I hope this event is more Mac-oriented. I'm crossing my fingers for a dual core G5 PowerMac. That's enough of a leap to warrant a special event, along with new Pbooks maybe. Both machines need a real boost right now, or else everyone's just going to wait for the lines to go over to Intel.
Really, what can be done until the Intel shift? The PPC arch has been living on borrowed time lately, and there isn't that much to be done other than adding a few features and tiny speed bumps. Given that Freescale has been choking, it isn't as if a 2+ GHz G4 with a good FSB (say 500MHz+) will be made available anytime soon, so the 'Books won't be getting much of an update until they go x86. Maybe a quad processor (dual dual-core) Powermac is tenable, but if it requires a board change or significant revisions in the cooling system, then it might not worth it for a system that will be replaced in a year. I know that iPods get revisions every year, but computers are far more complex.
I think the curtains definitely imply movies. The fact the the apple.com/movies url is protected is a further hint.
While the "one more thing..." tagline certainly gets our juices flowing, I think it is in reference to the previous iPod announcement, in that even though the nano was just released there's one more iPod thing to announce.
The new Macs and PowerBooks will just start the show off.
Adobe has been awfully coy about when/if a Mac version of Photoshop Elements 4.0 will come out. Maybe they're waiting for Apple to announce a software product that PS Elements 4.0 will work with????
This invitation is clearly meant to provoke speculation, so this means that unless Apple want to play with the media and piss them off, its going to be somthing pretty good. That sort of rules out power book updates or other incremental features, particularily when these could have been done 5 weeks ago. Maybe Apple have a video iPod, maybe the curtain is just a curtain - hiding whats behind it. Haven't they used a similar curtain image before - for Final Cut Pro or somthing?
I've always thought it quite strange that they announced the nano and the ROKR phone at the same event - in my view, the ROKR phone's announcement subtracted from the nanos, because it essentially was 'just another phone', I'm suprised Apple wanted the two devices on the same stage, I can't believe they're very proud of it, hardware design-wise at least.
Maybe they knew that whatever is being announced at this upcoming event is so much better than the nano that they didn't want the nano on the same stage as it, so they pushed forward the nano release so that this announcement would have its own dedicated event.
Obviously this is just speculation and I could be (and probably am) entirely wrong.
Update: After reading the report from BBC6 Music saying "Apple is set to unveil a new video iPod at the BBC Television Centre in London. The company is expected to reveal details of the new MP3 and video player as well as video bundles to be available from the company's iTunes stores" (which was then removed from the site), I think this strongly backs the video idea. The fact that (if this is true) the device is being launched both in the UK and US on the same day also suggests that its pretty major...
The fact that (if this is true) the device is being launched both in the UK and US on the same day also suggests that its pretty major...
Whilst I agree that this is a major "new" product, Apple releasing products at the same time in the US and UK (and the rest of the world) seems to be the norm. Releasing a product at different times for different countries isn't the way forward; they all come from China anyway.
Whilst I agree that this is a major "new" product, Apple releasing products at the same time in the US and UK (and the rest of the world) seems to be the norm. Releasing a product at different times for different countries isn't the way forward; they all come from China anyway.
I agree, but I can't think of any other device that has been launched in the UK, they may have been released, but theres been no launch events that I can think of (excluding in-store events targeted at customers).
phew, ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts. get some good rest over this weekend 'coz ya ain't gonna be sleeping much next week. apparently USA-ians have a public holiday on monday. which means, three day weekend of partying it up and then *cough* easily dragging yourself through the 4 day work week waiting for, and then endlessly dissecting apple financial results and new product releases.... ah, life is good
i love the current appleInsider vs thinkSecret showdown, with macRumors watching intently from the sidelines.
<my offtopic rant>
suse linux is kicking it nicely as my "bittorrent router"
go go pentium2-333(overclocked 375mhz) deschutes!! woot!!
also, mad props to ndiswrapper, x11vnc... shout outs to... okay i'll stop now. no i am not drunk..... yet
<burning off some excess energy so i can have my afternoon nap>
"Wireless Network
You can connect with a local wireless network of up to 16 players.The wireless range can be an incredible 30 to 100 feet and for some games, multiplayer requires just one Nintendo DS game card.
Future games may take advantage of the DS Wireless LAN connection for more multiplayer possibilities.
Note: Nintendo DS wireless communication, including PictoChat, is not private and is not monitored by Nintendo. We recommend that you never reveal any personal information or arrange to meet a stranger."
now AFAIK i don't think this means you can surf the web at a wifi hotspot or something... its more for interacting wirelessly with other DS users in range... again, AFAIK.
...unfortunately, this implies 480p rather than hi-definition,
but apple can spin this, as it is at least as good as dvd.
...besides, every mac sold can do h.264 at 480p via 1.25 ghz
g4 or better, and has either vga or dvi output to serve most
living room scenarios.
i would have to agree, 720p h.264 downloads would be quite revolutionary, i don't think movie studios would commit to this, not yet, unless steve has seriously worked some magic. we'll see.
but 480p h.264 downloads playable on a wide range of macs and possibly an iPod video would be great, marketing spin would be "DVD quality movies at one third the size of a DVD" ~ downloaded right to your computer, synced with your video iPod
something tells me though that this is not quite there yet. next year maybe, with 720p or 1080p fullblown HD downloads for mac-based hometheatre stuff, 480p for ipod video stuff.
hmmm.... speculation runs deep and wild at this stage, i'm feeling lost. damn iSteve and his tricks for drumming up hype and mystery!!!!!
<burning off some excess energy so i can have my afternoon nap>
"Wireless Network
You can connect with a local wireless network of up to 16 players.The wireless range can be an incredible 30 to 100 feet and for some games, multiplayer requires just one Nintendo DS game card.
Future games may take advantage of the DS Wireless LAN connection for more multiplayer possibilities.
Note: Nintendo DS wireless communication, including PictoChat, is not private and is not monitored by Nintendo. We recommend that you never reveal any personal information or arrange to meet a stranger."
now AFAIK i don't think this means you can surf the web at a wifi hotspot or something... its more for interacting wirelessly with other DS users in range... again, AFAIK.
My remark was somewhat sarcastic. He was comparing the DS's cheap, slow low power network to G which uses about 50 times as much power, thinking that it could go into an iPod without knocking its battery life down to 5 hours.
Comments
Originally posted by k2director
I hope this event is more Mac-oriented. I'm crossing my fingers for a dual core G5 PowerMac. That's enough of a leap to warrant a special event, along with new Pbooks maybe. Both machines need a real boost right now, or else everyone's just going to wait for the lines to go over to Intel.
Really, what can be done until the Intel shift? The PPC arch has been living on borrowed time lately, and there isn't that much to be done other than adding a few features and tiny speed bumps. Given that Freescale has been choking, it isn't as if a 2+ GHz G4 with a good FSB (say 500MHz+) will be made available anytime soon, so the 'Books won't be getting much of an update until they go x86. Maybe a quad processor (dual dual-core) Powermac is tenable, but if it requires a board change or significant revisions in the cooling system, then it might not worth it for a system that will be replaced in a year. I know that iPods get revisions every year, but computers are far more complex.
http://www.shomler.com/calsj/image02/4db_0387.jpg
^ The theatre's website
While the "one more thing..." tagline certainly gets our juices flowing, I think it is in reference to the previous iPod announcement, in that even though the nano was just released there's one more iPod thing to announce.
The new Macs and PowerBooks will just start the show off.
Expect iTunes 5.0.2 next week too.
as for video, the ipod photo dock with S-video out has been
a non-starter for those 2-8 megapixel digital photos
everyone owns. for apple to debut MTV-like lowrez 480p video
on a device with analog out would be a step backwards, besmirching
the brand known for higher quality multimedia.
yet 720p or better video via DVI/HDMI from an ipod,
from both CPU-intensive and power consumption standpoints,
is just too weird. now apple/intel 802.11n airport AV express
would indeed be nice, but this requires hardware
MPEG2 / H.264 decoders in a small unit.
if sjobs wants to think different by adopting devices abandoned
in the past as "un-apple" and "not done right", why not do an
apple-brand 1080p HDTV-compatible living-room size (42" minimum)
display? that sounds much more practical for circa 2005, the
"year of HD".
Adobe has been awfully coy about when/if a Mac version of Photoshop Elements 4.0 will come out. Maybe they're waiting for Apple to announce a software product that PS Elements 4.0 will work with????
http://www.forbes.com/video/?video_u...27s+Video+iPod
It says that the major studios are planning a downloads store by the end of the year...
(second link down under news - i think)
Who better than the beloved Apple?
Steve went to them and said he's do it....
... gave them ok terms...
and we're away.
This invitation is clearly meant to provoke speculation, so this means that unless Apple want to play with the media and piss them off, its going to be somthing pretty good. That sort of rules out power book updates or other incremental features, particularily when these could have been done 5 weeks ago. Maybe Apple have a video iPod, maybe the curtain is just a curtain - hiding whats behind it. Haven't they used a similar curtain image before - for Final Cut Pro or somthing?
I've always thought it quite strange that they announced the nano and the ROKR phone at the same event - in my view, the ROKR phone's announcement subtracted from the nanos, because it essentially was 'just another phone', I'm suprised Apple wanted the two devices on the same stage, I can't believe they're very proud of it, hardware design-wise at least.
Maybe they knew that whatever is being announced at this upcoming event is so much better than the nano that they didn't want the nano on the same stage as it, so they pushed forward the nano release so that this announcement would have its own dedicated event.
Obviously this is just speculation and I could be (and probably am) entirely wrong.
Update: After reading the report from BBC6 Music saying "Apple is set to unveil a new video iPod at the BBC Television Centre in London. The company is expected to reveal details of the new MP3 and video player as well as video bundles to be available from the company's iTunes stores" (which was then removed from the site), I think this strongly backs the video idea. The fact that (if this is true) the device is being launched both in the UK and US on the same day also suggests that its pretty major...
Originally posted by eAi
The fact that (if this is true) the device is being launched both in the UK and US on the same day also suggests that its pretty major...
Whilst I agree that this is a major "new" product, Apple releasing products at the same time in the US and UK (and the rest of the world) seems to be the norm. Releasing a product at different times for different countries isn't the way forward; they all come from China anyway.
Originally posted by danielctull
Whilst I agree that this is a major "new" product, Apple releasing products at the same time in the US and UK (and the rest of the world) seems to be the norm. Releasing a product at different times for different countries isn't the way forward; they all come from China anyway.
I agree, but I can't think of any other device that has been launched in the UK, they may have been released, but theres been no launch events that I can think of (excluding in-store events targeted at customers).
i love the current appleInsider vs thinkSecret showdown, with macRumors watching intently from the sidelines.
<my offtopic rant>
suse linux is kicking it nicely as my "bittorrent router"
go go pentium2-333(overclocked 375mhz) deschutes!! woot!!
also, mad props to ndiswrapper, x11vnc... shout outs to... okay i'll stop now. no i am not drunk..... yet
Good job with the blurring on that email address in the invite... good job no-one can read it anymore.
If you then attemp to go to http://www.apple.com/movies you'll get the generic Apache Web Server
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /movies on this server.
Is this evidence of an upcoming Movies page for the much rumored video iPod?
for apple to satisfy all the constraints for:
- apple video download store
- ipod-as-video display/storage unit + remote_control
- digital feed to (hd)tv
is for any new ipod to do 802.11g rather than dvi/hdmi-output,
and have the mac mini rather than the ipod do the tv interface.
if the nintendo ds at $100-$150 for display + wireless
can do it, so can ipod.
unfortunately, this implies 480p rather than hi-definition,
but apple can spin this, as it is at least as good as dvd.
besides, every mac sold can do h.264 at 480p via 1.25 ghz
g4 or better, and has either vga or dvi output to serve most
living room scenarios.
Originally posted by retiarius
sparing a full-quotation-reply-to-self, the easiest way
for apple to satisfy all the constraints for:
- apple video download store
- ipod-as-video display/storage unit + remote_control
- digital feed to (hd)tv
is for any new ipod to do 802.11g rather than dvi/hdmi-output,
and have the mac mini rather than the ipod do the tv interface.
if the nintendo ds at $100-$150 for display + wireless
can do it, so can ipod.
unfortunately, this implies 480p rather than hi-definition,
but apple can spin this, as it is at least as good as dvd.
besides, every mac sold can do h.264 at 480p via 1.25 ghz
g4 or better, and has either vga or dvi output to serve most
living room scenarios.
You're saying that the DS does WiFi?
"Wireless Network
You can connect with a local wireless network of up to 16 players.The wireless range can be an incredible 30 to 100 feet and for some games, multiplayer requires just one Nintendo DS game card.
Future games may take advantage of the DS Wireless LAN connection for more multiplayer possibilities.
Note: Nintendo DS wireless communication, including PictoChat, is not private and is not monitored by Nintendo. We recommend that you never reveal any personal information or arrange to meet a stranger."
now AFAIK i don't think this means you can surf the web at a wifi hotspot or something... its more for interacting wirelessly with other DS users in range... again, AFAIK.
...unfortunately, this implies 480p rather than hi-definition,
but apple can spin this, as it is at least as good as dvd.
...besides, every mac sold can do h.264 at 480p via 1.25 ghz
g4 or better, and has either vga or dvi output to serve most
living room scenarios.
i would have to agree, 720p h.264 downloads would be quite revolutionary, i don't think movie studios would commit to this, not yet, unless steve has seriously worked some magic. we'll see.
but 480p h.264 downloads playable on a wide range of macs and possibly an iPod video would be great, marketing spin would be "DVD quality movies at one third the size of a DVD" ~ downloaded right to your computer, synced with your video iPod
something tells me though that this is not quite there yet. next year maybe, with 720p or 1080p fullblown HD downloads for mac-based hometheatre stuff, 480p for ipod video stuff.
hmmm.... speculation runs deep and wild at this stage, i'm feeling lost. damn iSteve and his tricks for drumming up hype and mystery!!!!!
Originally posted by sunilraman
<burning off some excess energy so i can have my afternoon nap>
"Wireless Network
You can connect with a local wireless network of up to 16 players.The wireless range can be an incredible 30 to 100 feet and for some games, multiplayer requires just one Nintendo DS game card.
Future games may take advantage of the DS Wireless LAN connection for more multiplayer possibilities.
Note: Nintendo DS wireless communication, including PictoChat, is not private and is not monitored by Nintendo. We recommend that you never reveal any personal information or arrange to meet a stranger."
now AFAIK i don't think this means you can surf the web at a wifi hotspot or something... its more for interacting wirelessly with other DS users in range... again, AFAIK.
My remark was somewhat sarcastic. He was comparing the DS's cheap, slow low power network to G which uses about 50 times as much power, thinking that it could go into an iPod without knocking its battery life down to 5 hours.