As The Beatles make their triumphant return with the digitally remastered collection and a full-blown Rock Band special edition video game, Apple also wants to Rock On!
We’ll be following their press conference today live at 10 am PDT/1 pm EDT. With up to the minute news on the newest offerings from the Mac maker regarding music.
Follow everything after the jump…
It is official. Apple has announced their annual September music event, “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it“. Invitations have been sent to tech and media representatives for the invitation-only event, to be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The event, which is expected to be fully music related is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. PDT on Wednesday September 9.
Expected to be announced this year are refreshes to the entire iPod lineup, which include a significant upgrade to the iPod Touch, to bring it up to par with many of the newest features the iPhone has, including a built-in 3.2 megapixel camera and mic. Also expected are upgrades to the Nano, with the addition of a camera too, but no big changes in form-factor. iTunes is likely to get a version upgrade to iTunes 9, with several new features that have been rumored to come, like social-media integration, blu-ray support, App organization, new full-album content features from the iTunes Store codenamed “Cocktail”, and probably the addition of the entire Beatles catalog to the iTunes Store.
We’ll be updating live the news that come from the event next week.
So it’s August 28th. After more than a year of teasing, Apple has released Snow Leopard, their newest version of the Mac OS. But that’s not the only thing making the news around the world.
The main thing today is Mac OS X 10.6. Snow Leopard is a complete overhaul of an already great operating system. Thanks to it the Mac has been more prominent and accepted in the computer industry in the past 2 years than ever before. While the rest of the world is in a recession, Apple keeps selling and selling those expensive Macs. They have the iPhone to thank, too, though. This little cat went on sale today all over the world, and at just $29 USD it’s a true bargain, especially when reports have surfaced that you can actually buy that “Leopard-only upgrade” special priced disc and use it to upgrade from Tiger (OS X 10.4) or do a clean install of the system. It’s a true bargain!
Harmonix & MTV Games have announced the “almost-full” set list for the upcoming “The Beatles: Rock Band” video game, which will be released on September 9, the same day The Beatles‘ completely remastered discography comes out. Only one song is yet to be announced of the 45 that will come included in the game.
It is also being rumored that finally, after 6 years, that all of The Beatles’ catalog will be available on the iTunes Store, since Apple will have their annual music-related event on the same day, a Wednesday, when they normally have those events on Tuesdays. This has been a rumor every time Apple has a music announcement, but this time it truly coincides with all-things Beatles.
The video game will be like the previous Rock Band games, where you can play with up to 4 players the guitar, bass, drums and sing, with each player being able to play as John, Paul, George or Ringo. The game play has also been announced, in which you play to earn pictures and additional music from the band, and as you advance, you unlock certain new features and venues where you play, ending at the roof top of Abbey Road Studios, where the band famously had their last public performance together as a group. This will also mark the first time that you can plug in up to 3 mics and have 3 players sing in tandem at the same time for various songs that have multiple vocalists.
The “almost-full” set list, after the jump…
Apple has finally opened up the music shop south of the border, opening up the iTunes Store in Mexico. Now millions of iTunes and iPhone users can buy and download music and music videos at a price even lower than the US. (The iPhone’s iTunes Store link is now working on all mexican iPhone models).
Individual songs are available at $12 pesos each (at the current exchange rate $1 dollar = $13.20 pesos), and full albums range from $90 to $170 pesos. iTunes Mexico comes will all of the other world-wide stores’ music features, like “complete my album”, pre-orders, free song of the week, thousands of localized podcasts, and iTunes gift cards will be sold at local retailers like Liverpool, Office Depot, Mixup, Sanborn’s and others.
As of now, only music related features are available, so no movies or tv shows can be purchased yet. To get in the action you need an iTunes account and a valid Mexican credit card.
Mr. Harry Potter is breaking records left and right. Following the 6th movie’s record midnight showings in North America, the numbers are in for the first full world-wide day of release, and it’s staggering. Just on wednesday, the film earned $104 million dollars, making it the most succesfull ‘Potter‘ movie opening to date and shattering previous records held by ‘The Dark Knight‘ and ‘Transformers 2‘ in most countries. I still can’t wait to see it! I’m set to go tomorrow!
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Per ComingSoon.net, Star Trek is coming out on DVD and Blu-Ray on November 17, and this one’s gonna be a big one. It’s coming out with the usual stuff, director commentary, digital copy, deleted scenes, behind the scenes look at the whole production, bloopers, galleries. But it will also contain features on how they adapted the all the previous storylines and history of the universe and characters from the films and tv series to make this reboot.
It will come in 1-disc DVD with just the movie and some simple special features, a special edition 2-disc DVD and 3-disc Blu-Ray with all the behind the scenes stuff, and an incredible new feature they call “augmented reality technology” in which you hold up an image that will come in the case to your webcam while inside a website, it will recognize it and grant you access to a full-on holographic 3D tour of the Enterprise.
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3 weeks after his untimely death, Michael Jackson is looking like the artist to beat at the music store. His ‘Essential: Michael Jackson‘ album and many of his singles are still high on the charts, especially on digital retailers like iTunes and Amazon MP3. It’s almost becoming a centainty that he’ll become the biggest recording artist of 2009, and all from albums that are either hits compilations or full-on releases from 15-25 years ago! I’ve got to admit, it’s awesome music, so right on people! make him the superstar he deserved to still be!