Oct 04 2006
While listening to the latest TWiT #71 today, I heard Ray Slakinski, of iPodderX fame, talking about the future of Transistr. He mentioned that he and August plan to have something released by the end of the year. They have been working on bugs and trying to make it a “piece of software you would want to download and use”.
I guess we will have to wait and see what happens.
Technorati Tags:
Transistr, iPodderX, podcast, podcatcher
Feb 02 2006
I am really getting tired of all of the frivolous lawsuits in this country. The new national pastime has to be making easy money by finding something common and bring a lawsuit over it. Take this case, as reported on C|Net News.com, about a man who has file a class action suit against Apple over iPod-related hearing loss. Give me a break!
I can get hearing loss from listening to my car stereo too loud. What? Maybe I already have hearing loss from that. My younger days were about 20 years ago.
These kind of easy money schemes have to stop!
Dec 12 2005
Apple recently opened up a site to help users understand their iPod, learn how to sync music and podcasts, and to maximize your overall experience with the iPod.
Oct 12 2005
Engadget is reporting that Apple has announced a new line of the iMac which is slightly flatter than the current line. They have also released a new iPod with video capabilities. It is still music first, but the new iPod is smaller than the current 60 gig model and will feature a 2.5-inch display, QVGA resolution (320 x 240), and will MPEG-4 h.264 (natch), and presumably Quicktime.
Also announced, and demonstrated today, is iTunes 6.0 only a month after iTunes 5.0 was released. The biggest difference? Video download capabilities. Videos will be made available through iTunes for $1.99 each.
Sep 08 2005
Apple today brought music to a whole new level.. a small one. The iPod nano is so small that a standard #2 pencil looks large next to it. The iPod nano comes in 2 and 4 gig models in white or black. It has a color screen, so yes, it also holds photos… up to 25,000 of them!
The only thing that puzzles me is why Apple did away with the iPod mini line. There is no more 6 gig model. This leaves a pretty big hole between the largest nano and the smallest regular iPod (20 gig).
Jul 05 2005
With the latest iPod Updater that was released with iTunes 4.9, it appears that auto-updating Smart Playlists on the iPod are broken. I have a Smart Playlist setup that keeps up with the podcasts that I have listened to during the day. This is no longer working after installing the latest iPod Updater. The Smart Playlist does not update on the iPod until I connect it to my Mac and sync with iTunes.
Check out this thread on the MacCast Forums. Others are reporting this same issue now.
Jun 30 2005
I picked up iTunes 4.9 yesterday and started playing with it. The podcast support is pretty good at this point. The directory is coming online in the iTunes Store podcast area pretty nicely. Unfortunately, there are some issues that have disappointed me.
First, if you were subscribed to podcasts that are using BitTorrent feeds to save on bandwidth, you will have to keep a client like iPodderX or Azureus around to continue to pick up those feeds. From the Apple iTunes/Podcast FAQ:
What kind of podcasts can I play in iTunes?
You can listen to most common podcast file formats in iTunes, including MP3, AAC, WAV, and .M4B. BitTorrent and WMA are some podcast formats that are not supported.
This is very unfortunate. I was trying to use BitTorrent whenever I could to help podcasters on bandwidth. I guess it was a good thing that I recently registered iPodderX anyway. 
The second issue that has me puzzled is why Apple did not include an “All” option in the new Podcasts section on the iPod. The way that it is setup now is that you go into Music->Podcasts and then select the podcast playlist that you want to listen to. When all of the podcasts in that playlist are finished, it returns back to the main menu. I would like to have the option to just play all of the podcasts so I can start it when I head out on a long road trip instead of having to fumble with the iPod to change playlists while driving.
Hopefully enough people will give feedback to Apple about these issues and they will put out an update with some tweaks.
Jun 28 2005
Apple announced today that it is merging its iPod and iPod photo lines today. All future iPods will be white in color and have full color displays. The new iPods will even be able to display album art in color. There will be a 20 gig model going for $299 and a 60 gig model going for $399.
Out of nowhere, Apple also announced the availability of its new iTunes 4.9 software which includes support for podcasting. Podcasters should beware, because bandwidth useage is about to pick up.
Update: The iTunes 4.9 update and a new version of the iPod Updater software is available via Software Update.