Synchronicity II
08/01/09 18:32 Filed in: They Get It
Right, well the final Macworld is upon us, and Phil Schiller gave the keynote from Apple. And a nice little surprise came down the pipe. DRM free music on the itunes store. That brings a big ole smile to my face. Knowing that for one, I can pay an extra 30 cents per song to upgrade all my DRM’d music. What’s big about this for me is that I’ve been starting to get into ORB. And of course, if there’s DRM on a song, Orb won’t play it. So upgrading my library means that I can serve out and share my library with my family and friends. I can only hope that some day the video side of things will follow suit.
So what else did we see debuted? Well there was a new 17” MacBook Pro. Yeah nice. I used to own a 17” powerbook G4, and I loved it. It truly was a desktop replacement. But now I’m running a 15” MacBook Pro, and the extra portability is a huge bonus. I like that new battery on the 17”, but it is a little annoying that it’s built in.
And the big news for me would be the updates to both iWork, and iLife. Huge news there. The face detection and recognition stuffs in iPhoto alone would be enough for me to pay $100 for. But adding to that the more refined editing in iMovie, the ability to finally publish from iWeb to non-.mac(or I guess “.me” now)websites is excellent. And on top of that...learn to play “Roxanne” from Sting in the new Garage Band. How nuts is that? Very nuts I would say...very nuts indeed.
But the thing I was most looking forward to from MacWorld did not come. There was a rumor floating around that Apple was working on a super-sized version of the iPod touch. Essentially it would be a 9” tablet version of the iPod. At first glance you would think “Who needs that?”. But when you stop and think about the potential, it sounds really damned cool. Think about it this way. Aside from watching videos and playing games around the house, there’s also the potential to treat it like a game console. There would undoubtedly be a dock for this thing that would essentially turn it into an appletv right? So with it hooked up to your TV, imagine you and your friends sitting back with your regular sized ipod touches and iPhones playing some multiplayer game. You’ve got the TV showing the overview, with each ipod having it’s own personalized view.
Think about strategy games on that system. You would be able to manage your units on the small screen discretely, and watch as they attack your friends on the big screen. Or sports games. Think about baseball. The pitcher gets a view that allows him to pick and throw his pitch, while the batter can swing, and handle the base running. Meanwhile, the big screen shows a general overview. It would truly be an interesting development. The only problem would be the price. iPod touches are already more expensive than lower end consoles. Making one bigger and likely with more storage and a bigger screen would almost certainly cost more bananas. But we’ll have to wait and see. Rumor has the large iPod touch hitting sometime in the fall. I’ll believe it when I see it, but it could very well signal that Apple is trying to be a real player in the home gaming market.
So what else did we see debuted? Well there was a new 17” MacBook Pro. Yeah nice. I used to own a 17” powerbook G4, and I loved it. It truly was a desktop replacement. But now I’m running a 15” MacBook Pro, and the extra portability is a huge bonus. I like that new battery on the 17”, but it is a little annoying that it’s built in.
And the big news for me would be the updates to both iWork, and iLife. Huge news there. The face detection and recognition stuffs in iPhoto alone would be enough for me to pay $100 for. But adding to that the more refined editing in iMovie, the ability to finally publish from iWeb to non-.mac(or I guess “.me” now)websites is excellent. And on top of that...learn to play “Roxanne” from Sting in the new Garage Band. How nuts is that? Very nuts I would say...very nuts indeed.
But the thing I was most looking forward to from MacWorld did not come. There was a rumor floating around that Apple was working on a super-sized version of the iPod touch. Essentially it would be a 9” tablet version of the iPod. At first glance you would think “Who needs that?”. But when you stop and think about the potential, it sounds really damned cool. Think about it this way. Aside from watching videos and playing games around the house, there’s also the potential to treat it like a game console. There would undoubtedly be a dock for this thing that would essentially turn it into an appletv right? So with it hooked up to your TV, imagine you and your friends sitting back with your regular sized ipod touches and iPhones playing some multiplayer game. You’ve got the TV showing the overview, with each ipod having it’s own personalized view.
Think about strategy games on that system. You would be able to manage your units on the small screen discretely, and watch as they attack your friends on the big screen. Or sports games. Think about baseball. The pitcher gets a view that allows him to pick and throw his pitch, while the batter can swing, and handle the base running. Meanwhile, the big screen shows a general overview. It would truly be an interesting development. The only problem would be the price. iPod touches are already more expensive than lower end consoles. Making one bigger and likely with more storage and a bigger screen would almost certainly cost more bananas. But we’ll have to wait and see. Rumor has the large iPod touch hitting sometime in the fall. I’ll believe it when I see it, but it could very well signal that Apple is trying to be a real player in the home gaming market.