Apple rumours entombed

THE APPLE SPECIAL EVENT which occurred today in Cupertino, simulcast to journalists in London and coinciding with Apple-related offerings from the Apple Paris Expo, has finally put to rest the plethora of rumours that have been circling the internet since news of the event surfaced several weeks ago.

iTunes & iTV
Firstly the much anticipated iTunes 7 was announced, offering 75 movies from Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films, that users can purchase to watch on their computers and iPods, and also soon on their tvs with the launch of the upcoming $299 iTV player from Apple (more further down). Most movies will sell for $9.99, while new releases will be available for $14.99 from the day of launch.

Steve Jobs said this on unveiling the news of the movie downloads: "Here we go again! First music, then TV shows, and now movies. In less than one year we've grown from offering just five TV shows to offering over 220 TV shows, and we hope to do the same with movies - iTunes is selling over one million videos a week, and we hope to match this with movies in less than a year." Apple is offering movie sales at a resolution of 640x480, encoded with the H.264 video codec, and is increasing television shows to the same resolution, an increase from the previous 320x240 res. The movies are said to be in the quality expected from a DVD.

The seventh iteration of iTunes includes a number of other enhancements, including support to automatically add album artwork to any music that is missing it, and new views that allow you to browse your music collection by artwork as if flipping through a CD collection.

The iTV player coming in the first quarter of 2007, is around half the size of a Mac mini and features USB, ethernet, 802.11 wireless (some kind of pre-n wireless is expected), HDMI, optical audio, and RCA connectors. It will connect to a television and allow content to be delivered through something similar to a Front Row interface, streamed from other computers on the network storing the media.

iPod
An update to the 5th generation video iPod was also unveiled - which is said to be 60 per-cent brighter and much more vibrant than the previous model.

"The world's best digital music player has evolved into the world's most popular portable video player too," said Steve Jobs. "The new iPod's brighter and more vibrant display and longer battery life make it perfect for watching Hollywood movies and TV shows right in the palm of your hand."

The new 30GB video iPod is priced at $249, and the new 80GB model at $349 - both come in black or white. The iTunes Store now also offers downloads of video games for fifth generation iPods, including Tetris, Mahjong, Mini Golf, Pac-Man, Cubis 2, Bejeweled, Zuma, Texas Hold'em, and Vortex all available beginning today for $4.99 each.

iPod nano & iPod shuffle
The second-generation iPod nano remains available at the same three price points - $149, $199, and $249 but capacities have been doubled across the range, to 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB, respectively. The new nano arrives in an aluminum enclosure with the $149 model available in silver, the $199 model available in every color except black, and the $249 nano is arriving in all colors.

The new iPod shuffle is almost half the size of the original, just half a cubic inch in volume, weighs just half an ounce and also features an aluminum design and a built-in clip. The 1GB device will retail for $79, which includes earbud headphones and an iPod shuffle dock. No 512mb shuffle is planned.

Hopefully the rumours can now be put to rest - however, no news of the touchscreen super-video-iPod that has plagued the internet for many months... looks like that one's set to continue.... µ

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