Apple's 3Q10 Event

[Isgrimnur]

Apple Insider

Apple's new iPod touch has the same Retina Display, front facing camera, rear HD camera, and A4 processor as the iPhone 4, all in a size slimmer than last year's media player.  The new iPod touch, along with the rest of the new iPod lineup, will be available next week. All three models of the new iPod touch have the new features, starting at $229 for the 8GB model, $299 for the 32GB version, and $399 for 64GB of capacity.

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said the new iPod touch can run the same iMovie application that was previously only available for the iPhone 4. Using the rear-facing HD camera, users can shoot video and edit it right on the device.

The new iPod touch also has a forward-facing camera that allows users to do FaceTime with other iPod touch users, as well as iPhone 4 owners.

Reuters

The iPod shuffle, for instance, has been updated to include playlists, buttons to navigate the volume and is smaller than the previous model. He said it would play 15 hours of music, and would come in five different colors at a price of $49.
...
Jobs also announced an update to its operating system, due out next week, saying it was meant to fix bugs on some of its popular mobile devices such as the iPhone 4. He said yet another update would come out in November.

PC Magazine Ping: social networking for iTunes...

Ping is like Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes, Jobs said at a San Francisco press event. It's a "social network all about music and built right into iTunes," he said.

It's available on the computer, the iPhone, and the iPod touch.

Users can follow their favorite artists publicly or create their own, private profiles, much like Facebook. Users can set up a "circle of friends" and share information only with those people. ITunes will then display top 10 charts that reflect what friends are downloading.

WSJ New AppleTV

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled a new Apple TV device that can deliver 99-cent rentals of TV shows.
...
Unlike the earlier Apple TV, which plays videos that users purchased on iTunes, Mr. Jobs said the new, smaller device is all rentals. "There are no more purchases," Mr. Jobs said at a press event Wednesday.

TV show rentals will be available from Fox and ABC. Rentals of first run HD movies will cost $4.99. It can also connect with Netflix Inc.'s streaming video service as well as Internet content from sites like YouTube.

[Teggy]

At $99 and with some of the sharing features, I am pretty interested in Apple TV now. However, I am not sold on movie and tv rentals and would likely not use it for that. So at this point it will be fighting with my TiVos for control of the TV, and TiVo would definitely win right now.

So, once I am employed again, I will definitely be tempted to get one, not because I want to use every feature, but because the price is low enough that I will want to play with it.

I'm pretty eager to play with Ping - I use Goodreads, and this basically seems like Goodreads for music. Attempting to download now, but the download page appears to be getting hit too hard.

[leo8877]

Watching the live stream on my macbook was great.  I hope they keep offering that.  Nano looks cool, but more expensive than I hoped.

[rittchard]

I thought the highlight was the demo of the Unreal 3 Engine on the iPhone, it's hard to believe how smooth it ran and how good it looked.

That said, I already pre-ordered the new Apple TV as well.  My old one's hard drive took a dump a little while back and I've been meaning to upgrade for a while.  The $4.99 rental pricing for new HD movies still seems a bit too steep to me but might be worth the occasional rental or 2.  And renting a TV show for $0.99?  I'm not sold on that either.  You can just watch the new eps on ABC.com or Hulu or whatever, so even at that price, I'm not sure I get it.

I also love that they incorporated Netflix, but it seems like that would kill/displace a lot of business for renting older movies.

[Teggy]

Yeah, the live stream was great, although a half hour in it started giving me a lot of problems. I imagine they will learn from this event and improve the delivery next time.

BTW, even though the website says "Download iTunes 10", it is still downloading iTunes 9.

[Devil]

I have a question about the new Apple TV:

With my 'old' Apple TV I can have it sync with iTunes and stream music to an Airport in another room right from the Apple TV with no need to have a computer on.

Am I still going to be able to do this?

Will I be able to attach a hard drive to the new Apple TV and sync to that and still stream to the Apple TV?

[Blackjack]

My old Touch has new Touch envy.    I thought for sure the video camera rumors would prove false again but I'm glad I'm wrong.   I'm not clear though, are the cameras strictly video-only as opposed to photo-cameras?

[Biyobi]

My old Touch has new Touch envy.    I thought for sure the video camera rumors would prove false again but I'm glad I'm wrong.   I'm not clear though, are the cameras strictly video-only as opposed to photo-cameras?

It still does photos, too.

[leo8877]

I thought the highlight was the demo of the Unreal 3 Engine on the iPhone, it's hard to believe how smooth it ran and how good it looked.

That said, I already pre-ordered the new Apple TV as well.  My old one's hard drive took a dump a little while back and I've been meaning to upgrade for a while.  The $4.99 rental pricing for new HD movies still seems a bit too steep to me but might be worth the occasional rental or 2.  And renting a TV show for $0.99?  I'm not sold on that either.  You can just watch the new eps on ABC.com or Hulu or whatever, so even at that price, I'm not sure I get it.

I also love that they incorporated Netflix, but it seems like that would kill/displace a lot of business for renting older movies.

Epic's game has a demo up NOW on the app store, it's called Epic Citadel

[Teggy]

My old Touch has new Touch envy.    I thought for sure the video camera rumors would prove false again but I'm glad I'm wrong.  I'm not clear though, are the cameras strictly video-only as opposed to photo-cameras?

It still does photos, too.

It also has some sort of "illumination sensor", but surprisingly doesn't have the iPhone 4's flash.

[Teggy]

I thought the highlight was the demo of the Unreal 3 Engine on the iPhone, it's hard to believe how smooth it ran and how good it looked.

That said, I already pre-ordered the new Apple TV as well.  My old one's hard drive took a dump a little while back and I've been meaning to upgrade for a while.  The $4.99 rental pricing for new HD movies still seems a bit too steep to me but might be worth the occasional rental or 2.  And renting a TV show for $0.99?  I'm not sold on that either.  You can just watch the new eps on ABC.com or Hulu or whatever, so even at that price, I'm not sure I get it.

I also love that they incorporated Netflix, but it seems like that would kill/displace a lot of business for renting older movies.

Epic's game has a demo up NOW on the app store, it's called Epic Citadel

I'm wondering if this thing is going to work as well on the 3GS as on the 4?

[leo8877]

I thought the highlight was the demo of the Unreal 3 Engine on the iPhone, it's hard to believe how smooth it ran and how good it looked.

That said, I already pre-ordered the new Apple TV as well.  My old one's hard drive took a dump a little while back and I've been meaning to upgrade for a while.  The $4.99 rental pricing for new HD movies still seems a bit too steep to me but might be worth the occasional rental or 2.  And renting a TV show for $0.99?  I'm not sold on that either.  You can just watch the new eps on ABC.com or Hulu or whatever, so even at that price, I'm not sure I get it.

I also love that they incorporated Netflix, but it seems like that would kill/displace a lot of business for renting older movies.

Epic's game has a demo up NOW on the app store, it's called Epic Citadel

I'm wondering if this thing is going to work as well on the 3GS as on the 4?

I doubt it, but it's A-mazing on the iP4.

[ericb]

Can the new Apple TV stream and play iTunes videos?  I have a lot I've almost purchased for my iPad and that would push me over (and get me to buy the Apple TV too).

[Blackjack]

My old Touch has new Touch envy.    I thought for sure the video camera rumors would prove false again but I'm glad I'm wrong.   I'm not clear though, are the cameras strictly video-only as opposed to photo-cameras?

It still does photos, too.

Thanks, what I looked at didn't really explain it enough. Gizmodo went into a bit more detail:
http://gizmodo.com/5627599/the-complete-guide-to-the-new-ipod-touch

while the back camera can record H.264 video at 720 lines of resolution (720p) and 30 frames per second, the resolution for photography is not as high as the iPhone 4. Just the same 960 x 720 pixels of the video, far from the gorgeous sensor of the iPhone.

It also has the front camera, which is identical to the iPhone 4, capturing VGA at 30 frames per second for videoconferencing action.

[Teggy]

Can the new Apple TV stream and play iTunes videos?  I have a lot I've almost purchased for my iPad and that would push me over (and get me to buy the Apple TV too).

Yup - they demoed this during the event, with Jobs playing "UP" from his iPad.

[Teggy]

Epic's game has a demo up NOW on the app store, it's called Epic Citadel

I'm wondering if this thing is going to work as well on the 3GS as on the 4?

I doubt it, but it's A-mazing on the iP4.

On the 3GS, there is some frame drop during some of the wide shots during the intro, but otherwise it handles it very well. The thing looks better than Half-Life 2 on my Macbook

[Laner]

Really disappointed that they changed the nano form factor and kept it maxed at 16GB.  Touchscreens aren't the answer for everything, Steve-o.

[Blackjack]

Laptop Magazine has a couple hands-on blog posts...

iPod touch Video Hands-On: Who Needs an iPhone 4?
http://blog.laptopmag.com/ipod-touch-hands-on-who-needs-an-iphone-4

New iPod nano with Multitouch Hands-On: Design Rocks, Price Doesn’t
http://blog.laptopmag.com/new-ipod-nano-with-multitouch-hands-on-design-rocks-price-doesnt

[CeeKay]

iPod touch Video Hands-On: Who Needs an iPhone 4?

Oddly enough this iPhone 4 owner is asking 'Who needs an itouch?'

[gellar]

Man, I am not sure what value I'd get out of it, but $99 for the AppleTV is tempting.

[rickfc]

Man, I am not sure what value I'd get out of it, but $99 for the AppleTV is tempting.

I'm going to wait for the Boxee Box coming out in November and make a decision then.  Apple hasn't announced what codecs are or aren't supported for the media on your computer, and 720p is a drawback for me.

[gellar]

Man, I am not sure what value I'd get out of it, but $99 for the AppleTV is tempting.

I'm going to wait for the Boxee Box coming out in November and make a decision then.  Apple hasn't announced what codecs are or aren't supported for the media on your computer, and 720p is a drawback for me.

When it comes to live streaming, I can't expect anything higher than 720p.  1080p needs a streaming capability of essentially 1200 KB/sec, which I don't expect Apple or Netflix to want to serve up (even if my ISP can barely handle it).  This also assumes nothing else is going on with another machine on my network which would lower my total bandwidth.

Not to mention the increased size of 1080p storage on disk.

720p works for me.

[Zarkon]

I wish the Apple TV would stream formats other than .mov, .m4v and .mpeg.  :/

[Blackjack]

iPod touch Video Hands-On: Who Needs an iPhone 4?

Oddly enough this iPhone 4 owner is asking 'Who needs an itouch?'

The Touch is a lot thinner and lighter, and its owners are less prone to getting into arguments about antennas.  

[gellar]

I wish the Apple TV would stream formats other than .mov, .m4v and .mpeg.  :/

http://handbrake.fr/

[rittchard]

I wish the Apple TV would stream formats other than .mov, .m4v and .mpeg.  :/

http://handbrake.fr/

What would really be cool is if they supported Apps like Stream2Me or Air Video which pretty much instantly convert any format you can come up with.  If the internal chip is based on the iPhone/iPad, you'd think it would work fine...

[ericb]

I was looking at ebay for some of the older Apple TVs...what I don't understand is why the used 160GB models are bidding more than you can buy a new one for directly from Apple?  Did Apple very recently drop the price to $149?  Back on subject.  Does the new Apple TV have any hard drive?  The tech specs don't list a HD at all.

[disarm]

The $4.99 rental pricing for new HD movies still seems a bit too steep to me but might be worth the occasional rental or 2.  And renting a TV show for $0.99?  I'm not sold on that either.  You can just watch the new eps on ABC.com or Hulu or whatever, so even at that price, I'm not sure I get it.

also announced today...Amazon's Video-on-Demand service is now selling episodes of ABC and Fox shows for $0.99 in both standard definition and HD, as well as discounting the purchase price for full seasons.  this really seems to undercut Apple's 99-cent rentals as you'll actually have open access to watch rewatch the episodes as often as you'd like rather than just getting a single viewing through iTunes...  

[Teggy]

I was looking at ebay for some of the older Apple TVs...what I don't understand is why the used 160GB models are bidding more than you can buy a new one for directly from Apple?  Did Apple very recently drop the price to $149?  Back on subject.  Does the new Apple TV have any hard drive?  The tech specs don't list a HD at all.

No, no HD in the new Apple TV. That goes along with the rent vs. buy change. It's all streaming.

[Bulletpig]

I'm trying to figure out how AppleTV is better than my DVR?

Not being a smart ass either but trying to wrap my head around why I would pay .99 for a show plus another $100 for the box.  And that would be for any box not just AppleTV.

I rarely watch live TV any more minus sports, but just recording it on my DVR seems to be working fine and doesn't cost me per show.

Are there other features I am not seeing?

[Blackjack]

I doubt the AppleTV is for everyone, even if Steve J. wants it to be. If you're happy with your current TV set up, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.  

I almost think it's something my mom could eventually use (if more networks sign up), except she refuses to pay for anything more than dialup internet.   She's always complaining Cox cable costs her so much a month and she only watches a smattering of channels. It's like she's paying $60+ a month and watching maybe $10 worth of that monthly. I get the impression that's the kind of viewer they're going after -- not retired moms so much, but people who would rather watch TV a la carte than pay $60, $80 a month or whatever for a bunch of channels they mostly ignore. I don't think they really want to replace a DVR per se.

Hey, I didn't realize the revamped Touch finally adds a built-in microphone (I guess that's "duh," given the video cameras, I just hadn't specifically read anything about a mic), so it finally has some of the mic-features previously exclusive to the iPhones.
http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/features/voice-memos.html
http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/features/voice-control.html

[YellowKing]

The problem with AppleTV is that so far only two networks I think are on board. Add to the fact that Amazon is undercutting in certain areas on price for TV shows and movies, and I don't see much to get excited about. You can get a barebones Roku player that does Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon for cheaper than the AppleTV, and if you're willing to go a bit more you can get something like a Popcorn Hour which will stream any format from your PC and with PlayOn software can also do Netflix/Amazon with it (I'm actually going to try this tonight on my PCH). Apple's usually ahead of the pack, but in the network media tank department they're way behind. There's no reason to pay more for less flexibility.

[rittchard]

The problem with AppleTV is that so far only two networks I think are on board. Add to the fact that Amazon is undercutting in certain areas on price for TV shows and movies, and I don't see much to get excited about. You can get a barebones Roku player that does Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon for cheaper than the AppleTV, and if you're willing to go a bit more you can get something like a Popcorn Hour which will stream any format from your PC and with PlayOn software can also do Netflix/Amazon with it (I'm actually going to try this tonight on my PCH). Apple's usually ahead of the pack, but in the network media tank department they're way behind. There's no reason to pay more for less flexibility.

Yup, they are definitely still working this as a "hobby" - and in spite of what they've said, it still doesn't seem like they know what/where they want this to go.  I'm getting this for the overall convenience, plus I like the interface.  I used to enjoy browsing through the movie selection on my old Apple TV, just the way it was set up was very nice and I ended up finding a lot of smaller movies I might never have known about.   I suppose Netflix might be better for this purpose now.

I tried to get a media station set up with a Mac Mini but for whatever reason my TV didn't like the video output.  So this should theoretically serve as an intermediary (I hope) for all my media needs, whether it's streaming from Netflix or my own servers, through the iPad/iPhone or using the Apple Store, both music and video.  I didn't pay that much attention, but I'm assuming I'll be able to stream my old iTunes video content somehow (which I wouldn't be able to with the Roku)?  And I imagine every once in a while there'll be a new release I'd like to rent so that will be something I could use it for. 

I'm also hoping that since it's A4 based they'll release some Apps for it and create more synergy with the iPad/iPhone. 

- - -

Oh yeah, and thx for the tip on the Epic Citadel demo, I love it!  Absolutely amazing to see this level of 3D environment/graphics on a mobile device.

[kathode]

The problem with AppleTV is that so far only two networks I think are on board. Add to the fact that Amazon is undercutting in certain areas on price for TV shows and movies, and I don't see much to get excited about. You can get a barebones Roku player that does Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon for cheaper than the AppleTV, and if you're willing to go a bit more you can get something like a Popcorn Hour which will stream any format from your PC and with PlayOn software can also do Netflix/Amazon with it (I'm actually going to try this tonight on my PCH). Apple's usually ahead of the pack, but in the network media tank department they're way behind. There's no reason to pay more for less flexibility.

Two networks are on board with the commercial-free rental model, I believe.  Lots more are on board with the old iTunes model, and you can still use the new AppleTV to stream content to your TV from your computer.  Apple's MO will always be to keep as much as possible within the iTunes ecosystem.

Do any of the other options stream iTunes content?  I'm leaning strongly to going cable-free in my new place, and need to compare the options.  My impression is that iTunes is still the winner in terms of selection, but I haven't actually done or found any comparison.  I want to avoid Torrent as much as possible, so solutions that play raw movie files don't do a lot for me.

(BTW don't mean to imply that anyone who streams raw movies is necessarily a rabid Torrenter   I just don't have many raw movies hanging around in need of playing.)

[Blackjack]

Endgadget got around to a more in-depth review of the updated Touch:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/07/ipod-touch-review-2010/
*Nothing earth shattering, but by any account there are no "new product bugs" of note. So I might get one sooner than I planned.  

The photos it takes are lousy but seem no worse (and are higher rez) than things I took with my Palm Zire 71 or Visor camera module, while the video is apparently pretty good. I still found those old Palm pics fun and useful, however lousy their quality was.

[leo8877]

iOS 4.1 is out now, btw.

[CeeKay]

iOS 4.1 is out now, btw.

Cool.

[Blackjack]

Poop. I coulda sworn I'd seen a breakdown of the new iPod Touch that found a vibration motor in it, but now there's one by Fixit saying it doesn't, and Apple has apparently removed references to the feature being in the new Touch (along with some interesting pix of the innards):

Teardown of Apple's 4th-gen iPod touch finds 256MB of RAM (i.e., it's the iPad version, not the iPhone 4 version)
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/08/teardown_of_apples_4th_gen_ipod_touch_finds_256mb_of_ram.html

[Blackjack]

Apple TV unboxing photos:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/29/first_look_unboxing_apples_new_99_apple_tv_with_streaming_hd_content.html
*I think you're supposed to have the 2001: A Space Odyssey movie theme playing in the background as you view the photos...

[Lee]

Mines sitting in Alaska. Apple email says I am supposed to get it by Friday. Fed Ex is saying the 5th though. Not sure if I care, I am looking forward to it and think it will be handy, but I am not really excited about it.