Earlier this year, Etymotic began a new program that allows purchasers of pretty much any of their products — earphones, Bluetooth headsets, whatever — to own custom-molded eartips for an extra $100. Etymotic offered to let me try a set of these custom eartips (full disclosure: on their tab) with the hf2s I tested, and off we went.
Maybe it’s my (only somewhat) jaded inner journalist, but bubbly marketing language almost never rouses me. So naturally, I dismissed the phrases “rediscover your music” and “stunning mobile music fidelity,” printed on the box of Etymotic’s microphone-equipped hf2 earphones, as standard advertising blather.
After a few hours of listening to music through the hf2s I went back and read the box again, this time with wider eyes — because damned if for once some outfit’s marketing department hadn’t made a claim that was actually spot-on accurate. In fact, the thought crossing my mind as I gleefully ripped through my music collection, trying to see how many tracks would give me goosebumps, was that maybe those marketing peeps had even been too subtle about the hf2’s performance — that maybe the box should have just been plastered in wild neon stickers bearing candid phrases like “THESE ARE *&@#$ AWESOME!!” (and that’s why I wouldn’t last long in marketing).
This, boys and girls, is the latest product from Arcam, designers of high-end hifi based just outside Cambridge in the UK.
The rCube is £500 worth of portable iPod music system audio loveliness, which Arcam calls “one of our most important products ever.”
Grammy winning rapper Lil’ Wayne is discovering the sound of silence in jail.
During his last month in prison, he’s confined in “punitive segregation,” where he’ll spend 23 hours a day alone.
The punishment was meted out after Wayne got caught with a contraband iPod. Officers found the telltale Apple earbuds and charger hidden in a bag of potato chips, while another inmate stashed the 28-year-old rapper’s MP3 player.
iPods have been banned in schools from Australia to Idaho by officials citing reasons from cheating to social isolation, but one at one Massachusetts school students prevented the ban saying that the MP3 devices help them study.
The Natick School Committee canceled its vote on banning iPods after about 70 students students packed the town hall to ask members to let them hang on to their iPods in school, The Boston Globe reported.
“When I listen to music, it helps me concentrate,’’ said senior Craig Dickey, who said he has attention deficit disorder. He likened the music on his MP3 player to white noise, saying, “It blocks everything else out.’’
“It’s hard to focus without it,’’ student Patrick Shaughnessy said. “The ones not listening are the ones who are talking’’ and disrupting study halls, he said.
President Obama may be running the most Mac-friendly White House to date — including launching the health care reform program from a MacBook Pro — and even though he famously quipped he was too clumsy to work an iPod, he has now opened his iPod playlist for Rolling Stone — at the tail end of an exhaustive interview — to reveal what music gets him moving.
Like a lot of people, the 2,000-tracks on Obama’s Apple MP3 player skew towards old favorites:
“I am probably still more heavily weighted toward the music of my childhood than I am the new stuff. There’s still a lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Bob Dylan, a lot of Rolling Stones, a lot of R&B, a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Those are the old standards.”
To infuse some new life into his old school tastes, he gets suggestions from his personal aide, Reggie Love.
As I once discovered through unfortunate and unspeakable accident, iPods do not react well when they are dropped in the drink… or, in my case, the toilet. Oh, sure, the flash memory can technically be dunked and will function again as long as it doesn’t short out, but the other electronics aren’t nearly as resilient to wetness without shorting.
That can make the iPod a bad fit not just for clumsy urinators, but more importantly for swimmers. Luckily, there’s H20 Audio to the rescue, a company that specializes in headphones and cases for people who want to listen to tunes while they do laps. They’ve just released the Amphibx Grip for the new iPod nano or Shuffle: a completely watertight case that is fully submersible up to twelve feet thanks to their patented LatchTight locking closure. You can even use the nano’s touchscreen while in the pool through the pane.
The Amphibx Grip is available now directly from H20 Audio and costs $59.99. You can use your own headphones, if you’ve got a waterproof pair, but if you want H20’s own, they’ll cost you another $59.99.
Usually when we write about jailbreaking iPods here at Cult of Mac, we’re specifically talking about hacking your iPhone or iPod Touch to be able to run unsigned code… not iPods that are actually able to perform jailbreaks on other devices. That makes this story somewhat unique, because if you have an iPod Classic and a PlayStation 3, you can now use the former to perform a jailbreak on the latter.
The first PlayStation 3 jailbreaking solution was discovered earlier this month, and allows devices that can connect to a PS3 through the console’s USB port to permanently hack the device to run unsigned code. What’s so interesting about this jailbreak solution is that a wide range of devices can perform the hack, from a USB stick to an official controller to a Ti-84 calculator.
The latest variation of this jailbreak uses the iPod Classic family combined with the Rockbox open source media firmware. Right now, the jailbreak only works using select generations of the iPod Nano and iPod Classic, but given Rockbox’s expandable nature, we wouldn’t be surprised to see support creep to other clickwheel iPods — and media players support by Rockbox — sooner rather than later.
Look at any of Apple’s newest iPods — the new Shuffle, the touchscreen nano, the iPod Touch — and you will find three devices as tiny, svelte or both as Cupertino can possibly make them. In fact, all of these devices are scarcely thicker at this point than the width of their widest single element —the 3.5mm audio jack — which means that if they are ever going to lose any more chunk, that audio jack is going to need to get even smaller.
It turns out that is exactly what Apple is currently working on, according to a recently filed patent. The new audio jacks uses deflectable “pogo pins”, instead of the usual cantilever beams which extend into a jack cavity and are pushed out of the way when your headphone plug is inserted, allowing audio and electricity to be transmitted.
Never letting a good opportunity go to waste, Scoopertino reveals that Steve Jobs’ recent incident at Japan’s Kansai International Airport was actually a field test of Apple’s newest product:
“iPod ninja fits into that sweet spot between the iPod touch and a small handgun,” says Apple spokesperson Ted Wetmore. “It gives you peace of mind. You can either enjoy your music on the device — or you can fling it at anyone who looks at you funny. With a little practice, you can take down a foe at 50 feet.”
However, there is a dark side to the new iPod. As iPod ninja sales boom, some blogs are already reporting a “death grip” problem even worse than the one that plagued iPhone 4. If you hold iPod ninja in a certain way, you may require immediate medical care.
“There is a learning curve,” admits Mr. Berry, “and Apple does recommend the use of a protective case.” [Scoopertino]
Credit card, photo ID and criminal background check required for purchase. This could have the potential to be a real killer product….
[via iPhoneSavior]
The iPod Click Wheel’s days seem numbered at Apple. With the iPod nano having abandoned tactile functionality for a touchscreen (and iWatch emulation), and the iPod shuffle never having earned the honor, only the iPod Classic (itself a senior citizen) now sports the versatile, groundbreaking interface.
Many a jogger, commuter or pocket-iPod user has spent countless hours twirling the Click Wheel dial and listening to music – not to mention playing Brickles!
Or sometimes, you make music with the Click Wheel. As nostalgically shown by Matt and Keith over at Matt’s Macintosh (who clearly seems to be enjoying his Final Cut Pro workstation)!
The role of iPods and earbuds as inner-cochleal deafening devices has been debated for years, with recent studies suggesting very strongly that hearing loss in children and teenagers is much higher than it should be thanks to the likes of Apple’s portable media player.
It might not be quite time to strike a new iPod off of your child’s Christmas list, though: a new study suggests that the prevalence of young people suffering from hearing loss thanks to loud music may be much lower than it has seemed.
According to a report done by the University of Minnesota’s Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, the conventional hearing tests are producing false positives for hearing loss at a rate of about ten percent.
That’s not enough, obviously, to throw caution to the wind. Cramming ear buds down your aural holes, putting on some Iron Maiden and then wildly spinning your iPod’s volume wheel until brains start dripping from your tear ducts is still going to have some consequences.
That said, it seems that the threat iPods pose to the hearing of our nation’s youth is about the same as it ever was: as long as you listen to your iPod at a lower, more responsible volume, you’re fine
Like all iPods before it, the new sixth-generation iPod nano comes with a handy diagnostic mode to allow Apple’s constabulary of technicians to dig into the underlying wetware of the device before the flouncy frills of the operating system have been slathered on top.
Unlike past iPods nanos, though, the new nano doesn’t have a clickwheel, which makes accessing its hidden iTerm Diagnostic Mode slightly different than before.
If you want to access the nano 6G’s diagnostic mode, here’s how you do it:
1. Reset your nano by holding down the sleep and volume down buttons until the Apple logo appears.
2. When you see the Apple logo, hold down all three buttons until “iTerm: iPod Display Console” flashes on screen.
3. (Other) You can reset your nano into Disk Mode by simply holding down the volume buttons when you see the Apple logo.
My favorite takeaway from the new nano’s diagnostic mode? The fact that the sixth-generation iPod nano is apparently codenamed “Snowfox” internally. That’s just adorable.
Ever since Apple CEO Steve Jobs casually mentioned the idea that Apple’s new iPod nano could be used as a wristwatch, well, I’ve wanted one. And so have a lot of people. A nano wristwatch aftermarket has quickly emerged to satisfy demand. But what about Apple?
Cnet’s Gordon Haff wrote a blog post this morning called “Why Apple will do a real iWatch” in which he predicts that Apple will get into the wristwatch business.
I say they won’t, and I’ll tell you why. But first let’s look at Haff’s reasoning.
Here’s Sony’s latest attempt to get you to part with some dollars in exchange for something to plug your iPod into.
The RDP-X50iP is a speaker dock for iPod & iPhone that boasts 20W + 20W RMS, or what Sony likes to call “room-filling power.”
Weirdly, the press release we got sent makes specific mention of it supporting iPhone 3G and 3GS, but goes out of its way to not mention the iPhone 4. So we’re not betting that it’s officially supported; your milage may etc etc.
It weighs just under 4lbs and is about 14 inches from end to end. Amazon is selling it for $166, which strikes me as quite a lot for a speaker dock. At that price, the sound had better fill a room, and really well.
What’s more important to you? Your iPod… or your wedding ring? Your iPhone… or your dog? A new survey conducted by a company called Protect Your Bubble has found that, in the UK at least, most people would be less willing to give up their Apple products than any other possession.
By a significant margin, the iPod beat out other objects as Facebook respondents’ favorite things, with 12% of respondents reporting it as their most cherished possession. 11.5% valued their Blackberry over all other wares, while Apple’s iPhone crept in at 10%.
Comparatively, only 9% of respondents chose their laptop, another 9% dog, 5% their cat, 4% their car and a mere 1% their wedding ring. It appears that more people in the UK these days are married to Apple than they are to their spouse.
Here’s another way of looking at the design of Apple’s new iPods: they didn’t redesign the Shuffle or Nano at all. They just cut the last Nano in half.
[via Reddit]
The moment Steve Jobs quipped about the new Nano’s perfect suitability as a time piece, we all all recognized the obvious accessory void that would quickly be filled: iPod Nano watch bands.
Here’s the first: a 22mm Maratac Nylon band that will slip through your nano’s clip and comes in matching colors for just $17.
The wisdom of tethering your headphones to your wrist is, of course, debatable, as is the necessity of charging your wristwatch once per day, but if you’re so inclined, it’s now just a Jackson away from being done.
iPods are great nifty little devices that allow you to take music off of your computer and carry it around town with you inside a magical Apple electronic device. But what happens when you want to transfer the music that’s on your iPod and put it back on your Mac? Despite all of its friendliness, iTunes is unwilling to pry the music of your iPod or iPhone. In this walk-through we’ll show you how to reclaim your music from your iPod and get it back on your Mac.
With the new touchscreen iPod nano, Apple successfully managed to shrink their mid-level iPod down to Shuffle-sized dimensions… but not without dropping some notable capability, including video recording and playback. It’s unlikely that Apple is going to suss out the dimensional wormhole technologies required to fit a video camera back into the nano’s postage-stamp-sized casing soon, but video playback might not be out of the question in a future software update.
The revelation comes by way of TUAW’s Erica Sadun, who spotted a lot of video-related details in the new nano’s internal settings property lists, with options for captions, alternative audio, television subtitles and screen aspect all hinting at possible upcoming support.
Interesting, to be sure, but Apple left video support out of the nano for a reason: that screen is just unsuitable to movie watching, and Cupertino knows it. The new nano, despite the touchscreen, is still similar in its innards to the old nano… my guess is that this residual functionality is simply legacy code from the fifth-gen, and Apple’s not about to flip the switch anytime before next year as an incentive to upgrade.
Our friends over at iFixIt may have been beaten to the punch by the gadget dissectors over at the FCC when it came to tearing down the new iPod Touch and spilling its secrets-stuffed guts onto the table for the whole world to see, but they’ve still got what it takes: their quick teardown of the new iPod Shuffle is now up on their website as an easy-to-follow tutorial.
We say “easy-to-follow.” We don’t mean “easy-to-perform.” A device this small is made up of component parts that are even tinier, and iFixIt says the new iPod Shuffle is incredibly difficult to vivisect, which is bad news for modders and DIYers… especially if you want to replace the new Shuffle’s miniscule 3.7-volt battery, which is soldered right to the logic board. Then again, for $49, if the Apple Store won’t replace your bum battery after a year, you might as well just pick up a new one.
Why does Apple dominate all aspects of the digital music market — hardware, software and content deals? For example, more than two-thirds of every media player sold in the world is an Apple product.
That’s amazing when you consider the company’s reputation as one that doesn’t listen to customers. Come to think of it, Google Search, Facebook and Twitter are all dominant products created without customer input.
Is ignoring customers Apple’s secret to success in consumer technology?
In the latest in a long string of murders over iPods, a 16-year-old in Salt Lake City is now being charged as an adult after the alleged stabbing of a classmate over an Apple device.
Jonatan Bustos is in jail charged with criminal homicide-murder after a tussle with classmate 15-year-old Taylor Pankow over a stolen iPod.
How many years could Bustos get?
Killing for Apple’s must-have device has earned perps a wide range of sentences — from under 10 years to life in prison.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlkPaHc_5kM&feature=channel
If Apple’s livestream broke down for you last night during the world premiere of Apple’s new iPod nano and iPod Touch commercials, Apple has just shot both of them up online via their official YouTube channels.
The new iPod nano ad is backed by the track “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” by Cake from the album Comfort Eagle, and largely focuses on the new nano’s built-in touchscreen and the ability to flick the display around to any orientation depending upon where it’s clipped, as the nano itself is traded between the usual headless iPod models, morphing between the nano’s new colors as it is handed off.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t_IobxOsVc
On the other hand, the new iPod Touch ad is heavily focused on gaming and the touch’s new camera abilities, backed by the song “Come Home” off of Chappo’s Plastique Universe.
The end of the spot is a bit surreal, though, as a pair of white male hands each uses its gripped iPod Touch to take part in a FaceTime call with its partner. The faces on the display, though, usually don’t match the hands… giving me, at least, the impression that FaceTime on the iPod Touch was being demonstrated by some sort of pieced-together Frankenstein of spare body parts, or being silently observed by two spectating device hackers who had somehow managed to hack into the FaceTime protocol.
Steve Jobs launched an insta-meme today by suggesting in his keynote that Apple’s new multi-touch iPod nano could be worn as a wristwatch.
The meme becomes a fad next week when the nano arrives in stores and people start actually wearing them on wrists. It’s going to happen, especially when third-party companies begin offering special-purpose wristwatch straps for it. I know it’s going to happen because I’m going to do it.
Talk is cheap, but a Huffington Post poll at post time was running over 67% in favor of wearing the iPod nano as a wristwatch.
But serving as Apple’s first-ever foray into the wristwatch racket isn’t what’s ground-breaking about the device.
