Tag: Apple

Apple Special Event

September 12th could be an expensive day. Apple are doing another of their ‘special events’ which has everyone speculating on new products. Hot tips are a new iMac and an iTunes movie store and maybe a new iPod or replacement for the Nano.

I would love to see Macbook Pro updated with at least the new Intel chips – that would be enough for me to purchase. I also want, well, need a new iPod as my current one is full and I can’t be doing with picking and choosing what music I want on the player. I’m still not sold on a video iPod though especially if it’s larger than the current models. Would be nice to see a video and a music iPod developed.

One thing on the movie store – rumours are $14.99 for new titles and $9.99 for older movies – sounds a bit steep considering the movies will come with DRM restrictions. Surely that wouldn’t be the price for a movie sized only for a new iPod? That got me thinking – would we see hi-def movies sold for that price through iTunes? The movie’s would be large but would users be willing to download hi def movies and play then from their laptop or pc rather than buying an HD-DVD or Blu-ray player. Will probably never happen but the option would be nice.

Vista Beta 2

Vista - DesktopFirst screen from my freshly installed Vista Beta 2. After partitioning my drive to allow for dual booting with XP and getting an iso image to finally burn correctly I installed Vista tonight. It took around an hour and a half to install but this was unattended so you could wander off and watch some football while it churned.

Flickr set is up although with only a few screens to begin with. Quick impressions – boot time is long, looks to be more security aware, couple of nice window opening effects, alt tab nice, speed seems ok which was surprising, Windows Update managed to install all my drivers which considering the pc is two years old was pretty impressive, XP still works, there still some Win 95 icons in there – it’s not crashed yet. I’m really wanting to test out day to day functionality like search, robustness etc as I’ve almost made my mind up that my next pc will be a mac…the beta will be a good test before I switch. More updates when I’ve used it in anger.

Ok – first night with it. Not done much except install Office Beta and also anti-virus. Thought I would use AVG free but once downloaded I tried to run it but Vista wouldn’t let me install – there are issues that might break Vista and I should contact the suppliers to pester them for a fix. Sigh. Microsoft though have sorted out a PC-Cillin anti-virus package that runs for the length of the Vista beta – that installed with no issues.

Tried Media Centre – worked OK although it seemed to crash on building my music library. Started it off well before the England game tonight but by half-time it stil hadn’t doen anything. Stopped the program, set-up library via Media Player 11 and it seems to be ok now. It’s either really slow (pc left unattended for 90 minutes yet failed to import 5000 tracks) or it crapped out.

Saying that system feels really usable. Office works well and one O/S has loaded it doesn’t feel any slower than XP. Need to delve into search though and see how that works. Pop-ups asking for permission to run apps and install programs is a tad frustrating too.

Craving

I need a new iPod. It’s almost three years since I picked up my 30Gig iPod and I’ve only a few hundred meg free. I’ve been toying with the idea of dropping some of the music that I never listen to…those album fillers that are usually skipped but every so often I’ll listen to a track that I’ve previously dismissed and it clicks. So I’m keeping all the music in my ever growing library. Therefore 60Gig is a must.

I’m also listening to more and more podcasts. I treat it as my radio station where I can choose what ramblings to listen to. Still a bit hit and miss but quality is ever increasing.

I’m also anal with regards album art. All my mp3’s have embedded album art images which makes playing on various players and devices a joy as I recognise and remember so much not just from the sound but also the covers. Sad I know. Talking of other players I’ve had a peek round the market in case there is an iPod killer out there that meets my needs. Despite it’s shortcomings nothing appeals as much as the iPod in combination with iTunes.

So it’s a no brainer – order a 60Gig iPod. Well…..not quite. There’s lots of fanboy rumours that April 1st (or there abouts) will see a new video iPod so I’ll hang back and see whats coming. I love the way Apple launch their goods on an unsuspecting market but I would hate to buy one of their products only to see a new version that’s faster, better, same priced and launched a couple of weeks later. I can see me giving in soon though – the force is weakening.

The New Mini

It’s just over one year since I saw the Mac Mini in the flesh and I made the statement…if I had a plasma I would buy one without hesitation. Well I’ve got the LCD and a new version of the Mini has just been announced. The mouse has been hovering over the buy now button but I just can’t click it. Doubts have crept in.

The first one is the amount of duplication in gadgets – just what do I really need? The Mini would ideally replace XBMC and also allow so much more. At the same time I’m looking at the 360 which is more powerful than the Mini and the PS3 will be on the shelf in the next year – do I really need another box with similar specs to deliver slightly different functionality?

Second is cost. $799 does not equal £599. That’s £140 above the pound dollar conversion rate. A DVI cable from Apple is £60. Why don’t I bend over and take a humping at the same time. Thanks Apple.

So I will bide my time yet again, but hopefully for only another 3 or 4 months. By then I should know what the PS3 really will deliver and also just how good the small form factor pc’s from Intel will be like. Maybe I should just go with the laptop, scrap having a player at the TV and plug in the laptop when required. Anyone else have a good idea?

Rants

I’ve got quite a few posts to put up but really have to get a few moans out of the way first – think of it as cleansing.

  • Plusnet. Although I’ve moved to Freedom2Surf that doesn’t take place until the 6th of October so I still need to suffer. Not only is the Usenet speed slow during the day as well, but they are wanting users to vote for them in the PC Pro 2005 awards. Cheeky bards. What’s worse is that they can e-mail all their users about voting for them and how they could win prizes yet they can’t e-mail them to say that their pricing is changed or their accounts are totally different from when they signed up. Apparently there is a communications opt out checkbox hidden in the terms and conditions but nobody mentioned that the checkbox had been added and unless you visit the forums you won’t know it’s there or how to opt out.
  • Why does the new Apple Nano in black come with white headphones. Just looks daft. I guess it’s so the adverts still work.
  • In the same vain – why did the black PSP come with white headphones and white adaptor. It looked cheap Mr Sony and was white because of the iPod.
  • The Xbox 360 – 2 different versions of the hardware is impacting on how games are being developed and what features are added. See this article for more info. Fools.
  • Rangers are mince. Watched the game yesterday (for free on Freeview – nice) and they were woeful. Lucky it wasn’t a heavier defeat. Bring on Inter!!
  • It’s a holiday weekend. Off Monday & Tuesday. The weathers crap and I’ve got work from the office to do. Bah.
  • Why does plaster soak up so much paint. Even though I put two coats of sealer on it’s still soaking up the paint. Oh well – time to put on another coat.

And relax…

iTunes 5.0

New iTunes version 5.0 with a new look and some new features even for old iPod users. Playlists within folders, contact and calender synch with Outlook, far better search (allegedly like spotlight in OS X), shuffle options (woo), parental controls (woo – this is irony by the way) and album reviews in the music store. Was that really worth an update to a version 5.0.

On installing it seemed to update my whole library. On syncing with the iPod it’s refreshing ALL the tracks. That’s 22 gigs it’s writing back to the iPod. Strange. Even odder – some tracks won’t write to the iPod – they did yesterday. I updated the iPod firmware and all seems well by going from version 2.2 to 2.3.

The new search is great – fast and accurate. Folders are also nice as the parent folder will display a sum of all the child playlists. Not convinced on the new look which is better than the old brushed metal but seems to have an odd double pixel around the left and right window border.

Now this is podcasting

And like that….they were gone. All podcast software writers must be jumping with joy now that iTunes 4.9 is out with podcast support – not. No need for iPodder or Odeo (nice knowing you) when iTunes supports it all from within the one package for free. Speaking of free I notice that all the podcasts have the word ‘Free’ text to the subscribe button – I can see some podcasts costing a few pennies in the not too distant future but for the majority to keep a fan base and charge the quality will need to increase. then again with the BBC and other broadcasters looking at podcasting, web technologies and alternative revenue streams it seems only a matter of time before a charging model is introduced. If thousands are willing to pay for ringtones who knows how big the podcasting market could grow to. Podcasts in iTunes also support chapters with pictures for each chapter and clickable links in iTunes. All sounds like a step to a new format of audible books and makes more sense when you think how easy it is to buy from the iTunes Music Store?

There’s some nice features for managing podcast transfers to the iPod – all episodes of a podcast, latest episodes only etc. I can’t see a feature I’m missing right now that I’ve seen in other software so this looks to be a good update to iTunes and a reduction in the amount of apps I need on the pc which is officially a good thing.

Also new is the iPod. No more iPod photo, the 20Gb and 60Gb iPod’s both have colour screens and support for bookmarking podcasts and displaying album and podcast art as well as photo’s. £299 for a 60Gb iPod is very tempting. Nice updates from Apple – again.

Quicktime HD

If you’ve not seen just how good hi-def video can look then swing over to Apple.com where Quicktime 7 is available (finally) for PC although it’s still a technology preview. Once installed go to the Quicktime HD gallery – favourite at the moment is Batman Begins trailer…only 115 Meg for 2 minutes of quality HD action. Looking forward to my HD tv already although it’s at least 6 months away.

Rated

Finally I have achieved one of my long term goals. It’s not one of those vitally important life changing ones, but it brought a smile none the less. All 3501 songs in my iTunes library have now been rated and listened to at least once. Joy. The advantages this brings……mmm. Well, the playlists will be fully functional and at least I’m able to listen to all my top rated music. The radio playlist will also work 100% with all my music. And that’s it. Thank you for listening.