iLounge

Gameloft S.A. has released two new games for the iPod nano (with video), iPod classic, and fifth-generation iPod. Naval Battle: Mission Commander is a Battleship-style strategy game in which the player positions his/her ships on a grid, and then hunts square-by-square for enemy ships on a similar grid. The game features five original game modes including standard rules and a campaign mode with 18 missions, eight modern high-tech ships with different map sizes and destructive surroundings, and a multiplayer mode. Chess & Backgammon Classics is a two-games-in-one package that includes both classic games. The interface allows users to play both games on either a 2-D or 3-D rendition of the gaming board, with further playing surface customization afforded by different themed skins. The games also feature full help and tutorial systems, as well as move coaching. Gameloft S.A.’s Naval Battle: Mission Commander and Chess & Backgammon Classics are available now through the iTunes Store and sell for $5 a piece. For more information on Naval Battle or Chess & Backgammon, check out our First Looks articles.

Based on recent checks in Asia, Banc of America has said it believes iPod production is being cut, while iPhone production orders remain volatile. According to the firm, iPod March quarter production numbers appear to have been noticeably reduced, down between 10-20 percent from early January, and down 30 percent or more from early December. The group believes these new figures suggest that Apple may see a 5-10 percent decline in iPod unit sales year-over-year, compared to the company’s forecast for five percent growth year over year, for the March quarter. Banc of America also said that its recent checks indicate that iPhone production has bounced back, following heavy production cuts in December and early January.

Contrary to a study presented last May, a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration study shows that iPods, and other portable media players, are unlikely to cause cardiac implantable pacemakers to malfunction. FDA researcher Howard Bassen and colleagues tested a variety of iPods, and found they did not produce enough of an electromagnetic field to interfere with installed pacemakers. The researchers used a saline-filled bag to simulate the human body, a coil sensor to pick up electromagnetic emissions, and tested four different iPod models: both a fourth- and fifth-generation iPod, an iPod nano, and an iPod shuffle. “We measured magnetic field emissions with a 3-coil sensor placed within 1 cm (half an inch) of the surface of the player. Highly localized fields were observed (only existing in a one square cm area),” the researchers wrote in a report published in the journal BioMedical Engineering OnLine. “Based on the observations of our in-vitro study we conclude that no interference effects can occur in pacemakers exposed to the iPods we tested.”

In a recent research note, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said he believes Apple is working on more internet-enabled iPods in an effort to move the brand beyond the portable music player market. “We believe that the iPod touch is the first of several Internet-connected iPods that Apple is currently developing,” Munster said in the note. “With 70% market share, we believe Apple is in the driver’s seat in terms of transforming the portable music market into a portable computing market.” Munster’s comments in some ways reflect those made by Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer during the company’s first quarter results conference call, in which the exec described the iPod touch as “the first mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform.” Munster also reiterated his buy rating and $250 price target on shares of Apple’s stock (AAPL).

Following Apple’s release of the latest software for iPod classic, version 1.1, some users are reporting that the device now emits pulses of electrical current through its bottom line-out audio pins when it is turned off. According to a series of reports on the Head-Fi audio forums, in which users frequently connect high-end headphones to their iPods using bottom-connecting amplifier accessories, static-like noises and distortion can be heard from the turned-off iPod classic, resulting from what user Nine from Littleton, Colorado reports as “~.5v of DC on the line out whenever the iPod is off." 

“This could be really bad for your headphones if you are connected through a DC coupled amplifier (like my mini^3),” the user says. “I also plugged it into my scope, and verified the .5v is usually just DC, but that occasionally (maybe 10% of the time) it’s got some triangular pulses on it.” While this issue does not appear to affect the classic’s headphone port, and won’t impact the majority of iPod users’ headphones, those using Dock Connector-based amplifiers may want to downgrade their iPods to an earlier version of the firmware, or exercise caution when using other iPod accessories. [Thanks, Larry]

In July, the Copyright Board of Canada approved a private copying levy on iPods and removable memory storage cards, that could have resulted in tariffs of up to $75 per device, depending on storage capacity. That levy has effectively been struck down by Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal, which took only 24 hours to decide that the Copyright Board had no legal authority to impose the levy. Copyright lawyer Howard Knopf, who represented the Retail Council of Canada as well as Apple Canada et. al, said that “The applicants were awarded their costs. The reasons are very brief. The Court was very decisive.” The ruling was also welcomed by Retail Council of Canada president Diane J. Brisebois. “This has been a very long battle, but a necessary one,” said Brisebois in a prepared statement. “Retailers have fought against these levies since their creation in 1997 because it taxes a product based on what a consumer possibly could use it for.” [via MyAppleMenu]

Electric car manufacturer ZAP has announced plans to show a “Made for iPod” car next week at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The company said it will be designing its cars to include a head unit made for the iPod that will play music through the car speaker system as well as recharge using the ZAP Recharge-It-All made for iPod battery system. The first cars equipped with this technology are expected to be available later this year, and ZAP says it has plans to include the technology in all its cars. “Apple is making some of the most popular consumer products on the market today,” said ZAP CEO Steve Schneider. “A ZAP electric car made for iPod joins an important trend happening throughout the automotive industry to give car-buyers more amenities. So many bring their iPods with them wherever they go that having the capability to listen to and recharge them in your car can only attract more customers.” Previously, the company had announced that it will debut its new iZAP line of iPod mobile rechargers at the show. According to the company, the line will use “advanced lithium battery storage and charge control technology to power or boost the battery life of the iPod.”

A new Apple patent application suggests that the company may be working on an iPod with automatic volume control. The patent describes a system that automatically calculates how long a person has been listening, and at what volume, determining when to begin reducing the sound level. It would also calculate how much “quiet time” the person received in between the iPod being turned off and restarted, which determines how much to increase the volume level following down time. The patent says, “Since the damaging effect on users’ hearing is both gradual and cumulative, even those users who are concerned about hearing loss may not behave in a manner that would limit or minimize such damaging effects.” The potential for iPod-induced hearing loss has been an ongoing problem for Apple. In 2006, the company was sued by an iPod user over hearing loss, which led to the release of an iPod update with a maximum volume limit, and the debut of a special Sound and Hearing page at Apple’s website.

A new firmware hack for fifth-generation iPods aims to bring an iPod touch-like interface to the player. The hack, which works on both 5 and 5.5G iPods, is unsupported by Apple, but the developers claim the firmware “cannot, and will not, brick your iPod.” Installation of the firmware requires iPodWizard 1.3.0.7, a Windows-only iPod utility. The hack adds icons from the iPod touch’s home menu to the main menu of the iPod, along with music icons at the bottom of the music menu, rearranged menus, and updated graphics, including an iPhone and iPod touch-like Now Playing screen. The firmware is available now as a free download.

Best known to fans of Nintendo and NEC game consoles from the 1980s, Hudson Soft’s Bomberman has been released as a downloadable iPod game. The $4.99 title—third on today’s list of brand-new iPod games—places you in control of a robot who uses bombs to make his way through mazes full of enemies and obstacles. Bomberman includes 20 levels, an iPod-exclusive boss challenge, and three mini games: Bomb Rollin’, Bomb Buster, and Bowling for Bombs. It works with fifth-generation iPods, third-generation iPod nanos, and iPod classics. [Thanks, Tazfan!]

A recent teardown of the iPod touch by research firm iSuppli suggests that the total cost of components for the 8GB model is $147, or around half of the device’s $299 retail price. iSuppli’s Andrew Rassweiler believes that the iPod touch will likely serve as a blueprint for future iPods, saying, “We expect the click-wheel versions of the iPod to wane in favor of touch-screen-based models.” Inside the 8GB iPod touch, iSuppli found around $32 of flash memory chips, supplied by Toshiba, a Samsung-supplied main video-audio chip costing around $13 (along with an additional $12 worth of memory from the chipmaker), and other chips from suppliers including Broadcom, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments. iSuppli also estimates that the device’s touch screen accounts for nearly $44 of the material cost. Overall, the firm expects sales of the iPod touch to fall in between those of the iPod nano and iPod classic, with Rassweiler saying he expects Apple to sell around 8.5 million touches in the first year.

Apple has released two new iPod games, Sonic The Hedgehog and Peggle, along with new versions of The Sims Bowling, The Sims Pool, and Pac-Man, updated for compatibility with the iPod classic and iPod nano (with video). Sonic The Hedgehog from Sega was originally released in 1991, and more than 45 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide. “Sonic The Hedgehog is one of the most beloved video game characters of all time,” said Simon Jeffery, President and COO of SEGA of America, “And with the installed base that iPod enjoys Sonic now becomes available to a whole new group of casual and hardcore gamers just in the time for the holidays.” In Peggle, from PopCap, “players fire a metallic silver ball from the top of the screen, relying on gravity to propel the ball downwards while it ricochets off orange and blue ‘pegs’. The goal is to clear all the orange pegs from the screen before running out of balls.” “The clickwheel input of the iPod is a natural fit for controlling Peggle, so we knew this adaptation of the game would be amazing,” said Jason Kapalka, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of PopCap. All five games are available now from the iTunes Store and sell for $4.99 each. [via iFun]

Speaking at the 2007 Captains of Industry Conference in Singapore, a Google executive speculated that at current rates of storage growth, an iPod capable of holding all the world’s content could be a reality as soon as 2020. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, vice president of Google’s Asia Pacific and Latin America Operations, said that since 1982, the price of data storage has fallen by a factor of 3.6 million. “To put that in context for you, if gas prices fell by the same amount, today a gallon of gas would take you around the earth 2,200 times,” she said. “More importantly, if this trend continues, and the cost of storage continues to decrease, we estimate that somewhere around 2020, all the world’s content will fit inside an iPod, and all the world’s music would sit in your palm as early as 2015, rendering the CD format unnecessary.” Put in perspective, the original iPod debuted in 2001 with 5GB of storage and a price of $400. Currently, Apple’s highest-capacity iPod, the 160GB iPod classic, sells for $350 — 32 times the storage, for $50 less than the original.

Inspired by the popular Brain Age for Nintendo DS, Gameloft S.A. today released Brain Challenge as an iPod Game for the fifth-generation iPod, iPod nano (video) and iPod classic. The $4.99 title includes 20 mini-games designed to provide “brain activity maintenance,” spread throughout Visual, Memory, Logic, Math, and Focus challenges, which can be randomly presented in 15 minute doses of five games for three minutes each. 

Apple’s most recent software update for the iPod nano and iPod classic, version 1.0.3, has surreptitiously added additional features to the devices’ TV out functionality. Once the software has been installed, the four-option Video Settings menu becomes a five-option list, with prior option Fullscreen On/Off being replaced by TV Screen Standard/Widescreen and Fit to Screen On/Off. The new features are intended to help the iPods output TV-ready video that is properly formatted for the type of display that’s connected, however, your results may vary depending on your TV and its settings.

Once the video is playing, version 1.0.3 restores a feature found in fifth-generation iPods but heretofore not in the iPod classic and iPod nano: an on-screen display (OSD) of your current location in the movie’s timeline, along with a pause indicator. These displays look different and a little more like iTunes’ own video playback scrubber than before; they are accompanied by a battery indicator. Larger images of the new menus and OSD can be found by clicking on the article’s title above, or the pictures and comments link below. The 1.0.3 iPod classic and iPod nano software can be downloaded using the Check for Update feature of iTunes. [Thanks, Lauren!]

Alongside the release of iPod software version 1.2.3 for the fifth-generation iPod, Apple today rolled out iPod software version 1.0.3 for the iPod classic and iPod nano (with video). Again, the release notes state that the update simply contains “bug fixes.” More specifically, it appears the update fixes an issue with the iPod nano’s clock, and addresses a problem where play counts of songs were affected by games. On the iPod classic, the update appears to fix some issues with Cover Flow, and provides a solution for the “spinning disk” problem. iPod software version 1.0.3 for the iPod classic and iPod nano (with video) is available now via the Update feature in iTunes.

Apple has released its iPod software version 1.2.3 for fifth-generation iPods. According to the release notes, the update simply contains “bug fixes,” which a new Apple support document says incudes an issue where “iPod does not display any songs or content on the device after updating to iPod software 1.2.2.” iPod software version 1.2.3 is available now via the Update feature in iTunes.

In a recent interview with GameDaily, John Carmack, founder of id Software and creator of games like Wolfenstien 3D, Doom, and Quake, criticized Apple’s strategy when it comes to gaming on the iPod and iPhone. Responding to the question of whether or not he plans to release any games for the iPhone or iPod, Carmack said, “Steve Jobs and I have not been seeing really eye to eye on a lot of important issues. We were in a fairly heated argument at the last WWDC [Worldwide Developers Conf.] and we’ve had a few follow-ups. I have an iPhone right now and it’s a platform I would enjoy developing for but Apple is not taking progressive steps in regards to [gaming].”

Switching focus to the iPod, he continued, “When they finally allowed games to be put on the iPod… in many ways it’s one of the worst environments to develop games for. You have to work on an emulator… just all these horrible decisions. I expressed my fears directly to Steve Jobs that some of these mistakes might be carried over to the iPhone, so they’re at least aware of all of them, but they’re not giving any spectacular signs that it’s going to be a big deal for them in the next year.” Although a port of Doom is available for the iPodlinux platform, id Software has yet to release any games for the iPod.

Apple has released its iPod software version 1.2.2 for fifth-generation iPods. According to Apple, the update simply contains “bug fixes.” It has yet to be seen if the update makes any apparent changes in functionality. iPod software version 1.2.2 is available now via the Update feature in iTunes.

Although Apple has yet to officially release the 1.1.2 software updates for the iPhone and iPod touch through iTunes, hacker planetbeing has already performed a jailbreak on a 1.1.2 iPod touch, and has released a screenshot taken from device. Jailbreaking is a process that allows third-party native applications to be installed on the iPhone and iPod touch. According to TUAW, “details will be forthcoming as the method gets debugged and safety-features put in place.” It is currently unknown how difficult this new jailbreak process may be, nor is it apparent whether the process will work on the iPhone as well.