Can you feel the excitement in the air? iOS 5 and iCloud will arrive on Wednesday, and the telltale signs include a new iTunes 10.5 pushed out today. But that’s not all that’s making news this week -- here’s a look at the latest stuff we’ve been tracking for this fine Tuesday, October 11, 2011.
How low can they go? According to TechCrunch, streaming media pioneer Roku has introduced the new $49.99 Roku LT, the company’s cheapest offering to date which will be available just in time for the holiday gift giving season, sometime in November. The company is also beefing up their 300-plus strong content channels with the inclusion of HBO Go later this month -- however, much like the iPad app, you’ll need a subscription to actually take advantage of it. Kind of a “good news, bad news” scenario there...
AppleInsider is reporting that one lucky customer in Germany has already received their iPhone 4S ahead of the official release date this Friday, October 14. So what’s a lucky customer to do? Why, head on over to Macerkopf.de and show off the packaging as well as Siri to any and all interested parties. Frankly, we’re jealous.
FarmVille makers Zynga held an event in San Francisco today, with CEO and founder Mark Pincus offering a sneak peek of several of the company’s new social games on the way. Included are CastleVille, Zynga Casino (which includes both Poker and Bingo) and Hidden Chronicles, all of which will debut soon on Facebook. The company also previewed a new social games playground entitled Project Z as well as mobile game Dream Zoo and Mafia Wars 2, the latter now available on Google+. Last but not least, three new HTML5-based games are heading to Facebook’s mobile site, including Zynga Poker Mobile Web, Words with Friends HTML5 and Farmville Express. So much for your productivity!
Aside from Apple and its three U.S. carriers (AT&T, Verizon and Sprint), the new iPhone 4S will also be available this Friday at Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy. If you prefer to do your shopping in a monolithic warehouse store instead, Sam’s Club has you covered -- and according to MacRumors, they’ve starting accepting reservations today, with members able to pick up their devices on Friday. Sadly, there’s no discount to be had, but it’s nice to fill up your cart for your monthly shopping trip and be able to toss an iPhone 4S in at the same time, right?
While the public at large received iTunes 10.5 today in advance of iOS 5 on Wednesday, developers are still busy helping Apple squash bugs with the $24.99 per year iTunes Match service, which doesn’t launch until the end of October. According to TUAW, those hardy souls have just received a fresh new beta -- iTunes 10.5.1 with iTunes Match. The update is required for developers who want to keep testing iTunes Match, and also promises “several performance enhancements and bug fixes.” Sounds like the rest of us will be getting this one by month’s end as well.
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