Sifting through iPhone 2.0 wish lists, predictions, prognostications, forecasts, prophesies

wwdcBy now, everybody in the known universe has offered up their iPhone 2.0 predictions, prognostications, forecasts, and prophesies. We even think that NASA’s Phoenix Lander may have found an iPhone wish list on Mars, but we’re not sure.

As you can imagine, iPhone 2.0 speculation has reached a fever pitch again — just like iPhone 1.0 did last June — with ideas ranging from the obvious “duh” to “out there”, just like Mars.

For our own amusement, and yours, we’ve sifted through wish lists and predictions to come up with what we think will happen, what may happen, and what’s still to come for iPhone hardware, features, and applications.

You’ll be able to judge the pundits on Monday, after Steve Jobs delivers the keynote speech at the Worldwide Developers Conference. Until then, if you see something missing, add it to the comments. Because there is one thing we’ve learned: Everybody has a special feature or application they’d like to see on the new iPhone, and we can’t predict ’em all.

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Live TV on PC: Zattoo and LiveStation showing steady growth

Zattoo Manage ChannelsWhether or not you’re convinced that in the age of on-demand there’s an appetite for live TV over the Internet, two services that deliver just that are claiming impressive growth.

“Zattoo is growing nice and steadily”, the company’s UK and Ireland Country Manager, Alexandra Illes, told last100 in an email. “We have reached over 2.4 million [users] and are now available in over eight countries.” Zattoo delivers live streaming of existing ‘over-the-air’ and cable channels, with various channel lineups depending on country.

IIles was writing to tell us about the latest Zattoo software update which adds features including new channel management functionality. “With a channel line-up that’s getting bigger and bigger, we thought it important to allow users to arrange channels in self-defined groups and change the order of the line-up. The idea is that each user can customise the Player to suit their viewing habits.”

In a press release put out on the same day, LiveStation, a similar service to Zattoo that streams a number of television and radio news stations, boasts that their users “have already spent seven years watching live news on their PCs.”

Whatever that means. Continue reading »

Will Apple develop MobileMe as my own personal cloud?

dot mac logo smA lot is being made of cloud computing these days, especially in light of Microsoft’s Mesh initiative and the various online products and strategies cooked up by Google.

With the rumored changes coming to Apple’s .Mac product, could a revamped MobileMe or Me.com — whatever it is ultimately called — eventually become my personal cloud?

I hope so. My digital life needs one, whether supplied by Microsoft, Google, or Apple, it doesn’t matter. Continue reading »

"the PoD", the $99 Internet-to-TV set-top box

Another set-top box aiming to bridge the gap between the Internet and our televisions is due to hit the market later this summer — at a sweet price point of $99.

The work of startup Verismo Networks, “the PoD” (Apple legal department look away) will deliver a range of online video content to the living room TV, both through official partnerships — starting with YouTube, video search engine vTap, and BitTorrent — along with the box’s ability to support Windows DRM-based services such as Amazon UnBox and Cinema Now, without the need for a PC the company claims. The latter sounds a little too good to be true but we’ll hold our judgement until “the PoD” actually goes on sale.

Our friends over at NewTeeVee got a sneak preview of the tiny looking device at this week’s Under the Radar conference in Mountain View, Calif., and published a short demo and Q&A with Verismo Networks CEO Prakash Bhalerao. Full video after the jump… Continue reading »

iTunes UK adds movie purchases and (48 hour) rentals

iTunes UK adds movie purchases and (48 hour) rentals Six months after their U.S. debut, Apple has finally made movies rentals, along with purchases, available to iTunes customers in the UK.

On the plus side, new film releases for purchase will be offered the same day as their DVD release and, in a near industry-first, the viewing window for rentals has been extended to 48 hours (from 24), whereby customers have up to 30 days to start watching a rented download, and once the movie starts they have two days to finish it or watch it multiple times. As we wrote in our earlier analysis of Apple’s U.S. iTunes movie offering (Content, pricing and convenience. How do movie rentals on iTunes fare?), a 24 hour limit “makes it impossible to split a film over two nights, a requirement that is more common than you’d think, especially for those with kids”. Continue reading »

In the news: SpiralFrog, We7, The Filter, helping us discover new artists and content

spiral frogIt seems like a millennia ago when music fans huddled around the radio to listen to Casey Kasem’s “American Top 40” or the television on Saturday mornings to see what new artists appeared on “Soul Train.”

Now, all you have to do is fire up the Internet and head over to any one of a million or two music sites like iTunes and last.fm to find new artists and “Top 40” lists that mix the familiar with the obscure.

Three such sites — SpiralFrog, We7, and The Filter — are in the news this week and each, in its own way, is working hard to introduce you to new music and entertainment content.

SpiralFrog, the free, ad-supported music download service, today announced a digital distribution agreement with EMI Music.

EMI’s catalog of digital music and videos will be available to consumers for legal downloading from SpiralFrog in North America. EMI artists are certainly recognizable — from The Beach Boys and Miles Davis to Norah Jones and Coldplay — but while your listening to old favorites it’s impossible not to stumble on indie artists and breakout bands while using the site.

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Sony launches Qore, interactive HD video show for PS3

Sony launches Qore, interactive HD video show for PS3Sony might not yet be ready to roll out its own Internet TV service for the PlayStation 3 but the company is launching an original interactive HD video show to be distributed through the game console’s online service.

Called “Qore”, the magazine-style show will feature “exclusive multimedia news, developer interviews, in-depth game previews and behind-the-scene looks at the hottest PlayStation games”, according to the press release. “Subscribers will also have special access to game demos, betas, add-ons and other downloadable and game-related content.” Continue reading »

CBS to introduce new online video player with promising social features

cbs logoCBS Interactive is launching a new online video player this week, with more features to be added throughout the summer. It’s one we may actually end up cheering about.

Our normal reaction to news that a traditional media company is releasing a new online video player might go something like this: Big deal. They’ll just cripple it so we spend time watching shows on their network.

No so fast buckeroo.

AdAge wrote today that the CBS player will use a content and advertising engine powered by technology acquired in the purchase of Last.fm, the popular streaming music site. The new player will include an HD viewing experience that does not require a separate download, sharing features, and social viewing rooms that let people watch and discuss content together.

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Android, it's the browser stupid

Android at a crossroadsIt’s hard not to be impressed by the latest demonstration of Android, Google’s soon-to-be-released open-source mobile OS. While my colleague Dan Langendorf is reserving judgment until a killer application and real handsets emerge, I’m already sold on Android’s User Interface, which looks to have borrowed just enough from Apple’s iPhone, as well as some of the design Zen of the original Palm OS, to more than satisfy my needs.

Of course, the biggest promise of Android isn’t its UI but its openness, and it’s here where comparisons to the iPhone are also inevitable. On the one hand Google wants us to believe that Android isn’t a direct response to Apple’s own offering (which, chronologically, may well be true), but at the same time is keen to remind developers that in contrast to the iPhone they won’t need to get Android applications certified by anyone, nor will there be any hidden APIs (application programming interfaces) accessible only to handset makers or mobile operators — another dig at Apple. Continue reading »

Weekly wrapup, 26-30 May 2008

Here’s a summary of the week’s digital lifestyle action on last100. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special weekly wrapup RSS feed or by email.

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Internet TV news

Details are scant, but Amazon will be launching online video streaming service soon

Amazon, the world’s largest Internet retailer, will be launching an online streaming video service in the next several weeks, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said a little too matter-of-factly at the D: All Things Digital conference. One detail: The streaming service will start immediately for viewers, unlike Amazon’s Unbox product, in which users are required wait a period of time as content downloads. Continue reading »