Finally, the big Apple Music Event 2010 took place and Steve Jobs came up with some great products and services. The music event took place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theatre in San Francisco.
Steve Jobs, the legendary CEO of Apple, did the presentation. Mr. Jobs appeared wearing a turtleneck shirt which is a bit different than usual and jeans.
Steve Jobs started his presentation talking about Apple Inc.’s recent business expansion. At present, Apple has 300 stores in ten countries: the U.S., Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, Australia and China. There are days when more than one million people visit our stores. Apple did 80,000 one to one classes per week and the people who are buying Macs half of them are new users.
Apple opened three new stores in Asia and Europe. It opened its second store in Shanghai China which has a 40 foot high glass cylinder and it became a landmark in glass engineering. It opened another store in Paris and its second store in London at Covent Garden.
Till date, Apple shipped 120 million iOS devices including – iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Apple activates 2,30,000 iOS devices per day (does not include updates). The Apple App Store is a major success with over 6.5 billion app downloads till date which means there are 200 download every second. Currently there are more than 2,50,000 applications of which 25,000 are iPad applications.
The first product Mr. Jobs announced was iOS 4.1 with bug fixes including proximity sensor, Bluetooth, and improved iPhone 3G performance and proximity sensor issues. User complained that the new
iOS 4.1 slows down the iPhone 3G devices. Jobs also unveiled some news features including High Dynamic Range photo capabilities which combines different photos taken quickly together to produce clearer photographs, TV show rentals, and HD video upload capability via Wi-Fi and Game Center. The new iOS 4.1 will be launched for iPhone and iPod Touch via iTunes for free.
At the show, Jobs also unveiled iOS 4.2 for iPad. It will have all the features of iOS 4.1 and more. Jobs introduced two new features- Airplay and wireless Printing. With the new iOS 4.2 the Apple iPad will finally have multi-tasking capability. Airplay, previously known as Airtunes enables user to stream music and video on their i-device via Wi-Fi. User can also print from iPad via Wi-Fi. The iOS 4.2 will be available on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch in November for free.
Jobs then unveiled the newly designed iPod Shuffle with buttons. The 3rd-gen iPod shuffle did not have buttons which did not go well with many users. So, the new iPod shuffle brings back the buttons again with Voice Over feature. Till date, Apple shipped 275 million iPods. The 4th gen shuffle has a similar design to that of the second gen iPod shuffle. It also has clip on its back. The new shuffle comes with 2GB memories and can go for 15 hours on a single charge. It would cost $49.
The next device which Jobs unveiled was a newly designed iPod Nano. As speculated, the 6th gen Nano is similar to iPod Shuffle in terms of design. 46 percent lighter and 42 percent smaller compared to its predecessor, the new iPod Nano comes with a small touchscreen. The device also has a clip on its back.
There are two dedicated volume buttons. It has 24 hour battery life. Other features include FM Radio and Pedometer. The new iPod Nano supports 29 languages and comes with Nike+ kit. Available in six colors the iPod Nano comes in two memory capacity- 8GB and 16GB. The 8GB is priced at $149 and 16GB version is priced at $179.
The next big device of the event was the 4th gen iPod Touch. According to Steve Jobs, the iPod Touch is one of the most popular portable gaming device outselling Nintendo and Sony PSP combined. It accounts for more than 50 percent of the portable gaming market share and more than a billion and a half games and entertainment items have been downloaded on the device. News reports said that the new iPod Touch would have many features of the iPhone 4 and it seems to be true. The 4th gen iPad Touch comes with Retina Display 4x the pixels at 326 ppi, 24 bit color, LED backlit. It also has A4 chip, 3-Axis Gyro, iOS 4.1, front facing camera for FaceTime and a rear camera with HD video recording capability. The iPod Touch has 40 hours of music playback capability. The new iPod Touch is only 7.2 mm thin. It comes in three categories- 8GB priced at $229, 32 GB priced at $299 and 64GB priced at $399. The new iPod Touch will be shipped next week and pre-order starts from today
The Apple Music Event 2010 also saw the unveiling of the iTunes 10 with a new logo. The iTunes contains 11.7 million songs 450 million TV episodes, 100 million movies 35 million books 160 million accounts with credit cards and 1-click. The iTunes 10 comes with Cover Flow UI, Genius Mixes, Playlists, and many other features.
Another interesting feature of the iTunes 10 is Ping. It is a social networking music service that will be available only on iPod Touch and iPhone. Using Ping, people can easily find out latest news and songs of their favorite artists, what his or her friends are listening and share songs with their friends. They can also get customized top ten charts of downloaded songs. The new iTunes 10 is available for download today in 23 countries.
The last device to unveil at the event was the newly designed Apple TV. No, it is not renamed iTV but the device went through a major change in design. The new Apple TV is one fourth the size of the current Apple TV. Launched in 2006, the Apple TV did not become so popular but the new Apple TV comes with some great features which the buyers cannot resist. The new Apple TV has got HDMI, USB, optical audio and Ethernet. It also comes with a remote control.
The new Apple TV has no downloads but all rental. People can rent HD TV shows for $0.99 and it will be commercial free. Apple signed a deal with ABC and Fox. They can also rent “First run HD-movie” for $5. The new Apple TV works with Mac, iPad and iPod Touch and television. For PC, no synching is necessary. Users can also access Netflix, Flickr, Mobileme and Youtube on Internet. The new Apple TV also has AirPlay features which allows the user control the device through other mobile devices. The new Apple TV is priced at $99 and it would be available in store within next four weeks. Pre-order starts from today.
Apple finished the show with some music. Coldplay vocal Christ Martin came and sang “Yellow” and “Viva La Vida.”
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