MacRumors

At Apple's media event last week, Steve Jobs briefly demoed a new feature called AirPlay rolling out in iTunes and coming to iOS devices in November with iOS 4.2. An extension of the existing AirTunes feature for streaming audio to remote devices from iTunes, AirPlay will allow users to stream audio, song titles, and album art between devices. In addition, users will be able to stream videos and photos between devices, as demonstrated by Jobs in streaming a movie from an iPad to an Apple TV.

As we noted yesterday, third-party companies such as iHome are also looking to deploy AirPlay-compatible products to accept streaming content from Apple's devices. CNBC profiles BridgeCo, the software company Apple has worked with to allow these third-party companies to create AirPlay-compatible products. According to the report, BridgeCo has been granted nearly unprecedented access to Apple's iTunes software and team as it seeks to build out the functionality.

BridgeCo worked with Apple on its new AirPlay, where anyone with an iPod, iPhone, or iPad will be able to walk around his or her home and wirelessly send music from iTunes to receivers made by Denon, iHome Audio, Marantz, JBL, and Bowers & Wilkens. Unlike past products which did something similar, this is not a third-party reverse engineering workaround which has to be reworked every time Apple has a software update.

This is a product created by a third party with Apple's blessing.

BridgeCo CEO Gene Sheridan notes that Apple had little choice in the matter if it wanted to reach its goals for streaming content around the home, as it simply isn't in the stereo equipment market.

"They're not gonna create the world's stereo equipment," he says. Instead, Apple decided BridgeCo had the software and the well-known stereo equipment customers in place, and so Apple agreed to let Sheridan and his team get a look at the iTunes code. What was that like? "There is a magic to Apple that sounds simple," he says, clearly in awe. "They know how to take a complex and feature-rich technology and narrow it." How narrow? Sheridan said after getting a peek inside, BridgeCo provided Apple with a long list of what it could offer the company. "They picked three."

According to Sheridan, AirPlay-enabled stereo equipment should be hitting the market before the holidays, offering a solid lineup of compatible products to help jumpstart AirPlay. BridgeCo has reportedly been working with manufacturers on AirPlay for a year to ensure that everything is lined up and ready to go, with more than half of the company's revenue reportedly now resting on its deal with Apple for the technology.

Microsoft has posted a new behind-the-scenes look at several new features in the company's forthcoming Office for Mac 2011. The new features include:

- Co-Authoring: Using SkyDrive or SharePoint cloud storage, Office for Mac 2011 allows multiple authors to edit documents at the same time. And with Office Web apps, even users without Office installed on the computer can participate in the editing process.

- Scheduling Assistant: In-line calendaring in the mail portion of Outlook simplifies scheduling of meetings and other events, integrating communication channels with calendars.

- Broadcast Slideshow: Allows users to share PowerPoint presentations over the Internet in real-time, even with users without PowerPoint installed on their computers. Remote users can watch live while the present runs through their presentation.

Office for Mac 2011 is slated for release late next month, and today's preview is the third in a series of behind-the-scenes videos. The first video featured template galleries, Outlook features such as Conversation View, and the ribbon toolbar, while the second video looked at compatibility, graphing, and photo editing.

Right on schedule, Apple has released iOS 4.1 for the iPhone and iPod touch. The update, known as Build 8B117 and available for the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and second- and third-generation iPod touch models, brings several new features and fixes.

As detailed on Apple's site, iOS 4.1 enables the company's Game Center social gaming network (for all iOS 4-compatible devices except iPhone 3G), support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos on iPhone 4, and HD video uploading to YouTube and MobileMe for iPhone 4.

The update has also been touted as addressing several high-profile bugs, including proximity sensor issues, performance issues on the iPhone 3G, and Bluetooth problems.

Apple's new fourth-generation iPod touch is shipping with iOS 4.1 already installed. That device has started appearing in stores and on customers' doorsteps today.

Following up on its extensive gallery of unboxing and comparison photos for the new iPod shuffle yesterday, iLounge has now done the same for the new iPod nano and iPod touch. The gallery, which will continue to be updated with additional photos today, shows off the packaging, organization, and included accessories available with the new models.

Asymco offers an interesting graph showing the relative growth of iTunes song and App Store downloads over their respective histories, demonstrating the App Store's meteoric growth that is setting it up to pass the music portion of Apple's media store in total downloads in the relatively near future.

As can be seen, the App store has reached the same total downloads in 2.2 years as the iTMS reached after five years. The two curves are likely to be the same height (around 13 billion each) before the year is over.

We're not convinced that the catch will happen by the end of the year, but it certainly appears that the App Store is on pace to come out on top sometime next year. App Store downloads have totaled about 500 million per month over the past six months, while song downloads have stagnated at about 250 million per month for the past year or so.

Given that the music side currently holds about a 5 billion download lead over the App Store, that would imply that it will be about 20 months before the App Store takes the lead. Of course, given the acceleration in App Store downloads against stagnant song downloads, the catch will likely happen significantly sooner that that. We do not, however, see the App Store averaging the over 1.5 billion downloads per month that would appear to be necessary to catch the song download total by the end of this year.

It can also be argued that the comparison is one of apples to oranges, as the majority of applications available through the App Store are available free of charge, while only a small handful of song tracks are free at any given time. Regardless, Apple has long viewed its iTunes music downloads and App Store primarily as break-even businesses, designed much more to boost hardware sales than to generate profits on their own.

Just two days before Apple's media event last week, CNET reported that Apple was set to extend the length of song samples in the iTunes Store from 30 seconds to as much as 90 seconds, offering consumers greater opportunity to determine whether they were interested in purchasing the content. Despite the fact that the information seemed fairly solid, the change did not come to pass at the event.

CNET follows up today, explaining that deployment of the extended-length samples has been held up due to licensing issues.

"We are in active negotiations with Apple," about the length of song samples, said Hanna Pantle, a spokeswoman for Broadcast Music Inc., (BMI) one of the performing-rights organizations that collects royalties on behalf of songwriters and music publishers. She declined to provide any details.

The report claims that Apple has obtained the blessing of the four major record companies to extend samples to 90 seconds, while its existing contract with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) apparently does not impose any time limits on song samples, but even with all of that leverage behind it, Apple was still unable to roll out the enhancement at last week's event.

Leaders at the National Music Publishers Association, the largest trade trade group representing music publishers, informed Apple that it couldn't offer extended samples until reaching an agreement with them. But that's not the whole story. Some from the music sector say Apple simply tried to rush a deal through and misjudged its ability to get a deal done without agreements from all the necessary parties. Apple has made it clear that it doesn't want to pay to license song samples, insiders say, and even they acknowledge that Apple also wants to avoid the nightmare that other music services have gone through when trying to obtain licenses from untold numbers of rights holders.

According to the report, the National Music Publishers Association was tipped off to Apple's plan by CNET's original article and, on the advice of legal counsel, approached Apple on the day before the media event to express its view that extended song samples could not issued without discussions and licensing with the group.

The report notes that the discussions over extending the length of song samples may have broader implications as well, testing the waters for Apple's much-rumored ultimate goal of providing cloud-based streaming of users' iTunes libraries. In addition, Google is said to be closely watching the developments as it prepares to roll out its own music service later this year.

We've heard that the new iPod nano and iPod Touch will be arriving in Apple retail stores tomorrow, and the first reviews are starting to filter in.

The iPod nano is the most dramatically different device in Apple's lineup. The nano embraces a fully multi-touch interface rather than the familiar click-wheel of previous models. Engadget seems to think that the move is a positive one:

While that screen is small, it's not hard to get around in, and the touch response seemed about as tight as it is on the new touch or iPhone. Multitouch rotation worked just fine, and in general use, moving from place to place with the new nano was considerably faster than on previous models. Overall, we think the design is a big step forward for this line of players.

While the nano resembles iOS, Apple has said it is not actually running their mobile operating system and was simply made to resemble it. Macworld agreed that many tasks (scrolling, flipping between photos) were much improved with the multi-touch display over the click wheel, but noted some inconsistencies in the interface due to the small size of the display.

The iPod Touch finally gets many features that were previously iPhone-exclusive. This includes a front and back camera, gyroscope, A4 processor, Retina display and vibrate function. The new iPod Touch apparently doesn't have quite the same high quality IPS display as the iPhone 4, but in real world terms, Engadget claims the difference isn't concerning. Overall, it seems the upgrades are not surprising if you have any familiarity with the current iPhone. The new iPod Touch does come with iOS 4.1 already installed, and we expect Apple to release it for existing hardware sometime tomorrow.

PCMag, USA Today and CNet have further reviews of the iPod Touch.

Apple today released a small software update for Safari, bringing it up to version 5.0.2. The update contains "improvements to compatibility and security" and includes the following:

- Fixes an issue that could prevent users from submitting web forms
- Fixes an issue that could cause web content to display incorrectly when viewing a Google Image result with Flash 10.1 installed
- Establishes an encrypted, authenticated connection to the Safari Extensions Gallery

More detailed information on the security changes can be found at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Update: Safari 4.1.2 for Tiger has also been released.

Earlier today, we posted some photos of the new fourth-generation iPod shuffle, showing off the unboxing and some comparisons to other iPod models.

Unsurprisingly, iFixit is close behind with a detailed teardown of the diminutive music player. It took a half hour of prying and heat application to open the device's case, but they were finally able to gain access to its internals. Among the interesting items of note:

- With the difficult-to-open case, a battery soldered to the logic board, and tiny connectors, the new iPod shuffle will prove to be quite difficult to repair. And with a selling price of only $49, the device will most likely be considered disposable by most consumers should it break.

- The tiny battery offers only 0.19 watt-hours of power, but given the lack of a display, that's enough to offer up to 15 hours of music playback.

- The interior of the device basically consists of the logic board and battery sitting behind the navigation control buttons.

Intuit today announced the forthcoming release of QuickBooks 2011 for Mac, the company's financial management software for small businesses. The new version, set to ship on September 27th, brings a number of enhancements to the software package.

The software meets the needs of expanding small businesses with new multi-user options and the ability to set user permissions - the most-requested features by previous QuickBooks for Mac users. With the ability to delegate important accounting tasks to others in the company, small business owners can focus on driving their businesses forward.

QuickBooks 2011 for Mac also features new reports and tools to help users track job-related mileage so they can claim the tax write-offs they deserve. Users can also customize reports and forms to reflect their brands and to show the exact data they need to show.

Among the time-saving enhancements touted for QuickBooks 2011 are mileage tracking for auto-related business expenses, expanded sorting options for financial registers, and support for data export to Excel and Numbers. The update also brings several refinements for customization of forms, including a layout designer for applying editable ready-made templates and Mac-like tools to assist with the customization process.

QuickBooks 2011 for Mac will launch on September 27th at a suggested price of $229.95 for a single-user license, with multi-user licensing packages also available.

Apple has confirmed on its Game Center overview page that the social gaming network will be available for the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and second-, third-, and fourth-generation iPod touch models when the feature debuts in iOS 4.1 later this week. The iPhone 3G, original iPhone, and original iPod touch are not supported, although of those only the iPhone 3G supports iOS 4 in any form.

Apple had initially deployed Game Center on all iOS 4-compatible iPhone and iPod touch models in its iOS 4.1 betas, but removed support for the iPhone 3G and second-generation iPod touch in a revision issued early last month. It appears that, after further review, Apple has decided to restore the functionality to the second-generation iPod touch but not the iPhone 3G, which has seen a number of performance complaints under iOS 4 with improvements in that regard reportedly coming in iOS 4.1.

Game Center, first announced at Apple's iOS 4 media event in April of this year, offers developers a number of tools to enhance the user experience with social gaming features such as leaderboards, friend invites, challenges, and matchmaking. It aims to bring together a fragmented array of such networks by offering a single Apple-sponsored way to foster interactivity within and across games.

Update: TiPb notes that Apple has also just reset Game Center in advance of the public launch of the feature and iOS 4.1. Developers who have been testing the service have seen their accounts deleted and friends removed.

The GSM Association today announced that it has partnered with IDG World Expo, organizers of Macworld Expo, to offer a new "Macworld Mobile" event as part of the Mobile World Congress 2011 to be held in Barcelona next February. The event will bring dedicated support for iPhone and iPad development to the more broadly-focused mobile industry event.

At Mobile World Congress 2011, the GSMA is partnering with IDG World Expo, organisers of Macworld, the world's premiere event focused exclusively on the Apple products platform, to produce Macworld Mobile, a mobile developer event for the Apple iPhone and iPad platforms. The Macworld Mobile iOS Developer Conference will provide full-day, in-depth training on this critical platform, with technical sessions, targeting tools and applications specifically designed for mobile application developers and engineers.

"We're excited to bring Macworld Mobile to Mobile World Congress," said Mary Dolaher, chief executive officer of IDG World Expo, a leading producer of world-class tradeshows and events. "Macworld is known around the world for helping to drive and stimulate the Apple products community with educational programmes and business development activities. At Mobile World Congress, we will help international iOS developers to strengthen their skills, as well as facilitate connections with other developers and the worldwide audience of mobile decision makers who attend."

Mobile World Congress is the world's largest exhibition and trade show focused on the mobile industry, and has seen increasing attention placed on Apple's contributions to the industry as the popularity of the iPhone and iOS in general have continued to grow. For its part, Apple has stepped back from the trade show scene, arguing that its network of over 300 retail stores offers a better opportunity for its customers to get hands-on time with its products. At Apple's media event last week, Steve Jobs noted that Apple's retail stores see in excess of one million visitors on some days, far exceeding the reach of the trade shows it had long participated in.

Mobile World Congress 2009, the first to occur after the launch of the App Store the previous year, saw executives of mobile phone companies criticizing the iPhone's closed ecosystem while also scrambling to develop their own answers to Apple's entry into the market. This year's event saw Opera demoing its Opera Mini browser for iOS, which appeared in the App Store several months later as the first major-name alternative to the built-in Safari browser for iOS.

iLounge has received a new fourth-generation iPod shuffle and posted a photo gallery documenting the unboxing as well as showing a comparison to the similar second-generation iPod shuffle and other iPod models.

After moving navigation buttons to the headphone cord in the third-generation model, Apple has gone back to its earlier button design, although it has still been able to significantly reduce the size of the device compared to the second-generation version. Like the second-generation version, the new iPod shuffle also offers a clip on the back to provide customers with significant flexibility in attaching the device to their clothing while in use.

The new iPod shuffle offers 2 GB of storage for $49 and is available in five colors.

Our sister site AppShopper.com launched its official AppShopper app this morning. AppShopper is an app-tracking website that provides a running list of all the latest changes in the App Store. This includes finding new apps, updates and price changes. A variety of filters can also be used to pinpoint specific interests, such as popular iPhone games that are now free. Apps can also be added to personal "Wish Lists" to closely track app sales, price drops and updates.

The new Universal App offers a native AppShopper interface for both iPad and iPhone/iPod touch owners. It's now available as a free download. [iTunes link]