Nicest of the Damned

Why Apple isn't shaking over the Wal-Mart MP3 announcement

www.fool.com | Before You Bite Into That Apple ...

Over at The Motley Fool, Rick Aristotle Munarriz notes that Wal-Mart is looking to bolster its online music offerings by offering DRM-free MP3s, and for $.94, where Apple's higher-quality MP3 files are $1.29. Munarriz thinks this may finally be the chink in Apple's iPod/iTunes armor that pundits have predicted pretty much since the iPod arrived in 2001.

Unfortunately, according to Kirk Biglione over at MediaLoper.com, the Wal-Mart Music Store is an even more bewildering mess of dark alleys than their brick-and-mortar locations. He spent two hours trying to download a single Elvis Costello MP3, having to upgrade his Windows Media DRM and the Wal-Mart software itself in the process, and being rejected when he tried to connect via a Macintosh or even through Firefox for Windows. Using IE under Windows, he eventually was able to buy a song file.

So, the Wal-Mart store isn't much for now, but Munarriz is absolutely right about one thing -- the days of a monolithic iTunes Music Store are probably coming to a close. The future of music retail looks a lot like its past: There will be dozens of different outlets for music. Where once you could buy 45-rpm singles at the drugstore (for 99¢!), department stores, and music retailers, in the future, you'll be able to buy singles through online retailers, the artist's home page, and through listening stations in brick-and-mortar retailers.

Where Munarriz misses the boat is in suggesting a diversification in music retail is a major hit for Apple:

iPod users have gone through 3 billion downloads on iTunes because iTunes is pretty much the only show in town for iPod-ready downloads. Most of the other digital-music merchants sell tunes in the WMA format, which works on more conventional MP3 players but cannot penetrate the protected iPod fortress.

An MP3 file is universal. It will work on any and all players, the same way a ripped physical CD would. And if a record label makes its tunes available as standalone MP3 files -- the way EMI has for Wal-Mart, Apple, and eventually Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) -- it doesn't matter where you get the track. As more studios begin to back the unshackled MP3 format and more Web retailers begin to sell them, the line will also blur as to who makes your digital-music player, if audio is your bag.

I see estimates of Apple's take per song sold as low as 10¢ and as high as 35¢ (that one ignores distribution costs). If you take the highest possible estimate, the one that ignores Apple's server, bandwidth, and marketing costs, the iTunes store has made Apple a little over $1 billion since it opened in April 2003, or around $250 million/year.

iPod hardware sales continue to grow at more than 20% year over year. Apple sold more than 9.8 million iPods last quarter (more than 10 million if you include iPhones), for sales revenue of $1.57 billion (excluding the iPhone). Last quarter alone. Meanwhile, woot.com is trying to unload overstocked Zunes for $149.99 while the positively archaic 5.5-generation iPod just keeps selling, with, I'll wager, major new iPods arriving before Christmas.

So who's going to be selling the hardware that plays all those unlocked MP3s? For the forseeable future, it's still going to be Apple. The only possible market or technological derail I could see for Apple would be if a transition to video players happens quickly and Apple blows it -- even the people I know with the video iPods don't think of them as great video players. Even so, I don't know anybody who has given up their less-than-ideal iPod in favor of a more capable video player.

Motley Fool-style disclaimer: My wife and I both own Apple stock.

Frank's favorite podcasts

So the new job comes with a new, longer commute, and I'm spending an hour a day in the car. With local Atlanta radio only getting worse, the iPod has been a tremendous relief, and I find myself listening to mostly podcasts, and comparatively little music.

My favorite, linked above, is KCRW's Martini Shot, by Hollywood writer and producer Rob Long. This week's edition, “Writing for Free,” is especially entertaining, and touches on blogs, insulting writers, a new twist on the accounting game I've heard described as “Find the Hat,” and the online home of Ken Levine.

Another favorite has been the Penn Radio Show, an hourlong show by Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) and Michael Goudeau. Unfortunately, while loading last week's shows onto my iPod, I discovered they're pining for the fjords just when they got Eric Idle committed to an interview.

So, I've been shopping for new favorites, and can heartily recommend Leo Laporte's slate of podcasts, including This Week in Tech and MacBreak Weekly, whose latest edition had me zeroed in: Battlezone! The IIfx! HyperCard! Poopr!

Also unlikely to survive the day they get downloaded are NPR's This American Life and Wait Wait … Don't Tell Me!, and HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.

I've been studying Cocoa a little bit, and so have also enjoyed Late Night Cocoa, by Steve Scott, a Windows developer stepping into the light, and finding his way partly by talking with experienced Mac developers about their areas of Cocoa expertise.

Does anybody have any other suggestions I ought to be checking out?

iPhone 4+ years in the making?

Nicest of the Damned | isync + ical + ichat + inkwell = iphone?

I'm not usually one to self-link, but I'm getting some Google hits on the short post linked above from August 2002. It references a John Markoff story, now lost to the New York Times TimesSelect product, but the abstract is pretty prescient.

Remember, this is from August 19, 2002:

Apple Computer reportedly weighs introduction of hand-held device that would combine elements of cellphone and Palm-like personal digital assistant; forthcoming Macintosh OS X, Version 10.2, is being marketed as improvement for desktop computer users, but it has features that make more sense in hand-held device than desktop; move would play into Apple's so-called digital hub strategy, in which Macintosh desktop computer is center of web of peripheral devices of Steven P Jobs, Apple chief executive...

By the way, my very next post, later that day, was on a cool new RSS aggregator, called NetNewsWire, then in version 1.0b13.

Now we know what all those patents were about

We've got 6 months to chew on Apple's new iPhone, and there's still quite a bit that's unknown: How Cingular will bill for data, the battery's standby life, and about 100 different things about the phone software. Here's a couple quick nuggets:

•I suspect the low contrast, no-container interface (look at the Safari screen shot image here for an example: The forward and back arrows sit directly in the navbar, without a containing rectangle, like Safari today) will appear on the Mac, maybe as soon as Leopard.

• Nobody seems to have any details about the phone running “OS X.” You can bet every Mac developer is working any available angle to find out more. I've seen one report that says it's a closed ecosystem and Apple's not even naming the processor (Update: make that two reports). Even if it is “OS X,” it's not OS X as we think of it -- you wouldn't be able to go buy FileMaker and run it on the phone. It's possible there's a super-secret version of Interface Builder and a compiler for the iPhone architecture running around in Cupertino, and Mac developers will have to redesign in the new IB and recompile for the new architecture. It will be really interesting to see how the “desktop class iPhoto, iTunes, and Safari” differ from the real thing. It may just be that, because Apple defines OS X, this phone runs OS X by definition, and the applications on the box are all it has or ever will have. If Microsoft can label every OS they sell as Windows, Apple can have three different OS X's (OS X, Server, and iPhone).

• When Jobs said the company was releasing 3 new devices, in one package, he really said a mouthful. The iPhone represents the most profitable, but by no means the only, combination of the widescreen, the touch pad, the phone, the iPod, and OS X Micro. Drop the phone, and you've got the widescreen video iPod most folks were expecting today. Drop the phone, add a keyboard, and you've got the Mac equivalent of a Pocket PC, only much cooler: it could include the multitouch interface and other touch screen goodness.

• I suspect the reason this was released as a single product, instead of a product line, is the continued success and profitability of the iPod. There are only two price points ($399, $449) between the current video iPod and the low-end iPhone, so to introduce an iPod Widescreen at $449, by dropping the radios from the iPhone, would cannibalize iPhone wireless revenue (and I'm sure Apple gets a taste of that), when Apple is confident they'll continue to sell as many video iPods and as many iPhones as they can turn out. If sales don't stack up, we'll see new combinations of the iPhone package sooner than otherwise.

Personally, I find the price high for a phone, and have never liked Cingular's data pricing. On the other hand, my previous phone lust object was the Nokia E61, which is available unlocked for between $375 and $450. Given the way the iPhone makes previous phones look like they have a crank, that may be a fair premium.

There are almost 2,000 (exactly 1984 at the moment, appropriately enough) photos tagged iPhone at Flickr tonight.

This just in: The iPod's doomed

Commentary: Requiem for the iPod - MarketWatch

I thought the Apple bashers on the stock page had moved on to other companies, but it looks like they're still around. In this essay from Friday, Robert Cyran suggests Apple needs to let “songs stored on its iTunes software” (whatever that means) be played on “other gadgets. A similar strategy nearly killed off the company a decade ago.”

He admits that the company's soup-to-nuts iPod division, which sells the players, downloadable music, and accessories, has been a success. So far.

But watch out, Apple: “Microsoft's newly released 'Zune' player may become a credible rival.” And if not the Zune, then some future phone with better music capabilities “may one day crush the iPod.” And in 10 years, we may be listening to our music through a stud piercing our tongue. (Okay, I made that one up.)

Aaaaarrrrggghhh. First off, holding the Zune up as a better business model because you want Apple's songs to play on more players is hilarious. The Zune is going to require not only people with iPods, but people with previous-gen Microsoft players (the PlaysForSure initiative), to buy their music again, or re-rip their CDs. Microsoft is considering a scheme to provide purchasers with all the music they had when they bought their Zune, but that means double libraries, and catalog issues.

Secondly, and more importantly, what makes Apple such a juggernaut in this space is that they develop the software that bridges the store and the players. If iPod market penetration were ever to dip to alarming levels, Apple could easily release an updated iTunes that supported players from other companies.

Let's say the Zune outsells the iPod 8-to-1 this Christmas season, an extremely unlikely scenario. Apple could turn around and license their DRM to the PlaysForSure contingent. If you had one of their players, you would be one firmware update and one iTunes upgrade away from sharing purchased music between your iPod and your SanDisk or Creative player.

If you're not interested in purchased music, I bet this already works. I know that my old Creative Rio 500 showed as a source in iTunes the last time I tried (iTunes 5?). I'll be curious to see if Microsoft's new software for the Zune can mount the iPod.

Who'll buy a Zune?

Gizmodo | Exclusive Microsoft Zune Details

So details are beginning to leak about Microsoft's next iPod competitor, the Zune.

To recap for those who aren't following closely, Microsoft has decided to ditch its many hardware partners who have been part of the PlaysForSure initiative, and to recreate much of what has worked for the iPod. Instead of competing hardware providers offering a confusing mix of players, the Zune will be Microsoft-branded, allowing Redmond to keep control of the whole user experience, in the same way Apple does with the iPod.

PlaysForSure (which is, at best, on life support now) also allowed a plethora of online music stores, as Microsoft hoped to leverage brands familiar and credible to a variety of consumers, including MTV's URGE, Napster, and Wal-Mart. The Zune will apparently debut a monolithic Microsoft music store, much like the iTunes Music Store.

The single thing that I get the least is that the Zune is supposed to be Microsoft's "iPod killer for Christmas 2006", but it's apparently slated for release in mid-November.

Contrast that with the original iPod, which was released in October 2001, and was still widely considered a mistake long after the 2001 Christmas season had come and gone. Only wide-eyed Apple fanboys (like me) and people who had suffered through the hackish, inferior flash-based systems that came before (like me) were buying iPods for Christmas 2001 (and yes, I remember there were other hard drive players before the iPod).

So enter the Zune. There aren't really a ton of Microsoft fanboys out there, since Microsoft's hardware offerings are currently limited to Xbox, keyboards and mice. The Zune that's emerging from leaked stories around the net doesn't appear to offer any generational leap features when stacked up against a video iPod or nano. It's got a beefier processor than the current iPod video, but the next-gen iPod is expected Any Time Now.

There are hints of a Zune that interfaces with your Xbox, but those are out somewhere in the gray murky future. As a PSP fighter, leveraging Xbox titles, letting me transfer saved game state and highlight films to other Xboxes or the internet, you've got something new and interesting, but for now it's roughly on par with the iPod for features. WiFi may or may not ship with the first-gen box; there's a menu item for it in the prototypes.

For now, it appears the killer app at launch will be FM transmission and reception, so that you could listen to my Zune's music from your Zune, encouraging social sharing (but not sharing like file sharing, since you couldn't then take my music with you). They'll also include content at purchase, including EMI music videos.

From a marketing perspective, Microsoft faces a difficult task: They've got to simultaneously launch a brand, a device, and an online service, and they've got to do it between mid-November and Christmas, or concede another holiday season in which the iPod will get even more entrenched with consumers. From a decade-long perspective, it could happen, but it's not a threat to iPod hegemony for Christmas 2006.

My prediction: This thing won't sell well until it can move beyond the iPod.

Some Zune blogs:

Zuneluv | Microsoft Zune and Podcasting

Notes that there's been no discussion of support for podcasting in the Zune details released so far, and that Microsoft is likely to include content at purchase.

Zune Insider Blog

iPod photo 40-gig: A deal at Amazon

I haven't been able to find a replacement drive for my 5-gig iPod, so I haven't been able to update songs for a couple of months.

I was considering an iPod shuffle, which would mean I would manage my music on one computer or another instead of on the iPod. Then Apple introduced the new-generation iPod photos, and the 30-gig for $349 looked like an interesting possibility: only $50 more than the no-color, shorter battery life, 20-gig iPod. The new 60-gig has a drive as big as my laptop, but $450....

Then I noticed that the discontinued 40-gig iPod photo is still available, currently priced about $10 more than the 30-gig "new" model. And it gets better: The 40-gig model still comes with the special AV dock, USB and FireWire cables, and a case.

The new 30-gig model does not include accessories; only a USB 2 cable is included. Neither does the $100 more expensive 60-gig, although the old old 60-gig model is available for essentially the same price as the new, accessory-poor, model.

Don't know how long they'll be available, but if you're considering an iPod photo, and you'll need some of the accessories, this is definitely the way to go.

Dawn of a new Apple

So Steve Jobs has finished the big keynote at Macworld '05, and the Apple website has been updated with the new products he announced. If you haven't been following along, feel free to go take a look.

Wow. This is the beginning of a whole new era for Apple. No longer do I have to grit my teeth and say, "Well, you could buy a white-box PC," when somebody says they only want to spend $500 on their new computer.

This is beginning to smell like a no-excuses Apple. We only have five percent of the market? What the hell are we going to do about it? Asked and answered. We're dominating the hard drive music player market, but people are still buying smaller and cheaper flash players? What the hell are we going to do about it? Asked and answered.

It's great to see Apple leveraging their superior product design skills to bring out some low-end products. As of today, you can actually take home a useful piece of Apple hardware for $99. The iPod shuffle looks like exactly what I was talking about in December, the iPod cheapy tiny sport. My only problem is that it doesn't have FireWire support, so it would/will be very slow with Sophie's TiBook (which is still USB 1.1, of course).

As for the Mac mini, that's every bit as nice as the G4 iMac I'm writing this on, for $599. The $499 model will probably do very nicely as the replacement for my home web server, and somebody on my tech team pointed out almost immediately that the new mini is essentially the same size as the mini PC we're planning to deploy to field locations where space is tight.

I expect both of these new products to sell like crazy.

Panning the flash (iPod)

I'm a big fan of John Gruber's Daring Fireball. He's a knowledgeable Mac user, a terrific writer, and really gets what makes the Mac insanely great. I proudly wear my Daring Fireball t-shirt.

John was also among the first pundits to appreciate the attraction of the iPod mini, which has, of course, been a huge success.

Last week, John ran a post debunking rumors of a flash-based iPod, whose intended appeal he says he just can't understand.

Gruber complains that people advocating a flash iPod are proceeding from the mistaken impression that there are two kinds of music players, flash and hard-drive. Both, he argues, are “implementation details,” unimportant next to essentials like the user interface.

That much I agree with, but Gruber's argument against two kinds of music players essentially boils down to an argument for only one kind of music player: He argues that only the hard drive player has what it takes. There I disagree: different component choices lead to a range of different products, just as my 12-inch PowerBook and G5 are both Macs, but radically different.

Part of the brilliance of the iPod is the way it overcomes compromises that crippled previous hard drive players. The scrollwheel/clickwheel took what had been 5 or 6 different controls and combined them into one intuitive package. Another innovation: the iPod doesn't actually play your music off the hard drive; it would exhaust your battery in no time and skip like crazy, so Apple periodically spins up the drive, grabs a bunch of music, and loads it onto ... some flash memory, from which your music is played.

John looks at three different angles he think Apple could take with a flash iPod: “iPod cheapy,” “iPod tiny,” and “iPod sport.” None of them warrant a second look, he says.

Cheapy: John says Apple can work their way down in price point by dropping prices on the mini and offering larger capacity drives at the current price point. But Apple's in an enviable position with both lines of iPod, selling all they can make. There's really no reason to lower prices on either line until demand at the current prices abates, so Apple has maintained (even raised) their price points over three years and kept the value up by raising capacity on iPod drives. Why sell a $199 iPod mini with a 2-gig drive when there's someone in line waiting for a 4-gig mini at $249?

On the other hand, Apple has to know there are millions of sales out there for the right player at the right capacity at a lower price. And most people would pay more for an iPod-brand player than your generic Coby. The Mac Observer posted some music player market share data last month showing that sales of hard drive and flash-based players are both growing, but that flash players are growing faster, with no single manufacturer taking more than 20 percent of that market. Smells like an opportunity. By introducing a flash player as a third product line, Apple can hold the line on pricing and margins on the existing models while opening up a new market, and introduce Apple products to a wider variety of people than ever before.

Also note that retail prices for flash (so presumably wholesale prices) appear to be dropping faster than prices for small hard drives, probably because there are many other consumer uses for flash memory (cameras, phones, PDAs) and very few for tiny hard drives.

Tiny: John says there's no utility to a player smaller than an iPod mini: the screen wouldn't show enough text, and the clickwheel is the perfect control mechanism. The rumored flash iPod over at MacMind takes an interesting approach here: no display at all and a minimal clickwheel.

I can actually remember the bad old days of a 64-meg Rio 500 (second from left, above), and what I remember most is how often I had the damn thing hooked up to my computer, since I had to swap music onto it pretty frequently, and it was USB 1.1, so it took a long time to load (small AND slow -- such a deal!). This design makes that an advantage: FireWire takes care of the download speeds, and iTunes can dynamically handle the rest, with smart playlists. Why not manage your music on your computer's big screen, and only use the player to listen? Bang -- there's the cost of a display saved, and the price point lowered.

Another advantage is that you don't have to power the screen, so you can have a smaller, lighter battery or longer battery life, and a smaller package. Add in the power and form-factor savings of ditching the hard drive, and you can build a seriously tiny package. Sony used to sell an MP3 player in a pen.

And perhaps there's an optional display, letting Apple tout the low entry price, but selling most of them with the optional display at a higher price.

But nobody has built an MP3 player without a screen, I've seen people argue. That's sort of true, but Apple partner Audible.com worked with IDEO to build an award-winning audiobook player, based on flash memory, that worked great without a screen (at right and above, far left), and had an FM transmitter (a la iTrip) on board, to boot. The Audible MobilePlayer used audio cues for user feedback, and held hours of spoken-word content in its 4 megabytes (!) of storage, circa 1998. Flash memory was pretty expensive then.

Sport: I honestly don't get John's argument here:

One other difference between flash-memory and hard-drive based players is that because it’s a solid state technology (i.e. no moving parts), flash-memory players are skip resistant and less prone to break if dropped. Thus, a flash-memory iPod might conceivably be targeted as a workout companion. Lower weight would also be a plus in this market. But if this is the case, I see even less reason to expect that such models would cost less than existing models.

He seems to admit the flash player has advantages here, but can't see a reason to charge less for it just because you can manufacture it for less, since this isn't the “iPod cheapy.”

The shortsighted thing about Gruber's post is that he's thinking one-dimensionally times three: either cheaper, or smaller, or more rugged. Any flash iPod will improve in all three dimensions: it will be the “iPod cheapy tiny sport,” not just one of the above.

A flash iPod that was $99, smaller, and tougher than the existing models would be a great gift for 'tweens and teens, a great workout companion (where the iPod classic is a little bulky), and priced for impulse buyers.

Every time Apple has launched a new model of iPod, they've been able to hit a price point at or below retail for the storage itself. The 5-gig drive in the original iPod was about $400 when the iPod was introduced at $400; the Microdrive in the iPod mini was $300 and up when the mini was introduced at $249. Volume wholesale prices mean Apple can build in a profit margin and the other components for less than the difference between wholesale and retail.

On a less expensive player, there's less money in the markup on the storage, so an iPod flash might have more invested in other components than in the memory, but I doubt it. Flash cards at 1 gigabyte are around $90, with 256 meg cards in the $30 range -- at retail. If the MacMind rumor plays out, and Apple sells a 256-meg player at $99, they should be able to maintain very healthy profit margins on the new players.

Will they cannibalize sales of other iPods? Maybe a little, but that's all the more reason for Apple to reinforce how useful the current iPods are for a million things other than playing music, like photos. It might also explain why the flash iPods haven't been released, despite earlier rumors that they would be available for Christmas: Apple may have a specific level of demand for current models, or a specific wholesale price for “iPod classic” components, that would trigger the flash player's introduction.

Self-healing iPod?

I guess the Christmas miracle came early this year. I plugged my iPod in to my PowerBook last night to get it charged up, fully expecting to have to cycle through the disk check and disk check failure I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, and everything is back to normal. That is, I can see the iPod in iTunes and on my desktop, and update songs or other contents.

I haven't hit any of the songs that were giving me problems, but I did have to reset it earlier today, so I don't think everything's quite right with it.

Update: It's paused mid-song a couple of times, and I've had to reset it 2 or 3 of those today.

iPod disk drama

So my iPod has been stuttering a bit lately. In at least two instances, it has started on a song, and then stopped. I could advance to the next song, but it didn't want to fast forward in the current song.

My internal troubleshooter said, "smells like a drive problem," and I kept listening.

Today, I went to plug the iPod into the PowerBook to update my music, and didn't like the result:

The progress bar made it to around 90 percent, before giving up and displaying:

Bad news.

The good news is that the iPod continues to work as well as it had been, but I can't upload new music or use the hard drive until the drive checks out, which it doesn't look like it will.

My iPod is a 1st-gen, built 3 years ago, and it's taken way more than its share of hard knocks.

Fortunately, others before me have wanted extra capacity or needed to swap drives, and there are some resources around the web:

Over at Macworld, Chris Breen shares his experience upgrading a 1st-gen iPod to 15 gigs. Key takeaway: The 1st-gen models require a single-platter drive, as in the lower-capacity model in each generation, so there should be 5-gig, 10-gig, 15-gig, and 20-gig drives that will work, so long as they're 5 mm thick (the 2-platter models are 8 mm). There's nothing special about the drives; the iPod firmware updater apparently installs the proper firmware on whatever drive you attach (iPodMods.com disagrees, claiming that 1st-gen iPods are stuck at 5 gigs).

Surprisingly few online retailers offer the raw drives: ComputerHQ.com carries the 20-gig 5 mm model only for about $150, and a comparison shopping site called AimLower.com lists a few vendors, with prices as low as $125. PDASMart.com offers 5-gig and 10-gig drives only, with 10-gig drives going for $140.

So I'm pondering whether to move up to the iPod Photo, fix the 1st-gen (which has served my needs quite ably), or both (and hand the old iPod down to my daughter). If I do the drive upgrade, I'll document it here.

Express checks in for hotel WiFi

I bought an Apple Airport Express today, when I saw they were in stock at the local computer store (probably influenced by one of our developers, who has been pestering the Apple Store for weeks, and hearing that they're not available yet). I am on the road today, and I knew I would be spending two nights at a hotel with high-speed broadband, so I thought I would get a good chance to try it out.

If you haven't seen the Airport Express, it's a tiny Airport Base Station, MINUS the dial-out and antenna, but PLUS a stereo-out jack (one jack that can handle analog or digital out). Here's what I had to do to use it:

1. Open box
2. Plug in the power
3. Plug in the ethernet
4. Join the network that shows up

Since I'm on a hotel network with the "Accept our terms" page, I popped up a browser, agreed to the terms, and started downloading several hundred bounced spams (some spammer or another has discovered a domain I administer, and is forging spam from it).

Long term, I think it will spend its time in my travel bag for use in a variety of remote sites, including my parents' house, in hotel rooms, and possibly at client sites. It also supports WDS, where one base station extends a network provided by another. When I get home, I'll try WDS with my Buffalo base station; so far I've only seen one report confirming that it worked with (I think) a D-Link base station. Update: It was a Linksys 54g, but some gymnastics were involved.

I hooked up my travel speakers to the audio-out, went to iTunes, and was briefly baffled: The speakers don't show up in the list of devices at the left of the iTunes window, but in a pop-up menu at the bottom. Switch from "Computer" to "Base Station 0xb38ag" (not its real address), hit play, and the music is coming out of the speakers across the room.

Connecting from my Tungsten C was totally uneventful as well. Everything works exactly as you would expect. If you had adjoining rooms in a hotel, you could share a single wired connection very easily with the Express, say if the hotel charged for internet access, or you wanted to use Rendezvous between rooms. I could also see using it in a corporate suite or at a trade show.

I haven't tried the print server capabilities, but they're on-board: The Express has a USB port with directions on hosting printer sharing out to the wireless network.

One small surprise: The Airport Express closely resembles the power adapter that Apple uses for the PowerBook, down to the piece with two wall prongs that slides off, and that I immediately replaced (on my PowerBook, that is) with the longer extension cord provided. With the Express, there's no extension cord in the box, so you have to plug the Express directly into the socket. Apple sells a Stereo Connection Kit that includes that extension cord, plus two sets of Monster-brand stereo cables (TOSLINK and RCA).

Amazon has a great price on the Express right now, and as always, if you get one by following the link below, I'll get a kickback:

2 iPods + 2 iTunes - iServe = frustration

I have defended Apple's FairPlay DRM in the past, partly because it appears to emphasize fair use, allowing multiple burns of a playlist to CD, and letting you share your music to 5 computers across the network, and an "unlimited number of iPods."

My perspective has changed a bit. Christy's iPod mini, ordered in late April, well in advance of her birthday and Mother's Day, finally arrived in time for back to school.

So here's the setup: I have my PowerBook, with much of our CD library and all the iTunes Music Store purchased music. Christy has an iMac with a different set of tracks from our CD library and no iTMS songs. Christy has a 4-gig iPod mini, and I have a 1st-generation 5-gig iPod.

Here's what I expected: I thought that by virtue of having FairPlay-authorized iPods attached to FairPlay-authorized computers, iTunes would manage things, and Christy and I would be able to shuttle music from either computer to either iPod.

That is, in fact, NOT the case. Given Apple's provided software, the iPod can't pull music across the network, and you can't set up an iPod to pull 3 playlists from computer A, then hook it up to pull 2 more playlists from computer B. If I want to put purchased songs on Christy's mini, I have to populate it only with songs from my PowerBook.

Apparently, Apple assumes that every family will have a central computer that holds all your music, and every iPod user will go to it to sync their iPod. Hasn't Apple heard that people carry these “laptop” thingies nowadays? I don't want to leave my purchased tracks at home when I go out of town, although I suppose I could bear it if they're all on the iPod. The only way I could see the central computer approach working is if Apple shipped an iServe, with built-in iTunes synchronization (not just Rendezvous, er, OpenTalk sharing, but full synchronization).

One solution I may actually try is to cross-synch our iPods, with Christy's iPod featuring songs that are on both computers and songs that are only on my computer, and my iPod featuring songs common to both computers and songs that are only on her computer. That way, between the computer and the iPod, we would each have nearly a full set. Still hardly an ideal solution.

The longer-term solution is likely one of the million iPod manager programs out there, so I guess I'll start messing around with them, and I guess I'll have to check out Hymn and DeDRMS. It just seems really bizarre that I've bought into Apple's system from end to end, but it doesn't work like it should. I welcome correction, if I've overlooked some setting or shortcut, and I welcome pointers to any of the iTunes/iPod tools that people have used in a similar situation. This strikes me as profoundly contrary to true Apple-ness, and to the ideal of "personal" computers.

Update 8/7: This is actually easy, but completely separate from iTunes itself. Apple has a useful how-to, and it's as simple as copying the files over to a computer that's already authorized. My mistake was expecting it to all work from within iTunes.

Inside the iPod mini

iPoding.com | iPod mini Dissection

iPoding.com offers a look at the new iPod mini in pieces, including the tiny, tiny 4-gig MicroDrive from Hitachi (formerly IBM).

One of the developers here bought one Friday night, and is pleased so far. It’s certainly a nice little package, and has the same sort of heft as the original iPod, suggesting that This is a Quality Product.

The buttons aren’t backlit (the display still is). One factor I haven’t seen anyone talk about is the display size: It forces the text to be pretty small, which might be a factor for some buyers.

Why I may be in the market for an iPod mini

I own a Rio 500 (and there's a perfect link for 5 Years Ago in Wired: “It took about 27 minutes to encode 24 songs at the default rate of 128 kbps. But for some reason it missed most of one track.”). Christy has started using it for workouts, but she's gotten to the point where she doesn’t like updating it, since it’s a slow process, and the player doesn’t hold much music.

That got me to thinking. Every song she’s interested in would easily fit in the new iPod mini, with space left over. Once her machine is running OS X, she could share my purchased music from the iTunes Music Store. And she would probably prefer it to the bigger, blander, white iPod.

Of course, I could just as sensibly swap her my 1st-generation 5-gig iPod, and get a bigger iPod for myself, but that would be like buying her a new bicycle that’s — hey! just my size. Unfortunately, the minis aren’t shipping in time for Valentine’s Day.

One of the guys at work is eyeing the iPod mini, as well; again, it’s more than big enough for his whole collection, and he thinks it would be less of a bother when he runs with it.

Hype and backlash on the iPod mini

As expected, a smaller, color anodized iPod at a smaller price. Unexpectedly, the price was only $50 less than the previous 10-gig model, now expanded to 15 gigs. Some swooned, some seethed.

There still seems to be some confusion over the technology at work in the mini. It's the IBM Microdrive, now owned by Hitachi, which bought out IBM's hard drive business. Steve's Digicams did a good story on the 4-gig version in September 2003. I've seen a few people online suggesting that the player is flash-based, but the specs are clear. Confirmation is available at News.com, as well.

Over at Daring Fireball, John Gruber opines: "The whole point of the iPod Mini isn’t that it’s cheaper. It’s that it’s smaller. The initial consensus seems to be that it’s too expensive — but that was also the initial consensus for the original iPod."

Notable backlash:

What Do I Know: "Apple had a golden opportunity at this MacWorld to release an iPod 'for the masses' — the ones unwilling to pony up more than $200 for a music player, but are very interested in using the iTunes Music Store. For me, they blew it. "

I was psyched by the possibility of a $100 iPod, just like everybody, but I wondered about the business model. I wondered even more after seeing the Stevenote today. Apple has sold 2 million iPods in 2 years, but the sales curve has been climbing steeply since the introduction of Windows support on the iPod and the iTunes Music Store. More than a third of all iPods sold (730,000) were sold in December 2003 alone.

And that's the case for a product that you could argue has had only 1 price adjustment in a 2-year lifespan, and that was an increase when the 10-gig model was released at $499. Since they introduced the third iPod, it's been $299, $399, $499. Sure, the capacity has increased 8-fold, but the entry point has never dropped significantly below $300, even though Apple's drive prices must be dropping like crazy, due to their purchase volume and improvements in drive manufacturing and technology.

So why not take over the whole industry, by pricing iPods with the smallest margins possible? Because that increasing sales curve means demand is still very high for the classic iPod, and the last thing Apple wants is to give up $100 million a quarter in revenue because they've priced the iPod mini too low.

Apple will be tracking sales extremely closely on the mini, and there are two possible scenarios: It will sell well, or it won't. If it sells well, Apple priced it just right. If there are even two weeks of soft sales, Apple can pounce in a couple of different ways. First, they could bring out a lower-end mini that maintains their margins, but holds 2 gigs, or 1 gig, or even 340 megs, the original size of the microdrives. Second, they could adjust their prices down on either the mini, or the full line of iPods, but right now, that just doesn't make sense. Finally, since the standard interface for the microdrive is through a CF slot, I have to think it would be simple for Apple to swap the microdrive for flash memory, if the market were to demand it.

Also, I visited a few sites to see what a raw microdrive goes for these days. When the iPod was originally introduced, there was some amazement that it sold for the same retail price as the Toshiba 1.8" drive mechanism itself. Apple has improved that a bit: at Amazon, the 4-gig Hitachi microdrive is for sale for $479.95! At CompUSA, the 1 gigabyte is $330.48. And on PriceWatch, searching for 'Hitachi microdrive' turns up 3 suppliers of the 2.2 gigabyte model, with prices ranging from $189 to $205.

Everything iPod

iPod Battery FAQ

There's a new Frequently Asked Questions page about iPod battery issues. It includes (down toward the end) a very handy resource guide with links to almost anything you would want to know about the iPod.

By the way, my first-generation 5-gigabyte iPod is now 2 years old, and the other day, I did some battery testing. After 5 hours, it was still showing half-charge. That suggests that the battery lifespan issues are not universal. since my iPod has seen pretty heavy use.

Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood: iRide

At its winter team camp in December, the Saturn men's team looked almost like an Apple commercial, with Phil Zajicek camped near a roaring fire, loading up his PowerBook with digital photos and displaying his iPod, while Tim Johnson fiddled with his own digital music library. (VeloNews via MyAppleMenu)

Even VeloNews, the journal of competitive cycling, has a story on the new iPods. Part of the article considers the safety implications of riding on public roads with earphones, which is illegal in some states.

I think it's unsafe to ride the roads (certainly here in Atlanta) with 'phones in, but I've enjoyed using the iPod on the trail, where it helps longer rides pass the time.

Gimme a break: iPod edition

Spymac.com :: iPod petition continues tradition

Some owners of earlier generation iPods are petitioning for Apple to support the Version 2.0 firmware on older iPods.

I’ve got to say, I don’t see much in the 2.0 firmware that’s worth a firmware upgrade. Yes, there are a couple of new games, on-the-fly playlists, and customizable menus. So what?

I’ve asked the folks at the Apple Store what they could say to talk me into the new iPod, and I can’t really see upgrading (don’t tell Christy). I love that it’s smaller, but that comes with a loss of battery life, down to around 7.5 hours.

Down in my most secret soul, I was hoping the new generation would support some photo or video features. I would love to be able to watch TV shows captured by my EyeTV on a device the size of the iPod. It wouldn’t even have to be color, although I doubt Apple would ever introduce a TV-like device that wasn’t.

The bigger drive capacity is somewhat attractive, but I usually only have about 2.5 gigs of songs on my 5-gig iPod, since I don’t put any songs rated less than 4 stars on the handheld.

If anything, I’m glad that Apple supported original iPod users for the AAC, iTunes Music Store, and reconfigured menus in Version 1.3.

Apple Music: Turning scofflaws into customers

I immediately downloaded iTunes, QuickTime 6.2, and iPod Software Update 1.3. I went straight to the store, and ... bought nothing.

I finally bit this morning, buying one track and two albums (here's how I'm linking your copy of iTunes directly to the store).

The yammering fanboys sniping at the service have a few good points: It would be nice if the service had broader selection, wider availability (both internationally and for Windows users), and zero DRM.

It seems to me, though, that Apple has scored a breakthrough, at least where I'm concerned: I don't see myself ever downloading a track I can get through the iTunes interface through a file-sharing service again. The DRM doesn't seem likely to get in my way, and the 99¢ price-point reminds me of buying 45-rpm singles. It doesn't seem too much to pay to carry a song everywhere.

One of the albums I bought was on my Amazon wishlist at $13.99, the other at $13.49, plus shipping. Seems like a no-brainer to make those purchases at $9.99 (plus sales tax). On the other hand, Blonde on Blonde is $8.99 on CD at Amazon, and only available by song (14 songs at 99¢ = $13.86) through iTunes.

Another point I haven't seen mentioned is what a powerfully executed example of web services the iTunes store is. It clearly is influenced by Watson, and really encourages serendipitous browsing (and would even more if it had some more obscure stuff).

iPod help

I'm occasionally having a strange problem with my iPod. I use it with as many as five different Macs. Two have 10.2.5, three have 9.2.2. Four have built-in FireWire, one (the Lombard PowerBook) has a PC Card that doesn't charge the iPod, but does read it.

When I hook the iPod up with either OS 9 Mac at home, I get prompted that the drive could not be recognized (Do you want to initialize it?). On the OS X machines, everything is fine, but here's the strange thing: On the OS 9 machine at work (a 400-mHz iMac DV like the one at home except for color), the drive mounts exactly as expected.

Strangest of all, it sometimes works with the TiBook, and sometimes doesn't.

Thoughts?

DIY iPod battery replacement

Ipod batteries for Apple Ipod PDAs. Replacement batteries from Laptops for Less.com

Apple's approach is that you have to replace the iPod if the battery fails. Now there's an aftermarket replacement, that includes installation instructions.

Seen at Macintouch.

Quick Tip

If you have an iPod, and you're using it with the cable it shipped with, do yourself a favor, and drop by the Apple Store for one of their new FireWire cables.

They're available in a half-meter length, and the cable section is much thinner (perhaps half as thick) and more flexible than the cable that shipped with my iPod.

The new cable takes up possibly one-fourth as much space in my bag.

Upgrading the iPod

So I've recently upgraded my iPod. Not by putting in a new hard drive, or swapping out the battery, or even splurging for the 20-gig model.

No, I upgraded my FireWire Satellite of Funk (and I wish Apple had named it that) by removing half the music on-board.

When I got the iPod, I immediately wanted to cram it with every song in the CD library, so I ripped CDs to iTunes, then uploaded the music. My preferred play mode is to shuffle through all tracks, but since the music got in there via an album, most of the tracks were ones I would just as soon skip.

I've gone back now and used the rating and smart playlist features that Apple added in iTunes 2, and now my iPod has less than 500 songs on it, but they're all songs I rated 4 or 5 stars, so I rarely use the skip button.

Samsung clones the iPod

MP3newswire.net | Samsung's First Jukebox MP3 Portable

Using the same 1.8-inch Toshiba drives, the Samsung Yepp-900 uses USB 2.0 rather than FireWire. It also includes an FM radio. They've only announced a 10-gig version at $399. Visually, the look is more iPaq than iPod, but, like the iPod, there's an LCD screen, and a largish scroll wheel.

Spotted at Gizmodo.

iPod goodies

I only have two accessories for my iPod. I thought I needed the first one immediately, and didn't know why I would need the second, but it turned out I had it all backwards.

My Jetta has a cassette player, so I use a generic cassette adapter that came with a Walkman or a CD player, which works great and sounds good. The minivan doesn't have a cassette player or a dash-accessible auxiliary input for the stereo, so there was no way to take advantage of the iPod there. The first iPod toy I bought was an Arkon SoundFeeder, which takes the sound from your headphone jack and broadcasts it on a weak FM signal so you can listen on your stereo.

I've done this before, with an Audible player, with pretty good results, although I generally used it with spoken-word content. There are 2 main problems with the iPod + SoundFeeder combination: spectrum availability and sound quality. In Atlanta, it's very hard to find a frequency that doesn't have at least a weak signal to interfere with the Arkon. On vacation near Sarasota, I was able to find some empty spectrum, and met up with the other problem : sound quality. Compared to the cassette adapter I'm most familiar with, quality with the SoundFeeder is flatter, sounding, well, like an FM radio broadcast. It's better than nothing, but I will probably look into setting up an auxiliary input.

The next toy I picked up was a car charger. I didn't get one right off the bat, thinking it would be as useful as a car charger for my cell phone, which I use very rarely. I was wrong -- this thing makes all the difference. I'm not as religious about charging the 'Pod as my phone, and the battery doesn't last as long, so occasionally, I go to listen to the music and get the lightning bolt. No more. Highly recommended.

iPod to BestBuy

MacCentral.com | Best Buy to carry the iPod at retail stores

More sales are always good, and I doubt anybody ships more product in Atlanta than Best Buy.

Apple rolls new iPod software

Apple - iPod - 1.2 Software Download

It includes support for iCal, which hasn't been released yet, for "Sound Check", which normalizes volumes across songs, and some new menus for browsing by genre and composer.

The biggest thing is probably support for Audible.com, which features a huge library of downloadable "books on tape" ("books on disk?") and a variety of timely news content, including NPR's Car Talk.

I actually have an Audible Player, from back when they thought they were going to sell the car and the gas -- I'll post about it another time.

iPod update

iPod works with PCs now! It will auto-sync with MusicMatch; available in late August in Windows versions (can't tell if it's just different software in the box).

As predicted, the iPod is available in a 20GB version at $499 in early August. The 10GB slides down to $399, and the 5 GB version survives at $299.

They'll now have calendar support and iTunes will now track what songs you've listened to on your iPod.

iPod warranty extended

Macintouch reports that Apple has extended the warranty on (at least some) iPods. A reader entered his serial number and purchase date, and found that his iPod, purchased in November, still is under warranty.

By the way, Think Secret reports that Apple will introduce a 20GB iPod Wednesday for $499, dropping the 5GB model, and dropping the price on the 10GB model to $399. As a stockholder, I hope they will also announce out-of-the-box Windows support. (I know about XPlay, but that doesn't introduce the heathens to Apple software design.)

I just checked my serial number at the iPod Service site, and after entering my serial number, I got:

According to our records, your iPod (5 GB) is still under warranty. Apple's limited warranty does not cover damage which is the result of an accident, abuse, misuse, or misapplication. If it is determined that your product has failed for one of these reasons, it will be either returned to you unrepaired, or you will be contacted with a quote to repair it out of warranty. If your warranty has been voided through accident, abuse, misuse, or misapplication you should acknowledge that below so that credit card information can be collected to avoid delays in repair.

If this is true, it's great news, as one of the knocks on the iPod when it was introduced was that it didn't seem especially rugged. It's a shame Apple always does these things secretly (see Airport Base Station, PowerBook 5300, AppleVision 1710AV display, Seagate hard drives in the original Mac II, etc., etc., etc.).