It’s Only Rock and Roll!

Apple held their special media event, “It’s Only Rock & Roll but we Like It”.   A standing ovation was given to Steve Jobs who has just returned from serious illness.  He said he’s happy to be ‘vertical’ and enjoying being back at Apple every day.

iPod market

Apple boasted their market share stats with the pleased Apple fan crowd.

As well, Apple reported that over 50% of iPod customers these days are first-time iPod owners, not return customers.

And what’s the faster growing iPod?  iPod touch. Why?  More on Apple keynote: iPod & iTunes updates

Apple store unveils the new iPod shuffle

New iPod shuffle: Its shiny – and its tiny!

Now nearly only half the size of the previous iPod shuffle. Minute!

“I like a small player, but 1Gb just wasn’t enough”

Don’t worry, the new iPod shuffle is now 4GB, or 1,000 songs.

“Wow, it’s so small. How will my fingers work the buttons?”

Don’t worry, the controls are now on the earphone cord (no mic).

And if you ever have one of those moments when you’re not sure which song is playing, then the new VoiceOver on the shuffle might appeal to you.

The revolutionary new VoiceOver feature enables iPod shuffle to speak your song titles, artists and playlist names.

And it also now has playlist function. Available in silver and grey. Check it out for yourself at AppleAU store:

It’s pretty cute, but I’m not sure I wouldn’t lose it on the first outing, even with the little wearable clip! Yeh, I’m clumsy.

Where to find a review?

Check out this review by ars technica.

Previous iPod shuffle (and colours)

If you prefer the colourful iPod shuffles, they’re still available at the Apple store, but who knows for how long.

Start the uni semester by making some money

Well, a rebate actually!

If you’re a student (or a parent of a student) attending university or some other higher education institution, or even a teacher or a lecturer, then you can get a $179 rebate from Apple. (Offer available until 13 Apr 09)

“How?”

If you buy a qualifying MacBook or iMac AND an iPod nano or iPod touch, you’ll qualify for the Apple rebate.  But you’ve got to buy them before 13 April 2009.

So, if you’re in the market for a new Mac it just makes sense, right?

After all, isn’t student life about seizing every opportunity?

Check out the full details on the Apple Back to School 2009 page.

Apple and your life, I mean iLife

iLife: Do more with photos, movies & music”

Apple announced updates to their iLife software at Macworld.

iPhoto 09

You can now organise your photos by faces and places based on who appears in them and where they were taken.

-> Sort by Faces

Like Facebook tagging, add names to your photos. iPhoto now has face recognition, so it will search your photo database for the same face and add name tags to those photos. You confirm that they’re correct.

-> Sort by Places – Geotag mapping

Works if your camera or smartphone (or um iPhone) has the ability to GPS geotag where your photos are taken. Otherwise you can click on an event, add a name/location.

-> Built in Facebook and Flickr support

If you upload a photo to Facebook and tag it (or others tag it), that gets synced back to iPhoto. With Flickr, the geotags can be shared with your Flickr friends.

Garageband

New features, including learn to play guitar and piano tutorials. You can even purchase separate lessons done by artists – where they teach you to play some of their famous songs.

Purchase iLife 09

iLife 09 is available now for full purchase or upgrade from Apple online.

Related:

• Apple Hot News
• Gizmodo iPhoto video tour
• More Macworld 09 news – iTunes
• More Macworld 09 news – iWork
• CNET recap of Apple keynote @ Macworld