the mini Blog

The news, in order of announcing:

• New flatter iMac with built-in iSight. The new prices are as follows: $1299 US for the 1.5GHZ 17-inch model and $1799 US for the 2.1GHz 20 inch model. No word yet on the UK price, it will probably be on Apple’s website when the event it over.
• There is a replacement for Sailling Clicker, which offer many applications to control your mac, via phone or PDA. This is apparently in the form of a remote sort of thing. It is called FrontRow. It uses bluetooth and apparently looks like an iPod shuffle.
• New iPod! The new iPod, as rumored, features video capabilities and the wider display, but it’s still a music-first device. This probably means that the photo below is real. It has a 2.5-inch display, QVGA resolution (320 x 240), and will support MPEG-4 h.264 and probably Quicktime.
• The new iPod will be 30% thinner (making it 0.44-inches!!) than the current 20GB iPod, and will feature a 60GB version, both in black colours and white. The 20GB should go for $299, and the 60GB for $399. They’ll be shipping next week. The iPod is just being called the “iPod” which I think means that the current iPods will be discontinued. Again I was right, the current iPod is being replaced. Same width and height as current model, but thinner. QVGA (324 x 240) pixel 260,000 color 2.5-inch display. h.264 and MPEG-4 at 30 fps. TV out.
• iTunes 6 - Only a month after the release of iTunes 5, version 6 is out. I think that was pointless! It is not available yet on Software update. iTunes 6 will feature video downloads at launch, over 2000 music videos will be made available at a cost of $1.99 per video. The iTunes Music store will have airplay DRM’ed video downloads. It will probably work like the purchased music. You can only watch it on 5 computers and your iPod. Kinda sucks. I was right. You also can’t burn to DVD or CD. You can ‘gift’ videos.
• As well as music videos to buy, you can also buy TV shows for $1.99 per episode. Get Desperate Housewives or four other ABC shows premiering on iTunes. Videos are native QVGA resolution so it will be best to watch them on the iPod and not the computer. Not sure how it will work in the UK as we have different shows, but hopefully they will give us some good ones. Apple could have been talking to the BBC because of that, and that is why someone on the BBC accidentally let it slip that there will be a video iPod.

That is all there is. I have a post coming with pictures!