AppleTV Being Replaced? New releases this Tuesday? [Updated]

Reports are starting to come in from a couple sources that the AppleTV is being replaced within the next month. I’ll just leave it at that for now as more reports start to come in with more information. Plus I’m writing this from an iPhone which doesn’t help!

UPDATED:

A reputable insider from the TUAW blog is stating that existing Apple TV’s are to be pulled from shelves by September 30th, when a “webcast” will be taking place to kick off new products.

This date just happens to be a Tuesday, which is Apple’s favorite day to release new products to us. As devoted fanboys, followers, and lovers of all things Apple, I’m sure we’ll all be glued to our computers on Tuesday if this report does gain any more traction before then. Fingers are crossed…

Note: Some are speculating that as this is the one-year anniversary since the latest AppleTV upgrade and Apple’s advertising photos for the device need to be renewed. This could be why all brochures and advertising for the device needs to be removed by Tuesday so they can be replaced with new marketing materials.

What do you think is going to happen on Tuesday, September 30th?

RIM Spending More to Keep Up With iPhone

Research In Motion(RIM)the creators of the Blackberry are projecting lower gross margins and more R&D spending than originally planned for the upcoming quarter as they are trying to keep up with the Apple iPhone. RIM’s sales increased 88% this quarter along with profit increasing 72%, however, this was lower than projected.

Analyst’s are saying that competition from Apple’s iPhone is to blame for this, as RIM’s gross margins will be going down to 47% from 54% as they compete with Apple in lowering their prices and spending more money to make more competitive products. Go Apple go!

 

Original Story

Apple Going Blind

After a gentle poke from Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, Apple is redesigning iTunes to incorporate accessibility for the blind. After the AG pointed out that Apple was violating the federal Americans with Disabilites Act, the company agreed to work with the blind community to rectify the issue. Apple has since stated they will be redesiging iTunes to properly work with screen reader applications which the blind use to navigate their computers.

Apple has ensured that this change will happen by June 30th of next year. On top of this, Apple also donated $250,000 to the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind to assist in buying software for blind individuals to get more out of their computer.

How thoughtful of Apple, all it took was a mild threat from a state Attorney General.

Shazam!

Shazam!

No, it’s not a word muttered when waving the hand to complete a magic trick, it’s only the coolest iPhone App ever! Shazam, the iPhone music identifier, has hit a milestone with 1.5 million downloads off of the iTunes App store after only six weeks of release.

This is probably my favorite free App for my iPhone as I can just hold it up to any song playing for 10 seconds and it will tell me the title and artist name of that song. The article states that the appliaction has “identified more than 20 million music tracks in the last two months.” Go download it now if you haven’t already!

Original story

How to get hired by Apple as a Genius

Over at MacBlogz, Aviv Hadar has posted his journey through the hiring process at a local Apple Store. His goal was to obtain a position as an Apple Genius, and go figure, he succeeded! He claims it was surprisingly easy and even disclosed his hiring documentation from Apple to his readers. Head over to the site for a great read. Oh, and go figure, a genius isn’t worth that much, only $17/hr. I thought that since geniuses had high IQ’s they would be provided with better opportunities and more money.

iFace; Facial Recognition for the iPhone

Animetrics Inc. based out of the UK has created a program for the iPhone called iFace which ties into their FIMS facial recognition database. This program allows UK law enforcement and military personnel to take a snapshot of a person of interest and match it to the systems database of information on that individual.

Right now this program is not open to the public, but there may something that we can be interested in. t company is also using the same framework to develop a program that let’s users take a snapshot of a friend and reference it with a database of celebrities to see their closest match. Very cool stuff, albeit useless, but cool!

Aluminum Macbook line?

It is that time of the year again when Apple is known to revamp their notebook line in time for the holiday season. This year is no different, and the rumors are flying. Many sites are claiming that the new Macbooks have already been spotted and are shipping out to different areas across North America. Here’s what we have so far:

• The entire Mac notebook line is going aluminum.

• The Macbook Pro may be dropping the “Pro” label and we may just see a unified Macbook line.

• The Macbook Pro may be dropping the Dual-Link DVI connection in favor of Mini-DVI along with dropping the Firewire 400 port(which is still backwards compatible with FW800.)

• Picture’s have been posted everywhere, this being the most popular:

While many claim this is an obvious photoshop, it does provide a mock up of a lot of rumors that have been reported to up until this point.

So, what does it all mean? Well, Apple is trying to move towards a unified aluminum lineup which, in my opinion, will look great and sell well for the holiday season. The new look and materials used will also put Apple ahead of the pack when it comes to being a greener, more eco-friendly computer company.

While I do agree that the above picture is a photoshop(many vanishing points, odd lighting and angles, etc)I do hope some of these ideas are indeed incorporated into the new Macbook Pro. That notebook is in desperate need of a revamp as it has basically stayed unchanged since early Powerbook’s from years ago.

We’ll see what the holiday season brings as the rumor mill’s are claiming this lineup revamp will be announced on Tuesday, October 14th.

Welcome

Welcome to the Apple GdgtGuru Blog!

My goal here is to provide you with the latest news and rumors in the world of Apple Inc., along with my opinions and reflections on these posts.

I’m a small fish in a big pond, starting things out. I’m going to be tweaking my plan and design with this blog over the next few weeks, so things should be rough at first.

Let’s go!