iPod - page 13

‘Tis the season for folks to bust out their best Home Ec skills (or their credit cards) in search of costumery to frighten and delight the young and old alike out trick or treating, or just looking for a few good laughs on Halloween.

Back in 2007, when the iPhone had been out just a few months, we saw a raft of costumes related to Apple’s newest technological wonderment. But so far in the succeeding years, we’ve not seen a whole lot of new takes on the idea and frankly, what we have seen has been pretty lame.

Look at the guy in the picture above. He had to be purposely dressing it down at a party full of Windows aficionados, right? But in the gallery that follows, we’ve had to reach back in time for things better than this. Apple fans seem to have fallen creatively short in recent years.

Is it possible nowadays to dress like a piece of technology known for its elegant design and not look like a complete (and uncomfortable) buffoon?

Let us know what you’ve found out there in comments below, or submit pics of your own awesome Apple-related costume designs and we’ll feature another gallery of the best down the road.

Today is the 8th birthday of the iPod and yes, though it hasn’t reached even a decade of life, it’s already the object of several museum exhibits.

Back in 2007, London’s Science Museum put out a national search for a first-gen iPod — CoM reader Joe Weiss answered the call.

Last year, his donated first gen iPod, together with all the original packaging plus unopened earbuds and software to the museum for posterity.

See it in the museum, find out what firewire had to do with it and whether he regrets giving over his iPod after the jump.

The first iPod launched on Oct. 23, 2001.  It had a scroll wheel, cost $399, could store 1,000 songs and looks like a yoga block compared to later models.

This  promo for the first-gen iPod is charmingly dated (only 6.5 ounces, over 10 hours of battery life! ) — though there must be a portrait of Jonathan Ive in an attic somewhere, he looks the same as he talks about it as one of his “most personal designs” at Apple.

Also stumping for the product, among others,  are Moby (“I’m having a hard time getting my head around the fact that you can transfer a whole album on this in 10 seconds.”) and Steve Harwell from Smash Mouth (“You’ve got your own record store on this damn thing.”)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e84SER_IkP4

Unlike an 8-year-old human, an iPod that age doesn’t enjoy an increase in stamina or conversation at an almost adult level.

Mine (the best Christmas present I got the year it came out) is still in the graveyard drawer of iPods I Have Loved, however.
What do you remember most about your first iPod?

Anyone got a first gen that still works?

Two days after the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said it would launch an investigation into iPod battery issues, Apple updated its support document on battery overheating.
Here’s the main update:

iPod nano (1st generation): Rare cases of battery overheating
Apple has determined that in very rare cases, batteries in the iPod nano (1st generation) sold between September 2005 and December 2006, may overheat and prevent the iPod nano from working and deform it.

Apple has received very few reports of such incidents, and the issue has been traced to a single battery supplier. Additionally, there have been no reports of such incidents with any other iPod nano model. If your battery shows signs of overheating, such as discoloration or deformity, stop using the iPod nano immediately and contact AppleCare as soon as possible for further assistance.

It’s an acknowledgment, but just, that comes two months after the EU announced it was going to investigate exploding iPods — and iPhones.

And what about the advice? Easy enough to spot an overheating device (as it melts and changes color) in hand, but if you’re jogging or have it in your back back, good luck.

Now that Apple has updated the iPod shuffle, giving it a new look (sort of like a Bic lighter), as well as more colors, what’s one to do with the tiny tie-clasp-like older MP3 players? One option: swap out the music for a mini MP3 DV camera.

Xiangyun Industries Co., Ltd. turns the old shuffles into a 1.3 megapixel 20 fps video camera capable of 640×480 or 1,280×960 pixel JPG photos.

The price is between $15-$30 but only order of 1,000 video shuffles, please. The little gadget sounds like a perfect stocking-stuffer or maybe even a spy cam.

[Via Engadget]

We’ve written a lot about the iPod Touch becoming a near-requirement at US universities, but iPod use may be on the uptick in North American grade schools, too.

One Florida elementary school has 80 iPods that some kids use to listen to audio books (instead of reading them, it seems) others do comprehension exercises and the wee ones watch videos teaching them about the five senses and then answer questions.

“It’s cool,” 11-year-old Devyn Cabral said, taking a break from Science Fair by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. “When you’re sitting at your desk and reading a book, it’s harder. It’s easier for me to comprehend by listening to it.”

Julianne Audino, 8, said she liked the iPods “better than reading, because we actually get to listen.”

Seven-year-old Dejah Staton wasn’t so thrilled.
“I’d rather read the book,” she said. “You can imagine it on your own. This is telling you.”

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With Apple’s recent ridiculous app store refusals, now is the perfect time to free your phone. Jailbreaking your device might seem too difficult to take on, but by following the steps below you can easily add a video camera to your 3G, or tether your Macbook to your 3GS. This How-To will guide you through jailbreaking your specific device using either Pwnage Tool or Redsn0w. Also included are simple instructions to unlock your device, letting you use it with different carriers.

Note: 3GS, 2nd gen and 3rd-gen iPod Touch owners who have recently updated to firmware 3.1 cannot jailbreak their phones unless they revert back to 3.0.1.

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Remember when wearable computers were all the rage? Well, we’ve come far from the days of geeky head-mounted displays and backpacks stuffed with electronics. Killa is a Vancouver-based interactive apparel firm that specializes in turning the common into wearable consumer electronics. In 2008, for instance, the company introduced a line of coats, including a pea coat, that had iPod controls sew into the sleeve. Now Killa is remaking the ordinary World War II satchel.

The bags, the first in the Killa Vintage series, are actual World War II items from Germany – with a bit of updating. Touch pad controls connect to your iPod via Bluetooth. Also, the bags include a solar panel from Germany’s Solarc. Along with a unique upgrade of 50 year military gear is how and where the solar iPod bags can be purchased. First, sales are limited to 20 per year and only to buyers able to visit Killa’s Vancouver store.

Now solar backpacks for iPods aren’t new – a number of companies offer them, including O’Neill Europe, Voltaic Systems and others.

The impulse to immortalize locker room nudity or wiggly-jiggly at the gym is leading at least one large gym chain to limit use of the new iPod Nano over privacy issues.

Health club chain Life Time Fitness has restricted use of the new Nano in its 84 facilities in 19 states, saying that it fears gym goers may shoot videos of people working out or in locker rooms.

The chain also forbids cell phone use in locker rooms to avoid nude or compromising shots of patrons making their way to the Internets.

Spokesman Jason Thunstrom admitted that discerning whether someone is taking video or just fiddling with a playlist can be difficult.

Gym goers at Life Time can still use their iPod Nanos in the work out room, however, as long as no one catches them capturing fellow participants grimacing through that last squat or revealing an eyeful of cottage cheese bottom.

It’ll be interesting to see how they manage to enforce it as video and photos become more common features; the same gym chain reported a couple of years ago that 60% of gym members used iPods or MP3 players to work out.

My gym would face a revolt if it tried to ban cell phones — more or less a permanent appendage in the locker room and weight room and most of those phones now have video and photo capabilities, so it seems a little harsh to single out the iPod.

Via Twin Cities

This fantastic rotating iPhone dock is made entirely of Lego. It’s the work of Steven Combs, a long time Lego and Mac enthusiast who runs web sites for adult fans of Lego and fans of technology generally.

Here’s a video showing the rotating mechanism in action:

I wanted to know a little more about hacking Macs with Lego add-ons, so I bombarded Steven with a few questions. And here’s what he said.

Forget those old tape recorders in the language lab: one school district is handing out iPods for students learning English as a second language.

Five schools in Beaufort County, South Carolina are equipping kids with limited English skills with iPod Touches to get them up to speed.

The iPods take the place of the language lab of yesteryear — students listen to stories on them as part of a fluency program designed to develop vocabulary, improve pronunciation and emphasize important words and concepts. They also watch videos on the iPod  for grammar and reading exercises.

“If you don’t understand the story, you can listen to it,” seventh-grader Alex Sanchez told the Beaufort Gazette. “When I read, if I then hear the story, it sometimes makes more sense.”

The schools paid about $200 for each device. Apple provided teacher training and docking stations that can charge and sync 20 iPods at once. The ESL iPod program launched in one middle school last year and expanded to another four schools in the district this year.

Right now, the MP3 players go to kids who need to learn English but the school district is considering using them for students of foreign languages like French and Spanish.

I love this idea. An Italian friend of mine started using her commute time to listen to ESL podcasts — of which there are a ton — and found that in a couple of months she had learned more than at a class she paid for.

Via The State

Apple has three new TV ads today.

Check them out.

Apple’s new fifth-generation iPod nano, now with a video camera, is a perfect pearl of 21st-century technology. It’s a lovely piece of electronic jewelry that does almost everything except dispense pints of beer.

It can record video, play movies, store weeks’ worth of music, wake you in the morning, remind you of a dental appointment, record how many steps you walked to work, and how long it took you. It remembers all your contacts, records voice memos, stores your shopping lists and plays a bunch of games that are controlled by tipping and tilting the beautiful little device.

It’s easy to get complacent about Apple’s iPods, new ones come out so often. They’ve got to be 3D holographic auto-mastubators to get anyone’s attention. But take a step back, and it’s pretty astonishing how much advanced technology is stuffed into such a tiny device, and how beautifully it’s done.

Why doesn’t the new iPod touch have a camera? And why can’t the nano take still pictures? Steve Jobs gave David Pogue of the New York Times some answers…

So, what’s new in the iPod Nano? Here’s a quick look at some of the most interesting new features…

Phil Schiller just announced a new iPod Classic, which was widely rumored to be on its deathbed. Many expected the Classic — the last iPod to be based on a spinning hard drive — to be discontinued (not us here at CoM though), as Apple promoted the iPod Touch instead. Looks like that was premature.

The iPod Classic has been bumped up to 160GB $249, the same price as the previous 120 GB model. Available today, Apple says.

We’ve read of all sorts of ingenious ways to power our favorite electronics, including solar and our own body’s heat or movement. But in one of the more practical examples, a New York company harnesses the power of your bicycle to keep your iPod or iPhone charged.

The BioLogic FreeCharge, unveiled at the Eurobike show in Germany, can fully charge your iPod or iPhone in 3 hours. Although its unlikely most of us go on three-hour bike rides, the $100 gadget will keep your iPod from going flat when you’re nowhere near an electrical outlet.

The BioLogic FreeCharge works by taking the power from your bike’s generator hub, filtering the juice through some circuitry that prevents spikes, and sending the electricity off to you iPod, iPhone or any gizmo with a USB port.

The BioLogic FreeCharge will be available March 2010.

[Via Gadget Lab and Bike Hugger]

Sales of Sony’s MP3 Walkman outsold iPods for the first time in Japan for the first time since 2005.

Research firm BCN Inc. found that Sony’s share of the portable music market share rose to 43 percent last week, creeping above Apple’s 42.1 percent.

The uptick in sales is attributed to the W Series pictured above, which sells for under 10,000 yen ($108).   Sony’s answer to the iPod shuffle is a 2G wearable headset that has generally met with favorable reviews.

But Sony MP3 players might not be as big in Japan as they seem. As Bloomberg notes, the jump can be at least in part attributed to people ditching iPods for the iPhone, so Apple wins either way.

Via  Bloomberg

RadTech today doubled the usefulness of its AutoPower on-the-go iPhone and iPod charger, offering two USB ports. The new device also nearly halved the price, to $10 from $17 for the single-port version. The single-port option does include a 30-pin retractable cable.

The 3.3-inch by 1.3 inch AutoPower includes fuseless recharging with a sensor to avoid hardware damage. RadTech says the 5V 500mA recharger is “not for 1st -3rd Generation iPod.”

[Via iPodnn and RadTech]

The iPod Classic is also about to get a camera, according to a new report in Taiwan’s DigiTimes newspaper.

The iPod Nano and Touch are about to get cameras – likely on September 9 when Apple is widely expected to unveil its holiday offerings, including a new version of iTunes.

But until now, the iPod Classic hasn’t been mentioned. The Classic is the last iPod based on a spinning hard drive, and is likely to be phased out as the capacities of flash memory increases and prices drop.

According to DigiTimes, the Classic will feature a 3.2 megapixel cameras supplied by Taiwan’s, OmniVision.

OmniVision will supply “3.2-megapixel CIS products for the new iPod nano, iPod classic and iPod touch models which will be launched in September,”  the paper claims.

This strikes us as unlikely. The selling point of the Classic is its storage capacity, not add-ons like cameras.

Recording engineer and music producer Michael Jack has amassed an amazing collection of 1,100 transistor radios.

These models from the 1950s look like predecessors of the iPod, he notes on his flickr stream:

“When I fist saw the Zenith RE-10 I figured I had come upon the most obvious inspiration for the iPod… Although all these radios appear to have similar design elements to the iPod I would ALMOST bet that the RE-10 was studied (or at least observed) by the Mac design team.”

I love the still-modern look of these half-century old radios, whether Jonathan Ive used them for inspiration or not.

What do you think?

A 23-year-old was sentenced to 13 months in prison for an iPod scam that earned him over half a million dollars before getting caught.

Through trial and error, Nicholas Woodhams of Portage, Michigan guessed serial numbers of the iPods still under warranty that were sent to him as an iPod repairman.  He then fraudulently obtained iPods from Apple and sold them online.

“Between March 2006 and October 2007, Woodhams caused Apple to ship more than 9,000 replacement units to a post office box through this deception,”  said a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “Woodhams then advertised and sold the units through a website for $49 apiece, a fraction of their retail value. In addition to this mail fraud scheme, Woodhams violated federal money laundering laws by wiring $200,000 of his criminally-derived proceeds from a financial institution in Michigan to a brokerage account in Missouri.”

In addition to the year-plus stint in jail, Woodhams will give over the fruits of his deceit including a home in Portage, Michigan, an Audi S4 sedan, an Ariel “Atom 2″ racing car, a Honda motorcycle, six computers and more than $570,000 in U.S. currency.

Woodhams pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering charges back in April and faced a maximum 30 year jail sentence.

Via Mlive

Image used with a CC license, thanks to re-ality

Here’s a rumor about Apple’s upcoming tablet that makes a lot of sense: There’s actually two of them: an iPod tablet with a six-inch screen and a bigger tablet that runs full OS X.

And Apple may introduce one or both in September, according to veteran tech analyst Richard Doherty, who spoke to BusinessWeek.

Apple has developed prototypes of two different tablet machines—one that resembles a large-sized iPod and boasts a 6-inch screen, and another that features a larger display. Apple may launch one or both devices as early as September,” Doherty says. “A decision on whether and when Apple takes the tablet plunge lies with Apple CEO Steve Jobs,” Doherty says.

…

One of Apple’s prototype devices is able to run all Mac applications, and allows for video and audio editing and graphic animation, Doherty says. Another, which looks like a larger iPod, lends itself to watching videos, playing games, and reading e-books.

The two devices sound like the best of both worlds. An entertainment-oriented iPod tablet — like an iPod Plus — that runs the iPhone/iPod OS and is great for watching movies around the house; and a bigger Snow Leopard-capable device that can do real work. One for entertainment, another for education, kinda like Gizmodo’s Brian Lam suggested last week.

Doherty also predicts the tablet(s) could start as low as $679. It’ll be a hit because it’s got 65,000 Apps to run on it.

“Apple has a real opportunity to take the magic of the iPhone interface and give that more real estate to do the tasks… It’s an iPhone, but bigger. It’s something that you know, but bigger.” The device may be able to wirelessly access iTunes and Apple’s App Store, which offers more than 65,000 apps such as games, e-books, and calendars.

But what about the inside sources quoted by Jim Dalrymple and others that say the tablet won’t show until 2010? Perhaps the Mac tablet is for next year, and iPod Plus for 2009?

UPDATE 3: The iPhone email issue looks like a real bug and not a settings issue after all. CoM reader Paul Taylor ran through the procedure described below, and all the email he ever deleted on his iPhone is still there going all the way back to the iPhone’s purchase in 2007. Says Paul:

I read your post ” Update x2…..” with interest because I was appalled to discover this problem in mid June and reported it to Apple after having no success correcting it (nor did three Apple ‘Geniuses’ one of whom was characterized by his peers as “The iPhone Genius — if he can’t fix it no one can.” He couldn’t).  I sent it off to Walt Mossberg on August 3rd to see what his efforts might produce but have seen nothing to date.

I had performed all the exercises described in your post (after doing thorough searches of all mailboxes on my Mac Pro and my ISP server to be sure the particular emails were NOT there.

BTW – with regard to the ‘Remove’ settings, ALL deleted emails back to the purchase of my original iPhone in 2007 were still there, so the day / week / month settings are immaterial, at least in my case. The problem apparently has always been present, the new search feature merely exposed it.

The only relief (not fix) I have found so far, has been to first make sure unwanted emails have been stripped from all mailboxes, then do a “Restore” on iTunes.  The relief is short lived — the ’emails that wouldn’t die’ are gone, but all email deleted following the restore begins to collect anew.

UPDATE: The iPhone email bug that caused such a fuss yesterday is not a bug but a configuration issue, says knowledgeable CoM reader Dr. Harry K. Zink.

If you properly delete your emails, this does not happen – i.e. remove the email from both SENT and INBOX, after which you need to go into the TRASH folder, and manually select the messages, and select DELETE again. This applies to IMAP, ActiveSync and MobileMe accounts. POP accounts are affected by this, but only because they are configured to retain deleted mail for a period set in ‘settings’ for that account — if you set it to one day, and wait 36 hours, the messages are also gone.

This is a function of the way IMAP and especially POP mail leave mail in the Deleted Items folder, or Trash folder, for the duration specified in the settings — it seems most users never bothered looking in their settings (the default is to keep deleted messages for a month before they auto-delete – you can also set it to a day, or manually delete instantly).

Furthermore, this does *not* apply to ActiveSync accounts, where a deletion is instant and complete (thus corporate kids can stop the sweating and heavy breathing – Apple’s got your back), and neither on MobileMe accounts (you know, Exchange for the Rest of Us). On IMAP accounts, if you manually delete it from the trash, the messages are gone as well. It’s POP accounts which have this issue.

So for the most part this is being blown terribly out of proportion – not by the original guy who discovered this, but by all ruminants and regurgitators, particularly those who are too lazy to properly investigate something like this.

To change the “Remove” settings for POP accounts:
1. Go to Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars
2. Select the account you want to modify
3. Go to >Advanced. Under the “Deleted Messages” heading, you’ll see the “Remove” setting. Choices are: after a day, a week, one month or never.
Screenshots after the jump.

Apple is aware of the iPhone email bug CoM first reported yesterday and will likely issue a fix in iPhone 3.1, the next major update of the iPhone/iPod OS.

“An internal tipster has provided us with proof that Apple is fully aware of this issue and will probably be including a fix in iPhone OS 3.1,” says Gizmodo.

Meanwhile, it appears the bug is limited to POP email accounts, not IMAP accounts. It is probably a Spotlight caching issue. Spotlight on the iPhone/iPod creates local copies of emails, which aren’t deleted when the originals are.

There seems to be several ways to fix the bug. Sometimes, simply waiting works; the message cache is eventually cleared. It’s also possible to erase the cached messages by loading and reloading them several times, according to Richard from 148Apps.

“From my messing around with email, the message actually disappears after viewing it a few times. At first I thought the email disappeared after deleting it a few times but I simply viewed the messages about 3 or 4 times and it disappeared.”

Instructions for configuring your iPhone POP accounts to delete email after jump:

Apple will host a special media event on Wednesday Sept. 9 (09/09/09) and there will be new iPods but no Apple tablet, according to John Paczkowski of All Things Digital.

Citing “sources close to the company,” Paczkowski says the event will be held in San Francisco — probably at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a smaller venue which Apple has used before.

There will be upgrades to the iPod line and iTunes, which may get integration with social networks, but definitely no tablet:

“Our sources insist it will not involve any discussion whatsoever of the tablet that Apple is reportedly developing.”

Another All Things Digital report last week said Apple was was planning a media event for sometime during the week of September 7th, while the conventional wisdom is now that Apple will not introduce a tablet this year.

Apple usually holds its media events on a Tuesday (which gives the press and VIPs a work day for travel), but Monday that week is Labor day.