Google hit their 1 billionth download!

This was put up on Facebook as their post. It's a neat way of explaining how big a billion is and I really like it. 

Google

Today, Google Earth celebrates their one billionth download. How large is one billion? One billion minutes ago, the Roman Empire flourished.

Thats a Rap...

Phew! 100 minutes of simultaneous blogging got us and we have:

• A new iPhone 4S
• A (sort of) new iPod Nano
• New iPod Touch- plus it's much cheaper!
• iCloud- old news
• Cards- neat, but nothing really groundbreaking
• Siri- Really cool!
• And a new CEO's first apple presentation! Well done!
  

From all of us here at Tasteful Technology, Thank You and Good Night!

Prices

iPhone 4S

• 6GB for $199, 32GB for $299, and 64GB for $399 (same as the iPod Touch!). However, no sign of a 128GB model, which I would have liked to have seen.

iPhone 4

• just $99 (Also on an AT&T contract, still very cheap!). Prices been slashed. I would jump at this contract, as there's not a huge difference between the 4 and the 4S.

iPhone 3GS

• 8GB for FREE on an At&T contract (unfortunately for us Brits, only in the States). This is also an amazing deal!

Pre-orders on the October 7th, and then launching on the 14th! Go! Go! Go!

Voice recognition- personal assistant!

You now have your own personal assistant! She's called Siri, and she does things responding to the sound of your voice! I hope this works! She also gives forecasts! Siri finds restaurants (Greek ones in Palo Alto, and she ranks them in order), she also reads your messages aloud hands-free! You can also schedule appointments, just with your voice. However, I'm passing judgement on Siri until I see her in action. As we know, some voice recognition services are awful!

More on the camera!

Apple's iPhone camera is 2-3x faster than other phones. “What do Droid Bionic customers have to do between taking pictures? Get coffee?” Also, 1080p Video. Amazing! Real-time video image stabilastion also. We can alos remove red-eye and edit pictures on the device! Demo time!

New iPods!

The updated nano has new clocks, so that you can wear it like a watch. Apple has cut the price of the iPod touch, with the 8GB version at $199. However, no mention of a 128gb model, or of the classic or the shuffle being discontinued.

iPhone specifications!

iPhone 4S-


“Dual-core CPU, 2x as fast at CPU tasks. Also dual-core graphics. Up to 7x faster in the previous iPhone.”


A5 Chip inside, and a retina display

Demo with Epic Games! Infinity Blade update looks impressive, but not amazing. The demo's still going on. Talk time increased to 8 hours, despite the large CPU. Data download is now twice as fast, which is great news! And wow, look at that battery time! Also a great new camera. 8 megapixel sensor, face detection and auto-white balance.

New iPod specifications!

New iPod Updates!

iPod Nano

• Easier to use but not many drastic changes on look.
• 10 new clock faces to personalise your iPod
• It comes in 7 colors, now the iPod nano is 8GB for $129, and 16GB for $149

iPod Touch

• Most popular portable game player in the world!
• Now available in White and Black
• Price range 8GB $199, 32GB $299 and 64GB $399

iOS 5! Coming to you on October 12th!

• Reminders- redesigned!
• Twitter integration- Twitter to be deeply integrated.
• Newsstand- easier to read publications.
• Camera- new home screen icon
• PC-free ability!
• Safari- now includes reader.
• Notification centre- has been redesigned
• iMessages- new messaging system!

Family, Friends and Foursquare!

"What if you could find your family and friends? Today we’re launching a new app called Family and Friends.” Apprarently meant to be a competitor to Foursquare. Very interesting, I'm sure we'll be doing a post on it sometime! 

iPod statistics

More than 300 million iPods sold . It took Sony 30 years to sell 220 Walkman casset players.
Sold 45 million iPods in last year ending in June. Nearly half going to people buying their first iPods. Also we have a release date for the ios 5. October the 12th!

iPad news- a few stats

A 95% satisfaction rate with all customers and 92% of Fortune 500 are implementing in the iPad. That's huge! Also interesting to see that 3 in 4 tablets sold are iPads. That's pretty amazing! Shows how much Apple dominate the tablet market, despite every mobile phone company trying to muscle in on their market share.

Amazing numbers from Scott Forstall!

Scott Forstall syas' There are 140,000 iPad apps, with over 1 bilion apps downloaded per month, and $3 billion paid to developers' That is a lot of downloads, but people seem a little shifty. Tim Cook is building the suspense.

Cards- A new app!

NEW APP!

Apple has just released a brand new app called Cards,

“Create and mail beautiful cards right from your iPhone or iPod touch.” Should be interesting!

Apps downloads have hit the 18 billion mark!

“We’ve passed a quarter billion unit sales mark.” Wow! Scott Forstall is up to talk about iOS!

“All of these together makes the App Store the number one store for downloading apps. Customers have downloaded more than 18b apps. And it’s accelerating. They’re downloading them at a rate of more than 1 billion per month.” That is pretty amazing!

Tim Cooks is in control!

He looks calm and controlled tlking about the apple stores in China. New picture of the the black and the white phones is up. Here's the black one!

Closed, for our new iPhone!

Apple.com domain has been hacked, so this website is down, updating for the iPhone!

We are go!

Tim Cooks has appeared on stage and we are go! Just a quick summary on all the news today: The new phone is likely to be called the 4S, not the 5, and there could be two phones released. Stay tuned!

iPhone 5- or is it just a 4S?

Convincing evidence released yesterday suggests that it will not be an iPhone 5 but an iPhone 4S which is released at 6pm GMT. iTunes Beta devices bar lists a 4S, but not an iPhone 5. However, Apple have been known for decided craftiness, and they'll keep us guessing right up until the conference. Whatever the outcome, we'll be doing a live blog, so join us at 6pm!

Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3?

Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3? That is the question that most gamers will be thinking about this winter and we are one step closer to finding out which is better with Battlefield 3 Beta being released and Modern Warfare 3 being played at Cod XP and Gamefest.

          Battlefield 3 Beta has amazing graphics as expected and there isn’t anything too wrong with the way the game plays so far, but the main issue is the amount of glitches there are. It is bad enough that you fall through the map while trying to kill someone once, but for it to happen on a regular basis along with a few other glitches is really annoying. EA say they’re writing a new code for the actual game which will be released this month but it remains to be seen whether these glitches will still occur in the actual game.

          Modern Warfare 3 is also being beta tested and it feels like Modern Warfare 2.5, which is a no bad thing  (if you imagine Modern Warfare 2 without noob tubes and one man army, you've got the idea) and it's a pretty good game!

 However we wait to see the actual release of the game in November and whether the multiplayer is as annoying as MW2. One disappointment for me is the failure to remove 2^nd chance/Last stand. Everyone knows how annoying it is and Infinity Ward should have had the sense to remove it from the game.

          So, unfortunately, the final verdict on BF3 and MW3 will have to wait until November when both games are out.

In other gaming news FIFA 12 has recently been released and the addition of more online modes means this game is even better for those gamers who love a challenge online but unfortunately the single player mode remains largely unchanged. Nevertheless still a great game and an improvement on FIFA 11!

Credits to Rishi Jindal, Tasteful Technology's Game Reviewer