Bits 'n Bytes

Apple held their fall iPod press event today (the video is available here).  Steve Jobs took the stage to a thunderous applause.  The Apple CEO is back after recovering from a liver transplant earlier this year.

All four flavors of iPods have been updated.  The big news is the iPod Nano now comes with a video camera, microphone, speaker, FM radio and pedometer (starting at $149 US).  The iPod Touch (still the “funnest iPod ever”) gets a 50% improvement in speed, but not the widely rumored camera — it starts at $199 US for the 8GB model.  The iPod Classic price stays the same ($249 US), but now holds 160GB of music.  The iPod Shuffle now comes in various colors starting at $59 US.

That’s all well and good, but as an avid iPhone user, the big news for me was the announcement of iTunes 9 and the release of iPhone OS 3.1.  The most welcome feature is the ability to organize the applications using iTunes.

It has been possible to move the application icons from page to page on the phone itself, but it is a long, painful process.  Now iTunes 9 makes it easy to place icons on any page.  Just connect your iPhone or iPod Touch, select the device in iTunes.  The new Applications tab provides three columns:

• a list of all the applications on the left
• a simulation of the iPhone screen to the right
• and a column of thumbnails for each page on the far right

The apps can be moved around on the screen or dropped onto one of the page thumbnails.  Multiple app icons can be selected by pressing the command key and clicking.  If you are not sure which page holds the app, double-click the app in the list on the left and it jumps directly to that page.  To save space on the iPhone, you can uncheck the app in the list.

Finally apps can be organized on the iPhone without spending half a day moving wiggling icons one by one.

The iTunes store also gets a new layout.  Ringtones are available for $1.29.  A new category of albums, iTunes LP, come with liner notes and extra features.  Home Sharing lets you transfer music and media between different computers on your personal network.

Apple has put a lot of work into iTunes and it has paid off.  They are the #1 music retailer and the new features and ease of use of their new store should place them yet another step ahead of the competition.