OMG SDK!

The other night Sir Ariel and I went down to Figaro (for the wifi) from the office to install some apps on his iPod Touch. I't's unbelievable to see the progress the iPhone / iPod Touch hackers has made in taking advantage of the Apple super-device as a development platform. But a day before that, we first had "jailbreak" the Touch before we were able to install the apps.

Come next year though, the jailbreak part will be unnecessary. Steve Jobs just announced that Apple will be releasing the iPhone / iPod Touch SDK in February.

Also, check out the updated Leopard page in Apple.com they put in a lot of cool stuff, and the 300+ new Leopard features is a good place to mine information about the upcoming OS X release.

On the other news, I almost wet my pants.

New iPods Released: Shuffle, Nano, Classic and Touch

New iPods. I know some of you just want to go right in to the juicy details: head right to Apple.com.

Here's a quick review of what transpired at 1:00 am today.

• Lots of new colors for the iPod Shuffle, including (red); same form factor, same memory sizes. As always, excellent entry point to the iPod line.
• iPod Nano major upgrade: all-metal, new colors, now plays videos and games, features cover flow. Fatty nano! (that has to be said)
• Original iPod form factor is now called iPod Classic. New all-metal enclosure, two colors: ash gray and black; thinner than ever, and still the iPod with the largest storage: 80Gig and a whopping 160GB
• iPod Touch. Four words: iPhone without the Phone. Thinner than the iPhone, runs OS X, uses multi-touch interface; has wifi, safari browser, youtube, and other applications. Killer feature: iTunes Wireless Music Store
• $100 $200 price cut on the iPhone 8GB model (they're probably dropping the 4GB one).
  
• iTunes Wireless Music Store: buy music from the iPod touch or iPhone (will be added later through a software upgrade), through your wifi connection. Probably one of the least interesting things for those in countries where Apple Music Store is not operational to start with, but this is one of the biggest (probably bigger than the touch, since it was expected) of all the announcements. This further catapults the iTunes Music Store ahead of its struggling competitors. This is going to be big.
• Very interesting deal with Starbucks: free wifi access for the Wireless iTunes Music store: the app automatically adds a starbucks button to the Music Store that allows you to purchase the song that's currently playing in Starbucks, as well as the 10 most recent tracks.

Apple Special Event on September 5

Just a public service message, just in case any one (of my 3 readers -- this is getting old) is planning to buy an iPod soon: Unless you're planning to get a shuffle, here's my advise: Dont' buy an iPod now. Wait for the announcement here on September 6.