Apple’s big news for the week is the iTunes Music Store, a commercial Internet music service, backed by the new iTunes 4 and redesigned iPods. We have early details of all three in this extra-large issue, along with a look at Palm’s Tungsten C and Zire 71 handhelds from Mark Anbinder, and oodles of advice for developers of Mac OS X software from Dan Frakes. Other news items include a second name change for Macworld Expo NY and improved iBooks.
Former Macworld Expo NY Renamed Again -- The Conference Formerly Known as Macworld Expo, which IDG World Expo announced would be called "Create," has endured another name change and now wishes to be known as "Macworld CreativePro Conference & Expo," although its friends will continue to call it "Nancy" (apologies to the Beatles)
Apple Quietly Updates iBooks -- Apple's entry-level laptop family received a minor refresh this week, picking up a speed bump and larger hard disks but little else
Apple today unveiled the iTunes Music Store, a commercial Internet music service featuring more than 200,000 tracks from the five largest music labels and available via a new Music Store playlist entry in the popular (and still free) iTunes 4 music playback and disc burning software
Along with the high-profile changes necessary for the iTunes Music Store, described previously in this issue, iTunes 4 sports a number of other welcome enhancements
Apple's new online music service is likely to attract most of the attention today, but in typical Apple fashion, it's the hardware that makes it all possible
Palm, Inc. has added two new handhelds to its product lineup. The $500 Palm Tungsten C features integrated Wi-Fi (802.11b) wireless networking, a tiny QWERTY keyboard, and a sharp color display, while the $300 Zire 71 promotes multimedia features such as a built-in camera, music and video playback, and a higher resolution color display than was available in past low-cost offerings.
The Tungsten C joins the $400 Tungsten T, which lacks the keyboard and wireless feature (third-party wireless cards are expected for its Secure Digital slot later this year) but offers Bluetooth connectivity, and the Tungsten W, which can access the Internet via a GSM/GPRS cellular connection
In the course of writing my current book, Mac OS X Power Tools, I downloaded, installed, and evaluated hundreds of pieces of software for Mac OS X: shareware, freeware, donationware, commercial software, you name it
TiVo Series2 Home Media Option. Extensive discussions of the new Home Media Option for the TiVo Series2 digital video recorder in preparation for a future article