The resource to people switching to the Mac (and to MacLife altogether): Mac OS X integration, Mac-Windows interoperability, iPod and most Macintosh-related topics!
Apple yesterday rolled out new iPhone and iPod touch models with beefed-up memories and bumped-up prices.
Apple has just upped the iPhone’s storage capacity to 16gb, and the iPod touch 16 GB to 32gb.
The iPhone, formerly available only in an 8 GB model for $399 now has a 16 GB cousin that retails for $499. The iPod touch also added a big brother, launching a 32 GB model for $499 to accompany the 16 GB and 8 GB models that sell for $399 and $299 respectively.
“For some users, there’s never enough memory,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPod and iPhone Product Marketing, in a statement. “Now people can enjoy even more of their music, photos and videos on the most revolutionary mobile phone and best Wi-Fi mobile device in the world.”
The new iPods touch and iPhones will ship with the new software that CEO Steve Jobs unveiled at last month’s MacWorld Expo in San Francisco, including a maps application that allows users to use a combination of cell tower and Wi-Fi hot spot triangulation to mimic a GPS device and find their location on Google-powered maps.
As expected Steve took everybody by surprise: the new iPod touch is much an iPhone-minus than a regular enhanced-iPod nano.
The facts about iPod touch:
– 3,5″ wide screen,
– same touch-screen user interface as iPhone,
– slightly smaller than iPhone, but same cool design,
– WiFi-enabled,
– Safari & Widgets,
– 8 GB and 16 GB
Some pretty update for all other iPods:
– smaller iPod nano,
– bigger-capacity iPod Classic (hard disk-based).
Several weeks of rumors about a pending iPod announcement were apparently confirmed late Tuesday afternoon, when Apple sent out an invitation to the media for an event on Wednesday in San Francisco. True to form, the company didn’t explicitly say what was expected, but the white silhouette of a dancing iPod user didn’t leave much to the imagination.
As the invite says, “the beat goes on” for Apple’s iPod division. Almost six years after the debut of the iPod, Apple dominates the handheld music player market with 72.4% of the market in the first half of this year, according to research by The NPD Group.
iPodPalace.com reports on Apple launching two new faces of iTunes:
– iTunes Plus – a DRM-free music store with tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings—for just $1.29,
– iTunes U – a dedicated area within the iTunes Store featuring free content such as course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours provided by top US colleges and universities including Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Duke University and MIT.
The George Foreman iGrill (!) is the ultimate barbeque cooking machine for the iPod generation... or something like that. We don't know what the launch campaign slogans will sound like, but we have just heard about this "gem" and couldn't pass up the occasion to relay it to our readers.
The iGrill is an indoor/outdoor electric barbeque grill with an impressive 200 sq. inches of nonstick coated cooking surface, adjustable temperature control probe and... is iPod ready with an integrated 10 watts speaker.
So invite your friends around... no barbeque party will ever be the same again!
Corripio is the premier tool for gathering album artwork. By searching four sources: the iTunes Store, Coveralia, Best Buy, and Walmart; Corripio enables the user to get the exact artwork they want.
In continuing to improve usability, Corripio has a new contextual menu, thus making the user experience that much more enjoyable. In addition, the user has more control of lyrics because of the added Lyrics window.
Another good reason to switch to a Mac? iTunes seems to have authorization issues & problems with new Win Vista.
Now-shipping PCs already come with some flavour of Vista, from the basic one to the Ultimate Premium – sort of XP Pro + Media Center, but early users are reporting critical problems with iTunes and fear losing their music library, as posted in some forums.
iLife & iWork ’07 – Apple’s iApps usually get updated at Macworld Expo and this year should be no exception. Look for updates to both of Apple’s software suites and maybe we’ll even see the addition of a spreadsheet (rumored to be called “Numbers” or “Sheets”).
[odds: even money]
iTV – Steve Jobs introduced us to iTV (a code name) at a press event on 12 September 2006 and told us that it’s “coming in Q1 2007.” I’m pretty sure that it’s coming out at Macworld Expo, I’m just not sure about what it does. I’m hoping that in addition to being an Airport Express for video, I hope that it includes some TiVO-like DVR functionality (which would require an external HDD/Mac mini/Elgato API) and comes with Netflix online, which CEO Reed Hastings said was coming “in January.” And how about that remote?
[odds: even money]
Mac mini – The Mac mini is due for an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and we’ll most likely see that announced at Expo. It’s a perfect fit for the iTV.
[odds: even money]
Mac OS 10.5 – Leopard could be released at Macworld Expo despite Steve Jobs’ assertion that it would be released in “Spring 2007.” Remember that Steve likes to under-promise and over-deliver and take a peek under your seat at the keynote address.
[odds: 2:1]
Jason goes on with Quad Mac Pros, renewed Apple Cinema Displays and the usual ‘rumors’-items.
Usually a simple update never draws so much attention.
Not this time, with all the buzz and expectations for new i-products from Apple.
Gizmodo reports that iTunes 7.0.1 shows some interesting messages.
Namely photo and video support from iTunes to a still-to-identify mobile phone! (anyway not a phone currently available…)
Are these hints to upcoming models from Motorola or the like, or the real iPhone itself?
Apple MacBook Pro 17″
which, along with all updates, introduces an interesting Garageband feature: music school lessons with the best artist around!
Apple has just upped the iPhone’s storage capacity to 16gb, and the 
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As expected Steve took everybody by surprise: the new 
A really useful freeware from nClass Software.
Usually a simple update never draws so much attention.