Today's event
Because the Apple event this morning was live there was no need for us to live-blog it, but how about a round up…. Continue reading to see all the best bits from today’s video.
Firstly, iOS 4.1 available next week, and iOS 4.2 for iPad will be available in November.
iOS 4.1
iOS 4.1
iOS 4.1 is coming next week to an iTunes near you and is going to include a number of bug fixes and some pretty cool additions. The fixes include the proximity sensor issue (where it doesn’t work properly at the moment), Bluetooth, and iPhone 3G performance. The new features include High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos (takes three photos one of normal exposure, one over-exposed and one under-exposed and merges them as one brilliant image), HD video uploads over WiFi (about time), TV show rentals (US only) and, finally, Game Center. Game Center looks pretty awesome and has a number of new capabilities for multiplayer gaming, including the ability to challenge friends, keep track of scores, and new ways to find games As I say it’s available next week to download to your iPhone or iPod touch and is going to be free for everyone.
iOS 4.2
iOS 4.2
Apple also announced iOS 4.2 today, which will be available in November, and has everything iOS 4.1 has, plus some extras, and will finally bring iOS 4 (inc multitasking!) to the iPad. New features include AirPlay, (which is the rebranded name for AirTunes), with the important addition of being able to stream music, video and photos from your iPad to Apple TV.
Wireless Printing
An awesome new feature is wireless printing over Wi-Fi. This is certainly something that has been missing from the iPad and comes with a Print Center app that sits in the dock and lets you manage your print jobs. Apple will be launching iOS 4.2 for iPad in November.
New iPod shuffle, nano and touch
The new line-up
Instead of just refreshing one of the iPods, Apple decided to refresh the whole line-up (well nearly). The update covers the shuffle, nano and touch but excludes the classic which stays as, well a classic iPod with it’s click-wheel.
iPod shuffle
The shuffle
The shuffle has gotten smaller, again, and this time instead of being a ‘bar’ type like the 1st and 3rd gen player it has regained it’s buttons (a-la gen 3) but is now square. Does all the tricks of the Gen 3 Shuffle but now has buttons. It comes in five colours and is priced at $89 for 2GB and is available today.
iPod nano
The nano
The nano has also undergone a complete makeover and has lost it’s buttons, is a square 1.54-inch (diagonal) colour TFT touch screen, is 46 percent smaller & 42 percent lighter and looks to be running a cut down version of iOS. But although it has gained this it has also lost something that was only previously introduced on the latest nano, the camera! WTF Apple, we know it’s so you can run an update to it at a later date but come on you should have left the camera! To me it is now just a ‘Shuffle with a touch screen’, after all it’s about the same sort of size. What about all those people that have a 5th Gen with all their videos?? They can’t even sync them and play them back. It comes in seven colour varieties, including a Product RED option, and is priced at $249 for 8GB or $299 for 16GB and orders are being taken today.
iPod touch
The touch
The iPod touch’s makeover isn’t as dramatic as the others, but if the current iPod touch wasn’t thin enough for you then you will be pleased to hear that the new iPod touch is thinner and lighter than the previous model. It also now includes the Retina Display from the iPhone 4, an Apple A4 core, 3-axis gyroscope, Game Center, and FaceTime support thanks to the addition of the front camera (which as we have previously heard will be activated via email address). The new rear camera is capable of recording HD video and you’ll be able to get iMovie to edit it on the go. It comes in one colour, and in three sizes, 8GB, 32GB and 64GB. It’s available for order now at a cost of $379, $489 and $649 respectively.
All-new Apple TV
The Apple TV
The rumours we’d heard about the Apple TV have pretty much played out to be accurate – in a form-factor akin to the Mac mini and Airport Extreme (but black), it now has an insanely low price of NZ$169, streams your iTunes content at 720p over HDMI but doesn’t have any local storage this time around. It’s an extremely aggressive price-point and clearly Apple are trying to combat Google TV before it gains a foothold. Here in NZ we won’t be able to benefit from the TV rentals or built-in Netflix support, but we will be able to enjoy iTunes movie rentals and we’ll be able to stream any compatible media we already have on our computers to our big screens.
iTunes 10
iTunes
A refreshed iTunes is available, complete with new logo (sans-CD) and built-in social networking via their very own new service dubbed ‘Ping‘. It’s apparently available from today but right now the Apple website is still saying ‘Coming Soon’ and is struggling to keep up with the number of hits it’s no doubt taking. Keep checking back during the day to grab this.
AirPlay for Third Party devices
AirPlay
That AirPlay technology we mentioned for iOS 4.2? Well, it’s more than just an update for the iPad. Apple will be licensing the technology to third parties which means you can expect to see a whole slew of stereos, speaker docks, alarm clocks and what-not that are all capable of streaming your iTunes music library wirelessly without the need for you to plug in your iPod or iPhone. This is pretty exciting and it will only help secure Apple’s dominance of the music industry (which is fine by us!).
Well that about sums it up. So what are you getting? Did you order already? Share with the class!
Nice round up guys.
Great Apple event, live stream was awesome not only on my Mac but on iPhone and iPad aswell. Couldn’t fault it. Some great products, the new nano was pretty damn cool.
Nice to finally see some iPad IOS 4 news, all be it a long wait until November was nice to see it mentioned. The wireless printing will be a great addition for work purposes.
I bought an Apple TV as soon as the NZ Store was back online this morning. Just a great product at a great price.
The Epic Citadel game demo was insane! The demo is actually live to download in the app store now if you missed it.
Looking forward having a play with iTunes 10 and Ping later today. 4.1 for iPhone next week and iPad OS in November all to look forward to!
(Paul has made 318 comments)
@ Paul: Yeah that game looked mental eh! Can’t wait to get it. iOS 4.1 GM is supposed to be available now too, but the site hasn’t quite been updated yet.
I also got myself an Apple TV, just couldn’t resist it at that price.
(Dan has made 610 comments)
“stream music, video and photos from your computer to your iOS device over Wi-Fi.”
Really? that’s definitely something I want but my reading of the AirPlay notes was that it streamed from iOS to AppleTV. Can you confirm that it really is Computer->iOS so I can buy an iPad and watch movies in bed without having to sync them first.
(Craig has made 57 comments)
Apple TV price is very nice.
On the stream, I woke up to catch a few minutes at 6am, first on iPhone 4, then MacBook. Quality was superb, however the stream would stop and repeat after about 20seconds. This over WiFi 802.11n, on Vodafones network.
(pknz has made 92 comments)
quick question….guessing its a dumb one, but with AppleTV when streaming to your tv from say your macbook, this would use your broadband allowance, yes?
(daniel has made 26 comments)
@ daniel: No it wouldn’t as this uses your LAN (local area network) not an internet connection.
(Dan has made 610 comments)
Craig wrote:
OK we got that slightly wrong – lots of confusing info with regards to AirPlay floating around. From what we can make out: AirPlay allows video streaming from iPad to Apple TV, or music streaming from computer to third party devices.
What you want to do (stream video to iPad) can already be done though via several apps. Search for our post on AirVideo, then get yourself an iPad!
(Steve has made 645 comments)
Say when you rent a movie with apple tv and a normal movie us a bout 1.3gb will it download that much data for that move and also will we be able to rent tv shows on apple tv
(lakeview01 has made 198 comments)
@ Steve:
I’ve tried out AirVideo, and do really like it. I’m hoping for something with more of a FrontRow interface. That and an iPad with a camera on it for large screen Facetime. FT looks like fun on an iPhone, but it doesn’t beat Skype on a laptop yet.
(Craig has made 57 comments)
@ Dan:
So say I rent a movie will that use my data allowance
(lakeview01 has made 198 comments)
@ lakeview01: yes it will as you are downloading that.
(Dan has made 610 comments)
I ordered my Apple TV just after 6pm. Had no issues watching stream. Was superb. Amazing lineup of new products.
(wowpartyz has made 52 comments)
Woah! Thats the best keynote yet! Looking forward to iTunes 10 and the IOS 4.2 update. Those HDR photos looks amazing! cant wait to multitask on my iPad and the game looked amazing, its going to be awesome to see what games the dev’s can make up with that engine. the iPhone and iPod touch will start to become recognized game consoles and start getting proper game titles. The future looks bright for us apple users
Wouldn’t mind getting a nano to use as a nifty watch lol
(Jinxyroflcopter has made 11 comments)
We have just ordered all of these products for our store here in chch, so come on in and buy them from us
(TelstraClear Colombo St, ChCh)
(nfused has made 30 comments)
Hey guys I want to purchase the new Apple TV and I was wondering if you can play mkv. files on it or stream on it from PC??????????
(Lansing has made 18 comments)
No mention of Face Time activation problems on ported numbers, but can we assume there is a new activation method, seeing as Face Time will be available on the iPod Touch?
(Chris Kinnell has made 37 comments)
@ Chris Kinnell: I just installed 4.1 GM and the activation is still by text message. Still not working for 021 ported to Telecom.
(mrs_kiwi has made 85 comments)
@ mrs_kiwi:
I can tell you that the ported number fix is still being worked on as we speak. I had an email today. Nothing further to report but it is still being worked on and hasn’t been forgotten about.
We will do a small update on the site if/when they manage to resolve.
I have also installed 4.1 and yes no sign of any other FaceTime activation method.
The email activation must solely be reserved for the New iPod Touch
(Paul has made 318 comments)
I cant believe i bought a iPhone 4 now because basically the only difference is GPS, MMS, Phone, 3G and a few other little things for $800 more than a iPod Touch!
(freddie13 has made 7 comments)
hehehe
good old apple
lol
placing my order later tonight for a new Itouch
only thing missing is txting and phcalls
(kiwiboi22 has made 57 comments)