Today, along with many other product updates, Apple refreshed the Apple TV, with an all new slimmed down design, Netflix streaming, and $.99 TV rentals. In this post I am going to be telling you everything you need to know about the product refresh as well as sharing my opinions.

Price:
With the Apple TV’s new price, Apple is definitely taking a stab at the competition. For only $99 you can have one of these hot little things sitting in your living room. TV show rentals start at $.99 and movie rentals start at $2.99 with HD versions starting at $3.99

Features:
The updated Apple TV sports a smaller and quieter design along with fewer ports on the back. It has an HDMI out port for high definition video out along with an ethernet port for connecting to the internet. If you don’t have access to an ethernet cable to connect your Apple TV with, no worries, the device also has 802.11n WiFi on board. The new Apple TV is powered by Apple’s A4 Chip as seen in the iPhone 4 and the iPad.

In addition to being able to rent shows and movies from Apple’s online store, you can also stream movies and TV shows from Netflix if you are subscribed to the service. During the keynote, Jobs demonstrated Netflix streaming and it looked really slick.

My Opinion:
This is great. This update is exactly what Apple needed to take the Apple TV from being a hobby to being a full-on product. Do I want one? Yes. Will I get one? Probably not. I already have two devices in my living room that are capable of playing Netflix, I don’t need a third. As for iTunes TV shows and movies, I’ve never really been interested in purchasing them.

Should you get one?
It depends. If you aren’t like me and you like renting content from iTunes, go ahead. Also, If you’re subscribed to Netflix and you have no other ways to stream Netflix content to your TV, an Apple TV is a great option for the price.

What do you think about the new Apple TV? Will you be getting one? Why? Do you want one?

The name Simple Drive fits the app perfectly. Simple Drive is a simple way to store documents, photos, and more on your iPhone or iPod Touch and access them from any computer connected to the same WiFi network as your device. Think of how great this is. This means that you can pretty much ditch those old flash drives (assuming you have a good amount of storage space left on your iPhone). You don’t even need to plug your iPhone in! It “magically” transfers the files over WiFi!

Do I recommend this app?
Oh yeah! For $.99 it’s a steal and can be quite useful if you are a student or use flash drives to transport data often.

iTunes Link
You can go right to Simple Drive’s page on iTunes where you can download it for yourself here.

App Photos (Click to enlarge)

This is big. Guys, when the first iPhone came out it was lacking so many features including 3G wireless networking, Multitasking, Cut, Copy, and paste, and a front facing camera. With iPhone 4 and iOS 4 most of the expectations are being met. Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone has been a great phone from the start, It has just been lacking some features. Fortunately, most of those features have now made their way to the iPhone.

Two birds with one stone. Think about it. You take your iPhone everywhere, and unless you’re a serious photographer, you’re not going to be carrying a big, bulky camera around everywhere. iPhone 4 has a five megapixel camera and it records HD 720p video. Of course, only a few people have actually used the new iPhone’s camera, but if it’s as good as they say it is, this is a game changer. Even better, you will be able to fully edit your video right on your iPhone with the iMovie app that will be available for $4.99 in the App Store.

A4 processor + Multitasking. The reason that I’ve grouped theese two features together is because in my opinion, they go hand and hand. I’m excited to see how the A4 chip will make multitasking. How many apps will we be able to have open? If it’s as fast as the iPad, then it should work pretty well.

Will I buy one? YES! Yes! Yes! I really don’t think we’ve seen this amount of features in an iPhone update before. When Apple says that iPhone 4 is the best thing since the original iPhone, I don’t think they’re kidding.

What do you think? Will you be buying an iPhone 4? Why or why not?

Read my review of the iPhone 4 here!

Some of the features of the rumored Apple TV update are:

• Smaller, iPhone like design.
• 1080p video.
• Cloud storage.
• Lower price point; $99.
• Runs on iPhone OS 4.
• Runs on Apple’s A4 CPU.

I find some of these new features really interesting. To start, It’s pretty weird how it will run on iPhone OS 4 as it’s a touchscreen operating system. How is this going to work on a TV? How is Apple going to add 1080p video to a device the size of an iPhone? I guess that’s why they’ll include the A4 chip.

One bad thing about the update it that it will only have 16 gigabytes of storage opposed to the 160GB in the previous model. I’m assuming that this is where the cloud storage comes in.

I’m excited to see what Apple announces at WWDC. We know that they’ll announce a new iPhone, but will they also announce a new Apple TV or will they wait for their iPod event?

What do you think? Will Apple refresh the Apple TV anytime soon? Will you buy one? Do you already own an Apple TV?

How do you connect to the internet? WiFi? Ethernet? Yesterday I picked up a new wireless router for my home. I got a Belkin N+ Wireless Router for about $75.00 from Amazon.com. Today I will be giving you an in-depth review of the router.

The Belkin N+ Wireless Router is a great router. It supports 802.11n, USB network storage, gigabit ethernet, and up to a 1200 feet range. One feature that I thought was nifty was the light that shows you how much data you are downloading at any given time. As for the USB storage, there’s still a lot missing. First of all, its a little buggy. I can’t seem to get it to work on my Mac. It keeps saying “Connection Failed” Second of all, there’s no way to manage settings for the USB storage.

Pros:

• Fast, 802.11n wireless networking.
• Four gigabit ethernet ports.
• Download speedometer light.
• Very long range.

Cons:

• Mediocre USB network storage.

In The Box:

• Router
• Power cable
• Short Cat 5e ethernet cable
• Setup CD (Not needed for advanced users)

Price:

$119.99 from Belkin.com, $75.00 from Amazon.com

That’s about It! I would definitely recommend this router to a friend if only because of how fast it is and how long it’s range is. I would give this router a solid 4.5/5 stars.

What wireless router do you use?

Multitasking

This is big. Yes, I know, Apple isn’t the first to announce multitasking but this just could kill android and maybe even WebOS. Both theese operating systems are heavilly based on multitasking. Palm and Google are going to have to mix it up a bit before everyone moves over to iPhone when OS 4 comes.

Enhanced Mail

The way that Apple has upgraded mail is great. Now, instead of having to go back and switch between mailboxes to check mail, you can now go to one mailbox where all of your email is compiled. The new mail also supports multiple Exchange accounts.

iBooks

We’ve seen them on the iPad. In fact, we’ve downloaded 600,000 of them! iBooks are now going to be coming to the iPhone. I don’t have much to say about this, but I think it’s great how we can now easily purchase, download, and read iBooks from anywhere we go.

iAd

I have mixed thoughts on IAd. First of all, it’s pretty great how simple it is. Second, this sucks for AdMob. Third, i’d like to see what consumers and advertisers do with this.

Bluetooth Keyboards

This isn’t that big of a feature but I think it’s pretty sweet. This will be great for writing a blog post or email from the car, airplane, or practically anywhere else. I’m looking forward to using this feature.

Folders

This has to be one of the biggest and baddest features in OS 4. You can now take your apps and easily make folders to put them in. This is great for those appaholics (like me) out there.

What do you think? What are you looking forward to in OS 4?

How is Google Buzz different?

In my opinion, Buzz is not a copy of Facebook, nor is it a copy of Twittr. Buzz is simply in-between. It is not as complicated as facebook, but is also not as simple as twitter. What makes it different than Twitter is the fact that Buzz lets you comment on other peoples updates and it also lets you upload photos. You man say that Twitter does let you upload photos, but it doesn’t. Twitter only lets you post links to photos and has no native way to attach photos. The only way to post a photo in Twitter is to use a service like Twitic or yfrog. Also, Twitter does not let you comment on other people’s updates. The closest thing to commenting on an update is @replying somebody.  The bad thing about an @reply is that it is not connected to a specific tweet, so things can get a little confusing when you are receiving many @replies.

What does Buzz do?

I think Google does it best when describing Google Buzz. Here’s a short video about Buzz:

What do I think about Buzz?

Buzz will not replace Facebook and is far from replacing Twitter. I look forward to seeing how the community uses Buzz and what future changes Google will make to it in the future. After taking some time to use Google Buzz and testing it out, one of its biggest flaws is the fact that whenever somebody comments on your update, Google automatically Emails you. I hope that in the future, Google will give you the option to turn the Email updates off because after a while they get annoying.

You can follow me on Buzz here. You can also read Google’s blog post on Google Buzz here.

What do you think?

What do you think about Google Buzz? Have you gotten the chance to try it out yet? If so, do you like it?

The price of the iPad is fairly reasonable though. Only $500 for an almost 10 inch screen and a 1 Ghz processor. The reasonable price will help the iPad compete with Amazon’s Kindle and Kindle DX.

Oh, and if the iPad were to run Mac OS X instead of iPhone OS, I would buy it.

What do you think? Will you be buying an iPad when it comes out?

[Photo: Apple]

The fact that you can only run one app at a time on the iPhone is in my opinion one of the phone’s biggest flaws. Hopefully, Apple will fix this with iPhone OS 4.0. If Apple can implement multitasking, it will totally change the iPhone and what I think about it. The company has been claiming that multitasking will kill the phone’s battery quicker but I think that once Apple comes out with new hardware and adds a better battery, this will not be an excuse anymore.

New home screen layout

The iPhone’s home screen is getting a little old and stale, in my opinion. Hopefully, in OS 4.0 they will come up with a way for the user to customize the home screen and change the layout.

Replying to SMS messages with out opening up the Messages app

Now, I know there is an app in Cydia for this but I don’t remember what it’s called. But, if Apple were to add a feature where you dont have to tap the reply button and be sent back to the Messages app every time somebody sends you a test message when you are in another app then I would be happy and I know it would save me A LOT of time.

What are some features you want to see in the next generation iPhone software?

Good:

• Does not scratch iPhone
• Durable
• Comes with screen protector and cleaning cloth

Bad:

• Not easy to insert/remove iPhone from the case

The bottom line:

The Speck CandyShell is a good case if you plan to drop your iPhone and are afraid of breaking it.

Price:

$34.95 from the Apple Store

My rating:

5/5 stars.

Do I recommend this case?

Yes!