Rob Pegoraro
Monday, October 24, 2005
12:00 AM
I sort of hope that yesterday's column was the last time I have to review a new iPod this year. That was my fifth piece on Apple's line of music/photo/video handhelds -- and yet each time I wonder if anybody really cares all that much about these things, the reaction makes it clear that people do.
So for all you 'Pod people out there, we've got an extra treat today -- a video podcast, unfortunately featuring yours truly, demonstrating Apple's new gadget. Visit www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts to download it to your iPod or view it as a streaming video. And read my view of the video iPod here.
Elsewhere in yesterday's personal-tech coverage, Frank Ahrens updated us on some weirdly worthwhile Web sites, including one of my brother's favorites, homestarrunner.com. Yuki Noguchi outlined a couple of options for cell-phone users who'd like a different ringtone but don't want to pay extra for it.
Our reviewers tried out NBA Live 06 and X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse. And in Help File, I explained the pros and cons of using recordable DVDs or an external hard drive for your backups, as well as how to delete saved e-mail addresses in Apple's Mail software.
I also guest-blogged Security Fix for a couple of days. Check my entry from Thursday if you've ever had to deal with, or have known somebody who had to deal with, a particularly malicious spyware pest called Aurora. In that post, I outlined one possible remedy and ask for help testing it out.
The interactivity (or whatever you want to call just whatever it is that I do online) continues at 2 p.m. ET today, when I host my usual Web chat. Submit a question or comment here.
iPod iNdecision
So now that Apple has redone most of its lineup of iPods, which one is the best? I'm sure I'll get that question today's chat, but I'll try to answer it now.
The first thing to ponder is whether to buy an iPod with a screen (the Nano or the regular model) or one without (the Shuffle). I think the shuffle makes sense as a music player for workouts or other situations that invite a lot of abuse (like, in childrens' hands). It can also work as a second music player.
Otherwise, the choice is between the iPod and the iPod Nano. Consider:
* The Nano may pick up more scratches in daily use (Apple includes a soft case for the regular iPod, but not its little brother).
* The Nano is undeniably cooler, thanks to its ultra-skinny size.
* The Nano shouldn't ever skip, while the regular iPod is extremely unlikely to skip.
* Both models can play music and display photos just as well; they also come with the same bonus games, world-clock, stopwatch and screen-lock programs.
* Battery life should be about the same on the iPod Nano and the 30 GB iPod.
The regular iPod does play video and holds far more data -- but unless you buy a charger for it, you will have to plug it into your computer on a regular basis to recharge it, just as you would with a Nano. And even the smallest Nano holds far more music than you could listen to between recharge sessions. So in a practical sense, you may not be able to make much use of the regular iPod's extra capacity.
Oh, and there's also cost: $199 or $249 for a Nano, versus $299 or $399 for the full-size model. I suspect the market will continue to favor the smaller iPods; until Apple replaced it with the Nano, the iPod mini was its best-selling iPod.
TV to PC, the Hard Way
It's odd and a little disappointing that the easiest way to get video on the new iPod is to buy it off the iTunes Music Store. There is no engineering reason why cable and satellite-TV receivers could not be built into TVs to allow the easy recording of TV programs for later transfer to a player like the iPod -- nor is there any technical bar to allowing a digital video recorder to transfer recordings directly to an iPod.
And yet both types of hardware have been unavailable in the U.S. Although many computers, such as those that run Microsoft's Media Center Edition of Windows XP, come with TV-tuner cards, but most cable and all satellite subscribers have to plug separate receiver boxes into their computers, then hope that the Media Center software can send the right infrared control codes to the cable/satellite box -- a thoroughly ugly way to set things up.
Meanwhile, the manufacturers of digital video recorders have bent over backwards to avoid offering any sort of direct, digital transfer of video recordings to a PC or portable player. (The grotesquely complicated TiVo ToGo being a fine example of this trend.) It's a sad day when it's less work to download a show via BitTorrent than to transfer it legally from your own TiVo box.)
Apple doesn't offer any sort of solution to this, although one company, El Gato, sells external TV-tuner boxes that can turn a Mac into a digital video recorder, subject to the same interoperability issues with cable or satellite boxes.
Fortunately, one company has noticed there's a problem here. Dish Network is coming out with a line of "Dish Player" music and video players (they actually appear to be rebranded Archos models) that plug right into the USB ports on some Dish DVRs.
And if you own a PlayStation Portable and live in Japan, you will soon reportedly be able to buy a combination DVD recorder/digital video recorder that can transfer recordings directly to your PSP.
Yahoo Ups the Price of Unlimited Music
Yahoo Music Unlimited, having earned plenty of ink for the remarkably cheap rates it's charging for its music-download service, has changed its mind. (See the digest item from Saturday's paper.) It will now charge $11.99 a month, or $119.88 a year (that's $9.99 a month) for the right to play downloaded files on compatible music players; the old $6.99 a month/ $59.98 a year price will only buy the ability to play these rented downloads on Windows computers.
In short, Yahoo now charges as much or more than the competition unless you only want to listen to songs on a PC -- and for that auditioning purpose, you might do just as well with the 25 downloads a month available for free in RealNetworks's Rhapsody software.
Congress Does DTV
Something to ponder over your morning coffee: Do you have a right to watch TV? Should your tax dollars be spent on ensuring that right? How about $3 billion of them? That's what Congress is discussing doing, as part of its effort to put a real deadline on the "digital transition," the seemingly perpetual process of moving TV broadcasts from analog to digital, and in the process reselling some of the old analog frequencies and reusing others for public-safety purposes.
That $3 billion figure, by the way, is real. See my colleague Arshad Mohammed's story from earlier this week.
Now, a bonus question: How much time do you think these same representatives and senators have spent talking about ensuring that all of these TV viewers also have effective and affordable health care?
Questions? Comments? Send them to rob@twp.com.
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