Back in April, I wrote How to Create iPhone Ringtones from TV Show Soundtracks Using Audio Hijack Pro and GarageBand '08 and created a The Hockey Night in Canada Theme ringtone for my iPhone as an example.

For those U.S.-based hockey junkies in our readership who haven't heard, several Canadian news outlets are reporting that the license agreement between the CBC and the licensor of the song has expired and may not be renewed.

The song was written by Dolores Claman in 1968 and has been the theme song for Hockey Night in Canada for 40 years. Wayne Gretzky once said that this song is the second Canadian national anthem.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jonathan Greene pointed out iTunes Agent in his Twitter feed. iTunes Agent is an Open Source Windows application that extends iTunes to allow it to work with third-party MP3 players and mobile phones. According to the website:

iTunes is a great music player and organizer. Unfortunately iTunes is made to only synchronize with iPods. Not everyone own an iPod.... How great would it not be if you could synchronize your non-iPod MP3 player, your Playstation Portable and your Walkman phone with your iTunes Library? Enter: iTunes Agent!

iTunes Agent requires the .NET 2.0 Final Framework to operate properly.

I like the idea because I like iTunes as a media management application.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the best techniques for using an iPhone with a large iTunes library is to use Smart Playlists to automatically select tracks from your library according to logical rules. I discussed this in Use Smart Playlists for Endless Combinations of Christmas Music. I wanted to provide an update because I see a problem with this technique.

I have some Smart Playlists for rock music that I listen to sometimes when I'm running. However, I picked up some music as part of the Lance Armstrong: Run Longer workout (available from ) that's actually part of the "Alternative" genre that I want to include in these playlists.

The problem I ran into is that Alternative and Rock music go together in my mind, but they didn't end up together according to the way I had my rock-related Smart Playlists defined. The rules for my "Rock Favorites" Smart Playlist were:

• Match all of the following rules
• Genre contains Rock
• Rating is greater than ***
• Limit to 25 items selected by most played

If you want to add the Alternative genre, you can't just add a second genres rule in iTunes without changing the selection criteria to "Match any of the following rules", and then you lose the rating criteria.

The only way to choose two or more genres and include rating criteria is to exclude every other genre but the ones you want. This was discussed by Merlin Mann from 43Folders.com in 2006 in an article called "Music Only" for your iTunes playlists.

• Children's Music
• Classical
• Soundtrack
• Vocal
• Country
• Jazz
• Easy Listening
• Holiday
• Folk
• Miscellaneous

You might have to exclude more genres if your iTunes library is more diverse than mine.

I can see why Apple would design iTunes so that there is a simple one level logic to selection criteria for Smart Playlists, but the problem of how to combine music in closely related genres is made more complicated by iTunes' simplicity.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The BlueLounge SpaceStation is a desk organizer for laptop users that acts as a USB hub for all peripheral devices.

BlueLounge SpaceStation [ Photo courtesy of the manufacturer. ]

The photo I've chosen shows the bottom of the SpaceStation. The rubber feet set the SpaceStation 5mm above the surface of the desk. This allows the USB cables to pass underneath the organizer where they can be coiled and connected to the USB hub.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Wall Street Journal Business Technology Blog reports that Apple spent $844 million on research and development in 2007, significantly less than competitors Microsoft, IBM, H-P, Sun, and AMD. This is interesting because everybody and their brother has been touting Apple as a uniquely innovative company.

I think Apple succeeds so prolifically because it is especially focused on innovation in its core competencies. Lots of its competitors invest in research that doesn't make the same impact on their product lines as Apple's research does on Apple's products.

I think people have a tendency to criticize Apple for the wrong reasons. A lot of people complained about Apple delaying the release of OS X Leopard, and waiting until recently to release the iPhone SDK. Could they have shipped those products faster if they hired more engineers?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Alltop just launched a new podcasts category. You can find it at:

http://podcasts.alltop.com/

It looks like they are initially focusing on NPR and business-related podcasts, as opposed to the technology podcasts that I am typically subscribed to.

After looking at Alltop Podcasts, I subscribed to:

• The Web 2.0 Show
• Startup Story Radio
• PRI's The World: Technology
• World Cafe Words and Music from WXPN Podcast via NPR

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day I was looking forward to watching NHL playoff games, and started thinking about how much fun it would be to watch Hockey Night in Canada on the CBC instead of Versus.

I went over to CBC.ca and watched the HNIC Playoff Preview Show on the CBC Sports Video Player. The player is a Flash-based application that sits in your browser of choice. After a brief video introduction, the Hockey Night in Canada Opening was shown. This is a series of highlights playing over the Hockey Night in Canada Theme Song. The opening sequence lasted about 45 seconds.

Occasionally I hear people talking about trying to buy the Hockey Night in Canada theme as their ringtone for their mobile phone. Nobody I know has it as their ringtone on their iPhone. I decided to try to use Mac software to create an iPhone ringtone of the actual Hockey Night in Canada Theme as broadcast by the CBC. I had no idea how easy this would turn out to be.

Before I describe this technique, I want to warn you that distributing copyrighted material such as the Hockey Night in Canada Theme Song is probably illegal where you live. However, no one can stop you from making an iPhone ringtone for your own personal use using the following technique.

The software I used to make this ringtone was Audio Hijack Pro from Rogue Amoeba Software ($32 direct from the developer) and GarageBand '08 which is part of the iLife '08 software suite from Apple.

Audio Hijack Pro allows you to intercept (or hijack) the audio output of any application running on your Mac, and save it as an MP3 file. I hijacked the audio output of Safari and captured the Hockey Night in Canada Theme Song in about as much time as it took to locate the Opening in the program and then watch and listen to that opening.

Once I had the MP3 file, I brought it into GarageBand '08 and did the following:

1. I positioned the MP3 on the timeline so that the beginning of the song was at time 0:00.
2. I clicked the button called "Cycle Region" in the second set of controls below the timelines. That button needs to be clicked to "on" before a ringtone can be created.
3. I clicked and dragged the region of the time bar representing the music I wanted as part of my ringtone. I learned from Googling around that the sound had to be 40 seconds or less in duration, so I made sure that I only selected that amount of time in the time bar.
4. I chose "Send Ringtone to iTunes" from the "Share" menu.

This last step automatically exported the music clip as a ringtone and caused iTunes to import it. The next time I synced my iPhone, the custom ringtone was automatically transferred to it.

Once that was done, I could designate my Hockey Night in Canada ringtone as my default ringtone. Better yet, I decided to make it a ringtone unique to some of my friends from hockey and hockey officiating.

The true power of this technique is that you can capture and convert into a ringtone any sound that your Mac can play for you. This means the entire repertoire of YouTube is at your disposal, as well as things like Hulu, current programming from all of the major networks, and things like CBS Classic TV episodes.

I'm thinking of making a ringtone of the Hawaii Five-O Theme Song or the Love that Good n' Plenty Jingle from the 1960s next. [ Hat tip to The Mac Observer for their article Making Custom Ringtones with GarageBand ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier today, I needed to come up to speed quickly on IBM WebSphere MQ, a complex piece of enterprise software so I could discuss it with a senior manager at a potential consulting client. The easiest way to do this was to read an introductory whitepaper on Websphere MQ that would provide me with a very high level understanding of the software and some applications of it.

The problem was that I didn't have time to read the whitepaper because it's a 32 pages document and I needed to be at the client's office in less than two hours. I decided to take a few minutes and try to use my Mac to convert the text of the document to an audio file that I could listen to on my iPhone while driving.

I based my solution on the idea published by Ben Waldie in Automator Power: Variables and Looping that was published in the February issue of Macworld. Ben's solution has two limitations:

1. It's Mac-only, which is not a problem for me.
2. It's intended to handle articles from RSS and Atom feeds, and what I needed was to read the text contained in a PDF file.

My adaptation neatly extracts the text out of the PDF file and uses the same suggested MacOS services to create the audio file. Here's how I did it:

Before I began writing my Automator workflow, I needed to install PDFtoText, a shell program that converts PDF documents into plain text. Carsten Blüm built a DMG installer for this open source utility.

My Automator workflow is as follows:

1. Internet: Get Specified URLs to retrieve ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/integration/wmq/WS_MQ_Messaging_Backbone_for_SOA.pdf.
2. Internet:Download URLs to the Downloads directory.

3. Utilities:Run Shell Script on the following script using the "/bin/bash" shell:

   /usr/local/bin/pdftotext
   /Users/.../WS_MQ_Messaging_Backbone_for_SOA.pdf
   /Users/.../WS_MQ_Messaging_Backbone_for_SOA.text

   This invokes the utility to read the PDFtoText converter and extract the text from the PDF file. The text above is one continuous command statement separated by spaces. Substitute your home directory and "/Downloads" for the ellipsis in the previous two lines.
4. Files & Folders: Open Finder Items to open the text file created above.
5. Text: Get Contents of TextEdit Document extracts the text out of the file.
6. Text: Text to Audio File reads the extracted text into an AIFF file. I store it that file in the Downloads directory to be consistent.
7. Music: Import Audio Files brings the file into iTunes. I use the AAC Encoder and delete the source AIFF file after I've encoded it.
8. Music: Add Songs to Playlist to add the new audio file to a playlist I call "Technology Reading".

This workflow worked incredibly well for me. It should work well for you too, assuming you can fast forward through things that aren't meant to be read like tables of contents, page numbers, and the text that is contained in tables and charts.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The first book I bought to try to get new ideas on how I could better leverage my iPhone as a multimedia Swiss Army Knife was iPhone Fully Loaded by Andy Ihnatko. I have been really impressed by this book because it has some really excellent tips and techniques that go beyond many of the ideas I've seen discussed on iPhone-related blogs and websites.

Andy Ihnatko is a freelance journalist who writes a technology column in The Chicago Sun Times and appears regularly on The Early Show on CBS. He hit my radar screen through his regular gigs on The Apple Phone Show and MacBreak Weekly podcasts. Some of the concepts he discussed on those programs, such as using Smart Playlists to fill your iPhone with a constant amount of music that you like but haven't listened to recently (mentioned previously on Operation Gadget), and using Handbrake to convert chapters of DVDs that you own to clips that are playable on your iPhone, are prominently featured in this book. However, there are a lot more ideas that go far deeper into Mac and PC technology to pull together content that you have access to, package it in a form that's storable on your iPhone or iPod touch, and get it transferred on to your device.

There are also ideas that didn't appeal to me personally, but were interesting to read about from a general knowledge perspective. Andy is a big fan of comic books, so he includes an entire chapter on finding comics on the Internet and transmogrifying for your iPhone. He also talks about extensively about electronics and software that can be used to record radio programs for later playback on your iPhone. I used to listen to a great deal of radio myself, so this is interesting to me, but podcasts have largely replaced my radio listening habit since I got my iPhone, and I can barely keep up with the podcasts that I'm subscribed to now.

There are a number of other good iPhone-related books, such as The iPhone Pocket Guide by Chris Breen of MacWorld Magazine, but few are as jam-packed with ideas for filling your iPhone with content as iPhone Fully Loaded. This book always seems to be sitting near my MacBook Pro, and I think it will stay there for some time.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier this week MacRumors reported that Apple had released the "Pole Position Remix" game for the iPhone. This is a remake of the classic Namco video game Pole Position that I played more than anyone else as a kid.

The last time I talked about Pole Position on Operation Gadget was three years ago when I picked up a copy of an inexpensive TV game called Namco II: Ms. PacMan and 5 TV Games. I loved that game. I hope that Apple releases "Pole Position Remix" for the iPhone after the iPhone Software Development Kit comes out next month.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I expected to be wowed by Steve Jobs' 2008 MacWorld Expo Keynote a lot more than I actually was. However, I was doing other things while the event was going on (real work), and the products that I was most interested in (mainstream Mac laptops) didn't get addressed in this keynote at all.

Bummer for me. I could have bought my MacBook Pro two weeks ago if I had known that the Penryn upgrade wasn't immediately forthcoming.

Here are my comments on the other aspects of the keynote:

• iTunes Movie Rentals / AppleTV Take 2: Clearly the announcement with the most business disruption potential. I agree with one of the commentators on MacBreak Weekly who suggested that Apple is making a play to be the digital media hub in the house, usurping services like Netflix, as well as Television services providers such as Comcast and Verizon FiOS.
• MacBook Air: This is a machine aimed at people who travel a lot or who want a portable machine that is a shadow of their desktop Mac. I could see some very well off Mac users owning the big iMac and a MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is incredibly thin. It's hard to believe a machine with a laptop-like display and keyboard could be any thinner than this and still be usable.

• Time Capsule: This is an interesting extension to the AirPort wireless base station line. Time Capsule is an AirPort Extreme with a 500G or 1T hard disk in it, functioning as Network Attached Storage (NAS).

  My first reaction was, "Bummer. Kathleen just bought me the AirPort Extreme." But then I realized that I would prefer NAS that used RAID 1 or RAID 5 storage anyway. It also costs more than we want to spend on network appliances at this point.



• iPhone 1.1.3 Update: There's some good stuff here. I loaded it on my iPhone already. The cell tower triangulation in the Maps application works pretty well. That feature makes the iPhone version of RinkAtlas viable. Expect an announcement from me on that front soon.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

The Washington Post reported that The RIAA is arguing that ripping CDs for personal use on your iPod or other digital music player is illegal. The argument has reportedly been made in a case against Jeffrey Howell from Scottsdale, AZ. According to the article:

The {RIAA's} lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings....

The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.

The recording industry can't be serious about this. In order to find in favor of the industry in this claim, a court would have to conclude that millions of owners of portable media player and personal computers are going beyond the principles of Fair Use of the digital entertainment that they legally purchased (or as some would insist, "licensed"). [ via The Drudge Report ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen and I have hundreds of Christmas songs that are part of our iTunes libraries. When we shared a 10 Gigabyte iPod, I had to move large playlists off of it to make room for the Christmas music. Now that I have my own iPhone, I was concerned that I would have to do the same thing because I have less available space on it than Kathleen has on her four-year old hard drive based model.

This was before I learned the secret of using Smart Playlists as a window into a large iTunes library. I got the idea from Andy Ihnatko while listening to Episode 7 of The Apple Phone Show:

Tip #5: If you have a large media library, use Smart Playlists in iTunes. Use it to sort the kind of music, etc., that you want to store on the iPhone, then sync that one playlist. You can even use it to sync a certain amount of music (say 512 megs) that you haven’t heard. Good stuff. Each time you plug in your iPhone, it’ll remove old stuff and replace it with fresh and tasty stuff....

Here's the management technique that I've been using.

1. Create three Smart Playlists: Let's call them "Unrated Christmas", "Christmas Favorites", and "Forgotten Christmas".
2. Set rules for "Unrated Christmas":
• Match all of the following rules:
• Album contains Christmas
• Rating is {zero stars}
• Limit to 25 items selected by random
• Live updating
3. Set rules for "Christmas Favorites":
• Match all of the following rules:
• Album contains Christmas
• Rating is greater than {three stars}
• Limit to 25 items selected by most often played
• Live updating
4. Set rules for "Forgotten Christmas":
• Match all of the following rules:
• Album contains Christmas
• Rating is greater than {three stars}
• Limit to 25 items selected by least recently played
• Live updating
5. Start playing and rating the songs on the "Unrated Christmas" playlist: As you rate your Christmas songs, the songs that are rated four or five stars will fill "Christmas Favorites" and "Forgotten Christmas".
6. Sync to your desktop for a supply of new unrated songs: Repeat the rating process until done.
7. Play your "Forgotten Christmas" and "Christmas Favorites" playlists for yourself and your family, and you will have a constant supply of the songs that you like best for the season.

If you think my rules that set the minimum rating for each song at four stars, either set your rules to three stars or lower, or create a fourth smart playlist which grabs a changing mix of your lower-rated Christmas songs.

This tip and more like it can probably be found in iPhone Fully Loaded, Andy Ihnatko's new book. I put it on my wish list.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

I'll probably end up doing some running around Newtown in the next few weeks.

Although I've had quite a few college varsity and club-level games on my officiating schedule so far this year, my schedule from December 7 to January 2 is totally empty. Part of this is the nature of college hockey scheduling: there aren't too many games between Thanksgiving and Christmas due to the holidays and exams at many schools.

This may give me the opportunity to actually begin a project I had thought about over the summer: trying to build "ultimate" playlists for a couple of different exercise activities. Over the summer I started thinking about what the ultimate cycling playlist might include-- probably lots of Kraftwerk stuff that got played on Versus during The Tour de France a couple of years ago.

My mind wandered to a similar but more intriguing project. I thought I might try to put together an ultimate hockey warmup playlist. This would include the best songs that get played during college and pro hockey warmup periods, and I would ask fellow officials as well as players for ideas. I could run to tunes like these. I haven't done anything on this project yet.

One guy who has done some work on a project like this is Jeff Perlman from ESPN. He just wrote an article called Run wild with the ultimate playlist which is his attempt to build the ultimate running playlist.

I think Perlman's list is a too rap heavy, but I enjoyed previewing the songs he chose on my iPhone using The iTunes WiFi Music Store. I think a couple of his ideas may make it on to my next running playlist, and I agree with him that nothing by Survivor is going to be part of my running soundtrack anytime soon.

If you have some ideas for songs for a hockey warmup playlist or a running playlist, feel free to comment here or just send me an email.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here are the FedEx Tracking Details
from the $30 Apple Store order
that got shipped from China.

I crushed one of my iPhone earbuds the other day in the parking lot of BJ's Warehouse Club in Langhorne, PA. I dropped my headphones while trying to load the car during a shopping trip with Kathleen and Jimmy. I apparently ran the earbud over with at least one of the wheels of my 2007 Honda Accord.

It stinks to have an iPhone with headphones that don't work properly. I don't have the money or the time to decide which aftermarket headphones are actually better than the Apple headphones. So, I took the easy way out and ordered a set of replacements from the Apple Online Store for about $30.

Here's where the story gets interesting.

A lot of times when I order something from the Apple Online Store it ships from a warehouse somewhere in Pennsylvania, so I get it quite quickly. This time, however, Apple decided to vend this item from their supplier in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in China. I have the FedEx Tracking Data to prove it:

• Nov 14, 2007
• 12:29AM | Package data transmitted to FedEx
• 9:45AM | Picked up | SHENZHEN CN
• 2:11PM | Left origin | SHENZHEN CN
• 3:55PM | In transit | LANTAU ISLAND HK
• 1:51PM | Departed Fedex location | ANCHORAGE, AK
• Nov 15, 2007
• 12:10AM | Arrived at FedEx location | INDIANAPOLIS, IN
• ...
• 6:13AM | At dest sort facility | PHILADELPHIA, PA
• 7:59AM | At local FedEx facility | BRISTOL, PA
• 8:07AM | On FedEx vehicle for delivery | BRISTOL, PA
• 9:39AM | Delivered | NEWTOWN, PA

Of course the packaged gained a day crossing the International Date Line.

FedEx delivered the package to my house in Newtown, PA before 10:30AM on Thursday, one day before they promised. All this package contains is a set of iPhone replacement headphones. I got free shipping on this order.

Imagine how much it would normally cost an individual to ship a package of any size via FedEx from Shenzhen to here at this speed?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm glad to hear that Apple sold its one millionth iPhone today. I think the $200 price cut will put holiday sales on the trajectory where Apple needs them to be in order to achieve the goal of 10 million iPhones in the first year on the market.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wow. I had no idea that Apple was planning to announce a $200 price cut on the 8-Gigabyte iPhone to $399.

Since the media event ended, I've read a number of comments on technology blogs about how much the price of previous "hot phones" dropped in the first 90 days. The example I have heard most is the RAZR. The price of that phone dropped significantly, but I doubt it fell $200 after the phone had been on the market for 69 days.

Having said this, I have gotten so much value out of my iPhone since I bought it and learned so much about developing for it that it was worth the $200 premium to me.

I think that Apple is going to sell huge numbers of the iPod Touch (an 8 or 16G device with the same form factor as the iPhone, but without the mobile phone capability) for the holidays. The iPhone and the iPod Touch are going to destroy any previous notion we had of the Mobile Internet experience. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm spending more time at work during the 2007 Tour de France than I am watching the coverage on Versus. For this reason, I have become a voracious consumer of non-TV information about the Tour. One of the things I've been doing is grabbing Tour de France-specific podcasts from iTunes and listening to them on the commute to work. This way I get 45 to 60 minutes of total immersion into yesterday's Tour news, so it's a good substitute for the Tour Pre-Race Show.

Here are the podcasts I'm listening to at the moment and why:

1. ITV Tour de France Podcast: Approximately 15 minutes of stage highlights and analysis from Matt Rendell and Chris Boardman. The advantage of listening to ITV's podcast is that they are a Tour rights holder, so they can grab excerpts of race action and rider interviews that the other podcasts really can't. Also Boardman is a very good color man.
2. Velonews TDF Podcast: 10 to 20 minutes of analysis with Joe Silva and Thomas Prehn. Prehn is the author of Racing Tactics for Cyclists. You can imagine that this podcast focuses on race tactics. It's probably the most analytical podcast I've heard so far.
3. The Daily Tour Podcast from The FredCast: 20 minutes of stage summary and analysis by David Bernstein. This podcast includes some useful information about Tour information resources and a section on basic information on the Tour for beginners. (The FredCast is a year-round weekly podcast for cyclists, so you may be interested in that podcast in addition to or instead of The Daily Tour).

This is the order in which I listen to the podcasts, which is probably proportional to the value of the information that I get out of each one. Your mileage may vary, depending on the amount of TV time you have, the experience you have in cycling, and the experience you have as a pro cycling spectator.

There are several other Tour-related podcasts that I haven't had the chance to listen to, and I'm not sure when or if I will be able to do so. If you have information about some of the other podcasts, feel free to post it in the comments to this article.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It was possible to buy either iPhone model last night in Central New Jersey.

My iPhone moments after I purchased it at the
Freehold, NJ Apple Store on June 29. See more
photos of my iPhone in my Flickr photostream.

I bought mine at the Apple Store at the Freehold Raceway Mall in Freehold, NJ about 7:45pm. The Apple Store appeared to have plenty of stock at that time. That didn't surprise me because I had read that the 140+ Apple Stores around the country would be staying open until midnight. Why would Apple bother doing that if they thought that they would sell out at most of their locations?

First Stop: A Sold Out AT&T Store

Before I went to the Apple in Freehold, I drove to the AT&T Store in West Windsor, NJ. This is a small store that I thought might not attract a huge line. I have no idea how many people were in line before 6:00pm, but when I arrived there at approximately 6:25, the store was already sold out.

What blew my mind was the number of people who stayed in line after the store manager announced that they were sold out. (I had just arrived when he made this announcement.) He told the people in line that they were welcome to stay and his staff would take orders from them. Many of the people were staying in their place in the line when I hit the road for Freehold.

Continue reading "I Got My iPhone Yesterday, Maybe It Will Work Today" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my satisfaction with the Kensington Digital FM Transmitter and Car Charger for the iPod. I got a question back from Ryan Kelly from Haplography:

Just curious - which Philly frequencies have you found work best?

My response was:

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this. I found unused FM frequencies in Philadelphia using the Sirius Satellite Radio Website. The URL you should look at is:

http://fmchannel.sirius.com/

It allows you to enter your zip code and it returns a set of frequencies you can try.

I've used 92.9 most of the time in the area from Princeton, NJ in the north, Exton, PA in the west, Chester, PA in the south, and Jackson, NJ in the east. I've been quite satisfied with the sound quality my car stereo receives from my iPod.

Sirius provides this valuable service because so many Sirius receivers use FM transmitter technology. It's important to note that FM frequencies identified by this website work with XM Radio receivers also.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I bought Kathleen a Kensington Digital FM Transmitter and Car Charger for iPod and over the past six weeks I've found it to be the most useful iPod accessory I've used. I was looking for a way to use Kathleen's iPod in our new 2007 Honda Accord SE.

Our 2007 Honda Accord didn't have a cassette player, auxillary jack, or an iPod connector as it rolled off of the assembly line. I briefly considered the Honda MusicLink add-on offered by the car's manufacturer, but reviews like this one sent me in a different direction.

I selected the Kensington Digital FM Transmitter and Car Charger for iPod because it incorporates "ClearFM" technology. This patented filtering technology gives the Digital FM Transmitter and Car Charger "the lowest total harmonic distortion and signal-to-noise ratios of any FM transmitter on the market today". After hearing FM transmitters in other people's cars, and experiencing lots of feedback from my mobile phone on audio cassette adaptors, I was looking for a transmitter that actively suppressed radio frequency interference. The Digital FM Transmitter and Car Charger seems to do that. In terms of sound quality, it's a cut above any transmitter I've ever seen.

The key features of this transmitter are:

• it connects using the iPod connector rather than the headphone jack,
• it charges the iPod while it's in use, and
• it has space for three presets, which allowed me to preset the device to unused FM frequencies in Philadelphia and New York. This maximizes the productive use of the transmitter in my neighborhood.

Both of our car audio systems have secondary sets of FM presets. These presets have never been used. I set two of the secondary presets on both cars to unused FM frequencies in Philadelphia and New York. This means that I can press button one on FM-II in each car to use the iPod around Philadelphia, and press button two on FM-II to use the iPod around New York.

As a result of my Valentine's Day gift to Kathleen, we're getting much more use out of the iPod than ever before. I recommend the Kensington Digital FM Transmitter and Car Charger for iPod wholeheartedly.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Beginning with Thanksgiving, Kathleen and I have been using a Nokia N93 mobile phone to shoot DVD-quality video at family get togethers. People are shocked when they see the quality of the movies we can make with this phone.

Conversations with some of our more gadget-savvy friends sometimes continue with the question, "But what else can that phone do?" After I say, "You mean you want more than a great phone that doubles as an incredibly compact digital video camera?", I tell them about how the N93 is the ultimate entertainment device for my son Jimmy.

Jimmy is our seven month old son. He likes to listen to songs from the CD Walt Disney Records : Children's Favorite Songs, Volume 1. These are songs like "I've Been Working On The Railroad" and "Old MacDonald".

The Nokia N93 and most of the other Nokia N-Series multimedia phones I've tested have extremely high-quality speakers built into them. The Nokia Music Player application and the speaker on the N93 allow me to play Jimmy's tunes, wherever we are, at a moments notice. I play his songs for him on the N93 when we are taking walks with his stroller or with him in the BabyBjorn baby carrier. I turn on his music when we're in the car and he doesn't like any of the songs currently playing on the radio. I play the music for him sometimes when we are shopping in home improvement stores like Lowe's or BJ's Wholesale Club.

Like every other gadget freak in the universe, I have an iPod and I have the right accessories for it. The problems with using the iPod in this case are:

• I need accessories to play music that someone else can hear, and I often need different accessories depending on the situation.
• I can't imagine using earphones with a child under age five or six.
• I don't want to have to put an iPod and several accessories into the baby bag that I carry when I'm out with Jimmy by myself or with Kathleen.

This makes the Nokia N93 or any of the N-Series phones the best music player I've found for use with babies and other young children. It's significantly more practical for me than an iPod in this case, or even a portable CD player with built-in speakers. I never would have imagined that I would be recommending a solution like this until I got a Nokia N-Series phone and tried it.

Technorati Tags: Nokia N93, N-Series, MP3, multimedia handsets, mobile phones

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Verne Gay of Newsday.com wrote a column called How iTunes saved 'The Office' that I've been meaning to point out. Kathleen has fallen in love with The Office in the past few months, but if there's truth to what Verne Gay is saying, the program wouldn't have lasted on NBC's schedule without strong sell-through on iTunes.

The column quotes Angela Bromstead, President of NBC Universal Television Studio as saying:

I'm not sure that we'd still have the show on the air. The network had only ordered so many episodes, but when it went on iTunes and really started taking off, that gave us another way to see the true potential other than just Nielsen. It just kind of happened at a great time.

The article goes on to point out that expected iTunes success is probably going to save 30 Rock for oblivion.

I guess this indicates that the most effective way to support a niche show that you love is to get an iPod and buy episodes, not to write letters to network management.

Technorati Tags: The Office, 30 Rock, NBC, iTunes

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Nokia N93 produces DVD-quality video, has a
terrific MP3 player, and includes wireless
broadband and WiFi capability. It's great for people
who want a phone that can be used in relatively
serious video production. [ Photo: Dave Aiello ]
[ Check out my Nokia N93 photo set on Flickr. ]

A friend who works with Nokia chose me to be in the Nokia N-Series blogger program and has been sending me high end phones of all shapes and sizes for several months. The latest phone I've received is the Nokia N93, which I like to think of as the Swiss Army Knife of GSM / UMTS Multimedia Phones.

The N93 folds and unfolds in many different ways. Depending on which way you choose to hold it, it can be a video camera, a still image digital camera, an MP3 player, a wireless Internet access device, and a video phone. And I forgot to mention-- it can also be a plain old voice-oriented mobile phone.

The N93 has every feature I can think of for a state-of-the-art multimedia device:

• DVD-quality video with a 30 frame per second recording rate.
• 3.2-Megapixel primary camera with a 3x optical zoom and a Carl Zeiss glass lens. (0.3-Megapixel secondary camera for video calls.)
• 2.4-inch high definition color display.
• Adobe Premier Elements 2.0 video editing software.

On top of all of that it's a mobile phone with Bluetooth and WiFi. About all its missing is a full alphanumeric keyboard.

There are way too many features and dimensions to the Nokia N93 to cover in one article. I'm planning to do a small series of articles that will appear here on Operation Gadget, including as many samples of photos and videos as I think are necessary to demonstrate the features of this incredible device.

Technorati Tags: Nokia N93, N-Series, Adobe Premier Elements, UMTS, Bluetooth, WiFi, multimedia handsets, mobile phones

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I love my iPod, but I don't ride my bike while listening to my iPod, and I strongly discourage combining iPod use with cycling under any circumstances. An article in today's The London Free Press up in London, Ontario ought to be further proof of the danger of cycling with your headphones on:

A 15-year-old cyclist who died of head injuries after colliding with a tractor-trailer in Chatham-Kent Saturday was wearing an iPod and headphones but no helmet, police said yesterday...

"Anytime anybody is wearing any type of earphones or ear protection and their hearing is limited, it could present a hazardous situation," Constable Doug Gutteridge said.

Kevin Houston, the 15-year old cyclist, was a multisport athlete who was in Grade 11 at a secondary school in Chatham, Ontario, a small city in Southern Ontario between Toronto and Detroit. May he rest in peace.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin O'Donnell pointed out an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer stating that Microsoft's Zune player won't play content bought through services compatible with the Windows Media "PlaysForSure" initiative. That means Napster, Yahoo! Music Unlimited, MTV Urge, and RealNetworks Rhapsody, among others.

Martin called this a "shafting" for Microsoft's PlaysForSure partners, and I have to agree with him. Bryan Lee of Microsoft reportedly said that Zune would maintain a "peaceful co-existence" with the PlaysForSure partners. For sure, dude.

Is there any wonder why Dell got out of the music player business when it did?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My wife Kathleen and I got a Jeep Liberty Limited Urban Terrain Stroller at Kathleen's baby shower a few weeks before our son Jimmy was born. Now that Jimmy is over two months old, he can support himself well enough to ride in a stroller built for a large baby or a small child. That's why I assembled the stroller the other night and gave it try on a walk around Newtown.

There are a lot of "nice-to-have" features that some people may feel are overkill, but one the feature I want to call to your attention today is the Music On the Move Parent Tray. This is a set of battery-powered speakers that sits on the frame of the stroller near the handle. It has a headphone connector attached that you can use with your iPod. This is a much better idea for using your iPod while strolling than simply plugging the ear buds into your ears.

Thanks to the Music on the Move System, we're able to listen to music and still hear Jimmy without any difficulty. He likes music, so the speakers are even more handy. Finally, we're more likely to hear vehicles approaching us if we use the Music on the Move System than if we use a set of headphones.

We put the Jeep Liberty Limited Urban Terrain Stroller on our baby registry mainly because it was Jeep branded. Our friends thought this was cute because I drive a Jeep and now Jimmy has a Jeep stroller as well. But the thing that sets this mid-sized stroller apart from its many competitors is the built-in speaker system.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin O'Donnell has been sending me reviews of the new T-Mobile Sidekick III, the long-awaited successor to the T-Mobile Sidekick II. Operation Gadget has covered the Sidekick II since it debuted in 2004, and we've always been pretty impressed with it. Martin uses a Sidekick II on an everyday basis, in the same way that I use a Treo 650.

The Sidekick III is the third generation of this integrated communicator. When I heard that T-Mobile was about to release the Sidekick III, my first reaction was one of concern: How can the Sidekick III top the Sidekick II? After all, the Sidekick II took America by storm, and lots of celebrities came to rely on it as much as some employees of Fortune 500 companies rely on Blackberry handhelds.

The reviews I've read so far indicate that expectations were quite high for the Sidekick III and, although the Sidekick III is an improvement over the Sidekick II, it's not quite as much of an improvement as some respected reviewers expected. Here are a couple of examples of what reviewers are saying:

• Sidekick 3 is better than ever, but still needs more by Tricia Duryee: "The T-Mobile Sidekick 3 is an improvement on what has been an already good thing. The new version maintains the features that made it popular, and new components make it more comparable to higher-end devices on the market today....

  "Although the device is a major improvement, there are a couple of things I found wanting....

  • "the device's form supposedly is sleeker and 20 percent less bulky than previous versions. But the size difference was hardly noticeable....
  • "when I went to send the slide show to a friend, it refused, saying I could only send 2 megabytes worth of data at one time....
  • "the camera doesn't take video, and it doesn't offer full-track music downloads or any other fancy new multimedia service."

• Trying Out the Latest Sidekick by By Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret: "...while our new gadget earned plenty of approving glances from those in the know, the Sidekick 3 isn't all it could be.

  • "The Sidekick 3's screen is generously sized at 2.62 inches diagonal, due in part to its horizontal layout. But the screen's resolution is the same as it was on the Sidekick 2: a mushy 240x160 pixels. Compared with screens on other devices that offer greater sharpness and brighter colors, the Sidekick 3's screen is a definite downer.
  • "While many of the latest smartphones use high-speed EV-DO data networks for zippy Web browsing, the Sidekick 3 only uses EDGE -- a much slower technology." [This probably has to do with T-Mobile USA's decision not to implement higher speed wireless data services as early as Cingular, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint]

I think it's instructive that the inclusion of Bluetooth, SD memory, and a 1.3-megapixel camera with flash in the next generation of a device as hot as the T-Mobile Sidekick was not enough for the reviewers to say they really like the Sidekick III. This shows how competitive the market for integrated communication devices is.

Technorati Tags: T-Mobile Sidekick III, Sidekick 3, handheld+gadgets.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day, my brother Scott Aiello tipped me off to a device that can be used as a convenient one-stop place to charge all of your handheld devices. It's called the Personal Electronics Power Station and it's available from several vendors on Amazon.com.

The Personal Electronics Power Station is an outlet strip with a special housing that allows you to clamp your handheld devices to its body using adjustible dividers. The body has an internal space where the plug ends of your handhelds' charging cables go. When not in use, the Personal Electronics Powerstation sits on top of a table or a bookshelf with your charging cables neatly organized.

Some of the comments I've read about this unit say that the internal plugs for the charging cables are two-pronged only and that adapters won't fit inside. That's a fair point, so watch out for that. Another common complaint is that the Personal Electronics Power Station doesn't support USB. How many of your handhelds charge only through USB connections? I can't think of any of my devices that have this problem.

Technorati Tags: Personal Electronics Power Station, electronic gadgets.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nike and Apple team up to create
a running computer that consists of
a pair of shoes, a motion sensor, and
an iPod nano.
[ Photo: Apple Computer, Inc. ]

On my son's birthday, Nike and Apple announced a collaboration that will initially allow a pair of Nike running shoes to talk wirelessly to an iPod nano. Over the long run they hope to expand the product line to include more products that bring fitness and entertainment together.

I would have loved to be there for this announcement because it was held in New York and because Lance Armstrong and elite marathoner Paula Radcliffe participated. I wondered how long it would take for Lance Armstrong's involvement in the New York Marathon to result in a marketing opportunity for one of his long-time sponsors. I guess this is the first.

What's cool about the Nike+iPod Sport Kit is that it will only cost $29. Nike and Apple both have other high margin products to sell you if you like the idea of using your iPod as a running computer.

Converting the nano into a running computer is a radical departure from the approach that Polar and Adidas are taking to equipment integration, and a lot of pretty serious runners could be swayed by it.

Technorati Tags: iPod nano, Nike iPod, running computer, fitness gadgets, Lance Armstrong.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Todd Fryburger reports that he will be at Woody's Gap again this year to watch Stage 4 of the 2006 Ford Tour de Georgia. Stage 4 of the 2006 Tour de Georgia will take place on Friday, April 21, 2006.

Last year Todd provided some great on-the-spot information from Woody's Gap, including the MPEG movie clip that we published in How Bad Was the Weather on Woody's Gap? which shows an intense hail storm.

Todd wrote:

{Many of us} in the Atlanta cycling community plan on sitting atop Woody Gap on Friday to watch / listen as TdG Stage 4 unfolds.

We will be using Cingular EDGE / GPRS service via my cellphone attached to my laptop to receive the web-based updates from http://www.velonews.com/ and http://www.cyclingnews.com/. In addition, we will be monitoring Nexrad weather radar via http://www.wunderground.com/radar/map.asp as well as a few
other sites - do not want to repeat the hailstorm experience of last year. We are using Cingular service as we understand the Verizon does not have broadband coverage that far North. We will use a Wilson omnidirectional
external "trucker" antenna to ensure we have the best bandwidth performance via Cingular - it won't be broadband, but should be sufficient for the text-based race updates provided by these websites.

Read on for additional resources that Todd and his friends will have to follow Stage 4, radio frequencies that Todd thinks will be useful, information about how to get to Woody's Gap, and when to arrive....

Technorati Tags: Tour de Georgia, pro cycling, race radio.

Continue reading "How Pro Cycling Fans Will Watch the 2006 Tour de Georgia at Woody's Gap on April 21" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kevin Ward asked:

Do you have any ideas on listening to the "Radio Tour" Channel, 450.8875 MHz at the Ford Tour de Georgia? I am going to try a NASCAR type scanner from Radio Shack. The scanner I have will also decode the CTCSS quiet code so that I can listen in to the team chat when the peleton gets close. My only concern is that they may {use} digital and not analog.

Race radio is the frequency on which race officials broadcast the current race conditions, including leaders, injuries, accidents, and mechanical problems. The media listens to race radio in cars and at the media center near the finish line of each stage of the race. Web sites where you can read updated race status, such as the VeloNews Tour de Georgia Event Ticker, transcribe information from race radio.

Kevin is correct that the race organizers have chosen 450.8875 MHz for their race announcements.

Kevin, I'm sure you'll be fine with the radio you are using. I've looked into this, and the radios recommended for this type of listening are scanners like the Uniden BC92XLT Bearcat Handheld Scanner. This scanner has 200-channel storage capacity, which would be ideal for NASCAR races where every team uses a different two-way radio channel and the Nextel Cup and Busch Series are racing in the same, confined location.

You will need a lot fewer channels to listen to the Tour de Georgia race radio and the chatter between riders and their team cars. Each team will probably choose a separate frequency for communication, so there will probably be less than 30 channels in use.

A couple of years ago, I mentioned that the U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team (now the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team) used Alinco DJ-C5T two-way radios at the Tour de France. These are credit-card-sized radios that have transmit and receive capability. You can be sure that the riders are using similar radios to the DJ-C5T in the Tour de Georgia (maybe the DJ-C6E), but they will be tuned to frequencies that are legal for two-way communication in the United States.

Technorati Tags: Tour de Georgia, pro cycling, race radio, NASCAR, Nextel Cup, Busch Series.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Even though I live and work in Bucks County, PA, I still listen to New York City radio stations whenever I can. Most of them are flat out more entertaining than stations of the same format broadcasting from Philadelphia. One drawback of listening to New York radio stations as much as I do, however is that there are some significant gaps in the format map:

• New York has no country station on AM or FM, since Y-107 changed formats in 2003
• New York has no oldies station on AM or FM, since WCBS-FM switched to Jack FM in June 2005

This situation is changing now that several of the major radio station networks are rolling out high definition radio broadcasting, also known as HD Radio. According to an article in yesterday's New York Daily News, HD radio is bringing back the classic formats on the HD2 channels of many big New York stations. Oldies are coming back on WCBS-FM's HD2 channel. Country is back on WKTU's HD2. Modern rock returns to WFNY's HD2 after just recently being displaced by talk on the primary FM channel.

HD Radio differs from Satellite Radio in two respects:

1. HD Radio broadcasts from traditional radio transmitters already utilized for AM and FM
2. HD Radio uses the broadcast economic model: advertising-supported, as opposed to the Satellite Radio subscription model

You need an HD Radio receiver to start listening to these HD2 channels. The hottest selling HD Radio sold through Amazon.com at the moment is the Boston Acoustics Recepter Radio HD High Definition AM/FM Clock Radio. This is the HD version of the Recepter AM/FM Clock Radio. You pay a $350 premium for HD radio circuitry right now-- talk about an Early Adopter Surcharge. I hope this price gap decreases as the number of HD receivers produced increases.

There's no question that my next tabletop radio for the Home Office will have HD Radio circuitry. The questions are: when will I buy it and what will it cost? I still want to try Satellite Radio for a while, and I may buy a subscription to it before I try HD Radio.

Technorati Tags: HD Radio, Boston Acoustics Recepter

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The Associated Press reports that Howard Stern bid his terrestrial audience fairwell today and encouraged them to tune in to him on Sirius Satellite Radio on January 9, 2006. According to the article, Stern began his show by saying, "Good morning, and welcome to the last show on terrestrial radio," while the sound of "Taps" played in the background. HowardStern.com has a countdown to the day when there is "no more FCC, no more boss, no more interference...."

Whether you like The Howard Stern Show or not, you have to have a certain admiration for Stern's willingness to walk away from one of the most popular syndicated radio programs in the United States. He will attempt to recreate it in the context of a subscription service.

I'm wondering if lifting the speech and content restrictions that have been the bane of Howard Stern's existence since at least 1995 will be entirely positive for the show and its audience. There will have to be limits, but what will they be? I guess you'll have to tune in on January 9 to find out.

But, before you do, you'll need a Sirius-compatible radio. So check out a few options:

• SIRIUS Sportster Replay Plug-and-Play Satellite Radio, 6-line LCD display, 44-minute memory buffer
• JVC KT-SR2000 Plug 'n' Play Sirius Satellite Radio Receiver, smaller and less expensive than the Sportster
• Sirius S50 Satellite Radio Receiver System Pack, 50-hour recording capability, MP3 capability, built-in FM transmitter

Technorati Tags: Howard Stern, Sirius, Sirius Sportster, JVC KT-SR2000, Sirius S50, Hanukkah gifts, Christmas gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My father-in-law has gotten back into LPs lately after the family got him a stereo with an integrated turntable. When he got it, the thought crossed my mind that someone who has a big vinyl collection and liked the sound would have all kinds of trouble ripping those tracks to their iPod. Ubergizmo reported yesterday on what sounds like a good solution. The Ion iTTUSB Turntable with USB Record works with USB-enabled PCs running Windows 98, 2000, or XP or Apple Macintosh computers running MacOS 9 or greater. No special USB drivers are required.

The iTTUSB Turntable works with 33 1/3 and 45 RPM records. It has adjustable anti-skating controls, line level RCA outputs, and pitch control for up to 8 percent.

The turntable comes with Audacity, a free, cross-platform sound editor that is often used by podcasters, as well as a trial copy of BIAS SoundSoap 2 which is a similar commercial product.

Update: On December 13, 2006, I decided to recommend the TEAC LP-to-CD Recorder Stereo System (also known as the TEAC GF-350 Turntable / CD-Recorder) instead of the iTTUSB Turntable. The reason is that the Audacity software that ships with the iTTUSB at this time is too complex for many PC users tastes. People who are not expert-level software users should consider the LP-to-CD Recorder Stereo System instead. Read the full article for a more detailed explanation.

Technorati Tags: Ion iTTUSB Turntable, iPod, Audacity, BIAS SoundSoap, LPs, 45s, USB peripherals

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Cingular BroadbandConnect HSDPA
3G Service is rolling out in 16 U.S. metro
areas. [ Image: Cingular Wireless ]

Cingular Wireless announced yesterday that it launched BroadbandConnect, a third-generation high speed wireless data network using HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) technology. According to the Cingular 3G Network Press Release:

Cingular BroadbandConnect is a super-charged enhancement to the company’s nationwide EDGE network, the nation’s largest wireless high-speed data network. When coupled with a compatible device and service plan, the service provides average mobile data connections between 400-700Kbps (kilobits per second) on the downlink and bursts to more than a megabit per second.

Cingular is offering unlimited 3G data service for $59.99 per month with a qualifying voice plan.

BroadbandConnect is deployed initially in the following metropolitan areas:

• Austin
• Baltimore
• Boston
• Chicago
• Dallas
• Houston
• Las Vegas
• Phoenix
• Portland, OR
• Salt Lake City
• San Diego
• San Francisco / San Jose
• Seattle / Tacoma
• Washington D.C.

Unfortunately New York and Philadelphia didn't make it in the first round, so I won't be able to use my Nokia N90 to test it immediately.

Technorati Tags: Cingular, Broadband Connect, 3G, HSDPA, Nokia N90

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Marketwatch.com reports that NBC Universal will make 300 episodes of 16 TV programs available via iTunes. NBC Universal and Apple said that certain content from NBC, USA Network, and the Sci-Fi Channel will be available for $1.99 per episode. Shows that are involved in this deal include:

• Law & Order
• The Office
• Surface
• The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
• Late Night with Conan O'Brian
• Alfred Hitchcock Presents
• Dragnet
• Adam-12
• Knight Rider

It's interesting that NBC has included a vintage show from the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s to its iTunes video distribution deal. Look for more appeals to vintage TV fans in the future.

Technorati Tags: Video iPod, NBC, Universal Television

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the hottest stories I've ever written for Operation Gadget is What Alternatives to Garage Band Exist on Windows?. I originally wrote this article in March 2004 and I've updated it at least three times because of feedback from our readers.

I just added a professional level audio editing tools discussion to this article where I discuss:

• Adobe Audition 1.5
• Sony Soundforge 8 and
• Steinberg Wavelab 6

I like Adobe Audition best of the three because of it's integration with other Adobe tools and the wealth of third party documentation and training materials. Check out the full discussion and let me know what you think.

Technorati Tags: Garage Band, podcasting, Windows audio software, Adobe Audition, Sony Sound Forge, Steinberg Wavelab

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Belkin Kickstand Case for 5G iPod is
available in black or white. [ Photo: Belkin
Corporation ]

I just noticed that Belkin has shipped the Kickstand Case for 5G iPod. It's a really innovative design that doubles as a Video iPod case and a stand. You simply flip the upper half of the leather case down and it will prop up the Video iPod so you can have a hands-free viewing experience. Why didn't I think of that?

Belkin makes it in black and white, although it may be tough to get either one before Christmas and Hanukkah. Good luck finding it-- it's not even available at Amazon.com yet.

When I visited the Apple Store in King of Prussia on Sunday I didn't see a case that I would buy for my own new Video iPod. I think the Belkin Kickstand Case is the case I'd buy if I had to buy one today. [ Kudos to PopGadget for scooping the gadget blogosphere again. ]

Technorati Tags: Video iPod, iPod, iPod accessories, Belkin Kickstand Case, Christmas gifts, Hanukkah gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier today, Rush Limbaugh announced on his syndicated radio show that two music videos from Sgt. Clay Smith are available in iPod Video format exclusively on RushLimbaugh.com. The music videos videos were discussed on Rush Limbaugh's program on November 23 when Limbaugh replayed a call he took during a podcast that he refers to as The Fourth Hour. The caller, Sgt. Clay Smith of the U.S. military, called in from a U.S. base somewhere in the United Kingdom. The songs, called The Ones and Wings of Freedom were written by Clay Smith with music by Mark Salatin and video by M.R. Rodwell.

Whether you agree with Rush Limbaugh's politics or not, this is another indication that third parties are producing content for the iPod with Video Playback and that tons of content will be made available in this format in the near future.

The Rush Limbaugh Show has pushed the envelope of subscription podcasting for quite some time. The service called Rush 24/7, which began as a way to monetize live audio streaming of the program, has now evolved into a podcasting delivery program. They are extending the service on December 12 to support regular video podcasting as well.

Technorati Tags: Rush Limbaugh, Video iPod, iPod music videos, podcasting, video podcasting

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

On Sunday, Kathleen and I trekked out to the Apple Store at The Plaza at King of Prussia in the western suburbs of Philadelphia. We had some business to do there and were curious to see the Fifth Generation iPods, since neither of us had held one in our hands before.

I was surprised at how different the 30 Gigabyte iPod with Video Playback felt in my hand than previous iPods. Most of my iPod usage experience comes from the 10-Gigabyte iPod that I gave my wife for Christmas two years ago.

The new iPods are almost exactly the same height and width, but they are about half as thick. The 30-Gigabyte model is 0.43 inches deep, while Kathleen's 10-Gigabyte iPod is 0.78 inches. The 60-Gigabyte model is 0.55 inches deep. The Fifth Generation iPods we looked at on Sunday weigh in at 4.8 or 5.5 ounces, compared to 6.5 ounces for my wife's iPod.

I thought the new iPods were wider than the old ones, but that's probably because the screen are 2.5-inch diagonal color screens while the older iPods are 2-inch diagonal in the same space. The resolution of the new screens is roughly twice as good: 320x240 color, while the old ones are 160 x 128 black and white.

We compared the black and white models of the iPod with video playback, to see which one we preferred. Kathleen felt that the black model had better contast when we were watching movie trailers and music videos that had been preloaded on the Apple Store demo units. I wasn't sure. My concern was which one would show more scratches if I bought it. I think this is less of a concern with units shipping today than those shipped immediately after these models were announced,

I want to make a couple of comments about traffic in our local Apple Store. I was surprised at how easy it was for us to spend time playing with the Video iPods. Most people in the store seemed to be engaged in two other tasks:

1. Standing in line to buy iPods as gifts for friends or relatives. Those people were generally on a mission and didn't do any playing with merchandise.
2. Looking for iPod accessories to purchase. The area stocked with iPod cases, aftermarket earphone, and external speakers was quite crowded and people were spending a lot of time there. We got away from that part of the store as fast as we could.

The demographics of the two groups was also quite different. The first group was generally parents, grandparents, and young adults with plenty of disposable income. The second group was considerably younger.

Technorati Tags: Video iPod, iPod, iPod accessories, Christmas gifts, Hanukkah gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Oregon Scientific, a company better known for home weather stations than for iPod accessories, has released the iBall Wireless Stereo Speaker System. This cool looking two piece device consists of:

• a docking transmitter with a standard iPod connector that can be used to both charge the iPod, sync with iTunes, and transmit music to the speaker, and
• a wireless speaker with a built-in remote control for the iPod and an LCD display.

A connection is maintained between the dock and the speaker through a 2.4-GigaHertz frequency-hopping spread spectrum digital radio signal. This allows the speaker to be positioned up to 100 feet (30 meters) away.

This would be a cool addition to my house. I could keep my iPod docked with my Blogging Workstation, move the speaker to the kitchen, the work area of the basement, or the garage, and probably never lose my ability to hear what's playing on my iPod. [ via Popgadget ]

Technorati Tags: iBall, iPod, Hanukkah gifts, Christmas gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I put a 60-Gigabyte iPod on my Amazon.com Wishlist for my upcoming birthday and the holiday season. Up to now, I haven't been able to decide whether to choose an iPod with video playback capability or an iPod nano, but I decided that video playback is going to be a very hot feature of portable media players in 2006. I think the 30-Gigabyte and 60-Gigabyte iPods on sale today are a great way to get out ahead of the adaptation curve.

If you've read Operation Gadget for a while, you know that I bought my wife Kathleen a 10-Gigabyte iPod for Christmas 2003. She is a real music fan, so it made more sense for her to have one than for me. The biggest user of her iPod has been me, however, because she was a pediatric resident when she got the iPod. Until she finished residency in June, the nature of her work and her schedule severely limited her ability to listen.

I'm looking for a new iPod for myself because I don't feel that the 10-Gigabyte iPod has the capacity to accomodate both of our tastes in music, and I'd like to take advantage of the new photo viewing, podcast listening, and video playback features of the iPod platform.

The iPod nano has a lot going for it at this point. It's far and away the portable audio player with the biggest "wow factor". I don't even care that the iPod nano is prone to scratching. The thing that concerns me about the nano is that I don't want to be left without the video playback feature if I'm getting my own iPod. As the main writer on Operation Gadget, I have to stay current with the trends in the portable media market, and having an iPod with video playback capability would certainly make this easier.

Other buyers must confront the trade-offs between size/weight, cost, performance of flash memory versus hard disk, and video playback capability. These are highly personal decisions, in my opinion.

When I told Kathleen that I put a $400 iPod on my wish list, she said, "A lot of relatives probably won't buy something that expensive as a gift for you." That's true, but by saying which iPod I want, I open the door to people to buy accessories for it which more reasonably priced. In addition to the iPod, I added:

• Apple iPod Universal Dock
• iTunes $15 Prepaid Cards

I could also add a pair of after-market earphones like the ones I mentioned in "What Reasonably Priced Earphones Can I Use to Replace My iPod Earbuds?" or "Shure E4c Sound Isolating Earphones Win Editors' Choice from CNET", but I'm not that much of an earphone connoisseur yet.

One of the things that's going to be a challenge is how to choose a case for your 5th Generation iPod before Christmas and Hanukkah. There just aren't many choices, and many of those that have already been released aren't widely available. One design I like is the Tough Skin from Speck Products, which appears to be available direct from the manufacturer now, but hasn't appeared on Amazon.com. Belkin is coming out with 5G versions of its 4G cases, but I haven't seen them available for purchase yet.

I really enjoyed reading Video iPod, iPod nano, iPod accessories, Christmas gifts, Hanukkah gifts

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One of the recurring problems that Operation Gadget readers have is how to replace their iPod earbud headphones? Although some people never liked the earbuds that came with their iPod and pay big bucks to get better ones, other readers use their iPod earbuds until they fall apart, break, or get lost.

If you want to replace your iPod earbuds with earphones that perform better but are still inexpensively priced, I recommend the KOSS Spark Plug Stereo In Ear Earphones. These earphones are far less expensive than the Apple iPod Remote and Earbuds, which are the closest things Apple offers to replace the originals. The Spark Plugs have received some nice reviews, but are particularly popular with earphone hackers who like to create "Koss Hybrids" by replacing the foam-rubber tips that come with the Spark Plugs with aftermarket alternatives such as the Etymotic ER4 Replacement Eartips.

Another fairly low-cost alternative is the Sony MDR-EX81LP Stereo Earphones. If you can get over the fact that they loop over your ears, these earphones are less expensive than Apple replacements and perform reasonably well.

There's also the Creative Labs EP-630 which seem to be available mainly in Europe. Frank Koehntopp raved about these earphones, saying that they were worth the €30 he paid for them at Amazon.de.

Technorati Tags: Koss Spark Plugs, Koss Hybrids, Sony MDR-EX81LP, Creative Labs EP-630, iPod replacement earphones, iPod

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I started researching sound isolating earphones that are placed in the ear canal because so many of my friends are dissatisfied with the earphones that came with their iPods and wanted to know more about the earphones that are considered better. Through this investigation, I found that aftermarket earphones are available at a wide-variety of prices. There's also some serious disagreement about which models are the best available today.

I want to start out by reporting that CNET awarded the Shure E4c it's Editors' Choice in the category. They said:

The Shure E4c headphones represent an evolutionary advance in Shure's popular in-ear E series. They feature a new Tuned Port Technology, which enhances the tiny earphones' bass response by improving airflow around the driver. The E series' earpluglike designs block background noise so that you can listen at lower volumes in noisy trains, buses, and planes. And unlike noise-canceling headphones, the E4cs don't rely on batteries to power their hushing abilities.

The Tuned Port Technology is why I would pick the Shure E4c Earphones over the Shure E3c Earphones that were recently touted by Russell Beattie. If you read his comments, you'll see he's using them as a concentration aid when he's in the office:

I *am* a professional office worker, and I'll tell you right now, these are *the* headphones to have in that sort of environment where there's any sort of constant noise and interuptions. I pop them in, and bam, I’m in a cone of silence, perfect for concentrating and thinking (which is what knowledge workers are supposed to do, right?).... Three people can literally be having a loud conversation in front of you, and you hear nothing except your Vivaldi played at a comfortable low volume. It's like having a virtual office that you can take with you anywhere: Put the headphones on, and bam, perfect silence and privacy.

These aren't the earphones I'd want for daily use. I use earphones with Kathleen's iPod in a home office environment and I need to hear background noise. The Shure E4c and E3c are definitely not appropriate for outdoor exercise of any kind because of that "cone of silence". Whether these earphones can be safely used when doing yard work or operating walk-behind machinery is your call.

If sound isolating earphones make sense for your uses, you should check out CNET's Shure E4c review and Russell's E3c review to help you decide which sound isolating earphones to purchase. Also note that Shure makes an even more professional version, the Shure E5c.

Technorati Tags: Shure E4c, Shure E3c, Shure E5c, iPod

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Runner's World Magazine published a guide to picking an MP3 player written by Gizmodo editor John Biggs. Conspicuous in its absense from this guide is the iPod nano, but not a surprise due to the fact that the review was written for a "dead trees" publication. Of real surprise, however, is the number of MP3 players that disappeared from the market before the story was printed.

Among the other products mentioned:

• Flash-based players:
  • Apple iPod Shuffle 512MB, everyone's bargain choice unless you want the extra capacity of the iPod Shuffle 1G model.
  • Oregon Scientific MP120, includes an FM tuner.
• Hard disk-based players:
  • Mio 269, a mobile 96MB GPS system with MP3 player built in. Super expensive at well over $500 no matter where you get it, but really cool looking and possibly useful.
  • Rio Karma. Gone. The Rio player line was folded back in late August by its owner D&M Holdings. My advice is not to buy it.
  • iPod mini. Gone. Replaced by the iPod nano. I wouldn't buy an iPod mini now. The iPod nano is clearly a better device IMHO, even if it's slightly smaller in capacity.

The article also provides tips that I figured out on my own:

1. When rain is a possibility, put your portable electronics in a Ziplock bag before riding or running.
2. Don't hold a hard disk based MP3 player in your hand. This must be a tip for people that have never even borrowed an MP3 player from a friend to try it out during exercise.

I had hoped for better when I saw it was written by John Biggs, but he's a slave to the publication's lead time, so the lack of timeliness that plagues this guide is really not his fault.

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On Wednesday, Apple Computer announced the iPod nano digital music player. Priced at about $199 with 2 Gigabytes and $249 with 4 Gigabytes of memory and available in either white or black, it's an incredibly cool replacement for the iPod mini.

I agree with Walter Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal who reviewed the iPod nano and said:

{The} nano has the best combination of beauty and functionality of any music player I've tested -- including the iconic original white iPod.... I loaded the entire 16-hour unabridged audio version of "The Da Vinci Code" onto my test four-gigabyte nano and still had room left over for 1,128 songs, plus my 24 photos, a couple of podcast episodes and about 50 contacts copied from my computer's address book. That's more than enough material for most people....

I definitely think that the iPod nano has enough capacity for my typical uses of an iPod. (I bought a 10-Gigabyte iPod for Kathleen as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago, but I get to use it often because she tends to leave it at home during the week.) I like to listen to audio books from Audible and relatively small music playlists that are matched to some of my activities. I think I would use an iPod more often if it was the size of the iPod nano.

I like the iPod Shuffle and was considering buying one for myself, but I doubt I'll spring for it now. The nano's color screen looks amazing. With the increased capacity, cool new shape, and light weight, the nano will be hard for me to resist.

Technorati Tags: iPod

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Frank Steele emailed me yesterday, pointing out that SIRIUS Satellite Radio will be offering a free daily podcast from the Tour de France. The podcast, "Lance in France: Off the Bike and on the Mic", will be an extension of Lance Armstrong's weekly SIRIUS program Armstrong Radio that's aired Sundays at 9:00pm Eastern Time on FACTION, SIRIUS Channel 28. It will be hosted by Mark Higgins, Lance's co-host on Armstrong Radio. According to TDFblog, "Armstrong himself, who hosts a weekly Sunday night show on the network, will be checking in with Higgins regularly."

The podcasts are free and can be listened to using the new Apple iTunes 4.9 with built-in podcast support. Other podcast clients can also be used to download Lance in France podcasts as well, but iTunes will be among the easiest for people who are unfamiliar with podcasting to work with initially.

If you want to get SIRIUS so you can listen to programs like Armstrong Radio, I recommend the following:

• Audiovox SIR-PNP3 Sirius Satellite Radio Receiver, the third-generation of the Audiovox Shuttle Receiver for SIRIUS,
• Audiovox SIR-CK3 Sirius Satellite Radio Vehicle Kit if you want to listen in the car,
• Audiovox SIR-HK3 Sirius Satellite Radio Home Kit or an Audiovox SIR-BB3 Sirius Satellite Radio Boombox for listening away from your car.

A lot of people also recommend the Terk SIR6 Outdoor Home Antenna, which is a permanent antenna that you can mount on the outside of a building. Apparently, this dramatically boosts the satellite radio signal versus the indoor/outdoor antenna that comes with the Home Kit and the Boombox.

I also want to point out that SIRIUS has signed on as a sponsor of TDFblog.com for the month of July to promote their podcast and Armstrong Radio program on FACTION. This is not only a smart ad buy, but it demonstrates an understanding of the importance of the blogging community to the continued growth of pro cycling's fan base in the United States.

Technorati Tags: Tour de France, Lance Armstrong

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SV iP4G Waterproof Case and Headset
provides a way to use your
4th Generation iPod in the pool.
[ Photo: H2O Audio ].

Moments after I wrote the SwiMP3 Underwater MP3 Player article, I leaned that a company called H2O Audio started shipping the SV iP4G waterproof case and headset for the fourth-generation iPod. This announcement just happened yesterday, so I don't feel out of touch with the market.

The price of the case and headset package is $150. You still have to come up with a way to attach the iPod inside the SV-iP4G case to your body, but that could be done in a number of ways.

The SV iP4G looks like a lot better solution for protecting an iPod than any homemade solution that you could develop using off-the-shelf waterproof components. It's obvious from looking at the design of the case that it's made to fit the 4th Generation iPod perfectly and that other models of audio player would require a different design. As you can imagine, H2O Audio also has waterproof packages for:

• The iRiver iFP-700 series MP3 players, called the SV i700,
• The iPod mini 4-Gigabyte and 6-Gigabyte players, called the SV iMini, and
• The 3rd Generation iPod, called the SV iP3G.

I still think that the SwiMP3 player is an optimized solution for lap swimming, but I believe that the SV series of waterproof cases from H2O Audio can keep your iPod or iRiver music players dry while you use them in the pool. [ via Gizmodo and Mac News Network ]

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SwiMP3 Underwater MP3 Player may be just the
thing you need for training for your next Half Ironman.
[ Photo: Finis ].

One of the more unusual fitness gadgets I've stumbled on recently is the SwiMP3 Underwater MP3 Player from Finis. This is an MP3 player meant to be worn on the back of your head and used while swimming. I could see using this during lap swimming or while training for a triathlon.

The unit has 128 megabytes of memory. The manufacturer estimates that it can store 30 songs and can be used continuously for about four hours. It's priced at about $250 and includes goggles (although you can substitute your own), a carrying case, and a USB cable.

I tried to think of a way to do this that involved an Aquapac waterproof electronics case, a regular portable audio player such as an iPod, and a set of waterproof headphones, but I couldn't find a combination that I could recommend in good faith for swim training. There are a couple of other solutions including the Oregon Scientific MP120 512 MB Waterproof MP3 Player and the SV waterproof case series from H2O Audio, but these struck me as either less reliable solutions or ones that aren't truly adapted to the task of lap swimming.

I'm pretty committed to the duathlon until I have the time to take swimming lessons, otherwise I'd try to get a SwiMP3 for review. It looks like a really interesting product, and I'd love to know if any readers Operation Gadget readers have used one.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Meredyth Didier wrote an excellent review of the Bose SoundDock in which she compared the SoundDock to two other portable speaker systems that she previously reviewed: the Altec Lansing INMOTION Portable Speaker System and the Sony SRS-T55 Folding Travel Speaker. According to her review:

I tested the sound using an audiobook, classical and techno music and the tone range is exceptional on all tested types of audio for all-in-one device with no speaker separation. These speakers are significantly better in all categories than either of my two existing iPod setups.

Of course it should be pointed out that the SoundDock costs three times as much as the inMotion speaker system and nine times as much as the SRS-T55.

I bought my wife the inMotion speaker system mainly because I thought it had the best bang for the buck and was the most portable of the iPod-specific speaker systems. I agree that people who are planning to keep their speaker system in one location and who are interested in the best audio response available in the class would probably prefer the Bose SoundDock. I think these two products deserve to dominate the iPod speaker aftermarket.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MobileMag reported that PortalPlayer announced the PP5022 System-on-Chip that some analysts believe will power the fifth generation iPod. The big news in this release is a large projected increase in battery life. According to the article:

The PP5022 is specifically designed for enhanced features on hard-disk drive-based personal media players... and offers triple the battery life of the PP5020. With the PP5022 chip, a 5G iPod would give you an estimated 36 hours playback, the iPod Photo around 45 hours, and the iPod Mini around 54 hours. This is a huge jump in battery life....

Apple just started shipping the fourth generation iPods, so I can't agree with Peter Rojas' recommendation to wait until the fifth generation iPods are released before buying. The just-released iPod Photo has an estimated battery life of "up to 15 hours" for music playback. That's considerably better than the battery life of my wife's second generation iPod.

Every time an electronic component comes out that holds the potential to dramatically improve the performance of an existing product, you have to ask yourself, what's the opportunity cost of waiting until the beginning of the next product cycle to purchase something I want today? The cost of a 30-Gigabyte iPod Photo is $349. If you used it for the next eight months then threw it away, your cost would be approximately $1.45 per day.

Having my own iPod would definitely be worth $1.45 a day to me, and docking it to my blogging workstation overnight doesn't represent a personal hardship. This is how I would justify a new iPod purchase at this point.

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PlayerBlog reports that TextAloud 2.0 has been released by NextUp.com. This software "reads" text that you provide and creates spoken word MP3 files.

When I use an iPod, I often listen to spoken word content from Audible.com. I could see myself using TextAloud to timeshift some reading that would otherwise take place at my desk. A lot of TextAloud's usefulness to me would depend on the interface that you use to begin the MP3 content-generation process. I'll have to do more research into how the product works.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apple Computer announced several new iPod minis and iPod Photos earlier today. These portable audio players are:

• 60-Gigabyte iPod Photo, $449.00
• 30-Gigabyte iPod Photo, $349.00
• 6-Gigabyte iPod minis in blue, pink, green, and silver, $249.00
• 4-Gigabyte iPod minis in the same colors, $199.00

Apple's made a few interesting changes to the iPod product line as a result. They have consolidated the iPod and iPod Photo lines, keeping the 20-Gigabyte iPod but making higher capacity devices iPod Photos. Apple has also expanded the iPod mini line with a 6-Megabyte capacity.

iPodlounge published a great summary of the announcements, focusing on the fact that Apple is including fewer accessories in the new boxes. Purchasers of the new iPod minis will not receive power adapters or FireWire cables. They are supposed to use the USB 2.0 cable to charge their players.

iPod Photo purchasers will no longer receive audio-visual cable, FireWire cable, iPod dock, and carrying case in their iPod boxes. Removal of these accessories saves Apple a lot of money, and the savings are passed along to a large extent.

I think these changes are largely good. Many of today's iPod purchasers want to pick their own accessories. I don't need Apple's iPod Photo case. I'd rather buy one in the aftermarket.

Lots of gadgetheads wanted Apple to add Bluetooth to the iPods. That would have been nice for the few who are aggressively using Bluetooth. For me, the ability to charge the iPod via USB is a much more important feature that drives the price of many of the new models down.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I watched Super Bowl XXXIX last night and one of the ads that I watched closely was the Napster to Go Ad where they urged viewers to "Do the math". The ad features the Napster mascot in the seating area of the stadium holding up a sign that gets the attention of the television camera. The sign shows the following:

• Apple logo + photo of iPod = $10,000
• Napster logo + photo of three non-iPod portable audio players = $15 per month

This ad reminds me of a political campaign ad because it compares apples to oranges (forgive me for the double-entendre). Many people who are following the portable audio market understand that the iTunes Music Store offers most songs in its catalog for 99 cents. Napster asserts that since some iPods can hold about 10,000 songs, it costs $10,000 to fill a large iPod with music. This is misleading at best.

For one thing, unless you've been living under a rock you already have a collection of music on CDs. You paid for the right to personally listen to those songs in perpetuity, so ripping them to your iPod will cost you nothing. You can also buy many songs from the iTunes Music Store for considerably less than $0.99, as I did when I bought a Van Halen greatest hits album with an iTunes gift certificate in December.

Napster To Go's offer of $15 per month seems cheap until you think that works out to $180 per year. I could easily argue that over the useful life of a portable audio player, let's say three years, you'll pay $500 to Napster. At the end of that period, you will have the right to listen to none of the music you've enjoyed previously unless you continue to pay.

I may not end up buying 500 songs through iTunes within the next three years, and if I don't Napster to Go might not be a good alternative for me.

In fact, both models have their strengths and weaknesses, but by trying to make the iTunes model seem ridiculous, Napster discredits itself. Why not produce an ad that is respectful of the industry leader, saying that "Napster offers an alternative" that you may find attractive?

I think the comparison of the Napster to Go Ad to a U.S. political campaign ad is natural. My first thought when I saw it was "Gee, that's funny math." What do you think?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day Wired News published an article that cited an unnamed high-level manager at Microsoft who estimated that 80 percent of Microsoft employees who own a portable music player have an iPod. If true, that's a pretty big indictment of Windows Media Audio.

For a year or two I've been on the lookout for a portable audio player that would be a serious challenger to any member of the iPod family. I've only found one reason to consider another player-- price-- and Apple has done a lot to blunt this issue through the marketing of the iPod Shuffle.

When I look at the deeper issues with "other portable audio players", I see problems that make me ask who Microsoft thinks its customer is? Microsoft is intent on making Windows Media the ubiquitous multimedia environment rather than on creating the best solution for any one multimedia application. Apple sought to create the best possible portable audio environment through the iPod, the iTunes application, and the iTunes Music Store.

People tend to like to own things that seem to be designed with their needs in mind. That's why everyone doesn't own the cheapest, most utilitarian version of every product known to man. Apple has always understood this, and has stayed pretty well focused on the customer throughout the iPod's evolution.

Business journalists of a certain age think they've been this way before. They think that Microsoft, given time, will figure out how to dominate any business where it focuses its resources. Microsoft would clearly like to dominate the portable audio market, but it will have to focus on it-- not just on the multimedia applications market in general. They'll also have to make their software more about the customer's experience and less about protecting the ownership rights of the entertainment industry.

My guess is that Microsoft will not have to convince their own employees to buy portable audio players based on their technology if they focus on customer wants and needs.

For my money, the issue is not which MP3 player Microsoft employees use themselves-- it's which players their kids ask for. I bet the percentages look even worse for Microsoft from that perspective.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Orbitcast reported yesterday that Sirius will launch a program called "LiveStrong Radio" starring Lance Armstrong on Sunday, January 30, 2005 at 9:00pm Eastern Time. It will appear on Sirius' Faction Channel 28 which features shows by other athlete hosts including Tony Hawk, Bode Miller, and Sinjin Smith.

The Faction Channel primarily plays punk, hip-hop, and hard rock during the week, but devotes itself to specialty programming starring athletes on Sunday nights. This is a great idea that probably will drive some adoption of the Sirius service, particularly if Lance promotes it through one of the websites where that his fans read regularly (such as LanceArmstrong.com or The Paceline).

I'm definitely interested. I will probably sign up for a 3-day trial at Sirius.com so I can listen to at least part of the first LiveStrong Radio show.

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The New York Post reports that Sirius and XM Satellite Radio have discussed the possibility of a merger according to the article, "...executives from both sides have been meeting lately to discuss the possibility of a merger.... executives have not yet discussed price. They have, however, been weighing any potential antitrust concerns that would arise from a deal, which would create a monopoly in the nascent satellite radio business."

It's interesting that people would call a merger between XM and Sirius a monopoly. Each satellite radio service currently requires a separate receiver. I'd be interested in a merger that would at least unite the satellite radio delivery infrastructure, so that potential customers could buy a receiver and be able to subscribe to either service.

Maybe such a unified receiver will be built by a consumer electronics company in the near future (a quad-band device, AM, FM, XM, and Sirius?), but it hasn't happened yet and I don't understand why. Maybe it has to do with subsidies that retailers receive from satellite radio carriers when they sell a customer a receiver and a subscription?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Engadget just posted their review of the Oakley Thump, eyewear with a built-in MP3 player. Operation Gadget first mentioned the Oakley Thump during the 2004 Tour de France when the prototype was shown to Lance Armstrong. They are an interesting product that might appeal to some hardcore bikers, runners, and multisport people in our audience.

It seems to me that these sunglasses are aimed at people who would wear Oakleys or similar brands (i.e. athletes), which makes you wonder why the Oakley PR folks sent them to Engadget (mainly trendy city-types) in the first place. Maybe Oakley thought the co-marketing deal with rapper Lil Jon would provide more street cred with the NYC gadget people than it actually did.

Here's a key quote from the Engadget review:

We’ll just come out and say it: we really didn’t like wearing these in public. We’d criticize Oakley for the Thump’s styling (or lack thereof), but to be honest we haven’t really liked any of Oakley’s sunglasses since were 11, so we’ll concede that the styling thing is a matter of personal preference. We have no doubt there are plenty of people out there who like the looks of the Thump—Lil Jon seems to be enjoying his—so we’re not exactly the final arbiter on these things. You can argue all you want about the importance of aesthetics when it comes to MP3 players, but sunglasses are first and foremost fashion accessories, which means no matter how awesomely amazing the sound quality or massive the storage capacity, the design matters a lot. We wouldn’t wear these if we were regular sunglasses, so glomming an MP3 player on there isn’t going to make much of a difference.

I beg to differ with Peter Rojas on this. If you are an athlete and an Oakley fan, have a playlist for each different workout, find the Oakley Thump frames comfortable, and like one of the limited set of lens options, the Thump may be right for you.

I could argue that the Thump makes even more sense now that Apple has released the iPod Shuffle. I went out on a limb two weeks ago, suggesting that the iPod Shuffle would be a hit with athletes. If that turns out to be the case, the Thump will probably sell reasonably well to athletes also.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apple Tipping Point: Paul Nixon
explains Apple's pricing strategy
in a chart.

While browsing Philip Torreone's Flickr Photostream, I came across a really effective infographic developed by Paul Nixon of Nixlog. It explains the evolution of the pricing of Apple computers and iPods in terms of all the products that they have currently announced or are already on sale. In other words, it illustrates the range of iPods from the iPod Photo to the iPod Shuffle and the Power Mac G5 to the Mac mini.

Paul explains the thoughts behind his graphic in a separate entry in his weblog:

The Sweet Spot. Until January 2005, Apple had no iPod or PC products that served the mass market. With the launch of iPod Shuffle and Mac mini they have finally converged two product paths with the mass market in mind. This will not only drive more iPod sales (via the Shuffle), but also fulfill the promised "halo" effect of the iPod products as PC users jump to the Mac mini. Over the course of 2005, Apple will continue to dominate and grow its MP3 player market share, while steadily growing its PC business through the Mac mini. As with the original iPod, the Mac mini could build slow, but serious momentum in the market place.

I never heard of Nixlog before I stumbled on to this graphic, but I'm adding it to my Bloglines feeds.

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Before the opening of the NASDAQ today, Apple Computer announced record breaking sales and profits in the fiscal first quarter of 2005. Sales were up 74 percent to $3.49 billion. Profits were $295 million or $0.70 per share. This is the latest confirmation that the iPod and iPod mini product lines have remade Apple.

I realize that this is not often done, but I like to think of iPods as computers in their own right for the purpose of comparing Apple's market share to that of its competitors. (They are probably more profitable on a per-unit basis than most Macintosh computers, after all).

Financial analysts have repeatedly underestimated Apple's growth in the last two years, even while they stand in line at Apple Stores to buy their family members iPods. A good example of this tendency is Apple's Down-Market Gamble, an article from BusinessWeek. In it, Peter Burrows' first thought about the Mac mini and the iPod Shuffle is cannibalization of the existing product line. This is such an obvious example of old school, "PC vs Mac" thinking, and deep seated ideas about the fact that Windows-based devices will always have more than 90 percent of the computer market in the U.S. and other industrialized nations.

As the media has gradually come to grips with Apple's market success, most articles up to now have taken on a "yea but" tone:

• The iPod is obviously selling in huge numbers, but will that translate into sustainable growth for Apple? [ Yes. ]
• iPods are redefining the portable music player market, but is that success masking a decline in the rest of Apple's business? [ No. ]

It's time for the business press to move from nagging doubt to something else. We'd take disbelief at this point. The business press needs to start giving credit to Apple, because they're the technology company that has done the best job over the last three years of presenting exciting and fun products to potential customers. The sales and profit figures clearly indicate that the public has voted with its wallets. [ Thanks to MacDevCenter.com for repeating the lead sentence in its "More News" column, pointing out a grammatical error in the process. ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kudos to our friends at Engadget for publishing the first iPod Shuffle box unpacking photo series I've seen. Eric Lin and Lenn Pryor picked theirs up at The Apple Store at Market and Stockton Streets in San Francisco. Apparently, the Downtown San Francisco Apple Store has been the only place where the iPod Shuffle could be purchased for the past two days.

Looking for a place to buy an iPod Shuffle right away, my brother Scott found the new Apple Store at the Rockaway Townsquare Mall in Rockaway, NJ, a couple of hours ago. There they told him that the only Apple Store that had iPod Shuffles at the moment was San Francisco, but they would be receiving a shipment soon.

Speaking of the Rockaway, NJ Apple Store, this is reportedly one of the first stores Apple has created in the "Apple Mini" Retail Store Design. Scott asked me if I'd ever seen a store like it, and I said "yea" and proceeded to descibe the other mall-based Apple stores where I'd been. This is not what the Apple Mini retail stores look like.

According to Apple, Apple Mini retail stores are "...a stunning all-new design featuring stainless steel walls and seamless white floors and ceilings. The mini store is half the size of Apple’s smallest store to date, which will allow it to be placed in a variety of new locations to introduce Apple’s innovative products to even more customers."

I'll have to check out the Rockaway store next time I'm up north.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I talked to my brother, Scott Aiello, today who told me he put his name on the list for one of the $99 iPod Shuffles at the local Best Buy near his house. He later learned that the store has no idea when he will receive his iPod Shuffle, so he'll probably order it from Amazon.com or The Apple Store instead.

I asked him why he wants the smaller iPod Shuffle and not the $149 1-Gigabyte model? He said that he thought 120 songs was enough for him, especially when he's working out.

This reinforced my original thought about the iPod Shuffle: it's going to be hot with athletes for use in training and during warmups for events. Now that the iPod product line has flash-memory based units, you are going to see even more of them in use before professional, high school, and college sports events.

Back in July, I wrote about using an iPod while cycling and pointed out that Lance Armstrong was seen listening to his iPod while on training rides in the television mini-series The Lance Chronicles. I have to say that the iPod Shuffle is probably a more appropriate player for cycling than an iPod or an iPod mini, chiefly because it would be much less likely to be damaged if it happened to be dropped on the road.

I have a playlist of rock music from the 80s and 90s that I listen to when I exercise. It currently has 99 songs and runs for 6 hours and 48 minutes, end-to-end. This playlist fits on either model of the iPod Shuffle, and I'd be happy to have an iPod Shuffle to play it. Seven to eight hours of music should be enough for even Lance Armstrong's most intense training rides.

If you go to a National Football League game, you will see a lot of players using iPods during the warmup period that takes place an hour or so before kickoff. I'm sure iPods play a role in batting practice at Major League Baseball games as well. iPods and iPod minis are probably harder to keep attached to you in these cases than the iPod Shuffle would be.

There's another scenario where I see iPod Shuffles being used-- in warmups for figure skating short and long programs. If you've ever been to one of these events and seen the warmup, a group of figure skaters enters the ice for a short period of time and simultaneously run through parts of their programs. Most of the time, the skaters have to practice by counting the beats to their music in their head. Now skaters can carry their music with them, listen to clips from it while warming up, and not have bulky or heavy devices attached to themselves.

I'm sure we will see more athletes try to use music players before events now that the iPod Shuffle has reached the market than ever before. If you can think of more places where athletes might use a music players now where they haven't before, let me know.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The BBC provided an excellent summary of the Podcasting phenomenon for people who haven't caught the wave yet. I've been listening to podcasts like The Daily Source Code by Adam Curry and Inside Mac Radio periodically while blogging. I don't care that I'm not using iPodder or something similar to transfer the programs to Kathleen's iPod at the moment.

I think I'm really going to get into the Podcasting movement once I've purchased my very own iPod. Kathleen wants all of "her music" on her iPod whenever she has time to use it. I have no issue with this, after all it's hers and I gave it to her as a gift.

I want to reserve more space on my iPod for changing content such as Podcasts and Audible audio programs. I'll also have my music playlists on it, things I listen to on the way to hockey games and in the locker room, as well as things I listen to while programming or blogging.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My wife gave me a $15 iTunes Music Store Card for Christmas to buy some of "my music" for our collection. I never thought I'd buy a complete album via iTunes, but I spent my $15 (plus 99 cents) on Best of Both Worlds, a two-disc compilation of Van Halen songs from the David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar eras.

I haven't listened to VH for a long time, but I've been thinking that many of these songs should be on my Up Tempo Rock/Pop playlist. This music was the background to many long training runs during high school and college.

Best of Both Worlds is currently about $21 at Amazon.com, but is only $15.99 on iTunes. There are 36 songs on this album, definitely a bargain when compared to buying the individual tracks at 99 cents each.

If you are still in the market for iTunes Music Store Cards, Amazon.com is offering five for the price of four through January 2, 2005. The promotion code for this deal is ITUNES544DEC.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I forgot to point out a New York Times "Circuits" column from last week where David Pogue compared the iPod mini to several similar hard disk-based music players. The players compared were:

• Apple iPod mini
• Creative Zen Micro
• Virgin Electronics Player 5GB
• Dell Pocket DJ
• Rio Carbon 5GB MP3 Player

This article was interesting because Pogue found something odd or not quite right about each iPod mini competitor that would be significant enough to give me pause before making a purchase. If I were in the market for a small disk based player, I'd probably still buy an iPod mini, because I'm so comfortable with the combination of it and iTunes.

It's hard to say what the optimal digital music player / digital music library management system would be, but iPod+iTunes is the best thing on the market today by a mile.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I learned yesterday that Glenn Fleishman has signed on to write a new digital radio weblog for Weblogs, Inc. that's called Droxy.com. It formally launched today, although it has content that's dated back to November 22.

According to the first posting, the site will focus primarily on satellite radio services such as XM and Sirius as well as the gear that is used to receive their programming. They are also going to attempt to cover traditional radio's digital service initiatives, which haven't gotten as much attention as satellite lately. [ via GlennLog ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dan Washburn of ShanghaiDiaries.com visited 18 Chinese provinces on a single trip recently. Now he's reported on how each of his electronic gadgets fared during the trip. Included in his report are evaluations of the:

• 40-Gigabyte iPod from Apple,
• Media Reader for iPod from Belkin,
• Backup Battery Pack for iPod from Belkin,
• iTalk iPod Voice Recorder from Griffin Technology,
• iPAQ h2215 Pocket PC from Hewlett-Packard,
• PM828C Compact Flash GPRS Mobile Internet Card from Panda,
• Foldable keyboard for iPAQ from HP,
• eTrex from Garmin,
• PowerShot S30 from Canon, and
• PowerShot A80 from Canon.

I particularly liked what Dan had to say about the PowerShot A80:

... this little camera saved my ass, and it does everything my PowerShot S30 did … and more.

With the S30, I was often forced to take more vertical shots than I would like to due to the way the camera focuses. The A80 fixed that issue, by adding focus hot spots throughout the field of view. The S30 only had three hot spots, left to right across a horizontal shot. The A80 has nine hot spots, located everywhere. So now, horizontal landscape shots can now have the sky and the land in focus and colored properly. What a concept.

The A80 also boasts a pull-out LCD monitor that swivels, rotates and turns. So the photographer doesn’t necessarily need to be pointed at the same thing the camera is. This is perfect for taking candid shots of people who think you’re busy looking at something else. Finally, the A80 uses four AA-batteries, not the Canon-only rechargables the S30 did. So, if you happen to be in a remote area, unable to access electricty, all you need to do is pack some extra batteries or buy some at a store.

The Powershot A80 is very similar to the Powershot A95 that I discussed yesterday. His findings sort of confirm my suspicions about why you might want an A95 if you were purchasing today, instead of an A75 or A85 (neither of which have the "Variangle" LCD (pull-out LCD monitor that swivels).

Kathleen and I visited Guilin, Yangshuo, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen in 1996, and our experience with use of technology was similar to Dan's. If you venture outside of major cities take your ruggedest, most flexible gear, otherwise you may be disappointed. I'm surprised that he tried to bring a Mac-formatted iPod with him. That seems unlikely to be useful, even eight years after my visit to China.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you needed any further indication that the iPod and the iPod mini are the epitome of the portable audio market, look no further than The iPod Year in Review 2004 article on iPodLounge.

The article reviews the tremendous launch of the iPod mini-- so successful that the international rollout had to be delayed because of unmet U.S. demand. It also discusses the efforts of competitors to keep pace, the impact of the iTunes Music Store, the wooing of corporate partners like H-P, Motorola, and the band U2, as well as missteps and the controversy over whether iPod Photo's current digital photo handling features makes the grade for inclusion in an otherwise fantastic set of features.

I think Jeremy Horowitz of iPodLounge did a fantastic job on this roundup. He produced a balanced piece for a site that caters mainly to the Apple's biggest fans. It would have been easy to sing Apple's praises and overlook some of the hesitations and missteps.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's a nice article on Treonauts.com by Jonathan Greene describing how to stream audio on your Treo using Pocket Tunes 3.0. This is pretty cutting edge stuff, including information about finding audio streams that are appropriate for the speed of the Treo data connections and a step-by-step guide to playing a ShoutCast stream.

I'm not out of the office enough to need this these days, but it's good to know that Pocket Tunes Deluxe is so capable. [ via atmaspheric | endeavors ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Forthcoming Clarion VRX755VD with built-in
iPod controls: UberGizmo reports that it will be
on the market in 2005.
[ Photo: Clarion Co., Ltd. ]

UberGizmo reported that Clarion has developed a new in-car AV unit that displays a virtual set of controls for an iPod onto its 7-inch touch-sensitive LCD display. In case it isn't clear from the photo, the 7-inch display is normally embedded in the dashboard of a car, but pops out on command from a front-seat passenger.

Information on Clarion's U.S. website indicates that the unit will be called the VRX755VD and will also include AM, FM, and DVD playback features.

I think virtual iPod controls is a wonderful idea because using a larger set of dash-mounted controls would be less distracting for me than momentarily diverting my attention to an iPod's display while driving. Of course, some people will think that having a 7-inch LCD display with DVD playback capabilities mounted on a car dashboard is an even greater danger because some drivers would be tempted to play DVDs while driving.

In any event, this cool looking unit will be shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. Hopefully more will be known about it by then.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MacMinute pointed out that Apple has pre-announced a sale that will take place on the day after Thanksgiving, Friday, November 26, 2004. The sale will involve both the Apple Online Store and Apple Retail Stores throughout the United States.

The "Black Friday Sale" has a dedicated page on the Apple website: http://www.apple.com/retail/thanksgiving/. I could use an iPod, if anyone's buying.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Edna Gunderson from USA Today reported on a debate among U2's older fans about the merits of the band's participation in the iPod + iTunes Vertigo ad. I didn't start listening to U2 until the early 1990s, so I never really understood the anti-corporate tendencies that the band and their fan base exhibited early on. It's that cohort that loved the band before The Joshua Tree album that seems to be up-in-arms.

I'm from the school that thinks that U2 will go down in history as one of the most savvy rock bands around because they got fully behind digital music early on. They've done so few commercial endorsements in the past that their iPod + iTunes ad speaks even more loudly. It's pretty clear from Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen's comments that U2 considered its involvement with Apple from every angle before jumping in with both feet.

I didn't think the Apple U2 Special Edition iPod was that significant a product until I saw that it had reached number 2 on the Amazon.com Early Adopter List for Computers. I was pretty sure that this iPod would do well simply because U2 has a tremendous following, but it's hard to believe that it would be selling this strongly without the push that comes from the iPod + iTunes Vertigo ad.

I think U2's association with the iPod culture is a win-win situation. I wouldn't be surprised if U2's new album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, achieves blockbuster status in terms of CD and iTunes sales.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Walter Mossberg and Katie Boehret of The Wall Street Journal tried the 40-Gigabyte iPod Photo, Apple's new device for digital music and photo storage. They liked it for the reasons that they've liked every other iPod: superior user interface. According to the article:

...The iPod Photo was just as easy, and satisfying, to use with photos as it is with music. It's a winner, if a little pricey.

The article also contains a brief discussion of the iRiver H320, that is an alternative portable audio system that can store photos. The WSJ crew didn't like the H320 as much:

The iRiver H320 player is often praised on techie Web sites. But, in terms of simplicity and ease of use, it doesn't begin to compare to the iPod Photo.... The H320's nine buttons frustrated us right away because they don't include a scrolling device like Apple's wheel that would have helped us move through long lists of songs or pictures within the player's vast hard disk.

I appreciate the information about the iPod Photo because I'm trying to figure out which iPod I'm going to put on my wishlist for Christmas. The iPod Photo might be my choice, but I haven't made up my mind quite yet.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Oticon Syncro hearing aids: When will these products start being
marketed like other high-end digital electronics? [ Photo: Oticon ]

This morning, my father Ernie Aiello and I were catching up with each other on the telephone. He told me that he just received a pair of Oticon Syncro hearing aids from a local hearing aid service provider in North Jersey. I don't think he mentioned getting them before to me, but I wasn't surprised because he's become somewhat hard of hearing recently.

I had never heard of Oticon until this phone call, but I looked at their website and learned that they have been in business for 100 years. I told my father that I the only high end hearing aid manufacturer that I knew of other than Miracle-Ear, which is a ubiquitous advertising presence in certain U.S. publications is Phonak.

For those of you who follow professional cycling, Phonak has become known as the sponsors of the Phonak Professional Cycling Team, lead this year by Tyler Hamilton. I'm sure awareness of their products and services is a big reason why a Swiss company like Phonak would sponsor a major pro cycling team.

My question after spending a bit of time looking at these companies and their products is when will these companies start marketing their products like other high-end digital electronics? I mean these hearing aids are sophisticated, ultra small, digital sound systems. They must be customized to a wearers unique needs by a trained technician. I'm sure this is done by hooking the hearing aids to PCs.

Some Oticon Syncro hearing aids that are visible outside the wearer's ear canal come in different colors, so there is an element of fashion to them. This is a good thing, because hearing aids have had an unfair stigma attached to them for a long time.

Continue reading "Hearing Aids as High-End Digital Electronics" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Associated Press published a comparison of five portable speaker systems for the iPod by Dan DeLorenzo. He spent a month testing these systems in a variety of conditions with his iPod mini. The systems Dan evaluated were:

• Bose SoundDock,
• JBL On Stage,
• Creative Labs TravelSound,
• Altec Lansing InMotion Portable Speaker System, and
• RadioShack Portable Amplified Speaker System.

I think Dan liked the Altec Lansing InMotion Portable Speaker System best. He wrote, "Although not powerful enough for a rooftop dance party, Altec Lansing's inMotion, about $120, is well-designed, rugged and about the size and weight of a paperback. With decent sound and integration with the iPod, it always found its way into my bag."

I first saw the inMotion System in May on an episode of "The Lance Chronicles". They are small, totally portable, and pump out good sound. An Operation Gadget reader named Kevin told us, "I've got a set. They're great for travelling and turn your iPod into a nice clockradio - er clockMP3."

[ BTW, if you're going to make a comment on Operation Gadget, please provide your first and last name so I can credit you in future stories. ]

There was one weird thing about Dan DeLorenzo's article. He couldn't find the RadioShack Portable Amplified Speaker System on RadioShack's website, but I think I found it. The fact that it costs 2x the price Dan stated in his article means one of two things: RadioShack is trying to take advantage of on-line shoppers unwillingness to drop into a local store, or this is not the same model Dan reviewed. You tell me which is right.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Engadget published an excellent podcasting howto by Phillip Torreone. The article includes:

• an explanation of podcasting,
• instructions on where to get podcasts,
• how to get podcasts onto your iPod from your PC or Macintosh, and
• podcast production tips for Mac users.

One of the best features of Phililp's howto is the large number of Macintosh screen shots where he shows the applications and utilities that make the Mac the hands-down choice for people who want to create podcasts.

Podcasting is a rapidly developing meme that is an excellent illustration of why the iPod is not just another MP3 player. The huge community of iPod users is driving the development of a myriad of accessories and software utilities that only work with Apple and H-P models. At this point, there's no way I'd buy another MP3 player for myself, a friend, or a family member.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Associated Press reported that Howard Stern has announced that he will be joining Sirius Satellite Radio beginning in January 2006. At that time he will leave Infinity Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Viacom, the current syndicator of his program.

I was listening AM radio this morning while working in my office, and the morning news-talk programs in New York City consider this significant news. Imus joked that it will strengthen his bargaining position at Infinity. He went on to say that this has the potential to reshape the radio industry. Similar thoughts were voiced by commentators on WABC.

The Audiovox Satellite Radio Shuttle Receiver
is an example of the equipment necessary to
receive Sirius Satellite Radio today. There are a
number of other product choices available from
dealers like Amazon.com and Crutchfield.

Sirius competes tooth and nail with XM Satellite Radio. XM carries several recently-transplanted radio programs, including The Bob Edwards Show on the so-called XM Public Radio channel and Opie and Anthony on XM High Voltage. Howard Stern will make Sirius more competitive in the market for listeners that seek programming that some people may consider vulgar.

XM and Sirius' services are quite similar. They are popular with listeners who regularly travel long distances in their vehicles, such as truckers. These services have not yet reached many car listeners in the major East Coast markets, at least from what I can hear when I talk to people and see when I look for satellite radio antennas on cars I pass in parking lots. This announcement should change market penetration some, particularly 12 to 15-months from now, when Stern's program moves.

Satellite radio has a much greater marketshare outside of the major U.S. radio markets. I saw lots of satellite radio antennas in Austin and San Antonio, Texas, when my wife and I were on our last vacation in February 2004. This seems to indicate that XM and Sirius have momentum in markets where the diversity of radio programs and formats is not as great.

I'm not a Stern listener, but I am looking forward to the change. Satellite radio deserves a chance. It's the only major change in programming in recent radio history, and I hope this provides some impetus for other radio personalities to make the jump. Ownership of terrestrial radio is too consolidated and, honestly, needs some credible competition.

The only other blip on the radio programming radar screen at the moment is podcasting, where radio programs are produced with delivery to an iPod in mind. I listened to my first podcast the other day, from Adam Curry who was one of the original MTV V-jays a number of years ago. Podcasting is interesting; I'll try to talk about it in the next week on Operation Gadget, but right now, I think satellite radio has a bit clearer path to the mass market in the United States.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tuesday night I went into Manhattan to meet Stefan Kulla and Sascha Bereksasi for dinner. They're friends of mine from Germany who were passing through New York on the way home to Frankfurt.

I rode the "E" Train from The World Trade Center to 34th Street at about 6:30pm. As the train moved up through Lower Manhattan, I noticed that about one passenger in three in my car was listening to something on an Apple iPod. This was a bit of a shock to me, since I haven't ridden the New York Subway during rush hour in a long time.

New York commuting is often an intensely private experience. When I worked in Lower Manhattan prior to 9/11, I was a voracious audio book listener. It was the only way to stay literate. After spending two hours getting to work and eight to nine hours at work, I didn't want to have to maintain the level of concentration necessary to read something. Audio book listening is slightly less mentally engaging than reading. If I really wanted to escape and relax, I'd switch to music. Many of my fellow riders on the E Train on Tuesday appeared to be going the relaxation route.

I never pointed out the article that appeared in Newsweek in July where Steven Levy called the U.S. an iPod Nation, but it's easy to come up with a similar characterization if you ride the Subway at the right time of day.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week, I said that the big reason why XM Satellite Radio pulled the XM PCR PC-based radio off the market was that the added feature of MP3-conversion was a political liability in their larger fight against music royalties. Matt Haughey wrote an article for PVRblog that looks at the situation from the user's perspective and makes equally correct points about the arbitrary nature of the situation.

Haughey says:

They claim piracy, but if someone's paying $10 a month just to save a few MP3s, I seriously doubt they are redistributing it to thousands of folks that would otherwise be XM customers.... XM shouldn't be pulling devices off the market that get them new subscribers..., they should have bought the TimeTrax product and incorporated it into their PC control software....

I think he's absolutely right, but XM has bigger fish to fry. Long-term survival for them and for Sirius may depend upon getting on an equal footing with traditional radio from a music-licenseing perspective. As long as the road to viability goes over Capitol Hill, I expect a strict approach to intellectual-property control issues.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CNET News.com reported that XM Satellite Radio pulled its XM PCR PC-based radio from the market after learning that a software product has been released that allows its broadcasts to automatically be broken up into MP3 files representing individual songs. TimeTrax software from NeroSoft makes this possible. But, it is also capable of time-shifting XM programming, which is a valuable feature in and of itself.

There's more to this story than what appears at first glance. A recent article about XM Satellite Radio in Forbes Magazine said that satellite radio services must pay royalties to the recording industry, while traditional radio stations are exempt. The satellite radio services (XM and Sirius) both would like to be exempt from royalty payments also, but must overcome the lobbying efforts of the National Association of Broadcasters and the Recording Industry Association of America to get any such exemption. An MP3 stream-conversion tool like TimeTrax is probably an unacceptable political liability in the current regulatory environment.

It's unfortunate that XM pulled its PC-based radio product from the market. It was an innovative product that probably would have become more attractive to Operation Gadget readers as more of them started using satellite radio in their cars. But, the satellite radio services have to focus their limited resources in order to achieve a significant level of market penetration. TimeTrax was distracting XM's staff and, more importantly, hurting them politically.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hewlett-Packard released their version of the iPod on Friday, along with a raft of other digital photography, home theater, and entertainment products. At about the same time, Amazon.com began taking orders for the Apple iPod + hp with 20-gigabyte and 40-gigabyte storage capacities.

I have no idea how well H-P's versions of the iPod will sell, but a couple of things really struck me about the announcement:

1. H-P went out of its way to call its version of the iPod, the "Apple iPod + hp". For me, this is the most stunning aspect of H-P's digital music alliance with Apple so far. When I talked about this digital music alliance at its announcement back in January, I had no idea of the extent to which Hewlett-Packard would attempt to leverage the names "Apple" and "iPod". The H-P versions of the iPod are full-fledged co-branded products. This tells me a lot about how strong H-P thinks these brand names are in the digital music space.

   
2. H-P came up with the concept of HP Printable Tattoos that allow you to put a colorful, removable design on an iPod. This is a compelling way to tie H-P's printing franchise to their digital music initiative, particularly since they are also partnering with Universal Music Group to offer custom tattoo designs based on cover art from Universal music releases.

The HP Printable Tattoos are cut specifically to fit the fourth-generation iPod form. When I saw this concept, I thought to myself, "This is a neat way to customize my iPod." At the moment, I don't have a fourth-generation iPod or a color printer, but I want them now. I'm sure that I am not the only person thinking this.

I give H-P a lot of credit for coming up with a creative way to get people to buy more of their inks and media. The HP Printable Tattoo concept provides an opportunity to take the iPod fashion statement to another level-- one that will undoubtedly be very profitable for H-P.

I will post a follow up article once I find out more details about recommended printers and inks for use with HP Printable Tattoos. [ iPod with HP Printable Tattoo image courtesy of Hewlett-Packard ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the inMotion Portable Speaker System after seeing it on an episode of The Lance Chronicles. A miniaturized version of this system has just been released by Altec Lansing called the inMotion iMmini Speaker System. The iMmini Speaker System is optimized to work with Apple iPod mini portable audio players and comes in a neutral white and steel gray color combination that will probably look pretty good with an iPod mini of any color.

The iMmini includes two custom-designed 25mm neodymium micro sound drivers and two 18mm neodymium tweeters. It's said to have very good bass response for an amplifier its size. The system is considered a Class D amplifier, and runs for more than 24 hours on four AA batteries. The entire package folds down to a package 7 inches wide by 1 inch deep by 4.4 inches wide.

The iMmini speaker system will be widely available in "late summer" 2004 at Apple Stores and other resellers. [ product photo courtesy of Altec Lansing ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apple Computer reported that its third quarter net profit soared to $61 million, versus $19 million in the third quarter of 2003. It also reported that iPod unit sales reached 860,000, versus 470,000 in the year ago quarter.

With numbers like this, Wall Street-types are bound to ask, "How long can they keep this up before everyone who wants an iPod has one?" I bought one for my wife, but I still don't have one myself. I bet that many families in America have a similar iPod deficit.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On Saturday, TDFblog reported that Lance Armstrong was photographed wearing a prototype Oakley product combining sunglasses with a portable audio player. Gizmodo reported on this photo as well, saying that Armstrong wore the prototype during the Prologue time trial, citing a SunSentinel.com article for attribution. These articles were pointed out to me in an email from Josh Gray.

Here's how I replied to Josh:

Josh:

I don't believe the Sun-Sentinel report that {Lance Armstrong} wore these Oakleys in the Prologue. Here's why:

1. He wore a radio. We know this because this is what he always does to communicate with {Johan Bruyneel}. We also know that Rudy Pevinage's critique of Jan Ullrich's Prologue performance included the fact that Jan did not wear a radio. This would not have been so widely reported if Lance hadn't either.

2. If you look closely at the glasses in the Gizmodo/TDFblog photo, and compare them to the photo on Graham Watson's site of Lance actually riding the Prologue, the frames are not the same:

   http://grahamwatson.com/gw/imagedocs.nsf/images/04tourPro/$file/11.jpg
   

Subsequent research indicates revealed that Oakley announced a new integrated eyewear/portable audio player today. The press release says the device will be called Oakley Thump. The sunglasses include 128 Megabyte and 256 Megabyte models, and will be priced at $395 and $495. The product will be initially sold at Circuit City and Oakley O Stores in the 2004 holiday period.

Comparing photographs of Lance Armstrong during the Tour de France Prologue to the Oakley eyewear catalog, it appears that Lance was actually wearing Oakley Zeros. Note that the Thump prototype has a frame piece above the lenses, while the eyewear Lance is wearing in the Prologue are frameless. [ not sure who to credit the photo to, it's been everywhere ]

Update: Frankie Andreu gave the OLN viewers a good look at the Oakley Thump in the Infinity Technology of the Tour segment. If you recorded the July 13th broadcast at 9:30am EDT, look for the segment at about 23 minutes into the program.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

CNET News.com is carrying an article written by John Borland saying that the iPod undermines Microsoft's attempt to impose its Digital Rights Management solution to copy-protect CDs. In my opinion, this is a manifestly good development, and a reason for people to choose an iPod or an iPod mini over other types of portable audio players.

The article says that Sunncomm International and Macrovision technologies that have been implemented on copy-protected CDs has been less than successful, in large part because of Apple Computer's failure to support Microsoft's Windows Media Audio on its iPods. The article says:

Analysts said the move toward iPod compatibility is very important if copy protection for music CDs is to succeed.

"It's fairly critical," said GartnerG2 analyst Mike McGuire. "If the labels start hearing that the reason people aren't buying an album is because it won't work on the iPod, then you'll see some reaction."

The companies that produce digital entertainment should not be allowed to change the terms and conditions of distribution after a product is sold to the end customer. I think that any digital rights management system that becomes a monolithic standard in the United States would make retroactive license changes much easier. So, even if I weren't an iPod user, I would be cheering for Apple's and encouraging its current market strategy.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This week, I got back on the road to fitness. Over the last five days, I've done five hours of tempo riding on the open roads east of New Jersey Turnpike Exit 8A. For those of you who are not familiar with the area, I'm talking about roads in East Windsor, Washington Township, and Hightstown, New Jersey.

One of the things I've wanted to try for a while is listening to music on an iPod while tempo riding. I saw Lance Armstrong do this repeatedly on training rides that were filmed for the TV series the The Lance Chronicles. I couldn't attempt it myself because I needed to replace the wheels on my bike.

Before I discuss my findings, I want to offer this disclaimer: cycling while listening to a portable audio device is potentially dangerous. Do not attempt this unless you are a very experienced cyclist riding a familiar course with minimal traffic. Also, please note that riding a bicycle while wearing headphones is technically a moving violation in some jurisdictions.

I rode with my wife's iPod for an hour on Thursday and Friday morning. On Thursday, I listened to the entire Tour De France Soundtracks album by Kraftwerk. Not only is this album appropriate at this time of year, it's also 11 tracks of techno music with a relentless beat that's often helped me maintain my cadence.

On Friday, I decided to pick a very different set of songs: The Soundtrack from the Movie "Black Dog", which is a collection of country songs with several up-tempo and several somewhat slower songs. This did not work as well, because I had to concentrate during the slower songs in order to maintain my cycling cadence.

The iPod performed exceedingly well. Cycling on the road is not as physically jarring as running is, so I didn't expect any song skipping or play hesitation that sometimes occurs when using a full-sized iPod during intense exercise.

I had to set the volume level and begin playing the music before I put the iPod in my jersey pocket at the beginning of the ride. Trying to adjust the iPod or select music while moving on a bicycle is just too dangerous. This says nothing of the danger associated with dropping it on to the road surface-- probably a recipe for an early iPod death.

Now that I have ridden for a couple of hours while listening to an iPod, I'd like to ask Lance Armstrong a few questions:

• What's on the playlists that you listen to on your rides?
• Do you have playlists of different sorts of music corresponding to different types of training rides?
• Who builds your playlists, you or someone else?

I don't think that I will be cycling while listening to the iPod very much. Beyond the safety concern, one major reason is that I don't have use of this iPod all the time. Another slightly subtler issue is that I would want to build playlists with songs that have tempos that are compatible with each other, and that would help me maintain my cadence. Doing this is a matter of sitting down with iTunes and playing parts of songs to gauge their suitability.

Due to work and family demands, and my level of fitness, I would have to classify building new iPod playlists as a low priority activity for me at this time.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday I suggested that it's a mistake to take Nokia's innovation potential lightly at this time. My point is underscored by the Engagdet article about Nokia and Hewlett-Packard's joint announcement of Visual Radio. Until I read this, I hadn't heard of Visual Radio and I'm still not sure what it's impact will be on the market.

An article in Forbes attempts to flesh out the business potential of Visual Radio and provides some information about Nokia customers' handset use that I was not aware of. The article says:

One often overlooked feature on several Nokia phones is the ability to receive FM radio signals, many of the company's phones have been equipped to receive FM radio signals. {sic} Nokia reckons that 77% its customers who use the simple radio feature tend to use it about once a week, and consider it important. Now the company wants to make the mobile phone the preferred way of listening to the radio and accessing related content.

One of the problems I see with Visual Radio is that it will be tough to turn this into a trendy service unless it's widely available. I don't know how this is going to happen in the USA unless they make a deal with a big network, like Clear Channel, Emmis Communications, or Infinity Radio.

Another problem is the form factor. Every mockup I've seen of Visual Radio is based on the Nokia 7700, a large Series 90 handheld that doesn't have a keypad and isn't available yet. Is this what you thought your next mobile phone would look like? Probably not. I'm sure they have plans to deliver it on a variety of devices, but they need to show people what Visual Radio will look like on those platforms.

Having said all of this, I like the idea. Visual Radio could make the experience of listening to radio more of an active-mind activity. From a commercial perspective, it has the potential to be a great integration platform for iTunes for digital content and Amazon Web Services for physical goods. I think this is an idea that has good to very good potential, but, it's not the market changing product that the iPod and iTunes has been for Apple recently.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, my wife and I had her parents and sister over for a cookout for Mother's Day. This was the first time that I tried to connect my wife's iPod to the Sony CFD-440 CD / cassette boombox in our living room. You may remember that I documented the process of connecting an iPod to a stereo for $8 or less. The bad news is that the cable that I bought to connect the iPod to the Bose Wave Radio in my home office doesn't fit the boombox in the living room. Believe it or not, the Sony CFD-440 doesn't have stereo inputs.

The CFD-440 is one of the things we have in our house that we got it before we were married. It has lasted this long because we haven't needed anything better or different. When I get around to spending some money, I'm replacing the boombox with the Altec Lansing inMotion Portable Audio Speakers 2.0.

This is another one of the products I found out about by watching The Lance Chronicles on the Outdoor Life Network. Lance Armstrong had inMotion Speakers in his hotel room while he was at the USPS Cycling Team Training Camp in Solvang, CA. If you watch The Lance Chronicles, you can see that he does some training while listening to his iPod. I've also seen him listening to his iPod while warming up for races.

Another thing I noticed when I saw inMotion Speakers in The Lance Chronicles is how small they are. You could really travel with them as a portable stereo. The speakers pump out room filling sound for up to 24 hours on four AA batteries (although they can also work off the included AC adapter). They also connect to an iPod mini if you use the new adapter.

My wife and I have most of our favorite music on her iPod now. We could easily build play lists for parties that are oriented toward the tastes of our guests. Putting a set of inMotion Speakers in the living room would mean that music preparation could be as simple as making sure the iPod is charged.

Altec Lansing inMotion Speakers allow a hard core iPod user to better leverage his investment; Not just the cost of the iPod, but the time associated with loading it and building playlists for it. When combined with an iPod, they're smaller, lighter, and far more flexible than any boombox I've ever seen.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

I'm on record saying that the iPod mini would be a hit, so I want to make sure that Operation Gadget readers see the results of a Jupiter Research survey that indicates that 77 percent of the people surveyed think that 1,000 songs is plenty of capacity for portable audio player. These findings confirm the insight that Apple Computer must have had into likely buyers' preferences before they shipped the iPod mini.

Apple is clearly knocking the competition dead with this product. I haven't been to a store that sells iPod minis recently that had any stock. This is not because they are having manufacturing problems, unless you count situations where a company can't meet demand as a manufacturing problem.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The iPod mini got reviewed by Brighthand today, and Steven Bush seemed to like it a lot. He characterizes the iPod mini as the best portable music solution since the introduction of the Sony Walkman 25 years ago. That's pretty much a rave.

He puts the improvements over the iPod into five categories:

1. looks,
2. size,
3. capacity,
4. capability, and
5. price.

Capacity and price will stop some people in their tracks. How can a device with less capacity than its predecessors and only a slightly lower price be an improvement? I believe Steven Bush thinks that the music capacity (60 hours) relative to its size is an improvement over the original iPod. The price (in the $250 range) has been criticized by many, but Bush repeats the explanation that Steve Jobs gave for Apple's iPod mini pricing decision, which he appears to support.

I think history will prove Jobs right, that the iPod mini is priced in a sweet spot in between the larger capacity iPods and flash-memory based players, and I've said so in the past.

I think you'll find this review helpful in making a decision about purchasing an iPod mini. If I ever get to do a hands-on review, I'm definitely going to focus on the skip protection feature and whether it improves the iPod mini's usability during vigorous exercise when compared to the iPod.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Amazon.com and Audible announced a $100 instant rebate on Audible-ready portable audio players and PDAs for buyers willing to join Audible's AudibleListener program for 12 months.

The AudibleListener programs are monthly subscriptions that allow customers to choose two programs from Audible's collection of spoken word audio programming for a discounted price. If you select BasicListener, you can choose one audio magazine, newspaper, or radio program, plus one audiobook, each month for $14.95. The PremiumListener program costs $19.95 per month and allows you to choose two audiobooks.

If you are in the habit of listening to audiobooks while travelling or exercising, this is an excellent deal. Next time you are in a Borders or Barnes & Noble, take a look at the cost of audiobooks on cassette or CD, then compare it to the regular price charged by Audible for the same program, and you'll see that already there is a considerable savings.

The AudibleListener programs commit you to purchase programming on a set schedule, but, you may already be purchasing audiobooks at a rate of one or two a month anyway. If that's the case, joining this program will reduce your costs and you'll get a $100 discount on a new high capacity audio player like an iPod or an iPod mini in the bargain.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Daily Wireless put together an excellent article about RSS use on mobile devices. The article includes a list of RSS aggregators for platforms from the PC and Macintosh all the way down to the iPod. [ via MobileWhack ]

One suggestion that the author, Phillip Torreone, makes is Syndigator, a Perl-based RSS aggregator based on Gtk that he believes is a good choice for Linux users. I have been using Straw since I got Fedora Core 1 running on my laptop. I will have to try Syndigator and see how mature it is relative to Straw.

BTW, Phillip Torreone and I seem to have a lot of interests in common lately. The other day, I noticed his website about exercise technology called /run. Today, I found him writing for Daily Wireless. He's blogging as much as I am, if not more.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin O'Donnell points out a CNET News.com report that Dell has cut prices on its Dell DJ line of digital audio players by up to $50. The 15-Gigabyte model is now priced at $199, down from $249.

The 20-Gigabyte model is reduced to $279, but a temporary rebate brings the price down even further to $251.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The BBC reported on a survey conducted by insurance and finacial services company DirectLine that says half of all British people aged 16 to 34 expect to replace their mobile phones and DVD players every three years. More interestingly, over half say that fashion plays a large role in the gadgets they choose.

This is interesting to me because I like to think that I personally choose gadgets based on things like features, usability, and cost savings. For instance, I bought my Treo because it let me do away with a Nokia 8860 and a Research in Motion 850 and consolidate on-line services. That transaction was done just about two years ago.

The two year ownership mark has figured in my decision about whether to upgrade to a Treo 600. I could have saved some money by taking advantage of palmOne's upgrade program that allowed Treo 180, 270, and 300 users to upgrade to the 600 for $399. But, I decided that I just made back my investment in the Treo 180 when I figure the total mobile phone savings over two years. I feel that I need a better reason to spend that amount of money than simply wanting a faster CPU, SD card slot, color display, and what have you.

I will probably spring for the upgrade eventually, but the driver will probably be the consolidation of all of my company's web sites on to Linux and the need for a better, faster handheld SSH client, as opposed to fashion or planned obsolescence.

Of course, the considerations about gear that does not require an on-line service are somewhat different. I think you can justify upgrading from a flash memory-based MP3 player to an iPod mini
more easily. But, I'm not sure that moving from the first or second generation iPod to the current iPod would be a good investment, unless you wanted the extra capacity available in the 20-Gigabyte or 40-Gigabyte models. But given recent changes in iTunes functionality designed to support the iPod mini, it isn't as necessary to carry your entire music collection on the iPod at the same time as it used to be.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the back burner items at my house has been to find an inexpensive way to connect my wife's 10-Gigabyte iPod to our stereo equipment.

Yesterday, we had to go out to pickup the dress that my wife will wear at my sister's wedding, and there was a RadioShack in the shopping center with the bridal shop. We walked into the RadioShack and walked out a few minutes later with a 6-foot Specialty Y-Adapter for which we were charged $7.99 plus tax. This is a shielded six foot cable with a 1/8-inch stereo plug at one end and two phono plugs at the other.

When we came home, I used the cable to connect my Bose Wave Radio to the iPod and put on the bonus CD from Alan Jackson's Greatest Hits Volume 2. It sounded great to me, although I'm not an audiophile.

If you are looking for an even less expensive cable solution, try the Sony RK-G129 Audio Connecting Cable available from Amazon.com. It's a 4.9-foot cable that has the same connectors on it. This is not the cheapest cable of this type that's available from Amazon, but it qualifies for free shipping on orders of $25 or more. So, if you are planning to buy something else from Amazon, toss this in as well.

This mini research project was a bit of an eye opener for me. I thought that most of the cable connectors of this type were similar to the
Monster Cable Interlink solution, rather pricey at about $20. Maybe someone who reads home stereo magazines would appreciate the difference between this cable and the Sony or RadioShack-branded products, but I can't imagine noticing a difference myself. All I care about is that the cable has reasonable shielding, so I don't pickup electronic interference.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I noticed that we have never pointed out a Sirius-compatible receiver here on Operation Gadget. The Audiovox SIRPNP2 Shuttle Receiver is one of the models that's widely available. It looks fairly similar to the Delphi SKYFi Radio Receiver for XM and has similar features. The Audiovox Shuttle needs an additional Home Kit or Car Kit to work properly, another similarity with the SKYFi.

Sirius is obviously very competitive with XM, and this has translated into an intense rivalry in terms of design, manufacture, and sale of receivers. A lot of resellers offer discounts in co-operation with Sirius, so shop around and make the best deal that you can.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I hate to chide the iPod mini skeptics again, but CNET News.com and a number of other outlets are reporting that Apple Computer is delaying iPod mini international shipments due to greater than expected demand in the USA. Apparently, Apple's sales have exceeded Hitachi's ability to deliver 4-Gigabyte MicroDrives.

As my friend David Plaut likes to say, that's a "good problem".

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

iPodlounge reports that Target.com is offering the iPod mini for $230, including shipping, through March 31, 2004. If you want to do the math, that's a 10 percent discount off the regular $249.00 price, plus $5.00 shipping. See the iPodlounge article for further details.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MacMinute reports that O'Reilly and Associates has released "iPod and iTunes: Missing Manual, Second Edition", an important update to the best book about the iPod. Reportedly, J.D. Biersdorfer has deepened the coverage of iTunes and iTunes Music Store on both the Macintosh and Windows platforms. He has also added information about the iPod mini.

I will be looking for more information about this book and I hope to post details soon.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Guideline Research released a report on the America's appetite for multifunction wireless devices. According to the news release, 49 percent of those surveyed have "no desire" for devices that allow them to multitask with their gadgets-- either make phone calls, in the case of mobile phone, or hold data, in the case of PDAs. James Belcher, co-administrator of the survey, said:

Multifunction devices don't reflect the consumers' preference for dedicated, simple devices. With the exception of the PC, most consumers just don't want to do multiple things with a single device.

In spite of the apparent sweeping conclusion, the article goes on to point out that 40 percent of survey respondents were "anxious to have a multifunctional device" and 10 percent already own a multifunction device. Last time I checked, 40 + 10 = 50. Isn't that just about even, 49 versus 50 percent?

I think that the survey underestimates the public's appetite for multifunction gadgets because it neglects some critical issues:

• knowledge of the features of specific handhelds versus hypothetical feature pairings,
• availability of third party software and services,
• pricing of handheld devices, and
• pricing of wireless services.

Operation Gadget readers are clearly in that 50 percent that either is anxious to have a multifunction device or already owns one. We know that our gadgets simplify our lives, even if they confuse some of our relatives and friends. We didn't buy our Blackberries and Treos for them, we bought them for us. [ via BargainPDA ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Boing Boing reported on an unlikely benefit of taking apart an iPod mini: embedded inside is a Hitachi 4GB MicroDrive, available at Amazon.com separately for between $479 and $499. Reportedly, the only thing that has to be done in order to use the extracted MicroDrive in a digital camera or another CompactFlash-savvy device is:

• mount the MicroDrive in a CompactFlash adapter,
• insert the adapter in a computer,
• reformat the MicroDrive using FAT.

How long will this arbitrage opportunity exist? Do you think any eBay PowerSellers are willing to commit enough capital to make quick profits? [ via MobileWhack ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Slashdot pointed out an interesting interview that Wired News conducted with Dr. Michael Bull, a lecturer at the University of Sussex in the UK, about the cultural impact of the iPod and the iPod mini. This is up Bull's alley because he has done extensive research into the cultural impact of portable audio devices, beginning with the Sony Walkman.

It's clear from this interview that Dr. Bull has himself interviewed a lot of iPod users. It's refreshing to hear the views of someone who can speak definitively about the collective experience of others with these devices, instead of either speaking entirely from a personal perspective or simply pontificating.

You should read this interview if you are interested in such issues as:

• the prospects for the iPod mini,
• the transfer of the aesthetic from the record album or CD jewel case to the portable audio device,
• the mix of perennial favorites versus new music on people's iPods, and
• the "control factor" in the use of the iPod.

Interestingly, Dr. Bull doesn't get into usability of the device much. For instance, I'd like to know more about the use of iPods during exercise. Do people really find the iPod difficult to use while running? If so, how does this impact the choice of portable audio device made by athletic people, and will the iPod mini change that situation?

Dr. Bull is writing a book on the impact of mobile phones, car stereo systems, and portable audio devices like the iPod to be released in the Spring of 2005. In the mean time, his previous book
Sounding Out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday Life, written in 2000, could be interesting reading.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Popular Science decided to tap into the recent iPod battery controversy and publish a how-to article showing the do-it-yourself battery replacement process. The article includes step-by-step instructions and photos. The article also suggests other mods you can make while the case is open-- some more interesting than others.

Remember, this will void your warranty if your iPod is still within the warranty period, so be careful out there. [ via MacDevCenter ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was on a flight from Baltimore to Austin this morning, and got a chance to read the "dead trees version" of The Wall Street Journal. In it, Walter Mossberg did a rather comprehensive review of the iPod mini, just in time for its initial shipment to resellers around the country.

It's pretty safe to say he liked the product a lot. He said:

For about a week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I have been testing the iPod Mini. Katie has been toting a pink model everywhere -- while walking, riding the D.C. subway and flying. I've been using a gold one and a blue one in the house, car and office. We both like these gadgets a lot. In our tests, they exceeded Apple's claims for both battery life and storage capacity.

My wife and I are really impressed with Walter Mossberg, both for his populist sense of what gadgets will work for the general public and for his willingness to include his assistant-of-the-moment in many of his reviews. This is a classy thing to do because I'm sure it helps a young journalist get noticed on the way up.

The review says that the size and look of the device makes it a winner, as does the multi-purpose functionality of the scroll wheel, enhanced to include the play/pause, menu, forward, and back buttons that are separate on regular iPods. Mossberg's only real criticism of the iPod mini is its price:

While Apple deserves some premium for style and design, the price of $249 is a little too high when compared with the prices of larger models. This includes Apple's own base-model larger iPod at $299, which can hold 3,700 songs. And Dell offers a 3,700-song player for the same price as the Mini. I think the iPod Mini really belongs at $199, not $249.

The review includes a price / feature comparison chart between the iPod mini, the iPod, the Creative Labs Nomad MuVo2, the Dell DJ 15, and the Rio Nitrus.

I have weighed in on the iPod mini pricing issue, most extensively in the article If the iPod mini Were a Car, What Kind of Car Would it Be?. I think it will do OK at $249 because it is attractive to a slightly different group than has bought the iPod in the past. Apple probably could move more units at $199, but whether the additional volume would offset the reduced profit margin is not clear to me.

I might buy an iPod mini for myself because it may be a better high capacity music player to use while running. I've tried running with the iPod that I bought for my wife as a Christmas gift, but that one has a tendency to skip songs periodically while I am running. I understand that this can be a problem for some people who use iPods that are attached to their waist while they exercise. The iPod mini, due to its smaller size and the ease with which it can be attached to the upper arm, may be affected as much by this problem.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A new initiative at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society called AudioBerkman is creating a series of recorded programs about Internet law and technology. They are planning to release a report in MP3 format every Friday through May 2004.

The second program in the AudioBerkman series is called The Gadget Factor. It talks about how the iPod is changing the digital media debate. This is not a program that will help you get more mileage out of your iPod or justify the purchase of one, but it will help you understand the impact that well-designed electronic gadgets can have on our society and economy. [ via iPodlounge ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I find ideas for products to feature on Operation Gadget in the strangest places.

Who woulda figured that the National Federation of Independent Businesses monthly magazine would have some really interesting gadgets in it? I opened the February/March 2004 edition, and found the Pogo Radio YourWay MP3 player and radio receiver.

You can set the Radio YourWay to record radio programs that you want to timeshift, in much the same way that TiVo does for cable or satellite TV. The big differences are in the lack of comprehensive program directory (Radio YourWay makes no attempt at this), and in recording quality (Radio YourWay seems to do best when recording talk, so its codec must be similar to that of Audible.com).

If you can get over the fact that Radio Your Way is not intended to record broadcasts from the Met and automatically turn each song into a crystal clear MP3, you're probably going to like this device. It's great for recording talk radio-- The Savage Nation or All Things Considered, or something in between.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A fairly well known weblogger named Robert Scoble has posted a relatively long article making the case for Windows Media and strongly suggesting that people who have not yet purchased an iPod or a TiVo think twice about doing so.

Scoble suggests that by 2006, Microsoft will have a comprehensive set of multimedia technologies that will be deployed and accepted on every sort of device that an individual might want to use to watch video or listen to music. He suggests that the ubiquity and synergy of Windows Media-related software in portable audio, home theater, and in-car systems will make customers of the iTunes Music Store and TiVo regret the fact that they use them.

Without rebutting each point Scoble makes, this is one of the more egregious attempts at engendering FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) in the minds of prospective customers for non-Windows Media devices that has made the rounds recently. Remember that Apple sold close to 1 million iPods in its 2003 Fiscal Year. This figure was in before the holiday shopping season ended.

Current iPod users didn't think about the potential synergies of Windows Media devices circa 2006 when they bought their iPods. They bought because they wanted a portable music device that lets them carry a substantial part of their music collection with them wherever they go. The iPod is the best device ever built for this purpose.

If there was no iTunes Music Store, the vast majority of these people would still have bought iPods. They just would have ripped their CD collection to MP3s and synced the resulting files to their iPod. The fact that iTunes made a lot of iPod users comfortable with buying music one song at a time was an unexpected bonus.

iPod and TiVo users get value from their purchases everyday. If you want to enjoy the benefits of digital media technology today, I recommend that you choose from products that are available today or have been recently announced. If you like devices that support Windows Media, buy them. But, don't allow yourself to be scared out of buying the gadget you like best just because someone who works at Microsoft says you'll be sorry someday.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Eric Bangeman has written an article for Ars Technica that compares the iPod mini to small disk-based and high end flash memory-based music players. Bangeman finds that the iPod mini compares favorably to the Crative MuVo2 and the Rio Nitrus, and is more economical by many measures than the Sony Network Walkman and the iRiver iGP-100 Bangeman said:

While I think it could have been a lower-priced alternative to the 4.0GB model, the price difference between 1" 2.0GB and 4.0GB drives is not much, and likely would not have translated into a significant price difference. The targeted market is obviously there, if 20% of the digital music players currently being sold fall into the high-end flash category. Apple seems to be counting on three selling points to convince that market segment to buy iPod Minis over similarly-priced flash alternatives....

The iPod Mini is arguably a better value than the high-end flash-based MP3 players. Sure, you can get better battery life with a flash-based player and you do not have to worry about moving parts. However, if your budget is keeping you from snapping up a larger player, or you do not have much of a digital music library to speak of, then a smaller-capacity hard drive player like the MuVo2 or iPod Mini is a better deal than a flash player. With smaller and smaller hard drives becoming available, the price/performance ratio is only going to get better.

In earlier articles, I've suggested that the iPod mini will find an audience because of its size, style, and user interface. But now, Eric Bangeman has done some research and put together a competitive analysis confirming that Apple is price-competitive in the small portable audio player market. I'm not surprised. [ via Slashdot ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)