Apple September 9 Rock n’ Roll Event Round Up

Apple’s Rock n’ Roll event has just finished sometime back and it has been a good event. It wasn’t exactly overwhelming or anything but it did have its moments. The high point was of course when Steve Jobs stepped onto the stage and got a standing ovation from the entire crowd. He thanked everyone for supporting him and urged everyone to become an organ donor (referring to his recent liver transplant).

The event started with the the gaming capabilities of the iPhone Touch. With mainstream studios like EA and UbiSoft creating games for the Touch, things are boud to get very exciting. Apple compared the Touch to the likes of Sony PSP and Nintendo DSi saying that the iPod Touch is much better due to the touchscreen and the App Store. A huge graph was shown comparing the number of games available on each platform but that was misleading because most of the games on the App Store are small, casual games.

The frame rates on the games looked great and the reason behind that is that the iPod Touch now has Open GL ES. No wonder the games looked that good.

Next came iTunes, which now hits version 9. Amongst the many added features, the main ones are iTunes LP, iTunes Extras and Genius mixes. Genius mixes are automatic continuous mixes made by Genius by utilizing the huge database that it has gathered over time. Then there is the iTunes LP, which provides large custom artworks, beautiful lyric sheets etc. just like they used to come with the LP records but in a digital format of course. Nice Value Add. iTunes Extras are available for movies as well.

You can now copy your iTunes media files with up to five other authorized computers and manage/sync Apps through iTunes. That means you can purchase a song/movie and copy it over to 5 other places.

The new iPod Touch 8GB is only $199 and there is a 64GB version available for $399. The iPod Classic gets a storage bump to 160GB for the same price.

The 3^rd generation iPod shuffle now comes in multiple colors and a special edition one done up in steel. Looks sleek.

The iPod Nano becomes a really lucrative device with a Video Camera, larger 2.2 inch screen, Pedometer, VoiceOver, Microphone and Speaker and FM Radio(Finally!). The first and the last two are really the highlights here. The Nano does not shoot still pictures however.

Also, I have to recant my earlier post – the iPod Touch did not get the camera after all, only the Nano did.