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With the Super Bowl approaching, hardcore football fans wanting to hear their favorite games from this season might be interested to know that the iTunes Music Store is now offering NFL games & highlights in the audiobooks section.
PC Magazine
The shuffle achieves its random-play design goal. It's also highly competent as a music player. It has dead-flat frequency response, less harmonic distortion, and most notably, better bass response than its bigger siblings. The older iPods, especially the Mini, have been rightfully criticized for being somewhat deficient in bass, and although the bigger players have flat frequency response, they have trouble sustaining big bass notes. Not so the shuffle; it drives its earbuds well and hard without resorting to artificial bass boost.
Editor's rating: 4 out of 5
Washington Post
Before two weeks ago, I would not have guessed that a 3 1/2-inch-long stick of white plastic that plays music could be much of a conversation piece. But then Apple introduced the iPod Shuffle, and it's been drawing oohs and aahs since.
Indy Star/USA Today
The iPod is knocking the car stereo business on its ear. Looking to capitalize on the digital music player's sales success over the holidays, auto electronics makers are rushing to develop plug-in adapters that let drivers pick tunes from their iPods, using the controls of their car stereos... Not only can iPod music sound better through expensive speakers, but safety is an issue, too. With adapters, drivers can use their car stereo controls to run their iPod instead of fiddling with the unit itself.
News.com
According to a posting on Apple's Web site, Pepsi plans to distribute up to 200 million free songs in a promotion that kicks off at the end of the month. As with an earlier promotion, codes good for one free music track will be found in one in three specially marked bottles of Pepsi products. When winners redeem a free song, they will also be entered in a drawing for a free silver iPod Mini.
Time.com
Surely you have questions about the new iPod Shuffle. In a world filled with flash-memory players, what makes it so special? Does a USB "thumb drive" MP3 player that doesn't even have an LCD screen actually count as a true iPod? Is this something worth buying or is it just a sly marketing move?
MacCentral
Apple announced that its iTunes Music Store has sold more than 250 million songs since first going online. The company said that users of the download service are now downloading 1.25 million songs per day -- an annual run-rate of about 500 million songs per year.
One of the more useful Smart Playlists I have is one that has the latest songs added to my iTunes library. That way when I update my iPod, I can listen to just the newest songs. Here's how you do it:
In iTunes, select File > New Smart Playlist. Select "Date Added" from the first popup menu and "is in the last" from the second menu. Then set the time period you want: the number of days', weeks' or months' worth of songs to include. For example, here's how you include the songs you've added in the past 7 days:
Now whenever you add songs to your iTunes library, they'll automatically appear in your new Smart Playlist. After the specified amount of time, the songs will automatically be removed from the playlist (but still remain in your library, of course).
This is also useful if you're sharing your iTunes library on a network: it makes it easy for people on the network who listen to your music to know what's new.
The top iPod and iTunes knowlege base support documents from Apple are now available on this site under the Tips section.
EngadgetIt took us a few days of harrassing Apple’s PR department, but we were finally able to answer one of the most burning questions of the past seven days: Is it “iPod shuffles” or “iPods shuffle?” Here’s a transcript of our conversation...
The iTunes Music Store has some great ways to find good music. A new addition to the store is iTunes Essentials: You can browse by artist, genre, or mood and you'll see tracks selected by iTunes experts. Each playlist is broken down into three sections -- the Basics, Next Steps, and Deep Cuts -- catering to different levels of expertise, passion or devotion.
For example (the following links require you have iTunes installed):
- Johnny Cash
- 80's College Rock
- Swingin' Martini Mix
engadget
Engadget has some detailed photos of the new iPod shuffle, from opening the box, instructions, the iPod shuffle itself (with some coins and keys to show scale), to iTunes' new autofill feature.
Amy Gahran
Lot of links and thoughts about podcasting (mentioned here before but in case you missed it, 'podcasting' is basically an audio weblog you download to your iPod). If you're interested in podcasting, what it is, and where it's going, take a look at Amy's entry.
Pre-order the 512MB or 1GB iPod shuffle from Amazon today! Get free shipping, and qualify for an Amazon gift certificate.
Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal
Apple rolled out ... a tiny $99 music player called the iPod Shuffle that Apple hopes will tempt millions of lower-budget music fans to join the iPod legions when it hits store shelves later this month.
The new iPod model, which looks like a white pack of chewing gum, holds just a fraction of the songs the larger iPods can store. And it doesn't have a screen to tell you what song is playing or to allow you to navigate to a particular track. But Apple is trying to make a virtue of those limitations by promoting the new player as a way to carry a frequently changed selection of tunes you know well and to play them in random, or "shuffle" mode -- hence the product's name.
I've been testing the new iPod Shuffle for a couple of days, and, in my tests, it fulfilled -- and even exceeded -- Apple's claims for convenience, battery life and song capacity. Sound quality is so good you can barely believe the music is coming from something so small.
Apple's iPod sports a simple, powerful but little used feature, called Notes. iPod's Notes lets you read text files on your iPod. Notes can also link to other Notes, as well as songs and images on your iPod.
A podSite is our name for a collection of text files, with links to other text files, and possibly sound files and image files stored, and accessible on an iPod. Think of it as a website for your iPod. Or a slice of the web, in your pocket.
Apple has released the iPod shuffle, pocket-sized 512MB or 1G iPods for $99 and $149, respectively.
MacWorld
Apple is offering 13 free songs to iTunes Music Store customers in a collection called the iTunes New Music Sampler Universal Motown Edition. Download them here (link requires iTunes, of course).
Engadget
At Macworld Griffin will introduce a new wireless remote control with transmitter units for both the iPod and the Mac itself. The AirClick iPod will come in [4th generation] and mini flavors, and will let you play, pause, and navigate through tracks as well as control the volume using a remote and a receiver that talk to each other over RF from up to 60 feet away.
engadget
Half of you are going to be stoked and half of you are going to be outraged to discover that George W. Bush is an iPod owner.
Forbes
Piper Jaffray said that despite a slew of new portable audio devices announced at the Consumer Electronics Show, the iPod from Apple Computer "is still in a position to dominate this market." ... Apple will likely unveil new products including a flash-memory-based iPod and an upgraded iPod mini at Macworld [this] week.
Smart Playlists are one of the coolest yet most underused features of iTunes. Part of the reason might be because people don't know what to have their Smart Playlist do.
I've mentioned Smart Playlists before, including a link to how you can set up a live music Smart Playlist. Here's another idea:
I like to have a playlist of similar bands, such as one with the Beatles and artists that are influenced by them (or sample their music). To do this I use put keywords in the comments field.
For artists in my iTunes library that I want to include in my new Smart Playlist, I select their tracks (using multiple selection to make things go faster) and select File > Get Info. Then, in the Comments field, I type the keyword "beatles".
Next I select File > New Smart Playlist. There I set it to match if Artist or Comment contains "Beatles", matching any of the conditions and keeping Live Updating checked (see screen below).
Now any artist that matches -- for me, that includes the Beatles, Elliot Smith, DJ Dangermouse's "Grey Album", Blur, and others -- will appear in my playlist. And since live updating was checked, any new track with "beatles" in the comments field will automatically be added to the playlist.
You don't have to just put band names in the comments field -- create your own Smart Playlists using descriptions ("angry," "party"), subgenres ("surf," "classicrock"), or anything you want. And you can put multiple keywords comments if you want a song to appear in more than one playlist (for example, "ramones 1970s fast").
Think Secret
Apple's long-rumored flash-based iPod will be introduced at Macworld Expo in 1GB and likely 2GB versions, Think Secret has confirmed. Various details regarding the device have emerged days before Apple CEO Steve Jobs is set to unveil the tiny music player during his keynote address.
Mac News
The iPod family is so far ahead of the competition in ease of use and elegant design that it's become a technology ecosystem, supporting a long list of companies that make all kinds of clever accessories. If you want to buy a digital music player this season, in other words, you shouldn't consider anything other than an iPod.
The London Free Press
The latest symbols of cool are accessories to beautify the musical gadgets, including coloured tube socks, Gucci holster cases and down-filled winter jackets outfitted with special iPod pockets.
"You've got all the designers in the world that are coming up with these accessories for the iPod. It's almost like the new cellphone." ... [T]he iPod -- with its telltale white cord -- has become a status symbol.
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Low prices on iPods, nanos, shuffles, and all the accessories you need!
Buy with confidence from Amazon.com |
