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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
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.
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
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();
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
Interesting that they did a preview of a product they're not ready to formally announce yet. Rather uncharacteristic
It's been pointed out that the only reason most iTMS users would buy full-length movies online is so they could watch them on their TV set. Since DVD burning isn't an option (yet?), Apple had to announce their intended set-top box to give the movie announcement some real weight..................
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?
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...
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?
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.
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.
does anyone know if myfairtunes6 still works with the new version of iTunes?
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.