tequila bomb

The BBC’s online, on-demand video streaming service iPlayer will launch worldwide sometime early next year. Much to the dismay of expats around the world, iPlayer has been limited to UK residents, who pay a yearly license to watch BBC content. Now, the Beeb plans to launch a subscription-based service available to anyone, anywhere—with an Apple iPad.

From Ars.

You heard it here first…

I’ve actually been hearing, for quite a while, that Auntie Beeb is in talks with Apple. What will come of those talks is anybodies guess. Integration with Apple TV is a no-brainer though.

It’s common sense really. The whole look and feel of iPlayer is just a perfect fit for AppleTV, and iOS generally.

This is going to shift in huge numbers.

In many ways I wish id had priced it higher than $1.99 though. It’s worth far more.

And people would be willing to pay a higher price, which would have set a good price point that everyone could expect quality apps to float at.

From a consumers point of view this price is great, at least in the near term.

But for developers struggling to establish themselves, competing at this price point with this quality of game is going to be very very hard.

The race to the bottom is over. id have done everything possible to ensure that. Short of pricing the app at 99 cents, or free with in-app purchases, I can’t see how else they could have put the final nail in the coffin any more deftly.

Starting today Ping, iTunes’ new social network for music, and Twitter are making it even easier for people to share music discoveries with their friends by putting Ping activity, song previews and links to purchase and download music from the iTunes Store right in their Tweets on Twitter.com.

Hmmm.. Great! Advertising! Twitter’s VCs must be happy. So in essence we are all now able to SPAM our Twitter followers with adverts on Apple’s behalf from iTunes…

Once you’ve linked the accounts, whenever you Post, Like, Review, or tell your friends why you purchased a song or album on Ping, this activity will also be tweeted to your Twitter followers – complete with playable song previews and links to purchase and download music from iTunes.

When you click on a Tweet that’s sent via Ping or that contains an iTunes link, you’ll see the song or album in Twitter’s details pane, with the ability to listen to song previews from iTunes, making the experience even richer.

I, and many others, have argued that Ping’s only hope is to integrate with a social network with some weight behind it. I am glad Apple have chosen Twitter over Facebook. The thought of having anything to do with the latter I still find offensive.

But where is the feed integration? I understand that Apple want us to visit iTunes to buy stuff. But why can’t I simply post to Ping via Twitter?

And why is there only one person, that I am not particularly interested in connecting with, who is both in my Twitter circle and my Ping circle? That’s a little worrying… for Ping.

I am not sure if this is quite enough. Time will tell.

An odd email landed in our inbox today (thanks David!). It was something that looked gorgeous, but we couldn’t quite figure out what it was exactly. A tweet went out from our @beautifulpixels , but again, our followers couldn’t discern the fine details in this otherwise magnificent looking data chart. Thankfully, twitter connected us with its designer Filip Chudzinski, who graciously supplied us with the full resolution graphic.

What Chudzinski has done, is meticulously plotted out the entire ten year history of the iTunes ecosystem in a radial chart, down to the last detail. It plots all the important events, sales records, and press announcements of all the iPods, AppleTVs, iPhones, along with each version of iTunes, all on this one single radial chart. Mind you, it’s a huge chart, so big that you can’t even view half the chart on a 24-inch monitor at 100%. This chart needs to be printed out, framed, and hung on a glorious white wall to truly appreciate the work that has gone into it.

The final version will be available Fall 2010, and would look great framed full size on a developer’s office wall.

‘Beta’ Versions : Full Size, iPhone, iPod and Desktop Versions.

Here is v1.0. Which is informative, but not so beautiful.

In other news general App Store approvals are as slow as they have ever been. It seems that the App approval queue is being prioritised to fill these new sections that Apple is dreaming up. So if you are not pumping out whatever they are pimping this week expect a longer wait than those that are.

It’s nice that Apple have got gaming religion. Even if it is 20 years too late, and based on a cynical recognition of revenue stream possibilities, rather than a genuine love for the genre.

What would also be nice is if they would put similar effort in behind the scenes to continue to improve the overall app approval process. It is still slow, opaque and unpredictable.

You can now plug in someone else’s iOS device and listen to their music on iTunes 10.

I’ve already said what I think will kill Ping if it is not resolved quickly. But there are yet more problems to consider…

Artists can’t make their own pages; Apple invites artists. In May, I criticized analysts for describing the iTunes App Store as being curated, a term I felt didn’t fit. This, on the other hand, really is curation: Apple invites a small number of artists at their discretion, which is why Ping makes some curious recommendations. As Keating puts it, “I’ve never bought Lady Gaga or anything remotely similar, but she is the #1 recommendation and I have to see her everytime I log on. That goes for Katy Perry too…I’ve created a world where I can pretend she doesn’t exist, but Apple really wants me to listen to her.”

It also amazes me that Apple are happy with the flavour of comments that someone like Lady Gaga litters around Ping. Apps (and Developers) have been ejected from the App Store for far less.

Lady Gaga : “DETROIT LITTLE MONSTERS KICK A*S: while escorted to cop car lil monster in full fasion yells “but i have to change my tampon!” yes yes yes

While I have no problem with this kind of humour, it is something that previous Apple policy in the App Store would seem to be at odds with.

Surely letting a few Indies on Ping as artists of their own accord (rather than not-inviting them) and letting them express and promote themselves in this forum is far less risky than giving Lady Gaga top billing for every new Ping account holder of any age.

Curation is not the right way to be going here. Not with music.

Apple is really drifting away from a lot of its roots with its unhealthy addiction to targeted media sales, and its accompanying hypocrisy when it comes to tolerating the “sins” of big earners.

Ping is set to be a very sterile environment indeed when you consider that generic profanity is censored, parody accounts have already been removed by Apple Gnomes, and the only musicians we are going to be exposed to are those that Apple thinks we should be buying.

Not that Lady Gaga, or Coldplay (particularly) are not good artists to follow. But Katie Perry? Whatever next? Kanye?! He could singlehandedly derail Ping all by himself.

In fact Coldplay are perfectly suited to Ping. The level of positive and wholesome fan interaction that they routinely employ fits Ping perfectly.

In some ways Apple seem to be almost schizophrenic in their decision making with Ping content.

On the one hand Coldplay would fit very well with one of Apple’s glossy exposés on professional artists that they often carry on their website to promote professional tool and equipment use. And this is very much how they come across on Ping.

On the other hand you have vacant celebs like Perry, and the cash flow enfant terrible Lady Gaga.

Ping is bizarre, a bazaar, and destined to fail in its current form.

I am into the new “drab” design. But you may not be.

Great tech demo of the engine.

Visually on a par with the best the PS2 ever had created for it.

But it does have a few frame rate issues on my iPhone 4, and at the moment it’s simply a large environment with no NPCs, and no network play going on.

There are quite a few crash reports on the iTunes Store too. I wonder how many of those are jailbroken devices?

Here’s a video on the iPad for those who simply want to see it…

Apple TV

So let’s be clear. I was wrong in my assumption that the new Apple TV would not come out until next year. But oh so right that it would be iOS and ARM based, and that we wouldn’t see the all singing all dancing media roll out that was generally expected.

Apple TV is still a hobby. And if it wasn’t $99 I wouldn’t be bothered about it. I still prefer to make my own Apple TV from a Mac Mini. But at $99 Apple TV is significantly better value than the Airport Express I bought a few years ago… At that price it’s worth getting one just to see whether you like it or not.

And if you don’t its media streaming capabilities on a home network make it worth $99 alone. Being able to walk into your living room and wirelessly stream a video you just made on your iPhone 4 to your 40″ Plasma is a killer feature. Very Bang & Olufsen.

Apple have been smart here. Instead of launching a crippled service, and trying to hype it, they have augmented what is already a solid “hobby” project, and will let the eco-system grow around it. Expect most large US TV companies to be going cap in hand to Apple by this time next year to be part of the service. At the moment it’s just ABC and Fox who are onboard.

Unlike Google, if Apple launch something which is Beta, they call it a “hobby” and keep it a “hobby” until it’s ready for prime time.

Apple TV could be iTunes and the iPod all over again. But this time in Technicolor.

iTunes 10

The big news about iTunes 10 (apart from the new logo!) is “Ping”. “Ping” is Apple’s very own “social network for music”. I am not sure I can be bothered having iTunes open all the time. But if Apple opens up the API, and someone makes a nice client I might be tempted to join a social network which is about finding good music that my friends also like.

Embedding videos and images inline in the Twitter like feed is appealing too.

iPod Nano

This thing it going to sell like hot cakes, in my opinion. If you haven’t pre-ordered one today you are probably already in a queue. It is so close to being the fabled iWatch that I am considering having one as just that, but I’ll most likely carry it around as a pocket watch with benefits. I am also considering going and buying a pair of Nike trainers for the first time!

The clever bit is that Apple have prevented the Nano and the Touch from cannibalising each other’s sales by removing the camera from the Nano and putting it into the Touch. Smart.

The real question is will Apple open the Nano up for developers?

I can see a nano-app Gold Rush happening around this device, if they do…

iPod Touch

Pretty much as expected. Retina Display, Apple A4, Front Facing Camera for Facetime and a crippled back facing camera.

iPad

No mention specifically, other than iOS 4.2 coming soon. But Steve did say that the iPad would get access to all new iOS features, specifically hinting at HDR (now on iOS4.1 for iPhone and iPod Touch). So that tends to suggest an iPad bump around years end with a camera. Facetime is very obviously coming to the iPad as well as the new iPod Touch.

iOS 4.1

We’ve had it to play with for a while as developers. But a new GM has been released today which features some stuff we’ve not been privy to.

HDR photos is a nice new addition.

It’s interesting to note that we’ve not had a sniff of 4.2 yet in developer circles…

iOS 4.2

iOS Unification. So by the end of the year your iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone will all be running the same OS.

Wireless printing had to come sooner or later. But it was nice to have it confirmed.