18 posts tagged “ipod”

So, as many of you probably know, I bought an iPod Classic back in December as a Christmas present. Having 80 GB of storage was really sweet. I could throw anything I wanted on to it and still have gobs of storage space left over. But in comparison to the iTouch, it really didn’t stand up. The iTouch had a superior screen, built in WiFi and on-the-fly music downloads, not to mention a forthcoming SDK for really cool applications. So although I loved my classic, I yearned for a Touch. So, for my graduation present/birthday present, I bought myself an 8 GB iTouch. It didn’t have the gobs of storage space that my Classic had, but it had several advantages. First, the 3.5” Widescreen is amazing. Compared to the 2.5” on my classic, the Touch wins hands down. Video’s looks amazing, and beat out the classic  On a related point, the Touch’s screen is made of optical quality glass, which is much tougher and scratch resistant then the plastic on the Classic. The WiFi is amazing. I’ve been wanting to get away from my main desktop for a long time and the iTouch provided an excellent way to do just that. With the built in Wi-Fi and the January Software upgrade, iTouch offers Full HTML/CSS web browsing, a Mail client with support for IMAP/POP3 as well as Google Maps.  Safari renders webpages very well, albeit without Flash support and the accelerometer built into the iTouch is excellent for both Portrait and Landscape viewing modes.  The Mail Client is decent, allowing you to receive and forward messages as well as delete messages right off the server and file messages into folders. There is support for Yahoo, Gmail, AOL Mail and any other POP3, IMAP or Exchange server based system. The Interface on the touch is easy to use and innovative. Clicking the “Home” button twice brings up a set of music controls that allow you to change the volume or skip to the next song anywhere in the Touch, even if the hold switch is on. The iTunes WiFi Music store is quite good. Downloads are fast, and the interface is simple enough. A minor pain is you musc synce your iTunes account information before you can use the store, you can’t sign in from the Touch.

So what are the pitfalls? There are a few, to say the least. First is the virtual keyboard. After using it for a few days, it’s easy enough to type on, enought to pound emails. However, for some stupid reason, the Widecreen mode is only support in Safari, leaving you to use it in Portrait Mode for most applications, like Email, Notes and others. Secondly, software, in area’s seem a little buggy. Some applications (like Safari) will crash for no reason, and go to the Home screen, even when in the middle of reading something. Sometimes, going to a particular section of the iTouch will cause to freeze momentarily, before proceeding. I’ve only experienced this on a few occasions however.  DVD chaptering seams a tad buggy. I tried to movies and, when I selected scene, it would just restart the current chapter. After 2 or 3 times, it would work, but that should work right from the get go. Flash support is needed, especially for people who watch non Youtube sites, like Veoh, SurftheChannel and others. As well, some sites don’t work well or at all, if they are entirely based on Flash. Some websites (like Revision3) have created they’re own iPhone based site and transcoded video’s into H.264 for viewing, but this really isn’t pratical and Apple should just bite the bullet and allow Flash on the iPhone. My Final gripe in syncing. Apple, for some arcane reason, only let’s you import calendars, contacts and bookmarks from Microsoft programs like Outlook and IE. No .csv file, no VCARD file, not HTML file. So I had to export my Firefox bookmarks to IE and then sync them to my iTouch. And my contacts? I had to manually input them after they wouldn’t import correctly into Outlook from Gmail. It’s stupid, it really is.

Despite it’s pitfalls, the Touch is an excellent device. I’ve been looking at a device like this for a few months now and I’ve very satisfied. While I wouldn’t say that the iTouch is better then something like an N810 or comparative smartphone, for someone looking for an all-in-one solution for your on the good needs, I would highly recommend the iTouch.

 I've had my 1G Nano for about 2 years, I bought it off my friend who won it at an event a few days after it was released. It's served me faithfully for 2 years and suffered quite a bit of abuse. I've dropped it a few times, and it's scratched up quite a bit, but it's still a good player. Until today that is. I was in English Friday morning and discovered that a Pen had ruptured in my pocket. I didn't discover until later this afternoon that some of the ink had gotten all over hte screen.. But this is going to be one of the last straws. First of all, as I've stated before, I'm running out of capacity. Currently, in my Library, I have 2.75 GB of music, with that set to expand this week (I'm getting a few new CD's) which doesn't fit on the Nano. The formatted capacity of the Nano is 1.8 GB, so I have about 100 items that I can't fit on my iPod Nevermind that I have a bunch of podcasts, both Audio and video that I want to get onto the nano, which I can' due to the large file sizes. So I'm going to go for either a 8 GB Nano or maybe (wishful thinking here) an 80 GB iPod. If I did get the 80 GB, I dought I would ever need another music player ever again, at least in terms of capacity. But we'll see how it pans out.  

 Today was the shiny Apple event. and many things came out: the iPod touch, a new Nano, an updated iPod "classic" and a wireless iTunes music store. Yadda yadda all kinds of stuff. I plan on asking for a new iPod (nano) for christmas and to retire ye old 1st generation nano. I really need the storage, and the ability to watch video is a big bonus. The wireless iTunes store is great. But here's my question to His Steveness: Where's the content? Last year, when you released the iPod Nano 2G and the 5.5G iPod video, you promised international content. You just released some content in the U.K. WHERE'S MY CANADIAN CONTENT?!?!?!? I know you undervalue the Canadian market; But we ARE 32 million people and we like our content. If you release the Apple TV in Canada, please give us our content. Even some TV shows would be nice. I can rip DVD movies with Handbrake, but TV shows on DVD cost an arm and a leg, and I'd be more then willing to pay $1.99 or whatever (within reason to the U.S. price) you want for the shows. But come on Steve stop ignoring your neighbours to the north!
    Other then that, I'm very pleased with Apple's offerings as of right now. If I had the cash on hand I would go out and buy a new iPod touch. But I don't, so I guess I'll have to settle for a 3G Nano. I'll be asking for 8GB as I really need the space for my music collection. All in all, a good keynote. Counting down the days until Leopord and Macworld and all that jazz.

I was going to post this last night, but then last night turned into the this morning and I figured I should be getting to bed. First and foremost HAPPY CANADA DAY! to all the Canadians on Vox! I know it's a tad late, but it's better then never, eh?. I would also like to put a shout out to all the troops oversea's. Your serving our country and we really appreciate it. Sec

ondly, I have a message for whoever is considering deleting some stuff of they're hard drive to save space. I recently cleared in excess of 25 GB of my HDD. Most of it was old files carried over from the XP install when I started using Vista. Only, I cleared out some music that I really shouldn't have. Thank goodness that I had a backup on my iPod. The only problem was getting the stuff of my iPod. It took probably a hour to find a decent piece of software (I ended up using iPod Access) and then getting the songs into iTunes. Anyway, it's all done know, and I intend to do a backup today of all my iTunes stuff. Moral of the story: Make sure you know what your deleting.

 So today was Apple's quarterly conference call and by all indications, Apple is still growing. In fact, profits where up 100% from last quarter. And the Mac and iPod are both gaining marketshare. Mac sales  grew by 36% shipping 1.5 million Macs while the iPod gained 24% shipping over 10 million iPods. All I can say is WOW. Apple is growing by leaps and bounds. I predict that this is the begining of the second golden age. The first golden age was in the 1980's when Steve Jobs was in the hot seat and they invented the Macintosh. Things went downhill from there with CEO's like Sculley, Spindler and Amelio took the company on a downward slope. With the return of Steve Jobs, things changed for the better. The iPod solved cashflow problems while OS X gave Apple hope in the OS market after a few embarrasing few years holding onto OS 9. Now Apple's on a roll. The consumer market, after shunning Mac's for years are starting to see that they can actually be decent computers. You can credit Intel and Steve Jobs as well as Jonathon Ive for creating beautiful, fast, functional computers. Now, the Company is better off than it was in it's short history. Aside from a few minor technical glitches, they're on track to increase marketshare. I plan on buying a Mac in the next few years and I plan on convincing my parents to invest in one as well when they buy they're next computer.
Just watch, Apple will outlast Apple, HP, and all of the PC manufacturers.

    So I got Windows Vista running today. And thanks to a hack from good 'ol BitTorrent, I don't have to drop over $150 for a copy of Home Premium. But don't tell Microsoft that. I'm enjoying it so far. I mean besides the improved UI, it's the small things like the Instant Search and the improved Window Management. The Iive Tabs feature is also nice. For all the bashing I've done to Vista, I still like it. I don't expect to bumb into the DRM wall yet, as I'm not planning on playing an HD content. With all that said, there are some things that I don't like. It takes forever to both Shut Down and start up as well as the fact that certain app's don't behave well. iTunes is the major culprit here. It works well enough, but it has it's glitches. Logitech Setpoint was another sticking point, but I managed to get it to work after a while. Driver support is pretty good. Considering the disk includes over 15,000 device drivers, it'd better be! My flash drive works fine. I've yet to test my iPod though, though I think it should work fine. I'll give you guys an update in a few days.  

 

    Answer me this: Why does Radio suck?. I listen to one program on the CBC before I go to bed each night. Been listening to it since the fall- and now they decide to move the program to Sirius Satellite Radio. There basic subscription service is $12.95. And that's in the USA. I don't even want to know what it is here in Canad

a. And would I dish out that amount of Cash- a month for a single radio station? Heck no. But this raises an important question. Why does gold old terrestrial radio suck? In the past few years, I have listened less and less to the radio then I normally do. And that's saying something. Normally, I would only listen to radio when I was in the kitchen or the car or something. We lack a good CD player in the Car or the kitchen so radio is the only form of entertainment. I enjoy listening to some of the talk shows and the news- but I really don't like the music stations. All they play is rap crap (and I do emphasize that word CRAP.) There's no good music on the raido these days. That combined with the fact that people are getting more and into personal meda. Podcasts provide this. Instead of waiting and waiting and waiting on the radio for that one song or lugging around CD' and a bulky Discman, you have your iPod or your Mp3 player that holds only the songs that you want it to hold. Nothing more, nothing less. And that's the death of radio. Radio is dead, except for the talk shows and the news. And even those are sketchy. What will happen in 10 years? Will we have Wifi all over the place that will update us on the lastest news and let us stream stuff while we wanter about town? That's looking to be an increased possibility. With the possibility of Gigabit or even 100 Gigabit eithernet and High-Speed wireless netowrks, Radio's death looks to be only a matter of time.

 So today was one of those so-so days. I was kind of cranky when I woke up this morning, but I have a reason for that ( I stayed up until 2 this morning.) I went to see TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) with some of the guys from Youth Group. It was a good movie, considering the target audience. I mean it's no Inside Job or Lord of the Rings but considering it's targeted to children as well as pre-teens, my expectations where not high. It was quite funny and I enjoyed it. Recommended for people who are in the mood for a lighthearted, midley entertaining flick go for it.
    The second part of my day was going to pick up a new set of headphones due to the fact that my lanyard buds for my Nano decided to kick the can this past week. It started when I was in Florida when I noticed that one of the buds was separating from the lanyard part. I ignored it for the better part of two weeks until, right before class on Tuesday morning the opposite earbud started to cut out, rendering the earbud's essentially useless. For the reminder of the week I used a cheap set of dollar store buds that I bummed out off my sister. They sucked, but it was better then nothing. So I looked around for a decent pair of in-ear buds (I'm not using Earbuds ever again.). I found a pair of Centrios In-Ear headphones which I picked up this afternoon. So far, I'm quite impressed. Great quality, and there sound isolating, so your interrupted by ambient noise. Bonus: I can be oblivious when people are lecturing me (jk, jk) I swapped out the medium size pads for the larger ones, since I have large ears (read: Prince Charles size ears.) Coupled with the new headphone organization trick that I learned from Lifeahacker, I'm set.
    I also purchased a few songs in the past few days. Kutless' Not What You See and Skillet's Falling in the Black. I like 'em. Well worth the $1.98 I dropped for them. I think I want some iTunes money for easter.....

 I've been thinking about this for the past few days. What 5 pieces of technology are absolutely essential for the home? Some of them you might nod your head and say "yep, most definitely." other pieces you might just scratch your head and say "HUH?" Keep in mind, this is just my opinion, if you think some different, please comment.
5.  MP3 Player with at least 512 MB of Memory- Music wasn't a huge part of my life until the Digital revolution. My iPod Nano changed my life. No longer was I confined to carrying a limited number of songs on a CD and having to carry around a bunch of CD's. Now I had a player the size of a few business cards that held up to 500 songs. I had my collection in my pocket. And that's only with 2 GB. It used to be 128 or 256 was the norm. Those sizes no longer suffice. You need at least 512 MB of memory, even if you have a small collection. If you only listen to a lot of bands and are constantly discovering new music, I'd go for the 4 or 8 GB Nano or if you have the cash a 30 GB iPod. Let me be clear though. It doesn't have to be an iPod. It can be any brand. Creative, Archos, Sandisk, the world of Mp3 is large and full of different styles of players, one of which is sure to suit every individual personality. If your even more adventurous, go for an Mp3 player that does video or photo's as well. Again, the iPod is the king there, but that doesn't mean that there isn't competition. Creative, Archos ,
4.   External Hardrive OR a DVD Burner- The reason I saw or on this one is that not everyone can put down the money for a second hard drive and an enclosure. If your on a Budget, go for a DVD Burner. Max, there about 40 bucks. Then get spindle of DVD-R's every so often and backup your critical data (Music, Bank Stuff, Pictures that kind of thing.) Then store them in a very safe place.
    If you can afford an external, find a neighbor who has one and swap every month or so. That way if your house burns down or something, all your Data is safe.
3. Flash Drive- With the Floppy's grave freshly dug, it's clear that we need a replacement for it. The Flash drive is that answser. Not only can you fill it up with files, you can also boot programs from it. I personally boot Firefox, and Open Office from mine. It's very handy to have when you away from your main rig and you need Firefox or some other app. A must for people who use multiple computers.
2. Router (Wired or Wireless)- An essential piece of technology that every home should have. Even if you don't have a second computer, you can use it with a game console to play online. And if you don't have that, it's useful to have around if your friend brings over there computer to work or to play. It also serves as a security device. An essential piece of equipment for every home and office.
1. Broadband Internet Connection- If you don't get anything else get this. An Internet connection is absolutely essential to a home. Without, you have no email, no google, no wikipedia. Myself, I can live without the instant access to information. Without an internet connection ,a computer is essentially a glorified calculator. And Dial-Up is a definite no-no. High Speed is the way to go. For those of you who don't have it, I pitty you, I really do. Hopefully Dial-Up will go the way of the do-do bird in a short time.
    Well that's my list of the essential pieces of technology that everyone needs. If you don't agree, please, feel free to comment or PM me.  

 So His Steveness got up in front of the all the loyal macheads this afternoon (this morning in San Fran) and announced one of the most anticipated products of the year. Well he actully announced two of the most anticipated products of the year. Well if you want to get picky, he introduced 3 new products today. The iPhone counting as two. Why? Well it's not just a phone. It's an iPod as well. And it also has a web browser. It looks awsome and when they bring it to Canada (which they will on Rogers) I WANT ONE! It's going to be so cool to have all of those features in a single device.
    This raises an issue though. Is this the end of the line for the iPod? What will happen now? And how much stuff can you store on just 4 GB of Memory? Not a whole lot, let me tell you that much. As for the iPod, will they come out with a Hard Drive based version of this design to increase the fortunes of the iPod line. Another small announcement was that of the iTv which is now called  Apple TV. It has component, IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n an HDMI port as well optical audio out. If and when they bring movies to the Canadian iTunes music store, I think we should get one for our soon forthcomming HDTV. I mean, what's the point in having an HDTV if the content's not going to be in HD?
    Anyway, I'm excited about both the iPhone and the AppleTV. It'll be interesting to watch Apple in the next few months with the introduction of Leopard. And CES is not yet over! There's still tonnne's more stuff to come from the show floor!
Later,