iPod iTunes Zone

Accessory maker PDO has announced two new sets of iPod cases, the Aluminum V2 for Classics and the Aluminum N3 for 3G Nanos. The V2 is said to be the only aluminum case that covers both the screen and the clickwheel, the former with clear plastic, the latter with a colored silicone layer that still allows interaction. The inside of the case is lined with neoprene for shock protection, while openings permit access to the dock connector, hold switch and headphone jack. Accessories include a neckstrap and swiveling belt clip. The case is available in silver with a black clickwheel cover, or in black with blue, black or red clickwheel covers. It should ship towards the end of October, though pre-orders can be made now for $30.

The Aluminum N3 is nearly identical to the V2, but omits clickwheel protection, as well as any accessories. Black and silver colors should be available towards the end of October, but are again pre-orderable, here for $25. PDO also notes that it is now shipping its screen protector kits for the Touch, Classic and Nano, each actually containing pieces for the back and/or clickwheel as well. Spare protectors and a dust cloth are included at a cost of $9.

source: ipodnn.com

I enjoyed the protection the original iSkin eVo offered my third generation iPod, so iSkin was the first company on my mind when I bought my iPod video. The Toronto based company makes stylish looking products, without sacrificing functionality. The eVo3 carries this tradition forward with a wide color selection, quality materials, and a clever design. There are some minor annoyances, but I’ll touch on those later.

Stylish Design

When I took the eVo3 out of the box, I was pleased to see that it is made from the same material as my first iSkin eVo case. The case does not have a tacky and is not a magnet for lint and dust like competing silicone cases. It stays put on the desk because of its rubbery texture. The case consists of three pieces: a rubber wrap that covers everything but the screen, a clear front visor, and a rotating plastic belt clip. A small, inner plastic disk, with pegs poking through the back holds the belt clip in place. A soft membrane covers the disk, so it won’t scratch the iPod.

Snug Fit

You must decide whether you want to use the belt clip before you put your iPod in the case. To remove the belt clip you twist a small rotating lock out of position, and pivot it on the bottom peg. The belt clip has a smooth click to it as you rotate the iPod from upright to sideways.

To place the iPod in the eVo3, remove the plastic visor, slip the iPod through the hole intended for the screen, and massage the case into position. You must seat the corners of the visor inside the case, shifting it back and forth until the lip covers the entire edge. A rubber peg sticking out just underneath the embossed scroll wheel secures the visor in place. A rubber lip holds the front visor in place and closes off the screen almost completely. This prevents dust from settling under the visor.

The case adds a bit of bulk to your iPod, but since it’s designed to protect, this is acceptable. All of the iPod functions are accessible, and iSkin even provides a protective flap that covers the dock connector. The hold switch is covered by an embossed button, and moving the switch feels a little awkward at first.

Minor Annoyances

My complaints about the eVo3 are relatively minor. The integrated Dock Connector flap is part of the silicone case, so using it with most iPod dock-enabled music systems is difficult. The thickness that the case adds also makes it impossible to use with any custom fit dock inserts. You can easily remove the case when you need to dock it though.

The silicone texture is a little bit of a double-edged sword. I have a large music library, so I like to use the accelerated scrolling feature. The stickiness of the silicone prevents my thumb from rotating quickly. A little saliva on my thumb provides the necessary slickness for quick rotation.

I found out accidentally that the belt clip really does require a belt to be useful. Running for the bus one day, my iPod jumped off the hip of my jeans and bounced across the pavement. Luckily, thanks to the bouncy nature of the eVo3 silicone, my iPod was unharmed. Basically the clip doesn’t hold to cloth as well as it does to a leather belt. My iPod has been scratch free since I bought it a year ago, thanks to the eVo3.

Highly Recommended

iSkin offers replacement visors and belt clips, available through their online store. You can clean the case easily with soap and water. Overall, the eVo3 is one of the highest quality cases available on the market and I feel comfortable recommending it to anyone who is typically accident prone or hard on their equipment.

source: macnn.com

AT&T saw its largest number of new cellular subscribers during a summer quarter, the company announced today as part of its latest quarterly report. The telecom firm’s wireless division reported an effective gain of about two million new subscribers in the quarter following the iPhone’s release in late June, a 46.8 percent increase over the same period a year ago and an all-time record for the season for the carrier, which was already considered the largest in the US. Customer “churn,” or the turnover of subscribers, was also lower for the period at just 1.7 percent of the total user base, AT&T said.

The third calendar quarter similarly reflected more modest but higher overall improvements for AT&T, which saw an improved rate of revenue growth as well as an increased income profit margins and average revenue per user, which is usually determined by the subscription fees and purchases such as ringtones or online music.

Although the company did not break down new subscriptions by the phones attached to the new services, a significant number of the added subscribers are widely believed to be converts from rival services who jumped to AT&T to obtain the iPhone. The Apple handset is an AT&T multi-year exclusive and is also technically incompatible with Sprint, Verizon, and similar carriers that use the CDMA protocol.

Apple itself claims to have shipped about 1.4 million iPhones since launch, most of which have reportedly gone to existing AT&T customers.

source: macnn.com

Apple’s iTunes Store is still dominating digital music sales in the U.S., according to one survey cited by Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, accounting for around 85 percent of digital sales nationwide. The Cupertino-based company on Monday during a conference call announced that it has sold a whopping 3billion songs via the iTunes Store alongside more than 100 million TV shows; music revenues–including the iPod–accounted for 36  percent of the company’s total revenue during its September quarter.

Digital music sales are increasing as customers become more familiar with the new concept of purchasing tracks online vs. physical media like DVDs and CDs. Digital music accounted for roughly 17 percent of all music sold globally during the first half of 2007, according to ISPI Market Research, up from 11 percent last year. Apple yesterday said it believes that the company’s iTunes Store was instrumental in this growth, and NPD Market Research confirmed that Apple maintained its title as the third largest music retailer, beating out brick-and-mortar giant Target and online sales behemoth Amazon.

source: macnn.com

Apple estimates that 250,000 iPhones were sold to people who had the intention of unlocking the mobile handsets so that they could be used with wireless providers other than AT&T, with which the iPhone is locked into a multi-year exclusive contract. The estimate came from Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook during Apple’ fourth quarter earnings conference call, where the firm also revealed that it had sold about 1.4 million iPhones to date. On October 17th, hackers posted a working iPhone unlock for Apple’s latest revision — iPhone Update 1.1.1.

The talented individuals have created a means of once again removing the iPhone’s dependence upon Apple’s exclusive cellular carrier, AT&T, by enabling the device to work with any SIM card — the small storage medium that retains all the data of a particular wireless subscriber. The latest unlocking method comes after slew of curious iPhone owners set out to obtain read and write file access to the devices, while some reached a further goal of unlocking the handset for use with non-AT&T cellular service.

In late September, Apple issued a warning to iPhone owners about unlocking their phones and then released an update that removed filesystem access and disabled most hacked devices, effectively ‘bricking’ affected iPhones or rendering them useless.

source: macnn.com

Apple today expanded upon the free content available through its iTunes desktop software. Initially only offering lectures and videos from several universities, iTunes U section will expand on these by supplying debates from the Supreme Court, radio broadcasts on the civil rights movement, among other offerings in a new category they are calling “Beyond Campus”. iTunes was originally designed as a gateway for its leading online music store (and less successful video store) as well as song/video and Apple device management for users. iTunes U is a free service that enables universities to distribute content from course lectures or other supplied multimedia, as well as whether they wish for this information to be available to the public, rather than just to students and alumni.

Apple continues to expand iTunes–which along with its ubiquitious iPod–has helped it become the number three music retailer in the US.

Initially rolled out as an educational offering to university staff and students, the company took iTunes public earlier year, allowing them to access a wealth of online educational content. Currently more than 25 different universities offer content via iTunes, including Duke, Yale, and Stanford.

In the past Apple has also offered culturally significant events such as presidential debates and Steve Jobs 2005 commencement address.

“But we found that there’s a lot of educational content from other parties, and we thought it’d be a great opportunity to leverage iTunes U,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes, told the AP.

Current ‘Beyond Campus’ offerings include KQED’s Science and Nature series, Einstein’s Ethics (transcripts and podcasts), the MoMa’s look at Richard Serra Sculpture, and more.

According to the report, the Apple exec also noted that a larger learning catalog for anyone — in college or not — helps to broaden the appeal of Apple’s ecosystem of PC, devices, and software, including iTunes and iPod.

source: macnn.com

Apple has posted an official Mac OS X Leopard guided tour, leading viewers through many of the operating system’s new features. Mac OS X Leopard is scheduled to hit store shelves on October 26th, is called the most impressive upgrade of Mac OS X yet. Boasting more than 300 new features. Apple’s tour covers the new 3D dock, “stacks” of items that fan out automatically with one click, the Finder with integrated CoverFlow technology, Quick Look, Time Machine, Spaces, Mail, and iChat. The tour povides an intuitive, easy to understand look at some of Leopard’s most unique features while showing viewers how those features work together. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is already available for pre-order from Apple’s online store, Amazon.com and MacMall in both individual and family packs as part of a new promo.

Apple’s new Stacks technology provides one-click access to numerous items in folders right from the Dock, displaying a grid by default when too many items are present to produce a reasonable “fan” effect. The company’s CoverFlow technology is built into the operating system, and works with Quick Look for browsing through documents and previewing their contents without launching the actual application that created them.

Time Machine, as demonstrated by the guided tour released today, makes creating as well as restoring backups extremely simple for Mac owners who also haven external hard drive. The software appears to lift users up off the desktop, revealing a 3D view of the front most item in the Finder as it progressed throughout each backup on a given date. Apple Mail, meanwhile, integrates with iCal and includes a new technology to recognize dates, times, and contact information automatically.

Leopard’s iChat enables real-time backgrounds and special effects during video chats (only on faster Macs), and supports screen sharing to view as well as control another user’s Mac (with authorization).

source: macnn.com

Yet another class-action lawsuit targeting Apple has been filed against the Cupertino-based company, this time in Quebec’s Superior Court. Lead Plaintiff and Montreal law student David Bitton is suing Apple because the company’s 8GB iPod nano offers 7.45GB of actual storage capacity, rather than the full 8GB as advertised. Apple sells the 8GB portable player for $200, but lists its definition of 1GB as 1 billion bytes, as displayed on the company’s iPod comparison Web page: “1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less.” The lawsuit, however it may appear on the surface, could be taken seriously if Apple’s legal history is considered, according to the Montreal Gazette.The complaint alleges that all Apple products have, on average, 7.5 percent less storage space than advertised. The Plaintiff is asking for a full refund or, if a refund is refused, a 7.5 percent refund for him as well as all iPod owners in Quebec.

A complaint about Apple’s marketing method surrounding the battery life of its third-generation full-size iPod player resulted in a class-action lawsuit ruling that gave every affected customer a $50 credit for any Apple purchase, excluding iTunes Music Store tracks.

Apple faces three other lawsuits filed during the month of October alone, all three of which relate to its iPhone cellular handset. One suit claims that the terms of iPhone usage required by both Apple as well as AT&T are illegal, while another complaint alleges that Apple took steps to disable iPhones that were hacked for use with cellular service providers other than its exclusive partner — AT&T.

A third suit, which is environmentally based, charges that the iPhone contains harmful substances and that the device does not carry the appropriate warning labels to inform consumers of those dangers.

source: macnn.com

Parliant Corporation today announced PhoneValet 5.3, which provides playback of voicemail and call recordings on all iPods and iPhone products.“With PhoneValet, land-line visual voicemail is at your fingertips anywhere in the world,” said Kevin Ford, Parliant president. “We believe there’s no need to constantly call in to check messages. With PhoneValet, your messages find you!”

Each device has its own capabilities, and PhoneValet makes the best of each:

For iPhone: PhoneValet 5.3 instantly emails messages. Listening to them on
iPhone is a snap and you can even return calls with a simple click!

For iPhone and iPod Touch: you can access voice mails and recent calls
through a visual voicemail interface that works just like the iPhone’s
wireless voicemail application. This web application comes with PhoneValet
Anywhere, an add-on package that extends PhoneValet’s capabilities to
remote computers.

For iPhone and all iPods: review voice mail messages anywhere! Voice mail
and recorded conversations can be automatically loaded onto your iPod or
iPhone whenever you synchronize through iTunes.

PhoneValet Anywhere’s web pages are now optimized to substantially increase
speed on iPhone or iPod touch browsers, especially on the EDGE network.

Parliant’s multi-award winning PhoneValet Message Center turns a Mac into a
multi-line virtual call center. It features an automated attendant,
unlimited voice mail call tree, call blocking, recording, logging and
screening, automated dialing and Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
capabilities. Its patent pending technology does all this and more using
standard telephone lines — with no need for an expensive phone switch.
Standard telephone lines include traditional local phone lines, cable phone
lines and voice-over-internet (VoIP) services that allow users to connect a
standard telephone.

PhoneValet Message Center retails at $169.95 per line (including software
and hardware) from parliant.com, Apple and many retailers. PhoneValet
Anywhere, available at www.parliant.com is $59.95 per PhoneValet server.
PhoneValet 5.3 is a free upgrade for users of PhoneValet 5.x.

source: mactech.com

O’Reilly has released iPod: The Missing Manual, Sixth Edition. The 294 page book is written by J.D. Biersdorfer and David Pogue and costs US$19.99.

The sixth edition looks at everything in the latest iPod line, including the new iPod touch, the redesigned nano, iTunes 7, and more. It sports color graphics, tips, tutorials, and guidance on the most useful things your iPod can do.

Submissions are being taken for the “Macsimum Macworld San Francisco 2008 Coupon Book.” For details email Dennis at daseller@earthlink.net

source: macsimumnews.com