Engadget were at Apple’s “It’s Showtime” press event today and they were able to get hands on with all the new releases, including the iTV prototype, which was a big shocker. Check out the links for all the juicy pictures.

• 2G iPod nano hands-on [link]
• 5G iPod v2 hands-on [link]
• iTV hands-on [link]
• iPod Shuffle and new headphones hands-on [link]

They all look really good, and I’m even impressed with the iTV, even though that hasn’t been officially released. I’m still not sure about the shuffle though, however I do like the nano now. I do want to try them out, but my nearest Apple store is in Birmingham and we won’t go there for no reason just to visit an Apple Store. The other one is in London, and I don’t think we’ll visit it for a while. The other ‘tech’ shops around town are pretty rubbish. They wouldn’t have the new iPods for a while. The Currys.digital shop still has the iPod nano labelled under Hard-disk player. The obviously don’t know anything, but I was amazed to see a MacBook there. I tried it out and it was very fast, I really want one now. After I finished playing with it, one of the store clerks went and started that god-awful screensaver thing they have. I hate those so much; they aren’t really going to get customers to buy the product if they can’t test it.

This is the one product which hasn’t been released, as in it is not on Apple’s website. The name iTV is not official yet, so it is subject to change. I think that is good because iTV sounds a bit plain, and similiar to Elgato’s EyeTV line of products. So people could get confused. Down to the details:

• It looks like a flatter Mac mini.
• No power brick, but there is USB 2, Ethernet, 802.11 Wireless, HDMI, Component and RCA jacks as well as optical audio.
• Controlled via the Apple remote.
• Hooks up directly to your TV, set-top box or other input device.
• An enhanced version of Front Row, with windows media centre style browsing. The right hand side has menu and the left has images.
• “You can do movie trailers form Apple.com right from your couch. This is big screen over the internet, live as we watch. [demo]“
• Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts, and Photos
• Coming Q1 of 2007
• Works with Macs and PCs
• $299

As Apple doesn’t have an official page, I’ll link you to Engadget’s live coverage of the “It’s Showtime!” event.
This certainly seems like a very interesting idea and because of the price point even more so. Now we just have to wait for it to come out, doh!
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The new version of iTunes has a lot of new features, you can find a good walkthrough of the main features at TUAW. These are the main enhancements:

• TV Shows are available in h.264, in 640 x 480 which is up from 320 x 240.
• You can update your iPod from right inside iTunes now, you don’t need to go to Preferences. You can say, “I want to sync the 10 most recent unwatched episides of all my TV shows.”
• You can sync content between multiple computers as long as you have the same iTMS account and both the computers are authorised.
• Coverflow mode allows you to scroll through the artwork of your music as if it was on a shelf.
• Music Artwork can be downloaded free from Apple, and it will fill up all the missing artwork in your library!
• “Today we’re starting out with films from Disney, Pixar, Touchstone, and Miramax – four studios owned by Disney. Today we’re making over 70 films agvailable online today including Pirates of the Caribbean. They’ll be available the same day they’re out on DVD.“
• New movies will be $12.99 if you pre-order them or buy them during the first week. Other movies are $9.99. The movie store is integrated into iTunes and you can preview new releases in album cover flow mode. They will also be at 640 x 480 with Dolby Surround Sound. Initially it will be for the US only, but it will go international in 2007.
• Games for iPod are $4.99 and only work with the 5G iPod (old and updated).
• A refined look with sections for music, other content, playlists etc. It is not really too big, but it allows iTunes to flow more seamlessley. You have to see for yourself, it is hard to describe.

It is available for download now. I think that’s virtually it, I’ll update it if I find anything else.

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Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a very popular device and has sold a few million units, but when compared to Apple’s iPod, the PSP lacks storage space. Luckily, the PSP has a built in WiFi card to make up for this disadvantage. With a few simple steps, all of which are included in this tutorial, anyone can stream any non-copyright music from their iTunes library to their PSP.

The 5-Step Setup Procedure:
1) Download iTunes-PSP-Server.exe and save it to your desktop.
2) Disable any firewalls and/or keep port 8080 open.
3) Launch iTunes and then click on the iTunes-PSP-Server after.
4) In IE/Firefox open the page “http://localhost:8080″
5) Setup is complete if an “iTunes RSS Server” page appeared.

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You know Stewie, the evil and extremely smart British baby on the series Family Guy, well he is getting his own radio talk show, sort of like a podcast. It is only for the internet so I see no reason for it not to be listed in iTunes and it will start sometime this year. “‘We think that the property is perfectly suited for that audience’ Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinsohn said Tuesday”. I think so too. There are millions of Family Guy fans out there who would love to listen to this. If it was released as a podcast, or with at least an RSS feed I most certainly would. Family Guy is great, and has that quality that the Simpsons doesn’t. They are both great shows but Family Guy is funny in its own way (and so are the Simpsons).

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Oh my god!!! Full details coming later on.

• Intel Powerbook – Called MacBook Pro – Dual Core
• Intel iMac – looks exactly the same – Dual Core
• iLife ’06 – with iWeb etc
• Tiger 10.4.4
• iPod remote with FM Tuner

Engadget has a good coverage of the Keynote in more detail here.

First of all I’m going to say I do not condone hacking nor piracy. What I have done is purely for educational purposes only. So please don’t sue me Apple, I don’t have any money. Because of the nature of this ‘experiment’ I cannot provide links from where I got the files. All I can say is I used Apple’s legitimate Front Row updater to update the Front Row on the new iMac’s (w/ iSight) from v1 to v1.0.1. Pictures after the jump.
On with the task. So I downloaded the files and with tricks I installed Front Row into the ‘System/Library/Core Services’ folder. From here I used another application to bypass Front Row from looking for the Apple Remote. This Application also put a link to Front Row in the System Preferences so that I can change what key(s) I use to activate Front Row. I set it to ‘Cmd + F1′. This is a quick shortcut which I won’t forget and doesn’t interfere with anything else. That was it! I can now use Front Row (for educational purposes). I have taken some pictures below and the one above. Click on the, for an enlarged version. Sorry if the pictures aren’t great but I didn’t take the pictures in very good lighting conditions and the flash would have reflected off my LCD display. Enjoy!

In our crazy world we all need some silence. Relax with your iPod. Download collections of digitally clear silence encoded in high quality AAC.

They also have the world’s first silent vidcast containing the best silence I’ve ever heard. See for yourself at their website and their iTunes page.

This is truly horrifying . I previously mentioned a site, SmashMyiPod.com, which is “dedicated in raising $400 to buy and iPod and destroy it inside the Apple Store they bought it from“. I was bit skeptic seeing the early photos which looked like they weren’t taken inside the Apple Store. Now I know why, they were chucked out from the Apple Store after their little ‘demo’. The video shows the guy walking in a buying the iPod, then his friend walks up, throws it to the ground and starts stomping on it with his foot. After they get chucked from the Apple Store they get a sledgehammer and batter the iPod to pieces. A few photos then follow showing the smashed iPod. Watch the video for yourself here.
It looks like they weren’t cheating on people with buying a 4G iPod as the video looks legit. But they did say they raised more money than they needed, which they probably kept themselves. Anyway the video is still fun and scary to watch .

read more (page with links to the video)

As no-one at Engadget has the new iPod they couldn’t really take photos. But a kind reader, Garret M, has taken photos of his iPod that arrived this morning. More photos below.

The Box Open

The iPod in all its glory

5G vs 3G iPod, 5G clearly wins.

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Steve Jobs showed off their latest iPod ‘silhouette’ advert at the ‘Special Event’ in San Jose. I say ‘silhouette’ because it is multi coloured and Eminem has shades so you can make out who he, otherwise you would think that the person is your average John Doe. Although I don’t like Eminem or his music I like the ad. Apple have gone to a length to make this ad considering how earlier last year Eminem sued Apple for using his music in an Ad without asking him. There have been reports from sites including The Unofficial Apple Weblog that Apple have taken the Ad from their website and it won’t be airing on the TV but I found it on Apple’s website and have download it. Just in case it disappears I have a link below to a smaller version.
iPod Ad [H.264 - 320 x 240 - 1.6MB] This requires Quicktime 7

See the new iPod + iTunes ad

One of my favourite podcasts, The MacCast, was mentioned on The Gadget Show on Channel 5 here in the UK. They said that it was a very good podcast and they highly reccomend it to anyone. The MacCast is a podcast about Apple and anything Mac related including news and listener questions and answers. You can download The Gadget Show clip below and the full section of podcasting in The Gadget Show.
MacCast Clip [H.264 - 1024 x 576 - 4.4MB]
Full Section [H.264 - 640 x 480 - 87MB]
Both of these videos require QuickTime 7 or later to view. Command-Click (Right-Click) and Save Target As to download the files.

I was really hyped up about iTunes 6 and I really couldn’t wait any longer. So I headed to the US site and download iTunes 6 for Mac. After downloading 80MB(!!) I installed it and off I went. You can see the screenshot above. I had already told iTunes where my music was being kept (in the network drive called MUSIC) and it found some videos that my dad had downloaded once. Pretty cool, and it was all done automatically. The iTunes Music Store hompage is the same as always but with a few adverts labelled: “U2 Exclusive Video”, “Pixar Movie Shorts” and a bunch of others. I really haven’t seen anything about the TV shows, but I quickly changed my Music Store location to USA and what did it show? Adverts for ‘Lost’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’. Please do something in the UK Apple and make it be soon. I clicked on the link for ‘Lost’ and I was taken to the Lost’s page. A screenshot can be seen below.

Apple Website (US – iTunes)

UPDATE: You can now download iTunes 6 through the UK site. [link]

Interestingly, although iTunes 6 was announced and you can see the ads places on Apple’s page above, if you click the link for iTunes it just shows the page for iTunes 5. This only seems to be happening for the UK site, which was updated later when iTunes 5 was released.

What do they cost? $1.99 [£1.89] each. But we didn’t stop there; we’re adding some other videos you can buy. Pixar is putting up six of their award-winning short videos. $1.99 each. We are downloading videos 320 x 240, which is the native resolution of the iPod. They’re about the size of six songs. All songs are governed by FairPlay. You can play them on up to five computers. They’re not rentals. You own them — they never time out. We have one more thing today, a pretty big thing. We’re announcing one more thing that you can buy off the iTunes store today, and that is TV shows. What’s the number one show on TV? What’s the second? Lost. And who has these shows? ABC. And who owns ABC? [Disney logo on screen.] I know those guys! Lost, Desperate Housewives, Night Stalker, That’s So Raven, The Suite Life. Yes, you can buy current episodes, and you can buy them the day after they are broadcast. They’re ad free so you don’t need to fast forward through the commercials, 320 x 240 again. An hour show is about the size of five albums. Depending on your speed it’s about 10-20 minute to download an episode. What are they going to cost? $1.99 an episode for current season and past seasons. We have free previews on every episode.

This seems really cool, as most of these shows air in the UK as well and are broadcast by a variety of channels, such as Channel 4 for ‘Lost’, The Disney Channel for ‘That’s So Raven’ and ‘The Suite Life’. I am going to be interested to see how Apple work it out in the UK, or at least I hope they do something because it would be a really big blow if it was only for the US. We just have to sit and wait, again.

Apple Website (US – iTunes 6)

Podcasts, Photos, Music and now videos. Home videos and TV shows. It has a 320 x 240 pixel 2.5-inch display with 260,000 colours, 20 hours of battery life, and supports playback of H.264 and MPEG4 at 30 fps. Has TV out and will come in both 30GB and 60GB versions, with the 30GB version being 31% thinner than the current 20GB iPod and the 60GB version being 12% thinner than the current 20GB iPod. The 30GB will hold up to 75 hours of video and retail for £219. The 60GB version will hold 150 hours of video and sell for £299. Both will ship in one week and will come in black or white (see below for picture). It no longer ships with an AC Adapter but does ship with a case (thank god).

Apple’s Website (UK)

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!

Ok guys, the event has started, but because Apple conviniently chose an area where there is no mobile coverage there will be no live updates, but the news will be brought to you as quick as possible. The image above is apparently of the new iPod that will be announced. It looks like it would fit in with the posters and has a pretty large screen. It looks like a pre-production model which is for testing purposes only. I think it doesn’t look that good. It has made the iPod wider and the click wheel looks small with the space next to it. I hope they don’t release it. It kind of appears like a nano, but stretched out. I still don’t know about playing video on that, if it will? Anyway we will find out soon.

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UPDATE: This is real.

Could this be the new iPod that Apple will announce? Apparently the photo was taken at the Apple Event, after people had a chance to sign in. The event is going to start in less than 20 minutes so I will keep everyone updated through my site. This image is a zoom-in of the poster that is apparently at the event. iLounge claims that the poster shows a new device with a 2.5 to 2.6-inch diagonal display (compared to the 2 inch that the normal iPods are) and a headphone jack that’s obviously been moved from the centre. We will find out soon if it is true. Another picture below.

read more (iLounge Live Event Page)

As a part of my subscription with Apple, they send me weekly newsletters and the above screenshot shows the latest one for October 7. It reads “Find it. Hear it. Buy it. Mix it. Watch it. Right from your desktop with iTunes.” By watch it, it could mean that there will be something interesting to watch, like movies, apart from music videos and vidcasts, although it probably means the latter ones. I think that although a video iPod probably won’t be announced, the iTunes Video Store could well be. But I have to question what DRM they will use? It better not be some crappy one which needs proprietary software and/or hardware. You never know…