While it was leaked yesterday, the general public wasn’t able to get their hands on the latest version of Apple’s iTunes until today, with new features to boot.

The coolest feature by far, are the new Genius Playlists. What is a Genius Playlist you ask? Well, it’s a new feature that allows you to pick a song and then generates a playlist of similar songs. Pretty neat huh?

Some less exciting features include an all new grid view, HD TV shows, some new accessibility features for those hard of hearing, and a fancy new visualizer as you can see above.

But why listen to me? Apple has an official page up with all of the new features included in iTunes 8.

Tags: 8, Apple, Apple, iTunes, music, software

11:05AM PST Steve thanks the crowd for showing up. Nothing else did get mentioned after Jack’s performance. I guess that’s all folks! This was the “Let’s Rock” event from Apple. We have new iPods, new designs, new iTunes and new iPhone 2.1. We’ll be back for more “Let’s Rock” related news and video clips.

10:59AM PST It appears that’s all for today’s Apple event. Don’t forget we will analyze Apple’s iPods and iTunes later on. I’ll take a moment to thank Engadget, Gizmodo and Slashgear. Without them this virtual live coverage wouldn’t have been possible.

10:55AM PST Jack is doing his stuff. Let’s see what’s about to follow. In the mean time here’s a funny slide from earlier about Steve’s Jobs obituary.

10:52AM PST That was everything about the iPhone. Back to iTunes and iPods. 160 million iPods sold and the best male artist in iTunes history is Jack Johnson with over 60 million album sold.

10:49AM PST This Friday we’re going to see the iPhone 2.1 software update going live. Better battery life, fewer call drops, crashing problems solved, increased speed for iTunes backup and lots of bug fixes.

10:47AM PST Steve is back on the stage. No change in capacity for the iiPod touch, exactly as it was suspected. 8GB for $229, 16GB for $299, and 32GB for $399. And they are all available today. The new touch will get you 36hrs music or 6hrs video.

10:46AM PST Need for Speed is another cool game which will be available in November. That’s what I would play on my iPhone.

10:44AM PST You have an overlaid D-Pad and A/B buttons on the screen to control the game. I feel we need an iClean device to get the iPhone/iPod cleaned after playing a game.

10:42AM PST Real Soccer 2009 is a football/soccer game which is shipping today.

10:38 AM PST After Steve Jobs demoed the Genius system on the new touch, Phil Shiller came on the stage to demo some new games. Spore: Origins is the first to be discussed.

10:34AM PST The App Store: 100 million downloads in 60 days. 700 games are available right now and the store is accessible in 62 countries so far.

10:33AM PST It has b/g WiFi and the AppStore. UI has been improved with better album artwork and Nike+ integration (inside the device, not a separate dongle).

10:31AM PST iPod touch is the next one. It has a new casing. Contured stainless steel, same display, but this touch is thinner. The profile is similar to the iPhone 3G but in metal. There are new volume controls on the side, a speaker and Genius autoplaylist creation of course.

10:29AM PST New headphones with control keys and a microphone will be available for $79 with three earbuds.

10:26AM PST Prices will be as follows: $149 for 8GB and $199 for 16GB and it will come in black, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, violet, red. The 8GB is available today while the 16GB next weekend.

10:25AM PST It will have a battery which will support 24 hours of continuous music play and 4hours of video play.

10:22AM PST The new nano will have a voice recording option, a calendar and a stopwatch. You can see full size album art and photos in coverflow. Shaking it will make it shuffle tunes

10:18AM PST The new iPod nano is confirmed. It looks like in the leaked pictures we’ve seen so far. It has the same height like the 2nd generation iPod nano. Aluminum casing with curved glass is there. It has the accelerometer and an enhanced UI.

10:17AM PST The iPod Classic will come in 120GB model replacing the 80GB and 160GB which will be discontinued. It will cost $249 like the Zune

10:16AM PST Microsoft has a 2.6% while Sandisk has 8.6%. Others total to 15.4%

10:15AM PST Let’s turn to iPods now. 73.4% market share in the US. With over 5,000 accessories, some of which get announced before they are supposed to.

10:11AM PST Steve is showing us how Genius works. Well I have a general idea of what I like, I don’t really need a system to tell me what I’d also like to listen to.

10:10AM PST A Genius sidebar will make recommendations from the iTunes store. Genius information will be sent to the cloud, to iTunes to feed them your music taste and to improve the whole system. All that will be done anonymously.

10:07AM PST Genius is used to intelligently create playlists and match songs that go well together.

10:05AM PST We’re going to get iTunes 8, which we were already expecting for.

10:03AM PST iTunes served over 8.5M songs, over 125,000 podcasts, over 30,000 TV shows, 2,600 movies and over 3,000 iPhone apps.

10:01AM PST Steve Jobs makes his entrance with jokes about his premature death. Exciting stuff will happen today. Let’s start with iTunes.

9:59AM PST Two black iMacs are on the stage, getting ready for the big show

9:55AM PST We are 5 minutes away from Apple’s “Let’s Rock” Event. We’re going to send your way detailed information about what’s going to happen. We’re virtually waiting for Steve Jobs to start his keynote.

Tags: Apple, Apple, event, ipod, Live, Mobile News, Mobile Software, MP3 Players, Other Brands

In what is going to be referred to as a human error, Apple managed to leak iTunes 8 long enough for a dude out there to download it. Probably more people did download it. In fact Apple, what the hell were you thinking? I’d imagine you are aware your site has lots of traffic from all over the world at any time of day. Which means that at any given time someone might find out about your technical difficulties.

But since iPhone 2.0 was also leaked before the launch I will go ahead and believe this was all intentional. Of course the Download Now button was removed after a while. It doesn’t matter anyway since we’re going to analyze iTunes 8 tomorrow anyhow.

Oh, and the guy who downloaded it isn’t sharing. I guess he fears an Apple reaction. Probably Apple is pissed off right now because he isn’t sharing his copy of iTunes 8!

via Gizmodo

Tags: Apple, Apple, iTunes, Mobile News, Mobile Software, Other Brands

If you happened to walk by a Best Buy store today and saw a line of people waiting for something but didn’t bother to check out what it was well then I’ll tell you. It was the iPhone 3G, which starting yesterday, is available from Best Buy too.

Let’s explore this a little bit. Best Buy is advertising the iPhone 3G with “regular price” and “instant savings” showing. Is this all a lie?

Well Best Buy has posters which will show you an iPhone 3G 8GB which costs only $199 after instant savings while the regular price is $599.99. The 16GB version will cost $299 after instant savings while the regular price is $799.99. In order to get the cheaper price you’d have to activate the phone. Guess who’s the carrier then?

I wonder if you can get any iPhone version for the regular price. That would make it an unlocked iPhone, wouldn’t it? If that’s not an option then why buy the device in Best Buy locations? One could simply go to an AT&T store and have the handset for the same price.

Any Best Buy customers who have purchased the iPhone 3G? Tell us how it went!

Tags: 3g iphone, Apple, BestBuy, Mobile News, Other Brands, unlocked

Indian carrier Bharti Airtel has come up with an Equal Monthly Installment scheme for the convenient purchase of the iPhone 3G. The new plan will be available to all VISA cardholders of ICICI bank, HDFC bank, SBI Cards and Citibank.

SBI and Citibank customers which have already purchased the iPhone can benefit from the plan? How would that happen? Well just go to your Bharti Airtel representative and ask around. The only thing you have to check is the iPhone purchase date. Purchases older than 10 days won’t qualify.

Will Bharti Airtel sell more iPhones with these EMI plans?

Tags: 3g iphone, airtel, Apple, bharti, india, Mobile News, Other Brands

iTunes 8 is at least as much awaited for as the new generation iPods. “Let’s Rock” will probably unveil the new platform and its features. An earlier leak told us about the Genius auto-playlist as well as support for a second generation iPod classic. We will wait for them to be confirmed in about two days from now. (more…)

Tags: 3g iphone, Apple, Apple, firmware, ipod, iTunes, Mobile News, Mobile Software, MP3 Players

Rogers initial plans for the iPhone 3G were sort of lame from the data point of view. They have been corrected as more and more Canadians were expressing their disapproval towards what the carrier came up with. And now a new iPhone plan has been created.
(more…)

Tags: 3g iphone, Apple, Canada, Mobile News, Rogers

Electronic Arts is getting ready to launch no less than 10 games for iPhone or iPod touch. EA sure wants some of those millions of customers to choose some of these games. (more…)

Tags: Apple, EA, iPhone, iPod Touch, Mobile Games, Mobile News, Mobile Software

If you are still stuck with a shackled iPhone 3G, you might want to know that the enterprising individuals of iPhone Dev Team have announced the availability of the new Pwnage Tool 2.0.3. Nothing much to it other than going on with its business of jailbreaking iPhones, with a few small improvements:

• .de localization for German users
• Beta installer app has been updated to beta
• Now supports iPhone and iPod Touch firmware 2.0.2 5C1

Head over to iPhone Dev Team’s blog or hit update if you already have an older version of the Pwnage Tool running. Keep in mind that this is for OSX only and for Windows, you could try the QuickPwn available from the same guys.
(more…)

Tags: Apple, Cell Phones, iphone 3g, iPod Touch, Pwnage tool

I’d like to be in any of the brain-storming meetings Apple’s employees go to. How else would they come up with all sorts of interesting ideas. We hear now that Apple wants to add voice and camera to multi-touch in an attempt to improve our gadgets experience.
(more…)

Tags: Apple, Apple, camera, Desktop PCs, Laptops, Mobile News, multi-touch, voice

Here’s another proof that in the USA anyone can sue anyone for anything. Watch out what you’re doing, who knows what you will be accused of. (more…)

Tags: Apple, Apple, At&T, At&T, iphone 3g, Mobile News

Steve Jobs wants to sell at least 10 million iPhones this year. With about 4 months to go, people are already counting handsets. A joint project between AFB and Investor Village’s Sanity board claims that Apple has already sold 8 million iPhones already.

The project counts IMEI numbers of every iPhone 3G already sold and records them on a spreadsheet. According to it 5,649,000 sold iPhone 3G have been counted. Adding to that the 2.4 million handsets already sold this year we get 8 million phones already.

2 million phones in 4 months… Can they do it?

Tags: Apple, Apple, iphone 3g, Mobile News, steve jobs

People say that Apple and China Mobile are almost finished with the negotiations regarding th iPhone 3G. There aren’t any official statements from any of the parties involved but it’s safe to presume Apple wants in the Chinese market as soon as possible.

How many China Mobile subscribers are going to pick up the device anyway? They can choose any iPhone clone for less money. The main concern is China Mobile’s 3G network which uses TD-SCDMA technology which isn’t compatible with the phone anyway.

Tags: 3g iphone, Apple, Apple, China, China Mobile, Mobile News

Come on Russia already, take the damn Apple phone! We’re tired of seeing leaked news and hear from dependable sources details about the official iPhone appearance in Russia. (more…)

Tags: 3g iphone, Apple, MegaFon, Mobile News, MTS, Russia

O2 has announced it will sell the iPhone 3G with a pay-as-you-go option starting with September 16th. Curious about prices? The 8GB version will sell for £350 or about $700 and the 16GB version will sell for £400 or about $800. Not that much of a difference between those two wouldn’t you say?

The next important issue is data right? After all that’s what makes the iPhone 3G special. For the first 12 months you will be offered unlimited WiFi, whatever that means. The default Sim will be linked to O2’s Favourite Place which means users will get free calls to other O2 mobiles or UK landlines. You can change pay as you go plans at any time.

Voice minutes come in different quantities depending on how much you’re willing to spend each month. 500 minutes come for a monthly £10-14 or $20-28, 1000 minutes come for a monthly £15-29 or $30-58 charge. Spending more than £30 or $60 in credit will get you unlimited minutes.

Tags: 3g iphone, Apple, Mobile News, O2, pay-as-you-go, payment solution

It appears Belkin is working on a JoyPad controller which would be available through the App Store when it’s ready. There’s no price or availability and I am not sure if this project will see the light of day.

There are no details on how such a JoyPad will work. It looks similar to the iControlPad we’ve seen in the past. Does the iPhone or iPod touch fit inside? What about the controls on the right? Is the screen going to shrink to allow virtual buttons on the right? Who would want that? After all whenever we’re playing games we want to take full advantage of a bigger screen.
We’ll have to wait and see if this information checks out or not.

via Engadget

Tags: 3g iphone, Apple, belkin, game controller, iPod Touch, Mobile News, Portable Devices

AT&T announced it will expand its iPhone international data plans. iPhone owners will be able to choose one of the two international plans and add them to their current plans.
(more…)

Tags: 3g iphone, Apple, Apple, At&T, international, Mobile News

Thaddeus Computing is the company behind iPhone Life which is the first print magazine dedicated to the iPhone. The first number will have about 100 pages of content and it will hit newsstands on September 9th. You will probably find it at airports, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Wal-Mart and other locations. Subscribing for $25 will get you all issues through 2010. That means at least 9 magazines if we count the first edition.
(more…)

Tags: Apple, Apple, iphone 3g, iphone life, iPod Touch, magazine, Mobile News, Mobile Software

The iPhone Dev Team does it again. We’ve seen the PwnageTool for jailbreaking the 2.0.2 iPhone firmware for Mac users the other day and now they have released the WinPwn 2.56 for the same 2.0.2 firmware.
(more…)

Tags: 3g iphone, Apple, Apple, iphone dev team, iPod Touch, Mobile News, Mobile Software, Pwnage tool, QuickPwn, WinPwn

Google is going to give Apple a run for its money. Like Apple’s App Store for the iPhone 3G and the iPhone touch, Google is going to have an Android Market which will be very similar. Future owners of Android devices will be able to purchase, download and install various applications from the Android Market.

T-Mobile is going to bring us the HTC Dream, the first Android cell phone but more are going to follow in 2009. That means the Android Market is going to have a guaranteed success and it might surpass in downloads the Apple App Store.

We don’t know any official dates for now but since the announcement has already been made we should assume things are going to be up and running soon.

Tags: Android Market, App Store, Apple, Google, Google, Mobile News, Mobile Software, T-Mobile, T-Mobile