Hasta La Gadget!

Whew – what a day! For those who missed it, Apple held its big event today, revealing the iPhone 5 and new versions of the of the iPod Touch and the iPod Nano. You can see most of the day’s news in our iPhone 5 event wrap-up and our iPod Touch and Nano wrap-up, but of course, even more news about these new iDevices hit after those event wrap-ups were posted. For instance, we went hands-on with the iPhone 5 and then later with the 5th generation iPod Touch before getting the chance to check out Apple’s new EarPods, which have undergone a redesign just in time for the launch of the iPhone 5. If you’re more of an iPod Nano kind of person, then you’ll be pleased to know that we also have you covered in our hands-on with the 7th generation iPod Nano.

Later on in the day, Apple announced pricing for its new Lightning connector adapters (which can get a little steep in places), and released the iOS 6 Golden Master seed for developers ahead of the operating system’s release on September 19. A full list of iPhone 5 specs made it to the Apple Store this afternoon, and we found out that the iPhone 5 will offer both a GSM and CDMA version. iTunes 10.7 was delivered this afternoon as well, as was a gallery of iLuv’s upcoming iPhone 5 products. Toward the end of the day, Apple released a video featuring Jony Ive and Bob Mansfield giving us an introduction to the iPhone 5, and we ask where the iPhone 5′s rumored NFC functionality went.

As big as Apple’s event was, it wasn’t the only thing worth writing about today. A new report suggests that Windows Phone 8 may not be as far along as we thought, and Foxconn is in the public eye again after an undercover worker published a report on the conditions at the now-famous factory. Google was touting the latest Android numbers today, saying that 500 million Android devices have been activated worldwide.

We actually had quite a few stories about NASA today, with the Mars Orbiter finding signs of dry ice snowfall on the surface of the Red Planet. NASA scientists have viewed a massive impact on the surface of Jupiter, and perhaps most importantly, NASA celebrated the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s historic moon speech. Famous (or infamous, depending on whether or not you work for the RIAA) music sharer Jammie Thomas has lost her appeal, meaning that the court is still making her pay that whopping $220,000 fine, and finally tonight, Microsoft has been awarded a patent for an interesting new technology that makes us immediately think of Star Trek.

That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up. Be sure to have a look at our Apple portal to catch anything you might have missed from Apple’s presentation, but otherwise, enjoy the rest of your evening!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: September 12, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The rumored iPad mini didn’t rear its mythical seven-inch screen today at Yerba Buena, but no matter, as the iPhone 5 brought a potent smack of thunder Lightning. A few mere hours ago, the oft-leaked smartphone was officially been revealed by Apple, along with the next-generation iPod Nano, a redesigned iPod Touch packed with a Retina display and iOS 6 in its final form — and those were just the main announcements. Of course, scrolling through Engadget’s homepage might not be ideal if you’re looking to sift through the day’s news from Cupertino’s favorite tech company in one fell swoop — and that’s why we’ve rounded it all up here, in one convenient spot. You can re-live the event at our archived liveblog here, otherwise you’ll find a full listing of the news from it after the jump.

Continue reading Apple’s September 12th event roundup: iPhone 5, new iPods, iOS 6, Lightning and everything else

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Portable Audio/Video, Wireless, Mobile

Apple’s September 12th event roundup: iPhone 5, new iPods, iOS 6, Lightning and everything else originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple changed its long-standing 30-pin dock connector out for an 8-pin new standard called Lightning. But what does that actually mean for users? Well the advantages are mostly passed on through hardware design — not necessarily around performance.

Here’s the skinny: Apple made claims on-stage about improved speed and reliability, thanks to an “eight-signal, all-digital” hardware design. The speed could be better, but this is still based on USB 2.0 specs, not 3.0 or Thunderbolt. That means gains will be modest, not magical. And given that Apple recently made sure that its latest notebooks all have USB 3.0, that seems strange.

But it isn’t that bizarre, really. Apple would have had to do significant redesigns on the inside of the iPhone itself to make that change, and that would have cost more money and affected margins. Engadget senior columnist and long-time mobile industry analyst Ross Rubin told me via email that, while USB 3.0 seems like a logical way to go, that likely won’t happen for a while yet, but is probably an easy switch in terms of the tech in the cabling itself.

“Particularly with the iPad being used as a video storage device and the growing video resolutions of cameras on the iPhone, a speed bump in throughput would have been welcome,” he offered via email. “The USB 2.0 speeds are likely a limitation of the iPhone 5 and not Lightning per se as it’s unlikely Apple would launch an architecture that would lock us to that speed for the next few years.”

Durability also seems like an advantage to Lightning, Apple says, since it has a design with much less of a ridge where cable meets connector, a common breakage point on 30-pin cables. But overall, this isn’t about delivering a better sync or charge experience for users, it’s about the same thing the nano-SIM is: saving space inside the case to allow for thinner, more lightweight designs and larger batteries. In fact, as Apple SVP Phil Schiller told AllThingsD, making an iPhone this thin with the existing dock connector wasn’t physically possible.

Before now, the iPhone’s design has been limited quite a bit by the 30-pin connector architecture. Now design decisions can be dictated by other factors, which obviously has benefits for consumers. For instance the horizontal size of the 30-pin dock connector is at least three or four times the width of the new connector. In a game where millimeters count for a lot, that’s a huge amount of extra room to play with.

Another thing Apple talked about was that the connector works no matter how you plug it in, so there’s definitely some upside in terms of usability. And there are downsides, like the fact that the dock adapter doesn’t support either video or iPod Out, according to Apple’s official specs (Lightning itself does support the same kind of media I/O as the 30-pin connector, however).

Lightning has a trade name that evokes its speedier, low-latency cousin Thunderbolt, but it’s a necessary step based on design decisions, not something designed to push the envelope on user experience. That said, the tangential benefits it makes possible are considerable in themselves, so the short-term disadvantages in terms of ecosystem obsolescence are ultimately probably not a bad trade-off. And Schiller indicated to AllThingsD that it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, so at least we’ll have time to recover from the extreme trauma of the shift this time around.

There’s little question that Apple knows how to put on a show, and barring some minor omissions (iPad mini, anyone?), Apple’s iPhone/iPod event was one for the books.

That said, only journalists and Apple’s own people were able to attend, but Apple has just posted the full video of its recently wrapped event so you too can see exactly what happened on-stage.

I feel a warning is in order though — you should make sure to block off a solid chunk of free time first. As usual, the video can be streamed from Apple’s events page, and there doesn’t appear to be any way to actually download it just yet. No worries though, it’s only a matter of time before the entire thing winds up on YouTube, at which point you’ll be able to use your preferred tool to save the file as needed. Until then, grab some popcorn and settle in — you’re in for a bit of a ride. And hey, if you’re really hard up for Apple-related video to watch after that, there’s always that nifty iPhone 5 introduction video to loop endlessly too.

If you want to re-live the iPhone 5 announcement and/or measure the total amount of time Tim Cook took a breath during the keynote, Apple just released the entire iPhone 5 announcement on its website. Watch it here and vote for who dressed best among Cook, Phil, Forstall and crew below. [Apple] More »