Breaking Windows

G-Spot. No, I am not making that up. Since there is no denying bad humor (and this will be even funnier if you actually go and read what the app does): "Honey, I can't find your G-Spot."

Wow, do I wish I joined Last.fm sooner. I signed up two days ago, and I love it. What is Last.fm? Its a social networking music site. It is Internet radio that is better than iTunes. It really is a rockin' service.

Check out my profile as well as the Blogcritics group page.

There are iTunes/iPod plugins for Mac and Windows, the Mac one seems to work just fine.

The site must use less bandwidth than iTunes, because it drops and has to re-buffer far less than iTunes. Sunday had a lot of hiccups, but I have to assume that the site sees a spike in traffic then.

You basically search for music to listen to, ay Pearl Jam. It then streams a radio station (no commercials or irritating DJ) with music like Pearl Jam. I only wish it played Pearl Jam more than often then it does.

But the "Artist Fan Radio" stations seem to play more of the target artist.

Simply wonderful service, I cannot recommend it enough. One final note - it's free.

Sure, the iPod has had Brick, Music Quiz, Parachute, and Solitaire for a while now, but last September brought even better ways to put off work - if you own a fifth generation iPod.

I just bought a black 5G iPod, and of course the first thing I did was download games from the iTunes Music Store. They are all $4.99, and some offer a great deal of game for that small price.

Sadly, there have been no additions beyond the initial eleven. I hope more games get released soon.

Still, the initial launch was strong, and I intend to write reviews of the games.

Many long-time Mac game developers figured it was inevitable that Apple would one day add premium games to its iPod music player. But when that day finally came earlier this month, many of those same game developers were left wishing they could be a part of it.

Good job Apple! You are (yet again) alienating your loyal developer base. Give Aspyr and other mac devs like Pangea an SDK and maybe your iPod games thing will fly.

Amazon.com launched a digital video downloading service Thursday, ending months of speculation that the Internet retailer would be getting into the online TV and movie business.

The service, dubbed Amazon Unbox, (how original) has been launched just days before the Sept. 12 Apple "It's Showtime" event where the entire planet Earth thinks Apple will release a true video iPod and their own video download service.

TV shows will cost $1.99 per episode, and most movies will go for $7.99 to $14.99; movies can also be rented for $3.99.

One of the longest standing holdouts on selling digital music at online stores is Metallica, the band that initially started the backlash against Napster years ago.

What's next? The Beatles? I can't believe these Metallica tunes can also be purchased individually, given how much the band has protested in the past. Maybe they finally figured out after all these years that a lot of people actually buy digital music from iTunes?

The new iGoatse is the definitive skin for your iPod. There are no words to describe it.. And you know why.

For sale, new in box, $175 OBO. (MSRP is around $250)

Contact me: ken [at] meancode [dot] com.

Every year, the New Oxford American Dictionary people hand out an award for "Word of the Year." It's usually given to the word that has the most amount of hype attached to it, but it's a rite of great distinction for the word. This past year's Word of the Year is podcast. That's a given, right? "Sudoku," "bird flu" and "reggaeton" didn't stand a chance.

Yea, that is an odd opening to a technical article on creating your own podcast, but it is what it is.

Five days ago I filled out a form for a replacement iPod shuffle. Three days ago I received my new iPod shuffle, free of charge. Although I must say I am glad I was home when it was delivered.

It arrived via DHL, who are really fast, but they never nock. It had rained and the cement step outside my apartment was still wet. Though my iPod was sitting in a very not-waterproof envelope damp when I got it. You see I had to check the DHL web page to see that my package was even delivered.

It is a very good thing it didn't rain that day, as we have been getting a lot of rain lately. Which incidentally in Ohio means we will have winter until June or July.

Lets just hope that this one does not fall apart on me. I will be more careful this time. I will not *gasp* carry it around in my pocket every day.

I recently wrote about my iPod shuffle falling apart. I called Apple Tech today and they sent me to this page. Just like with their PowerBook repair boxes I have so many times used, Apple will send you a box for your shuffle. Mine is broke so it will be replaced. But it will only take a couple days.

How nice. I should have called sooner.

Of course the flippin' site will not recognize my serial number (in Safari or Firefox) that I am grabbing out of System Profiler. Grr. Skip that one, it wants a different Serial Number! It wants the other one, duh!

What a busy day. Although I can't it was a surprise, thanks to the rumor sites. MacWorld has a piece on the new iMac, Playlist has the video iPod and iTunes 6 covered.

Viva la video on the iPod! And to answer Matt and Jake, NO I am not gonna buy one. I have Final Fantasy VII Advent Children and Sin City on my PSP right now, and I can watch them (and actually see the details) just fine on the luxurious screen. Granted I only have a 1 GB card, but I will take the bigger screen over the bigger hard disk space.

The one thing that gets me is how Apple can only charge $1.99 for videos and TV shows. I think that is a miracle in itself. Of course the flip side to that is BitTorrent and free, but $1.99 a show isn't bad at all.

Apple Computer's newest MP3 player, the iPod nano, is receiving rave reviews and analysts believe the device will solidify Apple's dominance in the competitive MP3 player market for at least another year. However, not everyone praises the device -- Motorola CEO Ed Zander had some harsh words for the nano in a recent interview.

I think there is a rather large portion of the world that "listens to 1,000 songs," and is glad to have only 1,000 songs in their pocket. I don't see how politicly sound this is for Mr. Zander as the reviews of the new MOTO ROKR have been luke warm at best. Lets face it, the ROKR is a dud. I don't think Apple should have gone with MOTO in the first place (they have absolute crap phones in my opinion).

You usually do not get such a juicy sound bite from such a high profile CEO.

So why is the MOTO CEO blasting the iPod nano? Especially as MOTO now has a business relationship with Apple. This just makes the MOTO ROKR an even bigger eye soar in the media. Good job Mr. Zander. You can take your crappy attempt at an iTunes phone and shove it.

I do have one question though: Who listens to 100 songs, (the ROKR limit) to paraphrase your quote. Not many, as the mediocre reviews of your new phone show. Yet the nano is flying off shelves. Imagine that!

Sounds like stable ground between MOTO and Apple (sarcasm).

My iPod shuffle is broke. One day, out of the blue, when I pulled the shuffle from my G5 the case came unattached from the metal USB port. There is a ribbon that attaches these two pieces. It has gotten progressively worse, it just falls out. I need to find/buy some super glue to put the thing back together. But I bet when I do that the warranty (if any) will be null and void.

On Wednesday, at a special event in San Francisco, Apple took the wraps off the long-awaited iTunes phone from Motorola, the ROKR. Apple also updated iTunes to version 5.0 and introduced its replacement for the iPod mini: the iPod nano.

Well, this will certainly add some fuel to the fire on those video iPod rumours — Apple has updated its trademark for the iPod from “portable and handheld digital electronic devices for recording, organizing, transmitting, manipulating, and reviewing text, data, and audio files” to read “portable and handheld digital electronic devices for recording, organizing, transmitting, manipulating, and reviewing text, data, audio, image, and video files.”

I was just thinking to myself, it has been a while since I bought a new iPod (joke). After seeing how video can look on my PSP, I do not think the 2" screen of the iPod will be very inticing. What will be great is the ease of use via iTunes, of course.

Sony really needs a good interface for getting video onto the PSP (they also need a Mac compatible version; the current 1st party software is Windows only). There are good 3rd party Mac apps out for the PSP, but with the 2.0 firmware coming, they all have to update for a quasi AVC/h.264 format. If it was true h.264 video we could all use QuickTime 7 Pro, but that would be too easy, wouldn't it.

I wonder how much that video iPod will cost? The 60 GB iPod photo is $399. Will they charge $499 or more for a video iPod?

At Duke University, administrators are reassessing how best to use the devices as educational tools. After an experiment last year that involved giving all 1,650 incoming freshmen iPods, Duke has decided to distribute the devices more selectively.

Ha, this is funny. Now the student has to be enrolled in a class that requests an iPod. Great idea. Maybe the freshman were using the iPods for a little too much music and not enough lecture recordings?

HP will stop selling its branded Apple iPods in September. HP will continue to install iTunes on its PCs and laptops, however.

This union between Apple and HP never did make sense to me. It all begins with HP's Invent slogan. Ironic, really.

Thanks to this great hint and Doug's Automator iTunes Actions you can now fully automate the process of converting your MP3 files to AAC files, saving a bit of space along the way. If you are an audiophile you may not want to do this, but I hear no difference in audio quality. I end up saving a lot of hard drive space, which is more important to me then CD quality tunes.

Contois Music Technology last week asked a Federal Court to stop the iPod maker from distributing its iTunes jukebox software and is seeking damages over an alleged patent violation by the iTunes software.

The suit, filed on June 13th in Vermont District Court, alleges that Apple's iTunes software design infringes on Contois' six-year old design patent (US Patent No. 5,864,868) entitled "Computer Control System and User Interface for Media Playing Devices."

The mock-up that Apple Insider posted is very similar to what iTunes looks like. It seems like a genuine case of patent infringement. I cannot remember, nor can I find screenshots of SoundJam MP - the predecessor to iTunes - to see if it had a three column layout for displaying genre -> artist -> album.

Yesterday I fixed a friend's iPod that would not show in iTunes for Windows. It is a brand new 20 GB model. He had just installed the iPod software update. The iPod would mount in Windows Explorer, just not show up in iTunes.

When Apple first announced the iPod photo, many digital photographers believed their prayers had been answered: At last, a compact storage solution that would allow you to snap pictures with a digital camera, dump the camera’s contents to the device, and then preview your pictures on that storage device. Regrettably, these dreams were dashed when it was revealed that the iPod photo would display pictures only after those pictures were processed by a computer and delivered to the device via iTunes.

Taiwanese MP3 maker Luxpro made headlines at the CeBit trade show in Germany earlier this month when they showed off an MP3 player called the Super Shuffle that was, unmistakably, a clone of Apple's iPod shuffle. The product briefly disappeared but it's back now, as the Super Tangent. Luxpro appears to have made some changes to the Super Tangent since it was shown at CeBit as the Super Shuffle, but it's still unmistakably an iPod shuffle clone.

Yes, it is still a clone. But it is not an exact replica like the Super Shuffle was. I am guessing someone from Apple legal had a talk with them, and that is why they pulled it.

Griffin Technology Inc. on Tuesday introduced the iVault, an aluminum case designed for Apple's iPod shuffle.

Do you remember this from a while ago? Some guy had way too much time on his hands so he custom machined a metal iPod shuffle case? Then I read somewhere that his design was bought. I guess it was Griffin. Indeed, it is a "Full Metal Jacket." It does look great. When I saw the original I sure wanted one. Griffin's is also half the price of some of the competition, sold in Japan only.

Apple and the authors of an application that allow users to buy music from the iTunes Music Store without using iTunes itself appear to be involved in an escalating war of wits. Only a day after Apple announced a change to the iTunes Music Store that prevented users from using a third-party program called PyMusique to buy songs, one of the program's authors has made changes that restores the software's ability to work.

Will this ever end?

Apple on Monday confirmed they have closed what's described as "a security hole" in the iTunes Music Store that allowed users to purchase songs without DRM attached. As a result of closing the hole, users of iTunes older than version 4.7 will need to upgrade in order to continue purchasing songs. This update also locks out users of PyMusique, a software application for Windows and Linux that served as an alternate interface to the iTunes Music Store.

Ahh, DVD Jon gets stopped again.

The name Jon Johansen should be familiar to any foe of digital rights management. Known primarily for authoring DeCSS, a tool for removing the CSS from DVDs, the Norwegian programmer seemingly spends most of his time fighting DRM implementations. Johansen has also gone after Apple and iTunes Music store in the past, writing an application that could capture the raw AAC content. He and some other programmers are at it again with the release of PyMusique, an application that allows end users to buy music from iTMS without any DRM.

Taiwanese company Luxpro Corp. is showing off an iPod shuffle clone called Super shuffle at this week's CeBit trade show in Hannover, Germany. From the front, the device is physically identical to Apple's iPod shuffle, straight down to the control pad and white earbuds. It touts features the iPod shuffle lacks, however, including an FM tuner and a voice recorder.

This is not your ordinary rip off, this is a RIP OFF. Apple has sued for less. This should be a fun lawsuit.

Russian online music site Allofmp3.com will continue to operate, after Russian prosecutors concluded they cannot take legal action against the music store. Finally prodded into motion by continuous lobbying by the RIAA, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, and other copyright holders, Russian law enforcement officials began an investigtation of the service two weeks ago.

Did you hear that? That was the sound of the entire world's sigh of relief. It helps when you find a loophole in a law. There has been quite a lot of ink splattering from publications such as WIRED Magazine as to the validity and legality of Allofmp3.com. If anything, this investigation has proven what most had feared: it is legal under Russian law.

Allofmp3.com offers high-quality recordings (even lossless if that's what you want) at a low price to anyone, anywhere, on any platform. If the site continues to grow in popularity, it may give the labels second thoughts about raising their prices.

I just wonder how long the service will last now that it has hit mainstream news.

Sony has announced nine new flash-based MP3 players to compete with Apple's iPod shuffle. "The lineup includes a set of cigarette lighter-sized models, a bit more expensive than the iPod Shuffle but with a much longer advertised battery life--50 hours of playback time with a rechargeable battery compared to Apple's 12 hours. And unlike the Shuffle, the Sony players have bright, 3-line screens to display song information...

If Sony cannot undercut Apple in the price department, I wonder if they will sell many at all. Sure it will sell, its got the Sony name on it. But will it dent Apple's stronghold on the MP3 player market?

It is great to see that Sony is finally embracing MP3 in their new flash based players. Their worst decision with that new Network Walkman was only supporting the ATRAC format. Sony finally saw the error of its ways, but to think they could make a proprietary format like ATRAC work in the first place...

iTunes on both the Mac and PC is a terrific application, but it has a singular advantage on the Mac—its support of Apple’s scripting language, AppleScript. Regrettably, writing AppleScripts is beyond the ken of a lot of Mac users. Fortunately, that makes not a whit of difference thanks to Doug Adams and his invaluable site, Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes.

It is not really fair to boil down the scripts on Doug's site to 10, but the list here is pretty good. If you have not thought of extending iTunes with AppleScripts, you may find yourself wasting a lot of time. There are a great many things you can do with Doug's AppleScripts. What's more is that he is not the type of person who does not support his work. I have emailed him regarding a couple of his scripts, and he has gotten back to me fairly quickly.

At Big Blue's USA PartnerWorld conference Steve Welch used software on the iPod to save the crashed ThinkPad. The software is One-touch Rescue & Recovery On Linux and is not as yet an announced IBM product.

A Russian digital-music site offering high-quality song downloads for just pennies apiece is the target of a criminal copyright investigation by the local police, recording industry groups said Tuesday.

AllofMP3.com has been operating for several years, asking consumers to pay just 2 cents per megabyte of downloads--usually between 4 cents and 10 cents per song. Alongside the catalogue available at traditional stores like Apple Computer's iTunes, the site offered access to songs from the Beatles and other groups that haven't yet authorized digital distribution.

Damit! It looks like the party is over.

UPDATE: It has been sold!

I am selling my 15GB 3G iPod. I have no need for it. It is in pretty fair condition. The screen is scuffed, the metal back is scuffed, this thing has seen little use. The battery life is still great. It has no engraving on the back. It is also painted "Dragon" green by ColorWare.

I know this did not come with a Dock, so that is not included. I would give you mine but mine is for an iPod photo. It does come in its original box, and with all of its original accessories. You get all this:

15 GB 3rd Generation Super Cool Dragon Green iPod
FireWire iPod Connector Cable
AC adapter (not pictured)
Original (unopened) Earbud Headphones & Remote
Apple Belt Clip
Carrying Case
4-pin-to-6-pin FireWire adapter (not pictured)
Original Paperwork
NEW iTunes CD (iPod photo version)
Original Packaging (minus one piece of Styrofoam that got lost along the way)

All of this can be yours for $125.00. Post a message or send me an email, kenneth.edwards at gmail dot com.

Apple has a hot tips page for both Mac and Windows. They are basically the same, with just different screen shots, etc.

When Napster launched its new subscription Napster-To-Go service two weeks ago, they touted it as a low-cost way to access thousands of songs without having to buy them. For $14.95, customers can copy all the tracks they want from Napster's catalog to digital music players. There's even a 14-day free trial. Of course, when the subscription expires so does the music.

However, in a flashback to the heyday of the original Napster in the late 1990s, a rediscovery by a few users of an old Winamp trick has resulted in subscribers being able to download any number of tracks, which are then no longer tied to the subscriber's PC and digital music players.

I know this is old news, and I have written about it already, but the headline is just golden, and it is Ars after all. I can't believe that it took less then a day for a "crack" to surface. Of course the method is very time consuming, but that has never stopped people before.

EDITORS NOTE: This was originally posted on November 24, 2003. It was updated with much more information and links on February 16, 2005. I want to welcome everyone who has been coming here from the search engines, and mainly Google (I have just been too busy to update this post). I cannot imagine any other reason for so many comments, so it must be because of the search engines.

UPDATE: 02/16/05: I have added one tip specific to Windows and USB/FireWire devices, as well as how to perform a hard reset of the iPod.

What a great page, that is hard to find! There is also a iPod Service & Support page I just found. If you go to either of these pages and search for things, most, if not all, of your questions will be found.

I would also highly suggest the iPodLounge.com Forums or forums at Macworld, Mac OS X Hints, or Apple Discussions.The aboe Apple links and iPodLounge.com have great tutorials if you are unfamiliar with anything.

Whether you like Napster To Go, the online store's new music subscription service, depends on whether you think of it as all-you-can-eat or all-you-can-pay.

Both descriptions are accurate. For $15 a month, Napster To Go offers unlimited song downloads -- in a copy-restricted format that can be played only on Windows XP computers and some digital music players -- but these songs expire if you don't keep paying that fee each month.

Here is BugMeNot.com for convenience. I would be interested to know how many "some digital music players" really is. Here is your answer:

Because this underlying software is so new, Napster To Go is the least compatible music store in existence. You can use it only on a Windows XP computer running Windows Media Player 10, and you can transfer your downloads only to a Windows Media-compatible player that includes special software and circuitry to enforce the pay-to-play deal.

Nine devices are compatible, seven needing software update to work with Napster To Go. Odd licensing limits the actual library available to To Go users. I see that I am not the only one who didn't think this sounded good. It was good to read Rob Pegoraro's first hand account in this Washington Post article.

Consider this example: I have been purchasing CDs for about 20 years now, in which time I've accumulated about 300 of the things. At an average of $15 each, I've spent $4,500. Now suppose that, instead of buying those CDs, I could have opened up a Napster To Go account back in 1985. My total bill would be $3,600 and counting -- and although I might have accumulated a larger, more diverse collection, I wouldn't own any of it.

Its funny you never saw that asterisk during the Super Bowl commercial. Would you rather own your 10,000 songs are rent them. Once you miss a month's $15 payment for whatever reason you entire music library goes 'poof.'

Lets do some match, based on $1 a song and $10 a CD. One full year of Napster To Go will cost you $180 a year. That is 18 CDs for one year, after that year those CDs are yours to do with whatever you want. At the end of the day (year) I would rather have 18 CDs then have to continue forking over $15 every month to continue listening to music.

Sure I have a biased opinion towards the iTunes Music Store and Apple, but forget the brand names and brand loyalty for a moment.

I do not see how people can equate digital music to satellite radio. It is the closest form of entertainment that I can compare Napster To Go with. The model works for satellite radio, it does not work for online music stores.

This will of course not prevent hordes of people to Napsters new “To Go” service. There will always be people who buy before they think.

15 is less then 10,000 after all.

I had to, I just had to. Sure I have a 60 GB iPod photo, but I had to get a Shuffle. This iPod shuffle is a 2-in-1. I can now get rid of my aging USB thumb drive, and have a super small iPod with me at all times.

This thing is tiny. You can fit it inside the coin pocket of a pair of jeans.

Why is it that all recent updates to iTunes (on the Mac at least) have to come with an asterisk. Every time something goes wrong. It is starting to really annoy me. This time after the 4.7.1 update, part of iLife '05, killed all the album artwork on my iPod photo. And look, there is a tech note for it. Here is the abridged version.

5. Deselect the "Display album artwork on your iPod" checkbox.
9. Select the "Display album artwork on your iPod" checkbox.

I don't know which I like better - the Gwen Stefani 2005 iTunes Ad or the 2005 Pepsi/iTunes Ad. Incidently, if you did not know, Different District has most all the Apple movies online in QuickTime format. They even have a DVD you can buy.

Ahhh, what would we do without The Joy of Tech?

"About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod," said one source, a high-level manager who asked to remain anonymous. "It's pretty staggering."

The source estimated 80 percent of Microsoft employees have a music player -- that translates to 16,000 iPod users among the 25,000 who work at or near Microsoft's corporate campus. "This irks the management team no end," said the source.

So popular is the iPod, executives are increasingly sending out memos frowning on its use.

Now this is just funny. Microsoft's offices have more iPod users then Apple has employees. I bet that really does irk the brass at Microsoft. Sweet revenge?

Apple Computer has quietly updated its iPod software so that songs purchased from RealNetworks' online music store will no longer play on some of the Mac maker's popular MP3 players.

U.K.-based Internet entrepreneur Benjamin Cohen says that he got an unexpected shock last month after he checked his voicemail and heard a lawyer representing Apple Computer Inc. telling him to hand over his Web site domain, itunes.co.uk. Apple alleges that Cohen's CyberBritain Holdings Ltd is a "cybersquatter" just sitting on the domain hoping for a big settlement; Cohen denies the allegation.

Uhuh... an "unexpected shock" my ass.

In October, Apple announced a deal with rock band U2 to provide its entire music catalog on the iTunes Music Store as a “digital box set” called The Complete U2. For the first time, a significant artist’s entire career would be available — legally — over the Internet. On November 23, Apple released this electronic collection on all of its iTunes Music Stores. Being both a U2 fan and a trustworthy Playlist editor, I took it upon myself to purchase and download this new approach to music packaging and collecting. Here are my experiences and impressions.

Dan Frakes provides a full review of what is included. If you ask me, the $149 is worth it. I am heavily thinking of buying it, even if it would take hours to download!

Here is another review.

Creative Technology says it plans to shell out US$100 million (Yahoo! News) in marketing money next year in an effort to take on current MP3 King, iPod, reports Reuters. "The MP3 war has started and I am the one who has declared war," Creative Chief Executive Sim Wong Hoo told a media briefing in Singapore. "I'm planning to spend some serious money -- I intend to out-market everyone," he went on to say. Creative says it is targeting a 40 percent share of the global MP3 player market in 2005, and intends to spend most of the marketing money in the United States, followed by Europe and Asia.

Well they do have a fairly ugly 5 GB iPod clone out now, who's to say they can't capture 40% of the market? I am, for one! Creative will never best the Apple iPod juggernaut.

Download 300 free user-contributed AppleScripts for Apple's iTunes that will make maintaining your digital music collection easier and more fun.

My favorite is his Managing Files collection. Of all these scripts, the one that should be integrated into iTunes is the ability to make AAC files "Bookmarkable."

Let me explain: If you buy a book from the iTMS or Aduble.com, those files are Bookmarkable, when you stop listening, the file remembers where you were last - even once you sync your iPod back to your computer. But what if you rip an audio book yourself? This is where Doug's AppleScripts come in. Make Bookmarkable is the best script on the site. Sure, there are a lot of very useful scripts here, but none top Make Bookmarkable.

For years, iPod tinkerers have known that holding down the correct two sequences of buttons (currently, hold Menu plus central Action button, then Reverse plus Action button) would reset an iPod and then bring up a hidden diagnostic mode. Various tests, including hard disk, screen, and Wheel diagnostics would appear, and the iPod could even be forced into a slave-like disk mode from this menu system.

The color LCD on the iPod photo (re-branded name) is by default set to a brightness value of 128. It can go up to 255, which is very bright. Sure you would kill battery life it you left it at 255, and that is probably why you cannot leave it at 255. After all, the default setting of 128 is bright enough.

The French Competition Council has dismissed the case brought by Virgin Mega's French arm against Apple for alleged abuse of market dominance. In June, Virgin filed a complaint against Apple alleging that the company has wrongfully refused to its license FairPlay DRM (digital rights management) technology to competitors.

After weeks of rumors that hinted at a more colorful iPod, Apple turned conjecture into cold hard fact by unwrapping the iPod Photo—the first of its portable music players to offer a color screen and the ability to display digital pictures and album art. Available in two configurations—a $500 40GB model and a $600 60GB version—these new iPods feature not only new graphic capabilities, but increased playtime and the power to project video to a television via a composite- or S-video cable.

Christopher Breen has a pretty good review of the new iPod Photo. It doesn't go as far as I would like it though. But please read Breen's review for a more thorough overview. I am just going to get to the highlights.

I ordered my iPod Photo (from here on referred to as iPP) on October 27th, and I received it November 2nd. No John Kerry in Office, but I got my iPP!

I was not expecting to get it until Nov. 4, the FexEd shipping page lied. I was quite happy about the shipping time, considering that this is a new product from Apple. We all know how long new products from Apple can take to get into the hands of the masses. I have had some time to use the new iPP and I am very impressed.

Thanks to Todd at CTLT, we have confirmed that the 4G iSkin evo 2 cases fit the slightly thicker iPP. It is a little bit of a stretch, but it works for sure. I have already ordered mine.

I snapped some pics of my new iPP, be sure to check them out.

The new font that it uses, Myriad over Chicago, makes a huge difference. Looking at the 4G next to the iPP is a big difference just in screen readability because of the font change. Maybe a firmware update for the 4G can bring Myriad to the older iPods. I did do some looking though, and I found this: Chicago is a 1-bit font, the monochrome screens are 1-bit. Myriad is not a 1-bit font, and neither is the new color screen of the iPP.

The new color screen of the iPP is very crisp. I cringe at the 4G iPod screen now. The new color iPod OS is very Aqua, really nice. The screen refresh rate is much better with the color screen.

The backlight of the iPP works great indoors and is very readable outdoors as well.

I like album art more and more the more I use it. Its just great to see the album art on the iPod.

I am also growing more and more in love with having my iPhoto libraries on my iPod.

Now the real reason I bought this was the 60 GB of storage. The storage and the crisp color screen were enough new features for me. The iPhoto and album art support are just icing on the case. They are more then just gimmicks, they really are great feature additions to the iPod.

Expensive? Yes, but this is Apple folks. Worth it? Indeed.

As promised several weeks ago, iPodlounge is proud to announce the immediate availability of the iPodlounge Buyers’ Guide 2004 for free download from the links and locations below. It contains the world's first review of Apple's new iPod Photo.

Source: iPodLounge.com

This is a 42 page full color guide for the holidays that leave you drooling for an iPod or some accessories. I know I am using this guide it to make up my wish list for Santa.

Like no other, iPod Ashlee Simpson Karaoke Edition stands out. Virgin white, it features the new Apple Fast-Forward Click Button and, on the flip side, complete how to use instructions. Available for just $349, it comes with enough money to use a pay phone for calling your daddy, your agent or both, when you get caught lip syncing live on national television. We have also included some Kleenex for those special times when your entire fan base realizes you're nothing but a talentless hack.

If you use a device such as the Belkin Digital Camera Link for iPod or the Belkin iPod Media Reader to import photos to your iPod Photo, the imported photos won't appear on the iPod Photo screen while browsing photos or viewing a slide show.

If you want to view the photos you imported to iPod Photo, load them on your computer from iPod and then use iTunes 4.7 or later to sync them back to iPod Photo.

I am a bit disappointed in the iPod Photo. It had really great potential. I agree that video would not be worthwhile on the iPod, but this new iPod Photo could have truly been a "Photo iPod" if you could import a roll from your memory card with the Belkin iPod Media Reader and then use the iPod to view those photos on that nice color screen. This would surely be a boon to photographers in the field both novice or professional. Imagine having 40 or 60 GB of space to transfer and view your photos with.

I hope, like many I am sure do, that Belkin is in the works of a new iPod Media Reader that will automatically show the photos on the iPod without having to first sync with the Mac.

At first neither Apple or Belkin was saying anything about this, but at least Apple has put to rest the rumors by releasing this KB document.

Given that few of these iPods have made their way into the world, I thought I’d offer a few initial impressions. This isn’t the full review that will follow when we’ve had the time necessary to give the new iPod a thorough going over, but rather what I expected after Apple’s presentation and how this iPod has met those expectations.

...Another major change is that the new iPod Photo extends battery life to up to 15 hours, as compared to 12 hours for 4G iPods and 8 hours for the iPod mini. Our “best scenario” tests (meaning that we fully charged the iPod and had it shuffle songs until the battery ran out) revealed that the iPod Photo is capable of even longer playtime. In those test the iPod played music continuously for 16 hours and 10 minutes...

Below are the highlights from Apple's special music event with U2, which took place yesterday at the California Theater in San Jose, CA.

- Apple introduces iPod Photo
- Apple unveils U2 iPod
- Apple expands European iTMS; Canada in Nov.
- Apple to offer iPod Socks
- Apple releases iTunes 4.7; iTMS gets 'Artist Alerts'
- Apple launches iPod Store
- Jobs: 'Photos are the next big thing'

Wow what a day! Mostly iPod news... a London Apple Store!

Those iPod socks look cool. I drink the Kool-Aid, I will probably buy those. And this new iPod + iPhoto thing! Take that HP. Yea. I am selling both of my iPods and buying an iPod Photo (odd name, don't you think?)

Sony said today that is working to add native MP3 support to its portable music players. "The shift from reliance on its proprietary Atrac format will begin with flash memory-based players, but plans are still being finalized on how and when products will add MP3 support," reports CNET News.com. "Sony is revisiting its MP3 strategy at a time when competition in the digital music market is heating up--and threatening to leave the company behind. The surprise move could portend a major strategy reversal for the consumer electronics giant, with important ramifications for the fledgling online music market."

Source: C|Net News.com via MacMinute

Holy Toledo Batman! Sony is going to embrace a standard! This is unheard of.

Call me when I can play a MP3 on that new 20 GB HD model, you know the NW-HD1 Such a catchy name isn't it?

I am really floored though. I thought I would never see the day that Sony would use a standard format.

They will never catch the iPod, but its fun to watch them try. Maybe Sony should pull a HP and just license the real deal.

Forbes' Arik Hesseldahl says that Apple could put the legal dispute with the Beatles behind them if it would spin off the iTunes Music Store: "Apple could make this entire thing go away by spinning off the entire iTunes Music Store as a subsidiary and stop promoting it under the Apple name. This would harm its prospects not one bit. No one who's been awake during the last year hasn't heard of an iPod or seen it in one of those TV ads in heavy rotation....

Source: MacMinute

Well they spun of the iPod, why not iTunes? Will they do it? Will it be fragmented too much if they do? Why not spin off the PowerBook and the PowerMac, and then have OS X a spin off as well? Yes I am being silly here, but this has happened before. Apple spun off Claris, then brought it back in, then spun it off as a new name, FileMaker, then retained ClarisWorks under the Apple brand. Its all fun and games... Well it worked for FileMaker. We do not know if it is working for the iPod, we assume it is.

To dodge a legal bullet with The Beatles and Apple Corps, whch seems like a really stupid lawsuit if you ask me, it might make sense. Of course then we can really see how much (or little) money that the iTMS makes. Apple would not be able to pad the iTMS financial data with sales of iPods. Oh no!

This is really annoying the _bleep_ out of me.

I have decided since there is no separate fields for last name and first name that I am renaming all my music with Last Name, First Name in the Artist field. After all, this makes it easy to jockey the collection of music on my iPod.

I recently did this to my entire Jimmy Buffett collection (my sincerest condolences to those who are not Buffett fans, but lets focus people). Now when I double click on a Buffett tune in iTunes, it magically changes it back to "Jimmy Buffett" and therefor it vanishes from the listing for the author listing I am looking at. Once more when I click that handy dandy arrow icon next to the Artist and Album names, it also rewrites the Artist field to "Jimmy Buffett."

I renamed the Artist field to "Buffett, Jimmy" for a reason (as described above), and I have no clue why iTunes would be reverting the Artist field.

Does anyone have a clue as to why? This is quite frustrating.

UPDATE:
It must have been a permissions error, my most favoritist and most common error and pain in the arese in OS X. I believe the permissions error came from when I copied my entire library from an external firewire drive to on of my internal drives in my G5. Firewire drives and permissions is one of those huge security problems with Mac OS X. So I am not that suprised here. My files had the user/group set to meancode/meancode, even though there is no "meancode" group. I set the group back to "admin" of which I am a part of, and now things work. Thanks to Bruce at Apple DIscussions for the suggestion.

With the release of the new HP-branded version of the iPod, many consumers -- especially those using Windows-based PCs -- are wondering whether they should buy the original Apple-branded model or HP's version. We did some research to help you make the right decision; read on for all the details...

Source: Playlist Magazine

British consumer watchdog group Consumers' Association, publishers of Which? magazines and books, on Wednesday announced that they've written to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) alleging that Apple may be unfairly pricing songs sold through the UK version of its iTunes Music Store. But they appear to be one of the few people who think so, if the comments of the organization's own head of policy is any indication.

While Apple sells songs in Germany and France for €0.99, it sells songs in the UK for £0.79, or about €1.20...

Source: MacCentral

I would like to hear what Neil has to say on this (hint hint).

Apple's plan to open a Japanese version of its iTunes Music Store could be scuppered on local music companies' fears that its DRM technology, FairPlay, simply isn't restrictive enough...

Existing Japanese digital music services do not support CD burning. They also charge from ¥200 ($1.83) a song - rather more than the Yen equivalent of the US store's $0.99 (¥108) download fee...

Source: The Register

It sounds to me like it sucks being a Japanese digital music lover!

Bold text are my comments.

In an effort to convert users of Apple's iPod music player to its own Digital Jukebox, or DJ, Dell Inc. on Wednesday announced a US$100 mail-in rebate for DJ buyers who send in their old iPods for "recycling." The rebate nets users a new 15GB Dell DJ for $99.

Source: MacCentral

That sounds like a deal! Not.

Sony Corp. has unveiled its first hard-disk drive-based digital music player to bear the Walkman name. The device was launched on Thursday as the Walkman brand marked its 25th anniversary.

The NW-HD1 features a 20GB hard-disk drive and is, according to the company, the smallest music player at this capacity. It measures 89 millimeters by 62.1 millimeters by 13.8 millimeters and weighs 110 grams.

Source: MacCentral

Sony is gonna sell a ton of those things! I mean ATRAC3 is all the rage. Just like MiniDisc, and MemoryStick.

Okay, so it's been tough, but you've finally managed to stop yourself from taking Dell up on its kind offer to crush your iPod into a thin paste in exchange for $100 off one of its own stellar music players. Good for you. Only now you're finding yourself tempted by those new players that Sony introduced yesterday-- in particular the NW-HD1 Network Walkman. As faithful viewer Mike Scherer pointed out, MacMinute reports that the NW-HD1 (catchy name) has a 20 GB hard drive, but weighs only 4 ounces-- almost thirty percent less than a 20 GB iPod, and only about half an ounce more than a miniPod with a mere 4 GB storage capacity. Trust us, size does matter, as through-the-roof miniPod sales will attest; Dell's player is a clunky slab by comparison, and when we had the misfortune to encounter a 40 GB Nomad Zen last weekend, we mistook the thing for a brick wrapped in tin foil.

Source: As the Apple Turns

You would do yourself good to read this scene, "The Temptation Never Ends." The best part is the notion of "songs recorded at 48 kilobits per second" as the measurement of how many songs can fit on that Network Walkman. Thats better then the ATRAC3 format listening test, or the fact that the device doesn't even read MP3 files.

Thanks to Brandon for pointing out yet another wonderful AtAT article.

You cannot open the application "iTunes" because another user has it open. Ask the other user to quit the application, then try again. [OK]

According to USA Today's Theresa Howard, Pepsi's advertisement will feature 20 teenagers who have been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has accused each of them of illegally downloading commercial music from the Internet. The ad will reportedly feature a version of the Bobby Fuller Four classic "I Fought the Law" covered by pop-punk band Green Day. The ad shows a 14-year old Staten Island teenager who proclaims, "We are still going to download music for free off the Internet."

Apple's new RSS Feed Generator produces custom feeds you can subscribe to using RSS-enabled software. You're presented with a choice of genres, along with the feed type. Choices include New Releases, Just Added, iTunes Top Songs, iTunes Top Albums and Featured Albums & Exclusives. You can also adjust feed size from 5 to 100 tracks, and you can choose whether to show explicit content.

Apple Computer Inc. said Monday that consumers had bought and downloaded more than 25 million songs from the iconic computer maker's iTunes online music store. Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., also said that more than $1 million worth of iTunes online gift certificates -- sold in denominations of $20 to $200 -- and allowances have been bought since those features were added in October. "The fact that we've done over $1 million in allowances and gift certificates shows a lot of interest on both Mac and Windows," said Chris Bell, director of iTunes product marketing, in a telephone interview.

Apple's popular iPod digital music player is in short supply in many markets in the US and UK, according to the Financial Times. "Most stores in New York have sold out of the larger capacity models and do not expect to get more before the holidays... shortages are forcing many Christmas shoppers to hunt around or settle for one of iPod's many imitators. While most rival machines cost less, aficionados consider them to lack the vital quality of 'coolness.'"

The Copyright Board of Canada said on Friday that it will place a levy of CDN$2 on digital music players with a capacity of up to 1GB, $15 for players with a capacity of 1GB to 10GB, and $25 for those over 10GB. As expected, Apple'siPod will be affected by this decision. However, it could have been worse. "Under the music industry's original proposal, an MP3 player with a 20GB hard drive would have been subject to a levy that would have boosted the price by about $125," reports The Globe and Mail. "Manufacturers filed objections to the Copyright Board over that plan, arguing that the levies would price their products out of the market."

"The exploitation of iTunes vulnerabilities forces Apple to revisit their code -- this results in a challenge of how much developer time can Apple dedicate to patching security holes rather than enhancing features," Tim Deal, senior analyst with Technology Business Research, told MacCentral.

The Norwegian programmer who distributed the first widely used tool for cracking the copy protection technology found on DVDs has turned his attention to Apple Computer's iTunes. Late last week, programmer Jon Johansen posted a small program called QTFairUse to his Web site, with little in the way of instruction and even less explanation. But during the next few days, it became clear that the program served as a demonstration of how to evade, if not exactly break, the anticopying technology wrapped around the songs sold by Apple in its iTunes store. Johansen's software isn't for technology novices. In its current form, it requires several complicated steps to create a working program from source code, and it doesn't create a working song file that can be immediately or simply played from a digital music program like Winamp or Microsoft's Windows Media Player.

Wired News has a report on the practice of iPod 'jack ins,' where one user will plug their iPod headphones into the iPod of a passerby. "Sharing an iPod through its headphone jack is also a crude, low-tech version of what some predict is the real killer application of future iPods: transforming them into short-distance broadcasting devices by adding Bluetooth or similar radio technology, coupled with Rendezvous, an Apple-developed networking technology that allows devices to discover each other automatically."

Apple's highly recommended AppleCare premium warranty service is now available for the iPod. The plan is priced at US$59 for two years of protection. One caveat, however: "The AppleCare Protection Plan cannot be sold to consumers residing in Florida. 'Consumers' are persons who use their computers primarily for personal, family, or household purposes."

posted by Iain: One thing that can dramatically change the time to write ID3 tags, is if there is a format change. ID3 v1 tags are or fixed length, so if you alter the data you only have to rewrite the tag. However, if you start adding additional info such as in V1.1 tags or V2.3 tags (not sure what itunes uses) - then the tag suddenly becomes longer. At this point instead of just rewriting the tag the program has to rewrite the whole file to disc - this takes more time. This may account for the difference in write times you are experiencing. I suspect that Itunes is converting the tags.

The reality is somewhat less than utopian - while it does indeed work as advertised, be prepared for iTunes to hang for 10-15 seconds before playing each Ogg Vorbis file, during which time the program is completely unresponsive and CPU usage shoots up to 100%. You also cannot get tag data for an Ogg file while it is playing, unless you want to endure that pause.

We all knew that the iTMS for Windows was coming. We did not know what great new features were coming for it though. We also did not know about the new version of the iPod software (2.1).

This new iPod software fixes the one thing that annoys me the most. The backlight can now have a custom timer, set to 2, 5, 10, 20 seconds, and always on. Not only that but now when you touch any of the buttons or scroll wheel, the backlight turns on. My number one gripe about my iPod has been addressed.

Being able to sync On-The-Go playlists back to my computer is also a nice addition. The new Music Quiz game is really a joke though, I have 22 GB of MP3 and AAC files on my iPod. So it is a little hard to guess what the song is when I have that much of a selection. The iPod software update looks like this:

* Better default contrast setting
* Added Voice Memos application (Belkin Voice Recorder)
* Added digital photo storage functionality (Belkin Media Reader)
* Enhanced On-The-Go playlist functionality
* Improved playback performance
* Added Music Quiz game
* Improved backlight functionality
* Improved battery meter

What a great amount of updates to the iPod software, very unexpected.

The two new Belkin accessories sure look nice. The $99 Media Reader seems a little pricey, but it does include even the memory stick in its list of supported media. The Voice Recorder is a great idea, but I won't be getting one as my Tungsten T2 does that. Still, a great addition to what is starting to look like a "slash" gadget from Apple.

The partnerships announced today come at a great time, right before Napster 2.0 launches. AOL will promote the iTMS, Apple will promote AOL Music, Pepsi to give away 100 million free iTMS songs, and Audible.com is now part of the iTMS. I questioned if iTMS for Windows was too late, and the announcements today may have been a little late in my mind, but Apple brought out a lot of new features in what could really be called iTMS 2.0.

Here is a list of the announcements in reverse chronological order.

Apple calls it the "second generation" store while most competing online music stores do not have the features of the "first generation" iTMS. The new store doubles the music library to 400,000 tracks by the end of the month, added 200 independent labels, added audio book support thanks to a multi-year exclusive deal with Audible.com, 5,000 books available with free previews, gift certificates, an allowance feature (very nice). That is a lot of new features, and this is 6 months after the iTMS launched!

If you have an Audible.com account (like I do) you might think the iTMS prices are a little high at first glance. After checking the prices through the iTMS and just going to Audible.com, the iTMS prices are most always $1 to $2 less then at Audible.com. I however have a subscription where I get one book and one periodical per month for $15. You can get two books for $20 if you wish. If you like audio books, you would be wiser to use a subscription to Audible.com then using iTMS. But this is only if you are an avid audio book listener. The free previews of the books are a nice bonus.

I am so glad I no longer have to use WinAmp as my Windows jukebox. iTunes for Windows is wonderful. In no time I was listening to songs from my Mac's iTunes playlists thanks to the new cross platform sharing. The only problem I had with this is my PC did not recognize the audio book (.m4b) I bought from the iTMS, it did recognize the music (.m4p) I have bought from the iTMS, this I do not understand :(

I know a lot of Windows users who have been waiting for this day - not because of the iTMS, but because they know how nice iTunes is to use as a jukebox.

Also posted at BlogCritics.
Ôøº

Other than a rabid argument between us superior Pepsi drinkers and those *cough* Coke drinkers, there are a good bunch of informational and opinionated posts about the iTunes Music Store for Windows available as well. So for the standard group of people that come here to read my stuff, check out the comments over at my BlogCritics post.

But to get to the important issue, this is my take:

Its more the taste then the amount of sugar in Coke, and Diet Coke is soo nasty. If you want a Diet the only thing that is good is Diet Dr. Pepper. But then I have always been a Dr. Pepper fan.

But between Coke and Pepsi its Pepsi for sure. Our college (BGSU) even went with Pepsi over Coke, they obviosly knew what they were talking about :-P.

Fast Forward again to last week. It came to my attention that BuyMusic was up. So I tried to get in to see the hubbub. Mostly cause I'm so excited to be finally getting onto iTunes. Immediately I wasn't happy with BuyMusic, being a Mac lover. I then got word that anyone who was with the Orchard may very well be on BuyMusic. I went to double check and sure enough my old CD (Amalgam - Delicate Stretch of the Seems) that I still control and own was up there, for sale without my permission. This made my blood boil.

Update: This is in the trackback but important enough to be brought into this post. Privacy policies are something I don't usually pay attention to but really should, but what buymusic.com has in theirs is just wrong. Jenett linked to Stereoboy's post where he pointed out this little tidbit from their policy: "we may disclose, sell, trade, or rent your Personally Identifiable Information to others without your consent" . Not cool.

Thank you for visiting BuyMusic.com. In order to take full advantage of BuyMusic.com's offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher.

... But we also believe that the business model for music, and the pricing of it in particular, needs a major overhaul. As it happens, so did the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The following is verbatim from a ruling from May 10, 2000. “The FTC estimates that U.S. consumers may have paid as much as $480 million more than they should have for CDs and other music because of these policies over the last three years.”