The extent of iPhone information on rogers.com

I’m not going to go into details about the new iPhone, you can find all those here. For me, the one thing that really makes me want an iPhone is the support for 3rd party apps. The iPhone is an amazingly powerful platform and the possibilities for apps that could be developed are endless. Some of the apps that were demoed at the keynote today show off just how amazing the iPhone is, not just for blogging apps, but also for games. Just look at Super Monkey Ball- a game that is played entirely with the built-in accelerometer.

The new 3G iPhone

While I’m waiting for July 11th to arrive, I’m going to hope that I can drop the remaining two years of my contract with Bell and switch to an iPhone. That and learn Objective-C and Cocoa so I can develop iPhone apps.

While they are starting to understand this change, they are still locking down their content. You can purchase it on iTunes, but it comes wrapped in DRM. You can watch it (some shows) on their site, but only if you are in the US.

CBC however is, as I stated, not like most other North American networks. You can not only download and watch streaming news (like most news stations are doing these days), but you can watch entire episodes of shows like jPod, The Rick Mercer Report, and Air Farce, all on their site, no matter where in the world you may be.

And if that isn’t enough, this Sunday they are airing a program called “Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister“. And on Monday, this program will be officially available on BitTorrent DRM-free. This makes CBC the first broadcaster in North America to do this. The CBC truly understands the needs and wants of one of their largest, and hardest to please, demographics.

The CBC News Article

To start, iTunes Movie Rentals!!!! I think a lot of people were expecting this to happen. All the major studios are on board, prices are decent and they even have HD movies to rent. But, unfortunately, you can’t buy HD movies. At least you can rent them. But the thing about that is, only on the Apple TV. If you want to rent the movie in HD, you have to do so from your Apple TV, and you can’t transfer it to you computer to watch it there. Apple will be providing a free upgrade to the Apple Tv to support rentals. I think I might get one. But of course, no rentals in Canada yet. As usual, the service starts only in the US but Steve said it would go international by the end of the year. Hopefully Canada will be included in that, and before December.

Speaking of Canada, still no iPhone. Why the wait? Its probably because Rogers is being stubborn. I likely wouldn’t get one anyways, but I still want the option. The iPhone got some nice new updates in the 1.1.3 firmware. And the great thing is, the iPod Touch got those updates (minus the phone specific ones) and even got some of the original iPhone apps like Mail, Notes, Weather, Stocks and and Maps. But for a price. For $20 iPod Touch owners will be able to get the update. I don’t really want to pay $20, but I do want to update, and eventually I’ll be forced to update.

Along with these announcements Apple also released the Macbook Air. Well I don’t really understand the name, I do like the computer. Its thin with a decent design. But there is no ethernet port (but being a laptop I guess you don’t need one), no optical drive (but you can use an external one or wireless access the drive on another computer), and there is even the option of a solid state drive (for $1000 more). I likely won’t get one (I need more speed), but its still nice.

I think it was a decent keynote. Nothing revolutionary, but I really didn’t think there would be. Only like 5 months till WWDC. Maybe I’ll get to go this year.

PS: Oh ya. They also released Time Capsule. But thats nothing important. 

•  Apple will release the Subnotebook everyone has been talking about. I don’t have any predictions on specific specs, but there has been lots of supporting evidence lately, so its more than likely going to happen.
• iTunes movie rentals. There has been speculation about this for a while, but lately there has been news of contract negotiations and supporting keywords in the iTunes source code. Hopefully they won’t be in just the US.
• An update to the Apple TV. As Steve Jobs said, the Apple TV was a hobby. And it definitely was a disappointing hobby. Hopefully the Apple TV will see a bigger hard drive, and I’m hoping for the inclusion of a TV tuner and the ability to record and stream TV shows over the internet (kind of a Tivo Slingbox fusion).

Other things I’m hoping for but I feel may not happen.

• iPhone coming to Canada. I read somewhere (can’t remember where) that Ted Rogers (the CEO of Rogers who will carry the iPhone) was heading to Macworld. If he was this would definitely mean the iPhone has landed in the great white north.
• HD movie rentals/purchases.  I think a lot of people would love HD movie rentals/purchases through iTunes. However, I don’t think the bandwidth into the average person’s home could support it just yet.
• Blu-ray drives?

Hopefully I’ll see everything I want. But I doubt it. I know there will be something that surprises me. After all, last year I said there would be no iPhone and look what happened.

It was my birthday 3 days ago, and now I’m 20. So far, nothing has been different from when I was 19. Hopefully that will change soon.

I have some ideas for the blog that I’m going to work on over the next little while, as well as finding some ways to monetize the blog. I need to find some source of income and the blog looks like a good option.

Until my next post, remember to keep your firewall turned on.

On friday Warner Bros announced they would release their movies exclusively on Blu-Ray and Toshiba, the main backer of HD-DVD cut short their CES press event and ran and hid. This announcement leaves just Universal and Paramount as the only studios supporting HD-DVD. With all but two studios supporting Blu-Ray, I’m going to go on record and say: Blu-Ray has won the war.

Because the majority of movies will be released on Blu-Ray, more and more people will start to buy Blu-Ray players, and hold off buying HD format movies from Universal and Paramount. By the end of 2008, one of the two remaining hold-outs will succumb to consumer pressure and switch to Blu-Ray. Once this happens the last studio will be forced to switch, as there will be no market for HD-DVD.

In my 2008 Tech Predictions post I said the format war would be settled by one event, and only 4 days into the year, this event took place. I always felt like Blu-Ray was going to win, right from the start. Blu-Ray is technically superior to HD-DVD and seemed to have an edge on HD-DVD.

The outcome of the war has been decided, however the battle rages on. It’s only a matter of time before HD-DVD waves the white flag, and concedes defeat to Blu-Ray.

These past 20 years certainly weren’t a waste. I made lots of great friends, most of whom I hope I’m still in contact with 20 years from now, I went to Italy, started university, and so much more.

Over these next 20 years I plan to accomplish many things. Finish school, get a job I don’t mind waking up for, make a life of my own. The list goes on, but nothing (except maybe school), has any certainty to it. But one thing I’m almost certain about is I don’t want to stay in Toronto forever. San Francisco sounds nice.

Rather than looking at this day as just another birthday, I’m going to look at it as an island on a sea of change. Its time to make some changes, take action, and make something of myself. Here’s to another 20 years.

With Permanent Eraser that data will be overwritten 35 times, rendering it irretrievable. Definitely an application for the security-conscious mac user to check out.