News from 'The Apple Blog'

The “main entree” on the menu for today’s Apple event, the fourth generation iPod touch, was largely what rumors have led us to expect, and expectations were high.

As in years past, the iPod touch has followed in the footprint of the iPhone. The latest iPod touch incorporates Apple’s Retina Display, the Apple A4 CPU, and three-axis Gyroscope. The iPod touch also has two cameras, one in the front and one in the back.

The front camera is for FaceTime, which will work both with other iPod touches and iPhones. The back camera does not appear to have a Flash — market segmentation, anyone? The back camera will take HD video and allow editing on the device. Oddly, no mention was made of still photography.

What was mentioned by Jobs was that the iPod touch is now the number one selling iPod, having now surpassed the iPod nano. Apple sells around 10 million iPods most quarters, double that during the holiday season, so we are talking iPhone levels of sales. Further, according to Jobs, the iPod touch is now the world’s leading handheld gaming platform, outselling both Sony and Nintendo devices combined. To that end, Apple’s Game Center will also be coming to the iPod touch.

In terms of battery life, Jobs declared the iPod touch will have 40 hours of playback.

The iPod touch will be available next week in 8GB, 32GB, and 64GB models at prices of $229, $299, and $399 respectively.

News from 'The Apple Blog'

iOS 4.1 was, as expected, announced during today’s annual September keynote, and includes a slew of bug fixes, and a few new features.

iOS 4.1 includes bug fixes for proximity awareness, Bluetooth, and performance on the iPhone 3G. The iPhone will now be able to take High Dynamic Range photos, upload HD video over Wi-Fi, and rent television shows on the go. Also making its debut is the Game Center, which is all about social gaming on iOS devices.

Using High Dynamic Range (HDR), the iPhone takes three photos: one at normal exposure, one under exposed, and one over exposed. iOS 4 then combines the three photos using “advanced algorithms” to create a single high-definition photograph. Both the normal exposure picture and the HDR picture are kept in the photos app on the iPhone, making it easy to choose one or the other. The demos look amazing; the HDR photos bring out features in the background that you couldn’t see in the normal exposure.

The Game Center will be a very interesting addition to iOS. There will be both features built into the operating system, and a standalone app. You’ll be able to play interactively with friends, or be auto-matched with other players. You’ll be able to compare scores, and see what your friends have been up to. Game Center brings natively to iOS what several developers have been doing on their own.

iOS 4.2

Also announced to be coming out this November is iOS 4.2. iOS 4.2 will bring all of the features of iOS 4.1, finally, to the iPad, and presumably unify the platform. The biggest addition to the iPad looks like it will be wireless printing. Being able to print directly from Pages or Mail will be a huge benefit to people who still need to be able to show things on paper.

Multitasking looks slick on the iPad as well, smooth animation, and super fast switching between apps. When Steve Jobs demoed opening a link in Mail and switching to Safari, the transition happened so fast it made me wonder about the apps that have built-in browsers. Will apps still need built-in browsers if switching to Safari is that fast?

Overall both updates look solid, and while I’m happy to be getting 4.1 on my iPod touch, I’m really looking forward to 4.2 on the iPad.

News from 'The Apple Blog'

According to web metric firm Net Applications, iOS has passed Linux for third place in worldwide OS market share as measured by web browsing.

Net Applications derives web browsing market share from some 160 million visitors to its network of sites, and Microsoft Windows is being run by more than 90 percent of those visitors. Even so, this is still an achievement for iOS. A little over three years after the first “iPhone OS” device went on sale, iOS has 1.13 percent share worldwide, compared to 0.85 percent share for Linux.

In the same time frame, OS X has increased from 3 percent to around 5 percent, but has been stuck at around 5 percent share for a year. That’s because market share, as measured by web browsing, is still tied to market share by unit sales. While Mac sales continue trending upward, from around 11 million Macs sold in 2009 to between 12 and 15 million in 2010, that’s nothing compared to iOS device sales.

Apple will sell at least 50 million iOS devices in 2010, and web usage share is tracking right along with those sales. The iPhone itself is now at 0.73 percent and will likely pass both Linux and Java ME, Java for mobile systems, sometime next year. The iPod touch is now at 0.13 percent, up again, and the iPad now has double that, 0.27 percent, just four months after launch.

The future is bright for iOS, but it’s probably brighter for Android.

Android is already outselling the iPhone in unit sales with Google claiming a daily average for activations that works out to between 15 an 20 million devices per quarter, double the iPhone. Web share will almost certainly follow in the future, but it matters right now.

Apple’s war with Adobe over Flash is predicated upon the popularity of iOS devices encouraging content producers to use Flash alternatives. Android runs Flash, admittedly terribly, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is Android will be running on a plurality, if not majority, of mobile devices in the medium-term future. Even if Apple continues to embargo Flash, content producers will be less likely to abandon Flash in an Android world.

Today, iOS trumps Linux. Tomorrow, it will be Android over iOS, with Adobe Flash along for the ride.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Who Owns Android’s Future? Google — Or Apple?