Steve Jobs and Apple just wrapped up their September 1st music event in San Francisco, showing us the next two updates to iOS, new iPods, new AppleTV, new iTunes, new AirPlay (previously AirTunes) and a new social media site called Ping.
Here’s a complete overview of all that has happened in the 1.5 hour long live video demonstration:
Apple Stores
Steve Jobs first took the stage and started talking about their new Apple Stores over the world and how they now have 300 Apple Stores in 10 countries and will soon open in Spain as well. On some days, Apple Stores have over 1 million visitors in total and 50% of Mac buyers are buying their first Mac, so Apple are bringing in a lot of new customers.
iOS
To day, Apple has shipped 120 million iOS devices and they’re currently activating 230,000 new iOS devices per day. Steve made a suggestion that some of the activation numbers mentioned by their competitors could include upgrades as well, but Apple’s 230,000 daily activations are new devices only.
6.5 billion apps have been downloaded from App Store so far (that’s 200 every second!) of the 250,000 apps in the Store of which there’s 25,000 apps for iPad.
iOS 4.1
iOS 4.1 will be available next week through iTunes and the main points are:
- Bug fixes: Proximity sensor, Bluetooth issues, iPhone 3G performance.
- HDR photos.
- HD video upload over WIFI.
- TV Show rentals (in addition to purchases).
- Game Center.
HDR photos is kinda cool. Basically the camera snaps three photos on three different exposures and combines them into one, this ensures, for example, that a bright sky doesn’t get completely blown out because the camera tries to get the colors right for what is not in the sky. It’s really cool and I can’t wait to try it out – I use it kinda often on my Sony HX5V pocket digital camera.
Game Center has been announced for a long time now, we first saw it when Steve Jobs demo’ed iOS 4, but not until iOS 4.1 will it go public. On stage at today’s event, the game Project Sword was demoed and the graphics are stunning. Game Center will allow you to play with your friends and will auto match you with other players in case you don’t have any friends.
iOS 4.2 (Sneak Peak)
iOS 4.2 was also shown today and is mostly about iPad as iOS 4.2 will be available for iPad as well. It’s set to be available in November as a free update for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Actually, Steve Jobs mentioned on stage that iOS 4.2 would also bring HDR photos to the iPad, so I assume an iPad with a camera is just around the corner… ?
Two of the new things in iOS 4.2 was wireless printing from the iPad and AirPlay (previously known as AirTunes). More about AirPlay in the AppleTV section further down.
iPods
“Every year we try to improve iPods, make them even better for our users. This year, we’ve gone wild” – Steve Jobs.
All new designs for every iPod model – the biggest change in the iPod line, ever!
iPod Shuffle
Main features of the new iPod Shuffle:
- Smaller.
- Now has a clickwheel.
- VoiceOver.
- PlayLists.
- Clip for instantly wearable.
- 15 hours of music playback (battery).
- Comes in 5 colors and is $49 for a 2GB.
- Pre-order today, expected delivery next week.
iPod Nano
Main features of the new iPod Nano:
- Smaller (46% smaller and 42% lighter).
- Multi-touch (no longer controlled by a clickwheel).
- VoiceOver, FM-Radio, Nike+ etc.
- Clip for instantly wearable.
- 24 hours music playback (battery).
- Rotate the screen with two fingers.
- Comes in 6 colors including a Product RED where some of the profits goes to charity.
- Prices are 8GB for $149 and 16GB for $179.
- Pre-order today, expected delivery next week.
iPod Touch
The iPod Touch is now the most popular iPod. It used to be the Nano but Touch overtook it last year. It’s also the #1 portable game player in the world and outsells Sony and Nintendo, combined. Over 50% market share in the US and worldwide for portable gaming devices.
Main features of the new iPod Touch:
- Even thinner than before.
- New Retina display (4x pixels, 326PPI).
- Apple A4 chip (as in the iPhone 4 and iPad)
- 3-axis Gyro.
- Front-facing camera.
- Rear-facing camera with HD video recording.
- FaceTime
- 40 hours music playback (battery).
- Prices are 8GB for $229, 32GB for $299 and 64GB for $399.
- Pre-order today, expected delivery next week.
iTunes 10
First some downloads and other facts from iTunes Store:
- 11.7 billion songs.
- 450 million TV episodes.
- 100 million movies.
- 30 million books.
- 160 million iTunes Store accounts with credit cards and 1-click shopping in 23 countries.
- #1 online media store in the world.
A new version is now available: iTunes 10.
The good ol’ iTunes logo with a CD in it has been replaced with a new logo without the CD, a subtle hint at where the music business is going.
iTunes 10 also gets a new view, it’s almost like the existing List view but it’s called Hybrid view and instead of wasting space on showing the album name for when there are more than 5 songs per album, it now shows the album cover art instead.
Ping – a social network for music
Apple also launched their own social media network within iTunes 10 and also to be available on iPhone and iPod Touch within the iTunes Store app.
Ping is like Facebook and Twitter combined but revolves around music. Artists will raise their hand and say “everybody can follow me”. You can raise your hand and say the same but you can also say “everybody can follow me, but I want to approve them first”, if you want to control who can follow you on Ping.
Ping is open for all 160 million iTunes users in 23 countries immediately – go get iTunes 10 and register for it now!
AppleTV: One more thing hobby…
The first (current) generation of AppleTV was first launched in September 2006 and Steve Jobs admitted it never really got a big hit. They surveyed and found that what AppleTV users wanted the most were:
- Hollywood movies & TV shows.
- Everything in HD.
- Lower prices for content.
- Don’t want a computer on their TV.
- Don’t want to manage storage.
- Don’t want syncing.
- Hardware to be silent, cool and small.
Well, meet AppleTV 2nd generation, it’s only a quarter the size of the first generation.
AppleTV 2nd generation:
- All HD (when available).
- All rentals, no purchases.
- No storage management.
- Streaming – no syncing.
- Stunning photo slideshows.
- Silent, cool & tiny.
New prices are $4.99 for furst run HD movies (gets cheaper the older the movie gets) and $0.99 for HD TV shows (used to be $2.99).
The only two studios available right now for TV shows are abc and FOX. Steve Jobs hopes that more studios will see the light (in AppleTV) soon.
Also…
- Netflix subscribers can watch and stream movies for free directly from Netflix.
- YouTube (including HD videos).
- Flickr photos.
- MobileMe video & photos.
- Stream from Mac/PC: Music, Photos & Video.
- AirPlay…
The old AppleTV was $229 and the new one is only $99. Available in about 4 weeks, pre-order today.
AirPlay
Formerly known as AirTunes, but now that you can stream more than just music, Apple renamed it to AirPlay. It comes for iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) in iOS 4.2 in November and it will allow you to stream content from your iOS device directly to your new AppleTV.
Basically you can show off a bunch of photos taken with your iPhone as a slideshow on AppleTV uisng AirPlay. Or you can watch a video on iPad and as you enter your AppleTV roam, you can stream it to AppleTV with just a few taps on the device.
Woz
Steve Wozniak also made an apperance at the event, though not on stage, but Steve Jobs did ask him to stand up for just a moment…
Coldplay
Steve Jobs said that they’re many people at Apple who loves music and even though Apple has grown a lot since they first started with music and iPods, they still care about music. That’s why they ask someone to come and perform at these music events and this time it was one of the members from Coldplay (not sure which one). He ended the show by singing a few songs on stage.
Apple is a biggest seller of iPods and it tells the story why they are too much into the music market. Thanks for giving us an insight into this Apple Music Event.
Hi Sathish. Yes, that’s very correct, Apple is the biggest seller of iPods and the reason is probably that they’re also the only seller of iPods 😉
I was particularly excited about the new Nano and ipod touch. There have been some revolutionary changes like the retina display and facetime!
you have covered almost all the things in the live event . Actually this was the first ever Apple Live Event i saw presented by Jobs…
i loved the new touch nano , but its expensive , we can get the ipod touch 4 for few more bucks , with lot more features …. the nano is just a showoff
That is really cool. I like the new option with apple TV. I like how they have made the shuffle and nano so small, but why would you want a nano with a screen that small?