The Gadgets Page

You are looking at the new JVC concept for an iPod boombox called RAP10. You can read this article from Digital World to hear how “great” it is.

• Digital World JVC’s iPod Boombox

Let me tell you how much it SUCKS.

The people who are designing boomboxes, ghetto blasters and portable stereos have been working in huge cubicles for so long that they forgot what people need. They haven’t used a boombox since they were fifteen and their brains have forgotten what they needed when they were fifteen and have been filled with ideas like “White is the new black.”

I haven’t!

I still vividly remember what it was like to be fifteen or working in a crowded office and needing a portable stereo, so let me tell you why the JVC RAP10 sucks.

• 115 Bucks?!: Do these people really think that the kind of people who want a portable stereo are willing to drop $115 on it. That’s in ADDITION to the minimum of 100 bucks for the iPod. The sucky thing about boomboxes is that they are portable, which means they easily get stolen. Over 100 bucks is way too high to risk on something that might be gone when you come back to work the next day.

• It’s Too Big: I know sound quality is important. I know it’s hard to get good sound out of tiny speakers, but that boombox takes up too much real estate on my work desk. I need room for files and and my computer monitor. I bring my ghetto blaster to work because they don’t let me put music on my work computer, but I don’t want to dedicate an acre to the thing.

• The iPod Sits On The Top: Instead of securing my iPod into the unit, it just sits on top. That’s fine if you’re taking the thing to work (aside from the desk space problem), but it leaves it vulnerable if I’m dancing too near the thing. What about if someone wants to steal my iPod? They could just lift it and run off. Too vulnerable.

• I Can’t Walk And Listen: One of the visual icons of the ghetto blaster is the guy with it on his shoulders, blasting away his tunes. That guy can’t do that with his iPod precariously resting on top of this thing.

So, what do I recommend instead? I haven’t found anything perfect, but I have found something that is passable. Stay tuned on Monday to find out!

The iPod is five years old this week! Joy of Tech celebrated with a funny comic:

If you want to see the original Steve Jobs pitch for the iPod, it’s right here:

I wrote about it here:

• The Gadgets Page » Steve Jobs Introduced the iPod in 2001

My five year old iPod is still wheezing away, although it has been sitting dormant while I run with my Nano and its Nike+. Wow! I can hardly believe that iPod is only five years old!

For an excellent history of the making of the iPod, read this article from Wired:

• Wired 14.11: The Perfect Thing

The design for the iPod started out with foam board and fishing weights. Just see how far it has gone!

Well, it wasn’t quite what I expected, but it was EXACTLY the name that I expected. Apple previewed a prototype for their iTV yesterday. Engadget had a chance to play with one at the Apple event yesterday:

• Hands-on with the Apple iTV prototype – Engadget

They even played with the menus:

The Apple rep who was showing us the iTV was quick to let us know that the unit was a prototype — and we were quick to ask for the settings menu. And then we were quick to ask for the TV resolution sub-menu, which he put the kibosh on. “Sorry, we’re not drilling down into the settings at this time.” Boo, we say.

I had talked about how great an Apple iTV could be just last month:

• The Gadgets Page » An Apple iTV?

It doesn’t look like the iTV has quite made the television experience as easy as I fantasized about, but they are working toward ease of use. The iTV might not quite revolutionize television, but it sure might give TIVO a run for its money.

Apple just announced the new iPod Nano in rainbow colors. I have been wanting a new iPod because ours is so old and the drive is wheezing. Mike has a Nano that I have been borrowing, but his patience has been wearing thin with me. I’m so glad that I waited!

Now I can get a Nano in Lime Green. Soon all my personal electronics will be Lime!

• Apple – iPod nano

The new commercial for the iPod Nanos has a cool sparkler effect and is strangely missing the white earbuds.

Hey, I wonder if the ear buds come in Lime Green also…

Flash memory MP3 players have such little battery requirements that something like this might actually be feasible.

• Pop-Sci Core77 Design Challenge – Grand Prize Winner – REGEN: A yo-yo/MP3 player

This is only a design and isn’t available from any company yet, but it is estimated that it would only take approximately 10-12 throws an hour to power this MP3 player. Of course, if wireless headphones are used, then that should be a big power drainer. Using wired headphones should save a bit, but they would have to be removed before using the player as a yo-yo.

As described by the designer:

“Enjoy hours of endless entertainment yo-yoing and listening to music everywhere you go – and never run out of batteries again! Introducing REGEN: A yo-yo/MP3 player complete with wireless headset and docking station.”

If this existed, I would spend the money to get it, despite any DRM restrictions. It would be the perfect gift for any music loving yo-yo freak you might know. I can’t wait until it exists.

Via: Meriblog: Meri Williams’ Weblog » links for 2006-08-28

Here is some footage of Steve Jobs introducing the very first iPod. It held 1000 songs (5GB) and was the size of a deck of cards.

Some thoughts:

• Steve Jobs thought that my entire music library was 1000 songs and back then, that was probably true for a bunch of people. Now, our libraries swell at 60GB and 12,000 songs. Is it peer-to-peer sharing or are our music collections growing with the drive size of the iPods?

• This introduction is missing the most fashionable piece of the iPod, its white earbuds. Sometimes I believe it was the earbuds that launched the iPod. The sillouhetted dancing figures and the conspicuous white wires hanging from our ears announced to the world that we owned the “correct” MP3 player.

• Back then, I opted for the MP3 CD player that played 150 songs for a $1 a song. It still works and runs on a single AA battery, unlike the wheezing hard drive of my original iPod. Of course, it wasn’t as cool as the iPod by any stretch of the imagination.

• Steve insists on showing the back first. I compare it to the scratched stainless steel back of my own original iPod and the five years haven’t been good to it.

• I watched this introduction right after watching the 1984 introduction of the Macintosh. The audience isn’t cheering or excited at all. What changed? In retrospect, the iPod is just as pivotal as the Mac. Why is the audience so subdued?

It was interesting to watch this video after five years. I forget that there was a time when Steve might have had to convince the world that the iPod was a good idea. It was fun to see this slice of the past.

Last January at CES, we saw a backpack from O’Neill that worked with your iPod. Now, Jansport has also added that feature with their LiveWire backpacks. They range in price from $60 to $300 for the BlueTooth version.

Just like the O’Neill backpack. the controls for the iPod are on the shoulder of the pack. This allows you to keep the iPod in the backpack and turn it off, on and change songs using the shoulder controls. It was an ingenius idea when O’Neill released their backpacks, but their prices were astronomical. At $60, the Jansport backpacks are actually affordable.

Here is a list of the packs available:

• JanSport Daypacks Livewire Mullet – $ 59.95

• Jansport Audio Pack Live Wire-iPod Backpack – $79.95

• Jansport Kingpin Live Wire-iPod Backpack – 99.90

• Jansport ALT Bluetooth Live Wire Backpack (Black) – $299.95

The fact that you can easily order these backpacks from Amazon.com gives Jansport a huge leg up on the O’Neill backpacks. When I tried to order them when they came out, I couldn’t get through their complicated website. Jansport has made it easy and affordable.

While we were in Las Vegas, we stayed at the Las Vegas Hilton. In the lobby by the elevators to our room, stood this machine, the iPod vending machine.

Here is a video of a girl buying an iPod from the same vending machine:

Just like buying a Diet Coke, you could punch up your order, swipe your card and you’ve got the newest 60MB Video iPod at your disposal. The prices weren’t even marked up. They were for sale at the same price as the local Fry’s.

We had all dismissed it as a novelty until we saw someone plunk down $250 for an iPod on the spur of the moment. The arm of the machine smoothly picked up the iPod and placed it in the bin (no dropping like they do with the bag of potato chips). The guy reached down and picked up his new, beautiful personal entertainment device and a whole new world opened up to me: a world in which I can buy an iPod in the hotel lobby like a candy bar or a bottle of Diet Coke.

This video shows how smoothly the machine delivers your product:

Apparently, there is also one in San Francisco:

And Atlanta:

Home theater systems are confusing and becoming increasingly less necessary. Is Apple on the verge of releasing an iTV? If they did, they might be a godsend for those people who just want to turn on the TV and have it work.

• How Apple could make an iPod for television. By Steven Johnson – Slate Magazine

Steve talks about the problems that he has had with his home theater:

“My troublesome universal remote is a symptom of a fundamental flaw. None of the components in the system know about any of the other components in the system. My universal remote, smart as it is, can only have one-way conversations with the TV and the cable box.”

Just like when Apple made listening to MP3s easy, could they make watching movies and television easy? Could they somehow release something that just works?

If they did, they would be the heroes to confused people all over the country who need to call in the seven year old just to turn on the TV.

Via: stevenberlinjohnson.com: Is There An iTV In Our Future?

Update: Apple is indeed working on an ITV. See our more recent post.

For all those companies out there that were worried that all the people buying digital video recorders were going to somehow hurt their profits by releasing the video on the Internet, you worried for nothing. Sure, television shows are available on the Internet, but most people just watch their favorites on the DVR. The best news? They’re actually watching MORE television.

• Nielsen: DVR Users Really Do Watch More TV @ Media Buyer Planner

According the the Nielsen ratings, people with DVRs watch more television than people without them. That was an obvious assumption, but it’s nice to know that Nielsen has the numbers to back up the claim. DVRs are better than a VCR. They save all my shows for me and I can watch them whenever I want.

Now if we could only get the people in the music industry to realize that the same is true for music, then maybe we could get rid of that pesky DRM.