Hasta La Gadget!

Today, Apple updated its iOS Remote application to version 2.0. The free Remote app is now optimized for the iPad’s larger display and supports streaming from shared libraries over wireless networks with computers running iTunes and the new Apple TV using AirPlay.

But Apple’s vision of using your iPad — or iPhone — to play virtual DJ is just one of several competing ways of reinventing the remote control.

Earlier this week at CEDIA 2010, Sony showed off AV Receiver Remote, a similar (and similarly free) iOS universal remote application for its wide range of media appliances. While Apple’s Remote application allows you to queue up music from your library and control speaker volume, Sony’s allows you to do that and more: You can also control room lighting, and stream internet, satellite, or broadcast radio. Christopher MacManus was able to record a hands-on for Sony Insider:

Just as Apple’s remote application leverages its strength in high-end computers and media players, Sony’s app leverages its strength in home theater appliances. Apple can send a movie to your television, but it didn’t make your television (or the receiver your TV might be connected to).

And last week at IFA 2010, Samsung used its new Galaxy Tab to demonstrate its Home Watcher app for Android, which leverages the Korean tech maker’s even more ubiquitous position in home appliances.

As Vivian Kim observes, writing for Apartment Therapy Unpluggd, Samsung’s “washers and dryers, refrigerators, microwaves, ranges, and home entertainment devices” can allow them to position their phones and tablets not as Apple imitators, but as genuine home automation solutions.

You’ve never had a remote control for your refrigerator before, and maybe you didn’t even know you wanted one. But once it’s within the realm not just of the possible (it always has been, for high-end early-adopters) but reasonably attainable for Samsung’s global middle-class consumer base, something has changed.

How much will we want to do with a single remote when that remote is not an infrared box wrapped around two AA batteries, but a powerful computer with an intuitive interface?

In different ways, that’s the future towards which Apple, Sony, and Samsung are all pointing.

See Also:

• Apple Redefines Remote Control — Now, It’s Your Cellphone
• Sometimes the Remote Pushes Your Buttons, Too
• It’s Another QWERTY Keyboard, Now for TV
• IR Dongle Turns iPhone into Universal Remote
• How Google Instant Could Reinvent Channel Flipping
• Samsung Tablet to Debut on Big Four U.S. Carriers

ABC and Fox may have been willing to part with their TV shows for 99 cents a pop on the new Apple TV and at Amazon, but don’t be surprised if NBC Universal fails to join their ranks. “We do not think 99 cents is the right price point for our content,” said CEO Jeff Zucker at an investor conference earlier this week, noting that NBC shows are indeed present on iTunes for those willing to shell out $1.99. That’s not the only bad news for video-on-demand enthusiasts, as News Corporation is apparently reconsidering its stance — though subsidiary Fox is presently dishing out 99-cent shows, president Chase Carey called its involvement a “short-term test.” Guess that brave new world of cheap streaming is still a ways off, eh?

NBC Universal says 99-cent rentals would ‘devalue’ content, News Corp calls them a ‘short-term test’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Before the iPhone, the iPod, and iTunes, there was Napster. The original gangster of digital music distribution has undergone many changes since its heyday as a pirate’s Shangri-La, though this latest one seems to be the most fitting. A new app for the aforementioned iOS devices as well as the iPad has been launched, giving you the full Napster experience in a more portable form factor. That means that for $10 a month you can stream and cache music from a library of 10 million songs — yes, offline listening is available too — essentially turning your iDevice into the Apple equivalent of a Zune Pass-equipped music station. Good times ahead, eh sailor?

[Thanks, Louis Choi]

Napster app arrives on iOS, completes the circle of life originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 03:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Apple internet revolution we needed didn’t happen. We wanted a unified service that would let us store all our media and personal information in the ether. But we didn’t get it. So forget the fruit stand; we’re going rogue. More »

Have you ever wanted to spin into a black hole of music oblivion? We all have. And it looks like that dream may finally become a reality. The Apple obsessives at Patently Apple have excavated some hidden treasure from Steve Jobs’ private wing at the patent office: a new spiral-theme interface for iTunes.

Patently is concluding that this new spiral interface will be a replacement for the standard Excel-like content list. But it’s more likely a replacement (or option) for the traditional “Cover View” that presents your content as a parade of cover art marching through the abyss. I can’t imagine Apple ever completely replacing the utilitarian “List View”–we don’t all need so much jazzamatazz in our interfaces.

This spiral UI hints at some interesting discovery aspects. It seems you can “spiral in” on particular artists or genres and even music of specific geographic locations. Crazy!

The patent makes note that this will be for iPods and iPhones, but it will likely be available, in some form, for the whole iFamilia. Look for it in a future iTunes update.