Tag Archives | Apple

Your Apple Music Event Predictions: The Upshot

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 2, 2010 at 6:00 am

Earlier this week, I asked you to predict what Apple would announce at the music event it held yesterday. Time for a recap! (Executive summary: You got a bunch of stuff right but missed out on a few key points.)

You said: Apple will announce a new iPod Touch, a new iPod Nano, and a new Apple TV. It won’t announce any other new products.

What happened: Apple did announce a new Touch, a new Nano, and a new Apple TV. But it also unveiled a new iPod Shuffle. (It released a new version of iTunes as well, but I’ll cut you slack on that one, since I didn’t ask specifically about that app.)

You said: The iPad will get at least some of iOS 4’s new features.

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Ten Random Questions About Apple's Music Event

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 1, 2010 at 6:31 pm

I’m sorry I wasn’t at Apple’s music event today to cover it live. I had fun watching it via Apple’s live video stream from the lobby bar here at the Grand Hyatt in Berlin, though. (I give the experience a B- from a technical standpoint: Eighty percent of the time, the stream worked well, fifteen percent I got audio but the picture froze, five percent it misbehaved in other ways. Then again, I was on iffy hotel Wi-Fi, so the glitchiness might have been on my end rather than Apple’s.)

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Your Apple Predictions, From New Products (Three) to Musical Guests (Fab)

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 31, 2010 at 7:02 pm

What will Apple announce at its music event? By noon or so tomorrow, we’ll know all there is to know. Let’s wrap up the period of blissful ignorance, rampant rumors, and informed speculation with our traditional Technologizer community predictions.

As usual, I surveyed you guys and asked you to give your best guesses at what the news will involve. For questions in which you could choose only one answer, whatever answer got a plurality of responses counts as the prediction. For questions that let you choose multiple answers, any answer that more than fifty percent of you chose counts as a prediction. (I’ll note the percentage that chose each answer).

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Apple to Livestream Music Event: Good for Apple, Good for Apple Fans, and Good, Maybe, For Livebloggers

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 31, 2010 at 6:07 pm

When I liveblog Apple press events, the number one question from attendees is…well, kind of irritating, once you’ve heard it for the four hundredth time: “Is there a live stream of this event?” Usually, the answer is no, unless you count the occasional unauthorized spystream from someone in the audience using a phone app like Qik. Unlike a number of its competitors, Apple’s practice has been to post video of its events later rather than to broadcast it live.

Not tomorrow, though: The company has announced that it’ll broadcast a live stream of its traditional September music event. And there’s an interesting twist: It’s using its HTTP Streaming technology, which works on Macs, iPhones, and iPads. And that’s it. Windows users are apparently out of luck, although I imagine they’ll still be able watch a playback version later.

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Make Apple Predictions, Get a Shot at a $100 Apple Gift Card

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 30, 2010 at 10:21 am

Apple is holding its traditional September music event this Wednesday at 10am PT. As is my wont, I’m going to avoid making any predictions by asking you to do so. Click here to take our quick survey. I’ll aggregate everyone’s best guesses and turn them into shared predictions from the Technologizer community. (I’ll publish them before the event so you can score at home, and again after the event so we can reflect on how we did–your track record when we’ve done this in the past is not bad at all.)

When you take the survey, you can choose to enter a drawing for a $100 gift card from the U.S. Apple Store. The survey and gift card giveaway end at 2pm PT on Tuesday, August 31st. We’ll notify a winner by September 2nd.

Have fun and good luck!

[NOTE: Please take the survey rather than leaving comments on this post. Thanks!]

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The Fate of the iPod Classic: A Modest Proposal

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 26, 2010 at 5:26 pm

Earlier today, Jared wondered what the chances are that Apple will retire the iPod Classic at the music event it’s holding next week and replace it with 128GB iPod Touch. Jared explains why it’s unlikely that Apple will be able to introduce a 128GB Touch next week. That would presumably argue for the continuing viability of the Classic, which packs a 160GB hard drive.

But wait. I try to avoid making Apple predictions, but the company could make an end-run around the limitations of flash storage. Here’s how.

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Netflix Arrives on the iPhone: Watch Instantly, Watch Anywhere

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 26, 2010 at 8:37 am

Netflix Watch Instantly, which was one of the iPad’s launch apps back in April, is now on the iPhone (and iPod Touch), too. There isn’t much to say other than that it’s just about everything that makes Watch Instantly such a delight and such a deal, in handy pocketable form. Pay Netflix for a red-envelopes-in-the-mail plan starting at $8.99, and you get unlimited access to on-demand movies and TV shows. Recent releases are still absent, but the selection continues to improve and now includes some high-profile titles from 2009, such as Up.

The service works with both Wi-Fi and 3G connections. I was impressed by the quality in both forms, and the 3G option is yet another reason I’m glad I clutched onto my grandfathered unlimited AT&T data plan for now.

I do miss one feature that’s present in most other incarnations of Watch Instantly: The thumbnail previews that pop up when you skim forward in a video.

After the jump, a few images.

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