The new shuffle sports an even thinner design

Yep, it’s all here.  Apple has released a new iPod Shuffle, and this time it’s even smaller.  Yes, that’s right even smaller and with 4GB of storage!  How do they do it?  Remove the controls!  Yes, it seems crazy, but you know those new apple headphones, the ones with the controls on the cord?  Those are the controls.  Yep, you’ll find more on the website, but if you want to know my opinion, I think it can be good in a few ways, and bad in a few ways.  But overall, I think that it’s a great move.  And, if it turns out that the product is a flop, its not like apple can’t take the blow.  They already have millions of piles of money! However, I’m still a big fan of the iPod nano. Just sayin’

P.S. Didn’t apple just go all colorful with the shuffles? Why back to black and white?

Just thought that I would check in with you guys for October. Lets break out the bullet points and get started then.

1. Nick, my new partner in crime and new blogger, is having some trouble connecting to WordPress, so you may now see any posts by him for a while.
2. Notice the orange for Halloween!
3. I may be a little slow on news, just because school takes up a lot of time.
4. The Video Gallery was brought back this month and has a new www.ipodgoogleandmore.wordpress.com/video

That’s just about it, nothing major, but still stuff i thought i would point out.

Apples New Macbooks

In the Series Jobsnote I talk about all that happened at that big Apple Keynote. This 2 part series focuses on the October 14th, 2008 Event. This is the first post.

Well, October 14th has passed and Apple has released their new line of macbooks. And let me tell you, they look spiffy. I mean really really spiffy.

Design

Apple has made a winner with these new Macbooks, with aluminum enclosures and large glass screens they look beautiful. Apple has also added a new uni-body enclosure, meaning that the enclosure is made of one piece of aluminum, meaning that they can be thinner and sleeker. The new ‘books also feature a glass trackpad that’s super big, features multi-touch and the entire thing is a button, so less real-estate is taken up. But, don’t get me wrong about the whole thing being the button, this ain’t no tap, the entire track pad is actually a big button on all four corners and the center, so its flexible glass. Also, some indicators, such as the battery indicator and the sleep indicator are now easily located.

Hardware

The new Macbooks now feature Nividia Graphics and more horsepower, so they run faster. Also, the Pros are armed with TWO graphics cards. Both have an easily removable cover to access the Hard Drive and battery. And, to wrap it all up, the new Macbooks now come with a Super Drive as the default configuration.

Pricepoint

The new Macbook starts at just $1,299.00 and they are selling the older white version now for only $999. The Mackbook Pros start at $1,999.00 and they are selling the older 17-inch version for $2,799.00.

So, overall, way to go Apple with the new looks and hardware, but I don’t think sales with go up nor down, because the price points were basically kept the same, if not raised a bit. Join me next time when I talk abount the new cinema Displays.

Best Buy and Apple have been in a pretty close relationship since the big double B became and authorized reseller. So, when Best Buy launched its Best Buy Express Vending Machines, guess who was first in line?

That’s right folks, Best Buy has small kiosks where you can buy small gadgets on the go and an iPod of your choice. Now, me being a huge Apple fan, I know when enough is enough. Now, it’s not totally crazy, I do like the idea. But IPODS?

Best Buy, think about it, have you ever wanted an ipod at random points in your life, say at the airport? Nope, didn’t think so. And when you don’t think so, ususally your customers have the same thinking to. However, I do happen to like the idea. So, whats your opinion? Crazy or Not? Be sure to comment.

Thats one thing about speculation, you are either dead right or dead wrong. This time around, Engadget and other sites were right yet again.

As it turns out, like predicted, Apple will release some new Notebooks on October 14th. Now comes the post-sepculating speculations. Now that we know that the event exists, what will come from it. Notebooks we know for sure and some other things people have guessed:

1. New All-Metal design for all Macbooks
2. Touch gestures for all Macbooks
3. An $800 Macbook (It took them long enough)

So, of those three would anyone like to add in? Come on, don’t be shy, people have been mega wrong in the past, or thought to have been mega wrong, but as it turns out have been right. So, in simple forms, anything could happen.

Well, last night Nintendo had a small press release where they announced a slap in the face to Apple, or as they like to call it, the DSi. Yes, folks, Nintendo wasn’t going to take that new marketing strategy (Steve Jobs’ Note To Self: Advertise iPod Touch as gaming device) by Apple sitting down. So, they released the DSi. With a new interface supporting an on-line download store (Like the Wii Shop Channel) and a photo channel to, of course, hold all those photos and videos taken by your new DSi’s TWO cameras.

Yes, folks the DSi packs TWO cameras, one on the front and one where the microphone is in the center of the device. It also sports an SD card slot, bigger screens, internal memory and a slimmer design.

But, how did they get it slimmer, you say? By taking out that good ol’ GBA slot.

Image via Joysitq

Yep, folks, with the new DSi, GBA games will not be compatible via Catriage form (So that means no more GH: On Tour). However, it has been speculated that GBA games will be downloadable via the DSi Store.

The new DSi is hitting Japan on November first for about $180 US Dollars. However, it is not expected to hit the US until next holiday season. Bummer.

So, overall the new DSi is good and bad in some ways. What do you think? Tell us in the comments. The new DSi: Good or bad?

Oh, and one more thing, we all know that nintendo did some major innovating when taking the i from iPod Touch and putting it next to the DS name, it put it in the back instead of the front! Way to go! Major Innovation!

Being the dedicated blogger I am, I took a huge risk and downloaded Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 to give you guys an honest review, and here it is. Microsoft has definitely taken a turn down the road of betterness with IE8 since IE6 (Sheesh, that thing was terrible). So anyway, I won’t give a full review until it is out of beta, but so far, it’s looking good.

Faster

IE8 is defiantly more faster than IE7. Lets face the truth, loading up IE7 was complete hell, but IE8 is super fast (About as fast as Google Chrome, and, yes, faster than Firefox 3). Also, Microsoft has made some tweaks to make loading pages faster and defiantly offers much more to actually be next to Firefox 3 and Chrome, if not ahead, in the browser race.

Personalization

IE8 offers a ton of personalization without being too cluttered like Firefox can get, or to simple, like Chrome can seem sometimes.

1. Favorites- Microsoft has finally added a Favorites bar that Firefox has had for a while a long with Safari. This is more of a catch-up than a threat to other services.
2. Suggested Sites- Microsoft is issuing a direct threat to Stumble Upon with this feature. The Suggested Sites sits nicely in your Favorites bar, like a constantly refreshing folder. It watches your browsing and suggests sites that you might like. Definitely a threat to Stumble Upon.
3. Accelerators- I haven’t gotten a chance to use this much, but what it does is it takes elements from web pages and uses web resources to use them more efficiently. Fore example, someone emails you a time, date and place through email for a dinner date, you can use an accelerator to add that date to your calendar and find a route to the place where you should meet. Sounds nifty.
4. Web Slices- Web slices let you add links to slices of web pages to your Favorites bar. It’s kinda like how apple allows you to make web clips and put them on yoru dashboard. Deafinatly a threat to Apple, but not as good as of a threat.

So, really those are all the highlights. If you want to download it or find out more go to http://tinyurl.com/Internet8.

Update: My computer crashed and wouldn’t start up so I did a system restore and now I have to insall some updates again and lost some programs. This may be related to Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2. I’m going to create a system restore point and try installing it again and see what happens. For the time being, stay away.

There has been all that talk about Google’s Android Phone over the summer (enough to clog my feed reader). Well, it’s finally f here. Yep, you heard me. Also, by the time this post was ready to go out into the blog, the dang thing sold out when it was in Pre-Order. Ever heard of anything doing that?

Well, anyway, the device is from T-Mobile and it is called the G1 (Google 1,

implying that there will be versions to follow like the G2 or G3). I have to say, the dang thing looks pretty good, except that it looks very very thick in photos.

So, the hardware seems rather fat and clunky (Remind you of anything?).

Now, what about the software? As far as I am concerned, it looks pretty spiffy and cleaned up.

iPhone, you better watch your shiny, new 3G back, because, yes, this is a battle cry from those down in the Google Headquarters. They want war.

Along with iTunes 8, the new ipods and the 2.1 software update came a feature built in called the genius. The main genius is located in iTunes 8 and is used for giving you reccomendations from the iTunes store when you have selecetd a song, or making you a playlist with similar songs. Here is how it works:

1. iTunes Syncs Information about you library weekly to apples Genius Servers
2. From the Genius servers, thousands of results are generated and send back down to iTunes
3. The Genius results are used to build recommendations and create Genius Playlist with songs similar to one song. They are also synced to iPods that support Genius so you can use Genius on the go.
4. As more and more libraries are synced, the genius learns about new music and adds it to its Server of info.

It is a great service and works almost-perfectly. The only flaws are:

1. Genius is not really that smart, yet. About 1/2 of my library can’t be registered within genius because Genius has not yet larned about those albums.
2. The sad part about the above is that that 1/2 consists of mostly iTunes Store purchased music

Those are really the only complaints I have. Other than that it is a great service. To learn how to use the genius, go here. That about wraps it up for this years September Jobsnote, so until next time. Goodbye!