9to5 Staff

***Rampant speculation alert — EDIT: yup only 7.4 – look for 8 to deliver HD movies …soon ***

So as the disclaimer says, this is just “informed” speculation. However, with a release of iPods this big looming (They booked Moscone West?!), it would make sense that iTunes would get an upgrade. How big an upgrade? At least a point upgrade to cover the new hardware…so at the low end, we are looking at a bug-fix upgrade: 7.3.3. However this is a huge event right? So at least 7.4!

Why should we stop there? It has been a full year since the release of iTunes 7…  And there have to be some big new features on the horizon, right?  I mean iTunes is central to Apple.  It is the one thing that connects all of its business units.  Mac, iPod, iPhone and AppleTV are all connected through iTunes.    It has to be time for a full upgrade!  

iTunes 8 !     iTunes ’08 ?

iTunes ’08 MediaCenter for Mac and PC.  That’s right, instead of having to deal with Vista MediaCenter, you can just buy a barebones XP PC (cheap), install iTunes (easy) and plug it into your TV.   Also, we know that the AppleTV is a cheap PC.  Why not make the AppleTV a full iTunes 8 client.  It can be done, so why not?  The positives outweigh the negatives.

As a matter of fact, this is wild speculation so let’s get even more crazy here.  “iTunes” as a name is wearing out.  It is an incredibly solid brand but it no longer really identifies the software product.  Originally when it was first built, it explained its primary purpose as a music player, then as a means to transfer music to the iPod. It even made sense as the iTunes store when the only items sold were music.  However its role has grown wildly.  Just look at Apple’s Website:

AppleTV?  Shows?   Movies?  Games?  Audiobooks?  What does that have to do with “Tunes”?  How about iPod/iPhone syncing?  Yeah, you do still have some music on there but it also does your calendar, address book, pictures, and a whole slew of other syncing activities.  My vote is for something like…

iHub ’08 – the center of your digital universe…

…wait…iMedia!…no iEntertainment!

..or something. Perhaps Apple will just move this functionality over to iSync. Or maybe Quicktime will play a part?  From an identity standpoint it is confusing and doesn’t mesh with the long term strategy…

The “iTunes” name could still exist as the music player, or the music store name on the Mac or even also shift over to the iPods/iPhones/AppleTVs.  However this change in role could confuse the consumer.  If Apple does change the name on September 5th, will “iTunes.app” be dead?  :'(

No, probably not… iTunes 8 :D

Edit: We found a nice “wishlist” from hmurchison at Applenova forums that we are shamelessly going to post below (click link for more discussion) Nice work!

1. Server version- Frequently there are now multiple libraries and caches of music stored in silos in the typical home. It’s time for Apple to have a robust solution for managing the media needs of a family or small group. The ability to centrally store data yet locally manage/manipulate the metadata is crucial to moving iTunes like apps into a more multi-user environment. Storage space is rapidly increasing in size and decreasing in cost but the management “costs” of storage will always rise unless one move to a more sophisticated method of storing and retrieving data.

2.New organizational structure – iTunes 7 does some weird things. I’ve downloaded video files that pop up in my music library. Some podcasts don’t show up where the podcasts should go. iTunes 8 should not have these problems. The metadata encoded in the file should place each item in its proper place. Video/Movie files should not be in my music library. Stopping messing up my feng shui Apple.

3. Better editing tools (metadata editing) -I’ve often wondered why I cannot modify certain chunks of data in iTunes. I’ve imported songs before that have certain sort attributes that I’d love to edit such as “date added”. Give me a Power Users option to fix what iTunes sometimes screwsup regardless of fault.

4. Realtime Apple Lossless to AAC encoding/syncing – I want to rip my CDs into Apple Lossless Encoding yet when I sync my iPod/iPhone I want to be able to choose on the fly compression. At home I want the most pristine quality I can get but on the road 256k AAC is more than enough. Computers are now fast enough to do this. Please make it happen so that I can rip to one codec and still keep flexibility for mobile product.

5. HD movie support– A no brainer. I expect iT8 to be the version that brings forth HD 720p movies from iTunes from multiple studios.

6. Fix the damn radio feature- Why Apple hasn’t created iTunes radio is beyond me or perhaps technology. Internet Radio(IR) needs to be looked at as a new medium. We need to generate a way to marry the quality of radio (diverse playlist, DJ etc) with the power of computing. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have IR with embedded metadata that links me to iTunes tracks, podcasts or films. This is a revenue potential for Apple or anyone who can Enterprise. If I hear a song on IR in iTunes I should be able to click a button and go to that song on iTunes for purchase or subscribe to the podcast. The computer is NOT a Typewriter folks!!

7. Beef up the community of iTunes- come’on the rating system sucks. I don’t want to read people blathering about music unless we share some commonality in music taste. A rating system based on a Reputation Management system will track other users who tend to like the same music and give priority to their views. This is more important to me. Cap the iMix limit. I don’t want to wade through 90 track iMixes. Pick your favorite tunes up to 25 tracks please.

8. Parental Controls- Going along with central storage and metadata editing would be a security system that would allow the family admin (aka parent) to flag files that should not be accessible via some family members. Once a piece of media is flagged nc17 or whatever it immediately is hidden from the computers of those who are barred from nc17 media.

9. Lyric support- iT8 should be able to retrieve lyrics from an Apple iTunes server and import them into the proper song. This way if I forget the title of a song I can do a lyrics search and find the song.

10. Revolutionary Personal Media sharing- Apple should allow iT8 to become the conduit to enable personal sharing via broadcasting services through Wide Area Bonjour. iTunes would handle the connection This would allow you to literally publish or subscribe to end user content set up as a service on a personal computer. Think of Apple’s answer to You Tube but better since audio would equally be supported. No money involved and Apple’s bandwidth isn’t used ..iT8 just manages the connection from end to end.

They’ve been known to do this before – and of course it could always be a glitch…

But as you can see, Amazon is offering up an 80Gb iPod for $609. I wonder what sized screen you get with that?

Perhaps, this could also be some new pricing algorithm that kicks in when there is only one product left?  We’ve found some other anomalies after the jump…

(BTW – Thanks comments!)

The full page ad…

With the September 5th Apple announcement sure to be exciting for those who are waiting for new iPods, questions still remain on the final specs of these devices. Perhaps Apple dropped some clues on us with their recent Airport Extreme update (Probably not).  If not, the questions still loom: will these new flagship iPods have WiFi?  Are they hard drive or flash based?  POLL

Our informed readers and insiders have been somewhat split on the answers to these questions.  

A hard drive (compared to Flash/NAND) uses a lot of juice.  Hard drive-based devices require more battery and stabilization space than RAM based device like the iPhone.  To have both in a device the form-factor of an iPhone would be pretty tough  – but doable if the device were to be made thicker.  The hard drive alone would add significant bulk to the device and its spinning could also throw off the accelerometer that adds so much cool functionality to the iPhone’s OS.

However, 1.8 inch hard drives are relatively cheap and huge.  For the price of a 16 Gb flash-based iPod, Apple could probably give you a 160 Gb hard drive based iPod that was a few millimeters thicker and might not have the same battery life.  Would users be cool with that?  Yes, certainly.  Would Apple’s designers?  Probably less so, but it certainly is in the realm of contention – especially knowing that millions of potential customers are salivating over the possibility.

As for Wifi, we know the iPhone certainly does it quite well.  The only question is if including Wifi will hurt the iPhone sales (it certainly could) and will Apple – and by extension AT&T and the Euro-carriers be willing to accept that?  We know Apple doesn’t really care too much about it’s partners but  they do care about their iPhone.  If they release Wifi in their iPods, they will have to beef up the storage in the iPhones at some point soon as well.

Wifi-based iPods bring up a lot of other possibilities as well.   Perhaps some of the storage loss by going exlusively flash RAM based could be made up by having your music/video data on Airport Extreme based, inexpensive USB hard drives?  Streaming your MP3’s and movies over the WLAN or Internet would be extremely cool.  Just ask Sling customers.

VOIP also comes to mind.  We know however, that the new iPods don’t have phone-like speakers and mics.  Therefore, it is probably not Apple’s long term plan to use the iPod as a phone.  Of course Bluetooth or tethered headsets could easily be used and I am sure someone like Skype or Cisco would be happy to add a bit of software that could enable this.

What about future releases?  At some point in the future we know that the iPod and iPhone will be the same device.  It is just too easy and imperative to add VOIP functionality to a iPod sized device. The flexibility and function of VOIP services kills traditional carriers’ capabilities.   Look how hard it was to get visual voicemail from AT&T?  Skype and Vonage had that functionality a few years ago.  

When the smoke clears in the portable device industry, Apple wants their devices to the THE SINGLE device people carry around.  Apple’s current portable device lineup have the ability to be those devices.  Maybe by Macworld, we’ll see something moving in that direction.

Update: Winner by a nano-margin – yosoyyo with:	aarongrider made a pretty good Youtube of our best contestants.

 

None of the entries was exactly… what we’ve seen. It is very hard to describe the subtle differences from the new iPod and the iPhone. The edge around the outside is the only distinguishing characteristic. For those of you losing your mind waiting to see the new iPod, go look at an iPhone in the dark.

A really good post over at CNET articulates what a lot of people have been speculating about since the bevy of iPhone hacks have been released. 

This is all part of Apple’s plan. 

Apple has been known to screw its partners over before (cough**Motorola ROKR, IBM, Adobe, Microsoft etc.) albeit privately. By not taking any actions against the new iPhone hackers and leaving the dirty work to AT&T’s legal team, Apple isn’t helping its case.  Perhaps because Steve can relate to phone haxors?

From a strictly mathematical point of view, let’s look at the revenues.  Apple gets 10% ish of every legit iPhone’s usage revenue.  Over 2 years@ $5 a month, that is $240.  About the same as the margin on the iPhones according to iSupply.  So about break even.  

However those people taking them off of AT&T are unlikely to be cannibalizing AT&T sales – they are people stuck in other contracts…all things being relatively equal besides visual voice mail, if you are plan-less in a semi urban area, you’ll go to AT&T.  So it is mostly gravy.

If Apple is serious about keeping the iPhone locked to AT&T, they will release a firmware update that will seal up the holes that it has allowed hackers to break throguh.  Much like the PSP vs. Homebrew PSP fight, it will be a sticky situation.

With 3G iPhones coming to Europe and predicted price drops in current iPhones, there is a lot of excitemnt in this market segment.  And don’t forget about WiMAX in 2008!

So Ars was right. The Apple event is going to be on September 5th. So will the Beatles. And iPods both big and small. But what else?

Oh, By the way…. That Coverflow screenshot is 480×320. Also poster Larry mentions it is high time for Logic 8 to be introduced. This is a big music related event. Why not?

Update: Ars has picked up this story as well…

You’ve seen what is happening to Microsoft before. A company runs out of ideas so they end up cannibalizing their main source of income to try to squeeze more money out of their existing customers.
AOL is a company well into this phase in its life cycle. A few years back, they made the business decision to make it much harder to get out of their ISP/Content plans. Why? Because that is all that they got.  The MBAs said “we need to stop people from leaving. This is the best thing we can come up with.”  Instead of making a compelling service that would drive new customers and keep existing ones (like how about delivering TimeWarner movies over the net for a reduced cost?), they opted to cheat their current customers out of some cash on the way out the door.  Their reputation was irreparably damaged and their continued downward spiral is a testament to this.

Mobile carriers are obviously as guilty of this practice as any other business without an innovation game plan. Besides high-speed access and wider coverage areas, what other services do you want from a mobile carrier? Music and content? Leave that to the TV networks and record labels. Innovative phone services? Skype, Vonage and the various SIP providers are killing the traditional carriers on features and a large portion of their customers (us included) are biding their time until these services become available over wireless. There isn’t a wide part of the value chain to add to. So where to innovate? How about core competency?

Delivery.

Things like great customer satisfaction, easy plans, expanding service area and data speed,  and inexpensive roaming come to mind. In lieu of offereing these pluses, the mobile carriers have made a practice of signing customers in for long term plans, locking their phones and imposing stiff penalties for leaving early. Why do most customers want to leave? How about keeping customers with great service? 

There has to be a service model that fits in this mindspace as well as a communications strategy that tells customers that they should sign up because we, as telecomX are innovators – so much so that we aren’t worried about you leaving. In fact, our confidence in our product/service is so high that we won’t threaten to screw you on the way out by locking your phone or giving you a huge cancellation fee. When/if that model hits the streets, I think we will see a large migration. Hopefully a WiMAX/4G era coupled with smaller Internet/communications devices will bring on this era.  That is unless the mobile carriers are able to successfully block their customers VOIP traffic.

This is obviously the case with AT&T, which is spending money on attorneys suing people who unlock their iPhones rather than spending money on infrastructure to keep customers from going to the other carriers or providing reasonable roaming rate agreements. For some reason, the customer satisfaction/retention quotient has been miscalculated by these companies. Or perhaps they just really believe consumers forget being screwed. Or maybe someone in PR/Branding needs to speak up?

Which brings us back to the Microsoft example. This is a bad sign for Microsoft and the software industry in general. As more companies move to the SaaS model, the temptation to focus resources on lock-in

http://p.castfire.com/cHNHf/video/1999/webbalertwebbalert_2007-08-23-035114.flv

Nice Little Rocketboom meets TechTV thing going on. Why are we showing you? Because she mentions 9to5Mac towards the end @4:23! Joy. You have some new fans.

WebbAlert.com

The latest news around the net is the iPhone hack that allows you to take the sim-locked iPhone off of AT&T and use it freely on any GSM network – making the must-have device more accessible.   This is a boon to people (like us) abroad who love the iPhone but don’t want to pay AT&T’s exorbitant roaming extortion fees. Apple hasn’t taken an official stance on this issue perhaps because of a little bit of history. Maybe you’ve seen the picture to the right on Steve Wozniak’s official website:

Yep.  That is Steve Jobs on the left, but the most startling thing in this picture (besides Woz’s ‘do) is that young Jobs is playing with a piece of contralband called the “Blue Box.”  What is a Blue Box?  From Wikipedia:

An early phreaking tool, the blue box is an electronic device that simulates a telephone operator‘s
dialing console. It functions by replicating the tones used to switch long-distance calls and using them to route the user’s own call, bypassing the normal switching mechanism. The most typical use of a blue box was to place free telephone calls – inversely, the Black Box enabled one to receive calls which were free to the caller. The blue box no longer works in most western nations, as modern switching systems are now digital and no longer use the in-band signaling which the blue box emulates. Instead, signaling occurs on an out-of-band channel which cannot be accessed from the line the caller is using (called Common Channel Interoffice Signaling (CCIS))….

Some of the more famous pranksters were Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, founders of Apple Computer. On one occasion Wozniak dialed Vatican City and identified himself as Henry Kissinger (imitating Kissinger’s German accent) and asked to speak to the Pope (who was sleeping at the time).^1].

We love the Steves, but it is well documented that the Apple founders got their start by hacking AT&T (from 1971-1975 AT&T was still a monopoly – just like it will be in 2010).  

Therefore, it is going to be extremely difficult for Apple to take the moral high ground on the current controversy surrounding the young entrepreneurs who are hacking the iPhone.  AT&T has already started hitting back at the companies that offer to untether the iPhone from the wannabe monopoly.  

Hey AT&T, why not put those attorney fees into better service for your customers and lower prices for your roamers? That would be a better way of keeping customers, in our opinion.

Update: It turns out that the duo not only built the illegal boxes but assembled them and SOLD them on Cal Berkley’s campus for around $150. This profit was some of the money that was used to start Apple!!

In 1971 Steve ‘Woz’ Wozniak designed a device called the ‘Blue Box’. It allowed — of course illegal — phone calls free of charge by faking the signals used by the phone companies. His friend Steve Jobs instantly realized that there must be a huge market for something that useful. He bought the parts for $40, Woz built the boxes and Jobs sold them to his fellow students at the University of California in Berkeley for $150. To demonstrate the ‘product’ to some students, Woz once posed as Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and called the Vatican. Allegedly he played his role so well that they told him the pope was sleeping but if he requested they would awake him. Woz got nervous and hung up.

More Here:

The Wozniak/Jobs blue boxes were perfected and the business partnership between Jobs and Wozniak was born with Jobs working with Wozniak to sell the blue-boxes. They had some success and decided to begin working on a personal computer. Jobs sold his Volkswagen, Wozniak sold his HP scientific calculator, together raising $1,300 to fund their startup – the rest is history.

Halliday, David. 1983. “Steve Paul Jobs”. Current Biography 5 (February): 204-207.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG7sAwv5Sj8]
Wait a new version has been leaked!!!
The SpaceBalls Warp at the end does it for me!
Via digg, Via 9rules Apple notes

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJCyAHJ27Uw]
Via Gizmodo

We get hundereds of comments asking why we don’t just post our mockup and wait for Apple Legal to come after us. People, we don’t want to take Apple’s thunder!   They have thousands of people working on amazing products and should have the right to introduce them – not lowly us.  We just speculate, speculate, speculate.

Plus, we have families to support and are not trying to wind up on the wrong side of the Apple Lawyer Army to end up jobless, broke and kneecap-less! 

But, you guys are creative right?  Your art skillz are better than ours, no?  Why not shoot us an email at editor at 9to5mac dot com or post a link in the comments and we’ll post the most amazing ones next week.

You got game? (continue)

Update: we’ve been getting some sick submissions people – keep up the good work!  It is going to be next to impossible to pick the best!

Yeah we had a spy picture to show you but we’ve learned our lesson – twice. We’ll just describe it and let your minds wander:

Update: We are having a contest!

Name – iPod XXXXX… HTC be damned!

Same form factor as the iPhone with some notable exceptions:

• Outside rim is black, not silver like the iPhone and more flush with the screen like the 5.5G iPods not rounded like iPhone
• No ear speaker or microphone for phoning
• Thinner – slightly

Things that are the same:

• OSX Embedded OS
• 480×320 screen
• Coverflow-enabled iPod application
• Single button home navigation

Things we wish we knew:

• WiFi?  (This is the Capper)
• GPS?
• NAND RAM and/or 160GB Hard Drives configs?
• Cost?  (Like it matters we want them!)

Also, just a quick note to Apple Legal.  We’ve learned our lesson and will shy away from posting what could be considered trademarked information.  9to5Mac is an Apple enthusiest website and we are all huge Apple fans here (obviously).  We are not trying to hurt the company – just inform other Apple consumers who might want  more intel on upcoming products so that they may make more informed buying decisions.  No one wants to spend their hard-earned money on a product that is about to get put in the dumper.  We are just hyping your products and informing your consumers.

Who doesn’t want that?  Apple, let’s just hug it out!

Peace!

Sorry.  Apple called.  Said take ’em down.  They are down.  Sorry Apple.  

Update: We are having a contest

Be the 1st to get Apple Intelligence. Get the Feed!

Edit: A commenter has pointed out that Apple has taken down the “You can’t be” campaign from their front page. We are not sure we had anything to do with this (Evidence?), but if we did, perhaps now would be a good time to pen an article on the virtues of the 2-button trackpad… Anyway a belated bravo to Apple.

You can