Today, Apple held its annual conference, where iPods are typically updated. I’ll go into my opinions of the new products, why I like them, why I don’t.

iPods

iPod touch: fantastic improvements. They truly have delivered everything people are wanting! Front and back cameras, Retina display, A4 processor, and FaceTime, of course. However, I feel the design has moved in the wrong direction: the thinner they make it, it feels harder to hold. But overall, good job on the iPod touch.

iPod nano: Still rather “meh” on this one. A touchscreen that small just seems difficult to use. I’ll have to try it out in an Apple Store. It seems like it’s taken away functionality, like video playback.

iPod shuffle: Ah, back into being decent. I’m positive sales tanked when they rid themselves of physical buttons, so this was a step in the right direction. Very impressed!

Apple TV

Some fantastic changes here. Netflix integration, smaller size and design, 1080p HD, TV show rentals, and my favourite change: IT’S $99! Good work Apple – I have a feeling this will depart from being a hobby very shortly.

iPhone/iPad

The improvements found in iOS 4.1 are fantastic. It brings the new iTunes features that were announced today, plus the new Game Centre to iOS. Good improvements. Still waiting on iOS4 for iPad, though.

iTunes

This new “Ping” social network is an interesting concept. I’m not sure if it will take off or not – time will tell. Overall, the visual improvements to iTunes are quite nice, as are the 99cent TV rentals.

Overall

Overall, I think Apple did a fantastic job this year. The new products are stunning. The only thing I’m a bit disappointed about this year is the lack of iWork or iLife news, but hopefully that will be coming soon.

Just 1/4 the size. There’s now better information for TV shows and movies. You can add favorites and watch instantly.  No more syncing to your computer, you can now just stream instantly over your network. Airplay allows you to play media from your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, directly to the Apple TV with Airplay.

$99 dollar price for the hardware. Available in 4 weeks.  Pre-order now available.

Edit: Photos straight from Apple.

Looks like you will also be able to control the new Apple TV using the iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad application.

iTunes 10 launches today!

Apple has announced new new iPod models all across the board. New nanos, classics, shuffles, and touch.

New shuffle. Hardware buttons, small design, $49 dollars for 2gb.

New Nano: Multitouch display,  multiple colors, whole new design.

New iPod Touch. Retina display, a4 processor, front and back camera, HD video. THE WORKS!

Where’s the classic though?!

Steve Jobs just announced the iOS 4.1 update which fixes many needed bugs. Fixes include proximity sensor, Bluetooth, iPhone 3G. Secondly, they’re introducing high dynamic range photos, HD uploads over WiFi, TV rentals.

Coming next week to the iPhone and iPod touch.

As we noted yesterday, Apple is streaming the live event today. We’re 10 minutes away from the Keynote! The website has just gone live!

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1009qpeijrfn/event

Here are the workstations for this week.

Alex Galletti’s Extremely Clean Mac Pro Setup

Fensterbme’s Mobile Arsenal

Skateaddict’s Camo Workstation – Were did it go?

Barrydoyon’s Sweet Office – Love the Apple Logo!

Xelcise’s Desk – I love the color.

Once again If you want to participate and share your workstation, just add the image to our flickr pool and we’ll publish it!

Please respect copyrights. The images above are subject to change and are property of their owners.
Want your image removed? Please contact us and we can take it down.

The rumor mill is super hot the night before the big ole Apple Keynote tomorrow. According to several sources, Apple will be streaming the scheduled live event tomorrow morning.  This is a first for Apple I believe.  I am overjoyed to be honest.  It will definitely be interesting to see how the server holds up, many people will be tuning in.  Hopefully they’ll be able to keep up.  Fear not if it doesn’t, we’ll be covering the event closely.

The stream will be up on Apple.com tomorrow at 10am PDT

Edit: The rumor is true.  Apple has the event pinpointed on their site under the giant iPhone 4 image.

Here are the desktops for week number 5.

Nicola.Lamonaca’s Desktop

Lucameier’s Desktop

Tizung’s Desktop

Derekcwilkinson’s Desktop

Thekiwi’s Desktop

Once again If you want to participate and share your desktop screenshot, just add the image to our flickr pool and we’ll publish it!

Please respect copyrights. The images above are subject to change and are property of their owners.
Want your image removed? Please contact us and we can take it down.

When you first open Blogbooster you are greeted with a green splash screen with a rocket shaped like a pencil.  If you have set up an account the application would use this splash screen to check for updates on your blog, if there’s no blog configured you will get a blank screen (see image 2). You can start adding blogs. When you press the add account button you will have 7 blog services to choose from, self hosted or remotely hosted.  The application supports WordPress (self and remotely hosted), Blogger, Typepad, Tumblr, Windows Live, and Joomla.

Once you have configured your blog account through whichever service you use, you will have the option to sync posts to the iPhone instantly or to do it at a later date.  I have found an issue with this method however. I have tried it both ways, if you choose to sync after you add an account, the application will pull the information down from the server and everything will be mostly peachy. However, if you choose not to sync your posts, they will not be synced after you relaunch the application.  In theory it is supposed to sync your posts when the application launches, but if you selected the option to sync later, then your posts will not be synced at the next launch, like it’s supposed to.

The editing screen is pretty straight forward. When you go to write a post you just select the blog you want to write a post for, then you are taken to the edit screen. You have to tap to edit the various sections, Title, Tags, and Content.  When you select the content area the onscreen keyboard slides up revealing a tool bar at the top.

The tool bar has various functions to try to work as a WYSIWYG editor. There are some icons that we were unsure of at first. I have figured out what they do by guessing around, I think there could be better iconography to illustrate what the buttons are supposed to do.  The editor works fairly well, sadly it’s all HTML, much like the stand alone WordPress app for the iPhone. I don’t have an issue with editing HTML if I need to make a tweak here and there, but I feel HTML should be a second option, not the only editing option.

I guess I am a little dumbfounded as to why most of these mobile blogging applications still use HTML as their main editing function. The SquareSpace application doesn’t use HTML in it’s main editor, nor does the Tumblr application. There should be no excuse for such archaic editing systems in my opinion.  The iOS platform is so powerful and it is capable of WYSIWYG, so why not use it? Blogbooster is boarder line WYSIWYG, I think they need to go all the way, then this app might truly shine.

The “A” button on the editing bar allows you to add images, either from the iPhone camera, camera roll, or from a hyperlink. The upload window allows you to select and scale the image to the size you desire by using a slide-bar. I wish you could put in a numerical value and have it constrain to the proportions, the slide-bar is nice, but it’s not very accurate. If you have a fixed width like we do here at The Mac Universe, then scaling images is a must, so it would be easier to put in the values and hit go.  The upload process is fairly simple, it’ll upload the image with the appropriate title and name if you provide it.  However, once you have uploaded an image, there’s no way to go back and make changes.  This of course is because the image is in HTML form in the edit menu.

Tagging with Blogbooster should go off without a hitch. Unfortunately we ran into a big issue. When you are selecting tags, Blogbooster will randomly select unwanted and unassociated tags without your consent.  This poses a big issue if you use tags the way they are meant to be used.  Sparingly and coherently.  This is definitely a big bug that needs to be addressed.

Conclusion

While the application is by no means perfect, it’s not all terrible either. The application is fairly robust, easy to configure, and pretty easy to write with. The main issues come when you are formatting your text and adding media.  I am sure the tagging issue will be addressed in a future update.

Don’t let us detour you. Download the free version before you make the $2.99 purchase for the full version.  The free version is limited to one blog at a time. The full version allows unlimited number of blogs to be added.

Free Version

Full Version