2010 convey us a completely revamped Apple TV , a new craw of iPods , iTunes 10 , and much more . Here ’s a straightaway wrap - up of some of the big events of the past 12 months in the reality of Apple and amusement .
Apple TV gets small
In September , Apple unveil a fresh , little Apple TV model ( ) . The 2d - generation Apple TV allowed Apple to finally shed the “ hobby ” label from its video playing gadget ( well , depending on whom you ask ) , adding Netflix streaming , beefing up the performance , withdraw the heavy drive , and alter the focus to streaming only .
How successful has the new Apple TV been ? Well , it ’s a little laborious to tell because Apple has never broken out Apple TV sale numbers in the past tense , but things must be going passably well because Steve Jobs touted250,000 units sold duringduring Apple ’s quarterly earnings group discussion call in October , and then the caller announced the Apple TV would hit1 million sales around Christmas .
AirTunes becomes AirPlay
One other cool affair about the new Apple TV ? A little matter calledAirPlay . Born from Apple ’s audio recording - streaming AirTunes technology , AirPlay takes the concept a stride further and lease you swarm television and photos from an iOS 4.2 machine or computer ( Mac or PC ) running iTunes 10 to your TV through the Apple TV .
iTunes 10 goes Ping
speak of iTunes , Apple alsoannounced the first doubled - finger’s breadth edition of its music jukebox and media - management softwarein September . iTunes 10 ( ) . The biggest new change in iTunes 10 was a little feature called Ping . Apple ’s attempt at a music - based social mesh , tie to iTunes , was n’t precisely universally adored , and seemed to bemissing many obvious and utile features .
Since then , Apple has made some changes , including add a Ping sidebar in iTunes ( and pour down the Genius Sidebar in the procedure ) , integrating Ping with Twitter , changing the Ping Sidebar to the iTunes Sidebar(and bringing Genius back to the sidebar in the outgrowth ) , andadding play list publication and collaborationto Ping .
Rent-a-show
Another affair to happen as part of the Apple TV / iTunes 10 update was Apple addingTV show rentals to the iTunes Store . For $ 1 , you could now rent a television show on your iTunes 10 - powered Mac or PC , or your young Apple TV . As with movies , which the iTunes Store has been offering for rent for some fourth dimension , you have 30 days to begin watching a letting . But unlike the 24 - hour windowpane once you start watching for pic , TV shows give you 48 hours to nail your viewing experience . ( Odd , I bonk , since moving picture are longer than television receiver show , but that ’s Hollywood for you . ) .
alas , TV lease are limit to shows from a few internet , and many company have beenless than enthusiastic about wanting to make show usable for rentvia iTunes .
New iPods, again
At the same September event that saw the new Apple TV and iTunes herald , Apple also performed its annual iPod refresh to try on and convince the billions of masses who already have one ( or several ) to upgrade to the latest and greatest .
Thefourth - propagation iPod touch ( ) gain a high-pitched - quality Retina display , dual cameras with FaceTime living , and a built - in mic and speaker .
Thesixth - genesis iPod nano ( ) got a major facelift ( but lost a lot of features in the process ) , turn into a midget Multi - Touch - enabled machine with no forcible playback controls .
The quaternary - coevals iPod shamble ( ) brought back on - equipment buttons and added VoiceOver navigation .
And what of the iPod classic ( ) , you may ask ? Apple still sells it , and it ’s still the in high spirits - capacity iPod available . But during the iPod consequence , Jobs made no mention of the classic , which makes us think that it ’s just keeping the seat warm until Apple can manage to offer an iPod touch model with more storage ( 128 GB should be enough to kill the classic once and for all ) .
Our iPod buying guide will aid you sort out which example is right for you or your hump ones .
Oh yeah, the Beatles
After years of speculation ( and , apparently , negotiation),the Beatles ’ entire catalog at last became available for download via iTunes . you’re able to rest well-fixed knowing thatRingo Starr is relieve that citizenry can stop over expect him when the Beatles will be in the iTunes Store .
How compose up has the need been ? Apparently , very . EMI say that in the first week of gross revenue , it moved 450,000 album and 2 million tracks . Not bad deal everybody over the age of 35 likely owns the same medicine on CD .
Apple has the Beatlesexclusively until some unspecified time in 2011 , at which time you could expect Amazon to set about selling downloads for half of what Apple bear down .
2011, what say you?
So now that 2010 is almost over , it ’s time to turn our attending to 2011 .
2011 iPods , iTunesIt does n’t take a turban and vitreous silica ball to know that we ’ll see yet another crop of iPods in the fall of 2011 , which should also engender a new version of iTunes .
Subscription - base musicStreaming music services were all the fad in 2010 , and Apple even got into the heart by purchasing Lala and then shut it down six month later . That , combined with Apple ’s monolithic datum center in North Carolina , continues to fuel speculation that Apple will unveil a subscription - base cyclosis euphony avail of its own . And if subscription does follow to iTunes , Apple can concentrate on turning Ping into something utile — let mass share playlists that others can actually play , for example .
Apps for Apple TVThe raw Apple TV runs a rendering of iOS ( rather of a modified version of OS X 10.4 , as the premature Apple TV did ) . So does that mean we might see the power to download and run apps ? Apple already did what many of us thought would never encounter — provide competition to the iTunes Store on the Apple TV in the form of Netflix cyclosis support — so might we see additional content origin as apps in the future ? TheRoku playerssupport a vast potpourri of content , including Netflix , NHL Game Center Live , Amazon Video on Demand , MLB.TV , and soon Hulu Plus . The Apple TV would be an even good set - top box with more way to get depicted object . And what about other thing , like weather apps or games ?
