The same day of the opening of Apple Expo in Paris, Steve Jobs performed a Keynote presentation from San Fransisco so as to announce some very anticipated new products. We've provided a live coverage during this event, of which you can now see the transcript on MacScoop.com.
As many analysts and rumour sites were expecting. The company has updated all of its iPod line-ups and has announced its online movie store. Another product which is code-named iTV has also been previewed at the end of the presentation.
The new iPods:
Apple has renewed all of its iPods and while the storage was bumped up, some of the iPods saw their price going down.
The standard, video-enabled iPod sees a storage bump in the top of the line to 80GB (from 60GB) and now offers better battery life of up to 20 hours of music playback and 3.5 hours of video playback. The new iPod also offers high quality games that were specifically adapted for the click-wheel. They are available for $4.99 from the iTunes store. The entry level standard sized iPod gets the same features as the 80GB model and remains at 30GB but sees a significant price drop to $249.
The iPod nano sees its storage jump to twice it was in the precedent line-up, for the same price. So now you can get a 2GB nano for $149, a 4GB one for $199 and a 8GB one for $249. More importantly, the iPod nano now has a significantly increased battery life of as much as 24 hours. Apple has also brought back the iPod mini's anodized aluminum design and flavors. It is available in silver for the 2GB model, in silver, pink, blue, green for the 4GB model and in black for the 8GB one.
Both of the line-ups get brighter display (60% brighter for the iPod and 40% brighter for the iPod nano). They also get new software features such as search and gapless playback. Search allows the user to input the first letters of a song or an artist using the click-wheel, just as they can do on iTunes.
The iPod shuffle was totally revamped with a new silver design which is a fraction of the first generation iPod shuffle's size. It's actually as small as an iPod remote control. It comes in a unique 1GB model which now costs $79.
iTunes 7:
Apple has also introduced a new version of iTunes. This is a major release that brings many new features such as better library organization, new views, gapless playback, cover downloads and built-in iPod updater.
Now there are separated sections in the sidebar so as to easily identify libraries which are now organized by media kind (Music, Movies, TV shows, Radios). The devices and the playlists are also grouped in their own section.
The biggest feature of iTunes is the ability to view your library or playlist by albums with cover art at the left. Another view called Cover Flow allows you to "rediscover our library" with by scrolling through your library as it was physical discs. This feature uses cover art to display the albums "physically".
Other features include the ability to play in gapless mode as iTunes can detect gaps in songs and remove them. As the new views require you to have all the cover art of your music, a new feature can automatically grab cover art from iTunes for those who have a free iTunes account.
A click on the iPod now shows a new iPod management interface allowing you to update your iPod's firmware right from iTunes and to have an overview of what's in your iPod.
iTunes Movie Store:
This was the most anticipated announcement of this event as the invitation sent to the press stated "It's showtime". Apple has announced the launch of its movie store that is available through iTunes.
The company has unsurprisingly signed with Disney and initially offers 75 movies on its store with pricing ranging from $9.99 to $14.99 for each movie. The new movies are available in pre-order a month before their release in DVD and released the same day they are released in DVD. These new movies are priced $12.99 during the pre-ordering period and the first week of their release, then their priced $14.99. Older movies are all sold 9.99.
Apple has chosen to improve the resolution of all the video content available on iTunes, including TV shows and video clips. The new resolution is 640x480 with H264 compression. Apple claims that iTunes now offers near-DVD quality for its video content. The same file you download for your computer can be used on the iPod which can now play these new, higher resolution files.
And... One more thing:
Steve Jobs did it again, he added one more thing at the end of his presentation. The thing is a new product that will be released in the first quarter of 2007. It's code-named iTV and it connects to your living room's big-screen TV through HDMI and digital or analog audio. It allows you to stream any kind of media, including music, movies, tv shows and photos from your Mac or PC running iTunes to your TV set. It will feature wireless capabilities based on the 802.11 standard. This new device has a design similar to the Mac mini but half the height and includes a built-in power supply. It will be priced $299.
Let's not forget the artists!
The event finished with another "one more thing", after Jobs reminded the crowd that if artists were not here we would have nothing to put on our iPod, John Legent came on stage to perform two titles of his forthcoming album.
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