While Microsoft futzes around with Live apps that nobody really wants or needs, and keeps Vista under wraps to the point it'll be mouldy when it finally comes out next year, Apple's been busy.

iTunes 7 with iMovies that presumably won't be available directly to New Zealanders, new iPods, and... an iTV preview. Harry McCracken at PC World US had a look at the new stuff from Apple, and posted pics on his blog. Look at the little iPod nano in aluminium casing now for instance.

So... downloaded iTunes 7... 35MB. I can see the ads for the iTune store while it installs... long long license agreement. Updating the library and analysing the songs for gapless playback takes a dog's age, actually. Couldn't iTunes do this in the background?

There you go, iMovies. Only US$9.99 for classics like that. Shame I still have to pretend that I'm American to buy from the iTunes store though.

To be honest, the iMovies store is a bit too empty at the moment to impress. There are only two Horror movies, four SciFi ones, and seven thrillers and it's all Disney stuff which is probably the most dire film catalogue there is. A quick browse around doesn't find anything worthwhile filling your video iPod with at the moment, but there are many more TV shows for US$1.99 a pop. Hmm... paying for TV shows? Crazy idea.

Having previews before you buy is nice, but 1GB plus a file? Ouch. That's a lot for bandwidth starved Kiwis. Guess Americans are spoilt with no data caps.

Of course, the downloaded stuff will only play back on an iPod or the computer authorised for the content.

Games are available now as well, but Tetris and Pac-Man...? Come on Apple. It's 2006.

Check this out Anand slaps some Clovertowns into a new Mac Pro. Yep, it works - 8 cores!

WARNING: don't install iTunes 7. The current version has several serious bugs, like distorted sound (fixable), skipping during system activity (not fixable) and it can eat your purchased music due to DRM problems.

Wait until Apple comes out and explicitly says the problems have been sorted out.