Apple this morning have announced new products during their conference. Engadget have a real-time list happening on their site and the official Apple site of course has all the goodies.

Most notably is the Apple TV. All other products are just improved versions of the last:

- thinner iPod Touch
- new iPod nano (completely touch now)
- iPod shuffle.

All those iPhone 3G holders rejoice - an update to iOS will be coming your way that apparently fixes your performance issues.promoted/edited forum item

That nano looks scary.

anything on the iOS for iPad?

Wow - they've made the Nano touch screen. That's fkn awesome. I really can't see how you could look past this device if you were just after a small mp3 player.

http://images.apple.com/au/ipodnano/images/overview_featurette_design20100901.png

iPod Touch looks great too. iPod Touch now has a retina display, HD video recording, Face Time, and it's so fkn thin. Retina display alone will make this very appealing to those who want a mobile ebook reader:

http://www.apple.com/au/ipodtouch/gallery/images/image5_20100901.jpg#gallery5

Apple TV looks fantastic. For only $129 I might actually be tempted to get this. Check out all the features here.

http://images.apple.com/au/appletv/images/whatis_gallery_slide120100901.jpg

sweet now i can laugh at even longer lines outside the apple store

sweet now i can laugh at even longer lines outside the apple store

I would too - why wouldn't you just order this stuff online and have it delivered straight to your work/home the next day?

Apple TV could be interesting, will wait for a few reviews.

why would you buy apple products - period?

let alone looking like a douche lining up for no actual reason apart from apple want it to look like there is something super awesome going on in their store because they have an unnecessarily long line out the front?

they are apple consumers, so who knows

i'm pretty sure teq has apple tv, along with every other apple thing made. he'd probably own his house now if it weren't for apple lul

The new iPod touch. Now even easier to snap accidentally.

why would you buy apple products - period?

Why would you be so opposed to buying Apple products? I can probably accept a reason that's based on ideological opposition of Apple's alleged "control-freakism", but other than that I just don't get it.

They make great products that work really well, they are fun to use, and they look like sex. Apple products are highly innovative and creative, and push other companies to keep up with technologies which is great for competition between companies. For smaller items like the ones I listed, the prices are highly competitive.

i'm not getting into an argument, the term 'work really well' is subjective

apple are control freaks and they will keep features off a phone that have been standard for years on other phones and then slowly trickle feed them in to every iteration of the iphone so at the end of the day you've spend like 5k to end up with a phone that does wht mine was doing before the iphone was realised

ZOMG VIDEO CALLING

lul

Newsbreak: Video calling was used by about none people and was unstandard. Apple's at least trying to work with carriers to make their standards based format a standard.

Apple TV looks fantastic. For only $129 I might actually be tempted to get this. Check out all the features here.

reading that page makes it look like another method for them to sell you stuff via the store, not really to let you do anything really useful

edit: also wtf @ nano, how are you sposed to multitouch that!@#

edit#2: awesome, the new nano has an FM radio. I would be tempted to buy it just for that; I have been looking for a nice small portable FM radio for a while but have been reluctant to buy chicom garbage. At least if I buy the Apple one, I know its, uh.. uh. Oh. Yeh. Well, at least noone died making - oh. Yeh.

last edited by trog at 10:11:27 02/Sep/10

reading that page makes it look like another method for them to sell you stuff via the store, not really to let you do anything really useful

Not that I disagree, but is that a bad thing? The whole point of Apple products is the way the integrate services to make things easier for the user (shortcomings/control issues notwithstanding). iTunes store is great for music, and they have a huge movie purchase/rental library. I've never rented a movie online before because it's still too expensive to justify not walking up the road to the store, but overtime this sort of device will likely become the norm for watching all sorts of media. The iPad/iPhone integration is beautiful as well.

As for it doing "anything really useful", I'm not 100% sure, but I thought it otherwise operated as a media centre? Here are the video formats it can play:

* H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats
* MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats
* Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

Also,

edit: also wtf @ nano, how are you sposed to multitouch that!@#

Yeh... I guess it's so you can zoom in on your pics so they're not so tiny on the screen...

edit#2: awesome, the new nano has an FM radio. I would be tempted to buy it just for that; I have been looking for a nice small portable FM radio for a while but have been reluctant to buy chicom garbage. At least if I buy the Apple one, I know its, uh.. uh. Oh. Yeh. Well, at least noone died making - oh. Yeh.

It might even be digital radio - apparently you can pause/rewind the radio... that's pretty neat :D

This changes everything they changed before again!

With Apple TV, I assume the video you want to watch NEEDS to be in itunes? If so, that's a show stopped right there :/

What about DTS and True HD, plus many other audio sources?

Dunno for $129 I'd be tempted to try it, but if the videos need to be in itunes I'll pass - from my understanding, all vids get converted to mp4 in itunes, so it converts to mp4 and you ultimately have 2 versions of the same file on your PC, doesn't seem to be very efficient way of doing things.

Although I might be wrong here

No 1080p is pretty lame.

With Apple TV, I assume the video you want to watch NEEDS to be in itunes? If so, that's a show stopped right there :/

From the apple site:

Everything you want to watch — movies, TV shows, photos and more — streams wirelessly to Apple TV. That way you don’t have to worry about managing storage or syncing to your iTunes library. HD movie rentals play over the Internet to your widescreen TV, while music and photos stream from your computer. Either way, all you have to do is click and play.

This is a little ambiguous though - they might only be referring to content you get from the store.... not sure about stuff just floating on your HDD.

No 1080p is pretty lame.

Sure is. I assume they do this for better integration across (Apple) platforms.

i thought they did it because it is all streamed - so if you get something from the apple store, you don't 'buy' it in the sense you get to keep it, it is merely 'rented' and streamed, by making it 720p it is quicker/easier to stream then 1080p? i'm not 100% on all that though, that is my take

I really can't see how you could look past this device if you were just after a small mp3 player.

I bought this and don't think I've ever been more satisfied with a purchase: http://www.sony.com.au/product/nwz-w252/sku/nwz-w252_bm+e

No cords! Super comfy and doesn't move around at all. Best gym mp3 player ever.

the new shuffles are pretty good too. i have last generation suffle which i use for running because its so small but the problem is that you can only change songs using remote control on your headphones... but the problem is that stops working when you sweat :(

No 1080p even on the menu is pretty lame.

Couldn't you run boxee xbmx off the old apple tv ?? It's specs where poor so it limited its usefulness but if apple haven't crippled it it might be the cheapest media player out there.

Actualy some earlier rumors suggest the new appletv runs ios4 that will limit , might be better waiting for googletv

last edited by 3x0dus at 12:10:26 02/Sep/10

last edited by 3x0dus at 12:11:02 02/Sep/10

No 1080p even on the menu is pretty lame.

People that buy Apple will buy it because it's apple, then buy the new and improved 1080p version when it realeases 2 months later.

I never have any need for September event products. iPhone and lappy and that's it.

I bought this and don't think I've ever been more satisfied with a purchase: http://www.sony.com.au/product/nwz-w252/sku/nwz-w252_bm+e

No cords! Super comfy and doesn't move around at all. Best gym mp3 player ever.

except its a Sony, so it will find some way to f*** you in the end

I think the new appletv is pretty crap.. i own the original apple TV and im pretty happy with that product. (You can run XMBC or Boxee off the original appletv)

They basically just removed the hard drive. I expected at least 1080p from the newer version. Although the price tag is pretty good. Mrs will want one for the bedroom now so she doesnt have to keep shifting appletv box between projector/bedroom.

i'm on my 3rd sony phone trog

haven't been f***ed yet

Well my ipod nano deleted all my songs off itself yesterday, I haven't checked if it's f***ed but if it is I'm tempted to get that new nano. Radio is a good addition.

Though I don't want to buy an apple product, both my previous ipods have been gifts :P

edit: Hah, they took videos out of the new ipod nano, lame.

last edited by FraktuRe at 13:12:15 02/Sep/10

Smugmug CEO s***s on the new AppleTV: http://don.blogs.smugmug.com/2010/09/01/what-the-appletv-should-have-been

His comments further reinforce my first impressions - typical, walled, closed, inaccessible, gated, piece of s*** where you do what Apple lets you do

Yeah is it just me or does the Apple TV seem even less usable now? I'll stick to just throwing movies on my USB hard drive and plugging it into the Xbox!

So this Apple TV device, looks nice and small. I assume you can stream from a PC to it or plug in a USB drive etc and watch shows/movies from that. HDMI only connection though, does that mean there would be issues with 1080P downloaded content or anything like that? :) I've no idea with HDMI but I thought it had all these protections built in and whatever.

Yeah is it just me or does the Apple TV seem even less usable now? I'll stick to just throwing movies on my USB hard drive and plugging it into the Xbox!

It is, but its also 130$AU. I would say its a pretty obvious choice if you have bought things through iTunes. Also you can stream from your iPhone/iPad straight to the apple TV which has big potential.

In the end though I think its not great in AU until netflix is available. :/

i'm not getting into an argument, the term 'work really well' is subjective

irrational hatred much?
you hate apple as much as apple lovers love it, they're just another company that makes products and they do it very well

no 1080p on an apple tv for $129, have a f***ing whinge you poofters
do you understand the requirements for decoding/encoding when you're doing 1080p?
my laptop has trouble doing it properly, the apple tv is not a DVR or media center, it's just a way to stream from itunes -> your tv

I have the latest model mac mini (server) which does full 1080p via its standard HDMI port, optical audio out etc, running osx + plex = full of win and the best media center available to date

http://www.plexapp.com/

edit: I feel like I need to emphasise my point some more because I have spent ridiculous amounts of money on my media setup, well over $20k
the absolute best way I have found to do it is plex + mac mini

its a $1000 solution but it is the bomb


last edited by tequila at 14:17:54 02/Sep/10

I need not Apple TV - just ordered a C-200

to hell with all your crappy apple tv stuffs, I've got an xbox and xbmc. I am win.

pity it sux at anything over 640x480 (xbox that is).

plex

man I spent hours trying to figure that s*** out, every time I clicked the config page or tried to add media to it, it just took me to their website or the help page which, ironically, was no help. In the end I just gave up on it & deleted it never to be looked at again. Only program I've ever not been able to at least get the basic features to work on.

plex9 came out yesterday and has completely revamped how you deal with your libraries

So this Apple TV device, looks nice and small. I assume you can stream from a PC to it or plug in a USB drive etc and watch shows/movies from that. HDMI only connection though, does that mean there would be issues with 1080P downloaded content or anything like that? :) I've no idea with HDMI but I thought it had all these protections built in and whatever.

You can't plug a USB in I know that, even tho it has a USB. Apple TV is crap imo.

plex9 came out yesterday and has completely revamped how you deal with your libraries

Yea it looks pro. Too bad it's broke the TVDB database from the masses of people upgrading and needing to rescrape all their shows. I'm planing on getting a mac mini soon for a HTPC, just checkinging it all out on my MBPro while i wait.

last edited by Jayman at 19:21:02 02/Sep/10

lols, apple products

Wow - they've made the Nano touch screen. That's fkn awesome. I really can't see how you could look past this device if you were just after a small mp3 player.

i wouldnt ever buy one becuase of how s*** itunes is

my mp3 player is small, holds music, sounds great, doesnt break down, didnt cost a lot, and best of all i can take it to my mates place and if i like his music, plug it in and copy files to and from it from windows explorer

can i do that with a nano?

so they had to let it automatically scrape imdb etc again?

oh nose

so they had to let it automatically scrape imdb etc again?

oh nose

Yea I don't think they thought that out. They crashed IMDB and the TVDB still isn't working, and the second it is, it will just get smashed to hell again.

Anything as good as Plex for PC?

last edited by CubanPete at 20:07:48 02/Sep/10

no 1080p on an apple tv for $129, have a f***ing whinge you poofters
do you understand the requirements for decoding/encoding when you're doing 1080p?

Yes I do! And I'm here to tell you that you're ranting misinformation because there are plenty of products on the market that can do it for less than that. http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&bid=2&id2=164

In fact, a component that can manage the hardware decoding aspect all on it's lonesome, the Broadcom Crystal HD can be had for as little as $25, here's an article about 1080p and XBMC from the end of last year.

Seriously, if you want to talk big and mouth off like that, at least stick to topics that you're actually knowledgeable about.

Anything as good as Plex for PC?

http://xbmc.org/

Just watched the keynote. Wow, Chris Martin was rough as guts (and had no clue what he was meant to do).

anywhere that i can download the keynote?

I feel like I need to emphasise my point some more because I have spent ridiculous amounts of money on my media setup, well over $20k
the absolute best way I have found to do it is plex + mac mini

Yeah its a shame that it doesnt do tv though, so you need ANOTHER box to do that.

BLA BLA BLA im tequila, everything I do is the best, cause I am the best ETC.

New Apple tv looks s***, does it even let you just browse the network for media files or is it just itunes integrated?

I dont mind using itunes for my phone, but ill be f***ed if im putting all my videos and everything into itunes.

spook there are programs out there where you don't have to use itunes - i use floola for my ipod and it works pretty awesome (granted I can't go to a mate's house and just plug it in, but floola is a easy download anyway :)). i won my nano in a uni survey a few years ago but it hasn't missed a beat, love it even though i hate itunes

last time i checked windows explorer comes preinstalled on any machine worth using (ie, non apple machines)

at least stick to topics that you're actually knowledgeable about.

having spent the time and money researching many different solutions, I'm sticking to my statement
you could probably go and build a car yourself (well you couldn't, but a man could) for half what toyota want but who is going to want to do that when you can just grab one off the shelf and not have to worry about hacking the f*** out of 11ty billion different parts

"It just works"

so you need ANOTHER box to do that.

no, you don't
if for some reason you actually cared about Australian FTA TV (ie, you don't have broadband internet or something?) then you could just plug in a usb tuner ..

BLA BLA BLA im tequila, everything I do is the best, cause I am the best ETC.

I see we're all catching on at our own pace

you could probably go and build a car yourself (well you couldn't, but a man could) for half what toyota want

I highly doubt this. I reckon building a car from scratch would cost way more than buying one from a dealership.

it depends on your standards / attention span / work ethic, my old man has built one while I was in primary and one of my mates from highschool, his dad was building one while we were still in school
they both turned out quite well, it took a lot longer and probably took a year or two off each of their lives, but the end result was something you'd cherish a lot more than a car you just hand over a fist full of cash for

I'm not saying a custom built DVR is going to be s***, I'm just saying there are better and easier ways to do things
if you value your time, spending $1k on a "just works" solution isnt' the end of the world

I hax gibsons all day every day at work and I know my way around a linux box, I could have easily built a myth box but I am 100% sick to death of dealing with custom built hardware that inevitably fails and software that is loosely connected together by community development teams etc

ie when someone doesn't update their code and another person does, everything goes to s***
or your os just stops booting one day because some automatic update applied over night and isn't compatible with some library your media center requires

having spent the time and money researching many different solutions, I'm sticking to my statement

Don't be ridiculous. You called people f***ing whinging poofters because of your incorrect assumption that 1080p playback was a necessarily expensive element of such products. Here it is again for those that might have missed it:

no 1080p on an apple tv for $129, have a f***ing whinge you poofters do you understand the requirements for decoding/encoding when you're doing 1080p?

You can wax on about the merits of all the other positive things that an Apple TV package might have, and you may well be right about those, but that has nothing to do with what I'm criticising about your previous post.

or your os just stops booting one day because some automatic update applied over night and isn't compatible with some library your media center requires

Why would one even update the software on their media centre. You want to know how often my Media PC breaks? Never. You set it up and you leave it alone and it will work for years.

Of course I dont even understand this discussion, Plex is just an OSX-fork of XBMC made for people who want to spend double the going rate buying a Mac-mini.

Dan, you whinger, I highly doubt your $25 decoder will enable an underpowered device to display full 1080p with no jitter
it might decode just fine and dandy, but without the grunt of a fast cpu and fast drives/network access to back it up, it's completely uesless

you don't buy the ATV if you want a DVR, that is not it's intended purpose
for $129 its a very cheap and easy way to get movies/music onto your existing television, it's great for our generations parents etc

Why would one even update the software on their media centre. You want to know how often my Media PC breaks? Never. You set it up and you leave it alone and it will work for years.

I let mine auto update every time it needs/wants to, because it isn't just a media center
it's a seconday MX, web server, torrent box, itunes (airtunes) server, vpn server, nfs exporter etc
running a full pc just to play media and nothing else because you fear it might break your setup sounds way less than ideal

also it takes up so little room it fits between the wall and my plasma mount - completely out of sight
oh did I mention how little power it consumes and the fact it comes with hdmi, gigabit, optical audio out and infrared of the box?

worth every damn cent even if its just because of how little time it has required to get it setup perfectly and I never have to worry about it because

It just works

;)

Dan, you whinger, I highly doubt your $25 decoder will enable an underpowered device to display full 1080p with no jitter
it might decode just fine and dandy, but without the grunt of a fast cpu and fast drives/network access to back it up, it's completely uesless

That's exactly what it does. Look at all the little Atom/ION rigs that were previously unable to render 1080p that can once that card is added into the mix. You also disregarded all those other devices that manage 1080p output just fine for less than the price of this new Apple TV that can't.

Face it, you were wrong and the way in which you ranted your misinformed opinion made you look like a knob.

It's basically iPhone 4 hardware in a box.

Teq, the one thing I will praise Apple on is the price. Really, you can't fault them given what it does. $129 or whatever is cheap as chips for a media center like the Apple TV (limited as it is).

Nano looks cool though it's sooo small it should be a shuffle?!, then again the shuffle is even smaller now.

As for iPod touch, I wonder how long Apple can keep this product going seeing that it's really an iPhone without the "phone" part. Most people that own an iPod would surely own an iPhone so why would you want to carry two devices that do almost exactly the same thing?.

Will be interesting to see how long they'll keep dragging on iPod Touch line - unless they're planning to launch some other awesome features that will differentiate it from the iPhone.

Wow teq, that a damn long post just to try to justify the overly hiked up price of your newest shiny Apply toy!

Also, Dan wrecked you.

Nano looks cool though it's sooo small it should be a shuffle?!, then again the shuffle is even smaller now.

As for iPod touch, I wonder how long Apple can keep this product going seeing that it's really an iPhone without the "phone" part. Most people that own an iPod would surely own an iPhone so why would you want to carry two devices that do almost exactly the same thing?.

Will be interesting to see how long they'll keep dragging on iPod Touch line - unless they're planning to launch some other awesome features that will differentiate it from the iPhone.

I actually think it's the other way around - why would you need an iPhone when you can get an iPod Touch that does pretty much everything the iPhone does? If they released an iPod Touch with a sim card, there would no longer be a need for mobile phones.

I actually think it's the other way around - why would you need an iPhone when you can get an iPod Touch that does pretty much everything the iPhone does? If they released an iPod Touch with a sim card, there would no longer be a need for mobile phones.

Isn't an iPod Touch + sim card == iPhone?

I actually think it's the other way around - why would you need an iPhone when you can get an iPod Touch that does pretty much everything the iPhone does? If they released an iPod Touch with a sim card, there would no longer be a need for mobile phones.

Maybe but then I'd say an iPod touch isn't really a media player any more it's more like an iPhone. VoIP is cool and all but until they're as reliable as voice telecom such as mobile network (even that I dare say more reliable than VoIP - I'm speaking of NextG network mostly) I wouldn't use it.

As far as I know you're not protected with an SLA of some sort with VoIP - since it's going through an uncontrollable medium that is the Internet. However, with "traditional" voice you are - remember the s*** Telstra got into when the kid died because his parent couldn't call (from the bush mind you) because Telstra's didn't maintain the network or something like that.

This is how they differentiate the products (iPod Touch vs iPhone) surely.

iPhone 4 Pricing
16gb - $859.00
32gb - $999.00

iPod Touch Pricing
8gb - $289.00
32gb - $378.00
64gb - $499.00

My post on the HDR feature. http://photo.nickbedford.com/

http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/nbphoto/0l13kCGM7H1geCpipQ9NZMWQa3Qs1OFolMzTmAT8S9mFKfvDICGMW3LK2Hgx/IMG_0071.jpg
http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/nbphoto/5tCVr1OV67y6mjSWr7MSAlkU0VAuQgem1NOkRZB5zJVDnOxJpJz1FntnP4Yt/IMG_0072.jpg

last edited by 3dee at 14:55:33 03/Sep/10

I would like an iPod touch that is 2x as thick as this new one, with 2x the battery life. I know smaller and sleeker is cool, but goddamn it, MORE BATTERY!@#