The new Apple Store in Covent Garden in London.
Plex Media Centre
I am still evaluating a Mac mini under the TV and decided to give Plex a go.
Plex bridges the gap between your Mac and your home theater, doing so with a visually appealing user interface that provides instant access to your media. Plex can play a wide range of video, audio and photo formats as well as online streaming audio and video. The real power of Plex is found in its library features: Organize your media into versatile libraries, automatically retrieve metadata from the Internet, and display your libraries using one of the visually stunning skins.
One way I have heard it described is, Front Row on steroids!
To get the most from it though I do need a much faster internet connection, one day soon I hope.
It installed fine and I immediately installed BBC iPlayer. Hoping to get more done with it over the next few weeks.
US iTunes Account (in the UK)
There are quite a few Apps that are not available in the UK iTunes Store that I know I would find useful, so I got myself a free US iTunes Store account.
Launch iTunes.
Select iTunes Store from the left side panel options, you will then see the iTunes Store home page.
Select United States as your location from the country selection drop down menu available at the bottom of the page by clicking the Union Jack icon and then clicking the American flag.
After choosing the country, search for BBC News (though that is now available in the UK).
When the application’s page is loaded – click the Free App button, and the login window will appear.
Click on the Create Account button.
Fill out US address details and click on continue. If you don’t know any valid US address you can use Apple US retail store address by pointing your browser to http://www.apple.com/retail/ and choosing a store from the list available in the page.
Beverly Hills 90210 is another useful address!
After submitting valid US postal address details, iTunes Store registration takes you to payment mode page. Here choose the option None and finish the registration.
You will now see the congratulation page.You’re done! Your iTunes Store account is created without credit card and from now onwards you can download all the free applications available to US users.
Still no Blu-Ray on the iMac
Apple has updated their iMac range.
Though I do like the idea of having a dual drive 27″ iMac with the main hard drive been an SSD that would result in improved speed and performance.
However we still are not seeing any Blu-Ray drives in any of the new iMacs.
I think I need to stop hoping and forget about Blu-Ray on the Mac. It’s too obvious that Apple believe the only way to get video is through the iTunes store. I wouldn’t mind so much, but… I still can’t buy HD movies in the UK iTunes Store. I can rent them on the Apple TV and the iPad, but I can’t rent them (or buy them) on my Mac.
I can buy HD TV shows (and I did like Doctor Who in HD) so it’s not a technical reason, it’s a rights problem.
So with no Blu-Ray and no HD films, I can’t watch HD movies on my wonderful 27″ iMac screen.
Amazon Kindle Sold Out
I was quite impressed with the fact that the Amazon UK version of the Kindle has sold out, though you can still order for the next shipment.
Considering that Apple’s iPad probably is stealing a fair bit of the Kindle market, the fact that the Kindle device has sold out shows that there is still a market for this type of device.
New iPod touch
This September we will see a new updated version of Apple’s iPod touch.
We have already seen changes in the iPod touch in previous years and last year it was speculated we would see an iPod touch with a camera, well we didn’t.
Since then we have seen the release of both the iPad and the iPhone 4, both of which will have had an impact on the market for the iPod touch.
This year expect to see a redesigned iPod touch.
It will more than likely have a front facing camera so that it can be used for Facetime. As Steve Jobs said at the iPhone announcement, tens of millions of Facetime devices would be shipped. At the time of writing the only Facetime device is the iPhone 4.
So what about a rear camera for taking photographs?
I do think that is a possibility, but possibly not as it would eat into iPhone 4 sales.
I do think also we will see an iPod touch with a 960×640 retina display like the iPhone 4.
An 128GB iPod touch means we will see the end of the iPod classic.
I also do think we may seen an Apple TV iPod touch hybrid replacing the current Apple TV product.
All speculation mind you.