Steve Jobs unveiled a bushel of new products the Apple Special Event on September 1st. He started by introducing a new line-up of iPods for this holiday season. The redesigned iPod Nano is now a Touch Screen wonder with a beautiful design that fits in the palm of your hand. It serves the same brilliant functionality as the previous Nanos, but now users can scroll more smoothly through the menus, look at pictures, and even flip the screen around with a quick finger motion if they find themselves looking at it upside down. The new iPod Shuffle is the cheapest of the bunch with Apple’s proprietary track wheel taking up the front side of the device. It comes in at an even smaller size than the Nano, perhaps crab apple size, as the functionality is much simpler and is basically used for playing your songs out of order. Jobs added a front-facing camera to the iPod Touch which he calls “An iPhone without the phone,” and emphasized that it also has “no contract” – a major perk for a device without a phone these days. The iPod Touch could now use FaceTime to talk face-to-face with other iPod Touch or iPhone users, like a video phone.
Jobs brought the audience’s attention to new releases of the iOS 4 operating system, 4.1 and 4.2 which would each be coming out in the next few weeks and months respectively with new features. He showed GameCenter, a collaborative gaming environment, which supported High Definition play between iPhone and iPod users. “Steve has once again innovated the way we play video games,” said Andy “Raw” Kibbens, co-CEO of The Markets Are Open. “There’s nothing better than controlling a giant knight wielding a sword, with a touch screen controller. If that’s not innovation, then I don’t know what is,” Raw added. The iPod Touch is seen as a gaming device, and has sold more than both Nintendo’s and Sony’s handheld devices combined.
Apple also noticed that its popular iTunes music sales are outpacing sales of CDs. He showed off his new iTunes logo, a blue circle with a musical note, replacing the old logo, a CD with a musical note. This small change of a tiny logo sparked controversy worldwide. “…this new iTunes logo really sucks. You’re taking 10+ years of instant product recognition and replacing it with an unknown.” Said ValuLeads designer Joshua Kopac, to which Steve Jobs replied “We disagree.” Steve Douglas of Forbes tech blog stated, “Apple’s overall branding is state of the art stuff. … This new logo is sticking out like a sore thumb.” Emily Styles, a write for Stock Briefings called it a “marketing blunder.” In fact, Apple’s new logo has gotten so much controversy from the media since the keynote that it is now the 31st most recognizable logo worldwide, just a few points behind the old logo. “It looks like most people don’t care, they just want to use iTunes,” said Allan Edwards, co-CEO of The Markets Are Open. “If Steve Jobs likes it, I like it.” The new iTunes branding more closely resembles the Apple app style and has been released along with new iTunes functionality.
Apple took aim at Facebook and Twitter by integrating a new social network for music into iTunes in which users can share information about the songs they are listening to, the concerts they are going to, and virtually anything to do with music. “We love it.” Jobs chimed. “We think this is incredible.” He names the social network Ping, which comes packaged with iTunes ready for use by 160 million iTunes users. Microsoft was also asked what they thought of the new social network, as it is well known that he tech giant owns a piece of Facebook. When asked about the resemblance in the name Ping with Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, Steve Ballmer declined to comment.
Lastly, Apple announced the revamped Apple TV, in which partnerships with Netflix, ABC and FOX would help launch the new $99 box into people’s homes. Apple TV allows people to stream movies from various places including YouTube right to their TV. They can rent TV shows, movies, and other content easily. Content being streamed on the iPad for instance can be pushed to your living room TV with one swipe of the pad. “They’re taking over the world,” said Kibbens, “Buy Apple stock right here right now if you want to be a part of it. My price target of $333 is too conservative for a company stealing market share from every other major player out there.”
Apple stock closed up 2.62% on Friday to $258.77 amid headlines of the “too-simplistic” iTunes logo.
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