We’ve just posted videos of the Apple TV 2.0 software, iPod touch, and iPhone 1.1.3 software to our YouTube account. They’re now available for viewing. Enjoy!
Apple TV: The biggest changes of the day were reserved for the Apple TV, which saw a comprehensive interface overhaul with movie rentals, movie and music purchasing, Flickr photo browsing, and new iTunes Store search features for all forms of media, including podcasting. The software is officially labelled version 2.0, and will be available in two weeks. In our quick tests on the show floor, everything worked as expected, though the new dual-pane menu interface requires a bit more thought to navigate than the prior Apple TV 1.0 menu system. Apple has also streamlined the device’s settings into multiple contextual menus, and added a few little settings that can be seen in our video, such as new photo transitions, expanded parental controls, and new HDMI output modes.
iPhone: All of the new iPhone 1.1.3 features described in our news story, and previously leaked, work as expected. Location finder on Google Maps pinpoints your current location within a roughly one block or so radius—at least in our quick show floor test—and hybrid view overlaps satellite and drawn road maps on top of each other. Webclip enables extremely easy web page bookmark addition to the iPhone’s main page, and the icon rearrangement feature works exactly as expected—hitting the Home button stops the icons from wiggling and being dragged.
iPod touch: Apple representatives on the show floor have confirmed that pre-MWSF08 iPod touch owners who are looking to add the iPhone applications Mail, Stocks, Weather, Notes, and Maps will be paying the $20 fee regardless of whether they recently purchased the touch, or bought it on day one. Those who have purchased in the past 14 days have the option to return and repurchase the touch from a retail Apple Store, however, the 10% restocking fee will apply, costing a minimum of $29.90 for the touch. Our attempt at testing the location finder feature of Maps did not work on the iPod touch, though it worked properly on the iPhone. Otherwise, the new features worked the same on the iPhone as they did on the touch. These applications are not part of the iPod touch 1.1.3 update currently available through iTunes.
