Death to the Clickwheel – Another Tuppenny’s Worth on The Event tomorrow
Posted by Dave in Apple, Opinions, Rumours, iPod and iPhone, tags: AppleTV, iLife, iPod, iPod Touch, Opinion, RumoursHowdy folks, since Ginger has decided to not allow me to trade in rumours & speculation anymore on the podcast 
(except where I get a patent story in) I have decided to throw in my few cents as to what presents I believe Uncle Steve will be showing us tomorrow. So here we go :
Firstly as the title of this post suggests tomorrow will see the introduction of a new iPod Nano (Touch) with a 1.7 inch touchscreen which is about the size of the screen from the 2nd gen Nano. This is obviously based on the stories broken by Macrumors showing pics from a Chinese accessory manufacturer of a new case for this device & the pic of the 1.7 inch display, also an AppleInsider story with render of what it should look like . This along with the introduction of a 32, 64 & 128GB iPod Touch with features close to those found on iPhone4 (Retina Display for 64 & 128GB model but Facetime for all of them) will mean the dropping of the iPod Classic I believe & the death of the clickwheel. With that, the iPod OS will be no more on all display based iPods running on iOS going forward, the Shuffle will remain for now to cover the lower end of the market.
Secondly, there will be an update to iTunes to allow it to be more social as per AppleInsider but it will not go to the cloud yet as the data centre in North Carolina is not due to go live till January 2011 as per comment from Tim Cook (COO) during last quarterly analyst call. There is also a rumour going that iTunes song previews will be extended from 30 secs to a min (will they allow that on a 2min 30 sec song ?).
Thirdly, believe that iTV (UK naming rights pending ) or AppleTV revised will be previewed at the event, it is believed that this runs iOS (a headless iPod Touch effectively) as originally broken in an Engadget story here , will be compatible with existing iOS apps in the store & can be controlled via an iPod Touch or iPhone using acclerometer or even a remote (Magic Wand here we go) . Looking to get one of these myself.
As for a far out idea of what I think could also be introduced, I started thinking about the invite being in the shape of a guitar & realised it reminded me of the the electric guitar icon used for GarageBand, so I’m gonna throw out a mad thought that iLife 2011 will be previewed with a new feature/app allowing you to create your own iTunes extras/LP features.
Finally, I’m also hoping as per the current IMP episode panel that iTunes 10 is introduced, written to be Cocoa native with improved performance & media management capabilities.
Will sign off now & look forward to tomorrow.
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