Apple - September Special Events

I am still sick while writing this, but feel better compared to the past 2 days.

Once again it's a music event by Apple in the month of September. As usual, Steve Jobs gave his speech on the stage and presented new products. So what does Apple has to offer for this coming holiday season?

First, they updated iTunes from version 7 to version 8, which added few new features below:

Genius Playlist and Sidebar
So what does this Genius Playlist and Sidebar does? Basically it incorporates with the style of musics you like, and automatically created a playlist for you which added in a similar styles of musics within your music library, with just one click. The sidebar actually allows you to turn on Genius, after you turned it on, you are able to track other users favorites who has a similar ways of musics as yours and you can buy them directly from the sidebar.

HD TV Shows
HD TV Shows offers your favorites episodes of TV shows in HD quality for just $2.99 compared to SD $1.99.

New ways to browse
This seems familiar with what iPhoto offers, a complete new ways of organizing the contents with album artworks.

iTunes 8 is now available, you can download it for free directly from Apple webpage.

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Next, Steve Jobs unveil the new iPod nano. This time, iPod nano doesn't look short and fat anymore, remember the 2nd generation iPod nano? A tall and curves on the side. Well... this time they revamped the iPod nano, make it a larger screen, a complete new user interface, an oval shape, and it's the thinnest iPod ever.
This is a brand new iPod nano named "nano-chromatic". Although at first glance, its exterior design really reminds me of those fake "China" brands iPods.

Other than the new dimensional designs, this brand new iPod nano has more features compared to its predecessor, which I'm going to share it to you right away:

Built-in Accelerometer
As this feature was first implemented on iPhone, then iPod Touch. It's been long wondering of when will be iPod nano's turn? Well, this time for real, you can simply turn the iPod nano to side way, and you can easily be accessible to cover flows, to find your music faster just like in iPhone and iPod Touch. Same goes to viewing photos too, either portrait or landscape mode.




Shake to Shuffle
This seems familiar with what Sony Ericsson W910i has to offer. Simplistic, at any time around, what you need to do is just shake the iPod nano, it will randomly shuffle the songs and plays it.



Varieties of Games
Now you can enjoy more games in iPod nano with its built-in accelerometer. It comes with Maze, which lets you work your ways through vast mazes by tilting and moving your iPod nano. Or you can easily download more games directly from iTune Store.

"Genius" on the go
Genius is also built directly into iPod nano's software where you can easily add a Genius playlist into your iPod nano while on the go, without having to access to iTunes 8.

More colors to its line-up!
Last but not least, the most colors that its predecessor had to offer was 5. This time, you can choose up to 9 colors! What is your color then?

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The iPod Classic:.


Guess the iPod Classic has reached it's maximum design limit, nothing much special to iPod Classic this round except pulling out the highest capacity 160GB model due to low demand and its thickness, they enhanced the low capacity 80GB to 120GB with the same dimensional design and price. The rest of the feature will remains unchanged except added in "Genius".


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Coming up next - iPod Touch, perhaps the most innovative iPod ever, now it has a completely sleek new design, and it's thinner than previous iPod Touch.

Sleek design, built-in speaker with volume control

Built-in Speaker with Volume Control
Perhaps some of the consumers were actually demanding for a built-in speaker whereby they do not need to plug in a headphone to listen to musics. Well, Apple has took this into consideration when developing this new iPod Touch. With this built-in speaker, you can now enjoy casual listening without any ear piece.



Built-in Nike+
The conventional ways of Nike+ required you to plug in the transmitter to the iPod to actually supports with the sensor being placed underneath your Nike+ shoe. The new iPod Touch saves you all the hassle as it's now equipped with built-in transmitter. All you need to do is simply get an iPod Sensor which available seperately and you are ready to go.

Interactive portable gaming

The iPod Touch has slowly approaching to a different ways of usability. Other than just a music/video player, a portable device which allows you to surf the net, it has now become a portable gaming device which uses its accelerometer and multitouch panel to play interactive games. There are more games to come, EA is one of the games developer who is pro-actively include their games to this new platform. A very good example will be the new Need For Speed: Undercover which is releasing in November this year. There are a lot of games which available for you to download directly from iTunes Store too.


All the new products which mentioned above are now being shipped out and estimated to arrive in Apple Store by this weekend. For Malaysia, let's just give it an ETA after 2 weeks, hopefully.

Catch Steve Job's keynotes on this special event, here. (clicking the link will automatically fire up your Quicktime)

So after reading all this, which iPod interest you the most? It's good to hear your opinion on these new iPods, feel free to leave your very own opinion under comment.

H e n r i c k
Apple's September Music Events