It’s looking likely that the big Apple iPod/iTunes-related event is to happen on September 9, which is in line with previous years’ rollouts of new iPods. But September 9 is an interesting choice for an Apple event this year as it also coincides with a product rollout that could easily eclipse anything even remotely insanely great that Apple could pull out of the hat. September 9 is the day that The Beatles release its Rock Band video game as well as remastered CDs of its catalog (check out the Amazon Beatles store for all the goodies; also, if you’ve not been hit with the hype yet, check out this story from last weekend’s NYTimes Magazine about how the Beatles are entering the 21st century via a video game).

And thus begins the resurgence of hopeful rumors that the Apple event will also tie in with the Beatles event and finally bring digital distribution of the band’s catalog to the iTunes store. This Beatles-to-iTunes rumors has been one of the longest running bits of wishful thinking in the Apple wing of the gadgetosphere–I can even date it back to an early post I did for this blog (when it was named Current and before I formalized the weekly news roundup into Bites) back on November 27, 2006. (Additionally, that post also includes the other white whale of Apple watchers–the Mac tablet PC.)

Some of the more sure-footed rumors surrounding the Apple event include new iPod touch and iPod nano models with cameras, a new version of iTunes that looks to include integration with Facebook, and the new code-named Cocktail digital album format that will include lyrics, videos and more. Another item that’s almost a sure thing is non-appearance of the iTablet/iTouch tablet-ized Mac, as it’s expected to be announced/released in 2010.

• Speaking of the iPod, Joachim Bean at TUAW found that Apple’s online store was selling the first-generation, click-wheel, 5 GB iPod from 2001 (I still have mine in mothballs somewhere). Bean ordered the model, but was disappointed to learn that Apple wasn’t going to fulfill that order (not unexpected, as this was probably just an online glitch). Instead, it was sending him a 2nd generation 10 GB model (wholly unexpected–who knew that Apple still had these around???).
• And should The Beatles finally get released in iTunes (or once you digitize the new remastered CDs for your iPod/iPhone), you can recapture some of the glory of ye olde LP with the Vinyl DJ iPhone app (link opens iTunes), which can add crackle, scratch and hum noises to your tunes.
• Pocket-lint pulls together over 50 concept designs for the long-gestating iTablet that have been done over the years. Add a new one to the list (currently my favorite mock-up) from Mario Amaya based on the musings of Rainer Brockerhoff.

  

• Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster believes that Apple will release a new Apple TV in the next several months with TV-input and DVR capabilities and an actual Apple HDTV within the next two years (via The Apple Blog). And CNet’s Crave blog salivates over the potential for using one of Apple’s currently shipping products in conjunction with such an iHDTV:
  

  Even with a built-in Apple TV box and a big, shiny Apple logo, the iHDTV would barely rate a “ho-hum” from jaded tech reviewers like myself. Nope, the real coolness and opportunity for innovation would be the seamless integration of a high-powered, Web-enabled touch-screen remote control–especially one 48 million people already own. Like, say, an iPhone.

• If you’re ready to break your Apple TV out of its monogamous relationship with iTunes, The Apple Blog posts a rather simple procedure for XBMC (aka, XBox Media Center) and Boxee to reach maximum streaming video potential.

  

• TomTom’s GPS navigation iPhone app was officially released this week (via Consumer Reports), with versions for the U.S. and Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

• Some other iPhone apps on the horizon via The Apple Core–Facebook 3.0 with a new interface (but no push notifications till v3.1) and an official Wikipedia app (though the free Wiki Tap does just fine for me).
• Back on August 15, 1998, the original iMac with the rounded translucent case (and a 4 GB hard drive) started shipping (via Apple Matters)

• And finally… a DIY project for this weekend via Lifehacker–making a dock for my iPhone 3GS from its box contents (rather than spending $49 for Apple’s universal dock)

–Agen G.N. Schmitz

After fulfilling my civic duty with a several-week stint on jury duty and being away from the daily check-ins on Apple news, I started back in on my daily Apple news review this week and found that we’re still no closer to the release of the magical iTouch/iTablet. Despite some promising rumors pointing to the possibility of the long-rumored portable tablet device getting announced in conjunction with Apple’s annual September roll-out of new iPod models, Apple writers/bloggers John Gruber and Jim Dalrymple (both well sourced in the rumor department) are certain that it won’t be at the September event and that we won’t be seeing the iTablet until 2010 at the earliest. And that sounds about right to me, based on the fact that Apple likes to focus on one theme per event and, as Wired’s Gadget Lab notes, an early 2010 announcement event timed around the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) would be an attention grabber.

So, what will the September digital music event bring (currently rumored for the week of September 7)? We should see new iPod nano and iPod touch models with integrated cameras (another case manufacturer has leaked next-generation case models that seems to confirm the camera presence, seen at right), and possibly see a price reduction in the iPod touch to match the upcoming Microsoft Zune HD. Additionally, we’ll probably be introduced to Apple’s new interactive album scheme that’s been codenamed Cocktail, which “will feature interactive material, including photos, lyric sheets, liner notes and clips from music videos” (and which will now compete with a new digital album format called CMX that will be offered by the big four music labels… get ready for another music format battle). The next version of iTunes (v.9) will also get released, and there’s expectation that it will add Blu-ray Disc support (and possibly connectivity to social networking sites).

• There’s been a bit of chatter this week that the release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard has been moved up from its original September launch timeframe to the end of August, with MacNN reporting some books about Snow Leopard (such as the Mac OS X Snow Leopard Bible) getting their release dates adjusted accordingly. Speaking of Snow Leopard books, 9to5Mac lists its top 5 guides to Snow Leopard, which includes the aforementioned Bible as well as titles by David Pogue and Robin Williams. (For those who might find Pogue’s 1000-page tome a bit much, might I suggest my colleague Jeff Carlson’s Snow Leopard Pocket Guide, which clocks in at just a quarter of Pogue’s page count and is meant to get you moving quickly through the new OS.)
• The mobile video sharing service Qik released its official iPhone app (it had been available for jailbroken iPhones), which allows you to directly upload videos to Facebook, Twitter as well as the Qik web site. However, it’s not as full-featured as some had hoped: it’s relegated to use only over Wi-Fi, it works only with iPhone 3GS models, and it doesn’t do live streaming video–only uploads (via Ars Technica and Lifehacker).
• According to an industry study, iPhone 3GS users are far more satisfied with their purchase (at 99%) than Palm Pre owners (87%).
• I don’t commute very far, but during my jury duty when took the bus to downtown Seattle and used my iPhone 3GS for primary communication during the day, I began to understand the many complaints about battery life–I’d be nearly out of juice by the time I returned home each day (and that was without push notifications turned on or heavy multimedia playback). If I were doing more day-to-day traveling with my iPhone, I’d seriously consider the Mophie Juice Pack battery extender, which gets a positive review over at The Apple Core blog.
• The next version of Microsoft’s Mac Office is slated to be released in late 2010, and it will replace the Entourage email program with Outlook, which will offer improved connection to Microsoft Exchange for corporate users as well as provide a slimmed down email database that should work better with both Spotlight search and Time Machine backups.
• According to AppleInsider, Netflix might offer its Watch Instantly streaming video service to iPhone/iPod touch users (as well as to the Nintendo Wii).
• If you’ve got an iMac or Apple Cinema Display, check out the BackPack shelf that attaches to the back of the pedestal–perfect for an external hard drive or even a Mac mini (via SwissMiss)
• The Apple Blog offers some handy suggestions on additional System Preferences that can make your Mac life a happier one–including the one-two video punch of Perian and Flip4Mac, which brings Windows Media Video and host of other codecs to your viewing pleasure.
• And finally… a use for the craptastic headphones that come with iPods and iPhones from my new favorite time-wasting site, There, I Fixed It:

  

–Agen G.N. Schmitz

The fallout from the recent ejection of Google Voice from the iPhone App Store has a new twist:  now the FCC’s getting involved.  Though it’s nothing more than a simple inquiry and not a formal investigation, the FCC has served Apple and Google both with letters asking about the nature of the conflict, the reasons for the Google Voice app rejection, and for insight into the process of approving and rejecting apps.

There’s two sides to this inquiry business.  Personally, I come down on the side of this being a very good thing, though admittedly perhaps for the wrong reasons.  Specifically, the inquiry will hopefully lead to at least a little more transparency in how apps get approved or rejected.  Back when the iPhone App Store first opened, developers joked about the seemingly random approval process for getting applications into the store.  Now, as the iPhone radically gains market share and inspires developers to expend real time and sweat and financial resources in a heavily competitive environment, no one’s laughing anymore.  Frustrated developers (and consumers) are beginning to abandon the platform as their inquiries about rejection and request for useful feedback go completely ignored–since there’s no way whatsoever to know in advance if your app is going to be accepted, expending serious development resources on the iPhone begins to look more and more like a bad bet.

Regardless of whether the FCC’s involvement results in the reacceptance of Google Voice-related apps, the FCC storming Apple’s white towers may result in a little more visibility in how not to waste one’s time developing for the platform–and that’ll result in more and better competition, meaning the consumer wins.

However, the flip side of this is that Apple simply doesn’t owe the developers or the public anything of the sort.  Currently, nobody in Cupertino seems to be breaking any actual laws.  Exercising bad judgement, maybe–annoying a great deal of developers and consumers, definitely–but not doing anything they’re not allowed to do by law.  As Sascha Seagan of PC Magazine points out, there’s no potential monopoly here, at least not right now.  Apple doesn’t have a majority in the smartphone market, and they’re not preventing Google from continuing to sell products on other platforms.  And while it would be great to have Google Voice on the iPhone, and while it doesn’t make sense that it was rejected while other VOIP apps are still available, such decisions are down to Apple’s business acumen and not a federal agency:


Of all the questions the FCC is asking Apple and AT&T, the only one
they could remotely have an interest in is whether AT&T is barring
VoIP applications from being used over its network. But then there’s no
reason for the FCC to go plumbing around in Apple’s
application-approval policies; they could just ask AT&T about VoIP
and be done with it.





The FCC’s interference here could actually help Apple, by making its approval process more transparent and thus more appealing. But why should the FCC stop with Apple? There
are lots of problems to be solved. Why doesn’t the FCC work to speed up
the Windows Mobile version releases, or program a new browser for the
BlackBerry OS? That’s basically what’s happening here: The government
is taking a company’s legitimate business weakness and literally making
a federal case out of it.  (full article)

What do you think?  Will the FCC jumping into the fray mean better selection for consumers and a more transparent iPhone development process, or are they interfering unnecessarily?  Let us know in the comments.

–Aric A.

Apple’s not-so-transparent iPhone app approval process might be getting the company into more than just a PR problem. It started earlier in the week with Apple rejecting a Google Voice app (created, it should be noted, not by Google but by an outside developer, who has now offered it as a free app to jailbreakers), and after loud roars of disapproval from the gadgetosphere the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chimed in on Friday that it was sending letters of inquiry into the matter.

You can be excused if you’re not familiar with Google Voice, as it’s still a relatively new service that’s still in beta and is available on a limited invitation basis. Essentially, it enables you to link several phone numbers to one portable number as well as provides free text messaging and voice mail transcription; Lifehacker has a good rundown of the service and whether it’s for you. Michael Arrington at TechCrunch is such a fan of Google Voice that he’s written his GBCW to the iPhone as he moves on to an Android OS phone, which offers a Google Voice app. (I applied for an invite and was just sent one last week, but a hefty jury duty stint has prevented me from exploring it.)

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball says that a “reliable little birdie” told him that AT&T requested the kill order for the app (as it would, for instance, interfere with its ability to charge exorbitant rates for text messaging), but AT&T has come out with an official statement of denial. Dan Moren at Macworld argues that this whole kerfuffle is more than just rejecting the Google Voice app–with Apple’s opaque and inconsistent approval process potentially stifling innovation or, at minimum, persuading developers to create apps for other platforms.

• If you haven’t synced your iPhone in awhile, this weekend’s a good time to do it as Apple has released a small security-focused update to the iPhone software (iPhone OS 3.0.1; see support details here) that responds to the discovery of a vulnerability to hacking via SMS text messaging
• As Aric mentioned earlier this weekend, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard in its various iterations (solo, family pack, bundled with iLife and iWork, and server version) are now available for pre-order.
• The Apple Blog offers a couple tips on how to beat the heat on the underside of your MacBook.
• Apple’s Time Capsule got bumped up in capacity to 2 TB this week (via Ars Technica among others), with the current 1 TB model lowered in price to a more reasonable $300.
• TechRadar lists its 12 most essential games for the iPhone/iPod touch, with Bejeweled 2 coming in at the top. (I was addicted to Bejeweled on my old Treo–to the point I would have Bejeweled dreams–and I made a promise to myself to never get close to it on my iPhone.)
• Apple released its free iDisk app (link opens in iTunes) this week (the app is free, but you still have to be a subscriber to the MobileMe service), which allows you access to files stored in the MobileMe cloud–including audio and video streaming. TUAW, Gizmodo and iLounge have some initial looks at the app
• Rumor mill: According to the Financial Times, Apple is in talks with the big four music labels (EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music Group) to develop a new kind of digital album with interactive booklet apps and more to help save the music industry. The effort has been given the code name of “Cocktail,” and the players are working to have it ready for launch by September when the new slew of iPods are typically released. The FT also notes that Apple is hoping to release its iTablet by Christmas.

  

• Eye-Fi–maker of Wi-Fi-enabled SD memory cards–has a new offering called the 2 GB Eye-Fi Geo that allows you to geotag your photos (for adding location information for the Places feature in iPhoto ‘09) in addition to transferring them wirelessly to your Mac. And it’s currently only available from Apple. For more details, check out this overview by Wi-Fi guru Glenn Fleishman over at TidBITS.

• And finally… someone caught a thin Steve Jobs and puffed-up Jonny Ive doing their best two-man impersonation of the Reservoir Dogs stroll around the Apple campus (on an iPhone naturally) and sent it to Hollywood gossip site TMZ.

–Agen G.N. Schmitz

As of midnight EST last night, you can now pre-order Snow Leopard at Amazon.com.  The hotly-anticipated new version of OS X, with native Exchange support and 64-bit versions of its most popular applications, is set to be released in September–but you can get ahead of the pack by pre-ordering the Upgrade version, the Family Pack, the Server version, or one of the Box Sets.

Among the new features of Snow Leopard are better multicore support and the latest versions of iLife applications (Garageband, iCal, iChat, etc.) and Safari 4.  New technology in this version of OS X includes Quicktime X, a version of Quicktime with improved playback and codec support, and OpenCL, a framework that can efficiently split application processes between multi-core CPUs and video hardware.  Learn more about what’s new in OS X here.

Apple’s made an interesting choice with their aggressive pricing on this new version.  With Windows 7 just around the corner and collecting mostly positive buzz, Cupertino’s value proposition of getting the latest version of their OS for under $30 is a pretty sharp move.  They’ve made strong gains in the shadow of the flop that was Windows Vista, more than doubling their market share since the Intel chip transition, but with the landscape about to become truly competitive again, Apple will have to stay on their toes to preserve those gains.  If they can sell the idea that you shouldn’t pay the price of a new OS for what amounts to a service pack, they’ll have a strong angle come launch when the comparisons between Snow Leopard and Windows 7 begin in earnest.

If you’re ready to make the upgrade, or are considering making the switch to the new OS X, check out our pre-orders on Snow Leopard at Amazon.com today.

–Aric A.