What is interesting is that Apple is announcing this, so I am being highly curious to see what the "big secret" announcement this year will be.
Also sorry for being a fanboy, glad to know Steve will be giving the Keynote.
Also sorry for being a fanboy, glad to know Steve will be giving the Keynote.
They want to make sure that everyone knows that this event will be about software and nothing else.
I would not go to the extent of blatantly calling out an iPhone 4S to be announced but the following should add up to something:
1) Apple recommending journalists to personally come for the event 2) Already announcing what was widely believed by many to be the highlight of the show. Point to note is Apple had never before this announced the name. So to do it in a non grandeur way via a PR article is so not Apple.
Something is cooking. Can't really smell what it is though.
Wether they do it to set expectations or not, this is the first time they give a list of what they will announce.
EDIT: spelling.
Their invitations have become less cryptic and outright explicit (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/02/apple-hints-at-ipa...), probably precisely because disappointment about a lack of flashy announcements was fast becoming a big deal after Apple events.
There will always be stupid speculation – also before next Monday – and there will always be people complaining – also after next Monday – Apple just doesn’t want that to turn into the main thing.
That press release is in context not much more explicit than above invitation to the iPad event. It’s just a different tool.
Apple wants everyone talking about the same thing on show day, and leaking the small stuff is the way to do it.
Glad to hear Steve will be presenting. It would have been kinda fun if they set the expectation that he wouldn't be there and made us sit through an hour of Phil Schiller, just for Steve to run out on the end to have a one more thing moment.
(Ticker tape and lasers are optional.)
One of the theories about why MS dumped so much money in to the XBox over the years was that it was really a trojan horse that was trying to be the hub of your media centre. The problem with the XBox is that it stays switched off when you're watching broadcast TV, which is still what most people do in their living rooms.
Whoever can get in between you and "broadcast" (or VOD) TV content and control that experience has just taken control of a multi billion dollar market.
Soon enough when you switch on your TV you'll be presented with a customised line up of viewing across different channels/sources, lists of what your friends and favorite celebs(/brands/whatever) are watching, suggestions of new shows you might like, enhanced experiences around live content (polls on news topics on CNN, click to buy the track that's playing on Glee, etc), and, most importantly, targeted commercials.
I'm utterly convinced it's inevitable.
All I want is Android style widgets (ie, Google Voice SMS app or RSS feed reader) overlay or with TV inset (like your cable/dish box showing menu + current stream).
Agreed, this would be incredibly disruptive.
That, and they've probably struck a lucrative deal.
I'm confident that notifications are going to be a part of it, but when they plan on dedicating the whole keynote to software releases, one wonders how they can sell it.
iCloud, iOS 5 - maybe some great stuff for developers such as Apple-hosted databases. Personally, I am crossing my fingers for an iBooks overhaul, but that's probably too optimistic.
The book selection is also very meagre[3] (at least in this country), but more important, some of the available free books are typeset from hell. It's just a copy-paste of Project Gutenberg and similar endeavours, which are not formatted for iBooks at all. This does not inspire me to buy any iBooks, and it leaves me to wonder how the (free) book user experience can be so bad, when Apple make such an effort of vetting apps from trivial ailments.
Another, perhaps minor, thing is that I can't highlight across pages, which drives me absolutely bonkers.
If I were an author (or worked for one) and wanted to release a book on iOS, would I distribute it via iBooks or create a native app for it like Al Gore did? I honestly don't know, and I have a feeling that my hesitation has more to do with the shortcomings of iBooks than the allure of making a standalone app.
[1]: https://kindle.amazon.com/profile/Craig-Mod/52461
[2]: I'm sure it would be in Steve Jobs's best interest to make us forget Ping as soon as possible. Better to replace something vapid with something slightly high-brow.
[3]: It doesn't even have A Song of Ice and Fire!
Buy a book on the App Store and you're confined to ONLY iOS devices.