what to expect @ Apple’s WWDC’11 kicking off today

Image by Phil Bradley via Flickr

Are you guys waiting for the new announcements at WWDC kicking off today?

The World Wide Developers Conference is supposed to be held from 6th June’11 till 10th June’11 at 13:00 hrs Eastern Time.

CEO Steve Jobs and his executive technical team will be fronting the keynote.

At their annual event, Apple will be unveiling:

• iOS 5 for iPhone, iPad & iPod touch
• Lion, the next major release of Mac OS X
• and much awaited iCloud, Apple’s cloud offering

What more to expect? 5 days of full updates from LinkedIn, Twitter, SU, and all other social media sites apart from blogs, web entries and much of action of queries coming along Apple’s support website, Mashable, T3, CNET, BBC, New York Times and other geeks revealing Photoshoped images of iPhone 5!!!

Watch this space for more fun and activity…

iTunes 10 Out now!

iTunes 10 is available for download starting late last night itself. Although the link on Apple‘s official website was not working by night, the bug has been fixed now and it is available since earlier this morning on the website. Mac users can simply click on Software Updates and download iTunes on the Mac’s and Macbook’s. iTunes 10 comes with many new features and improvements, including:

• Introducing Ping. Use Ping to follow your favorite artists and friends or connect with the world’s most passionate music fans. Discover the music everyone is talking about, listening to, and downloading.

• Rent HD TV episodes for just 99¢ each. Watch them on your Mac or PC, on-the-go with iPhone or iPod touch, or in your living room with the all new Apple TV.

• Play your favorites on the all new iPod touch, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, and Apple TV.

• Play music wirelessly with AirPlay on AirPlay-enabled speakers, home theater receivers, and iPod accessories.

• Explore many look-and-feel improvements throughout iTunes.

• Enjoy performance improvements which make iTunes faster and more responsive.

• Additional voice support with VoiceOver Kit for iPod.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Apple’s 1st September 2010 Music Event update

Today at 10 AM Pacific Time, Apple held a music event just as every year, when they revealed new devices and softwares.

I. iOS 4.1 and 4.2 for iPhone, iPod and iPad:

Apple introduced iOS 4.1 today which will have the following new features:

1. Game Centre where users can play single player and multi-player games.

2. Special feature for your iOS device’s camera, where your pictures will be more crisp and clear due to additional processing done while taking the picture. When you will turn on this amazing new feature, your iOS device’s camera will take 3 different pictures of the object: i. In Low exposure, ii. In Normal Exposure & iii. High Exposure. Then these three images will be merged together within the software itself, to give you a never-before-seen crisp and clear quality.

3. Bug fixes for Proximity sensor issue, Bluetooth and many other smaller issues.

While all these functionalities will come to iPhone and iPod’s this week itself through the iOS 4.1 launch, iOS 4.2 will bring the same and more to the iPad in November 2010.

II. iTunes 10:

Today was an important day since the launch of iTunes. Apple introduced a new feature called ‘PING’ which is an embedded social networking from within iTunes, for artists and friends, who want to share music and events related to music through iTunes. Thus would provide them a common platform to share all such things and more through iTunes itself. PING is not just available on iTunes on computers, but it will also be available on iPhones and iPods.

III. Apple TV:

Apple TV has been there in the market for over 4 years but it had not done too well because of high cost and low usability issues. Steve announced today that Apple TV will now be available only at $99 instead of earlier price of $299. It is available from this week itself as well.

IV. New Lineup of iPods:

All three apple iPod categories: ‘iPod Shuffle‘, ‘iPod Nano‘ and ‘iPod Touch‘ have been made remarkably meaner and meatier despite making them thinner and giving them more sexy form factor.

This has always been an interesting event for Apple and today’s event was no exception as it was concluded by a guest performance from 7 Grammy Awards winning band COLDPLAY’s lead man.

What a day! Phew!!!

Hackers await for iOS 4.1

Image via CrunchBase

Many consumers having updated their devices to iOS 4.0.2 in the recent past found that all their jailbreaking efforts had been gone in vain. If reuters are to be believed, Apple is getting more keen on providing more open iPhone 4 and other iOS enabled devices like iPad and iPod. This would mean people being less keen to Jailbreak their devices, in turn, lesser number of people who would like their devices to go out of warranty (as clearly stated by Apple Inc.).

As per cultofmac and Apple‘s own discussion forums, In the past, a leading jailbreaking solution called ‘Jailbreakme’ had actively provided jailbreak solutions for iOS 4.0.1, but the security gaps were fixed by the iOS 4.0.2 recently, causing all iOS enabled devices to be reset to factory settings, and hence nullifying all jailbreak activities on these devices.

With Apple announcing it’s global musical event on 1st Sep’ 2010, experts also suggest that there may be an announcement of iOS 4.1 update along with the new iPod unveiling and more news on white iPhone on your way. So watch out for the updates on your iPhones, iPad’s and iPod’s… and hackers, no recommedations for you (officially).

Beware! Money laundering through iTunes in UK

Normally I do not tend to feature these kind of articles on this blog, as this may tend to impart some negative information to a lot many individuals, but this one is being featured here to make you aware of keeping your finances and your money safe.
12 individuals have recently been charged in UK, with laundering huge amounts of money through iTunes. They use to upload music tracks and put them up for selling through iTunes’ digital music delivery services. In total, they were able to launder a total of $300,000 across just 4 months.
Just for your records, if I had scared some iTunes user with this article, this scheme does not reveal a security vulnerability with iTunes or any of other software company’s services, this method stands as one of the many ways people use to steal money through credit cards.
If ever you see a third party transaction on your bank statements, just contact your bank and they should be able to help you with getting back your money.

Quattro dead – iAd gets the advantage.

Seems Apple is more keen on its own advertising platform iAds, rather than hovering on third party platforms. In the beginning of 2010, Steve Jobs bought Quattro’s mobile advertising platform, but in August’10 (less than 8 months later), Apple has decided to show ‘thumbs down’ to Quattro due to its degrading market credibility. As per Reuters, Apple has sent an official letter to each existing corporate customer of Quattro, mentioning that the platform will be discontinued by 30th Sept’ 2010.
Mr. Michael Chang – CEO Greystripe suggests,  “Apple’s decision to drop support for major audience segments on non-Apple platforms is ultimately bad for their advertisers and developers. Advertisers care about audiences, reach and user engagement, not specific platforms.” He also mentions, “As the Android audience catches up to iPhone, and Blackberry continues to improve the potential for user engagement, these smartphone platforms will become increasingly important for advertisers.”
The Crisp Wireless’s CEO, Mr. Boris Fridman suggests that the reason could be Quattro’s losing credibility as a cross-platform ad network since the acquisition. He also believes that this loss to Quattro might bring new opportunities for other ad networks, specially on Android smart-phones. Apple’s iAd Network have proved to be a capable mobile marketing platform, but it only works on Apple’s mobile platforms.

This strategic move may benefit Apple through focusing its resources and efforts in streamlining and improving the iAd Network, and hopefully convert existing Quattro customers to switch over to iAd for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch platforms. The Apple audience is too large to be ignored, but rather than create a single unified, cross-platform marketing campaign, advertisers will have to develop one for iOS, and one for every other platform.

Further Read:

1. Media eating up 50% of your life?

2. Watch Flash videos even on your non-Jailbroken iOS Devices

3. TV meets the web with Google