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Rumors of iPod mini, 100 Million Songs, Xserve G5 All True
The mini is anodized aluminum and comes in silver, gold, blue, green, and pink. Accessories include a dock and armband. It can be connected to the computer via FireWire 400 or USB 2.0.
Jobs also announced some changes to the existing iPod line, including a bump from 10GB to 15GB for the $300 version, and new in-ear headphones for $40.
The Xserve G5 is, like the previous Xserve, a 1U server. It can hold up to 8GB of ECC DDR 400 memory, and up to 750GB of storage. It includes an unlimited client license for Mac OS X Server 10.3, and comes in three configurations: 2GHz for $3,000, dual 2GHz for $4,000, and cluster node dual 2GHz for $3,000.
The Xserve RAID got a bump, too. The 3U RAID has a 500GB increase in capacity to 3.5TB for $11,000; 1.75TB for $7,500; and 1TB for $6,000. And, it is now certified for use with some versions of Windows and Linux.
Jobs, with the help of recording artist John Mayer, introduced the newest member of the iLife media application family: Garage Band. It is a music instrument and recording tool, that can mix up to 64 tracks, comes with 50 software instruments, over 1,000 professional loops, and 200 effects. It can record live instruments and take input from a USB or MIDI controller. It simulates various modern and vintage amps for guitar playback.
The optional $99 Jam Pack adds 100 more instruments, 2,000 more loops, 15 more amps, and more effects.
iPhoto, the most maligned of the iLife apps for its performance problems, received a much-needed update. It can now handle up to 25,000 photos (instead of mere hundreds), and adds automatic and smart albums (similar to iTunes), ratings of photos, and sharing via Rendezvous. Like iTunes, you apparently can't modify descriptions and titles through sharing, but unlike iTunes, there are no copyright restrictions.
iDVD and iMovie also got updates: better control, new and improved effects, and more. iMovie has exporting directly to your iDisk for use on your home page and importing directly from an iSight camera, and iDVD adds a navigation map and archiving projects for burning on another computer. iDVD also gets higher-quality Pro encoding, with 2 hours per DVD.
iLife, for $49, and the Jam Pack are available starting January 16. There was no indication that any new components of iLife will be available for free download, but iLife will be included with all new Macs.
Final Cut Express was bumped to version 2, and is basically updated to include the features from Final Cut Pro 4. Upgrades are $99.
Microsoft announced Office 2004, an upgrade to Office X. People who purchase Office X now until the spring, when 2004 is released, will be eligible for a free upgrade.
Pepsi's iTunes Music Store giveaway will begin on February 1. Yellow caps noting the 100 million song giveaway will have a 1 in 3 chance of winning.
Jobs also noted that iTunes Music Store has 70% of the market share for online music purchasing; that 50,000 audio books were sold for the quarter; that 500,000 songs are now online, making the store the largest online; and that one person has spent $29,500 on iTunes Music Store. Yes, $29,500.
They updated the classic 1984 commercial for it's 20th anniversary. The girl is now wearing iPod... :)
t ml
http://www.apple.com/hardware/ads/1984/1984_480.h
And that makes me wonder what new stuff Apple will introduce on January 24th...
The mini (4GB) version is $249, that is $62 per GB. On the other hand the 15GB 'big brother' iPod is $299, a mere $20 per GB. That makes the final 11 GB on the 15GB model a bargain at only $50: less than the cost of ONE iPMini GB.
;)
Of course, Apple uses what is pretty much a 1/.8 rather than a 1/0.55 exchange rate for the UK market, so I'm scammed either way
Also, has anyone got a URL for a video of the full keynote like the one for where he announced the G5s?
Steve himself announced it was going to happen when iTunes Music Store was originally rolled out.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
It seems as if the new mini-ipod is playing catch up with the already-announced Rio Nitrus. It's equally priced, stores 4 GB as well, is the same size if not smaller, is actually lighter, has double the battery time, and is expected to ship this month, instead of february, like the mini pod. Although you could cop out with the "stylish design" argument before, the shots of the new minipods, even with all the new colors... well, they look like butt. The nitrus, from what I've seen of it's current 1.5 gig version, is pretty quick to pickup with it's ease of use, as well. The only real advantages i see the minipods having is the firewire and mac compatibility....
I would have never imagined that they would include an application as great as GarageBand and kept the price of iLife at $50. GarageBand is gonna compete with products like Guitar Port, so you get amplifier simulations for a tiny price. They sounded great too. I just can't believe this, it's gotta be a strategy to sell more Macs because the technology behind GarageBand (and its $99 add-on) is NOT cheap. If it were a demo for a high-end application I would have been just as floored. How much is a G5 again?
Also worth noting is that they officially announced Xgrid, their clustering software. There had been a maililng list for it a couple of months ago that was later shutdown. From the press release it says:
"Xgrid makes it easy to turn your Mac cluster into a supercomputer," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The new Xgrid software agents use Apple's breakthrough Rendezvous networking technology to automatically discover, connect and manage tasks across available systems in a Mac cluster."
The entire press release can be read here and in it they say they have posted a beta version of the software but I've yet to find it.
Now, the 4 gig iPod Mini has a 4 gig hard drive and it holds 1000 songs? It only holds 800 of those 5 meg songs we had on our 5 gig iPod 2 years ago!
That's because the new numbers are based on AAC compression, which is a bit more efficient than MP3. AAC wasn't available when the original iPod came out.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
The iPod mini is not solid state; it has a hard disk.
Its smaller, it looks cool, had a new "click-wheel", has plenty of capacity for most people, includes USB cable for windows users (no need to buy seperately). That said, I think $250 is still a little too high. $199 and I'd be tempted. I think if they lower the price too much (e.g. like some have advocated, a sub-$100 player) they would cannabilize sales from their full-size (and expensive) iPods.
The main feature is that it looks to have a speaker simulator. So you can just plug guitar into mac without needing to buy anything extra or be bothered with properly learning how to mic an amp.
Gentoo Sucks
My guesses: no import of other formats, and it will support any hardware that can be connected by USB.
It's worth noting that Garage Band seems to be a miniaturized version of Apple's $199 Soundtrack application, which may have the features you need.
Not only that, but I jog with my regular 3rd gen iPod all the time with no problems!
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
you are missing the rest of the details of going from the new 15gig to the 20gig: the 20 gig comes with a wired remote AND the docking cradle. so at $39 for the dock, and the portion of the $39 for the remote (set also comes with new headphones), you are getting those extra 5gigs for about $30; 30/5=so it is only $6 per additional gig....
The average 1U case has more fans than a desktop does running at even higher speeds to pass the air through it. A Powerbook is expected to run with perhaps one tiny fan that only comes on when it gets warm enough to keep it quiet and save power. There's no comparison between a laptop and a 1U server case.
The Apple site says the mini has 8 hours of battery life. http://www.apple.com/ipodmini/
You can easily get the 20gb Rio Karma for $250 as well - vorbis, flac, 16 hours battery, ethernet, etc etc.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
"If Macs have sufficiently high quality A/D conversion for this purpose, then you should be able to use any recording software, and I believe there's plenty of it."
Plenty of it that costs way more than $50 that does the same thing. The closest thing I can find that does decent Amp-modeling and multi-track recording is at least over $100, if not closer to $200 or more. Unless you know of a $50 music recording application that does the same stuff...
Throw in the fact that it comes with plenty of other neat, helpful applications too, and the whole ilife pack starts to look like a ton of fun...
Although I agree with those complaining about the price, one nice feature of the iPod mimi is it will charge via USB. And, it actually ships with a USB cable.
You also get the remote ($39), the dock ($39), and the carrying case ($39).
So, 5 gig plus $117 worth of accessories for $100.
Not a bad deal.
Not just upper-middle class. I'm sure some student loan money is already being spent on Apple's education site (where students can get the mini for $229) as we all speak.
Pro Tools Free ain't free no more. At least, the only version that's still free is the one that only works on Windows 98 & Mac OS 9. To get the latest & best you got to buy the protool hardware...
>> who would buy 1/4 the capacity of a regular ipod for only $50 less?
>The person that was going to buy that 256 meg Rio doodad for $199, perhaps...
Are you talking about my $199 Rio Karma? Cause heck, I coulda sworn it had a 20gb drive, not the 256mb you mention.
http://www.apple.com/ilife/uptodate/
Or, return it. I know of two people who received and opened 30 GB iPods the day the 40GB models were introduced. Apple's customer service took the 30s back and sent 40s, free of charge.
It's worth asking, at least. :)
they say they have posted a beta version of the software but I've yet to find it.
How about here:
http://www.apple.com/acg/xgrid/
There's a link on the right to download the preview release.
Lasers Controlled Games!
The return of NeXT Zilla! muhahahaha
Now with rendezvous technology! yum
I went to radio shack and got an RS-branded armband with a pouch that was just on the almost-too-snug side for my gen1 ipod, so I'd expect it's perfect for the gen2. It was like $15, I think. I jog with it all the time. It's like it was made for it!
You can easily get the 20gb Rio Karma for $250 as well - vorbis, flac, 16 hours battery, ethernet, etc etc.
Yeah, but that's a fucking Rio Karma for christ sake -- they're cheaply made (mine physically fell apart in my hands after two months), and have a horrible interface that basically requires you to sit down and think about what you want to do before even attempting to navigate it. DON'T GET A RIO KARMA!
Then, in the summer of 2002, Apple dropped the price of the 5Gb model to $299, made the 10Gb model $399 and introduced a 20 Gb model for $499.
At this point, the iPod was selling like hotcakes even though its average price was $400.
Now they've introduced the smaller, lighter, COLORED (oooh!) 4Gb iPod mini for $50 less than the older 5Gb iPod.
These are going to sell great now, but just wait until Apple drops the price on the iPod mini. I predict that we'll see them at $199 by this summer, and then EVERYONE will have one, including me.
The term "outside the box" is squarely within the box at this point.
yes, it's here.. a live stream though, so you can't "scrub" through it..
Nobody playing in the desktop Linux space has the capital to develop an iLife. (Who's left anyway? The Kompany?) This didn't just spring up over night. Apple bought Soundjam for iTunes, they bought some software for iDVD, they bought Final Cut Pro from Macromedia (and I think that is where iMovie came from), and they bought Emagic for the technology for GarageBand (I'm not sure where iPhoto came from). Then they spent a bunch of time and money turning them into iLife apps. Who else can do software development on this scale? And not in terms of developers, which I understand are surprisingly few, but in scope. Microsoft and maybe a couple of others are it.
According to Apple it's hard drive based. It does have 25 minutes skip protection, however, so the drive is very rarely spinning. I've shaken an iPod while it's loading fresh tracks in and it' been fine. I imagine that doing it too much would be A Bad Thing, however.
Looks like those of us that want foreign character sets engraved on our colorful iPods will have to wait until the global launch this spring. The US Apple store will not take Kanji or accented characters. A call to the Apple store was of no help either as the rep really had no clue.
i have a rio karma and i love it! It doesnt suffer from cheap build quality, i have no idea what you are talking about. the menu system is easy to use (i havent used the ipods). im sure if you want to go drop the $400 for a 20gb ipod, it will be easier to use, etc, but i wanted the best deal for the money. they release new firmware updates all the time and through the network connection you can use it from any operating system (which has java runtime installed) and load music or files onto it! i think maybe people should try it out for themselves
Yes, the Mini's included USB 2.0 cable may be significant for PC users without Firewire (such as myself).
A full-sized (15+ GB) iPod would require a $19 optional cable for USB 2.0 connectivity. So for me, the 'effective' price difference becomes $50 + $19 = $69.
I confirmed this with the Apple Store by phone. I also asked them to correct one erroneous statement on their site, which said that the full-sized iPods include the USB 2.0 cable. Not so. Only the Mini includes one at no extra charge.
Also, by the way, some people believe that the Mini ships with the Dock and/or Remote at no extra charge. Again, not so.
Apple's iPod specs page has correct information, I'm told.
Yes, you can record vocals as well as utilizing real time plugins in the form of Apple "AudioUnits" to add effects (effects in realtime for monitoring and recording I believe) to those vocals as well! All in 24bit 96khz quality! I'm telling you, this application is a steal @ $49!