The Apple even has just given over a few hours back and the buzz is slow to die. Have you caught a glimpse of the new Nano or the new slim and upgraded version of Steve Jobs? Tis true folks, Steve is back and to no less than a standing ovation from the entire crowd at the Apple special event! Of course, there were more Apple employees there than journos there. Now on to the meat of things.

Steve started off with thanking everybody and urging everyone to consider donating organs, referring to his recent liver transplant. Next he went on to talk about the Genius technology and the app store. The special thing here is that the app store will use the same iTunes Genius technology to suggest new apps based on your current choices.

The next segment was about ringtones. After naming the iTunes store as the number one music retailer in the world based on sales volume, Steve went to mention that ringtones have been added to the iTunes Store. He said that there are currently about 30,000 ringtones in total right now from all four major labels.

Also mentioned in passing was the fact that the iPhone OS 3.1 is available for free download from the iTunes stores. The Ringtones are priced at $1.29. Preview is available and is of course free. Download and purchase is a one click affair.

Then came the announcement of iTunes 9. There are currently more than 100 million accounts at the iTunes store. The new version has something called Genius mixes. As mentioned when Genius was announced, Genius is a technology that will evolve as more and more people use it. Basically it is a complex database of user preferences when it comes to songs. Understandably, Genius has gathered a lot of data by now. So the new feature has the Genius technology mixing songs for you like a DJ by taking advantage of this database. Songs that go well together will be played one after another and this will go for as long as you want, just like a radio station. iTunes will automatically make 12 of these mixes based on the music you have in your library.

Syncing is better now. You can not only sync these Genius mix playlists but you can also select things like genre and artist from the music sync tab. Syncing also works with movies, events, photos, albums. iTunes now also give you the ability to manage your apps on the iPhone and the iPod touch. You can set up the pages and the home-screen just the way you want. Drag and drop, search with keywords (some people do have that many apps) and more. You can also choose not to sync certain apps.

New ‘home sharing’ feature in iTunes finally let’s you copy songs and other media to up to 5 authorized home computers. Songs can be dragged and dropped from on library to another. Also helpful is the feature that it will show you only those shared songs that you don’t have.

The iTunes store gets a better, ‘cleaner’ look. There basically has been some tweaking here and there to make it look more open and less cluttered. Nothing ground breaking there.

There is this cool new extra content available with your media now on purchase, called iTunes LP. Just like you used to get customized artwork and lyric sheets with LPs, you will get extra goodies in digital format with your purchases at iTunes. iTunes Extras are also available for movies, just like DVDs.

Also, you can now share content with your social network buddies directly from the iTunes store. iTunes is available for download right now.

iPod Touch was named as the fastest growing iPod. The Touch’s gaming capabilities were shown off, with everyone impressed by the smooth framrates. It was later revealed that the new iPod Touch has Open GL ES 2.0 inside, making graphics heavy games run that much better. Companies like UbiSoft and EA have made games for this device before and their representatives came on stage to demo their latest offerings. The highlights surely are: Assassin’s Creed 2 from UbiSoft and Madden NFL 2010 from EA. A Halo like FPS game called Nova was shown off by its makers – gameloft.

The iPod Touch drops in price to $199 for 8GB and a new 64GB version is introduced for $399. The iPod Classic gets a storage upgrade to push it up to 160GB. Price remains the same of course. The smallest iPod, the iPod shuffle is now available in multiple colors. There’s one special polished steel edition that looks very sleek and non-candy like.

Then came the ‘one more thing’, which turned out to be a video camera. Mind it, only a video camera. This, as you must know by now, is on the iPod Nano and not on the iPod Touch.

The Nano is fitted with a video camera that is on the back of the device towards a bottom corner, right behind one side of the clickwheel. The placement is not the most convenient but it looks like it was done to save space. The video camera shoots video only (so you still need your iPhone for stills) and it does that very well. That and a new color job (polished anodized aluminum finish) are the only things that are apparent on the outside. The new Nano is a direct competitor to all the comparable Flip and Flip-like video capturing devices in the market.

On the inside however you have things like a built-in-pedometer that can be connected to Nike Plus, an FM Radio (finally!) and the Genius mix feature. There is also VoiceOver, which means it has an integrated microphone. Better yet, it also has a speaker now. The microphone also allows you to use your Nano as a voice recorder.

The new colors look really great, especially with that finish.

So there you have it, another great product line refresh, courtesy Apple. It is still kinda bad that the Touch did not get a camera but there is a lot of logic that says Apple might not do that till another iPhone refresh. Enjoy drooling over the shiny new hardware in the meantime.

Apple has been in the news all this week as the ripples from the iPhone 3GS launch continues. Other than the latest security scare on the iPhone 3GS, there is also the little matter of new device from AppleInsider about the Apple tablet device that everyone’s been talking about. The much hoped device is apparently near completion and will arrive soon. Also noteworthy is an iPhone App that has surprised everyone by accumulating a total sales figure of over One Million US Dollars. Now there’s a figure to beat.

Starting with more pressing matters – it has been brought to the attention of the public that the encryption on the iPhone 3GS is apparently easily cracked. Forensic expert and famous iPhone developer Zdziarski confirmed that the iPhone 3GS’ encryption system cannot and does not stop a data thief from siphoning data off an iPhone. He talked and gave a demonstration to Wired, showing that live data on the iPhone can be stolen in two minutes and an entire RAW image (that is to say the image of the entire disk) can be obtained within 45 minutes. All with some free tools that are widely available.

This comes in the wake of Apple’s touting of the new and advanced security features on the new iPhone 3GS to attract more enterprise-level users. Zdziarski warns corporations not to put any faith in the iPhone but if the sales figures are any indicators – the companies either do not know or do not care. The iPhone is very enticing to them because of the bevy of apps that have been developed for the device. There are apps that let you edit Microsoft office documents and apps that let you swipe credit cards wherever there is WiFi. Applications like these are powerful applications that together have the potential to completely change the way people do business.

Wired even reports of a company where the owners and employees are aware of the situation and are ready to take on the risk for the potential benefits. Their logic is that they have to take some risk to reap the benefits and they have measures in place to take counter information theft when if it happens.

It is to be noted here that long time enterprise-class player – BlackBerry makers RIM (Research In Motion) – have included much better encryption in to their devices which can self delete precisely because they have not been active on a network. All it takes to stop the remote-wipe on the iPhone 3GS is removal of the SIM card. Thus, it is up to the app developers to come up with their own encryption.

Talking about apps, Apple’s App Store has made the headlines again this week. The App Store has recently crossed the 1.5 billion downloads mark. Keeping in mind that it was only last month or so when they crossed the 1 billionth download mark, this is remarkable at the very least. The App Store now has over 65,000 apps and 100,000 developers. An estimate puts the total money invested in the iPhone app startups at $100 million. That is not all really. An iPhone app has recently made its own headline for generating revenues of 1 million dollars within the first 6 weeks.

This app is the Fleet Air Superiority Training or F.A.S.T. – a dog fight gamer developed by Social gaming Network or SGN. The catch is that is made this in the first six weeks and that the game sells for $1.99 on the app store.

This piece of news has the iPhone and the gaming worlds abuzz with talks of the future of such virtual products. There is of course a constant debate between how paid apps measure up against the free to play social apps but there is a difference between giving something for free and taking a nominal charge for it in the virtual world.

In the virtual world your costs are limited to the costs of development and then the bandwidth for distribution. Hence, high amount of sales with a very low price tag can actually be profited from.

Even then, companies are looking into alternative modes of revenue because the nature of a virtual product makes it somewhat resistant to being sold as a commodity. Also, it has been proven time and again that a social application can easily generate revenue through other ways. Projects like Second Life and Project Entropia have repeatedly shown that free to play models with optional upgrades is a really profitable business. Agreed that you cannot do much in Second Life without spending real money but the application is enticing enough to draw so many people into it.

The tech world and the world in general is expecting another revolution from Apple as the rumors of a tablet device start flying thicker than ever. AppleInsider has claimed in a post that Apple is currently racing towards an early Q1 release in 2010. The site claims to have had the news from a trustworthy source whose accuracy has dependable so far.

imagination and image credit: Slashgear

The word first came out from Chine where orders of touchscreens larger than the iPhone but smaller than the 13″ MacBook had been placed. Since then, it has been speculation after speculation about the device and how it would look and what it would do.

From the general tech common sense, it can be said that Steve Jobs Apple is aiming at the same kind of impact as the one generate by the iPhone. I mean let’s face it here – no one has been able to review any touchscreen phone without referring to the iPhone. The two main reasons being – a)The iPhone started it all and b) The iPhone effortlessly leads the pack in every possible way, from hardware to software.

So what this device, dubbed the iTablet, will do to the market is up to the speculators. One this is for sure though, if what AppleInsider has reported is correct, Steve jobs is going to make sure that this is absolutely the embodiment perfection before it reaches public eyes. If there’s one thing Apple is known for, it is for their dedication to launching a finished product every time.

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