Last week rumors started to arise that a $100 price drop for the iPod Touch and iPhone is very likely. This will mean the 8GB Touch will be prices at $199, 16GB at $299, and the new 32GB at $399 respectably.
Security researchers have discovered yet another way to crash your multi-touch device. This is now done with 19 lines of JavaScript Code and through a cleverly crafted website. The exploit “memory exhaustion remote denial of service vulnerability” affects Apple’s Mobile Safari web browser, which is a huge part of the popular devices.
All it takes for a website to have the malicious code is just to add the 19 lines of code and persuade the user to view it. This will crash the system and the device will immediately reboot.
When the iPod Touch was announced in September it was basically a multi-touch device with out a contract with AT&T and without the phone. So the iPod Touch was a good idea for people to have a hip trendy iPhone like player for a cheaper cost and no monthly payment.
However, over the past few months it has become quite a bit more… Now it can watch rented movies, legally have stock, notes, mail, weather, and maps applications, and to top it all of a new 32GB size. This has changed many people view on this jam-packed player and it is getting more and more popular over time.
Encouraging investors to buy Apple shares, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster outlined his own vision of how the Cupertino company’s iPod might evolve, highlighting the double-whammy of WiFi and MultiTouch as key leverage in the market. Munster believes Apple’s intent is to steer the iPod line toward “mobile computing and Internet-connected portable devices”, maintaining Apple’s 70-percent share of the PMP market particularly through replacement purchases, as well as reducing overall cost of the units and maintaining its all-important dollar share.
“In order to achieve [15-percent] year-over-year iPod growth, we are expecting Apple to introduce cheaper, innovative iPods with Wi-Fi and multi-touch technology” Gene Munster, analyst, Piper Jaffray
Shinya Kasatani has released an application for the iPod touch that allows you to play a virtual guitar. This is yet another example on how the Touch and iPhone can be such a innovative medium to design games and apps for.
This is a really well designed app that uses the multi-touch technology to a max. In fact it can take in 6+ inputs to make different chords and tones. Instructions after the break.
Notcot has reposted some very intuitive concept designs for a potentially future game for use with the iPod Touch and the iPhone. The game uses a unique gesture system to control the skateboard throughout the game.
Recently Apple has not been so nice to all of their early adapters and see them as just another way to make a few bucks. This started at the “Beat Goes On” Keynote in late 2007. Here they announced the $200 dollar price drop for the iPhone and left many people unhappy.
This continued at Macworld 2008 with the announcement of iPhone apps on the iPod Touch. The apps will of course be preinstalled BUT all of the people who had been there from the start will be slapped with a $20 fee to install the apps for themselves.
Given the large number of look-a-like designs intended to, ahem, play homage to the iPod Touch’s stylings, we normally wouldn’t feature something so bland as RAmos’ V80. However, while the 2GB, 1.3-megapixel camera-toting PMP may not shatter any expectations with its feature set, the Windows CE 6.0 OS does have one significant addition: it’s called WindTouch, and it’s Microsoft’s attempt to bring some of the intuitive gestures of the iPod Touch and iPhone to a traditional touchscreen.
See the RAmos V80’s WindTouch UI in action after the cut
While we’ve covered games for the iPod Touch before, they generally require that you’ve Jailbroken your PMP first; it’s a hassle many won’t consider, especially when you factor in the potential effect on your warranty and Apple’s firmware updates being generally unfriendly to hacks. Yet so far Apple has been slow to introduce gaming to either the iPod Touch or the iPhone, despite titles being available for other iPods in the company’s range. A patent published this week could cast some light on that, however; it might be that, rather than being lazy, Apple in fact has been putting their time to good use by developing MultiTouch-compatible games that, rather than comprising simple button-bashing, demand a more naturalistic interface.
With a screen so delicious as that of the iPod Touch, the hunger for new and glossy content to display on it can easily become a ravenous need. Sadly the lack of even a Mac client for the BBC’s TV download service “iPlayer” means that you’ll have to wait until Christmas before you can even view Auntie’s shows on your MacBook (and even then it’ll be streaming, not true downloading). However, don’t be surprised if some of the UI is familiar: it turns out that the head of the BBC’s Future Media and Technology unit, Ashley Highfield, is particularly taken with the iPod Touch, and hopes to bring some of its intuitive interface to future iterations of the corporation’s software:
“I am a deep lover of Macs. I have had one in the past. I got the iPod Touch in New York before they were here … I think the iPod Touch is a beautiful piece of design. If everything could have that intuitiveness of use… and certainly in terms of the BBC iPlayer, I aspire to it being that easy to use”Ashley Highfield, BBC
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