retail stores pulling customers through the doors – and selling Macs, MacBooks, MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros in particular, the researchers claim in their latest Apple Profile Report 2008.

It gets better, “Like the camel slipping its nose under the tent, Apple is reaching into American households as the second or third Home PC,” said Dan Ness, Principal Analyst at MetaFacts. “Where Apple shines is
as the third PC, ranking fifth with 8 per cent of third Home PCs, and ranking fourth in notebook PCs, also at 8 per cent of the installed base.”

And whether that Mac is a first, second or third home computer, what households do with their machine is very different. They’re used to make websites, create graphics and “personal activities”, the report explains – probably while the Windows box gets used for checking email, playing games, and cranking up peoples scores in MMORPG games online. Or something.

Mac users are public, too, this report explains. Seems 21 per cent of Macs are used in public – double the public usage of your WIndows machine – and potentially marking Apple’s ascendancy as a laptop maker.

“If you look around at a Starbucks or cybercafé, you might think the whole world’s gone to Apple,”  said Ness, “Mac users are very active and use their notebooks in more locations than Windows notebook users.”

Wait, there’s more – brand loyalty, “More than four in five (81%) of households with  Apple as their primary Home PC plan to buy the same brand – Apple – for their next Home PC,” said Ness.

All this action in the consumer market, is it any surprise that the long tail effect Apple executives hoped for four or five years ago when they began visualising it has now begun taking place?

The company gets put down a lot for not focusing sufficient attention on the enterprise markets. Perhaps it didn’t – once – but for the last few years of Apple market expansion, the company’s executives have known that consumer demand would eventually become an enterprise market driver.

Think about it – do you recall when you moved jobs and were once excited about the technology you got to use because it would be better than what you could afford at home? Nowadays when you start a new job its not uncommon to live in abject fear (OK, slight trepidation) of the dated system you’ll end up working with…it’s not at all uncommon for workplace technology to be less advanced than the tech company workers have at home.

And as Apple’s consumer market share grows, so too does the demand made on enterprises to offer workers the equipment they are already familiar with.

And that’s the long tail Apple execs set in motion with the iMac in 1998.

Snippets for 2008-09-10

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  • CG: Genius sidebar could not find matches for your specific selection, but here are the Top Songs and Albums in the iTunes Store. *sigh* #

A Better Alternative To iTunes’ Genius Suggestion Engine: Tangerine!

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Genius certainly is a nifty little sidebar to your iTunes collection. After it’s collected every scrap of information about your library and sent it through the Apple ultra-computer you can select any song in your library and create an instant playlist from it. Oh, except for all the songs that aren’t in Apple’s iTMS database.

Since Genius bases all of its playlist making decisions off of the iTunes Music Store users’ hive-mind, it can’t make decisions about songs that aren’t in its database, or songs that no one has bought. That means no Beatles, no live recordings, no transferred vinyl and no public domain digitized cylinders.

Enter Tangerine!

Tangerine! figures out what songs go well together by actually listening to the song itself. After analyzing your digital library (about as long as Genius’s initial setup time) Tangerine! finds the beats per minute and the “beat intensity” of all of your music, after which you can generate loads of interesting playlists. Most important, you don’t just click a button and hope the computer knows how to crescendo, climax and lend some sort of feeling to the music, you can select different patterns of intensities to suit your mood.

Tangerine! also allows you to select more precise or longer playlist times than Genius. You can limit the playlist in the same ways as you would limit a Smart Playlist in iTunes – by genre, artist, etc. – and you can select a range of BPMs and beat intensities that your playlist should stay within. You can export playlists Tangerine! makes to iTunes, and if you buy Tangerine! ($25) you can export those handy BPMs to iTunes to give other playlist makers a leg up.

Tangerine!’s biggest problem: it’s a standalone application. It also requires that you leave iTunes open while it’s analyzing your music.

But those are small costs to the benefits of creating a great playlist on the fly and really understanding where it came from. After reviewing the main features and strengths of Tangerine! it becomes obvious that Genius is underpowered. Genius leaves you wondering how it made this playlist instead of giving you any type of control or understanding of how it picked it. Genius imposes the Apple hive-mind on your music more than any other product they’ve made so far.

I think it’s sad that Apple is under the impression that people want a sidebar application that does all the creative work for you, requires no real input, and generates playlists based on nothing but “what everybody else wants”. Sure you can base creative works off of the statistics in your boring grey database, but I think knowing where something came from, and understanding how to affect and change it gives it part its value.

Apple Makes Good on Green Promises

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Among the little-noticed aspects of Steve Job’s “big event” in San Francisco yesterday, Apple’s “greening” of the iPod line may have the most far-reaching effect on its business and on the technology industry in general. Electronics companies have been long derided by environmentalists for using toxic chemicals and materials and Jobs made a public promise to phase out PVC and BFRs from all of its products by the end of 2008.

Today, Greenpeace, a leading environmental advocacy organization is congratulating Apple for leading the electronics industry toward a more earth-friendly future. “Greenpeace congratulates Apple for phasing out harmful chemicals in its new, much greener iPods,” said Greenpeace International campaigner Casey Harrell. “It shows – once again – that there is absolutely no reason why a high-performing electronics product needs to be toxic in order to be popular, effective and affordable – these are the cheapest iPods yet,” Harrell also explained.

The new line of iPods announced yesterday are all free of terribly toxic chemicals such as PVC, BFRs, mercury and use arsenic-free glass. Greenpeace acknowledged the upgrades indicate Apple is serious about meeting the commitments of its environmental policies, but also urged the company not to become complacent.

“We hope that this is only a teaser of what is to come with all future product announcements, from iPhones to Macs,” said Harrell, adding, “What we’d really like for Christmas is to see Apple remove toxic chemicals from all its products, and announce a free, global recycling scheme. Now, that would make a very tasty green Apple indeed!”

Via MacWorld

Lisa Works at a Design Shop in Denver

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Owner and founder of the Denver graphic design studio Matter, Rick Griffith loves all things Apple. He and his crew use the latest Macs among other gear to do their innovative work. They also love vintage technology and on a recent trip to Denver, my visit to the Matter command center unearthed a pristine Lisa in the wild, which we share with you here.

Bonus points if you can identify what she’s sitting on.

You spin me right round, Apple

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After yesterday’s announcements from Apple, there followed the usual flurry of reactions from various analysts and journalists. This was swiftly followed by a reaction to the reaction, with some parties suggesting that negative grumbling regarding Let’s Rock was somehow unfair on Apple, and that expectations had once again been driven by a hype machine and rumor mill on overdrive.

Some of the negative vibes yesterday no doubt arrived from the much-reported ‘fact’ that Apple actively urged journos to cover the event, claiming it would be a “big deal”. Clearly, there’s some truth in the possibility said ‘fact’ might be a big fat fib. However, does that make the cynical, dismissive and unenthusiastic response to Apple’s event null and void? Put simply, are we, as writers and commentators on Apple and its output, being too hard on Steve and co.?

‘No’ and ‘no’ are my answers to those questions, and for three reasons. First and foremost, Apple is an innovator. And while the company clearly isn’t going to reveal an iPhone at every event, that doesn’t mean we should ever expect run-of-the-mill. The day that happens, Apple is doomed and may as well sell to Dell.

Secondly, iPod has been the line that’s made Apple the powerhouse it is today. As Pete noted,  indication that Apple’s fed-up with the media player business or unable to innovate means others are going to start playing catch-up. I can’t have been the only person to see the new nano and think ‘Zune’, and that’s a dangerous position for Apple to be in.

Thirdly, we have to remember that Apple is the one that, to some extent, drives the hype. There were the huge posters, in-your-face security, and ubiqutious secrecy. For relatively minor updates to its product line, Apple could have put out some press releases. Instead, it invited the world to watch and listen while Steve Jobs paraded his company’s products on stage to much fanfare. So, sure, the rumor mill might be a snowball gathering speed down a shockingly steep hill (before it hits us squarely in the face with a wet splat), but remember that Apple’s the one that starts the ball rolling.

‘Let’s Rock’ Paints Picture of iPod Family as Afterthought

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In the week since Apple announced its “Let’s Rock” event, the organization’s spokespeople have assured all observers that this would be a really critical launch, with bigger news than just a refresh of the iPod product family.

Well, apparently Apple and I have very different definitions of “big news.” Because all the organization delivered was more of the same:

  • An iPod touch that looks more like the iPhone 3G, but loses the black aluminum border that gave the device its own distinctive personality. But hey, price cuts and built-in Nike+ support! (no word on iPhone support, however)
  • An iPod nano that looks more like the nano 2G than its predecessor, adds a few new colors and awkwardly tries to implement the UI from the touch and iPhone. Oh, and you can shake it to shuffle.
  • An iPod classic that literally makes no changes other than bumping the hard drive capacity and cutting the high-end model. It now costs exactly the same as the high-end Zune, and has the same hard drive capacity.
  • A new revision of iTunes with smarter automatic playlist generation, HD TV show downloads, and the return of NBC/Universal programs
  • Bug fixes for the iPhone.
  • And two lame songs from Jack Johnson. That’s it.

The business sense side of me is saying that Apple has another winner. The designer side of my brain really likes the subtle changes that Apple’s design team has brought to the the product line (except for the ugly iPod classic — hate the use of aluminum there). But the Apple fanatic in me can’t help but me incredibly disappointed by this morning’s activity.

Just how perfunctory was this round of updates? Consider this: The event has been done for 30 minutes, all the new models are available for purchase on the Apple Store, and Apple still hasn’t updated its own website to announce the product launches (EDIT: It went up as I finished typing. STILL). Apple has never gone this long without getting its main site up-to-date.

Now, none of us should be surprised by any of this; after the launch of iPhone 3G, AppStore, and the fiasco called MobileMe, it’s little surprise that Apple hasn’t been able to devote many resources to doing more than making slightly curvier cases for the iPod line. But Apple has trained us to expect the best, particularly when they say it’s really time to pay attention. Today, it completely missed the mark. I can’t recall an Apple launch event this underwhelming since the launch of the iPod HiFi and iPod socks. It’s this year’s model, and nothing more. It’s the entire iPod product line as afterthought to the iPhone.

And that’s not good. The iPod family is Apple’s highest-revenue business, and any indication that the company is bored with the media player business or unable to innovate beyond bringing iPhone features to iPods is going to mean a rough time in the market. It’s certainly not impossible to do so, Apple’s just in an unfortunate liminal space between the launch of a new business and the adaptation of another. The new nanos, in particular, felt oddly anacronistic. Why go to all that trouble to design such a wildly different case for this revision and then still use the same old clickwheel? Why, in the name of all that is holy, would you copy the horizontal interface on the right, screen on the left interaction found on the flash-based Zune? Why launch nine, count them, nine new colors in a single day when this is a clear incremental upgrade while the company works on a touchscreen nano for the near future?

Honestly, the biggest news today is that the iPod touch has dropped in price by $70 and has external volume controls.  It’s the future of the product line, and Apple needs to drive its adoption rapidly while the pre-2007 iPod outlook gradually ramps down.

In the mean time, I sincerely hope that we’ll see new Mac announcements on a not-too-distant Tuesday. The entire product line is just begging for processor upgrades, and they’ve been suffering while Apple has put so much attention on the iPhone this year. Not to mention which, it’s high time that Apple brought out a true Home Theater Mac for the living room — AppleTV and Mac mini aren’t cutting it.

Music to no-one’s ears: when an Apple event really doesn’t rock

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One thing stuck out about the build-up to Let’s Rock. It wasn’t the hype, nor people expecting the absurd (such as an all-powerful unlocked 128 GB iPhone for about $5), but Apple actively encouraging the media to attend. The event, we were told, would be a ‘big deal’. As it turns out, even fairly modest expectations were barely met, and I think it’s pretty safe to say most people left distinctly underwhelmed.

iTunes was first up, with Jobs routinely talking shop (lots of songs, lost of podcasts, and lots of NBC, who came crawling back to a distinct lack of rapturous applause). The app itself is now at version 8, but with seemingly few major changes: there’s a grid view, a Genius playlist that makes me think Apple’s been getting all jealous of last.fm, and iPhoto-style scrubbing over artists, but that’s about it.

The iPod classic’s clearly loved about as much as the Mac mini. This icon of Apple’s resurgence over recent years was pretty much dismissed, and the line knifed to a single model, 120 GB. 30,000 tracks fit on it, apparently, but that’s 10,000 fewer than on the 160 GB version that’s now like the dodo.

Things were better in the realm of the nano, even if the rumor mill had revealed most of the details. The new model resembles the second-gen model, but has a raft of new features, including voice recording, an accelerometer, and the amusing ‘shake to shuffle’ feature. The rainbow colors are arresting and presumably caught rivals out, who’ve largely been following Apple into muted-color-land.

As for the iPod touch, it got the predicted price-drop, weight-loss, volume control and speaker, along with a tag-line to make English teachers wince (“The funnest iPod ever”). New games were also on show, with Real Soccer 2009 rather depressingly dumping a D-pad and buttons on the screen, cunningly making it so players obscure the screen while playing. Woo. (How I wish the Belkin rumor hadn’t turned out to be a hoax…)

So, yeah, I’m rather wishing I’d spent the past hour doing something a little more productive and exciting, like fashioning a lint ball from my office’s windowsill that really needs dusting.

I know, I know—I’m usually the first to complain about people getting all pissed with Apple events letting them down. However, this time Apple was the one telling us we were going to see something big, when all we got were skinny things we already knew about anyway.

Let’s Rock with Cult of Mac

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Via our Twitter stream, we ran ongoing commentary on Apple’s Let’s Rock shenanigans. Below is a (somewhat) edited tweet-style stream-of-consciousness from the event.

iTunes store

  • 8.5m+ songs, 125k+ podcasts, 30k+ TV shows, 3000+ apps
  • New today: HD TV shows, and NBC has returned
  • SD shows: $1.99. HD: $2.99

iTunes 8

  • Grid view, as per the rumors. Can set by artist and scrub across them like a photo album in iPhoto
  • Genius “Automatically makes playlists from songs in your library that go great together—with just one click”.
  • Genius information sent anonymously. Click a button to get a playlist. Restrict by track number.
  • Available today

iPod sales and iPod classic

  • Zzzzingg! Jobs dissed everyone else’s player market share. iPod: 73.4%. Microsoft: 2.6%.
  • iPod Classic: 80 GB upped to 120 GB. 160 GB discontinued.

New iPod nano

  • Form factor as per rumors: skinny, tall, like the gen-2 nano, really thin.
  • Push-hold center button for Genius playlist creation.
  • Voice recording from attached mics.
  • New UI.
  • Photos/vids in landscape mode.
  • Accelerometer. Rotate 90 degrees to get Cover Flow, like with the iPhone.
  • Shake to shuffle.
  • Battery: 24 hours for music and four hours for video.
  • $199 for 16 GB, $149 for 8GB. Bright rainbow colors in addition to aluminium.

Accessories

  • New accessories: headphones and armbands, a mic for voice recording, and in-ear headphones.

iPod touch revamp, iPhone and App Store

  • Thinner, with integrated volume control and speaker.
  • Genius playlist creation.
  • Built-in Nike+iPod – just add a shoe transmitter.
  • App Store: 100 million downloads in 60 days. Available in 62 countries.
  • Spore Origins, Real Soccer 2009 and Need For Speed: Undercover demoed.
  • iPod touch battery life: 36 hours for music, six for video.
  • New prices: 8 GB: $229, 16 GB: $299, 32GB: $399.
  • New firmware, free to 2.0 owners.
  • “Funnest iPod ever” strapline for the new ad.
  • iPhone owners to get 2.1 bug-fix—better battery life, less crashing, fewer gremlins, speedier back-ups. Free on Friday.

Steve Jobs Looks Healthy and Spry at “Let’s Rock” Event

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Steve Jobs took the stage this morning for Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event, bounding into the lights like a rock star himself. My grandmother would say he looked svelte, but most importantly, he seemed energetic and strong.

We’ll be back later in the day with a full reaction and analysis of Apple’s news, but the big news is Steve looks ready to keep on truckin’.

First impressions: BBEdit 9 versus Coda 1.5

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It’s the grudge-match of the century (well, of the month… at least if you’re a web designer and are sick of iPod coverage): BBEdit 9, the old warhorse that’s been around for 17 years, versus the young pup from Panic Software, Coda 1.5. I’ve been using both over the past week, and my first impressions are below. Over the next 60, I’ll be using both apps for my web-design workflow (not programming nor copywriting) to see how the new versions measure up in that space and how much they can reduce my reliance on other software. In the meantime, here’s a brief overview, in brand-new, patented “yay” and “yuck” categories…

BBEdit 9

Yay: Non-modal windows for search finally don’t suck( ® etc.), speeding up find and replace massively. Being able to directly edit in results windows is great. Code-folding is now much easier to deal with using the keyboard. Projects work fairly well, providing a rapid way of caning through loads of files when editing. Document stats (live word count, line count and character count) are really good.

Yuck: Text completion just feels wrong: although it’s beneficial to writers as well as coders (due to including words rather than just code), it feels awkward, sluggish and not particularly accurate—it just doesn’t seem to ‘get’ what I want to input. The interface, while better than it was a few versions back, is starting to feel old. The preferences make me want to cry. Speed differences with large files don’t appear pronounced (or, frankly, in existence).

Coda 1.5

Yay: It’s like someone stuck a rocket up Coda’s bottom—the app feels so much faster than version 1.0, which I found borderline unusable. Coda’s speed bump has suddenly made its auto-complete very lovely indeed. The Clips window’s been sorted out, and you can now group clips; with tab triggers, you can easily add huge chunks of code or single elements. Multi-file search and replace is lovely.

Yuck: Still no custom shortcuts for invoking Clips from the keyboard. (C’mon, Panic! This is one area everyone else—even Dreamweaver—runs rings round you.) No code-folding. CSSEdit’s CSS tools still make Coda’s look a bit rubbish.

Overall

I’d rather like someone to smush these two apps together. Either that or improve BBEdit’s text-completion, workflow, and interface, or add to Coda code-folding, and keyboard shortcuts to its clips. Still, here’s to the next two months, where I’ll figure out which one’s really worth your time, web designer chums.

Apple’s “Let’s Rock” Countdown Continues…

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All eyes and ears of the Apple universe are tuned to San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where, in a few hours, Steve Jobs’ “Let’s Rock” event gets underway. Will it be just a music announcement focused on a refresh of the iPod product line and a new version of iTunes with bigger, better bells and whistles? Will Steve Jobs himself – and his state of health – become the story?

Lonnie spoke yesterday about these questions and more with Talking HeadsTV’s Justin Young:

Is Apple’s ONLY Debuting iPods And iTunes At “Let’s Rock?”

Will Steve Jobs’ Appearance Trump Any News At iPod Event?

‘Let’s Rock’: get your pre-event predictions here

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Speculation surrounding this morning’s ‘Let’s Rock’ Apple special event remains intense, with Digg’s Kevin Rose at the center of the vortex of leaked data, or so it seems.

Overnight we’ve picked up a few more details on what to expect, thanks to MacRumors, who tell us that not only will the iPod nano see a shape-shift, returning to the long and thin look of the first two generations, capacity will rise to 16GB.

Apple’s also expected to introduce nine different colours for the nano, adding purple, yellow and orange to the existing pink, silver, black, blue, green and Product (RED).

Less is known of the iPod touch, which is expected to see a price cut to bring it into line with the cost of an iPhone—and seems unlikely to see a capacity increase, MacRumors also claimed – though far less is known of the iPod touch than of the iPod nano upgrade, other than some suspicions that new features could be enabled in future generation devices, cameras or a microphone, for example.

To recap Rose’s claims, Tunes 8 is expected to offer a Grid View, Genius Playlist recommendations, a new Visualizer (based on the Magentosphere visualiser) and support for HD TV show downloads from iTunes, a feature currently only available to the Apple TV.

iPhone and iPod touch users are also hoping for iPhone Firmare 2.1, which it is hoped will introduce true push support for MobileMe, more stability in 3G connectivity and an end to widely-reported cases in which iPhone user’s applications and iPod features become unavailable. iPods of all stripes are anticipated to see price reductions, as Apple grapples to deal with an increasingly saturated music player market.

Analysts, soothsayers and philosophers of all stripes seem to have achieved a consensus decision in recent days that new MacBooks are unlikely to make an appearance at this event. However, Apple’s publicity people have been urging media to attend the show, which implies that all Apple’s secrets aren’t yet out in the open…that the company has also organized a European media event in London boosts such expectation.

Perhaps that one more thing could turn out to be an all-new version of the Apple TV, now equipped with a digital TV receiver, DVD player and larger hard drive? At least one report speculates on such a possibility.

Steve Jobs Treated His Cancer At Veggie Restaurant?

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On Tuesday morning Steve Jobs will take the stage to deliver one of his singular infomercials. He’s expected to introduce a new iPod, but the only thing I care about is how healthy he looks. Sod the iPod, how’s Steve Jobs?

Jobs’ health has been the burning issue surrounding Apple this year. The company is firing on all cylinders (except the odd glitch like MobileMe) but the CEO’s health is an ongoing issue of extreme concern that will not go away. All eyes on Tuesday will be looking to see how healthy Jobs looks –and fingers crossed he’s OK.

After the jump: did Jobs treat his cancer at Greens veggie restaurant in SF?


CC Pic by reinvented

Touchscreen Copy and Paste Was Easy On Newton…

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The most controversial omission of the iPhone’s feature set is its bizarre lack of copy and paste. While anyone who has spent a cursory amount of time trying to figure out the interaction design for multitouch copy and paste using Apple’s guidelines will discover that it’s a little bit harder than it seems.

Even so, it shouldn’t be out of Apple’s depth — they’re kind of the best in the world for interface design. Which is why it should come as no surprise that Apple had touchscreen copy and paste figured out on the Newton 15 years ago, as shown in option8’s video above.

Via BoingBoing

Apple Admits Hardluck Brit is ‘Inventor of iPod’

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Image from Daily Mail 

For years, Apple (and just about every other digital media company in the world) has battled with Burst.com, a Santa Rosa, California company that holds a huge number of broad patents for streaming audio and video over networks. Microsoft settled with Burst three years ago, as have many other players. Apple maintained for years that those patents are too generic to be enforceable, and was especially upset at the notion that anything about the iPod was derived from Burst’s circa 1990 patents.

And after years, the company has proof: a 52-year-old Brit named Kane Kramer who developed a prototype digital music player called IXI in 1979 that could hold up to three-and-a-half minutes of music (no word on whether he advertised it as putting “One song in your pocket). While his invention never made a direct market impact (and his patents expired in the late 1980s), Kramer’s IXI provides clear evidence that the basic concept behind the iPod existed long before Burst ever thought it was a good idea to make money through patent enforcement.

In spite of Apple’s use of Kramer as a witness in its case with Burst, he quite naturally hasn’t been granted a share of its revenues. In fact, he recently had to sell his house and move into a rental. Still, his original sketch isn’t that far off the mark. Kind of hard to believe.

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‘I must admit that at first I thought it was a wind-up by friends. But we spoke for some time, with me still up this ladder slightly bewildered by it all, and she said Apple would like me to come to California to talk to them. ‘Then I had to make a deposition in front of a court stenographer and videographer at a lawyers’ office. The questioning by the Burst legal counsel there was tough, ten hours of it. But I was happy to do it.’ 

Daily Mail via Digg

Greatest Mac Moment #21: iTunes

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25 Years of Mac
This week’s entry in the ‘Greatest Mac Moment’ series caused a bit of debate in our sacred halls.  The contrarians questioned how a piece of software that wasn’t even originally written by Apple could possibly be one of the top 25 of Mac moments ever. Browse the opinions of our staff, and let us know your own!

Pete Mortensen: In many ways, iTunes is the most significant software program ever created by Apple. Without iTunes, there could be no iPod, and without iTunes for Windows, there could be no iPod and iPhone for Windows, which would mean far lower revenues for Apple these days. It showed people that Apple could do more than just make computers, and it opened the company’s first significant new market in years. Without iTunes, there is no third-wave Apple.

On the other hand, iTunes is only really important in retrospect. QuickTime for Windows already existed as a beachhead into the Dark Side for Apple, and MP3 software was widely available and adopted on Macs prior to the release of iTunes (ask any lovers of Audion what they think of iTunes 1 and 2 if you don’t believe me). While it’s clear that Apple had the iPod in mind as it rolled out iTunes, the digital hub strategy was more a hypothesis than a market reality in those days. Though many people credit iTunes for turning iPod into the cultural sensation that it became, I think it’s actually the converse. The iPod drove demand for iTunes. Thanks to the iPod, iTunes matured into the world’s leading jukebox program and helped drive Apple’s last seven years of growth. But for a first-generation program, it was kind of sad.

Leigh McMullen: I don’t disagree that iTunes is important enough to be one of the ‘Greatest Mac Moments’, I just disagree with its position on the list. If anything it needs to be MUCH MUCH Higher. iTunes ought to be in the top 5, and here’s why: it’s a little celebrated fact that iTunes is the most popular piece of software for Microsoft Windows.  It is very likely that there are more legitimately licensed copies of iTunes out there than Windows Vista!

With its popularity, iTunes is the official ambassador of the “Mac Experience” to forlorn Windows users everywhere.  It is in this capacity, that iTunes is second only to the switch to Intel processors in driving people to switch to Macintosh.  Anything that is responsible for that degree of proliferation of our beloved platform has got to be more important that #21 on our list!

Craig Grannell: I think Pete and Leigh have both missed one of the most important aspects of iTunes, in that—for better or worse—it’s driven UI considerations elsewhere on Macs: Finder is, to all extents, iTunes for documents, iPhoto is iTunes for photos, and so on. Therefore, iTunes is pretty much welded to the modern Mac experience and subsequently deserves to be on the list. On the surface, iTunes is just a media manager, but it clearly has plans for world domination; so don’t be caught unawares by SoundJam’s kid, because before you know it, the thing will have taken over the world.

In Pictures: Preparations For Apple’s “Let’s Rock” Special Event

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Crews working at the front of Yerba Center for the Arts.

SAN FRANCISCO — There’s a lot of busy bees preparing for Apple’s special “Let’s Rock” event on Tuesday.

Two days before Steve Jobs hosts a special press event, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is humming with Apple staffers, TV crews and scores of security guards. See the pictures below.

A crew of three or four hung a huge silhouette iPod poster over the Center’s facade, while half-a-dozen Apple staffers watched from the curb, fussing over the details.

The center is lousy with Apple security guards. There’s a guard posted at every one of the center’s half-dozen doors — back and sides. The guard pictured below stood inside a door at the back, which appeared to be securely locked. Apple seems to be taking no chances that nosy bloggers might break in for a sneak peek of what Jobs is going to announce.

Around back, several Apple staffers were busy setting up computers in an office at the rear of the center.

At the side, there’s already a large satellite TV truck parked on Third Street (again, carefully guarded).  A San Francisco police officer has parked his patrol car at the back of the TV truck. Presumably, SFPD will be stationed there for the next two days.

Though Apple has held special events at the Yerba Buena center before, the preparations for Tuesday’s event seem more elaborate than just a new iPod nano would warrant. I may, however, be imagining things. I’ve got a bad cold, and I’m as high as a kite on DayQuil.

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An Apple security guard at the back of Yerba Center for the Arts. 

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Play Keynote Bingo At Steve Jobs’ Big Event

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Apple PR pulled out the big guns this week and invited, nay “encouraged” tech and entertainment media luminaries to pack the Yerba Buena Center for Steve Jobs’ “Let’s Rock” in San Francisco on September 9th.

The now-familiar rumors and speculation, with “leaked” photos and drawings that precede these Apple “events” have been flying back and forth for weeks, and soon enough we’ll see how all the pieces fit together. Join us on Tuesday as we twitter the proceedings.

We invite you to follow along with us as the morning unfolds, using the keynote bingo card below to keep track of both likely and rumored items that could appear during the presentation.

Get a Slick Mac NetBook For Less Than $600 (Not Strictly Legal, Of Course)

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Writer Scott Gilbertson has a very cool Mac netbook that cost him only $550.

It’s got a slick black case, weighs nothing, gets hours of battery life and runs Leopard, the latest version of Mac OS X. It’s not a MacBook Air.

It’s a hacked EeePC — a tiny liliputer , as they’re now called, fresh from Asus, a Tawainese manufacturer best known for PC motherboards.

Gilbertson’s netbook is the device Mac fans have wanted for years: A low-cost cousin to the beautiful but pricey MacBook Air.

It runs like a champ but has a couple of quirks (one big one) and may not be strictly legal, though Apple’s never going to prosecute unless these machines are sold commercially. Hit the jump for details.

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Authentic-Looking Spy Shot of New iPod Nano

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What appears to be a genuine spy shot of the new iPod nano has surfaced on MacNN (heavily Photoshopped and disguised for some reason) before it got picked up and surfaced for the wider public in this AppleInsider thread.

As rumored, the new nano appears to be taller than the current model, with a rounded body and screen. Presumably, the screen is designed for the iPod to be tilted to watch widescreen movies in landscape mode.

The device is expected to be unveiled at a Steve Jobs “Let’s Rock” special event in San Francisco next Tuesday. But fear not — there’s likely to be other surprises. Apple PR is telling journalists the event is a “big deal,” which implies there’s more than a tarted-up 2G-looking iPod.

Amazon’s Video Store Gets Mac-Friendly

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Amazon.com is now offering what it calls “instant ad-free movies and TV shows” on Macs, PCs and Sony BRAVIA TV sets at the newly re-branded “Amazon Video On Demand” website.

A few months ago, consumers greeted the giant webertainment service’s “Unbox” partnership with TiVo with a collective yawn, due mainly to complaints about the lack of on-demand streaming options, according to the director of Amazon Video On Demand, Roy Price, who says “the ability to watch content instantly without downloading first was among the most requested features of our customers, and now it’s live–customers can instantly watch the ad-free title of their choice “¦”

Some promotional videos are free and you can preview the first 2 minutes of any offering. Episodes of TV shows cost $1.99 and movies are $14.99. Movies can also be ‘rented’ for 24 hours for $3.99. Purchasing allows download to two machines and unlimited viewing online. The service claims to stock over 14 thousand movies and 1,200 TV shows including pre-purchase-able rights to upcoming seasons.

Amazon claims to be the only digital video service in the US offering the choice of streaming as well as downloading webertainment content.