Official: iPhone, iPod touch SDK in February 2008

The iPhone SDK announcement, an open letter from Steve jobs:

This is truly monumental. Will they open it up for other development as well? Nintendo DS ports perhaps? A targeted 10 million user base would put Apple as a contender in the portable gaming market, at least a firm number 3. Begs the question whether Apple will be opening up their more lenient platforms on hacking to legitimate development… Apple TV anyone?

 

 

iPod touch free* at last! Apple Mail, third party apps now running.

The iPod touch has been officially “Jailbreaked” leading to third party apps and even Apple Mail to run as it does on the iPhone. Credit goes to hackers “Niacin” and “Dre” for finding the much sought after hack, both Engadget and 9to5Mac are reporting.The hacks haven’t been officially released yet, but the two says info will be revealed soon for the masses.

*software wise… Thanks Ms. Hudgens 😉

Original photo by “interstink” c/o the iPod touch Flickr group.

iPod touch roundup. A lot going on with Apples new device.

Some quick notes on the iPod touch, now that it is in the hands of a lucky few. Macworld’s Chris Breen and Jason Snell state a few not so known facts about the device.

Manual management of media. Jason Snell points out in the latest Macworld Video that you can manually manage media with the iPod touch. The option for asking it to do so is found in the Summary tab of the iPod touch’s preferences. This means that, unlike with the iPhone, you can enable this option, connect the iPod touch to any computer, and drag media to it.

iPhone hacks don’t currently work. Among the first things I tried to do after unpacking my iPod touch was to run the AppTapp iPhone installer hack. It didn’t work. The installer ran and ran with nothing apparently happening. Against my better judgment I force quit the installer and my iPod touch would do nothing more than display its “Connect to iTunes” option. I fired up iTunes and it wouldn’t see the iPod touch.

Before panicking I plugged the iPod touch into a different Mac. That Mac recognized the iPod touch but told me that it was in recovery mode and that I needed to restore it. That I did. iTunes downloaded the iPod touch 1.0.1 software and then reformatted the iPod. It worked perfectly well after that.

 

iPod touch video is darker. My iPod touch’s video is noticeably darker than the video played on my iPhone. I synced Chinatown, purchased from the iTunes Store, on both devices and played the same scene on each. With brightness cranked all the way up on both devices, the iPhone (below, left) far outshone the iPod touch. Dark scenes on the iPod touch were really dark, making it a less-than-ideal vehicle for watching film noir.

 

More to come on the iPod touch. Read the full article here.

iPod touch out in the wild! Now available at some Apple Stores.

Early reports today show some Apple stores have received a limited stock of 16GB iPods touch. We called our local Apple store in Tigard, OR and low and behold, the employee confirmed that they have received a very limited number of 16GB models.

[Update] Early reports claim the 16GB iPod touch capacity in at an actual 14.84GB . Also, ejecting is no longer required. There seems to be a bit of a difference in contrast as well, compared to the iPhones screen as reported by Gizmodo. Reports of iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store working flawlessly as well. Some on the net reporting Apple employees stating they should be receiving even more in the morning.

How about that iPhone credit Apple, so the rest of us can partake? [Update] Info is now available at Apple.com.

First iPod touch Review, it’s amazing, says PC Mag. “…the best portable media player ever”.

PC Magazines Tim Gideon is first out of the gates with a review of Apple’s new prodigal son peripheral, the iPod touch (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2179699,00.asp). Receiving an editors rating of 5 out of 5, Tim goes so far as calling the phoneless featured iPod as “…probably the best portable media player ever made”. Rejoiced trumpeting from the heavens aside, it is without a few minor short comings, says Tim. “It would also be nice if the WiFi store offered video purchases, too”, he says. We think it’s pretty safe to say that within the secret underground bunkers of 1 Infinite Loop, there is software for the iPod with this capability in mind. Just in time for the recently rumored movie rentals on iTunes? We think so.

[Update] In related news, Apple had released an online users manual for the iPod touch in PDF format, found here:

Click to access iPod_touch_Features_Guide.pdf