Ah a new month. With it comes some new software and hardware announcements from Apple. Weeeeeeee.
Of course I’m an Apple fan. So I watched the “event” that they had streaming to any Apple device (sorry non-apple people). It was a fairly typical Steve Jobs presentation. With rumor mills predicting the stuff that would be announced one would think it was all possible. Longer previews – nope. Cloud based music – nope. Too bad.
They did announce some new enhancements to iOS and to iTunes, along with some hardware things too.
I’m hoping that iOS 4.1 will work good on the 3Gs that I’m still toting around as it has a couple of nice new features. The iTunes 10 thing really only adds one thing called Ping. Ping is kinda like the Facebook of music. Or actually the Wall section of Facebook geared only for music. The trouble with it is, it’s sandboxed within iTunes. I like the idea in theory. No doubt I will make a Ping account myself – mostly for the artist approach to sharing what’s going on career wise.
However, it’s really interesting that Apple doesn’t push for a web based version of their system. One that anyone can log into without the need of the app. That would really be something. Of course taking it a step further with cloud based streaming of my library and longer previews in the store would be awesome. I already know why they won’t do longer previews; it has to do with paying royalties on the performance.
The only other item that really piqued my interest was the AppleTV update. Reduced size, and simplified use. Dig that. If I ever purchase a TV, I will get that – solely for streaming my Netflix. Not interested in renting individual shows for $0.99 when I can have unlimited views of unlimited content, whenever, using Netflix for one low price of $9 a month.
There is one thing that could be said of Steve Jobs, there are certain points to his products that show he’s a New World Man. While he tends to play mostly fair, it’s not openly fair. I guess we’ll never get that, will we?
Speaking of New World Man, I have to roll with the masters of music, RUSH. They wrote this song some time ago, but it’s still quite relevant if you ask me. It certainly describes Steve Jobs, though I doubt it was who they wrote about.
Pulsing synths, sparkly guitars, smashing drums with a motivated bass line it all adds up to a modern song that shows foresight. Gotta love that. Plus you can hardly ever go wrong with RUSH.