What's happening?
I'm Brian Tong, and welcome to the Apple Byte for all the good and bad inside the world of Apple.
We know Apple's music lineup is set.
We'll recap all the goodies for you, but as always, the devil can sometimes be in the details so let's get to it.
We'll start with the hardware.
The Shuffle goes retro, brings back the buttons and keeps the clip.
They are 49$ for 2 gigs of storage and can also
be worn as earrings.
Now the iPod Nano gets the biggest makeover, featuring 1-1/2 inch multi-touchscreen, clip-on action, and no physical controls.
It starts at 149$ for 8 gigs and 179 for 60 gigs and it's officially the hardest iPod to control with man hands.
The iPod Touch gets everything we wanted with a retina display, a front facing camera for FaceTime calls.
It even vibrates when you receive calls which is huge for the deaf community.
There's a rear camera for HD video
plus, it manages to even get thinner.
The Touch starts at 229 for 8 gigs and goes up to 399 for 64 gigs.
You can make this my new weapon of choice in a bar fight.
But the biggest letdown, its rear camera takes still images with a 960 x 720
resolution.
My niece's Disney Pix Jr.
takes better pics than that.
We're throwin' out the bad Apple.
The Cupertino kids also showed off the next generation Apple TV.
It's 99$, about 1/4 the size of the current Apple TV.
There's HDMI video out, only there's no hard drive, and it's purely a streaming device.
You'll get Netflix, YouTube and Flickr integration and the ability to stream your iTunes media content to it.
Now a lot of you sent questions about this is
so to answer the popular ones the Apple TV only will display 720p video.
TV show rentals from Fox and ABC are 99 cents but in a subtle change you have 30 days to watch a show and 48 hours from the time you press play to watch them multiple times.
Movie rentals on the other hand give you 30 days and only a 24 hour window of time.
On the flip side, Amazon currently offers 99 cents TV show purchases, not rentals but purchases from Fox and ABC.
Apple didn't feature in the
keynote but you can also use the Apple remote app on your iPhone or iPod Touch to control the Apple TV.
It's really one of the first devices to seamlessly connect your TV to other mobile devices like the iPod if you live in the Apple ecosystem.
But this isn't anything close the game changer that people are hoping for.
They had a chance to do somethin' big, like incorporating apps and the magic track pad, but it still looks like a hobby.
Now, let's shift to some software now.
Apple announced that IOS 4.1 is coming in about a week.
We have it in our dirty little hands
so let's check out some of the new features.
Hey there guys and gals, Brian Tong here with CNET.com and IOS 4.1 will be available shortly but we have it here so we wanted to show you the new goodies that you guys can look forward to.
And the most popular one that you'll probably be using is taking high dynamic range photos.
If you go into your camera app in IOS 4.1, you'll see a button that says HDR off.
To use the feature turn it on.
Take a picture and we'll take a high dynamic range photo, but it will also save a version
of the picture without the effect.
HDR photography combines a series of photographs shot at different exposures.
One is underexposed where everything is darker and one is overexposed where everything is lighter so it takes the best parts of these photos.
They're put together into one that brings out the details in both the shadows and highlights.
Now it took several shots to show you the feature in action but some photo purists don't like the effect because it can feel fake to them and sometimes even appears grainer.
Now if you only wanna save the HDR version of the photo, jump into your settings then go to photos,
and there's an option you can set to keep normal photo so you can turn that on or off.
You'll also get a game center in IOS 4.1 which is a social gaming network.
It has game invites, leader boards, and achievements so you guys can think of it like Xbox Live on your idevice for free.
You can tell this hasn't been released to the public yet because Apple is still using its street lingo and there are no game center games available at the moment.
But this is another feature that I cannot wait for.
Now in the iTunes app, Apple's music social network called Ping is fully integrated into the experience
so it can follow artists or friends.
At the moment, I can't search for people to follow on the mobile app.
I can follow people already following me or I can follow the few artists that are featured, but I'm not really desperate enough to add Yo-Yo Ma, just yet.
So it looks like you'll need to use iTunes on your computer to really get the full experience.
Another new feature in the iTunes app is having the ability to now rent TV shows directly from your IOS devices with the update.
And one feature that I've been waiting for is getting the ability to now upload HD video that you've taken
to YouTube and MobileMe over Wi-Fi.
I'm Brian Tong for CNET.com and there's your first look at IOS 4.1 one before it releases.
That guy might wanna do something about wearing the same clothes as me.
It's pretty embarrassing.
Now the Big A also previewed IOS 4.2, but specifically for the iPod.
It finally brings multitasking, plus we'll get wireless printing and file sharing.
It's expected to come sometime in November.
And iTunes 10 is out and the big new feature is Ping.
Apple calls it a social network for music.
That's what people used to say about MySpace and SJ wants to take over that space.
Follow your favorite artists and friends all in the comfort of iTunes.
There's no FaceBook integration at all and SJ said Apple couldn't come to an agreement with the social networking machine.
But 547 exclusive content and access I can't get anywhere else.
I just don't see myself spending too much time in Ping, and honestly, I buy most of my music from Amazon anyways.
Alright, let's check out the app of the week.
During the keynote Epic Games showed a demo of their game epic Citadel and a free demo is available now that lets you explore the world.
Now this is by far the best looking graphics we've seen on the IOS platform using the Unreal engine 3.
If you're into gaming, this is an exciting sneak peak and the potential of the games for the iPhone 4, new Touch, and iPod, so you guys wanna check that out.
And now before we wrap things up, I've got nothing but love for you, the Apple Byters, and your emails but I had to show off this video from Dane Peterson and at
the moment, the Apple Byte's youngest fan.
-[unk], hello!
-Apple Byte.
-Yeah.
-[unk] guitar.
-Apple Byte.
-Cool some of the chatter about the next Apple TV if we see it.
Alright guys, that just made my day and I wanted to say thanks and Dane your son has officially started the Apple Bits club.
Alright, now if the rest of you wanna send me videos, feel free to do, but please make sure they are PG-13, okay?
Alright, that's gonna do it for this week's show.
Send your emails to the applebyte@cnet.com
.
I'm Brian Tong.
Thanks for watching and we'll see you guys next week for another Byte of the Apple.
