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Because blogs are a way to reach audiences that are not reached through traditional marketing outlets

Yeah, because Apple has a real problem "reaching audiences." I mean, who ever heard of an iPod? They seem to think that TV commercials and word-of-mouth alone will sell the things.

they increase the amount of feedback you receive from your customers, and they provide a way to mine your user base for ideas.

If only there were some website where Apple could gather user opinions and feedback.

-- Brian Boyko
-- Professional Blogger.

It shows.

Features??? all they can do is play music... that's all... mp3 players are two a fscking penny nowadays... they'll be giving them away with the cornflakes next, just like calculators... if you want to do anything else with an iPod, you've got to hack them... all iPods have now over the other MP3 players, is a perceived image of coolness... but that's gone now as everybody and his dog has got one...

All my friends say that watching videos on the go is a low priority. There's simply no product out there that can display all my videos on an adequate screen with a large enough hard drive. Furthermore, there are no legal channels through which to purchase video content which respects the author's rights.

I'll be even more well-received than that bad iPod dancer. Perfect!

Yes there are...

I've thought about buying the Tunestir , because I like to listen to NPR on the train in the AM. But thanks to RadioRecorder and iPodder, I get to do that now anyway - so I don't think I'm missing that FM receiver so much anymore.

There are a ton of programs that already let you do this. Perhaps the coolest in my eyes is a program called SharePod which runs directly from the iPod hard drive, and so requires no installation. It is for Windows only, however, which is the only limitation.

http://sturm.t35.com/sharepod/

There are also about a dozen alternatives here, on iPodlounge.com

http://www.ipodlounge.com/index.php/ipod-software/

Kudos to the WinAmp guys for doing this though, I'll probably check it out to see how they did it.

Maybe this is news for Winamp users - I doubt it, but I don't use it myself. But there has been software to download songs from the iPod to your harddrive for ages. The inability to do so is pretty much limited to iTunes, every other application dealing with the iPod (and there are dozens) enables you to do that. One popular example for Windows is EphPod. Lots and lots more can be found for multiple platforms at iPodlounge.

Personally, I use foo_pod, a plugin for the foobar2000 audio player. It's quite powerful, including such features as automatic conversion of formats the iPod doesn't know (e.g. ogg or shorten) and automatic generation of audiobooks. For what it's worth - Wired seems to care - foobar and foo_pod are yet half as small than Winamp and that plugin is. Hah.

To put things in perspective again, the number 5 cell phone maker shipped about ten times the number of cell phones then Apple shipped iPods. Granted, this was pre-Shuffle, but they still have a very long way to go to catch up with Nokia or Motorola.

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time I was upgrading iTunes from 4.5 to 4.6. While the upgrade was running, there was a knock at the door. I went to open the door, and who was there, but Steve Jobs! Steve said "Mr. BigLig? Mr Rufus T. BigLig?" "That's me Steve", I replied. And then he kicked me in the nuts.

Well, not exactly. But I did have an "iTunes Music Library file unknown error (-50)" every time I used iTunes from then on. Tried everything - see here for details. It hit about 0.01% of users, and the fix was basically "suffer in agony until 4.7".

And now 4.8 is out, and like a fool, I'm downloading it as I type.

And that, Best Beloved, is how Steve got his Reality Distortion Field.

It looks like even though Tiger has only been out a few hours, Apple is well on its way to building three more "community economies".

I find it so interesting that the iPod (in all its flavors) and Mac mini have oodles of accessories for each.

With Spotlight, Dashboard, and Automator all generating the software equvalent of these accessories, it seems appropriate to explore the "community economies" Apple is creating.

Perhaps there is a better phrase than "community economies" to describe the markets that emerge from supporting a specific product as well as the communities that for from them (take for instance, iPod community websites). Whatever they may be called, it is interesting how Apple seems more capable than other manufacturers, even in other spaces, to develop these "community economies".

But why is this becoming common for Apple products? Apple seems second only to automobile makers in creating accessory markets and communities of owners & supporters. The same doesn't exist for GAP or Sony or even Microsoft, though an argument can be made that the latter has a huge community of PC software vendors.

But more than the vendors, it is the concept of little sub-economies and users so specific to a particular product that is very interesting to me.

If you paid a $25 levy on your iPod, you should look into getting it back. The levy was thrown out.

You do, however, continue to pay a $0.21 levy (or so) on each blank CD.

If the forum posts at IpodLounge are any indication, many people will buy some sort of case to protect their iPod from accidental drops. Other people just want to protect their iPod from scratches (especially the screen) and they will buy something thinner than a regular case.

Again, judging from the forum posts, FM transmitters seem like common buys. I don't know about more esoteric add-ons like the laser pointer.

iPod socks

I can also use an iPod for days before it dies, when a PSP will probably wear out in about five hours, which is shorter by far than your average work day."

Let's not exaggerate please. I have an iPod Mini - 6 to 8 hours battery life is more like it. Also if you forget to charge it nightly the battery will drain down too. I realize this is normal, but it sure is a bummer when you pick it up to listen and realize you've got less than 10% battery life left. And it doesn't come with a nice dock (extra $$) so I am wary of always leaving it sitting on top of my computer attached by a cord. Easy to knock over and bang on the floor.

For battery life overview check out this:

iPod Mini Battery Life

you would think, given iPod/iTunes is the current DRM poster child, that if anyone accepted DRM it would be iPodders. not so. check out the results of an informal survey:

http://forums.ipodlounge.com/showthread.php?s=&thr eadid=85534

only 5% (1 out of 20), at the time of this posting, of iPodders have more DRM'd audio on their iPod than non-DRM'd audio.

like an earlier poster stated, DRM is unlikely to be accepted while alternatives exist. if it's going to take hold will have to be forced upon people.

I am calling Shenanigans!

Ipod sales are predicted at 13.3 millioin units for 2005, but I find it hard to believe that one out of five (2.66 million) will convert soley due to their experience with the ipod (sure there is windows based frustration).

It would make sense that many people would say they plan to switch to the platform, but how many really follow through with that is going to be lower once they find the sticker shock on their standard systems. If they can gain a market foothold with the mac mini will may work. There is also the question of being retrained on a new system. There certainly is something to be said for the status quo.

Don't the different iPod models have different docks? So you could have a one-size-fits-all dock, but when you put a mini in it, there would be a gap around the edges, and Apple just wouldn't let that happen.

I'm not saying this was definitely a dock connector in the making here, but people are missing the obvious:

Replaceable plastic covers. Seriously. This thing has 'em, why not the Mac Mini? They can't cost more than about 3 cents each to make, and Apple could make 'em look better than these do. For those who don't want a dock port, just have the standard cover that the Mini's got right now. The only difference is you sell these snap-on dock port covers separately.

Maybe Apple considered something like this (it's the only way to make an integrated dock work) and then decided it was too unelegant, or that they didn't want users replacing the whole top of the Mac mini, or that having only the dock port itself be replaceable would leave an ugly hole in the system top normally (or a split off extra bit that would detract from the cosmetic appearance even if a dock connector was not attached by the user).

Personally, I'd probably rather just buy a separate dock anyway...

How about the demand for portable satellite radio units? In a January report, there were only 3.2 million subscribers. 1.8 million subscribers joined in 2004.

Apple, on the other hand, added 4 million iPod owners in Christmas alone, and 2 million the quarter before. So Apple is essentially selling 12 to 20 times as many iPods as people even potentially purchase radio units. They'd probably sell more iPods if they added, instead of a satellite radio receiver, an FM receiver or just an extra 10 hours of playtime.

satellite radio
iPods

Here you go.

Found one, but it's not even available yet, and it's apparently a "first."

Already been done. Next?

Well, here is a piece on iPod related mugging early last year here
Furthermore other sources have reported simmilar cases

iPod 3G has a 220uF capacitor at the headphone output stage

The later Wolfson WM8750 (PortalPlayer iPods use WM8731 and WM8721) offers "No DC blocking capacitors required (capless mode)"

SigmaTel's D-Majors have a <0.05% THD headphone driver, including anti-pop and short-circuit protection

Why would it need short-circuit protection? Hmmm....

According to IpodLounge, the MP3 decoder chip is a SigmaTel D-Major STMP3550 (PDF).

This thread at head-fi.org has some additional comments regarding the chip.

It looks to be a basic MP3 decoder + DAC + integrated headphone amplifier with support for custom DRM algorithms, no fancy custom chips here. It is interesting that the chip has audio record features as well as FM tuner input and control capability. The data sheet also mentions that it can be upgraded for codecs other than MP3 (and obviously AAC and WMA). Ogg anyone?

Maybe we can expect to see some hacking of this player to enable some of these unused features.

In an effort to be more informative than "there are already programs to get various web items onto it, like one that gets google news and outputs it onto the iPod when you sync it", I did some quick googling..

Googleget - Grabs Google News and syncs it onto your iPod. Looks great, can't wait to try it.

Many other iPod tools written in .NET for Windows (haven't found out if these are open-source, if so I'd love to try to port some of them to mono/gtk) available at iPodSoft -- I tried out a few of these and they look great.

And then there's the big list over a iPodLounge...

1. Take a picture of your iPod *
2. Scale appropriately and replace whatever built-in picture you like.
3. Take a picture of this picture on your iPod *
4. Go to step 2.

i can prove the image is fake, they wrote the name as 'iPod Flash', with an uppercase F. But, shortly after the iPod photo came out, Apple changed the name of the 'iPod Photo', to 'iPod photo' . I doubt apple would release something that, when they recently enforced their new naming convention.

For the rest of us I think the Belkin TuneDok Car Holder looks pretty cool. Griffin also has a lot of iPod stuff. Both companies offer car chargers too. Check out the iPod Lounge forums for user recommendations before buying.

the statement "Apple has refused to the license FairTunes DRM to makers of other digital portables"
is not 100% correct

as always, ipodlounge's review debunks the bose myth. http://www.ipodlounge.com/reviews.php?id=P5445

You are a self important dumbass. You are not innovative.

Check the download section @ iPodLounge and you'll find a number of utilities that allow you to copy tracks FROM your iPod TO your PC / Mac / Fancy Abacus. You could also use a utility like BurnOut (sorry, can't find a link, but I believe it is also @ iPodLounge) and burn CDs directly from your iPod.

Sorry, have to AC but the 20gb 4G is the thinnest iPod to date. Indeed, the 40g is a bit thicker. It goes like 20gb 4G, X?gb 3G, 40gb 4G in order of thickness.

Check iPodLounge's review on the 4G for more info.

Without a doubt this is true. Apple has still remained silent on the iPod 4G Audio Defect. I even described it to AppleCare and they paid for me to send it in, and then they shipped it back with a note indicating that it was working 'within standard specifications. '

IMO there is something wrong when you can hear the hard drive spinning up and down in your headphones. Thanks for the wonderful support, Apple.

Check out iPodlounge.

http://www.ipodlounge.com/

Lots of good links, reviews and discussion there about all things iPod (software and hardware related).

Cheers.

Hate to break it to you...

What, so a product has to 0wn more than 50% of the market to be a success? Glad you're not grading MY tests...

And while Apple certainly gets the design perfect for the iPod (sadly, my Archos Jukebox V2 is admittedly homely), the build quality is another thing entirely: Apple does not have a good track record with build quality on the iPods (see hereand here, for instance).

I'm consistently seeing good reviews for Archos' new products (Laptop Magazine gave the AV420, a portable PVR/video player, 4.5 out of 5 stars in their latest issue, for one) , and the Gmini 400 itself was very favorably reviewed in a recent Cnet review. I may have to get one for myself, actually.

stereophile's ipod review

audiophile award

let me quote:

Best of all--and, to my ears, completely indistinguishable from the original CD--was AIFF. Dynamics were impressive, imaging was nuanced and detailed, and the frequency extremes sounded extended and natural. On my reference rig, I could listen with immense pleasure for hours on end to files ripped in AIFF. In fact, I did.

---

the ipod is an audiophile-quality product. now, where are the reviews of the rio players qualifying them as audiophile-quality?

note though, that they ran it through the line-out plug on the dock, that is probably why they got the best quality out of it.

btw, i live in australia and especially this year, i see ipods everywhere. hardly anyone owns any of the other players in comparison.

and here, ipods are seen to be the coolest mp3 player. actually, coolest consumer electronics device full stop.

OK, this is the question I can't seem to find answered (and no, there's no one around with an iPod for me to ask...): How crucial is iTunes? Can I use the iPod as a hard drive without installing it? Can I use it as an MP3 player?

I think that iPod Lounge may complain.

Stuart

Took me exactly one google search to find this. Sure it's designed for the 3G ipod, but since the screen is the same size. Or go buy a Vaja case that's beautiful and sturdy.

Or do what I do and put some clear contact paper on your screen. (Mine is a PDA screen, but the same idea applies to iPods...)

a biased source? yes. but a fair analysis? yes, IMO, including full bias disclosure at the end of the article.

The information you "learned" was incorrect.

From the faq:

Can I convert a mac ipod to a windows ipod or vice versa

If you meant use it without changing the format:

From the faq again:

Can I use my iPod on both my Mac and Windows computers?

If you want specifically to use a Windows formatted iPod on a mac. From the faq yet again:

Can I use my Windows formatted iPod on a Mac computer?

Vice versa? You guessed it from the faq:

Can I use my Mac formatted iPod on a Windows PC?

Time to type in the url for ipodlounge and click help->ipod faqs: 10 seconds.

Time to read faq page: approx 1 minute. The book is stupid because it provides information that can be found easier, cheaper, and faster without it.

The information you "learned" was incorrect.

From the faq:

Can I convert a mac ipod to a windows ipod or vice versa

If you meant use it without changing the format:

From the faq again:

Can I use my iPod on both my Mac and Windows computers?

If you want specifically to use a Windows formatted iPod on a mac. From the faq yet again:

Can I use my Windows formatted iPod on a Mac computer?

Vice versa? You guessed it from the faq:

Can I use my Mac formatted iPod on a Windows PC?

Time to type in the url for ipodlounge and click help->ipod faqs: 10 seconds.

Time to read faq page: approx 1 minute. The book is stupid because it provides information that can be found easier, cheaper, and faster without it.

The information you "learned" was incorrect.

From the faq:

Can I convert a mac ipod to a windows ipod or vice versa

If you meant use it without changing the format:

From the faq again:

Can I use my iPod on both my Mac and Windows computers?

If you want specifically to use a Windows formatted iPod on a mac. From the faq yet again:

Can I use my Windows formatted iPod on a Mac computer?

Vice versa? You guessed it from the faq:

Can I use my Mac formatted iPod on a Windows PC?

Time to type in the url for ipodlounge and click help->ipod faqs: 10 seconds.

Time to read faq page: approx 1 minute. The book is stupid because it provides information that can be found easier, cheaper, and faster without it.

The information you "learned" was incorrect.

From the faq:

Can I convert a mac ipod to a windows ipod or vice versa

If you meant use it without changing the format:

From the faq again:

Can I use my iPod on both my Mac and Windows computers?

If you want specifically to use a Windows formatted iPod on a mac. From the faq yet again:

Can I use my Windows formatted iPod on a Mac computer?

Vice versa? You guessed it from the faq:

Can I use my Mac formatted iPod on a Windows PC?

Time to type in the url for ipodlounge and click help->ipod faqs: 10 seconds.

Time to read faq page: approx 1 minute. The book is stupid because it provides information that can be found easier, cheaper, and faster without it.

So, you're not interested in paying for the value add of somebody collating and editing the information presented in this book.

Most of the information presented in the book can probably be found at: http://www.ipodlounge.com/

In the time it takes you to:

1. Order the book and have it shipped
or
2. Go to the store and pick up the book.

You could've easily googled the info and had it with no cost to you and considerably less of a time investment.

I'm not particularly interested in paying for the value add of somebody collating and editing the information presented on a single website. If you are, and know of other like minded individuals I can start work on a book of +5 moderated slashdot comments.

That's fine. What makes you think that there don't exist people who disagree with you?

That's the interesting thing. It doesn't matter what the issue is, how morally reprehensible it is, how disgusting, etc...there's always someone who disagrees with you. In this case, it doesn't make it less stupid.

Short answer: Yes.

Granted I havn't had mine (20gb model) for a week yet, but so far I love the thing. Great for taking to the gym and I can't *wait* until winter comes to go snowboarding with it.

Warning: iTunes sucks a big one. I think a group of monkeys could write better software, oh wait sorry that was Windows. If you're going to get one and use it on a Windows platform (I have to, Firewire doesn't work well on my Linux desktop system yet), get EphPod. Good software with a lot of features.

Now that I'm on ths topic I might also mention that EphPod does not store your song ratings, if you want to backup/edit them check out this thread.

For example, their compendium of software includes:

A workaround for EU volume limitation
Ripping, encoding and tagging recommendations.
A utility to mass export Outlook contacts
News and Weather syndication downloaders.
By far the best way to retrieve your MP3s (a utility that sits on your iPod itself and is executable over a network!)
The fantastic iPod Agent, which creates beautiful XML music lists as well as performing loads of useful functions

Every other area of the lounge is equally as exhaustive - from iTunes configuration (you can do amazing things with smart playlists!) to headphones and case reviews. Visit the site instead of buying a book.

(Oh, and I'm in no way involved with the Lounge other than being a fan.)