8 posts tagged “ipod”

Last fall, once I moved to my new regime of syncing my iPod with my Macbook (instead of manually managing music as I had in the past), I decided to listen to every album I own at least once. Well, not every album I own, but every album that I would consider part of my personal “canon.” Not including live dead, that works out to about 8300 songs, 26 days of continuous listening. In short, a hell of a lot of music.

On Friday, I finished. Last song? Rival, from Pearl Jam’s 2000 album “Binaural.” Did I learn anything from this, other than that I have a huge music collection? Not much, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that most albums that I have purchased over the years I still enjoy as much as I did when I first got them. Some bands have aged better than others—in the early 90s I would have probably ranked Smashing Pumpkins over Alice In Chains, but AIC seem to have aged better—but maybe that’s just because they haven’t released an album since ’95, while Billy Corgan seems to only tarnish his legacy further with every release post-Mellan Collie, whether Smashing Pumpkins, solo, or even, God help us, “Zwan.”

Because I’ve been consumed by this project I haven’t really been listening to new music as much I should have. I now have a backlog of albums from last year that I need to give more attention to. Wilco, The National, Band of Horses, Rush, Ghostface Killah, Wu-Tang Clan, Robert Pollard, Mountain Goats, Drive By Truckers and many more have been neglected for far too long. Time to stop living in the past.

60gb, 14 months old.

$100 obo

Sent from my iPhone

Book: Show us the latest book you bought, borrowed or received.

I've been on a bit of a tech book jag lately. It started with Dreaming In Code, continued with Founders At Work, and then last weekend I bought and read this:

The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness

Steven Levy

The five-year anniversary of the iPod is fast approaching (Oct. 23rd) and it seems that new models are imminent. In recent days the Mac rumor community has reached consensus that September 12th will bring us the following:

• 2nd generation iPod Nanos, with increased capacities and possibly more colors.
  
• Upgraded 5g iPods w/videos (I'm hoping for bigger capacities, like 80 or 100gb)
• Movie sales through the ITMS (14.99 for new, 9.99 for older titles)
  
• 23" iMac
  

Hopefully a new version of iTunes, too, with more power-user playlist management features  Like the ability to use sql to write really complex smart playlists (dream on, sigh.)

Update: AppleInsider is predicting that the "one more thing" surprise at the 9/12 event will be a video streaming device, an Airport Express for video. If so, sweet-I'd buy one of those in a second, as long as it worked with my current hardware-I wouldn't want to have to buy a new Mac Mini just to use it.

I've lost count of how many times I've had to send my 60gb ipod photo
back to Apple for "servicing." Thank God I have two other ipods so I
don't have to depend on this piece of junk.

iPod goes back to Apple–again

Today Microsoft announced that they are indeed going to produce a media player/iTunes killer, which they have xristened "Zune." Look forward to an onslaught of stupid puns, like, say, the title of my post. The article that announced the new product (? brand? products?) is hidden behind the Billboard paywall, but here's a quote from the TechCrunch post that quotes Billboard:

In an interview with Billboard, Chris Stephenson, Microsoft’s new GM of marketing for MSN Entertainment Business, said Zune will be an umbrella brand for what he says is “a family of hardware and software products” targeting various digital entertainment services.

Not terribly informative.

A Microsoft employee who is working on the project has started a blog on it called the Zune Insider Blog. And what blog serivce is he using? Typepad. Which, given Microsoft's propensity for always eating their own dogfood, pretty impressive. Here's his description of Zune:

It’s Microsoft’s new, holistic approach to music and entertainment. And yes, this year, we’ll be releasing a device as part of the project. Under the Zune brand, we’re looking to build a community for connecting with folks, all to discover new music and entertainment.

It's interesting how, just by what I've read so far, that I can tell this is going to be a disaster of epic proportions. Every hair on my BS detector is standing straight up. It's kind of a blink thing, because I can't articulate exactly why this seems so obviously a trainwreck in the making, but maybe it's the vagueness of it all. Based on the above, could anyone even answer the question "what is Zune?" Like if you asked "what is an iPod" the answer is immediately obvious. So is the answer to "What is Windows?"

A basic fact of business is that brands come from products. Products do not come from brands. It's as simple as that. That's why Zune will fail.