Earlier this week Apple sent out an email to affiliate members indicating some changes that will be taking place as of October 1st. Here is the email that was sent:

Thank you for participating in the affiliate program for apps. With the launch of the new App Store on both iOS and macOS and their increased methods of app discovery, we will be removing apps from the affiliate program. Starting on October 1st, 2018, commissions for iOS and Mac apps and in-app content will be removed from the program. All other content types (music, movies, books, and TV) remain in the affiliate program.

This will have some impact on some websites who rely on affiliate links from iOS apps, Mac apps, and in-app purchases to run their business. At least there is some heads up on this. This has been preceded by Apple reducing the payout from 7% to 2.5%. So it was inevitable that this would be the case that these would be removed.

I am not impact much by this because the website does not rely on affiliate links. I am curious to see how long the affiliate program lasts overall. I would not be surprised if it goes away in the future. It may take a couple of years, but it is possible that it will be stopped in the future.

We are now just over a week out from Apple's World Wide Developer Conference keynote. With that making predictions for what Apple will announce is generally a fool's errand. That does not stop some, like myself, from having a wish list of items that I would like to see changed. Predictions are particularly difficult given Apple's continued goal for reducing the information that leaks from the company. Despite this reduction in information, some information still gets out. With the scant amount of information that is available, I have some ideas for what Apple could do with their operating systems. Last year I did two separate posts, however I think that this year will be a bit more low-key as compared to previous years. To coincide with that, I will only be doing a single post about everything that I think Apple will do. Let us start with something that I think will affect all all of Apple's operating systems. If you want, you can skip straight to the recap.

All Platforms

There are some things that span all of Apple's operating systems, so this needs its own section.

Siri

Even though all of Apple's operating systems have Siri, they are not the same, and do not have the same capabilities. For instance, Siri on macOS cannot control any items in the Home app on iOS. Given that the HomeKit information is synchronized over iCloud, this seems like an oversight. There is no reason why macOS could not control the HomeKit items. I totally understand that it may not be possible if you are not on the same network, but if you are on the same network, it should be entirely possible to do so.

Similarly, the HomePod should be able to search for documents in iCloud and send a link to your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. I think Apple will announce that they are going to start having Siri become one unified platform. There will always be things that each platform cannot do. For instance, tvOS cannot search files within iCloud. Although if Apple did allow tvOS, and by extension watchOS, to find files, they could be opened on an iPad, Mac, or iPhone.

It would also be great to ask the HomePod to be able to do something like "Siri, open my '2018 Budget' on my Mac", and having it open. Implementing this would be an overnight thing, but it is certainly something that Apple could indicate that they are working on. This may be feasible since iCloud knows about all of your devices, and it could signal to each what to do. Next, let us turn to the most mature operating system that Apple has, macOS.

I give the likelihood of Apple announcing that Siri is going to be largely the same across all devices as 50%.

Messages in the Cloud

One of the features that Apple announced, but has not yet shipped is Messages in the Cloud. It is designed to have all of your messages be available on all of your devices, particularly when you add a new device. Despite being in beta multiple times, but it has not yet been released. It does not surprise me that it has not been released yet. It is best to make sure that everything will work flawlessly, given the amount of information and history contained within messages.

If Apple does indeed release this, I think there will also be an iCloud version of it as well. I think the iCloud version will not necessarily be able to send any message from your iPhone's number, but you would be able to do so from your Apple ID. I do not think it would have all of the same bells and whistles that are on iOS, but you would be able to do basic messaging.

I am giving this a 80% chance of Messages in the Cloud being released. I give the probably of having an iCloud version of Messages at 25%. It would be nice to have, but it is not likely.

AirPlay

It is not often that I have had to use AirPlay. This is because I typically do not need to stream something from my Mac, iPhone, or iPad to my Apple TV. However, recently I have been bingeing This Old House, and there are no apps for it. The only way to view this is by using a browser. Since tvOS does not come with a browser, the only option left is to AirPlay. My biggest problem with the arrangement is that I cannot send video to my Apple TV but audio to my HomePod, instead the audio is outputted via the TV, which works but does not sound as good.

One of the things that Apple announced in September of 2017 was AirPlay 2. I anticipate that it will be coming with iOS 11.4, but it is entirely possible that Apple will push things off to iOS 12. AirPlay 2 will allow an iOS device to output the same audio to multiple devices simultaneously. This will work well for those with multiple HomePods. I would like to see iOS 12 provide betas for the HomePod, but I do not know if that will happen or not. I am going to guess it is not likely.

The likelihood of AirPlay being released at WWDC, whether it is with iOS 11.4 or iOS 12, at 80%. I give the probability of HomePod developer betas at 10%, it may be too early in the lifecycle of the HomePod for betas. I do not expect public betas for the HomePod, but developer betas would be nice.

Dark Mode

With the release of the iPhone X and its OLED screen, it would be really great for there to be a system-wide Dark Mode. This Dark Mode should apply to all macOS and iOS. tvOS has a dark mode already, and watchOS uses a dark theme by default, in order to save the screen and battery. Having a dark mode option, and allowing developers to opt-in, would provide a more consistent look and feel when switching between applications. This would be most prominent on macOS when you could be working in an application like GarageBand and its dark theme and then switching to Safari with its super bright theme.

I think the probably of all of Apple's operating systems having a system-wide dark mode at 60%.

macOS

macOS is a very stable operating system. macOS is likely the Apple operating system that I use for getting most everything done. You might think that there is not much that could be done. In fact, there is still quite a bit that can be done, particularly with bringing some features over from iOS.

Messages

Messages on iOS is pretty full featured, however its counterpart on macOS is quite lacking in some areas. It would be nice to have macOS have feature parity with iOS. Doing so would maintain a consistent experience between iOS and macOS. This could be as simple as providing the same effects that are possible with iOS onto macOS.

I predicted this last year at 95%. This year I am giving it a 35% chance.

Workflow

In March of 2017, it was announced that Apple purchased the iOS app, Workflow. Workflow allows you to you to perform different automation techniques using iOS. This could include sending items to a web service, converting files, or various other tasks. The possibilities are endless. The best part of Workflow is that you do not need to be a programmer to be able to figure it out. Workflow has a drag and drop interface that allows you to tie things together. When Apple purchased Workflow, it was thought that improvements to the app would cease, but there have been some small improvements over the last year.

It would be great to see Workflow make its way to macOS. By porting Workflow over to macOS it will provide a way to automate some tasks, which would be simpler than using one of the current solutions like Automator or AppleScript. It would require some changes to the App, for sure, but it could extend more functionality to macOS.

I give this a likelihood of 40%. It is more likely that Workflow will be integrated than getting a macOS version.

Notification Center

When Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was released one of the features was one that came from iOS. That feature was Notification Center. In the intervening 7 years, not much has been done to improve Notification Center on macOS. It would be great to have additional customization options for Notification Center. For instance, the ability to have all of your Notifications from all devices gathered in one place. Dismissing it in one place would dismiss it on all devices.

This would help all users not have to dismiss notifications on all of their devices. I give this a 25% chance of happening.

macOS Server

I will be honest, this next prediction is pretty much a gimme, since Apple has already indicated the future course for macOS Server. The next version of macOS Server, version 6, is likely to include graphical interface management for Profile Manager, Open Directory, and Xsan Server. All of the other graphical management that was in macOS 5.6 will be removed. Some of the underlying services, like Apache, will still ship with macOS itself, so they can be still be managed via Terminal.

One thing that has not been clarified, and is purely a guess on my part, is that macOS Server will still include certificate management.

The other item that I think Apple will FINALLY do, is allow Profile Manager to be accessible on an iPad in Portrait mode, AND on an iPhone. I think it is entirely feasible, given the the workflow for Profile Manager to be able to accommodate the devices. Additionally, when you need to make changes in Configuration Manager, you are not always at your Mac or near an iPad and it would help server administrators. What would be even better would be an app that is accessible on iPhones, iPads, and macOS.

I give the likelihood of Server being significantly reduced at 100%. Similarly, I give certificate management's probability at 85%, and Profile Manager being accessible from devices besides iPads in Landscape and Desktops at 50%, and the probably of an app for accessing Profile Manager servers at 10%.

iTunes

This next one is entirely a guess and wishful thinking. I think Apple will let us know that iTunes is being overhauled. Here is what I wrote last year, and I still want it to be true.

iTunes' original intent was as a syncing mechanism back when all of our media was locally on our computers. That was back in 2001. 16 years later times have changed and while a percentage of individuals still synchronize their music to their computers, that number is a very small percentage. It would be nice to see Apple completely re-think iTunes. One of the hinderances from this occurring is that iTunes is also on Windows. However, Apple could give macOS a boost by providing an even better experience and keeping iTunes on Windows the way it is now. The biggest change would be to separate out the classic iPod syncing portion to its own application. This would still allow those individuals who need to synchronize their items to be able to do so. Meanwhile, the remaining functions, Music, Podcasts, Movies, TV Shows, iTunes U, and Apps could all become their own applications. This approach would allow each of these applications to be updated on their own schedule. Alongside this, each application could have a user-interface which matches the functionality of that application. There are two aspects to this prediction. The first is that Apple will preview a refreshed iTunes. The second is that it will be released "in the fall" (meaning when the new iPhones are released). I give the chance of a refreshed iTunes a 10% chance of happening. It is a slim chance, but still a chance.

I do not know if it is going to happen, but it would be a great way to have a big item amongst stability improvements.

There is one other thing that I have noticed. My "Wish List" is not in sync between my Apple TVs, iOS, and iTunes on the Mac. All of my devices are signed into the same Apple ID, so the wish lists should be the same, but they are not. I am not talking about the any apps on my Wish List, but the movies. I do not get why they would be out of sync, but they are.

I give this a 15% chance of occurring, because I am probably an outlier in this situation. Here are two images to prove the mismatch.

Next let us take a look at the operating system for the Apple TV, tvOS.

tvOS

tvOS is Apple's operating system for the Apple TV. As has been the case since television became mainstream, people generally tend to do one thing, consume media. Given that this is the primary purpose of large screens in our lives, there is not much that I can think of that Apple would need to add to tvOS. I am sure there are things, but I cannot think of any for tvOS.

There is one slight modification that would be good. I received a "low battery" warning for my Siri Remote on my Apple TV. As is the case on all iOS-based operating systems, "Low Battery" means 20%, or less. This means that my Siri remote can probably go for another 3 or 4 months, if not longer, before actually needing to be charged. I understand why Apple does this for iOS devices, Macs, Apple Watch, Keyboards and Mice, but it seems a bit odd given how long the Siri Remote lasts. It would be nice to have this warning be changed to something like 10%. Even at 10%, the Siri Remote will still last for another couple of months at least.

I give the probability of Apple changing this at 25%, probably because it is hard coded into the operating system.

watchOS

watchOS is probably the Apple operating system that has the largest place for improvement. The biggest feature, that would be personally beneficial, would be the ability for developers to use background audio in a reliant manner, without needing to start a workout first. In particular, my preferred podcast player cannot synchronize my podcasts to the Apple Watch because it is slow, and there is no reliable playback possible. What would be needed for this is probably more than we will get this year, but it would be great to have.

The possibility of this occurring is likely 50%.

Watch Faces

Apple has narrowed the focus for the Apple Watch. One thing that the Apple Watch has had since the beginning is the Faces. While Apple has added a couple of new Watch faces, like the Toy Story characters, and the Siri Watch Face, it would be nice to have a few additional options. In particular, it would be nice for developers to be able to create their own Watch Faces. This could include a Watch Face store, but having too many choices could be cumbersome. With this knowledge it might be best to have more customizable options for the Siri Watch Face. Apple could partner with some Fashion houses to come up with custom watch faces that could be purchased.

I give this a 40% chance of happening.

Personalized Goals

watchOS 4 introduced personalized goals for each month. Some of the personalized goals I have had since last year are:

• Double move goal every day
• Burn a certain number of calories
• Average number of exercise minutes per day
• Performing a number of workouts in a month
• Going a certain distance in a month
• Burn an average number of calories a day

There are a couple of improvements that I would like to see. The first is additional personalized goals, what in particular I do not know. The second improvement is to not have the goals be too far-fetched. Specifically, one of my goals was to do 48 15-minute, or longer, exercises. Maybe it is just me, but having to do 48 exercises in one month seems excessive.

I give this a 70% chance. There are already a variety of goal types, and more may not be necessary. At the same time health and fitness are primary functions of the Apple Watch.

Interface Improvements

watchOS does not use the standard User Interface controls that iOS applications do. Instead watchOS has its own user interface language. It might be time for Apple to bring UIKit over to watchOS. Particularly with the Series 3 Apple Watch battery life is not an issue, and speed does not seem to be a problem either. By having UIKit on watchOS it is possible that more applications would be made available for the Apple Watch.

I give this 75%, only because I am sure Apple knows this would help applications on the watch, but it would take some major performance improvements to make happen.

iOS

Augmented Reality

One of the areas in which Apple is putting a lot of focus is in Augmented Reality. At WWDC 2017, Apple announced ARKit, a new framework that would allow developers to overlay different items on the physical world. With iOS 11.3, Apple released ARKit 1.5, which included allowing objects on vertical surfaces, mapping irregular shapes, and integration with real-world images.

I think Apple will improve ARKit with ARKit 2.0. It is hard to guess what will be included. I am going to guess that they will have ARKit 2.0 require the iPhone 7. I give this an 85% chance of occurring.

Battery Health

I think with iOS 12, the Battery health, which is currently in beta, will come out of beta.

Notifications

There are often items that we use every day, and when they were new they were novel, but now just come to think of as a normal thing. A feature that was introduced with iPhone OS 3.0 was Push Notifications. Over the last nine years, notifications have become an indispensable tool for users and developers alike. Over its history notifications have seen a number of enhancements, but there is still more to do.

It would be nice to see Apple add even more customization options, in particular when it comes to VIPs, in particular, it would be nice to be able to only get notifications from particular individuals. Right now, this works in Mail, but it would be helpful to extend this to all applications, but in particular messages.

One area that I have seen issues lately is that I am not always being notified when a new message comes in. The badge will be shown, but I do not receive any indication on my Apple Watch. It would be great to see Apple improve the reliability of notification of iMessages.

I give this a 80% chance, it would likely coincide with Messages in the Cloud.

Parental Controls

Technology can be a boon, but it can also be detrimental. Many parents wonder what, if any, harm is being done by allowing so much screen time for their children. While parents attempt to limit screen time, it is not always an easy task. It would be very helpful to provide parents with even more controls to allow them to customize the screen time for their children.

For instance, it would be nice to be able to set limits for specific application use. As an example, imagine your kid has an iPad that they can use and you want to limit the amount of YouTube time that they have, to two hours during the school week and at the same time not limit their use of applications that are needed for school, or are educational. There could be an interface that would allow parents to set which days, and times, that a child can use. In this case, you would want to limit them to 2 hours, Monday through Friday.

While it would be acceptable to have this be possible on the iPad itself, having a web-based interface would be even better and would make it easier to administer the iPad. The ability to manage devices is already available through Apple's Profile Manager, but this would be a bit more specific and would not require knowledge of Profile Manager, nor would it require the use of management profiles.

I give the likelihood of improved parental controls a 60% chance of occurring. I give the likelihood of granular controls at 40%.

Recap

Here is a recap of all of my predictions. Some are more likely to occur than others.

In today's modern technology-based world it is not realistic, nor practical, to expect a company to support a product indefinitely. Technology changes and many older products cannot reliably be supported. While the length of service for many of Apple products are getting longer and longer, they all do have an inevitable end-of-life date. There are two products that will no longer function, as expected, beginning May 25th, 2018. Those two items are the first-generation Apple TV and iTunes on Windows XP and Windows Vista. Let us start with the original first-generation Apple TV.

Original Apple TV

The original Apple TV was unveiled as sneak peak in September of 2006, with the code name of iTV. The original Apple TV was a similar form-factor as the Mac Mini available at the time. The first-generation Apple TV sported two different video output connections; HDMI and component video. The Apple TV was capable of outputting up to 1080p. The first-generation Apple TV also had an optical audio out jack, a 10/100 ethernet connection and a USB port. If you did not have ethernet connectivity, you could connect via the built-in 802.11b/g/n wireless. When released, the original Apple TV acted more like an iPod or original iPhone, where you had to connect it to iTunes in order to synchronize your media. This process was definitely not ideal, and this did change as the software progressed, but it was the original solution.

The original Apple TV initially came with a 40GB hard drive, but Apple released a 160GB model in May of 2007. The hard drive connection on the Apple TV was not Serial ATA (SATA) as one might expect, but instead it was a Parallel ATA (PATA) connection. The operating system of the Apple TV was a modified version of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. If you were adventurous enough you could actually install a full version of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on it and use it as an actual Mac, but it was a limited amount of RAM, 256MB to be exact. This is a tiny amount compared today's standards. From Apple's support article:

[B]eginning May 25, security changes will prevent Apple TV (1st generation) from using the iTunes Store. This device is an obsolete Apple product and will not be updated to support these security changes. After the changes, you'll only be able to access the iTunes Store on Apple TV (2nd generation) or later.

This really is the end of an era for the original Apple TV. Now, let us turn to iTunes.

iTunes on Windows XP and Vista

It is well known that Steve Jobs was adamantly against iTunes on Windows. He needed to be convinced. iTunes for Windows was initially released on October 16th, 2003 with the availability of iTunes 4.1. When it was first released iTunes was supported on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Subsequent versions added support for later operating systems. Microsoft ended support for Windows XP on April 14th 2014 and ended Windows Vista support on April 11th, 2017. Despite these operating systems no longer being supported by their manufacturer, Apple has supported these computers connecting to iTunes. Beginning May 25th, 2018 this will no longer be the case.

It is not that the software will stop functioning, at least in terms of being able to play the items you have already downloaded. The change is that the iTunes Store will no longer be available and you will not be able to re-download previously made purchases.

Starting May 25, Apple will introduce security changes that prevent older Windows PCs from using the iTunes Store. If you have Windows XP or Vista PC, your computer is no longer supported by Microsoft, and you're not able to use the latest version of iTunes. You can continue to use previous versions of iTunes on your Windows PC without support from Apple. However, you won't be able to make new purchases from the iTunes Store or redownload previous purchases on that computer. After May 25, you'll need to use Windows 7 or later with the latest version of iTunes to make purchases from the iTunes Store and redownload previous purchases.

Closing Thoughts

I still own my original Apple TV. The featured photo at the top of this post is of my Apple TV taken with my iPhone X. The Apple TV has come a long way since its origins. I powered up my original Apple TV and it still works. I did have to hunt a bit for the remote for it, but I ultimately did find one of my original remotes that worked. I do not know if I will do anything with it. I may, like many others, end up using it as a stand for my iMac.

: Apple.com.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday is a good time to find some deals. I began looking at different movies that people may like.

Here are some of the deals I found. These will likely expire on November 28th, 2017. These are just a sampling of the deals that are available. All of the deals available from Amazon can be found on Amazon's Cyber Monday deals page.

	Title	iTunes	Amazon
	Schindler's List	$4.99	$4.99
	Bourne Identity	$4.99	$4.99
	Brooklyn	$4.99	$4.99
	Planes, Trains and Automobiles	$9.99	$4.99
	Lego Movie	$14.99	$5.99
	Hunger Games	$6.99	$6.99
	The Princess Bride	$14.99	$6.99
	Wonder Woman	$12.99	$9.99
	Lego Batman Movie	$19.99	$7.99
	Idiocracy	$4.99	$4.99
	The Martian	$9.99	$7.99
	Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory	$4.99	$6.99
	Office Space	$4.99	$4.99
	Day After Tomorrow	$4.99	$4.99
	The Imitation Game/td>	$4.99	$4.99

Undoubtedly you have heard the term "podcasts". Depending on your geek level, you may have not heard of them until late in 2014 with the release of the popular podcast Serial. Even though they may not have become super popular with most users, podcasts have been around well before then, for more than a decade now to be exact. Podcasts got their biggest bump, prior to Serial, when Apple added Podcast support to iTunes with version 4.9 in June of 2005.

Anybody can create a podcast and have it submitted to the iTunes Podcast Directory. Given the size and breadth of podcast types available in iTunes, many 3rd party podcast applications will use the iTunes Store to verify a podcast.

Previously, when a podcast creator wanted to submit a new podcast to the iTunes Podcast Directory, they had to use a form to submit their Podcast URL to Apple. Apple would crawl the feed and validate it, and if everything looked alright your podcast would go live.

The submission process was quite simple, but what happened if you changed hosting providers? You would have to do a manual redirect from your old feed to your new one. Once the redirect was in place, the iTunes Store would pick up the new feed and be updated. While this was as good method, it was not the best.

Podcasts Connect

To create a better experience, Apple has created a new portal for podcast creators called Podcasts Connect. Podcasts Connect allows for better management of existing podcasts as well as adding new podcasts.

With the Podcasts Connect site, to add a new podcast, you login with your Apple ID. Click on the "+" button in the upper left. You will be presented with one field to add your podcast, the RSS Feed. Enter in the RSS feed and click on "Validate". Once you have clicked on the "Validate" button, many checks will be done on the feed.

These include, but are not limited to, checking the artwork, verify the RSS feed itself is valid, that episodes can be downloaded, a category for your podcast exists, whether or not an explicit tag is provided, and whether the podcast feed already exists.

If any of these items are not present, or if the feed has been submitted already, the validation will provide you with information about issues to rectify. An example is below.

If your feed passes all of the checks, you will be presented with a preview page, similar to the one below, and the status of the podcast will change to "Prepared for Submission".

After you have double-checked everything on the page to verify that it is correct, you can click on the "Submit" button in the upper right it will submit the podcast for review. Once it is approved, you will receive an email stating such and it will be available in the iTunes Podcast Directory.

Editing an existing Podcast

There are times that you, as a podcast owner, may end up needing to change the feed for your podcast. It could be because you are switching hosting providers, or it could be because your podcast has become quite popular and need to create caching for podcast feeds. With Podcast Connect you are able to edit the RSS feed. To do this perform the following

1. Login to Podcast Connect.
2. Locate the podcast you wish to edit.
3. Click on the cover for the podcast.
4. In the URL field, put in the updated RSS feed.
5. Click on "Save".

On this page you will also notice a couple of features. The first is the "Last Refresh" time. This is good for determining when your podcast was last updated by Apple. There are also a few other features. You can refresh the feed. When you click on this, you will receive a message similar to the one below:

You can view the Podcast in iTunes, so you can see how it appears to others.

You can also hide the podcast from the directory. It is not 100% clear whether or not the feed will continue to refresh if hidden. It is presumed that it will.

The last option is to delete the podcast. This option will be best used if you no longer want to list your podcast in the iTunes Podcast Directory.

Possibile Future Features

Even though this is a great step forward forward in allowing easier management for podcast owners. I do think this step could bring some additional options in the future. One of the features that could easily be added would be the ability to charge for podcasts. Within iTunes it shows as "Free". Yet, by adding a couple of options to the page, it may be possible to have a subscription model for a podcast. While I do not think many would take advantage of an option like this, it might be possible. Yet, knowing Apple it may not be very likely to happen anytime soon.

Final Thoughts

The addition of Podcasts Connect will make it easier to add and modify Podcasts. While many of the more tech-focused podcast owners would be able to create redirects easily. However, for the majority of non-technical podcast owners will now be able to make changes quite easily. I hope to see more portals like this from Apple that will make things easier for other types of users.

Today was the keynote for MacWorld San Francisco 2008. Steve Jobs announced several things today.. Here's the run down:

Leopard has sold over 5 million copies so far, that's 20% of them have upgraded their computers to Leopard. It's the most successful launch of an Operating System that they've had.

Apple introduced a new product today, Time Capsule. To describe it, it's basically an Airport Extreme wireless base station with either a 500 Gigabyte or 1 Terabyte hard drive built in. It will allow for syncing over Wireless, and will work with Time Machine wirelessly.

Just like the Airport Extreme it comes with gigabit networking on all of the ports, and 802.11N (draft). The prices are as follows. For the 500GB model it will cost you $299, while the 1 Terabyte model will cost you $499. You can pre-order today, and it will be shipping in February.

The Second thing that Steve Jobs presented was on the iPhone. Within the first quarter the iPhone has grown to consume 19.5% of the smartphone market. It has been 200 days since the iPhone started shipping and over 4 million iPhones have been sold.

The new release of the firmware (version 1.1.3) was released. The new features are...

• Maps with location push pins. This will allow you to keep track of favorite locations and subsequently move the pins around.

• Webclips are website bookmarks on your home screen. They will remember the location on the screen where you zoomed/panned to. You can create up to 9 of them.

• The ability to customize the home screen. You can click and drag the icons around on the screen, put different items within the dock.

• SMS to multiple people (No mention of MMS, but we'll take what we can get). This should have been included in the initial release.

• Lastly, the ability to see the lyrics within a song. The lyrics are within the ID3 tags (if you've added them or used Harmonic to automatically add them).

The software update is available today as a free update to all existing iPhone users.

There are also 5 new applications for the iPod touch. These are already on the iPhone. They are: Maps, Mail, Stocks, Notes, and Weather. They will cost $20 for iPod Touch users (presumably through iTunes).

---Now, can somebody tell me why the hell iPod touch users should have to pay for a firmware update? iPhone users do not, and no previous versions of the iPod have had to pay for firmware upgrades. It seems a bit odd to me.

iTunes was the third thing on the agenda.

So far 4 billion songs sold (as of last week), there were 20 million songs sold in one day on Christmas day. New one-day record for iTunes. 125 million TV shows sold. 7 million movies. Both are way above competitors, but did not meet expectations of projected downloads.

A new feature is available, iTunes Movie Rentals. Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, Lionsgate, Newline, Fox, Warner Brothers, Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Sony are all on board, that is every major movie studio. There are currently over 1000 movies available for rental. New titles will be available 30 days after the DVD release. (This is so they don't cannibalize DVD sales [for now]). You will be able to watch anywhere on your Macs, PCs, all current iPods and the iPhone.

The rules for rentals are as follows, once you rent a movie you have 30 days to start watching it. Once you start watching it, you have 24 hours to finish it. Then the rental expires.

You will be able to watch the rentals instantaneously (approximately 30 seconds). iTunes Movie Rentals launches today in the U.S. International will launch later this year. Software updates for iPods and iTunes will be forthcoming. the iTunes update is available now, you can get it here.

You ask, what about my nice new HD TV? Steve has taken care of that too...

Apple TV Take 2. You do not need a computer. You'll be able to Rent movies from your Apple TV. DVD quality AND HD + Dolby 5.1 surround sound. You can listen or watch podcasts. You can browse through your photos from Flickr and Apple's .Mac service. You can watch YouTube videos, Synching with iTunes (no mention of streaming). You will be able to also rent High Definition movies (Same resolution as DVD, 720 x 480p). They will cost $4.99. 100 titles are available today. You can also preview movies from the interface, and see what other users who have rented that movie have rented.

Photo screensavers can be retrieved from .Mac web galleries. (why not flickr?). You can purchase music right from Apple TV. The new Apple TV is a free software update for owners of the current apple TV. The New software will be out in 2 weeks. And Apple TV has a new price starting at $229 (down from $299). The 160GB Model is now $329.

The fourth, and final, thing: There's something in the air. Apple introduced a new product called the Macbook Air (MBA). Apple thought 3 lbs is a good target weight, but there was too much compromise with the other features. The MacBook Air is 0.16" to 0.76" thick. The thickest part of the MacBook Air is thinner than the thinnest part of the Sony TZ. It fits entirely inside a envelope. The MBA has a Magnetic latch and a 13.3" widescreen display (same as the Macbook). The display is LED backlit. There is an iSight built-in. MacBook-like keyboard, but with an ambient light sensor. There is also a Multi-touch trackpad. To move a window by double-tap and move. Rotate a photo by pivoting your index finger around your thumb. Of course, pinch-zoom (like on the iPod Touch and iPhone).

Detailed Specs: 1.8" Hard Drive, in either 80 GB hard disk standard, or an option oif 64 GB SSD ($999). 1.6 GHz Standard, 1.8 GHz Option -- Intel Core 2 Duo Apple asked Intel to shrink the Core 2 Duo. Intel shrunk the processor by 60%. Paul Otellini stated the processor is as thick as a nickle and as wide as a dime.

45 Watt MagSafe, 1 USB 2.0 port, Micro-DVI, Audio Out. 802.11n + Bluetooth 2.1/EDR. No optical drive, but a Superdrive accessory is available for $99. There's also software comes with the MacBook Air that allows you to "borrow" a Mac or PCs optical drive. 5 hours of Battery Life 2 GB Memory standard $1799 Pre-orders today, shipping in two weeks

Environmental highlights: fully aluminum case (good for recycling), first fully mercury and lead free display, circuit boards are BFR free, retail packaging are 56% less volume than MacBook.

Just a thought on my part, this is only one step away from a tablet mac computer. Just a thought.

In just the first 2 weeks of 2008, apple has updated the Mac Pro, introduced Time Capsule, software updates for iPhone and iPod Touch, Movie Rentals for iTunes, Apple TV software updates, and MacBook Air.

I'm going to make sure that I left everybody know that they really should backup any important files that they would rather not lose. I had a hard drive decide to whack and the Master File Table (more info here). So I'm going through the physical parts of the hard drive and attempting to recover any iTunes music, pdfs, excel files, and videos that I can... out of 78Gigabytes, thus far, I have only actually extracted 1 gigabyte of things that I want to keep. I have not yet recovered ANY of the iTunes Shows that I purchased, including Studio 60, Several free ones, and a couple of others... Luckily, I have kept all of the Apple Receipts e-mails that they have sent; so I will be creating a list, and keeping that up to date.

so I am reminding and encouraging everybody to go to File->Backup to Disc (within iTunes) and save all of the files to a Disc. It is not easy to recover the songs. Once I have finished going through the entire hard drive, I'm going to be burning an entire backup of the iTunes songs....