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Apple Announces iTunes 7, Movies, Set-Top Box
necro81 writes, "As anticipated, Apple announced several additions and upgrades to its iPod and iTunes lineup. The iPod now comes in an 80 GB model, with a $50 price drop for the 30 GB model. The 2nd generation iPod Nano harkens back to the iPod Mini with metallic, multi-colored shells (though as diminutive as ever) and comes in an 8 GB model. The Shuffle has been completely redesigned and shrunk down to the size of a matchbook. All of this comes with the release of iTunes 7, which includes support for downloading full-length movies from iTMS." All 75 movies initially available are from Disney-related studios. The new iTunes will download cover art for all the songs in your library, no matter where you got them from, as long as you have an iTunes account. (A confirmation dialog says: "Information about songs with missing artwork will be sent to Apple. Apple does not keep any information related to the contents of your music library.") There's a new album-cover browsing view of your library. And Steve Jobs gave a sneak preview of a project code-named iTV: a Mac Mini-like wireless set-top box. Engadget has a blow-by-blow of Steve Jobs's presentation.
While the capacities of the new one are nice, the design isn't nearly as sleek or sophisticated as the original nano design. It's a shame, I kind of detest Apple in general as fan-boy garbage (Rio Karma baby), but I did like the polish of the 1G Nano.
-rt
Gapless Payck for iPod! Wonder if they will update the 5th gen with this?? Please???
As well as an overhaul of the iTunes interface. One of the weirder things they added though was the "explicit" warning to music bought from the music store that is well, explicit.
But perhaps most shocking and sacrilegious: they changed the color of the music note! It is blue now! How could they destroy tradition like that!
Monstar L
MacRumorsLive
09:51 am iLounge: Griffin Technology, Belkin, Incase and Nike are in attendance.
09:52 am iLounge: Folks are crowding to get up-front seats. (wonder why?)
10:03 am iLounge: theater is filled to capacity (755 person theater). Podium on the right, a computer setup on the left of the stage (looks like an iMac)
10:04 am the event appears to have begun
10:05 am iLounge: talks about iPod sports kit. Foot Locker is blown away by sales. 450,000 sales in 90 days
10:06 am iLounge: iPods. 3 iPods: iPod, Nano, and Shuffle
10:07 am iLounge: iPod is getting enhanced today. 60% brighter with brighness control, 3.5 hours video playback (up from 2 hrs... big version goes to 6.5 hours), new headphones, gapless playback
10:08 am iLounge: new iPod software features: instant searching, new games (Bejeweled, Cubis 2, Mahjong, Mini golf, pac man, tetris, texas holdem, vortex, and zuma)
10:09 am iLounge: games for sale off iTunes for $4.99
10:10 am iLounge: games will work on 5G ipods
10:12 am iLounge: 249 and 349 with 60GB and 80GB capacity [SHOULD BE 30GB, 80GB. See below]
10:12 am iLounge: Nano is now, as rumored, Aluminum and in colors
10:14 am iLounge: Green silver black blue pink
10:14 am iLounge: 24 hour batter life
10:15 am iLounge: New software just like standard iPod
10:16 am iLounge: 3 models, but with double storage capacity at each model (and varying colors available)
10:16 am iLounge: 2GB is $149 in silver only
10:16 am iLounge: 4GB is $199 in all colors but black
10:16 am iLounge: 8GB is $249 in all colors
10:17 am iLounge: All models are 52% smaller in volume than previous nano. new charger, new armband, new lanyard
10:18 am iLounge: iPod Shuffle is now 2nd generationl size of iPod Radio Remote
10:21 am iLounge: metal body, 1 model (1GB), $79, ships in october.
10:22 am Engadget: (for nano) $149 2GB ipod is aluminum only, $199 4GB has colors, $249 8GB is black only
10:23 am iLounge: iTunes 7 today
10:24 am iLounge: Source list now includes library with sep libraries for all forms of media
10:24 am iLounge: Store now has own section, devices have their own sections, playlists too
10:25 am iLounge: iTunes will give you cover art for free if you are missing cover art (thanks Steve)
10:26 am iLounge: 3 different views of iTunes, list view, album view (with art and tracks), then "cover flow view" lets you rapidly find what you want by album cover
10:27 am iLounge: iPod updater appears to be now integrated into iTunes
10:28 am iLounge: TV shows are now encoded at 640x480 (h264), up from 320x240
10:28 am Engadget: Today we're introducing the biggest single enhancement: iTunes 7
You say "it looks the same," but it isn't
[the left nav is more cleanly organized without being radically different]
We've added a View switch, a 3-position switch. we've added a 2nd view called album view, so you can scroll through your music library and look at it by album. what if you ripped your CDs and don't have the covers? Today we're announcing free missing album cover art for all the music in your library if you have an itune acct. itunes will automatically download it for free
but there's something even better. that's the third view. it's called Cover Flow view. [LOOKS LIKE FLIPPLING THROUGH YOUR CD RACK]
10:30 am iLounge: you can now sync between multiple computers using an iPod, as long as both are authorized on the same account
10:30 am Engadget: Now, all of this video is encoded with the best encoding in the world, H.264. We've been distributing it at 320x240. Today, we're going to take that up a notch to 640x480. That's 4x the resolution. iTunes 7 also has seamless playback for video.
10:31 am 10:27AM Engadget: You can update your iPod from right inside iTunes now, you don't need to go to Preferences. You can say, "I want to sync the 10 most recent unwatched episides of all my TV shows."
10:31 am iLounge: Demo of iT
Alas, I have just seen that one of the wondrous features the new iTunes Music Store boasts is the ability to lock out iTunes 5. This is the version I've been using on all my macs for one real reason - when I download their free singles of the week (which vary a lot in quality), I like to be able to remove the DRM immediately afterwards. It appears that I am being forced to upgrade. Ahh well. I can also presume that my 4th Gen iPod Colour will not be able to play the new games. How I love thy, apple....
My UID is prime. Is yours?
I went with a black 80 gig model. Not really interested in music, but I now have access to enough space to rip my DVD collection onto.
The estimated shipping time is currently 3 - 5 days.
8==8 Bones 8==8
How much can your pocket hold? That's up to you and your iPod. It holds up to 20,000 songs, up to 25,000 photos, and up to 100 hours of video -- or any combination of each.
If only Apple new that I like 10 minute songs, 4096x3072 pics, and 3 hour movies.
That new shuffle is cute as a button
You have to give Apple a round of applause. They ALWAYS get the product design right from an asthetic point of view.
I'm not keen on the new icon - now there's too much blue in my dock.
.dmg - just wait for software update.
and it pisses me off how videos doesn't have a section now jus a playlist. but I can't even play iTMS videos yet because you need the new quicktime that isn't on software update yet.
the cover view is made crappy by not grouping compilations - hence the same album art repeated for different artists.
so don't bother downloading the
For fuck's sake. I hate giving money to Apple. But now my girlfriend's going to insist on having one of these new iPod Nanos for Christmas. And what really winds me up is that she isn't even going to care about the capacity, or the battery, or the patented scroll-wheel interface, or iTunes integration, or anything like that. She's going to want it because it's blue.
When I downloaded and installed iTunes 7, I was rather stunned to see the new interface. It doesn't even remotely resemble a standard Mac OS X Aqua application. It looks... well, almost like a gray Windows application. Or a Java application. Yuck. Dear Apple, please bring back the old, standard look and feel. Enough said!
Why is it that we eagerly participate in a mad rush to publicize every single product at every single Apple PR event? No one else *ever* gets that kind of coverage... Imagine Dell or Creative Labs having a similar impact. The cold, hard reality is that the company has its share of flops along with the home runs (like that odd iPod speaker thingy) and they're definitely not a cool and trendy ma & pa shop... yet we treat them like one. I know there stuff is cool, but it's not always the coolest. So why is it that we keep worshiping at the Idol of Jobs?
Looking forward to this - but the big question will be, can you import video, or does it all have to come from iTunes Music Store? Namely, will Apple support via iTunes, just as they do for CDs, importing DVDs? Because a set top box that can only play video from an iTunes-bearing computer is relatively useless in comparison with Tivo/DVR/EyeTV/whathaveyou. Combine your standard cable company's DVR box with EyeTV and you can get any video you want on your Mac mini. No need for an "iTV" then. I guess if they just want to make it easy for people to get their iTunes videos onto their TV screen, that'll be good for most, but I would hope they at least provide some advanced functionality.
I guess apple and TiVo won't be pairing up to offer iTunes support. Bummer. I thought there was some rumor they were talking about it at one point.
The set-top box is looking pretty nice (component and HDMI video output). Makes me wonder if it has the horsepower to decode HD material. If so, then it may work it's way to the top of my wishlist when it's released.
This guy's the limit!
Use the scroll-wheel on your mouse to browse those albums. MMMmmmm, tasty!
After hearing all the rumors of an iPod cell phone and widescreen video iPods, the actual product announcements seem quite unimpressive. It seems like the only product that got a major redesign was the Shuffle, with everything else being minor enhancements.
Sure, cheaper iPods with more storage and battery life are a good thing, but I didn't really see anything that wanted me to upgrade my existing MP3 player.
There's no word on where these iPod games came from or how they were developed. I never saw any SDKs released for this new iPod capability, even under NDA. I wonder, are these games J2ME apps? Where's the SDK?
If this new iPod can run J2ME games, there's a truckload of stuff you can get w/o going thru iTunes and paying five bucks per game.
Hopefully this one does slightly better, eh?
Interesting that they did a preview of a product they’re not ready to formally announce yet. Rather uncharacteristic. I guess they feel their hand is being forced. Perhaps they’re trying to steal thunder from Vista Media Center Edition or whatever it’s called? You’d think they’d at least finalize the name, though. Really odd.
Or maybe they’re trying to convince the other movie houses that they’re really serious about this and that the public is interested enough.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
I'm looking at the option of getting a mini music player, and iPod seems to be the way to go. With Apple's reputation of doing things well, i'll bet it'll be a high quality piece of hardware as easy to use as ever.
And i always thought Sony could have done it. Oh well.
Have you read my journal today?
That was the make or break for me. I could deal with a $10 movie price as long as I could burn the movie to DVD and watch it on TV.
Without it - sorry, folks, but I'll wait.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Well, at $14.99 the movies are too expensive. But the new set-top box is a promising step in the right direction. That plus a Mac Mini look like a nice, quiet, unobtrusive presence in the living room. Notice that the box has HDMI out - possible hi-def videos in the future?
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Apple also posted Quicktime videos of their new "iPod nano rave" commercials. Tres trippy.
I wonder if iTunes version 7 fixed the iTunes v6 FairPlay DRM crack. Has anyone tried it?
It looks like they used powerpoint for that presentation?
Putting "Blow by blow" and "Steve Jobs" in one sentence really wasn't a good idea.
Summation 2
There's some much appreciated updates in iTunes, speaking for myself at least...the album art was something I had to do in external programs (Tag & rename for instance).
But, I've noticed the installer mentioned something about a "Software updater" (or equivalent in English) for iTunes & QuickTime - have they finally solved the full-install download for each version revision I wonder? I guess we won't know for sure until there's an update.
throw new NoSignatureException();
I know this is not new, but enabling this functionality for iTMS tracks only is a real dick move.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime
You're welcome...
Let's review, shall we?
In short, in anything in home entertainment that requires a real user interface, Apple has already beaten the competition so soundly that it is hard to see how they will recover. Apart from the XBox 360 line (still a money-loser, though they might finally eek out a profit if Sony doesn't get their act together), Microsoft is completely absent with viable competitors. With $349 for an 80 GB video iPod, does anyone think Zune, due in November, is going to be anything but dead on arrival?
Game over, Man.
-Crow T. Trollbot
"Hey, you've got a bit of dust on your clothes"
"That's not dust! That's my ipod!"
Demented But Determined.
Via gizmodo http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple-showtime/apple-sh owtime-itv-one-more-thing-photos-200139.php
Posted anonymously so I don't get called a karma whore
My key question: will the movies and updated TV shows have closed captioning? Under iTMS6 they do not. Likewise, the current iPod doesn't support closed captioning either.
On a related note, will iTunes allow importing of content from EyeTV, VIDEO_TS folders (guessing no due to Front Row), or ripping of DVDs? EyeTV integrates with FrontRow, but will it work with this new iTV box? I can rip my CDs already, can I now rip my DVDs?
Offtopic? I thought the parent post was somewhat Informative.
While everybody is churning out core 2 duo, apple is not. Steve, get you act together
All this silly Apple hype is is just a disgusting display of consumerism run amok. It's THE shiny gadget to waste your money on, so it's gonna get lots of press. Yuck. But hey, what's patriotism if it isn't going even further into debt to buy more Chinese-made plastic shit that you don't need?
I downloaded The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as a test.
- The movie is 1.22 GB, and downloaded in about 20 minutes on a 100 Mbps connection (Internet2).
- The movie was able to be played before downloading was finished, and could skip to anywhere in the content that was already complete.
- The content shows itself as being protected by "FairPlay Version: 2".
- The bitrate is 1.5Mbps.
- The framerate is 24fps.
- The audio on this particular movie is Protected AAC, stereo, 128kbps, 44.1kHz.
- The video on this particular movie is Protected H.264/AVC0 640x272 (Widescreen format, probably just 640x480 with the black bars eliminated).
- The video looks very good (indeed, "near DVD quality") on a high quality 20" LCD. (I'm not a "videophile", but this is absolutely more than watchable on a nice quality large TV or monitor, and I suspect most consumers would agree).
- The video can be played in QuickTime, and uses QuickTime Chapters for DVD chapters; chapters are also accessible in iTunes.
- The video file can be burned to a DVD, but you cannot burn the file as a video DVD.
- You can play the file on multiple computers (I *believe* up to three as opposed to five for music), or on an unlimited number of iPods (if the usage rights haven't changed with iTunes 7; I haven't looked through the terms - if someone knows this to be different please correct me. In any case, it's already less restrictive than Unbox).
- iTunes 7.0 requires QuickTime 7.1.3.
- Pretty much every movie I looked at was $9.99; some new releases were up to $14.99, but were cheaper if preordered.
- When used on a Mac in a media center configuration, or with the forthcoming iTV solution that will presumably be much like a video AirPort Express (and yes, I know it's not an AirPort Express, but it will probably act a lot like a AirPort Express functionally, except allowing the streaming of video to your TV), this will be a pretty compelling and vertically integrated solution for most consumers.
iTunes 7 addressed every last issue I had with it. In fact, two of the things--separation of media libraries and an album cover art view--were being discussed in my IRC chan only to have them addressed half an hour later. Good job, Apple!
One thing I noticed since iTunes 5 introduced its "smooth metal" look is how easier it is to vectorize simple gradients like that than a texture like brushed metal, and I assumed it was in preparation for a future vectorized interface in OS X Leopard. iTunes 7 furthers that agenda by removing the blue-pulse Aqua scrollbars in favor of flat, gradient-shaded versions. Are these signs of the next vector Aqua?
It should be noted that Windows Vista's Glass theme, while technically resolution independent, still uses bitmap scaling for its interface, choosing between different resolution resources depending on the user's DPI. A Microsoft developer wrote on his blog that they did this because they didn't have the vector tools in place yet, and they didn't want to disrupt their existing artwork generation process. Lame.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I love that somewhat Orwellian slide that Engadget has from the presentation:
Apple is in your den
Apple is in your living room
Apple is in your car
Apple is in your pocket
What's next?
Strength Through iTunes
iTunes Through Apple
Apple Prevails
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
"All 75 movies initially available are from Disney-related studios."
When can I upload my own terrorism fan fiction, say a version of the story of 9/11/2001 that blames Al Gore, to iTunes, and become a Disney-related studio?
--
make install -not war
Does this version of iTunes finally support the x64 for the PC? That was really annoying to not be able to install 6.0.5 on Windows XP x64 without having to use some sort of workaround.
-
The new version of iTunes also has gapless playback support. No word yet on whether the new iPods do the same or not, but it'd be nice.
± 29 dB
I was listening to music in iTunes 7 when I went to the iPod games page (), which has an embedded Quicktime movie. When the movie started playing the music in iTunes started playing at double time, like it was being fast forwarded. Anyone else care to try to see if it's an iTunes bug?
Without it - sorry, folks, but I'll wait.
They want you to buy the media center pc they are coming out with. That way you download it to your pc and watch it on TV without having to burn a disc.
The masses will love it. The only question is will it have TIVO functionality?
Cropped movies are a BAD thing. Theatrical movies are much wider than 4:3. I stopped watching "pan & scan" movies a long time ago. The idea is that a human tries to scan left and right to get the right shot. Of course, things don't always go well. I got sick of people talking who I couldn't even see! Unless the movies are in widescreen--I'm not interested.
When I read the part about iTV, for some reason I got this image in my head of Steve Jobs walking up to Bill Gates and delivering a resounding *SMACK*, before walking off without explanation.
As someone who only lightly follows product releases, I look at both the media center ability of the 360, and the media center ability of the iTV. But it's only the iTV that's simple enough for me to understand how it works by just looking at a picture of the product. For some reason, microsoft's services just don't have the kind of cohesion between their products that would grab the average Joe's attention and understanding. This might be a good reason to switch to mac...
I wanna Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro
I wanna Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro
...
I wanna Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro
I wanna Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
How can everyone get so caught up in all the gadgetry that no one noticed Steve was wearing a red button up?
... still don't seem to have been added, although I'm sure the new blue-note icon motif is to die for. Sheesh. Apple still seems to be convinced that iTunes is the only application their Windows users ever run.
It remains to be seen if Apple has divined the secrets of the holy WM_PAINT message. I'm optimistic; the UI does look a little snappier.
(Plug for my freeware implementation of iTunes global hotkeys, which really should have been rendered obsolete by Apple: http://www.ke5fx.com/ilaunch/readme.htm)
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
ITV (note all capitals) is the name of the major terrestrial TV channel in the UK, so Apple will probably have to change it to avoid confusion/trademarks. Otherwise, "I'm going to use my iTV to record ITV".
Movies/Shows/Music can now be shared between 5 computers, unlimited iPods and as many iTVs (or whatever) as you buy. It just makes so much sense for people with home & cottage to be able to bring a bunch of movies to the cottage without having to pack up DVDs. Once this moves up to HDTV standards (bandwidth is probably the only reason they haven't yet), then this could just end the format war before it started.
Also, you can backup movies downloaded from iTMS onto DVD, it just isn't a DVD-player readable format. So, they've even thought about that touch. Now just to decide how long to wait. Second edition? Third edition? It's always hard to tell with Apple products. Just when will they hit that sweet spot?
The last time Apple did an iTunes upgrade, they added a minibrowser mode which would basically call home and tell Apple what you were listening to, so that the store would give you recommendations. There was a big hue and cry about the privacy concerns, so Apple changed that to be off by default, instead of on by default.
With iTunes 7, Apple will now let you get the artwork for your entire music collection, even if it wasn't bought from iTMS. This means that Apple has now given you a reason to willingly tell them about your entire music collection, effectively letting them get the information they want about your musical tastes. Very smart!
I noticed Apple was mum on iTunes for 64 bit processing. Which is too bad, because I really miss having iTunes since I upgraded to WinXP 64... especially since it means using Windows Media Player (**shudder**).
It's about time they fixed that.
Because "Me like sex."
You don't have a girlfriend! Nobody on slashdot does. Ha. Ha. Ha.
To hell with all this "movies" and "set-top box" shit. I got TETRIS on my iPod now!
Woop!
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
Did the student discount apply to iPods? I'm almost 100% certain it did, but it seems it doesn't anymore. I was just looking at iPods last night...
I hate grammar Nazi's.
I love that somewhat Orwellian slide that Engadget has from the presentation:
Apple is in your den
Apple is in your living room
Apple is in your car
Apple is in your pocket
What's next?
Strength Through iTunes
iTunes Through Apple
Apple Prevails
It's always like that. Apple is going along, brainwashing people. Things are great. And then when we are watching a Steve Jobs special event presentation on a giant screen in an auditorium some athletic chic from IBM comes running in and throws a big hammer at the screen. Bummer.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I was kinda prepared to place my order today. MacBook with Core 2 Duo. Bummer.
I will stop reading your stupid rumor sites now.
The new iPod Shuffle is a joke. A big part of the appeal of the Shuffle is that it had an integrated USB connector - you could use it to replace a USB flash drive and get an MP3 player to boot, without having to carry around a cable. Now you need a cable - a stupid proprietary one at that, not even a standard mini-USB connector. Moreover, one of the other advantages of the Shuffle was that you could hold it like a remote and operate it easily (and even shake it along to the music). Now that it's aluminum and roughly square, it's not going to be the easiest thing to hold.
The Nano is - well, also kind of disappointing. 8GB is nice (though SanDisk and other manufacturers already offered it), but the new design isn't really new at all. It looks like the iPod mini, which is great if you liked the Mini. I guess Apple didn't want their "mid-range" iPod looking like the "real thing", but, come on, the Nano looked great - so great, in fact, that Apple modeled the 5G after it. And where are the new features? No game downloads? No video playback? It's the same as the old Nano, but it doesn't look as cool. You can't even get the 8GB version in the new colors (it's black only).
And games? Great. You can download Bejewled onto your iPod. Nevermind the fact that you really need a touchscreen to play Bejewled. Nevermind that every cellphone and every PDA made in the last 5 years can already play games.
Movies? Apple's going to have to do better than $14.99 for a movie. I can get the DVD for that price, transfer it to a PSP/iPod/PDA, and be able to play it in DTS/DD 5.1 on my DVD player as well. Portable DVD player? $150, and it has a 7" screen too. Apple's service seems strangely reminiscent of the many movie download services that have been out for years (Movielink, anyone?).
Same iPods, different day. Apple can't seem to come up with anything new.
>we love new iPods.
;-)
Speak for yourself, apple boy!
Aaanyway, if Brushed Metal hears about the new interface, he's gonna be really fucking mad.
Just last week we saw a story on slashdot about iTunes 6 FairPlay DRM being cracked. I imagine it is just a matter of time before the Hymanal project will pick that up. But if iTunes 7 uses new DRM tech, then anyone who updates prematurely might not be able to use the new iTunes 6 DRM crack. Interesting that iTunes 7 came out just a week after that crack was made public. Get your "upgrades" now!
They already mentioned that iTV is their internal development name and that they haven't come up with a shipping name for it yet. Interesting that they even showed it without a product name or shipping date.
God you guys are sheep. iPod and iTunes are crap. Crap!
Crap!
Salut,
Jacques
iTunes has had gapless for a while. Looks like the iPods get the benefit, though I'm not sure what they're doing there... Maybe they're joining the files on the ipod and using file markers to separate things in the interface. Time will tell :-)
Did you guys notice that the custom install for iTunes 7.0 features a grayed out item 'iTunes Phone Driver'. Just wondering what this might be.
Doesn't it seem out of character for Apple to announce iTV well before it's ready? They haven't even picked the real name yet. What's the idea? Trying to make sure the event doesn't seem like a "me too" following Amazon's movie service?
Free, legal music for iTunes users.
I'm getting very tempted to dump my DVR+CATV and replace it with a Mac Mini and a TV antenna. I currently pay about $70 / month for an HDTV DVR from Comcast. With a Mac Mini, I could get most of my shows from iTunes for less money, and the rest could come over-the-air from local broadcasts. (Pretty much everything that's not on iTunes is on broadcast TV or Netflix.)
The advantage is that I anticipate that a Mac mini & iTunes is a lot more reliable then Comcast's DVR. The disadvantage (if I understand correctly,) is that most shows aren't available until the day after broadcast. This really is annoying, because I like to watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report as soon as they air.
This would also reduce clutter, as I wouldn't have to switch between seperate DVRs and DVD players. Hopefully the Mac Mini can support USB or FireWire BlueRay and HD-DVD players.
No, I will not work for your startup
I'm guessing they are waiting on Vista.
The massive amount of throughput required for raw streams would be impossible to trasmit, even over a good network, particularly not 802.11g... Decoding even HD streams is easy with video decoding offload. My 1.8 GHz AthlonXP under mythtv playing 1920x1080 streams has about 50% idle when using XvMC to assist with decoding (using the planar Geforce 6150), so their set top box should have no problem decoding even tough stuff.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Guess it sucks to be CoverScout now...
http://www.equinux.com/us/products/coverscout/inde x.html
I am choking with joy when I saw the new iPod Nano, I got my nano a bit less than a year ago but I am seriously considering about ditching it (battery life is less than 8 hrs now) and get the new 8 gig version. But where is the iPod phone and full screen ipod people were hyping about?! Especially stuff like these! http://www.apple-style.com/laboratory/
Not trying to troll, but the only people I ever hear complain about this are people here. I have a sansa e250, and I had to sit and listen to the thing and pay attention to make sure it wasn't gapless. When I'm listening to music, it's hard to notice the gap. For example, most cds have a small gap between the songs, as the music dies down from one song and the next one begins. It's hardly noticeable due to the volumne decrease/increase 99% of songs have built-in.
Starmen.net
does anyone know if myfairtunes6 still works with the new version of iTunes?
Apple does sell some products, but more than that, they sell an image. Their stuff isn't always the best, but they act like it's the best, and they're so confident in it that people start to think that they're the best.
There is a problem with the scrollbars. OSX scrollbars can normally either have both arrows clustered at the bottom right, or one arrow on either end. The preference to change that is in the Appearance control panel.
But there is a third option, which you generally have to set via the terminal, for double arrows at both ends. This has worked in everything AFAIK until now. iTunes 7 appears to have the arrows at the bottom right by default, and only changes to the arrows at each end if that is set. It doesn't honor the double arrows at both ends setting, instead defaulting back to double arrows only in the lower right. And since it apparently doesn't use the standard arrows, like pretty much everything else, this is relevant.
This is pretty minor, but annoying, especially since if I couldn't have double arrows at both ends, I'd have single arrows at both ends, but since I won't change the global setting (since everything else still works with it), iTunes uses the double at one end arrows, which I hate.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
My mythfrontend referenced is also a diskless unit, whether Apple's will be diskless or not I've not seen confirmed, but as a reference with a diskfull server and 512MB of ram, I have a system with instant on (using ACPI sleep) that functionally is close to the previewed iTV, so Apple's undoubtedly gonna have it more smooth and tuned to the task, and what I acheived expect that to be the bare minimum of the set-top box's capability.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
There was a recent story about how much sway the peripheral makers had over Apple, and how new products would be hampered by the accessories market.
Three days later, apple introduces completely different iPod form factors, and accessory makers instantly have warehouses filled with worthless plastic and fake leather. So much for "sway".
I don't know, but submitting my playlist to Apple to get album artwork makes me feel a little strange. The RIAA isn't watching, are they (not like I have anything to hide, ummm)? Supposedly Apple does not keep this information, but still, it's not exactly clear from the documentation in iTunes 7 what exactly Apple does with this information (at least not from a cursory glance).
TO save everyone the time of going through the comments here let me summarize...
(1) $14.99 for a movie..too much! I'll go to wal-mart and buy the thing and rip it...or, alternatively download it off my favorite pirate - sorry I mean file- sharing app.
Yes you do that you Alpha-Geek you. Meanwhile, the other 99.9% will happily fork over the money to apple while you support that neo-conservative,trade deficit whore known as wal-mart where the employees get no benefits and locked in the store at night. Way to go.
(2) Linux...Linux..Linux..Where's the Linux support?
Get a life. Maybe even a girlfriend. Better yet, get a clue.
(3) No iPhone? This S*&ks. Predictable.
Yawn. Who cares. WHy even bother to hit submit on this post?
(4) 640 x 480!!...No HD? What Cr*p why bother.
Hey - how many people do you know with HD TVs? Ok that many? wow. Now how many people do you know without HD TVs? Lets see...marketing 101...those with the biggest audience win.
(5) This is Awsome! Apple Rules!
See # 2 above and Go sit in the corner with the Linux Geeks please
(6) Apple.Apple.Apple. Why does Slashdot post so many Apple Stories. Why do they get all the attention?
Marsha!Marsha!Marsha! (if you don't get this, you need to watch more TVland)
(7) Windows already does all of this. Windows Rules!
Where do you want to go today? Nowhere because your damn PC has so much spyware it can't do anything....Go sit with the Linux and Apple Geeks in the corner for a while.
(8) Ooohhh!! Ipods in Colors! I want one!
You are obivously (a) Female and (b) Lost - this is slashdot not Project Runway.
(9) Hmmm, Not bad. There are some pros and cons, but overall another incremental step by Apple to integrate itself with consumer's lives.
Hmmm...Rational. Reasonable and Inciteful. What the H%&l are you doing here?
You're off the rocker.
You don't need to burn movies to scratchable, deteriorating discs any more...
You wanna take them to your friend's house? Take them all with you on your iPod.
You wanna watch them on TV? Stream them to the iTV box...
So, what will the ramifications be for bb providers?
They already over-sell their bandwidth. What happens when tons of users call, complaining that they can't soak up their full pipe with their legal download? Now that there is a potentially widespread use of BB, the providers better be ready for a shakeup.
Oh, and after offering the current prices for x amount of bandwidth, don't think they're gonna get away with jacking up the price when the REALLY give you that bandwidth, without some congress mandating coming in.
That would be a good point, but before you moan next time, RTFA.
"10:54AM - "It looks like this [a flatter Mini]. It's called iTV. That's a codeword. We need to come up with a better name."
I've got the spirit, lose the feeling.
In addition to the great new gapless playback feature, one cool thing "power users" of iTunes might be interested in is that there is now a "Skipped Count" (and "Last Skipped") attribute in iTunes. This will be great for finding those overrated songs that you constantly skip without remembering to downgrade them to fewer stars. Smart Playlists everywhere rejoice!
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I don't think you are getting it. In albums such as Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, or Abbey Road, the songs segue into each other without any volume fade. Every time I listen to Pink Floyd on the iPod I feel like driving an icepick through my ears. The gap just ruins the experience for me. Gapless playback in indeed a very welcome addition, and the reason I will upgrade my 3 year old iPod. Normal, distinct songs on normal albums don't suffer through this. And the reason you hear about it in Slashdot is because geeks tend to like less mainstream music where nonstandard song structures are more prevalent.
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
I think the XBox360 plus the optional wireless accessory (with the included media center + xbox marketplace) offers similar functionality as iTV. And I reckon Xbox360 has better games.
So I do not see what the amazing innovation is.
I havent seen Zune yet, who knows what it can and can't do.
Apple needs to release an SDK for iPod games.
Please tell me they finally added CD Text support when burning music files from your library! This is my biggest gripe with iTunes. Gapless playback is my second biggest gripe, but it looks like that has been addressed.
This was the first thing I wondered about when I heard about the new release, and I've now seen it confirmed on several relevant forums. I've held back from upgrading iTunes for over a year now so it would be possible to easily strip the DRM from the music I purchased. I guess there's no reason not to install the new version, now, but I'm deeply disappointed in this development, and it will certainly alter my song purchasing decisions in the future.
The Humblest Mollusk on the Net
This product will have so much DRM built into it that it will know when you have guests over and will shut down the movie/TV show so your "criminal" friends can't "pirate" a movie by sitting on your couch and watching it with you.
In the immortal words of Bucky Bucks (from "Drawn Together"):
"Ugh... ah... oooh! It's gonna be big one! TWO TOWELS!"
Cool.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
If the best Apple can come up with is to reuse old designs then there's isn't much hope for the company.
Although, I'm sure the new iPod Nano will sell well given the way people obsess company regardless of what Apple does. After all, only Apple can take something that's been around for a few years and present it as something new and innovative.
It doesn't appear that you can record *anything* with the iTV. I only saw outputs, no inputs on the back panel.
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
There's a new tag in the Track Info pane -- "Album Artist". Anyone got any ideas on why this was added and how it can be used? It seems like it might help with the situation whereby if you have, for example, an album on which several tracks are collaborations with other artists, then in the Artist list you end up with one entry for Artist 1, one for Artist 1/Artist 2, one for Artist 2/Artist 3... One thing that instantly jumped out at me -- they seem to have removed the option to keep an iPod in the Source list while it's not plugged in. I used this feature constantly, to check what I had added to my Shuffle and put Podcasts and new songs on that I wanted to update when I next Synced it. Now I have to go and get it and plug it in just to see what's on it. Bummer. But I love the new interface, and I'm glad that they seem to have bought or somehow included the CoverFlow tech demo that was floating around a few months ago, rather than creating another Konfabulator kerfuffle.
Why is it that 5% (or less) marketshare for Apple computers is hugely important, yet when other MP3 music players have 5% share it doesn't matter? Apple has only 70% of the music player market (depends on what you include)... that means the competition must have 30%.
Microsoft has 95% of the PC OS market... why should anyone care about OS X with less than 5%?
there are a few people that make the interface hardware. http://www.elgato.com/ has been at it for a while. i just saw on a few weeks ago that is the same footprint as a Mac Mini and has the TV tunercard as well as AV in/out. it hooks to the Mini via USB2 or firewire (i think USB2 actually?). sorry i forget the details, but if i remember right it is made by a 3rd party, and support is provided by the people at El Gato (it runs their software). i don't see it on their website though..... hmmmm
I purchased one of the TV shows in the iTunes Store. Files are noticeably bigger at 500Mb for 40 mins.
The video is way better quality than the QVGA we used to have.
What's even better is that these 640*480 1.5Mbs h264 videos playback just fine on the iPod. What's the trick? was there an artificial limitation on playback capabilities? or is there an embedded file in the video itself?
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
Anyone else notice that (at least on OS X) when you install iTunes and click "customize" there is a grayed out option to install the "iTunes Phone Driver?"
Apple is in your car
Am I the only person who misread this as:
Apple is in your cat?
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Finally, you can sync from ipod to PC/MAc and roam one ipod syncing to multiple (itunes authorized) machines.
If not then the service stinks as much as Amazon's. In some ways more so since at least Amazon allows you to "rent" the movie (i.e. own it for 30 days).
Has anyone noticed the Apple Store is no longer listing the PowerPC based Power Mac Quad G5? Last week, it was there, hidden low on the left hand column, now it's gone. Sounds like big news that Apple has now officially dumped all PowerPC based desktops from the store (except the refurbs)
I thought their H.264 limitations were a bit lower than what's being sold now on the store. Do these videos only work on the ones announced today?
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Where is the info on the Set Top Box?
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
That's for Motorola ROKR (ie, the "iTunes Phone") support.
Any word yet on if the new Nano scratches like the old one? I had to buy a big neoprene cover with acrylic to protect the screen on my old Nano as after five minutes of use the screen was almost destroyed. I'm hoping they've fixed this issue.
The other improvements (brighter screen, 8GB of memory, etc.) are all nice. The real issue, however, is the scratching.
Itunes 7 still doesn't support streaming AAC+ yet it plays AAC+ video files.. bizarre
ie http://radio.internode.on.net:8120/
"Java scrollbars" look like whatever the scrollbars look like in the OS you are using them. What in the world are you talking about?
- sigs are for wimps.
Just a small note. :)
When I started iTunes 7 for the first time it just wouldn't play any music. The problem was the sound plugin OSS 3D which I had to remove for everything to work again
Just have to wait for the OSS 3D developers to adapt their plugin for iTunes 7 now....
After a clean reboot, I get:
"The iTunes application could not be opened. There is not enough memory available."
screenshot here: http://flickr.com/photos/ghort/241816410/
It's a 1GB MBP. My itunes library file is 60MB.
I really wanted to like iTunes 7 after reading the notes from the presentation but after actually installing it, I discovered some gotchas:
* I thought they had finally given iTunes the ability to sync an iPod to/from multiple computers. It turns out that the new "reverse sync" only works on songs purchased from the iTunes store. Blegh.
* So...given the above problem, I was back to where I was previously (plugging the iPod into my work PC and listening through iTunes). That still works, but the nifty new "grouped" and "cover browser" views aren't available when listening to tracks on the iPod.
* After upgrading, I moved the newly created Start menu folders into a subfolder (as I do with all apps, to keep XP's "All Programs" list from getting too cluttered). I closed iTunes and then relaunched it a few minutes later. It recreated the "iTunes" folder in my Start menu. Oh tell me you didn't just do that... C'mon Apple...
Why not just plug your iPod into the TV? That seems like a better idea all-around.
Comment of the year
Does our culture place too much emphasis on shopping and consumption? Of course. But as long as that's the prevalent culture we live in, isn't it preferable to have good Stuff than just-barely-good-enough-if-that Stuff? Maybe I'm naïve, but I think that the more people are exposed to quality and functionality, the more they will value those aspects over novelty and status and bling. From there, mindless consumerism gives way to judicious discernment.
Apple + Nintendo + TiVo!!
Come on guys! Get together! Make even cooler stuff!
Yeah I'm off topic. Screw the karma.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
According to the website of the old CoverFlow.app, they did in fact sell their software to Apple, and that's what's being used in iTunes 7. Good for them. I bet they're glad they didn't end up like Watson or, to a less extent, Konfabulator (though they did manage to get bought out by Yahoo!).
so - the new media box is going to be called "iTV" - im just wondering what the largest independent supplier of television here in the UK will make of that?
"And Steve Jobs gave a sneak preview of a project code-named iTV: a Mac Mini-like wireless set-top box."
/.!:
"a iTunes enabled DVD media player with hard drive for ~$199 that connects directly to your TV and has built-in wifi to connect to your existing broadband router."
I said that exact thing was coming out last friday on
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Good, now if this gets worked into the next iPod update(didn't see any when I looked for updates), maybe it will work with my video pod and I don't have to re-encoded all my gapless mp3s.
I was doing it though ChapterTool, but that thing hasn't been updated in ages, is Mac only, adding "info tags" wasn't simple and the documentation was seriously lacking.
As for iTunes 7, wow they really cleaned some of the GUI stuff up, but some stuff needs work (i.e. even when sorting by album, redundant album art and unnecessary "barred off" sections for artists on a CD with more then one artist. This was for stuff with a plain old "artist" ID3 tag.). Also nice to have it not take forever to realize the networked drive is off...
Heh, and I kind of doubt it will have album artwork for a few of the CDs I own. Maybe if they work out the other kinks I might use it more then foobar2000.
Hummm... What is this, "My store" option on the bottom in ITMS with all sorts of different countries listed? Are songs in other countries stores going to opened up and be available to us?
"Can we please just get everything looking consistent again Apple? Please?"
Their motto is to continuously "think different" so I don't know how its surprising to have a redesign. If you want continuity and stability I offer to you the awesomeness that is winamp!
No change to the default look in almost 10 years. Now *THATS* consistant!
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Seems iTunes 7 won't play nice with iTunes 6 when it comes to sharing... kind of expected.
For the same reason Sony needs to release an SDK for PSP games?
Where's the public PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, or PSP SDK? Even BREW cell phones have a lockout chip.
Just that one feature totally rocks. w00t dee d00t!
Gapless playback doesn't suck either.
You're thinking is so '90s. From Apple's perspective, burning to DVD is so last year. The iPod is the portable media device of choice, since movies can be synched to any number of iPods.
Just think of music, and the percentage of people who rely on the CD-burning feature compared to people who are used to the idea that the iPod has replaced the CD.
This is the first time that I see the Apple homepage with no images at all, just the tabs. Have we finally slashdotted Apple? or did their webmaster screw up or what?
Go hug some trees.
The old shuffle had its USB interface built in, and you could use it as a USB key to take some data with you. Now you have to carry along a dock. This is less geek-friendly.
Yes, but it doesn't play matroska video files.
That was the end of my 9 years relationship with Winamp.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
Why would the masses love having yet-another-device to plug into their TV sets (carrying a $200-300 price tag) whose only function is to play a proprietary movie format that's of lesser quality than the DVD's they get for the same price (and already have players for?)
And why the heck would Apple release something with a Tivo functionality? They want to sell you TV re-runs, not let you record them.
I see the masses continuing to buy DVD's for a long time coming, if these initial lame efforts at downloadable movies are any indication.
a quick note to let others running iTunes on Windows 2000 pro NOT to download & install the new iTunes just yet. I only get an error message after the EULA, re. app. cannot be started, unknown error, errcode #0x666D743F. I don't know about others, am monitoring mac-centric websites just in case.
will investigate this further, but for now, win2k users should wait a few days. i am right now re-installing iTunes v6.0.5, hoping none of my music got wiped out.
However, I also agree with some of the posters that this is a temporary situation. We will see HD content as soon as Steve can deliver it. I suspect that a big part of the holdup is with the other studios. They are already balking about the price and I'm sure they would freak out about high-definition content (or any quality advantage over DVDs and perhaps even parity) at these price-points. Of course, they are making a grave mistake with that mindset because they have stripped users of resellability of content as well as fair use. Steve is probably pulling his typical genius manuevers on them. He will release this content now, get some of the studios to sign, show them that he can force people to pay for content twice by upgrading quality and use that to get concessions out of them for HD. [ My theory ]
Yea, it's messy. The studios are evil - they really have a hostility problem towards their customers.
But I do have a point to make: The reason that this scheme will work is that Steve's plan has a new value proposition that has more or less never been seen before (the closest is DirecTivo caching PPV movies). With the new Front-Row box it becomes possible to sit on your couch and surf through your movie collection and (presumably) watch previews and order new films for your collection all with your remote. It is simply the most eloquent PPV system ever conceived and it turns your mac or PC into a media server on the sly. iTunes is the media server. Everyone will fall in love with the experience, but it won't happen until January (shame, that - would have been a great Christmas gift).
Amazon Unbox really is (unbox - no box, no Front-Row). All the disadvantages with none of the advantages. Sad, really.
The things that I would love to see, but for obvious reasons probably never will:
* $0.49 upgrade of already owned content (e.g. 720p comes out and I can upgrade movies for $0.49 to pay for Apple's bandwidth or whatever) * $0.49 different encoding charge in general (e.g. let me download the 640x272 H.264 at 700kps instead of 1.5mbps because my network is slow or I will only watch it on my iPod)
* Let me burn the damned thing to DVD
* Ripping directly into iTunes from my DVD collection (I don't care if the result is a FairPlay encoded H.264, I just want to toss my DVDs and be able to select from my entire DVD collection in Front-Row - I want the default behavior of sticking a DVD movie into my mac to be to RIP it, not to play it)
Ah well... I was really hoping for an iPhone today, This fake commercial had me all orgasmic and stuff.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
No, that looks like crap. Go have a look at the new iTunes interface.
Or look up 'CoverFlow'
Either way, this is new, and nothing like that half-assed solution from MS.
If only Apple new that I like 10 minute songs, 4096x3072 pics, and 3 hour movies.
I don't think your "no-K" compression scheme is going to be enough to fit your media on the drive.
So, I have no intention of entering a CC or PayPal account to register with the iTunes store, but would like cover art from iTunes. Does anyone have an iTunes account with an invalid credit card # (or closed PayPal acct, etc) that I could use to download cover art?
Yeah but this is shipping software.... MS is still in beta....
- please meet our chairman
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Gapless Payck for iPod! Wonder if they will update the 5th gen with this?? Please???
I've just upgraded mine. Officially it's now gapless. To my ear, it's very close, but not quite there. Then again, the tiny gap in the drumloop of Leftfield's Space Shanty drives me nuts and it's probably even shorter. (My music is currently in 128kbps LAME encoded MP3 format, and I'm pretty sure that the lower the bitrate is, the shorter the gap is.)
At any rate, for gapless playback, upgrade iTunes to version 7. Then hilight whichever songs you want to be gapless (Apple-A for all of them), right click (or control-click), then select "Get Info." In the bottom is "Gapless Album." Just change it to "Yes."
You'll also need to update your 5G iPod's firmware by clicking on "iTunes" in the file menu, then "Check for Updates." The rest should be automated.
I agree completely. If I can't burn to a standard DVD disc that will play on any DVD player, then I'm not interested. If I can't archive my movie purchases, or take them over to a friend's house or somewhere and play on their DVD player, then this is totally worthless. I'm not interested in a video iPod (my nano will be fine for another couple years), and I'm definitely not buying an iTV output device for the living room, so this is a dud for me. If they had let me burn the movies to DVD-R and play on standard DVD players, then I would bite; but the current service terms are unacceptable.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Apple is in your den
Apple is in your living room
Apple is in your car
Apple is in your pocket
What's next?
I thought they were going more for the Fight Club angle - "We cook your meals, we drive your ambulances. We connect your calls, we guard you while you sleep. Do not fuck with us."
Then the resolution drops to 640*400 or whatever the particular aspect ratio is. So much for "four times the resolution of the iPod".
When you try to download album art for a particular song, iTunes throws up a message box saying that they don't collect personal information. If you're the sort who thinks this is a bald-faced lie, then what's to stop Apple from phoning home the entire collection without any interaction on the user's part at all? Why wait for the user to request album art?
Interesting that they did a preview of a product they're not ready to formally announce yet. Rather uncharacteristic.
Ah, but this product is the first of its kind, not an upgrade. Therefore people won't put off buying something similar until it comes out. Basically, Apple know how to avoid the Osborne effect, which doesn't apply to this product.
They should look different. Looking different isn't bad if they work well.
My other first post is car post.
steal one.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Ultimately, what I really want is streaming HD video on demand, delivered reasonably cheap. It doesn't have to be something I keep. If I could pay $1 (maybe $2) to stream a movie to my TV(s) in high definition for, say, 2-3 days that would be awesome. I collect DVDs, but doubt I have any one I've watched 10 times.
I know it's a pipe dream, but maybe in the future when they sort out the delivery issues.
In the meantime, I'm not buying into anything new that isn't high definition (and definitely not a technology that has competing, incompatable formats either a.k.a. HD-DVD vs. BRD). For standard edef (480p) I have an awesome DVD player, and at that video resolution DVD is not broken (except for the stupid anti-piracy stuff) and needs no replacement/alternate.
This sucks, being forced to upgrade to keep using the store.
Really? That sounds embarassing to me. I'd love to see Steve Jobs demo that process. :-)
For the people who've reported gapless playback in existing generation iPods, can you double check? Any further details? Firmware versions? Won't work for me. I guess I'll have to listen to one of the new iPods in store before purchasing.
Say hello to zMac.
*not an issue*
... and then they built the supercollider.
Just a warning. The iTunes 7 update appears to break my Volume Logic plugin. You may not want to upgrade if you use Volume Logic.
I seriously doubt the shuffle will ever support gapless, but I'm still wondering about the Airport Express problem. iTunes 6 connects just fine to the same unit that iTunes 7 won't talk to. iTunes 7 sees it, but nothing happens when you select it.
Say hello to zMac.
I'm still looking for more details on how Apple is implementing gapless playback. Since it reportedly works for older iPods as well, it appears that iTunes is somehow quietly modified the mp3s, which I find a bit alarming. What is it they are doing to files to make them gapless? How is it different that Lame's gapless strategy, which never worked for iPods before? Is it going to affect how my mp3s play back in other programs? Perhaps they are actually creating merged versions of the mp3s themselves? What exactly is going on here?
"However, I also agree with some of the posters that this is a temporary situation. We will see HD content as soon as Steve can deliver it."
Perhaps, but the same is true for "Steve"'s competitors.
"Steve is probably pulling his typical genius manuevers on them."
Haha
"With the new Front-Row box it becomes possible to sit on your couch and surf through your movie collection and (presumably) watch previews and order new films for your collection all with your remote.It is simply the most eloquent PPV system ever conceived and it turns your mac or PC into a media server on the sly."
Frontrow is Apple's weakminded copy of MCE that can't do recording. What you're referring to is iTV. iTV is far from "the most eloquent PPV system ever conceived", it's in fact a direct copy of Microsoft Media Center extender.
"Amazon Unbox really is (unbox - no box, no Front-Row). All the disadvantages with none of the advantages. Sad, really."
Amazon may well be sad, but it's conceivable that it can use existing media center extenders and it could use them before Apple even gets iTV to market.
So they increased the resolution from 320x240 to 640x480, very nice. But what about people who bought videos at the old resolution? Is there any way for them to download the newer version of those videos, or do they have to buy them again to get the higher resolution?
The iPod has always been able to play back high-res videos at a scaled-down resolution; I once verified this independently by encoding a couple of MP4s at some resolution higher than QVGA (I don't remember which exactly...) and sending them to iPod owners.
The reason for the low resolution on the older iTMS videos was simply the fact that the content providers we know and love (*cough*) weren't ready at the time to commit to this newfangled internet distribution concept; Apple appealed to them by promising to use lower-quality versions of all the content, just so they could get -something- out the door. Now that the providers have seen it in action and the world hasn't ended, they appear to be warming up to it.
Yes.
Front-Row is a product designed to be turned on and used with a remote with 5 buttons and no skills. The iTV (!!) box is designed and marketed to be plugged in to a television and used with no skills. It is also sold specifically to be attached to a TV to watch movies, it is not bundled into a general purpose PC guerilla marketing style by PHBs that mistakenly believe that once the user realizes he has a media center on his desktop that he will move his PC to the living room and attach it to his television.
In comparison, MCE is something that is really only owned accidentally by people who don't even know they have it (because it was bundled with their PC from Best Buy), it requires the PC to be near the TV rather than on a desk and requires the user to know how to configure it and operate it with some crazy 300 button remote control (exaggeration, but the point is clearly made). It would probably require a class to get a user comfortable with the relationship between and configurations of MCE and Microsoft Media Player (and the derivitaves such as Amazon Unbox). It really doesn't matter if MCE can do any of the things that Front-Row does (which it really doesn't because Microsoft doesn't use zero-conf [bonjour] and whatnot). The simple fact is, it is not designed or marketed in a manner that will ever be used that way by the common man.
To say that something *can* be done is not the same as saying that people *will* do it. You *can* write an assembly language CGI script library for publishing a Blog site. But I doubt you *will*...
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
Have they built their own artwork database, or is it via a third party? It's really hit or miss so far, so I'm wondering if that's just the way it's going to be, or if they're still building...
Apple is in your wallet
OK, I was considering options as I want a DVR and a new HD TV. What if MythTV code was updated to record shows and then sync them to iTunes? That way you could have your workhorse computer in your office, running MythTV, but then you could watch those programs through your iTV box? I think this would be a great solution for me, because I wouldn't need a dedicated computer for recording/watching content, plus I could simultaneously play downloaded movies and TV shows from the same box. This, of course, assumes that running other apps wouldn't affect the TV recording. Anyone more knowledgeable want to comment?
Like puzzle games? Warehouse51 for iOS
And apple used to innovate. Guess I'll save my money for a "real" video player:
0 GB/4505-6499_7-31517717.html?tag=viddet
http://reviews.cnet.com/Archos_AV500_Mobile_DVR_3
And this thing has been out for ages. Must be hella hard for Apple to knock one off when you're falling back to 2002 for your ipod designs (mini-nano? Yech.)
I'll stick with Itunes 4.9. Oh wait....I can't. The assholes at Apple decided I should be forced to upgrade my software even though it works perfectly well. I have no use for downloading movies from Itunes and I guess I now have no use for the Itunes online store either.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
During the iTV demo, The Incredibles was previed in HDTV.
So it can already do HD, presumably through its HDMI/Component outputs.
cat
wow, apple fanboys amaze me. normally we could care less and would like to avoid commercials. here, this ad is considered news and people are excited to watch steve's presentation when it too is just a big ad. is it brilliant marketing or moron consumers?
For example, a lot of my stuff has the standard "artist" tag. With albums that have one artist the album art shows up as one thing next to all the tracks.
Except when there is more then one artist on an album, the thing has a lot of redunded art and seperates them like they are other albums.
So is there some setting I am missing(only extra "new" one I checked was "group compolations when browsing"), or do I have to use the "artist album" tag people are reporting here?
I just installed iTunes 7 and found that for some strange reason my computer was all of a sudden unable to handle the visualization within iTunes with out causing the audio to skip, while with itunes 6 my computer was able to hand almost full screen visualization at 1280X800 at between 35 and 45 fps, depending on what else was running in the background. It seems that a fairly large number of people are having similar problems based on the number of posts on apple.com under support, but they only seem to be having problems with the audio skipping and not with the visualization.
It seems to me that however apple modified the visualization part of iTunes, weather or not this has anything to due with the new use or do not use DirectX option, iTunes is no longer able to establish a balance between good performance and allowing the over all windows environment to remain stable, it simply draws too much of the system resources. It is so bad that even with NO visualization and iTunes simply playing music, the simple task of opening another explorer or firefox window is enough to cause the audio to skip.
I am curios to know if other people are having any problems with the visualization portion of the program as well.
How Apple's iTV Media Strategy Works
A Visual Comparison of CD, DVD, HD and iTMS
Why Apple is Winning in Media Downloads
The Apple iTMS vs Amazon Unbox Rivalry Myth
If DVD burning is your bag, then try CinemaNow.com (I think their DVD burning is still in "beta"). And they allow downloading actual DVDs, not just movie vids, so you get the menus, deleted scenes, etc.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Amy Poehler: We are very honored here at Weekend Update to have a very special guest. Here to talk about the hottest gifts this holiday season, CEO of Apple Computers, Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs: Thank you Amy and Tina. Are you looking for the perfect holiday gift? Well it's here, the new iPod.
Tina Fey: Oh! The iPod Nano? I got that one, I love it!
Steve Jobs: Nope!
Amy Poehler: Oh oh! No! Tina, I bet it's that new video iPod. Those look really cool; I want to get one of those!
Steve Jobs: No! Those are both obsolete. This one came out just a few minutes ago.
Amy Poehler: A few minutes ago?
Steve Jobs: Yes, ladies and gentlemen, introducing, and I'm thrilled about this, the iPod Micro!
(He pulls out an iPod that is no more than an inch tall)
Tina and Amy: Wow!
Steve Jobs: The iPod Micro holds over 50 thousand songs! It has iPhoto, you can watch movies on it, in high definition.
Tina Fey: But we can barely see it.
Steve Jobs: Exactly! That's exciting!
Amy Poehler: Well I guess, but how are we supposed to watch movies on it?
Steve Jobs: Well, you don't have to worry about that because by Thanksgiving, the iPod Micro will be obsolete!
(He throws it onto the Update desk. Tina and Amy gasp)
Ladies and gentlemen, I am thrilled about this, introducing the new iPod Pequeño.
(He pulls out one that is at least half the size of the iPod Micro)
Tina Fey: When did that come out?
Steve Jobs: Just now! The iPod Pequeño, the smallest iPod yet! It holds a million songs! A million songs! A MILLION SONGS! It has an iCalendar that goes seven thousand years into the future, iPhoto, you can watch movies on this!
Amy Poehler: Geez, you know that thing's really small.
Tina Fey: And you can watch movies on that?
Steve Jobs: Not any more, because by Christmas, the iPod Pequeño will be obsolete.
(He throws it down on the desk as well)
Amy Poehler: Wait, that iPod was only out for like five seconds.
Steve Jobs: Five seconds too long! It was too big! Ridicules, old, obsolete! But guess what, I'm very proud to introduce, and I'm thrilled about this, the new iPod Invisa.
(He 'pulls' something out but he is really not holding anything)
Amy Poehler: Okay, wait a minute Steve Jobs, I don't even think you're really holding anything.
Steve Jobs: I am! The iPod Invisa, the perfect stocking stuffer. It holds 8 million songs, every photograph ever taken, Pong. And watch...
(He purposely throws 'it' on the desk.)
Steve Jobs: Oops I dropped it, but where did it go, on the ground? No, it's floating!
Tina Fey: Steve Jobs everyone.
Amy Poehler: He wasn't holding anything you guys. Thank you Steve.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
It wasn't that way initially. Lots of people started using iTunes just to play their music collections, and burning to CD was an important feature. Remember "Rip, Mix, Burn" ? The iPod's came to dominate the portable mp3 market because of iTunes. They supplanted recordable cds. If Apple doesn't allow people to burn movies, the movie store is either dead in the water or will face very slow adoption. Nobody is going to shell out $300 for some box just to download movies and watch them on their TV when they can buy DVDs for the same price. If you want to hook people you have to get them on your platform, then show them what is possible with new hardware. I.e: get them ripping and burning cds in iTunes, then show them the iPod. Get them downloading movies and watching them, then show them the movie player.
:)
The reality is, burning movies has not yet reached the pervasiveness that burning music did when iTunes became popular, and I would bet that the movie studios are putting up a stink. Give them a year. The common man has almost figured out bittorrent
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Except that it has no hard drive and it's not a DVD media player, and doesn't cost $199. But you got the part about plugging it in to your TV right, so that's something to hang your hat on, anyway.
So somebody actually does use that visualization crap. :-)
Just like the TV series, the movies are available only in the US. Way to go Apple.
iTunes 7 allows you to change the video type for your self encoded videos to TV Show now! yay
Isn't everything Microsoft has out there a RC or a Beta?
Media Player, Vista, this, that and the other thing?
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Having tested it this afternoon, I can report that iTunes 7 does indeed do true gapless playback.
:)
Now, there seem to be two types built in:
- The first is standard gapless - the end of one file and the beginning of another coincide with no introduced gap. This is presumably a change in the playback / buffering code.
- The second is scanned gapless - in addition to the introduced gap being eliminated, you can mark a 'gapless album' - which I assume actually removes (or rather, removes for playback) silence from the start and end of tracks. This would explain the 'scanning for gapless playback' background scan upon the initial launch of iTunes 7.
What I have been wanting for so long is the standard gapless kind - I don't want silence trimmed from the tracks, I just want them to from one to the next with no gaps introduced. So for those who have been after the same thing, I can confirm that this now works with no extra flag-setting or configuration.
For the record, I tested it out on Pink Floyd's The Wall. Sounded great.
No, gapless support was just added to iTunes. Previously, you could approximate the effect wit crossfading turned on and set to 0 seconds, but that still produced a fade-in/fade-out effect.
± 29 dB
With 1100 albums and over 11,000 "songs" in my iTunes collection, I am finding that iTunes is not downloading all the album artwork at once on a single try. I have used the command "get album artwork" a number of times, and missing album covers are being filled in only gradually. I wonder if that is because Apple's servers are bogged down. There is no error message "artwork not found", yet some covers that were not found the first time around have appeared on later attempts. So how will I know when the collection is as complete as it can be?
(Yes, I really do own every CD whose content is in my collection. But many of these "songs" are simply my own interviews and other research recordings, and no original disk exists.)
I can't burn this to a DVD to play in a DVD player? Sorry, then it's pretty much pointless to me. Also, the movies aren't even full DVD resolution. Why exactly does Apple think it can get away with charging up to $15 for this crap? I will still buy real DVD's as long as that's the policy, thank you very much.
Also, one of the supposed improvements to the new iPods is that the screen is now 60% brighter. Is it just me or was the iPod screen already extremely bright, almost too bright? 60% brighter and I'm not sure I'll even be able to look at it. Fortunately they have the brightness control.
I agree with engadget - I'm pretty underwhelmed by this. I was hoping they'd have a bigger screen. Is the increase from 60gb to 80gb really going to sell anybody on this? Something makes me think not.
The decrease in price is pretty cool, but isn't that a tacit admission on their part that the improvements on their own aren't worth buying the 5.5G? If the improvements were good they wouldn't have to lower the price.
The Nano's, however, are nice. As is the shuffle. The shuffle is pretty badass given how small it is, like a lapel pin. And I like the return to multicolor that they lost when they discontinued the Mini.
Still, there is no reason at all for me to upgrade my iPod from my 60gb 5G, even if I did have the money. And I think this may leave them vulnerable to Microsoft, whose player will have a bigger screen.
Overall, my reaction is "meh"...
Anyone know what wireless standard iTV is due to run on? They appear to call it "802.11" which sounds to me like they might be hedging their bets. Would the sort of video they demonstrated require 802.11n? Is this why they're waiting? I couldn't make out in the video of the event whether the iTV box he showed was wired into the LAN. I would have thought if it was working over a wireless network he would have made more of it. Also - why did they stream the event live to London, and then say that films can only be bought in the US? :-S
Radio on your iPod
So Apple has finaly caught upto the free open source http://www.rockbox.org/ firmware with gapless play back. Excpet it needs to re-jig the files to make them gapless. Rockbox doesn't.
They added a search function much like the one that has existed in Creative (and others) players for a while.
The battery life on video play back has caught up with other players, although it does still lag behind quite a few.
If I remember correctly, the last keynote Job's took advertised the iPod as having 80~% market share. Now 75~%.
That made my day :-) Wish I could give you Karma for humor.
A DVR/TiVo-type device is the H-U-G-E missing feature from iTV.
I can't believe it's not part of it. Maybe they'll add it later? But it would be such a huge value if this thing was also a DVR.
Anyone notice the new Apple iTow in the background of this picture: http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/med ia/2006/09/dsc_0827.jpg
Isn't that Ballmer's car?
I am not a Mac user, but I have been using iTunes for quite some time now... and I had never faced this kind of a problem with iTunes before.
I don't know, if the issue is same in OS X environment, but on Windows this upgrade to iTunes 7.0.0.70 rendered whole program unusable because the sound output gets corrupted if there is any application producing sound at the same time (e.g. some videoclip playing at the background or even Winamp playing music for that matter)...
Every time, when some other application starts to produce sound, iTunes playback will sound like a broken vinyl record (skipping etc.) for a start and then the sound becomes totally corrupted in a short amount of time. When iTunes is closed again, it becames evident, that other applications have no problem with sound playback whatsoever.
Had 6.0.5 in use before that and never experienced such a problem even when using TV tuner, video player and iTunes simultaneously.
P.S. If the library was not backed up before iTunes 7 installation, then reverting to ver. 6 will be painful, because once library gets altered by newer version, it will not be backward-compatible.
P.P.S. System Restore won't helped in reverting to old version, still considering whether to restore the system partition from 10 days old backup or not to resolve this sh.t
If you lived in the UK, you'd know that you'd rarely want to record anything on ITV anyway.
Checking the online store, there doesn't seem to be a student discount for iPods anymore. Bummer.
I read about the new iTunes version yesterday, and the first thing I did when I got to work today was download it. However is it just me or is iTunes 7 a worse memory hog than the previous versions? While iTunes 6 maxed out on around 40MB memory usage on an average day (mostly listening to streaming radio channels), just know after 3 hours, iTunes 7 used 169MB - and that was when being idle. Or hey, maybe it's just getting Vista read? ;-)
YES, nice iPod fixes!
Ipod features I love so far(still haven't messed with it much):
1) GAPLESS WORKS!!!!! Now I don't have to go through the annoying process involving acc files!
2) Scrolling through long lists, fast-scrolling allows you to skip through based on starting LETTER!
3) Games, well not yet, maybe sometime later I will get Tetris, and maybe some more good ones will show up.
iTunes features I love:
1) Cleaned up some of the bloated-ness, slowness, and eyesore GUI.
2) Nice indicator showing how much of my iPod's space is used up.
3) The way album art and tracks are separated is nice.
4) Doesn't seem to take as long as it use-to to realize my network drive is off....
Still needs work:
1) It still takes FOREVER for iTunes to update my iPod, even if I haven't touched anything on it, haven't messed with my music/movies/etc, or did anything to warrnet it in iTunes! Even more annoying is it not giving any indication as to HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE. I wouldn't even mind if they give me "Microsoft minutes" type estimates, and maybe some clue as to just what it is updating/checking.
2) Still eats CPU and kills other apps(Yes, I have windows XP, and no I am not running a bunch of crud, nor am I interested in leaving "Micro$loth WinBloz" for OSX). Also still isn't too responsive when I click it on the task bar to bring it up.
The iTV thing will cost $299! That's just too expensive!
All I need is a device that can access files through WiFi and show them on the TV. I don't need it to have a snazzy interface.
And besides, what about the iPhone?
I'm sorry, but Apple is not delivering.
hemi
Sadly, so is Google.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
One thing that's kept me from using iTunes much and feelin' the love for my iPod is their previously clunky way of syncing with multiple computers. I haven't tried it in months, but last time I did the iPod did not play well with more than one computer. I wanted it to sync as smoothly and intelligently as my Palm PDA syncs my calendar app. But it didn't.
If the new iTunes has finally gotten smart about syncing multiple computers I might finally become a podhead.
Jeremy Butler
www.ScreenSite.org
www.TVCrit.com
I think.
Just installed it and remember seeing somewhere - in the software update description i think - a bullet that mentioned that you can now 'easily' backup your itunes library (this I would take to be the entire library: music, video, podcasts et al) haven't tried it or looked for the function, but Apple generally isn't stupid enough to not let you back up your downloaded files in some way.
Can someone else confirm?
Seems you need to sign up to the store. NZ isn't one of the country options. I go so far as to pretend being in Australia and enter in my credit card number (without any intention of actually buying something), and it says my credit card number isn't from Australia (true)... so I guess this album art feature aint for me until I move to Australia or iTunes opens in New Zealand (unlikely this decade...?)
My 80 gig iPod order from yesterday has finally shipped. The orders appear to be shipping directly from Shanghai, China.
8==8 Bones 8==8
You are looking at it the wrong way. Acessory makers will sell their present inventory to present iPod owners - they are not thworing that in the garbage just now. And if by chance you upgrade your iPod, you will also have to buy NEW acessories due to the change of form factors.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
The Old Mill, the classic pre-Fantasia musical short from Disney, is available for $1.99. If you haven't seen it, it's worth the price of admission. If you have, you're probably heading over there to get it already and didn't bother reading this far. :)
OK I screwed up!!! After updating my iMac (which has run for the most part perefectly since January). My Colleague (a long time mac head) and I enjoyed watching SJ's presentation on iTunes 7 and the new iPods, iTV etc... After this event (and we have to admit whenever SJ gets up and talks its an event) I updated both my Intel iMac (my work machine not mine sadly) and my MacBook Pro (mine all mine mu ha ha ha ha cost me enough though). Ok back to my screwed up. I had a truckload of apps open (doin some rails dev & rubycocoa among other things) ran software update and in the process of restarting Preview.app just hung on for grim death and would not let the iMac restart. So like my usually impatient self I waited a little. Which tunred out to be not enough. So I killed the power and re-booted up expecting it all to "magically work". No such luck! I essentialy killed my profile. I now cant log in as myself, tried all the tricks I now (and Apple support knows) to no avail! However all seemed good on my MacBook Pro, which I am using to write this post! I later noticed that some apps will no longer run on my macbook, like MS Office and Photoshop! They just bounce once in the dock and the stop. A quick look at the console reveals a crash report from the particular app. Excel photoshop word powerpoint. Hang on am I seeing a pattern. These are all PPC apps maybe there are some rosetta issues. Anyone else had any dramas? MacBook is running fine aside from PPC apps it seems. Can anyone help clarify this or am I totally deluded! Peace! Impurist
I'll be very surprised if iTV isn't released at or before the MacWorld Expo in January.
After playing with iTunes 7 for a day, I found this new version unstable. The download view does not work properly and often make the software hang. I could not burn a cd which was working fine on previous version. The new views are slow even on a 2 gigz cpu. Some songs does not play on airtunes as they are supposed to. Bottomline, the feature set is great but it does not seem that this version is ready for prime time.
Some people have reported the iPod 5G 1.2 updater adding that search to older iPod with Video. I can't find it. Am I an idiot, or are they?
Somebody give me a good reason
- that doesn't involve apple potentially looking into what i have in my library (i know they say they don't, but i can't figure any other reason) -
as to why automatic album artwork download should require one to log in to the iTMS?
Personally I'd take my modded xbox over any of this stuff. I stream all my movies and music from my pc, complete with album and imdb info from the internet, not to mention movie trailers and net radio. Did I mention a 1080i desktop interface, completely skinnable? Thats $200 well spent.
seem like apple changed the encryption algorithm of iTunes again with this new version. i haven't installed it yet, but i have difficulty connecting to users with new version. this means that ourtunes will not work with it (until the new algorithm is hacked), and we won't be able to download songs from other userslibraries. does anybody have any ideas? did anybody try to use ourtunes with the new version installed? umph.. thanks steve, i don't need the sucky films WB distributes, and CoverFlow is already texist as a seperate app, i'll hang on to 6.0.5
Not wanting to spoil the fun, but think twice before you replace artwork grabbed from Amazon, buy.com, or similar places. The artwork iTunes 7 fetches in this way isn't the full resolution artwork that you'll get if you buy from the store, but instead artwork of considerably lower quality, definitely no better than what you could already pull down from Amazon.
The true high resolution artwork embedded in tracks bought in the music store can be extracted using AtomicParsley (among others). If someone feels like hosting a site for original artwork I'll gladly upload the few hundred covers I've got.
Please turn in your nerd card now.
My guess is they're hoping that the 802.11n specs get cemented down quickly. I wonder what they'll do if they aren't. 802.11g just isn't enough for wireless streaming of movies of that quality.
Please turn in your geek card at the door.
You would like more substance over form....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." is completely true. From a technical point of view the iPods are not very impressive.
Which is further confirmed by your own comment: "most of the postings here are "OMG! A blue iPod!".
Apple is pushing the iPod not as a technical marvel but as a fashion accsesory.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is so f-innovative that I am greatful to be alive in an era of such pioneering innovation.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I just yesterday realized why I like the Apple Remote so much. It's because I can use it without looking. I know where all the buttons are and I know what they do. I don't have to look or think.
You're right: Common Man.
Ed Palma
They will just flog the old stuff unitl it is all gone and will have a new wave of fanatics buying yet more of the same Apple stuff, as they are told, obediently as always.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It saddens me how many people reading that comment today probably had it fly right over their heads.
If you share your libraries across your network, you could be in for a nasty surprise.
If you're only sharing with an older version of iTunes on another computer presumably all you need to do is update that iTunes to V.7 and you should be OK.
But if you're like me and using an appliance like Roku's Soundbridge then you should hold off for a bit.
From http://www.rokulabs.com/support/:
Attention iTunes Users!
With the release of iTunes 7.0 today (9/12/2006), Apple has changed some of the underlying technology that allows the SoundBridge to communicate directly with iTunes. We hope to have an iTunes 7.0- compatible release of the SoundBridge software soon; however, at this time all SoundBridges are incompatible with the music sharing feature of iTunes 7.0. We recommend that SoundBridge owners wait for a SoundBridge update before upgrade to iTunes 7.0. Users wishing to upgrade to iTunes 7.0 (or who have already upgraded) can install the free Firefly media server to share their libraries with the SoundBridge. Firefly is available here.