Apple today held their It’s Only Rock & Roll event & announced some new features & products as expected.

-iTunes 9 <-download link
-iPod classic 160GB model returns
-iPod touch 64GB model debuts
-iPod shuffle new colours & special edition & camera
-iPod nano with camera 
-iPhone OS 3.1

A pleasant return as Steve Jobs, Apple CEO delivers his 1st keynote in quite a while. Here’s a rundown of what happened.

Steve takes the stage.

I’m very happy to be here today with you all. As some of you know about 5 months ago I had a liver transplant, so I now have the liver of a mid-20’s person who died in a car crash. I wouldn’t be here without such generosity. I hope all of us can be as generous and become organ donors.
“I’d like to thank everyone in the community for the support, and Tim Cook and the exec team at Apple. Thank you.

He announces that Apple has sold 30 million iPhones to date & then announces iPhone OS 3.1 (available today). A new feature in 3.1 is now the Genius feature extends to Apps as well. Also that 30 000 ringtones from the 4 major labels will be available for $1.29 USD.

iTunes 9 is then introduced. (Oh iTunes 8 we barely got to know you…)

A new feature that iTunes 9 brings is Genius Mixes.

Imagine a genius DJ that plays endless mixes of songs from your library that go great together. You just click on one of the mixes, and start playing it — and it will go on and on and on. It’s like a great radio station

They also announced improved syncing features

but the killer feature for iPod touch & iPhone owners, Application Management

& there’s even more. Another new feature announced was Home Sharing.

The iTunes Store also gets a nice revamp

and a summary of what iTunes 9 brings to the table

Phil Schiller then takes the stage & begins to talk about iPods.

he compares the iPod touch to having a portable computer in your pocket, which is unlike…

(Apple taking a little stab at Dell)

He then goes on to compare the iPod touch to Sony’s PSP & Nintendo’s DS

Some games are then demoed by their developers, some notable titles include:
Assassin’s Creed II & Madden (available today).

New prices for the iPod touch

Apple then announces the return of the 160GB iPod classic

Now on to the shuffle

& the new special edition

Ahh yes the infamous ‘One More Thing’

Looks like the rumors of an iPod with a camera are true

You can with one click send a recorded video to YouTube. The new nano also now includes an FM radio.

Summary of the new iPod nano

& in typical Apple fashion all the new goodies are available today.

the new iPod family

& thats about it. Good to see that Steve’s back & that the iPod line is alive & well & thriving.

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Apple’s worldwide single-carrier exclusivity model for each nation is seen as fleeting, as a new report suggests the iPhone could be available for carriers other than AT&T in the U.S. within a year.

“While timing on the launch of such a new product is very uncertain given the negotiations that would need to take place, Apple may work to launch it simultaneously with a new version of Apple TV, or an undated Apple TV software within the next year,” he said. “Moreover, we believe Apple has wisely avoided a subscription music model, as music listeners prefer to listen to their own music, and listen to it frequently. Movie watchers, on the other hand, prefer to rent, and typically only want to see a movie once or twice. Likewise, TV viewers are not accustomed to purchasing TV shows on an a-la-carte basis, and a subscription TV service would likely be more appealing.”

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Having pioneered multi-touch for its iPhone and iPod touch handhelds, Apple later extended the technology to trackpads on its Mac notebook line and now appears ripe to introduce the first iPod click-wheels with similar capabilities. 

Though sales of the iPod touch have taken off in recent quarters, recent reports suggest that we haven’t seen the last of click-wheel-based iPods, the next of which is expected to turn up this fall in the form of a fifth-generation iPod nano with a built-in digital camera and more compact circular scroll wheel. 

This new nano could be the first iPod support multi-touch gestures through its click-wheel, according to recent patent filing discovered by AppleInsider this week that details methods for detecting “input gestures that traverse the center of the scroll wheel and to detect multi-touch input.” 

More specifically, the 38-page filing made just this past September describes a “multi-dimensional scroll wheel” that “can sense a moving object, such as a finger, as it is moved not only in a rotational manner but also in a linear manner across the center of the scroll wheel.” This new breed of scroll wheel would also be capable of sensing more than one object at a time, such as multi-finger touch or motion. 

“Applications can be enhanced by the improved range of input enabled by the scroll wheel circuitry,” Apple explained. “For example, linear motion, such as a swipe across the scroll wheel, can enable an image browsing application to cause images, such as album cover pictures for example, to be transitioned across a screen.” 

Multi-touch input, such as one finger touching an inner region of the scroll and another finger rotating in the outer region, can also enable a zooming application to cause a displayed image to be zoomed-in or out, depending on the direction of the rotation. Similarly, a pinching or expanding of a user’s fingers can enable the zooming application to cause a zooming action.

“The scroll wheel circuitry can also bias the sensor element configuration according to the type of input event expected,” the filing adds. “For example, if a particular application permits only linear motion input along a particular axis (e.g., a horizontal or vertical swipe), the scroll wheel circuitry can utilize only the sensor elements arranged along that path to sense for an input event. By using less than all available sensor elements in this manner, the scroll wheel circuitry can achieve power savings.” 

The filing is credited to over half a dozen Apple engineers, including Lakshman Rathnam, Louis Bokma, Fletcher Rothkopf, Andrea Mucignat, Erturk Kocalar, Benjamin Lyon and Joseph Fisher.

(via AppleInsider.com)

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qTweeter, a one of a kind status update application that lets you tweet and update your Facebook status like never before. It is straight to the point, super fast, ultra cool and darn effective. You launch qTweeter by simply sliding your finger down from the status area and can start tweeting right away.

Once done, you simply press the update button to update your Facebook status or Twitter or even both. qTweeter saves you the hassle of updating your Facebook status and Twitter separately by doing both for you instantly.

qTweeter is available free from Cydia and is totally worth the download if you use Facebook and Twitter. I have been using it and its works great!!!

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The Wall Street Journal reports that Steve Jobs is actively involved in running Apple from home and that he is expected back in June.

People inside the company, business partners and others who are familiar with the situation say life at the Cupertino, Calif., company remains much the same as it did before. Those at other corporations who deal with the company also say their interactions with Apple haven’t changed. Mr. Cook, who had already been handling most of Apple’s day-to-day operations, has kept tight control over the company, say business partners and those inside Apple.

The WSJ also suggests that Jobs is working on a new device smaller than the MacBook Air and bigger then the iPhone.

Apple co-founder Mr. Jobs, who is considered the company’s creative leader, is also involved in the development of future projects, they say. People privy to the company’s strategy say Apple is working on new iPhone models and a portable device that is smaller than its current laptop computers but bigger than the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling is quoted as saying “Steve continues to look forward to returning to Apple at the end of June.”

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Specifications contained in the iPhone 3.0 firmware indicate that it will support low power 802.11n wireless networking, according to an AppleInsider report.

The new version of the existing Broadcom chip that supplies WiFi and Bluetooth on existing models jumps from BCM4325 to BCM4329. The component upgrade adds new support for 802.11n features, including the ability to find and join 5GHz networks.

Existing iPhone and iPod touch models only support 5GHz 802.11a networks, or 2.4GHz 802.11b/g networks, forcing users who want the top speed of 802.11n (available on all MacBooks) but compatibility with 802.11b/g networks (to use the existing iPhone) to set up a 2.4GHz compatible network. That compromise forces the wireless network to deal with interference from other networks on the often crowded 2.4GHz band.

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CyDelete is a new application which deletes jailbroken iPhone applications straight from the SpringBoard just like Official App Store apps.

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Since the dawn of Cydia, users have been struggling to remove applications they’ve installed with it. Uninstalling a package is a seven-step operation at best: Start Cydia, Manage, Packages, (locate package), Modify, Remove, Confirm.

With the advent of CyDelete, however, Cydia packages can now be removed like any App Store applications- hold down the icon, wait for them to start wiggling, and tap the X. What was once cumbersome is now integrated into the standard iPhoneOS workflow. It is a lightweight MobileSubstrate plugin that only does anything in Wiggle Mode.

CyDelete will not remove applications that are not managed by Cydia, though they will be branded with an X. From SpringBoard’s standpoint, applications managed by Cydia and applications just sitting in /Applications are one and the same. CyDelete will also not remove Cydia itself, for safety reasons.
—–

You can install CyDelete from the BigBoss Cydia Repository.

(via iClarified.com)

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Original article via AppleInsider
Written by Kasper Jade

Developers late Tuesday evening are downloading a widely distributed beta of Apple’s new iPhone 3.0 software, installing it on their handsets, and weighing in with some first impressions and screen shots, all of which follow.

The beta is available in a variety of distributions for the various multi-touch products Apple has released over the past two years, each of which weighs in around 250MB. The updated version of the iPhone SDK is much heftier, at around 2.5GB.

Generally speaking, developers are excited about the release and say the beta is stable enough for them to use as their primary iPhone OS for the time being, though the software is clearly ‘not something Apple would ship’ at this point.

In particular, Spotlight is said to be very responsive and functions just as you would expect having used the feature previously on a Mac. Copy & paste is also well received, but feels somewhat flaky. Developers have experienced some difficulty making selections in Safari, which may suggest a slight learning curve like that required when exploring the iPhone’s touch keyboard for the first time.

Below are a series of screenshots highlighting some of the widely publicized features of iPhone 3.0 and some that have gone unmentioned, like encrypted iPhone backups, background messaging and Camera app tweaks. Two apps that have reportedly seen no changes as of yet are Weather and Clock.

Copy and paste

Copy and paste works across all applications. We’ve detailed the process for text, web content, and photos in a series of annotated screenshotshere. Below are some additional examples, including copy and paste of MMS messages. There’s also an interface in Safari for copying URLs.

Messages

One cool feature of Apple’s new MMS “Messages” app is the ability to send messages in the background, which lets you type out your second message while you’re waiting for the first to send. It’s quite helpful when sending very large media messages:

Voice Memo interface

Apple’s new Voice Memo application lets you record voice memos for yourself, which can then be trimmed and sent to friends, family, or coworkers via email of MMS.

Spotlight and Mail search

Spotlight search is accessible by flicking the iPhone’s home screen to the right (as if there was a home screen to the left). In addition to serving as a global search app, it can also act as a quick application launcher.

Mail, Notes, iPod and Calendar also have their own integrated search interface (seen in the shots below, which are flanking the new home screen). If the mail search doesn’t turn up any results from messages stored on your iPhone, it will move on to search messages still located on your mail server.

Key apps getting landscape mode

Among the apps gaining true landscape mode with a landscape keyboard are Mail, Stocks, Notes, and Messages:

Camera and Photos

A new version of Apple’s Camera app shows you the last photo you snapped in the lower left-hand corner of the application. Meanwhile, the new Photo album app allows you to copy, delete, or share multiple photos via email.

YouTube and Settings panel

A new version of the YouTube app due in iPhone 3.0 will let you log into your account and see subscriptions, playlists, and history. Below is also a photo of the iPhone’s general preference pane thrown in for good measure. There are reportedly few changes in the settings.

Parental controls & contact sharing

Below are some of the new parental controls and the dialog that allows sharing of contact cards (vCard standard) over MMS.

New screenshot interface

The version of the App Store application included with the iPhone 3.0 beta includes a slightly revised and quirky interface for viewing screenshots:

Encrypt iPhone backups and Note syncing

Below are two screenshots from the current version of iTunes showing options to encrypt iPhone backups and sync notes to handsets running iPhone OS 3.0.

Article and Photos via AppleInsider

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