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?

[ It’s Here: the iPod Touch is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

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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.

I think you need to consider merging the best technologies from previous iPods and iPhones in your next generation iPod. Here’s what I’d love to see:

• Storage capacity increased to 100GB+
• WiFi
• Great battery life
• Solid and lightweight
• Black!
• Downloadable applications that synchronize with your computer

I guess we’re talking about a superb PDA MP3 player. I don’t think such products exist on the market today. I like the mockups I’ve sighted on the Internet, and I think you can take a few good design tips from these designers.

Now that is truly awesome.

I know you’re still working out fixes for the bugs related to the iPhone and you’re even considering releasing the second generation iPhone in two months’ time. Just don’t forget about those of us who don’t need a new mobile phone and still are loyal to your older products. You can really take the best of both worlds and put them together to make a solid device. I’d totally buy one.

[Necessary Update: This post was actually written on July 18th and scheduled for July 22nd. I had no idea that they'd be announcing a similar interface, but that rocks. ]

[ Dear Apple: Please Give Me the iPhone Without the Phone is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

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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:

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:

Putting both formats and their multiple spellings together, there’s an apparent equal amount of interest in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, or perhaps I’d emphasize a little more on HD-DVD (because Blu-Ray is largest in Japan, Sony’s headquarters, and there’s an obvious personal interest in that country). So why are my movies going to the company that built a shoddy video game console that everyone wants to get rid of and that people are trying to now sell at a major loss? (Furthermore, why does the Blu-Ray player seem to be selling worse than a 16-year-old video game console?)

Ah, yes, there’s more that meets the eye: Columbia Pictures, the American film and TV production company, is owned by Sony!

I certainly see the future bringing a player that plays both formats (for a ridiculous price when it is publicly available), but it would be nice if the formats would converge so that I don’t have to buy anything extra, and especially not a PS3 (which, to me, appears to be a failed console at this time). The Microsoft-Sony war for high-definition DVD is finally affecting the consumer. Therefore, I think my message deserves to be heard.

Dear Moviemakers,

If you are going to produce a high-definition version of your movie for public consumption, please consider producing the movie on both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats. However, if you really want to use one format, please consider HD-DVD. Furthermore, I really don’t care where your loyalties lie because the end user is the consumer and not Sony.

(Yes, a letter geared to my personal interests … though if I owned a Blu-Ray player, I’d be saying just the opposite.)

With Sirius merging with XM, I think that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray makers should take a clue.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what’s done or how it’s done, but now that I am personally feeling the brunt of this format war, I’m annoyed. I’m happy that the rest of the world has not invested in these players yet. But now that I have and people are continuing to follow suit, something needs to change.

[ Dear High-Definition DVD Makers: Get a Clue from Sirius and XM and Merge is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

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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.

Still, while iPods and Zunes and Zens and other portable MP3 devices might be where the majority of the world’s MP3s are stored, what about car MP3 players, or a PC, or an MP3 boombox — should Universal be cutting deals with the manufacturers of these products to take a cut of their sales — even if the individual never stores any media from Universal on their devices?

I don’t think so.

Do people really think that it is unrealistic to assume that Universal music is going to be installed on every media player owned by every individual? I hate to say it, but they are wrong.

My father owns a ShasPod. This nifty little 20GB iPod has absolutely no music whatsoever on it. The ShasPod contains a daily shiur, or lesson, on the Talmud. The iPod in this case is being used as an electronic audio book.

If there’s a market for ShasPods, there is a market for other ‘pods too that serve a similar purpose. This might be a small portion of the entire market, but there still is a market for this kind of portable media player usage.

Therefore, I personally think that Universal does not deserve a penny, so hopefully Apple will be able to withstand the pressure of the market shift and hold its ground. (After all, I’d still buy a new iPod over a Zune any day — the excitement over the Zune never swayed me.)

Interestingly, after thinking about Universal’s seeming role in all of this, does the music company really need money from Microsoft, or is this a joint conspiracy between M$ and Univer$al to pressure Apple? On the other hand, if it wasn’t a joint conspiracy, is the largest music company in the world just letting its ego run loose, assuming it’s entitled to anything and everything? (We know Google thinks that of itself, so why not Universal as well?)

[ Should Universal be Entitled to Zune profits? is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

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