Blogitech from Chris Maddern

So, Steve’s taken the stage and done his bit. Now it’s up to us to spend the next 3-5 days marveling at the design brilliance of Apple and how they’ve changed our lives before settling back down in to the (not unimpressive) reality that they’ve just re-engineered an existing solution to be intuitive and look very nice.

This may not be the case this time; all of the updates announced today are relatively subtle. iTunes 8 is a good for-instance. I installed it full of hopes. It looks basically the same in the frame. The new view is nice, but for the first ten minutes made my machine (QX6800, 4GB) hang in a manner briefly reminiscent of installing Crysis on my pre-QuadCore machine.

Read it all..

I found out over on TUAW that the iPhone App Air Sharing is available free for the next week (ish). Air Sharing allows your iPhone (or Touch) to become a wireless drive for your PC / Macintosh.

I know that I for one am heading over to download it now.

(about 1 1/2 hours to go!)

Okay, so it’s only a few hours until Apple’s Let’s Rock event.

Personally, I can’t wait to see what Apple come out with but there’s a lot of rumours and supposition.

The iPod Nano is expected to be updated in both design and storage capacity.

The iPod Touch is most likely going to retain it’s specs to allow for a price drop to compete with the subsidised iPhone.

A major version release of iTunes (iTunes 8) is expected bringing a few new features; among which is the ‘Genius’ feature to allow for smart playlist generation; perhaps a feature that could be more useful if iTunes ever adopt a subscription model. But most exciting is a rumour that I’ve heard (semi-reliable source) that suggests the newest version of iTunes will be coded to be truly Vista-compliant and not just an XP version that has been hacked together to work; i.e. no more rediculously slow operation!

There’s been lots of talk of Mac Book updates; I doubt we’ll see anything on the pro side, but an Air update is probably round about due now (unless they choose to wait for the new Intel processors next year beginning) and the Mac Book vanilla may see an update now in time for Xmas.

I think the key to remember is ‘Consumer’. This event will most likely be about the consumer ranges in order to drive excitement (read: sales) for Xmas.

More to come…

(photo courtesy of engadget)

WWDC’s on. Steve Jobs is on stage, and I forgot and went ahead and made an appointment for 7!!! Argh… so I’m now off out to F5 Engadget on my iPhone in a bar instead! :p.

Here’s hoping that whatever new iPhone they announce will be available in Apple stores to be cracked like old 1.0 because I definitely want! Oh yeah… did I mention… I picked up an Air and it’s amazing! I’ll be sure to post more on that soon!

Finally, new Giggle screenshots of the redesign soon: watch this space!!

 

Chris

It would seem that the Python Source Code to the popular game ‘Eve’ has been leaked on the internet.

While apparently downloaders of the Eve Source utilizing torrent links are being banned, there is a MegaUpload link from which I’ve heard no such rumours.

You can find it over at: REMOVED
(hit up your favourite torrent site if you’re feeling brave)

Remember; you heard it here first! Unless CCP is asking!

Chris

It seems with the loss of Veronica Belmont that Mahalo Daily is in search of a new presenter to run it’s daily ‘interest’ show. Although in true ‘Calacanis’ style, they’re not just interviewing; they’re creating a full-blown web2.0 event out of it - aptly named ‘Mahalo Idol’.

Auditionees are invited to come to the Mahalo HQ to complete their audition, however for people outside of LA, there is the option to make a 1 minute mini-clip of a Mahalo-style episode. This should create a barrage of interesting (and amusing) content for us viewers and apparently even the auditions themselves will be streamed live.

So, if you’re female and think you’re up to the challenge of becoming a Veronica replacement, pop over to Mahalo Idol and try your hand at filling her formidable boots!

Chris

Edit: Event over: it was interesting, and I agree with Andrew Keen’s views although he didn’t come across very well and was destroyed by some Mahalo staff who pointed out the nonfactual nature of some of the ‘facts’ in his book.

Jason has Andrew Keen on his uStream for a lunch interview. It should be a good view.

Find it over at:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/jason-calacanis

Chris