Social Media Consultant and Tech Geek at Heart

From the category archives:

Gadgets

It’s Here: the iPod Touch

September 5, 2007

Thanks, Apple, for listening to me. I’ll manage without the storage by trimming down some songs, which will be a difficult task, but my WiPod is here. Awesome.

In case you missed it, Apple’s highly anticipated iPod launch was today. Notable appearances included the new iPod Nano (complete with three games: Sudoku, Vortex, and a third unknown game), the iPod Touch or what I call the iPhone without the phone ($399 for 16GB, $299 for 8GB), the familiar iPod Classic ($299 for 80GB, $399 for 160GB!), and a reduced price on the iPhone: we’re talking $200 off to $399.

So, what do you say? Are you going to be buying one of these anytime soon?

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Dear Apple: Please Give Me the iPhone Without the Phone

July 22, 2007

Dear Apple,

In all this iPhone hype, many of your consumers seem to have forgotten about your beloved iPod. I haven’t, and I still keep my trusty Mac Buyer’s Guide handy to find out when a buying cycle ends or is about to begin.

I bought my first iPod, a 3rd generation device, in September of 2003. I still like it, but my music collection has grown and the battery life of this iPod is not as good as it used to be. I’d love to upgrade and take advantage of those features that have graced the presence of newer portable Apple products.

I saw my boss’s iPhone. I even played with it for a bit, but I was scared that I’d accidentally call someone. Despite this, the interface is totally awesome. You’ve made great strides since the 3rd generation iPod days.

Therefore, I write to ask of you, my friends, to consider building a 6th generation iPhone — only without the phone. I think the WiFi is hot, and I really don’t care about how it’s interfering with Duke University’s WiFi network (even though it really isn’t). I can still handle that.

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Dear High-Definition DVD Makers: Get a Clue from Sirius and XM and Merge

February 19, 2007

Not long ago, my husband and I finally caught up to latest and greatest entertainment trend: HDTV. It really is true that once you go HD, you never go back. Therefore, instead of being behind on high-definition movies, I found myself stumbling upon a nice HD-DVD player this past weekend. The player comes with King Kong, a smart move on Microsoft’s part to provide a high-quality movie with the kit to convince consumers like myself to go ahead and seek out the exciting technology that is known as HD-DVD.

King Kong was superb in HD. Wow. I decided that I would stock up on my Netflix account with some DVDs for later viewing… except, well, I came across a lot of these:

Blu-Ray and DVD Format only?

Where’s my HD-DVD format when I need it?

That’s when I did some searching and realized that there’s a huge Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war going on. Now, my clueless self (until now) is personally affected. Am I the only one? I doubt it.

Apparently, HD-DVD was doing well for awhile, but it looks like Blu-Ray is gaining momentum. Still, here’s what Google is telling me:HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Trends According to Google

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Should Universal be Entitled to Zune profits?

November 9, 2006

On November 14th, the Microsoft Zune, a wireless portable media player, will be available for sale. The hype in anticipation of the Zune has been pretty darn big, and apparently other companies (read: Universal, the world’s largest music company) are looking to cash in.

Microsoft announced yesterday that it would be giving over $1 per each Zune sold to Universal. That’s $1 per a piece of hardware that Universal had no involvement in producing. However, the agreement reached means that Universal will now be licensing its music in the Microsoft Zune store, which leaves the status of iTunes to be determined.

Microsoft’s agreement to pay Universal per Zune unit sets off a heat wave and puts a lot of pressure on Apple to do the same (Apple currently pays off a portion of royalties per iTunes sales and does not compensate anyone for the sales of its iPods). Universal has one year left of its licensing agreement with the iTunes store, and who knows what kinds of negotiations will be made once the Zune precedence is set. Apple is Microsoft’s biggest competitor in the portable music market, so Microsoft played the pretty devious card when agreeing to this deal.

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