Apple’s iPad Event (Apple TV?) – Summary of Expectations

With the event looming, now only 13 hours away, what can we expect from the event?

Apple has kept a lot secret this round, but there are certain things we all know:

• There will be a new iPad announcement (whether the iPad 3 or the iPad HD we don’t know for sure)
• There will be some sort of Apple TV announcement (with almost all stores completely out of stock, it’s all we can predict)
• Apple has been using up tons of transport over the past few weeks from China to the states

What can we expect?  There are a few likely outcomes:

• iPad 3 with a retina display of 2048×1536 (double that of the iPad 2)
• iPad 3 will have a quad core processor
• iPad 3 will have a 5 mega pixel camera with LED (maybe 8 mega pixel?)
• iPad 3 will probably support LTE
• iOS 5.1 (rumors are that the Gold Master passed QA)
• iPad 3 will have an HDMI port
• An updated Apple TV that supports HD video (1080p)
• Apple TV will stay at the sub $100 threshold (if so I’m buying one, again)
• Some announcement regarding Catalogs (Sears, JC Penny, LL Bean like catalogs — they are live on the Apple Store already)

Tags: Apple, Apple TV, HDMI, iPad 3, iPad HD, LTE

Gigabit WiFi: 802.11ac

In recent news (past few weeks) 802.11ac has been popping up quite frequently.

802.11ac is the emerging standard for gigabit wifi.  The standard is still a draft, but just like 802.11n, there are already products that support this “draft” standard.  802.11ac  will support up to 6.9Gbps (and in lesser forms down to 433Mbps).  It is sometimes being marketed as “5G” as the public has become used to the term.

Higher bit rates for 802.11ac tend to use multiple (up to antennas to get the full bandwidth.

Broadcom announced a full family of 802.11ac chipsets at CES.

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Tags: 5G, 802.11ac, 802.11n, Apple, Apple TV, Broadcom, iPad, iPhone, PCIe, USB, Wifi

Apple Phone Key to Apple TV Success

The Apple iPhone4 is the key to the success and imminence of the upcoming Apple TV (or iTV).

Everywhere you look online, it’s rumors about the upcoming Apple iTV.

Why is the Apple TV inevitable?

Other than it being mentioned by Steve Jobs in his biography as the next frontier for Apple, it’s just smart business.

There are 1.4 billion TV’s around the world.  On average a TV costs about $700.  That is an approximate market of about $1 trillion.

There are 5.3 billion mobile phones around the world.  The average mobile phone cost (to consumers) around $100.  That’s a market of $0.5 trillion.

With the average cable bill upwards of $75 a month, there is a huge gap for Apple to fill with it’s digital delivery.  Customers are abandoning cable more and more often because of the high cable bills, and the availability of alternatives.

In order to compete with Microsoft, who has sold 57.6 million XBox units, for the coveted “set top” position (center of the home theater) — Apple has to step up their game.  The AppleTV (in it’s current form, essentially an iTunes extender) has sold a paltry 2 million units (constantly referred to as a “hobby”).

Microsoft is competing via the XBox in bringing live programming, movie streaming, and even social media apps to the home theater.  Why hasn’t Apple struck yet?  They have the distribution network, they have the customer base, yet they have sold only 3.4% as many set top units as Microsoft.

They are waiting to get it right.

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Tags: 4x HD, 4xhd, Apple, Apple Phone, Apple TV, DVR, iTV, TV

New Apple TV Pictures Leaked?

I’m not lending any credibility to these pictures, for all I know they’re just doctored up — but everything happening recently has been leading to this.

I saw them at amnesiablog.com.

Check them out:

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Tags: Apple, Apple TV, Leak

Apple Releases iOS 4.3, Safari 5.0.4

Apple released iOS 4.3 today (except for Verizon iPhone users … grr)

Updates include:

• Personal Hotspot
• iTunes Home Sharing
• Airplay Updates (more interoperability between devices)
• Faster Safari (and also released a 5.0.4 for desktop users) – featuring the Apple Nitro Javascript engine — some results are up to 50% faster!
• HD Video out with the Apple adapter
• Few tweaks to settings

You can get it now, if you don’t have Verizon.  Guess I can’t ever be on the winning side of Apple.

I’m hoping the delay for 4.3 on Verizon iPhone isn’t too long — but no official word on that yet.

Also with the updates was an update for Apple TV today that aded some content as part of it’s iOS 4.3 update.

Tags: Apple, Apple TV, iOS, iPhone, Safari

Beatles, iTunes, iOS 4.2, Google Voice and Mobile Versions of Sites

Things have been happening very fast in the past week or 2, and wanted to review them.

Hopefully, I’ll be covering the following:

• Beatles on iTunes
• iTunes 10.1
• iOS 4.2 coming soon
• Google Voice
• Mobile versions of Sites

There’s a lot on my mind, and I haven’t written in a while.  Today I get to catch up.

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Tags: airplay, airprint, Apple, Apple TV, appletv, beatles, cufon, Google, Google Voice, iOS, iPad, iTunes, Javascript, Steve Jobs

Apple TV: Why I believe in It

I’ve had an Apple TV for about 3 or 4 years now.  The old one that is, and have been very happy with my purchase.  I know it wouldn’t have had a major impact being it costs about $300 and to be useful, requires the end user to be pretty saavy with the setup.  I think the new Apple TV is enough of a departure to possibly be a BIG thing.

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Tags: Apple, Apple TV, HDMI, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iTunes

iTunes 10 is Available, iPod/iOS/AppleTV updates!

I’ve been trying to download it all day, finally seeing it available at Apple.com.

Yesterday Apple announced some new features to iTunes 10, some new iOS builds (4.1 and 4.2), new iPod models, and a new Apple TV line.

I’m a big fan of the Apple TV, and am very excited to hear it’s getting an upgrade (and a huge price cut, I paid $300 and was happy to do so).  I may finally be able to have one on every TV in the house — without feeling guilty about it.

Apple TV has been the viewing platform of choice in our house on and off.  It’s so easy to rent a nice looking movie (sorry Netflix, but the quality is just much better on Apple in my opinion — but I love the free movies).  With the news that TV shows will be rentable, suddenly that $150 a month cable seems more optional than ever.

At $0.99 (the rumored price of renting a TV show) that’s 150 tv shows a month.  Bye bye cable!  If only you didn’t have my internet connection.

Tags: Apple, Apple TV, iOS, iOS 4.1, iOS 4.2, iPad, iPod, iTunes, iTunes 10, netflix