new earth online

Today Apple have announced a few updates to their product line-up. As of today user's can download iTunes 8 which has the new Genuis Playlists feature. The Genius Playlists is a way of creating a playlist based on a similar songs to the one you're currently listening too - quite cool, especially if you have a large library of songs. A similar feature is the Genius Sidebar - this picks songs from the iTunes store that are similar to music you already own. Quite an interesting idea for both of these, but the latter is one that to some degree has been a feature of Amazon for a long time. Other changes include the addition of a grid view, High Definition TV shows, improved accessibility, and a new Visualiser.

The next announcement from Apple is the change to the iPod nano. First point it now comes in a wide range of colours! Their website has it showing in White, Black, Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red and Pink. Another change is that it now has a Genius feature for creating playlists, and rotating the iPod rotates the screen! One questionable feature is that if you shake your iPod it shuffles your songs. So what if you're jogging or cycling with it? You're going to be reshuffling every few seconds! There is also a new iPod Touch out with these features (of course!) in 8Gb, 16Gb, and 32Gb flavours, and similar changes to their iPod Shuffle line-up.

Knowing that the Apple Store's grand opening would be at 10:00am, myself and a few others headed to the store just after the planned opening time thinking that an Apple store in Leicester wouldn't be a big deal. How wrong was that assumption. We queued for about 40 minutes as people were only being let into the stores in groups of about 10 - the door being protected by a number of policemen and security guards. As each group entered the store they were greeted by the Apple staff (in blue t-shirts and orange t-shirts) with huge cheers and "high-fives" making it seem like a really big deal. As you enter they give you your free T-shirt with and Apple logo and "Highcross" on one side, and "Designed by Apple in California" on the reverse. Sure enough by the time we got in through the door there were still more than enough T-shirts for us too, so I guess that means I was one of the first 1,000 people to enter Leicester's Apple store. Today I went back to the Apple store and it wasn't as crowded or excited, and so much easier to browse. Sorry no tutorial or review, or even a decent link - just thought I'd share the "Apple experience" with you.

The grand opening of the Apple Store in Leicester's Highcross is almost upon us. The official word from the Apple site says:

The Apple Store, Highcross will open on Thursday September 4th at 10:00 am; and you're invited to help us celebrate. Join us for the Grand Opening and get the chance to win a Digital Lifestyle Collection that includes a black MacBook and a silver iPod nano. The first 1,000 people through the doors will receive a free Apple T-shirt.

So that's pretty cool being able to get a free Apple t-shirt, I might have to try and get one. Next week they'll have some specialists on hand for some workshops on iWeb, iPhone, iTunes and iPod, and GarageBand. So anyone wanting to learn more about those products should reserve their tickets. They're also holding a competition to win 13-inch black MacBook and a silver 4GB iPod nano which is pretty cool and I guess it's a good way to get people through the doors and boost awareness of the new store.

This year is definitely the year of the iPhone. It's a great platform and already there is a phenomenal amount of applications available for it. Today on TUAW they've reviewed Teleport - a VNC client for the iPhone. Having such an application, although it costs $24.99 (£14.99), means you could be out on the road somewhere, but in need of a file on your PC or Mac at home that just happens to be running a VNC server and you'd be able to connect to it from your iPhone and email yourself the file - there's so many other possibilities too. If you support Windows webservers that are running VNC then it also makes life easier there as you can look into problems whilst you're away from your desk as well.

Teleport automatically detects VNC servers on the local network, and catalogues "saved" servers for easy access on the main screen.

TUAW also has a handy gallery of screenshots from the App so that you can see what it's like. Although the App is a little pricey for what it is, so TUAW have also mentioned an alternative - Mocha VNC Lite; which is a far cheaper option at only $5.99. They also have a gallery showing what the App is like, but I'm sure it should be enough for most people!