WWDC 2008 AKA The Day the Earth Stood Still

The title of this post is somewhat overblown and pretentious! It's not entirely without some merit as an in-joke; Twitter has been electric with, witty, sci-fi references regarding announcements beamed from the Apple mothership, I only needed to mention that Exeter was thundery and my Twitter peeps were inspired to alude to ID4 amongst others.

My initial reaction to Steve Jobs keynote is mostly positive, mostly!

The new iPhone 3G looks most compelling. I'm sold on the 16GB model (in limited edition white) and will be contacting my O2 Shop in short order: as soon as tomorrow. Assuming O2 can offer a good pay-as-you-go plan, alongside the £269 price tag, for an iPhone 3G, July 11th can't come soon enough! An iPod touch 32GB is on order for wireless browsing around the home.

.mac is to morph into MobileMe and e-mail addresses can be transferred, if desired, to @me.com. However, a free service would've been welcomed! Apple's e-mail solution looks like a poor investment against highly featured, and free, services such as Google's Gmail! I'll review MobileMe once it becomes available, from July, and make it known whether or not subscribing for a fee-based service is worthwhile in the long-term!

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was previewed: “We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.”

Breaking news: Aliens have invaded Apple Store Princesshay...

Download December Duet on iTunes

In March I uploaded December Duet onto YouTube (direct link). December Duet (iTunes) is now available for playback on portable devices such as iPod, iPod nano, iPod touch, iPhone and Sony PSP!

Subscribe to my podcast.

Cats, Jelly Babies, FeedBurner and an iPhone wallpaper!

The last few days have been particularly manic!

Since Friday I've embarked on the process of updating Nick Smith's blog template and publishing his Blogger hosted site to a custom domain name using GoDaddy (you can register domain names from any of a number of different registrars). This is no mean feat when you factor in html coding, FeedBurner, AdSense and Google Webmaster Tools amongst others!

Cat City Online
Cat City Online is the weblog of Nick Smith, author of "Scriptwriting: The Secrets Unleashed," "Milk Treading," "The Kitty Killer Cult" and "Undead on Arrival."

Drop by Nick's new and improved site and leave a comment. He's a good friend and a creative chap...

Memorial
Making further progress with my mother's memorial project! Today Shop@Panasonic, Harlequins Centre, Exeter, pulled through with a Plasma HDTV TH-37PX70, which will be installed at Lucerne House once the refurbishment work on the Alphinbrook Unit is complete! And a Shop@Panasonic staff member recognised me from myentertainmentnews.co.uk (formerly Unit News)! Always a pleasure to meet a fellow Doctor Who/Torchwood fan!

In addition to the plasma television, we've bought a PC, widescreen monitor and a Nintendo Wii (includes Wii Sports)!

The next steps include researching the needs of each resident and costing the peripherals and software needed to facilitate the highest level of transparency! At this stage I have no idea of the total cost - anywhere from £300 to £3000 and beyond! I'll give serious consideration to approaching disabled charities, for extra funding, if my mother's memorial fund falls short.

FeedBurner Help Group
Be sure to visit the brand new official FeedBurner Help Group, which launched last night (GMT), where I'm a Community Expert! I'll help out as much as possible along with my fellow Community Expert peeps Improbulus, Charles LaPage, Mathaba and Franklin Tse.

One last thing...

"Peek-a-boo" wallpaper
I was inspired to create a wallpaper for the iPhone (and it looks cool on iPod touch too)!

"Peek-a-boo" is my cheeky homage to the Apple logo and started life as my Twitter avatar!



More wallpapers to follow.

Pre-order New Apple iPod touch 32GB

The iPod touch 32GB model arrives just in time for Valentine's Day!

*Comes with the latest announced new software applications for the iPod touch
*32GB flash drive
*Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)
*3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen multi-touch display
*480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 pixels per inch
*Holds up to 7,000 songs in 128-Kbps AAC format
*Holds up to 25,000 iPod-viewable photos
*Holds up to 40 hours of video

Movies, music and more
Listen to your favourite music. Watch video podcasts and music videos. Catch up on TV shows. Flick through photos. With iPod touch, you can bring it all along for the ride.

The Internet in your pocket
Surf the web and send email while walking down the street. Get directions, check the weather, follow stocks and more. With Wi-Fi, the Internet goes wherever you go.

The increased capacity reaffirms my view that the iPod touch is a most viable proposition in the PDA space and knocks Sony's PSP back into a cocked hat!

If you think it's too good a gift for your other half...

iPhone Home in Princesshay

It would be most negligent of me not to mention today's European launch of the iPhone! Will I be taking one of these home tonight? No! Its superior, and newer, sibling, the iPod touch, is a far more alluring consumer product and isn't tied to a misguided and expensive O2 contract. And the diminutive charms of the new iPod nano cannot be resisted! A black iPod nano sits on my computer desk craving attention!

The enigmatic Apple Store Exeter, now securely encased in Apple's trademark black fascia, purportedly opens on Saturday November 24th in Exeter's all-new Princesshay shopping centre! Don't quote me. Perhaps I'll see you in the queue!

Stocking Fillers

Christmas comes even earlier this year! Cards, decorations and seasonal promotions are already hitting high street shelves and QVC!

Without further ado, here's my official top 20 holiday gift ideas, traversing books, toys, music, video games and electronic gadgets for all ages:

Please note that these are affiliate links.

1). Nintendo Wii
2). Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
3). iPod nano 8GB
4). iPod touch 16GB
5). iPod classic 160GB
6). Xbox 360 Elite
7). Halo 3 (Xbox 360)
8). PSP Slim and Lite
9). PS3 (60GB Premium Version)
10). Panasonic TX-32LXD700 - 32" Widescreen Viera HD LCD TV
11). Sony KDL32D3000 - 32" Widescreen Bravia HD LCD TV
12). The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo DS)
13). Transformers Movie - Leader Optimus Prime
14). Be Bratz
15). Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
16). Change Sugababes
17). iLife '08
18). iMac 24" Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz/1GB/320GB/ SuperDrive
19). Doctor Who: The Key to Time (Limited Edition 7-Disc Box set)
20). The Making of "Star Wars"

Newer readers may wish to read:

Review of the Year 2004
Review of the Year 2005
Review of the Year 2006

Stay tuned for Review of the Year 2007 coming this December. Why not subscribe?

Touch Me (All Night Long)

Pre-ordered an iPod touch 16GB model! Well, how could I resist its consummate gorgeousness? The form factor eclipses even Sony's PSP, which I predominantly used for Wi-Fi web surfing and not gaming!

I believe that the launch of iPod touch is profoundly more important than even the iPhone and the iPod touch will become the "must-have" holiday season gift! Why? Because it's the summation of the direction that Apple Newton, or simply Newton, alluded to prior to Steve Jobs' decision to cancel the company's personal digital assistant (PDA) product line in 1997!

A decade on and Newton OS has been replaced by Mac OS X in Apple's newest PDA family.

Sexy! Yes Yes Yes

The new iPods are delicious! iPod touch is especially captivating and Apple has delivered a compelling refresh to its ubiquitous all-conquering brand - nano, shuffle and all-new classic.

I'd certainly have liked to see a more capacious HDD available for the iPod touch, but good things come to those who wait! For the time being iPod classic is the more compelling portable solution; boasting up to 160GB of storage! I'll be using this for data backup on both Mac OS X and Windows Vista Home Premium!

Don't forget to download iTunes 7.4! Sexy! No No No, by Girls Aloud, sounds even edgier especially Cheryl Tweedy's intro.

Goodbye to Microsoft Zune and NBC/Universal!

Birthday Bot

Today is my birthday and, whilst downloading new iTunes songs (thank you David and Michael for the most excellent iTunes Gift Certificate), I discovered this snippet of Apple Inc-related news. A new Convoy (AKA Optimus Prime) from Takara Tomy is on the way!

The Convoy is an ice white Apple iPod digital music player docking station with speakers, which is fully licensed by Apple Inc. The docking station can be transformed from the cab (with trailer) to a robot.

Convoy will be the same size as its Generation 1 variant and features a brand-new head sculpt. This is the second in the "Music Label" line.

Takara Tomy extends its co-branding franchise, beyond Apple Inc, with the new Transformers Sports Label series!



The new Sports Label series features 1/2 scale transforming Nike-branded shoes! These licensed items should be somewhere around 6" in length in shoe mode and it looks like they even have real laces connected to the top of the shoe. Convoy and Megatron are also each sporting a miniature pair of Nike Free 7.0 as a finishing touch.

Hope Hasbro decides to release these brand fusions in the UK and USA. Pretty please?

Wii Want

Nintendo has announced that its next generation console (code-name Revolution) is officially known as Wii. The company explains:

"While the code-name 'Revolution' expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer. Wii will break down that wall that separates video game players from everybody else."

"Wii will put people more in touch with their games … and each other. But you’re probably asking: What does the name mean? Wii sounds like 'we,' which emphasizes this console is for everyone."

"Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion. No need to abbreviate. Just Wii. Wii has a distinctive 'ii' spelling that symbolizes both the unique controllers and the image of people gathering to play."

"And Wii, as a name and a console, brings something revolutionary to the world of video games that sets it apart from the crowd. So that’s Wii. But now Nintendo needs you. Because, it’s really not about you or me. It’s about Wii."

In addition, Nintendo hit on a number of Wii-related points. Nintendo stated that "A number of Wi-Fi-enabled launch titles are in development that will employ Nintendo's newly announced wireless gaming service, Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection."

Also mentioned was an SD memory card expansion bay that will allow users to complement the 512 megabytes of internal flash memory.

The company also touted Wii's two-format disc drive. "Instead of a tray, a single, innovative, self-loading media bay will play both 12-centimeter optical discs used for the new system as well as Nintendo GameCube discs. Owners will have the option of equipping a small, self-contained attachment to play movies and other DVD content."

At first I scoffed at Nintendo's nomenclature! However, who would have thought that TiVo and iPod would become part of our consumer lexicon? And controversy sales.

Wii, like the original iMac, will be available in an assortment of candy colors. To paraphrase Steve Jobs. Wii is gaming for the rest of us. Nintendo may have struck marketing gold by mining Apple Computer's rich lifestyle brand ethos.

Money For Nothing

Apple has dropped the ball and jettisoned FireWire support in iPod nano. Therefore my money has gone towards Xbox 360 games Perfect Dark Zero (Collector's Edition) and Dead or Alive 4 - I purchased Xbox solely to play Dead or Alive 3 and Halo (developed by Bungie for the Mac prior to their sale to Microsoft Game Studios).

Remember when Zelda III - A Link To The Past (1992) cost more than £74.99 on the SNES*? Games for Microsoft's next generation console are priced at £44.99 (shop around). Given the low price of producing optical media, consumers would anticipate paying a premium on custom cartridges* and not shiny platters!

Revenue streams come from ancillary products such as memory cards, game pads et al. Once you start totting up the 'real cost' (depending on what your consumer needs are), of a console, it can rapidly head northwards. This modular product methodology is nothing new. It's all about monetization. For me, the Premium Pack and a couple of games is sufficient at launch.

With the advent of blueyonder's broadband upgrade from 1Mb to 4Mb, it'll be fun to dip a toe into Xbox Live via the free Silver subscription (no online gaming functionality) this holiday.

Interested in following the Xbox 360 from inception to retail? Subscribe to Major Nelson's informative (and candid) podcasts. Major, if you're reading this, now that streaming digital photos and music, even from Windows® XP or Windows® Media Centre Edition 2005 PC is confirmed, I would welcome Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger compatibility in the future. Thanks.

Fun factoid. Perfect Dark Zero is produced by Rare a software publisher once synonymous with the Nintendo brand experience. Well, during my first year at Bournemouth University I made the acquaintance of a Masters undergraduate studying at The National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA) whom was hired by Rare to work on GoldenEye (for the N64) and (perhaps) the original Perfect Dark. The association ended once it became clear that the individual was a Star Trek obsessive (see Unicon post under May 2004). It is my understanding that Bournemouth-based USS Excalibur is no more. All that remains is online flotsam (circa 1997 or thereabouts).

Visited Exeter's Virgin Megastore and had a closer inspection of the PSP. There were no hands-on units and the display model was switched off! You can look, but don't touch. Brilliant, the antithesis of touch and buy psychology. I still have no idea how good or bad the screen is.

Advancing the CD Spin Doctor Desktop Recorder Dashboard widget agenda. Here's an audio test recorded using the iMac's built-in mic, which is no substitute for Sennheiser studio kit. It sounds aweful (delivery is stilted) and I promise things will improve. If Sennheiser would like to send a microphone I'd be all too pleased to give them an in-show marketing plug!