Apple let me down...

Last night, in California, Apple made some big announcements. They do this from time to time.

I love Apple. I really do. I get a stiffy everytime I'm near an Apple Shop. But - and god is this difficult for me to type - I'm a bit disappointed with what they announced last night.

The event was tagged 'It's Showtime.', so there were rumours and reports flying around the internet of a brand new, wide-screen, proper video iPod. As the announcement rumbled closer, it almost seemed inevitable they'd confirm it.

They didn't.

Instead, we've got some cosmetic upgrades to the Nano which makes it look just like the old iPod Mini; a miniscule iPod Shuffle which looks frankly ridiculous; and some cursory upgrades to the existing 5th generation video iPod. My constant hovering over the Apple online Store last night waiting to order my wide screen 6th generation was completely in vain. I felt so let-down.

Apple also announced a movie download service, which as usual is not available in the UK. It's been a year now since the launch of the video iPod, so when are we going to get a TV and movie download service over here? The BBC archive is bursting at the seams with old (and new) TV shows I'd download in a heartbeat. Yet, still we're waiting...

It wasn't all bad though. We've now got iTunes 7, which incorporates Cover Flow, a fantastic animated archive of all your music. It's bloody gorgeous. Not only that, iTunes will now add cover art to all your tunes at the click of a button. The cosmetic changes to iTunes are welcome too, and from just a couple of hours playing with it last night, it's much MUCH easier to navigate and control. Nice.

Oh, and being able to play pretty decent versions of Bejeweled and Tetris (amongst others) on my iPod is a sweet little bonus. I played for the best part of an hour at Bejeweled last night, and it had very little effect on the battery, so that's encouraging.

Every Apple event always ends with "One other thing...". This time it was iTV. They'll have to change the name in the UK though, surely? This Apple 'set top box' will make it possible to stream all the media content on your Apple through the telly, with the customary gorgeous front-end and menues. It looks like they're going to be keeping the cost of this gadget pretty low as well, so that'll be on top of the shopping list in the New Year.

All in all, not the huge announcements I was hoping for, but some nice little bonuses for the Apple faithful. Hopefully we'll get word of the 6th generation iPod in the New Year.

JUNK CULTURE

Music: Pictures - SIA
Podcast: GG's Podcast 21 - VIDEO PODCAST
TV: Medium - DVD BOXSET
Game: Bejeweled - iPOD
Magazine: Doctor Who Adventures (free pencils!)