A whole lot of Apple news of course, but we’ve never really done music players or streaming devices, so let’s skip the barrage of new iPods and the new Apple TV (streaming-only? Fail). The real meat is of course iOS 4.1 and 4.2, both of which were detailed during today’s press event.
iOS 4.1 is mostly a bug-fix release, focussing on a number of issues people have been having on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3G. The iPhone 4’s proximity sensor and BlueTooth issues are supposed to be fixed in this new version, as well as the slowness issues people are having with iOS 4 on the iPhone 3G.
As for new features, it’ll add support for High Dynamic Range photography, HD video uploads via WiFi, TV show rentals, and, of course, Game Center. It is scheduled to arrive next week for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
iOS 4.2 was also demoed by Apple, but not that much new information was given. It’ll finally update the iPad to iOS 4, while also bringing wireless printing support (with print manager), and AirTunes so you can stream content to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Scheduled for November.
Nothing major announced other than the addition of printing. That will be a welcome addition. Seems pretty clear that the new AppleTV will also be running a version of iOS, but a bit strange they aren’t leveraging apps if it indeed does.
Hard to support apps when everything’s multi-touch. The Apple TV has always been about testing the waters. I think they’ll wait a bit, and may allow app support by using an iPod touch / iPhone to send multi-touch events over bluetooth to the Apple TV.
That’s what I’m thinking… The iPod Touch/iPhone would be a perfect controller _and_ when you leave the house a mobile version of the same game goes with you…
/shrug
Why the assumption that ATV runs iOS?
The software for the new ATV looks to be almost identical in appearance and functionality to the software for the old ATV. It just doesn’t do local storage. It almost certainly *is* the same old software, with some changes and just compiled for a different CPU architecture. (Intel-based ATV’s have an OS that is very closely related to Mac OS X 10.4.)
Mac OS X, the ATV’s OS, and iOS are all based on the same underlying OS and kernel, Darwin and XNU respectively. You can download the XNU kernel source code for the latest Mac OS X and compile it for ARM. Indeed, I would expect that Apple have ARM-based systems in their labs running full desktop Mac OS X – they’d be functionally the same, but just wouldn’t be binary compatible with existing Macs.
The UI layer for iOS is CocoaTouch – which is all about interacting with a touchscreen. ATV’s interaction is a remote screen and a 6-key minimal keyboard (the Apple Remote). CocoaTouch is a very poor fit for that style of interaction.
Mac OS X compiled for ARM is not iOS. iOS compiled for Intel is not Mac OS X. ATV OS compiled for ARM, Intel, PPC, MIPS, Alpha, whatever is still ATV OS.
Seems like a lot of overhead for less features to be running the same OS. The older boxes won’t be getting updates, which makes me think it is something other than what they were operating.
The iOS seems better suited for it, but I admit, it’s just an assumption. As far as input is concerned, the touch interface would not work w/ a TV set, you are right but for many applications your iPad or iPhone could easily become the controller.
The only major limiting factor is a lack of disk space at this point in time.
I’m saying that ATV will run an OS of it’s own. Just like the old ATV did. It will be an OS of the same family as Mac OS X and iOS.
The old ATV effectively ran a version of Mac OS X 10.4. It has all the parts that it didn’t need stripped out. There’s no “lot of overhead for less features” since that overhead is gone.
I hated the new Apple TV. Streaming is simply not a good option for music, when you just want to sit down and relax, instead of going to other rooms to turn ON your PC/Mac to stream from its iTunes. I won’t talk about it more here, whoever cares, can read the full explanation on my blog: http://is.gd/ePKlg
I hate that everything is so tied to iTunes. Why can’t I store stuff on my Time Capsule and the Apple TV stream from that?? (It would be plugged directly into it by Ethernet as that’s where the TV / Internet is located).
leave your backups to be nice safe, secure backups. You will be happy you did when you come to need it!
A backup is a duplication, nothing more. Just because it’s on a backup drive, it doesn’t make it any more legitimate and safe than the same copy on my laptop. (Any hard disk can ’asplode and a backup drive is as likely to asplode as the one in the computer).
My point is why does iTunes have to be open on a computer for this to work. The same content is on the backup and Apple TV could get it there, computer off.
A backup is there to be restored should the worst happen. What you want is a mirror, not a backup.
If I were to use a backup at work for live use I would get a Real telling off.
And when your internet connection decides not to work when you need it, you will be happy that you have safe and secure backups at home!
Like Airtunes so I can play music from my iPhone on my parents Airtunes speakers when I visit? Can’t see the need for Aitunes to the iPhone. If I’m that close to my PC I’ll, er, play the music on the PC via some very loud speakers (volume goes up to 11
)
I don’t really care about iPods or Apple TV, so the whole thing was a bit meh for me.
On the other hand, Epic Games announced the Unreal 3 engine for iOS and released a showcase app. The visuals are just stunning. I still can’t believe that these kind of graphics are possible on the iPhone.
Epic are very talented when it comes to making good graphics on low-end hardware. UT2004 too was graphically stunning when you consider the hardware it ran on and compare it to other 3D games* running on that hardware.
*2D games do not count. They don’t require processing power to be beautiful, that’s considered cheating.
Edited 2010-09-03 11:53 UTC
Remember how Apple used to be the brand where you paid premium for a device you could get elsewhere at a cheaper price?
That time seems to be gone. Now, they peddle their wares for practically free to bolster the ecosystem. I don’t think anybody sells a device comparable to Apple TV for $99, and iPods are pretty cheap compared to the hardware you get as well (these days). I bet Apple is planning to make most of the profit from content.
Apple TV is going to sell like cupcakes.
In other news, it seems the first MeeGo powered set top box has been announced recently:
http://www.allaboutmeego.com/news/item/12058_Amino_Freedom-set-top_…
http://www.aminocom.com/index.asp?PageID=2145848683
Edited 2010-09-01 20:48 UTC
I think there’s too much competition already as well as upcoming competition that will prevent Apple TV from selling like cupcakes.
Apple did still refer to the AppleTV as a hobby. I don’t think they’ll ever get it right.
“…new Apple TV (streaming-only? Fail).”
When you say “fail” do you mean like Roku or like Focus Shift?
Isn’t anything that doesn’t specifically support the desires of geekdom fail?
Using your media collection without having to start iTunes on a separate machine is now considered a geekdom usecase?
Of course. Didn’t you know? Even daring to suggest you don’t want to use iTunes immediately puts you into geekdom these days. How dare you even express dissatisfaction with that awesome piece of Appleness? <sarcasm />
iPod Nano multitouch fail. You can barely even fit two fingers on the screen, let alone make any gestures with them.
It does remind me of this, though: http://www.bash.org/?560292
Does nobody else here realise how big Ping is going to? I think it will be huge and it just a toe dip by Apple – I expect a lot more of this stuff to come, there are already 140 million iTune users signed up.
Anything that reduces the amount of iFan exposure (as they start spending more time on their private bubble, pinging each other) is good news 😉
Let them live in their bubble. Hopefully they stay there and we have less congestion on the freeway.
I for one cannot wait to stream video and audio content to my 42″ Samsung, as well as watch YT and Netflix. Couldn’t care less about renting movies or shows though. Then in November, I can also stream that same content to my iPod touch and iPad.
I know it’s closed and that’s not always a good thing, but it’s a slick ecosystem that works well for me personally. Having a toddler and an infant is detrimental to optical media, and it’ll be nice to stream all of that stuff over the wifi.