Last week I went to the Apple Press Briefing on iPods and iTunes. Before that, however, I had already downloaded and started to use iTunes 8 which is the subject of this week's main item.

iTunes 8 in OS X

I will be covering the iPod aspects of the press briefing next week, but there were some interesting points. The new iPod touch has a Bluetooth chip as we mentioned last week, but when I asked Tony Li about this, he looked me straight in the eye and said that the touch does not have Bluetooth. He is correct of course, it does not have Bluetooth; or at least certainly not active. When I pointed out that there had been pictures online breaking down the touch, his lips twitched and he paused. So I use the standard sentence for him, "apple does not comment on future developments" and we both laughed.

Later, when a Thai reporter was asking when he would be coming to Bangkok again, he called me over and I got as far as saying that rumours suggest that there may be new notebook computers on 14 October, before Tony shooed me away.

While he was talking to the reporters, I heard him answer a question about the iPhone here (he did mention the unlocked iPhones of course: there is no denying these). I wrote down his comments and later confirmed what he said, "There is a continuing phased worlwide rollout and any release depends on negotiations with carriers."

From what I was told, I can hope to get my hands on some of these iPods soon.

I put a lengthy report with images on my Bangkok Diary webpages about the ress briefing.

I also completed the fourth review of iPod touch apps as another Bangkok Diary web page on Monday of this week.

As I mentioned earlier, everyone had 14 Oct pencilled in as a possible date for a release of notebook computers from Apple, but last Friday Cult of Mac suggested this week -- 23 Sep was the day we should all be watching. It reads as if they are being a bit impatient over at Wired.

Connected to the rumoured MacBook update is a story that Nvidia instead of Intel chipsets may be used. This seems to be connected with Apple's ownership of PA Semi and we will all have to wait and see. As was brought home to me last week, Apple does not comment on future product releases.

And another rumour a couple of weeks back mentioned something that was being called the "Brick." I did speculate that possibilities were a tablet, or a replacement for the Mac mini. iPhone Savior -- a new one on me -- suggest that this is something like a mini pro. The jury is still out here.

We have just had the 10.5.5 update to Leopard and MacRumors is looking forward to 10.5.6 with the suggestion that it will have Blu Ray support built in.

I had some conversation with Apple personnel at that press briefing regarding some of the information that is not getting out, including the Pro-Day at the beginning of October (there are two actually) at the Intercontinental Hotel; and the availability of Thai on iPods now. I had to find that one for myself and that was only by chance when a Thai friend turned up with a new iPod touch and needed help to set it up.

This week I was sent email, all in Thai unfortunately, with a link to the Pro Day registration web page, which is also totally in Thai. I appreciate that this IS Thailand and Thai language prevails -- heavens, I was critical for years about the lack of Thai for computer users -- but for something like this a two language display might be more helpful.

I shall go of course.

With the number of iTunes stores up to 22 a fair number are in Europe and the bureaucrats of Brussels who run the EU have a problem, rightly perhaps, with the different levels of pricing that different online iTunes stores are showing. I guess a single market does mean exactly that, although from what I remember of this, it was less a problem with Apple as with the various record companies: remember these guys still have problems getting their heads round digital downloads, so equal pricing may be way above them. Nonetheless, Commissioner Kroes whose area this is, has put everyone on notice that she will stamp her feet and maybe something will happen.

At the end of last week, it was rumoured that the 8G iPhone was running short, sparking rumours that a 32GB iPhone may be coming soon. This should be anticipated anyway, I would suggest, particularly with the update to the iPod touch, which normally follows behind the iPhone, and especially as the touch has been running with a 32G version for a few months now. And then, a couple of days later, the 8G iPhones reappeared as if from out of the sky.

I mentioned it in passing in this week's main item, but the new iPods are friendly towards those with seeing problems (you should see also how easily OS X works with Braille input and output). An item by Jeff Smykil at Infinite Loop reports that the Association for the Blind in the US, where there are estimated to be some 20 million people with seeing difficulties, has applauded Apple's moves on accessibility and issued a statement.

It should also be noted, that although Apple has had Universal preferences in OS X for several versions, there is now also an "Accessibility" section of the Apple website and this provides more information about how Macs can help those with disabilities.

On Saturday in a feed from Apple, there was news about a new exchange program for some new power adapters. Apparently the prongs can break off and, while no one has been shocked as yet, Apple is not taking chances, so has recalled them The recall only affects users in some countries and I did not see Thailand on the list.

There was a lot in the last couple of weeks about the way Apple seems to be almost capricious with the way certain apps are removed or rejected with hardly any explanation, and people were wondering why developwers put up with this. The answer, it is suggested, comes with what a successful app can mean. That app 2 Across for example brought a nice little windfall for the developer, Eliza Block. Even better is Trism which I have not tried. This $4.99 app, a game, has made $250,000 for its developers in the last 2 months.

Steve Demeter the developer has become a symbol of the success of the app store and has been interviewed by several influential publications. As a result of this and the success, he has been humble enough to write a Thank You on his site.

With a lot of negative feedback, EA has been forced to bow to criticisms on its game, Spore. They did allow three installations and that was it: any more and you had to get permission. Now this has risen to five and they are working on ways for the customer to deauthorise a computer, you know, how Apple has been doing with iTunes for the last few years.

Talking of negative feedback, in a total surprise earlier this week, it was announced that the release of Windows Mobile 7, for mobile phones, that had been expected early next year (vaguely) was delayed. No date -- or year -- for its eventual release was given.

But then, who cares? As well as the iPhone which is expected to sell something like 40 million in the next few months, Google has just announced the Android phone and there are lots of online comments about this which the Register now calls the Satan Phone. Oh dear.

Steve Ballmer who now has the helm up at Redmond has revised his release date. He had told everyone that he would hang about until his kids left college, which was expected to be about another 8 years from now if I remember right. But now he is announcing that he is never going to step down. Maybe he really has signed a pact with the devil and knows much more than we do. I am not alone in being pleased to here this open-ended situation as the longer Ballmer stays up there, the worse it all gets with what seems to be a series of gaffes.

The latest of these was the advertising campaign that starred Seinfeld and Bill Gates which was canned after two abysmal showings. Now they have switched to an "I'm a PC" compaign which starts with a guy who looks like a clone of the guy in the Mac ads; and to cap it all, the ads were made on Macs, which can be proved if you look at the original metadata.

To cover this up, the files were then resaved in Windows. Come on, this is the age of computers and the internet: you can't hide this stuff; and it makes anyone look worse when it comes to light.

Ballmer himself appears in a YouTube clip in an office corridor. Actually, once I looked at the clip, this seems far better than those ads that cost millions: short, sharp, to the point. Far better than Gates and Seinfeld: ROAR, I'm a PC and I own the company. . .

Apple released a new utility for configuring iPhones last week. This is really aimed at companies who can send complete configuration in an XML file by email to an employee and there is a way to install this on the computer and thence into the iPhone, if I read the PDF that is available rightly. The software is called iPhone Configuration Utility and it is available for download from the Apple site.

Adobe has put out a beta of Lightroom 2.1 with added SLR support. According to a report on the Underexposed Blog, "if you've already upgraded your library from Lightroom 1.4 to 2.0, you'll have to run an Adobe-supplied script to enable proper inclusion of keywords when exporting photos."

Pass.

Adobe has also announced a new version of Creative Suite, CS4. The product itself has some tweaks and some new features, but has still not been rewritten for 64-bit computing on OS X. And the prices? Insanely Great Mac has them at "$1799 for Design Premium, $1699 for Web Premium, $1699 for Production Premium, and $2499 for Master Collection." They also tell us that "Adobe plans to offer tiered upgrade pricing from previous versions." Tiered?

Pass again.

Mind you, Adobe has come out and explained part of the reason behind not devleoping a 64-bit version as yet and put the blame in part on Apple, while saying that Mac users will not miss this. That will have to wait for CS 5 maybe.

I don't know about anyone else but the upcoming US election has me fascinated: almost as much as the ns and outs of Thai politics. I was interested to see therefore a free version of a game called The Political Machine was available as a free download. Free to Windows users that is. As I clicked on the link, so an EXE file started to download. So much for that.

As a note, after that recent update to Leopard, I began to notice a couple of days later -- it dodn't sink in at first -- that Spaces quick switching using the keys (I use the control key plus the space number) had stopped. A look in preferences showed me this had reset itself. It seems to be something that happens with some of these updates, so I have to check for this every time.

To close, a little more on that problem with refused apps. Apple has now added a non-disclosure agreement to the refusal letter, perhaps after one developer went ballistic online last week. Brent Simmons comments on this and the negative aura it is producing.

And along with the rest of the US economy, Apple shares are now down to about $127.

Enter your search terms Submit search form