Mad TV spoofs Feist 1234, Apple

Quite possible the funniest thing I've ever seen on Mad TV.

Antitrust lawsuit against Apple?

Well, when one company occupies such a large percentage of the online audio/video market and hardware market, it's bound to come up eventually...

Information Week is reporting on Plaintiff Stacie Somers who filed suit on Dec 31 (Happy New Year?), claiming Apple maintains an illegal monopoly on the digital music market.

Apparently the major point of contention is Apple's unwillingness to support protected media from sources other than iTunes.

The complaint takes issue with Apple's refusal to support the Windows Media Audio format. "Apple's iPod is alone among mass-market Digital Music Players in not supporting the WMA format," it states, noting that America Online, Wal-Mart, Napster, MusicMatch, Best Buy, Yahoo Music, FYE Download Zone, and Virgin Digital all support protected WMA files.

The suit goes on to claim that even though the iPod is physically capable of playing protected media from sources other than iTunes, this feature is deliberately crippled in the player's software.

What I'm unclear on, and what the article doesn't really elaborate on, is the injury to the consumer.

As for the injury to consumers, the complaint says that Apple's pricing is "monopolistic, excessive, and arbitrary," citing how a wholesale $5.52 price difference between 1-Gbyte ($4.15) and 4-Gbyte ($9.67) NAND flash memory modules results in a $100 retail price difference between 1-Gbyte iPod Nano and a 4-Gbyte Nano.
If the complaint is with the software, I don't understand what the price inflation of the hardware has to do with that, other than the obvious claim of collusion with memory makers.

Another interesting point (briefly touched on) is the recent popularity of DRM free music (Sony recently caving for example), and it's unclear what impact that might have on the suit.

Apple of course has no comment.

Read the whole article here @ Information Week

Apple forcing us to turn down the volume?

So, this story isn't new, been floating around teh intarwebs since before Xmas (and I've written about this before), but I still think it's worth taking a quick look at.
The Telegraph reported on Dec 23rd, that Apple has filed a patent that would allow future iPods to calculate how long you've been listening to music, at what volume you've been listening, and would gradually turn down the volume on you. This is supposed to be a big magnanimous gesture on Apple's part, as people can plug into music all day long thanks to huge amounts of storage available. As hearing loss can be a gradual event, most people might not even know they're doing damage.
This idea sounds great in theory (like a rev limiter on car helps save fuel and forces you to not do something too stupid), but I see some huge flaws.

First off, will this be a feature we can turn off? It sounds like a silly question at first, but Apple has shown a tendency (as do a lot of tech companies) towards locking consumers into doing things their way because they "know better" (iPhone I'm looking at you). If Mommies and Daddies get concerned about little Timmy's Nano, Jobs & Co could make this a new locked in "feature" to assuage concerns, or make it painfully difficult to disable.
Why would I want to turn it off? Well the majority of the time I listen to my iPod it's usually plugged into speakers of some kind. Also I hate proprietary docks and connectors, so I plug my Nano in using the headphone jack. In my car I have a line in, and at home my stereo has an "MP3 port" (which is just a fancy way of saying "line in"). In both cases I'll jack the Nano to about 80% volume and then control the actual speaker output via the stereo. If this system is monitoring the ipods output it's going to think I'm blasting my ears for hours at a time. I don't want to be fighting my MP3 player while driving...

Secondly, this issue with people listening to music too loud for too long is mostly Apple's fault at this point. A lot of people credit the success of the ipod with the distinctive design of the white earbuds. Well guess what? Those are HORRIBLE for your ears! They don't create any seal around the ear's opening, so your music is constantly having to compete with the sounds around you. The louder the noise, the louder you'll have to turn up your music. The ipod is a fantastic DAP. The headphones included are the worst dime store crap you could put in your ears.
If Apple really cared about protecting people's hearing, they would drop these headphones immediately, or would include an accessory like the Griffin Ear Jams to help with the problem. Even the Zune includes "premium" headphones which help with noise cancellation, and should allow people to enjoy music at lower volume.

When I do listen to Nano with headphones, it's either on Sony EX51's (pictured) or Sennheiser cx300's. Even when working out, I have a hard time listening above 50% volume, which according to the Telegraph (sidebar), is about as noisy as a loud restaurant or office building, and shouldn't damage the ears for about 24 hours of listening. That's a lot of music...



Check out the article @ The Telegraph. It is an interesting read, though I really think Apple might be missing the point.

The Perfect iTunes EQ Settings! ... ... ... or not ...

I'm rocking the Grey Album right now. It's a fun one to keep coming back to, as it's just really well done, and really raises the bar for mashups. That and being as handi-cappable as I am I never realized track 11 was supposed to be reversed.

*sigh*

Anywho, this story, linked to on 43 folders (where I caught it first), has been floating around about building the perfect EQ setting for listening to music in iTunes.

Open the equalizer, and from the pop-up menu, select “Make Preset.”
Call it “Perfect,” because it is, and set the following levels, from
left to right (skip the Preamp section):
db +3, +6, +9, +7, +6, +5, +7, +9, +11, +8 db

Which looks like this:


Which I get, as supposedly MP3 strips info out of your music, specifically really high, and really low pitched noises. The reason being that we shouldn't be able to hear those noises, but I believe they do affect the sounds we can hear. The smaller the file (or lower the bitrate) the MORE information is cut out.

Well this post over at Idolator has a really well written response to the "smiley face" EQ setting:

"The perfect setting equals no setting, just good quality rips and good speakers. People work HARD to get stuff sounding the way that they want it to--we don't just mix any way we want. I think bass and treble knobs are plenty. Put it this way: If you don't like the colors in a movie, you don't adjust the tint in your TV. You just don't like the color. It's not totally analogous, but it's the choice of the director--or the musical artist--however misguided, to make that sound the way it is. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Admittedly not all speakers are made the same, so compensations can be made. But a perfect setting--theoretically--is a flat one."

Which looks like, well, this:


Now this is major! If you dont go slumming with really low quality mp3's (so you can fit more songs on your 80GB ipods), then you shouldn't really need EQ per se, that is if you're interested in the sounds that the musicians intended for you to hear. I tend to rip to 320Kbps, with high quality (read slow) and with a really high thread priority on CDex. I've never had any issues listening on my Senny CX300's, and I do tend to leave the EQ flat...

Here's the 43Folders Story I found.

Here's Idolator's response.




It still really bothers me that people try to measure mp3 players by number of songs. That measurement is usually derived by squashing music to within an inch of its life.
I mean the first ipod had a 5GB hard drive and held "1000 songs". By comparison, today's 4GB Nano holds (wait for it ... wait for it) "1000 songs"!?!?!?
Even though it's 20% smaller??? What happened with that extra gigabyte of space???

*Sheesh*

Led Zeppelin Finally Coming to iTunes

Veteran rockers Led Zeppelin, who have sold more than 200 million albums worldwide, are to enter the modern age and offer an album of specially selected tracks including 'Stairway to Heaven', 'Whole Lotta Love' and 'Dazed and Confused', to download on the internet. If you know much about Led Zep, you know how protective they are of their songs and have seldom allowed them to be licensed and have long opposed digital music...

read more | digg story

Canadian iPod levy assumes you're a criminal first, asks questions never - Download Squad

Story up over at Download Squad. Apparently:

"Canada has moved one step closer to imposing a copyright levy on every personal digital audio device sold, which would be handed over to the worlds largest music publishers as compensation for perceived piracy."

Ok, so this is good to know, but not really such a big deal IMHO. Hasn't Canada been applying the same levy to blank media for years now. As far as I knew, while this isn't to condone unlicensed file sharing, it at least "decriminalizes" it in a sense, so you wont be facing jail time or ridiculous fines.

I dont know, am I wrong here? Should Canadians be pissed that it's assumed they're criminals, so their gadgets should cost more?

Canadian iPod levy assumes you're a criminal first, asks questions never - Download Squad

Drivl: "I Think I Killed a Bee with my iPod Yesterday"

This story is high-larious.

"I don't know if you've ever tried to kill a bug on a cushioned surface, but they don't die right away. Their exoskeletons are extremely tough, and it usually takes a 'jam, grind, and smear' technique to make sure the deed is done. I did not have this luxury. I just had the 'jam'. The bee immediately disappeared under my ass. Now I'm trying to get through an intersection while arching my back completely off the seat and making some kind of yak mating call. It was then that I realized I had a full audience of cars around me trying to figure out why my car was shaking around and where the yak was. By the time I got to the second light, I was essentially driving my car in the passenger seat."

Give it a read.

read more | digg story

And it, uh, involves an mp3 player... AUDIO RELATED!

Today's been weak what can I say. I'm bored and un-focused...

10 Alternatives to iTunes for managing your iPod

This overview details the features (with screenshots) of 10 different programs other than iTunes to manage your iPod. Tutorials are included for every program, and they’re all either free or Open Source.

I've been using WinAmp for the last year, and really see no reason to use iTunes, other than iTunes is prettier ... I guess...


read more | digg story


***EDIT***

No sooner do I post this then the server goes down for the site.
So here's a Wiki with even MORE info!

Listen to your ipod and DIE!!!

If you have a pacemaker that is.

And, well, maybe not even then.

So I guess the title of this post could be a little misleading. I guess...

Already kinda old news on teh intarwebs, and I'm kinda confused as to why the ipod is being singled out here. I'm not a big Mac fan, but I do use a first gen Nano, and it's nice. Though I cant help but think that as gadgets become more and more "fashionable", wont we just plain be seeing more and more interference, not just with medical equipment, but with ... well ... everything?

Anywho, I'm curious to see what would happen with a Zune, or an iRiver, or a Creative, or a Sandisk, or a Rio, or a Toshiba, or a....

Read the story Here!

Idolator Talks EMI

Quick follow up to the story earlier about EMI releasing DRM-free music (I've quickly become a very big EMI fan ... huh ... ).

Idolator has an awesome write up on what this move means for you, the consumer.

"People who want to pay for music (yes, there are still a few out there) will have even more incentive to buy EMI's albums digitally, and consumers who were, in the past, stymied by attempts to move their iTunes-purchased music around--whether to different computers or to portable players that aren't necessarily the iPod--will have a slightly easier time doing so now. (Even the Zune will be able to play the unprotected AACs offered by iTunes.)"

Read the rest here!

I'm very excited about this. Especially once the Beatles make it to iTunes.