After months of endless rumors and speculation, Apple finally lifted the veil and officially released their tablet-slash-oversized-iPod touch device. We all thought it would be the “iSlate,” but they turned the tables on everyone and gave it the most obvious name that everyone thought of, but never considered: the iPad. So what exactly is it? Apparently, the rumors were true: the iPad will run on a souped-up version of the iPhone operating system (iPhone OS 3.2), a new Apple-developed processor called the A4 chip, it looks like an oversized iPhone and features just about every function you can pack into a net-connected touchscreen tablet.
iLuv has just released a portable media player, the i1166, that comes with a 9-inch widescreen TFT LCD, an iPod dock, and a built-in DVD drive. It cracks open like a laptop to reveal the DVD drive and iPod dock (it can play movies stored on any movie-playing iPod). The i1166 is held up by a stand–like a rather thick digital photo frame—and comes with a remote to let users sit back and enjoy the show.
A “final” release date (September 15th) and a couple of package photos for Microsoft’s upcoming Zune HD player have been posted over at Gizmodo. It’s pretty interesting because a preorder page for the porta-player has also sprung up on Amazon that gives out the preorder prices for the 16GB ($220) and 32GB ($290) models, so the leaks look like they’re likely to happen. If the reported prices hold, that makes the Zune HD significantly cheaper than Apple’s $300-400 iPod Touch, which is what the touchscreen-equipped Zune HD looks to be targeting. (more…)
Creative has just unveiled their newest portable media player, a touchscreen-based device dubbed as the Creative Zii Egg. Packed with a 3.5-inch, 480 x 320 resolution multi-touch display that can play music and videos as well as view photos and web pages, you can be forgiven if you thought it was just another Apple clone. It’s going to be marketed as something different though, with a Linux-based OS that welcomes open-source thinking.
