To approved accessory makers.

Link: iLounge article

Share this post:

Music revenue overall fell 3%. The NYT article quotes the chief exec of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry fulminating yet again about file sharers. He states that more than 10,000 court actions have been taken against file sharers across 18 countries. I’m not going to dive into the file sharing debate here, but the fact that music revenues are falling cannot surely be attributable in any significant way to piracy - the range of media available to consumer is hugely more diverse now than, say, 15 years ago when DVDs and video games were much smaller markets than they are now.

I wonder whether there’s any comprehensive research about the entertainment industry and the changing formats available?

Link: “>NYT article
Link: Playlist article

Share this post:

200,000 songs initially + no DRM + encoded at 256kbps = a good idea.

Link: Engadget article

Share this post:

I think that iPhone-esque iPods will soon be released. Look for larger capacities, probably 100GB, and a very similar design to the iPhone. We’ll be treated to the same great touchscreen that automatically rotates the interface depending on how we hold it, which will be perfect for watching videos. But we’ll lose the phone functions, and with those we’ll also likely lose the camera and OS X interface. What makes the iPod so great is its simplicity, not its robust set of features, and by merging that notion with the new iPhone hardware Apple will be giving the iPod a serious upgrade.

Link: Gizmodo article

Share this post:

This looks potentially interesting for those of us yet to take delivery of our iPhones…

Jax, a customizable iPod plug-in that adds music management features and delivers Internet content to iPod nanos, minis, and full-size iPods.

Jax features configurable visualizers and the ability to manage lyrics and search libraries by specific phrases and words. It also manages album art and lets users research artists.

Jax can also download information from the Internet, such as point-to-point directions, current weather forecasts, stock quotes, movie listings and local gas prices. Likewise, it can load news feeds, e-mails and document, as well as video from YouTube, Google Videos, or QuickTime movies.

Available next month apparently.

Via: Playlist
Link: Product page

Share this post:

Including at number 9:

‘Allow iTunes Store purchases via Wi-Fi’

The iPhone has 802.11 support, so it can connect to wireless networks. But as far as we know, you won’t be able to use the iPhone to connect to the iTunes Store and download music, movies, and podcasts. Sure, it might not work when you’re in EDGE mode on Cingular’s network (speeds aren’t fast enough), but if you’re on an 802.11 network using a high-speed connection, why not give the iPhone direct access to the iTunes Store?

Link: MacUser article

Share this post:

I’d feel like Apple was abandoning an opportunity to make this more than a phone, and more that an iPod, and even — let’s be frank about the elephant in the room — much more than a Palm or a Pocket PC. There’s the potential here for some serious George Jetson shit and it would be a pity not to capitalize on that as early as possible.

I can very much sympathise with the wish for at least a relatively open platform for developers. And, yes, the iPhone is a different beast from the iPod, but the iPod has remained securely locked down - apart, that is, from games and Linux hacks. For my part, I’ve used the ? software as a plug-in to liven up iTunes’ sound output. I would love to have this on my iPod as well, but requests by the developer have been entirely ignored. I can’t help but suspect a similar situation will apply to apps for the iPhone (widgets may be different). This is still the honeymoon stage, with the device literally locked behind glass or only held in the hands of company reps, but once it’s out in the wild, there’ll be a blizzard of user feedback and the last thing Apple will want is the messiness of third party software and uncontrollable issues.

Link: 43 Folders: Let OS X developers at the iPhone. Please.

This NYT article: “>Phone shows Apple’s impact on consumer products sheds some light on the situation:

Mr. Jobs is moving in that direction, too, but it appears that he wants to control his device much more closely than his competitors.

“We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.”

(…)

“These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.”

Share this post:

Via Micropersuasion

Share this post:

I used to pine for headphones without wires, but since I found the right way to wear my Shure E3Cs (see this post), I’m less bothered. The fact that they need batteries for something that otherwise doesn’t require a separate power source makes them ultimately unattractive to me - just like wire-less mice and keyboards.

Via Engadget

Share this post:

EMI has announced that it will no longer infect its CDs with DRM. I remember just a few years ago when an EMI customer-service rep sent an email to an irate customer promising that every CD in Europe would have DRM within a decade.

The anti CD-based DRM campaign was closely reported by BoingBoing. The small number of CDs I’ve bought that warn of anti-piracy measures have not protested in any way when I’ve ripped their contents to MP3, nor have any refused to play in any of my four CD players. Which is not to say I don’t scorn the whole concept…

Link via: BoingBoing

Share this post: