Archive for: Macworld
- January 12, 2009 11:17 am
According to Ars Technica and Cnet, CEA is reporting that at CES 2010 there will be an area for Apple products, however, they don’t state if the “area” will include Apple itself, or 3rd party manufacturers designing add-on Apple products. The last week have been filled of rumors of Apple dumping Macworld for CES next year. Apple’s main reason for leaving Macworld was that they felt consumer electronics shows were a dying thing and that since opening many new Apple stores that they could better reach the customers that way. On top of that, Apple has talked about doing their own type of show for a little while now, one in which they are the main and only focus. Whatever the case, as CES 2010 gets closer, more information will come out.
Source: Ars Technica
According to Gizmodo and Cult of Mac, Apple is moving from one trade show to another, (Macworld –> CES). This sounds odd because their main reason for leaving Macworld was that trade shows were “losing their purpose” more or less. With Apple opening what seems like a new Apple Store every couple of days, reaching more people locally means a big trade show appearance isn’t needed. On top of that, Apple has voiced interest in doing their own type of product release events without anyone else to steal the limelight. Even though both sites claim that “credible sources” have confirmed this, I will wait until I get a little more solid evidence as this just doesn’t make any sense.
Source: Gizmodo, Cult of Mac
Boy Genius is reporting that readers are writing in from various countries and saying that they are unable to upgrade their libraries to the DRM flavored goodness that Apple released today. When they try to upgrade the the DRM free .Mp3 files a message pops up saying that the selection “could not be converted because protected files cannot be converted to different formats.” Why is this happening? Well, it’s very likely due to copyright issues and other Music labels outside of our country not so eager to hop on the consumer friendly DRM-less bandwagon. ’Tis a shame as that is what the world really wants. Until some major company such as Apple or some other music label step up and clarify we can only assume that the U.S. is the sole receiver of these goods. Sorry world. *Sad face*.
Source: Boy Genius
As I’ve said before I would consider myself seven and a half tenths of an audiophile. Not 100% there, but close. I’ve heard many headphones from Shure, Sennheiser, Ultimate Ears, and Westone. One brand I have always been intrigued in but never had the opportunity to listen to is AKG. They have won various awards, as well as been highly praised on audiophile forums such as Head Fi. AKG however was only available online used as they didn’t ship to the U.S. That has all changed. Today at Macworld, AKG announced they are bringing not just one, two, or even 5 new models, try 12+! The 12+ AKG models will come in many different styles including ear buds, in-canal phones, over ear headphones, and mini headphones. All listeners from casual to audiophile are going to be taken care of. Unfortunately we have to wait a little longer as AKG stated the release date won’t come until March. Click through to see all the models coming to the U.S.
Yes it is finally here. And here’s the list:
- 1920 x 1200 display
- 700 : 1 contrast ratio
- 60% greater color gamut
- $50 option for anti-glare (wow…that is pretty crappy if you ask me. Making someone who wants an anti-glare screen pony up for the most expensive model plus pay an extra $50…it’s Apple)
- Mini Display port, USB, Firewire 800, Mag Safe, Glass Trackpad
- “New generation of Core 2 Duo’s”
- Up to 8GB ram
- Upgrade to a 256GB SSD Hard Drive
- One Base configuration: $2799. 2.66GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB 5400RPM hard drive.
- Upgrade options: 2.93GHz C2D, 320GB 7200RPM hard drive 128GB/256GB SSD hard drives, up to 8GB DDR3RAM, Anti-Glare Screen
- Custom designed battery with 40% longer runtime and a life of 1000 charges! Instead of using cylindrical cells like past batteries the in house batteries are custom made to fit around components in the laptop, reducing wasted space and making the overall laptop smaller.
Definitely a LOT to digest right there. I retract my previous statement about the battery not being removable. I want one of these with the 256GB SSD now please! Unfortunately I’ll have to wait. The new MBP’s won’t be available until the end of the month. Click through for gallery of live shots!
This recap is a very short one, apparently there isn’t much of excitement here.
Keynote
- New types of transitions, particularly one called a “Swing Transition”
- iPhone can be used as a Keynote remote (vertical shows one slide, horizontal shows two)
Pages
Numbers
Source: Engadget
On behalf of Engadget at Macworld, the long list of goodies:
iLife ’09 $79 single user/ $99 family pack is introducing many new features. Ill get right to it. (Quick run through)
iPhoto
- Faces. It uses face detection technology and will automatically organize pictures by determining if they are the same person using face detection. A prompt will ask you if the guess was correct or not as to avoid albums full of unorganized chaos.
- Places. Instead of organizing photos based off of faces, it uses geo-tagging to group photos based on where they were taken. Places will find information about lat/long information of a picture and group it accordingly. What if your camera doesn’t have GPS? Apple has taken care of it and has added a section to enter the geo location yourself. The maps for geo tagging come from google maps.
- Facebook/Flickr support. If you have a respective account set up, when adding pictures you can have them sent to said accounts.
iMovie
- “Context sensitive menu clips”. You now have the ability to make new movies with dynamic themes: titles, transitions, effects…” Animated travel maps: You can also now create 2D and 3D maps to show where you have traveled. The is also auto stabilization for shaky video included.
- Video effects such as cartoon, x-ray, aged film, etc.
Garage Band
- “Learn to Play” As it says, its an easy way to learn how to play an instrument.
Source: Engadget
Apple Insider has learned form Cnet that Apple has potentially cut deals with 3 major record companies in order to finally shed the poisonous caner also known as “DRM”. The record companies involved are Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner Music. In order to reach this deal it is said that Apple has finally given in to demands from the three labels agreeing to tiered pricing instead of the current fixed $.99/song that has remained since day one *save for the short time iTunes plus was a few dimes more*. Another very exciting topic to hear is that Apple has also come to agreements with the labels concerning over-the-air downloads. This agreement would finally let iPhone users download music over the cellular networks without the aid of Wi-Fi, you know just like every other carrier has had for some time now! Apple which announced the deal last week could release this earth shattering announcement officially as early as tomorrow at the Macworld Expo!
As if the youth of America didn’t have anything else to do, like you know, besides school! I should be nicer, I’m sure I would do the same thing if I had the opportunity. Posted by Ars Technica, as of 6:42 PM. this brave little soul has already been there for 10 hours! Wow call that determination…and people say the youth of today have no values or determination! Psh, this kid has some patience too. This 14 year old, Nick Lensander has been sitting in line since 6:30 am PST. He came stocked with plenty of clothing (its cold), an umbrella, a couple of chairs, and most importantly, his iPhone. His reason for getting there so early. He sees it as a “historic” keynote as it is Apple’s last keynote at Macworld, something that still seems unreal. Nick has certainly earned his 15 minutes of fame! Oh one last thing, for all of you people that want to ask Nick a few questions, especially ones pertaining to what he thinks will be unveiled at Macworld tomorrow…Don’t! He says the number is up to at least 38 times. Give the kid a break people.
Source: Ars Technica
