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Apple Announces iTunes 7, Movies, Set-Top Box

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ooh-shiny dept.

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.

12 of 710 comments (clear)

  1. Gapless Playback! by blackmonday · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Gapless Payck for iPod! Wonder if they will update the 5th gen with this?? Please???

    1. Re:Gapless Playback! by tji · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

  2. How Much Space by neonprimetime · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  3. Another expensive Christmas by darien · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Another expensive Christmas by burndive · · Score: 5, Funny

      Um... Didn't you read what he wrote: "For fuck's sake"?

      --
      ...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
  4. Blow by blow? by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 5, Funny

    Putting "Blow by blow" and "Steve Jobs" in one sentence really wasn't a good idea.

    --
    Summation 2
  5. This is lame by dangermouse · · Score: 5, Informative
    I sort of assumed that when Jobs said you could transfer music between iTunes libraries using the iPod, he meant all of your music. Nope.

    Music and media not purchased from the iTunes store only syncs one way, from your computer to your iPod.

    I know this is not new, but enabling this functionality for iTMS tracks only is a real dick move.

  6. Just downloaded a movie... by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  7. Apple = Big Brother by amliebsch · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
  8. Re:New shuffle by BearRanger · · Score: 5, Funny

    Best. Tie Clip. Ever.

  9. Re:Yawn by dangermouse · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.
    I was happy to see the new Shuffle, until you pointed this out. Not because I want or need a USB flash drive, but because it's just less convenient. My girlfriend has one of the white Shuffles, and it's been great for mindlessly grabbing some music to take with us. I've always thought of it as a sort of sample syringe for music: You jab it into the laptop, it sucks up whatever's in there, and then you pull it out and you're good to go.

    A dock isn't so bad if you have a desktop computer, but with a laptop that moves around a lot, it's suddenly a third component to keep track of, where you really only want two.

  10. Re:I liked the old nano... by metroplex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The major complaint about the Nano was that its surface got scratched too easily. Apple fixes this by going back to alluminium while keeping the same size factor, and adds "fancy" colours (ok, I'm not a big fan of those either, but you can get a black or silver one anyway), and people keep complaining? Geez.

    --
    "Words of wisdom: drop that zero and get with the hero" -- Vanilla Ice