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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.
I haven't finished sync'ing my video iPod yet, but after installing iTunes 7, it brought up a dialog as it went through my library saying it was updating for gapless playback.
This would imply that it's done within the audio files themselves, perhaps making it usable on all iPods.
I'll see shortly.
The new music view/organize modes in iTunes are great. One is divided by albums, showing a small image of the album cover along with all the tracks. The other looks like they licensed "Cover Flow", it looks like flipping through albums in your old physical collection. Definitely better visual feedback then scrolling through a huge text list of songs.
It was blue (and other colors) before.
Behold! The iTunes Icon Timeline! Note that the icons on that page are the real deal until you get to "Alternative iTunes icons", then the rest are mildly crappy "fan art". (Ugh.)
I know this is not new, but enabling this functionality for iTMS tracks only is a real dick move.
No, iTunes has never had true gapless playback. There's always been at least a slight hiccup in between tracks, no matter how you set it up. The old crossfade set to 0 trick also wasn't a complete solution - if you had a transition with a fast tempo, you'd hear it screw up a beat or two.
I'm really eager to try this out and see if they truly fixed it.
Say hello to zMac.
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.
It looks like it will be an appliance that will simply stream video wirelessly from any Mac or Windows system with iTunes.
But, since you can absolutely import any video you wish (including, say, ripped DVDs) into iTunes, there's no reason you wouldn't be able to play any media you wished.
This is likely for people that DO NOT already have some kind of media center or EyeTV/EyeHome/DVR setup: the target for this isn't people who already have made the leap to having full-fledged computer systems in their living room. The target for this is the same as for AirPort Express: not people who build an MP3 and media station computer in their living room. People who want to plop down a device, hook the A/V outputs up to their TV and entertainment system, use an assistant (like AirPort Express) to set it up, and it's ready to play media they download/import on their computer/laptop/etc. elsewhere in the house.
No second whole computer in the living room. This is, essentially, an AirPort Express for video (and yes, I know it's not exactly like an AirPort Express, but its functionality in the context of video and the living room can be summed up that way).
There probably will be *some* advanced or interesting functionality, but it looks like this is more or less an appliance designed to play video content downloaded to iTunes on a remote computer via a Front Row-like interface. But yes, you will be able to add your own video content, since you can do that with iTunes now. The only requirement is that it be some format QuickTime understands.
Where've you been? Brushed metal was ditched with iTunes 6. And none of the cosmetic changes with iTunes 7 bear any resemblance to Mail.app.
:(
The most noticable difference appears to be the new scollbars. I agree with the original poster -- I don't like them.
Can we please just get everything looking consistent again Apple? Please? Before you stick Java scollbars on iTunes 7, can we please ditch brushed metal in Finder (and a half dozen other Apple apps that ship with OS X)?
I mean seriously, OS X is starting to look more frankensteinish than your typical Linux installation. I can count 5 different application "looks" now:
- iLife (darker, unified toolbar, squared off corners)
- iTunes 7 (same as iLife, new scrollbars)
- Mail.app (unified toolbar, lighter than iLife, rounder corners)
- Safari/Finder/iCal (etc) (brushed metal)
- TextEdit/Preview (etc) (older non-unified look)
I love my MacBook Pro, but I'm not sure what happened to that consistency that Macs were supposed to be known for.
There is an app out there that will unify all of the OS X apps (even Firefox) with a common skin. It skins them to be a pretty standard OS X-ish feel, a much like Mail.app (w/o unified buttons), exept slightly darker. It also stips the brushed metal from brushed apps. I haven't ran it in awhile, so can't say if it works with the new iTunes. Its called UNO.
If the interface schizophrenia is getting to you, it might be the best solution, until Apple at least realized that their getting slightly off base with the "a style per app" philosophy. How hard is it to just use some stardardized Aqua on everything? Do individual apps really need to stand out, can function speak for them? I damn well know I'm running iTunes (sound coming from speakers, etc), and don't need it to be styled in such a way to let me know that "yep, thats itunes" when I look at it. Its annoying that they screw up their own standards.
Sorry for the rant, preaching to the choir.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
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!).
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.
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.