iPod - page 10

For the green-conscious looking for big sound on the go, Logitech has just unveiled it S715i Speaker Dock, a custom-tuned portable speaker dock that comes with an eight-hour rechargeable battery to save on your AA cost.

Although it’s larger than some luggable speaker dock solutions, the S715i offers big sound to boot, thanks to eight custom-designed drivers that separate and enrich specific sound frequencies, with each channel getting a half-inch tweeter, a 3-inch midrange driver and dual 2-inch passive radiators.

The S715i also comes with a wireless remote, allowing you to control your music, turn down the volume or put your playlist on shuffle even across the room.

The S715i works with any device supporting Apple’s Universal Dock Connector, short of the iPad, and will both play and charge from the built-in battery. If for some reason you got made the sucker by buying a non-Apple MP3 player, or just have an older iPod or iPad, you can connect them too, thanks to a standard 3.5mm auxiliary input.

The Logitech S715i goes on sale today, and costs €179. It will ship this month.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH0zasBkNX8&feature=player_embedded

Games maker Blizzard has always had sympathy for Mac gamers: not only do native Mac ports exist for most of Blizzard’s titles, but they have exclusively shipped hybrid Mac/PC installation DVDs of their titles since World of Warcraft.

Their latest blockbuster title, Starcraft II, follows suit with the Mac love… but the game’s content also includes another fond pat on the head for fans in this in-game ad for the iPistol, a space marine spoof of Apple’s famous “dancing silhouette” iPod ad campaign.

Not that anyone’s seen those ads in a while, mind, but cut Blizzard some slack: given Starcraft II’s ten year development cycle, we should count our blessings that they aren’t parodying “Think Different.”

We can describe the idea in one sentence: an iPod patent that switches output to mono when a pair of earbuds are split between two people.

But how, by gum, to describe the pencil-line freaks of the patent illustration, except through wordless screaming? Befreckled, sloe-eyed moppets struckwith lionitis, then decapitated, their horror-induced rictuses still face-frozen? GAH!

Good lord, Apple. If this is the best you can come up with, no wonder you prefer your iPod models to be well silhouetted.

Don’t giggle at professional boxer Floyd Mayweather’s bling: a diamond-encrusted, solid platinum iPod Classic. It cost him $50,000, and if you mock it, he’s liable to hit you so hard your whole family would die.

[via Gizmodo]

Noise-canceling ear buds deliver impressively clear sound, but at the expense of the added bulk of the in-line noise canceling unit. Blackbox’s latest i10 Noise Canceling Earphones get rid of the bulk, though, by getting rid of the usual bulk-adding battery housed in the noise-canceling unit. They’ve accomplished this by also ditching the traditional 3.5mm headphone jack; instead, the i10s use an Apple 30 pin dock connector which allows these earbuds to draw power directly from your iPhone or iPod.

That makes these $125 earbuds something of a gamble, since they’ll only work with Apple’s audio players…and even then, only as long as Apple sticks with its current 30-pin connector format.

Keep it secret! Keep it safe. Given Apple’s once impeccable track record of keeping their future products under wraps up until the very moment that Steve Jobs held them aloft on stage, the product-leaking Smeagol lurking around the underdark of their supply chain is really doing Cupertino a bad turn.

The latest supply-chain leak, spotted by Apple.pro, shows a tiny 1.18″ square, 3cm x 3cm touchscreen, complete with an Apple copyright branded upon the connector cable. The obvious assumption? A touchscreen iPod Shuffle, possibly as early as September.

Concept designs in general tend to be wishful-thinking affairs, but we can’t help but wish that this smart packaging design by Sverre Wiik Øberg uses the iPod’s own packaging as a charger. The box protects the iPod during shipping, then out pop the prongs to juice your iPod in any wall socket once it arrives.

What a snazzy design. Apple’s been increasingly moving towards minimizing its packaging in the interests of green friendliness over the past fe years. The next obvious step seems to be something just like this: discourage customers from throwing away their packaging to begin with by making it legitimately useful.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the long-term future of the iPod line. Long the key driver of Apple’s revenue growth, since the launch of the iPhone, it has slipped into the background. Now, the conventional wisdom goes, Apple is going to run out the life of the scrollwheeled wonder until the entire line goes touch with the introduction of a nano-sized iOS device. The iPhone, in three short years, will have eaten the iPod entirely. For all the talk of Dell or Microsoft or Samsung or Sony developing an iPod-killer, Apple did the job better than anyone else could. 

But here’s the thing: since the release of the iPhone 4, I’m convinced that Apple sees a lot more life in at least part of the iPod line. It’s simple, really. The new iPhone was made of fragile-seeming glass in order that the all-brushed-aluminum iPod line would look that much more durable. Where does this matter? With sports and with kids.

Particularly in the Crayola colors, JayBird’s retro-styled Bluetooth headphones look quite attractive to me in a PlaySkool kind of way. They pair with your iPhone through a tiny little dongle and even feature side-mounted control buttons for cycling through your iPod’s music collection without digging it out of your purse, as well as an integrated mic perfect for making phone calls.

They’re a bit pricier than I want to spend on a pair of over-the-ear, foam-covered headphones at $99, but when all is said and done, I still like the style quite a bit.

TV-B-Gone is a small, portable device that allows you to remotely turn off televisions, and consequently it’s easily one of the most irritating, selfish and pretentious gadgets on Earth. Now it looks like an iPod.

The only thing that Apple didn’t actually update with the iPhone 4 was the storage, raising the question of whether or not the iPod Touch will get a storage bump come September.

Theoretically, Toshiba’s currently available flash storage modules could give us a 128GB iPod Touch this year… but next year, we could possibly see that number double again to a shocking 256GB, thanks to Toshiba’s latest announcement: they have just announced the first-ever 128GB embedded flash memory chip manufactured with a 32nm process to start shipping this autumn.

Stacking sixteen 8GB NAND layers, the new design is just 0.06″ thick and seems ready made for iDevices. Since Apple employs one NAND flash module in the iPhone 4 and two 32GB NAND flash modules in the 64GB iPod Touch, that means next year, the iPhone 4 could conceivably leap to 128GB of storage to the iPod Touch’s 256GB.

Most of us are familiar with the annoyance of a pair of earbuds squirting out of our ear canals. The best earbuds either use rubber tips to anchor your headphones in place or, better yet, are specifically molded to fit your ears, but even those solutions can be uncomfortable for long listening sessions.

UrbanEars have a different solution with their latest Medi buds: they use an “earclick” solution which secures them in your ears by applying pressure at the catilaginous antiragus and inferior crux. The end result? Even though you can hardly feel them, they stay in your ear.

Each pair of Medis comes with four variably sized swappable pads to guarantee a close fit, and each bud boasts a 15.4mm driver, an inline remote and microphone compatible with the iPhone and a fabric, tangle-free code. They are available now for just $50 in twelve different colors.

[via Gadget Lab]

With Motorola behind one of the main challengers to the iPhone (at least, the current ones, anyway — the emerging iPhone 4, for now, seems fairly peerless), one doesn’t get much chance to observe the iPhone and the Motorola M in close proximity outside, perhaps, some smartphone cage match, or on the bedside table of two star-crossed lovers.

Psst. We’re not going to tell you where to get it, but if you happen to have some seedier connections, we can tell you that yesterday’s Gold Master Build of iOS 4 works on any iPhone or iPod Touch, whether or not its UDID has already been reported to the dev center. That means, if you know where you’re looking, you can install iOS 4 on your device right now… provided your device is a 3G, 3GS or second or third gen iPod Touch. Make sure to grab the right IPSW for your device.

Better? If you’ve got a 3Gs, you can already jailbreak it, although we recommend being cautious and if you don’t know what you’re doing, wait until the Dev Team releases the new 4.0 compatible PwnageTool… which they swear should be available within the month.

It’s made a huge splash on the iPad, so naturally, iBooks is coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch, with the same controls, same note taking features, same highlights, same PDF reading and same bookmarks.

Like the iPad version, you can purchase and download a book to all your devices for no charge, and automatically sync your place, bookmarks and notes.

Not so surprisingly, on the iPhone 4 retina display, iBooks looks gorgeous. And to think: this coming from the man who said that people didn’t read anymore.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJeGt5fe7e8&feature=player_embedded

It was a rude dose of unexpected knowledge in the intricacies of USB when starry-eyed iPad owners first came home with their new devices, plugged it into their computer’s port and instead of juicing saw… nothing.

The culprit, they soon found out, was the iPad’s USB requirements: it simply hates the low-powered USB ports so ubiquitous in most PCs, and will accept nothing less than a full 10 watts of energy output if you want it to charge. This forced some users to divorce syncing from charging, plugging their iPads into their computers only when they wanted to slurp up some content from iTunes, and charging it via the wall plug.

Not exactly ideal. Luckily, in the months since the iPad’s debut, some of the biggest names in motherboards (namely Gigabyte, MSI and Asus) have all come out with software that juices up their motherboards to be able to power the iPad.

Better yet, Asus’ software seems to work on pretty much any computer, as illustrated by the above YouTube video. If you’re still grinding your teeth about USB charging issues with your iPad, you might give it a shot.

[via Engadget]

Here’s a device filling a mystery niche if I’ve ever seen one: the iP49 is a bulky, fold down clamshell travel alarm clock which includes a dock for an iPhone or iPod… itself a travel alarm clock. Double indemnity of redundancy. ho!

Personally, I’m not sure I get it, but in case you do, the iP49 features separate weekday/weekend alarms, customizable snooze times, gradual wake and sleep volume controls so you don’t start off the morning swallowing your tongue.

It also boasts “Bongiovi Acoustics’ patyented Digital Power station technology and four neodymium compression drivers,” which sounds impressive and promises to provide “studio quality” sound wherever you are. It also boasts both an AC adapter and a built-in, rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

The iP49 is available from iHome now for $159.99.

Logic3’s latest accessory, the LCD ProDock, is a compact dock for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPod Classic that isn’t particularly remarkable in any way, except for one: it comes with a neat, Nano-like LCD remote that allows you to browse your docked iDevice’s media content through an iPod-style interface.

Otherwise, it’s a pretty standard cheapie dock, featuring component and composite video outputs for hooking up to a television or stereo, but we do like that remote. We’d like it even better if it had a clickwheel instead of buttons.

You can pick the LCD ProDock up now for just £79.99

For years, I’ve been resiting the urge to upgrade my deck and instead pumping my iPod or iPhone audios to my antediluvian car stereo with a cheap $2 cassette deck adapter. For guys like me, then — individuals who own cars worth less than their phones, and are proud of the fact — the iDeck iPod Car Cassette Adapter seems ideal: it turns your existing cassette deck into a permanent in-auto iPod dock.

I’d be typing “SOLD” here except for that last remaining sticking point, the price: the iDeck costs $39.99 through Amazon. Heck, for that price, a cheapskate like me might as well buy a new car. One with floorboards!

It’s that time of year again! Apple’s throwing a bone (or, alternatively, trying to lock-in) green undergrads heading to college for the first time with their annual “Back to School” program, which nets eligible students a free 8GB iPod Touch (or $199 off any other iPod).

If you want to qualify, you have to buy a new Mac and iPod simultaneously at the Apple Education Store, an Apple retail store or authorized campus store. The discount is in the form of a rebate, so you’ll need to wait ninety days to get your $199 back.

As usual, it’s a pretty sweet deal that is available to any educator, students of higher-education or parents shopping for their college-bound sproglings. If you think you’re eligible and are looking to buy a new Mac, this is a great time to pick it up and get yourself a free iPod in the process.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kY46zm98Ng

The iPod is a multi-function device and using it to rap your order at McDonalds is not a crime.

A Salt Lake City judge cleared Spenser Dauwalder, 18, of disorderly conduct for ordering at a McDonald’s by singing along to a rap song playing on his iPod. Dauwalder and his three 17-year-old friends in the car faced $750 fines.

The teen was imitating the Mickey D rap in the YouTube video above, which, translated into lay speak asks for fries, a double cheeseburger, a 10-piece chicken dinner and two Dr Peppers.

Apple’s factory leak is just getting bigger, and Vietnam continues to be the undiscovered country of Apple leaks, this time with exclusive photos of the new iPod Touch… this time sporting the long rumored 2MP camera we’ve been waiting for for the past years.

Vietnamese site Tinhte’s photos show a 64GB iPod Touch that looks remarkably similar to the current model, except for the addition of the camera sensor (which, surprisingly, is center-mounted on the back… I thought for sure the rubber foot on the left corner was where the iPod Touch’s camera would inevitably end up).

The biggest surprise here is that the fourth-generation iPod Touch isn’t sporting the same design as the iPhone, but is sticking with the current unibody, reflective unibody casing. And it looks like my wet dream of a microSIM slot in the iPod Touch was just that.

No matter, though: I’ve been waiting for a camera on the Touch for so long, this is easily a day one purchase for me. We’ll know for sure when we can pick one up at WWDC in June, although an early September release is historically the most likely bet.

The urge for YouTube fame got the better of a trio of three teen crooks, whose iPod recording of an assault and robbery of another teen got them arrested.

Two 14-year-olds and a 13-year-old in Waldorf, Maryland approached a 13-year-old on a neighborhood basketball court at 5:30 pm. They reportedly tried to pick an argument with the victim, who packed up his stuff and tried to walk away from them.

The suspects attacked him, striking him on the back of his head. One of the suspects recorded the assault on his iPod while the other two stole the victim’s backpack.

At first blush, I absolutely loved this iPhone speaker dock, crafted in the GlaDOS style aesthetic of an old iMac arm. And, undeniably, it looks great.

The problem is, it’s not a speaker, per se. Instead, it uses resonance to transmit the sound from your iPod, iPhone or other MP3 player into the hard surface of the table underneath it. The audio output is rated at 12W, with a built-in amp for a bit of a boost, but the inevitable result here is still going to be terrible sound.

What a pity. I always loved the lamp-style iMac. At $42, though, this is a waste of money as anything besides a conversation piece.

You know, even if you’re a naysayer, you have to admit: Apple data makes for some of the most compelling infographics around, and this infographic from Mashable explaining the rise of Apple as the hegemon of the digital music industry is one of the best we’ve ever seen. Well, at least, one of the best we’ve ever seen that doesn’t involve Mega Sharks.

The full infographic, after the jump.