Category: iPod

Bbrrrrrring! It's the retro iPod alarm clock!

retro-ipod-alarm-clock.jpgThe new 160GB iPod Classic has a promised battery life of 40 hours, which means in theory, you could wake up with it two days in a row without ever turning it off. Alternatively, you could get the Retro iPod Alarm Clock for your old-skool iPod.

It’s a charging dock with speakers and alarm function, designed to look like, yes, a retro alarm clock. The speakers are actually housed within the fake bells. Don’t worry sleepyheads, it does have a nine-minute snooze function.

Stuart Dredge iPod

GEAR4 claim they'll be first to market with new iPod accessories, applaud Apple's strategy

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With the advent of new iPods (Classic, widescreen Nano, Touch) comes the opportunity for a whole new range of iPod accessories.

GEAR4 reckon they’ll be the first company to market new cases for the new iPods, with some silicon, hard, and combination cases being available within the week.

What’s interesting is their viewpoint that, not only will Apple continue to dominate the portable media player market, but that “heavy iPod users” need at least two, or possibly three, iPods.

Andy Merrett iPod

Tech Digest to live-blog Apple's product announcement tonight, 6PM GMT

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As everyone and their grandmother can tell you, there’s a super-secret Apple product launch happening tonight, and as ‘super-secret’ implies, no-one really knows what will be announced. Sure, there’s rumours circling thar intarwebs faster than it takes a Microsoft fanboy to say “yeh well the Zune 2.0 will be available in pink”, but nothing’s been set in concrete as yet.

Alex from Shiny Shiny, and yours truly from Tech Digest will be heading over to the BBC studios tonight to watch a live broadcast via satellite of Steve Jobs’s conference in California and will be merrily live-blogging the night away. So, keep pressing F5 on our live-blog post here at Tech Digest, as we’ll be updating every few minutes.

Want to hear some of those kuuuuraaaazy rumours the Apple kids have been spreading in the last few weeks? Read on below the jump for some of the best….

Katherine Hannaford iPhone, iPod

Opinion: Why music geeks won't replace their iPod with a mobile phone just yet

stu-col.jpgStuart Dredge writes…

We’re all set for Apple’s latest product launch tomorrow, with rumours about new iPods at fever pitch. There’ll be fat Nanos, touchscreen iPods with DAB tuners inside, and a Winehouse-branded model with a plug-in beehive speaker and trackmarks on the side. Well, some of those.

The point is that people are genuinely excited about the prospect of all-new iPods. Wasn’t the iPhone supposed to kill this sort of thing off? MP3 players, I mean. What with the iPhone, Nokia’s new Music Store, and Sony Ericsson’s success with its Walkman phones, you’d think standalone MP3 players were old news.

Stuart Dredge iPod, Mobile phones, MP3 players

iPod obsolete, Walkman device will rule, says boss of Sony-owned record label

ipod.jpgRick Rubin, co-chairman of Columbia Records, has publicly stated that the iPod and iTunes models are doomed, with the way to go being subscription-based, music-anywhere, services.

In fact, he thinks the whole music business will only be saved by going to a subscription model, but he’s quick to pick on the iPod. “The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home,” he said.

Rubin’s motivation is that adopting cheap music subscription services will curb illegal downloads, believing that “If music is easily available at a price of five or six dollars a month, then nobody will steal it.”

I’m not convinced.

Andy Merrett iPod, MP3 players