iLounge

U.S. President George W. Bush says artists on his iPod include Creedence Clearwater Revival, George Jones, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, and Van Morrison.

The South Huntington Public Library in Suffolk County, New York, is loaning out iPod shuffles loaded with books on tape.

The $210 Louis Vuitton Monogram iPod case is “the most luxurious way to carry your tunes around.”

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal says the iRiver H10 is the best of the iPod mini competitors, but that it still “doesn’t top the iPod.”

AllofMP3.com, the Russian digital music site offering song downloads for pennies apiece, is the target of a criminal copyright investigation by the local police.

Piper Jaffray said iTunes Music Store downloads for 2005 could reach 513 million versus the current estimate of 387 million, and 2006 iTunes downloads could reach 1.0 billion versus the current estimate of 542 million.

“It’s really quite ridiculous how simple and effective the new iPod Shuffle is,” writes Scott Goldman of the Indianapolis Star. “This variation of the wildly popular digital music player again has launched Apple to the forefront of digital music technology.”

At the Costume Designers Guild Awards on Saturday, Jennifer Rade, who designed the costumes for Apple’s iPod silhouette commercials, was honored with an award. “Only fellow costume designers could appreciate how difficult a job that was,” Rade said.

Lift, a bar in Des Moines, Iowa, is now holding “PodJay Mondays,” a weekly night devoted to iPod owners. “People program a playlist with 15 minutes or so of songs from their music catalog, then hand their players over to bartender Clint Curtis who treats the entire room to their musical tastes.”

Apple’s 512MB and 1GB iPod shuffles are now in stock at Circuit City’s online store. Availability in brick-and-mortar stores will vary.

A class action lawsuit was filed against Apple Thursday on behalf of consumers and resellers of the company’s products. The suit, filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco, seeks to include in the consumer class any person in the U.S. who purchased Apple products or repair services since Jan. 1, 1995.

The original iPod placed 12th on Mobile PC’s “Top 100 Gadgets of All Time” list. Diamond Multimedia’s Rio 300, the first known MP3 player, placed 8th.

After much confusion in the press, Motorola has said that the yet-to-be-unveiled “ROKR” will be its first phone to be fully compatible with Apple’s iTunes.

The New York Post reports that local students have “become victims of a rash of vicious iPod muggings and a spike in larcenies at schools.” One Brooklyn transit officer said his district has seen “a near doubling of student iPod robberies on the subways in recent months.”

UK mobile operator 3 is running its first ever 3G mobile video ad campaign, for the iPod. A 14-second silhouette iPod ad appears before and after the Pete Tong show on the 3 music channel.

On his blog, Khoi Vinh says, “I printed out a map that covered my route from my apartment in the East Village to my office on 27th Street, and as I walked, I made a little dot every time I spotted someone wearing those telltale headphones. In total, I counted thirty-two iPods.”

Sony Ericsson said it will unveil a mobile phone next month that will carry the Walkman name. The handset will reportedly be able to play music both MP3 and AAC music file formats.

Melanie Griffith “threw a tantrum” at a Los Angeles-area Apple Store when she was unable to buy a pink iPod mini early last year, according to a Wired News article with stories of other celebrity encounters.

A survey of more than 300 British teenagers showed that while two-thirds could give the exact price of an iPod, three-quarters had no idea how much a pint of milk costs.

Merrill Lynch analyst Steven Milunovich speculates that Apple and Sony could soon form a partnership to produce a number of products together.

Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post says the Napster To Go service is “less like a service that allows you to pay to get new music and more like one that forces you to pay to keep your existing music.”

An eBay member is selling a Marlboro Lights iPod case. “Two or more cigarettes hold the player so you can listen and smoke when out and about,” says the creator.

The Toronto Star reports that many people this year are hoping to receive an iPod shuffle for Valentine’s Day.

Discussing Apple’s iPod shuffle, Creative Technologies’ outspoken CEO Sim Wong Hoo recently stated: “You can say it’s cool; I say it’s plain-Jane.”

Apple has released a second iTunes New Music Sampler album. The free 16-song compilation features music from Death Cab for Cutie, Simple Plan, Skindred, and more.

For the first time, Billboard magazine will begin to include songs sold by music download stores such as iTunes in its weekly calculation of the nation’s top hits.

Yahoo has renamed its “Launch” music site to “Yahoo Music” to showcase all its music products and services—streaming audio, music videos, Internet radio and music news—under a single brand.

Environmentalists are complaining about iPod battery waste because of “the sheer numbers of the devices being sold, and Apple’s reputation as a forward-thinking company.”

Ron Harris of the Associated Press says the Olympus m:robe 500i, a combination music player and digital camera, “fails on more than one level” and is “essentially a shiny brick.”

In an attempt to curb illegal downloading, New York’s Pace University is reportedly in discussions with Apple “regarding an agreement that would facilitate legal access to music” through the iTunes Music Store.

USA Today has a great article on podcasting, calling it “programming by the people, for the people” and featuring several of the top shows.

That Pepsi Girl is an unusual blog “dedicated to the super hot sexy girl in the iTunes Pepsi ads that premiered during the 2005 Super Bowl.”

This year’s Grammy Awards will feature a special fund-raising musical performance of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s “Across The Universe” on behalf of continued tsunami relief efforts. Viewers will be able to purchase the performance from the iTunes Music Store for 99 cents.

New at iTunes this week: “We Will Become Silhouettes” by The Postal Service, “iTunes Essentials: Valentine’s Day” by Various Artists, “Beautiful” by Moby, and “Seventeen Days” by 3 Doors Down.

You can get 10 percent off iPods at Target.com with coupon code TCFEBRUARYJS. The discount can also be used on iPod shuffles, which the retailer just made available for pre-order.

CNET News.com reports that Apple’s iPod was everywhere at this week’s VSLive, a Microsoft conference for Visual Studio programmers.

Apple saw a 172 percent increase in traffic to its Web site Sunday thanks to Pepsi’s iTunes commercials that aired during the Super Bowl.

By late March or early April, Duke university will decide whether to continue the iPod pilot program with a new crop of freshmen next year, said Lynne O’Brien, director of the Duke Center for Instructional Technology, which is overseeing the experiment. “It’s going very well,” she said.

John Hartnup has posted a tutorial on how to make an iPod cradle that fits into a car cupholder out of nothing more than two soda cans.

Talking Panda Software has released a program guide to the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival designed specifically for the iPod.

One ingenious Mac fan used four iPod shuffles along with a USB 2.0 hub to create a 3.9GB RAID array.

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has an original take on the Napster To Go subscription service and iTunes Music Store comparison.

Etelka Lehoczky of the Boston Globe has written a two-page article on the word “pod.” The article touches on what it means to consumers, where and when it originated, and more.

David Wellington’s zombie novel “Monster Island” is now available as an ebook for iPod note reading.

MP3.com founder Michael Robertson will launch a new online music store next week that will offer tracks in unprotected MP3 format. MP3Tunes.com will have no major record labels—only 200,000 licensed from small labels and independent artists.

Nitrozac and Snaggy of Geek Culture poke a little fun at the iPod shuffle shortage in their latest Joy of Tech comic entitled “iPod scuffle.”

Apple’s “Made for iPod” program is “a good way to ensure good quality products,” according to 39 percent of Macworld UK readers who took part in an online survey. Nearl 25 percent are less optimistic, suggesting that it is “a way to control the iPod industry.”

Gizmodo points to a handful of strange scenes with life-size iPod shuffles hanging out in a home. “I don’t know what prompted these photoshops of a giant iPod shuffle in everyday situations, but they aren’t half bad, and just surreal enough to be pleasant.”

One clever person has built a modern day stereoscope with two iPod photos, an antique stereoscope, and a digital camera.

A Japanese website is offering several decorative templates that can be printed out on labels to stick on an iPod shuffle. The site also appears to let you upload your own designs.

Apple-X has posted an interview with the songwriter and guitarist for the Caesars, the band behind the tune on Apple’s iPod shuffle TV ad.

An iPod shuffle owner in Japan has created a case for the tiny Apple music player out of a Frisk-brand mints package.

Wired’s Leander Kahney has written a article on iPods at Microsoft. “To the growing frustration and annoyance of Microsoft’s management, Apple’s iPod is wildly popular among Microsoft’s workers.”

Apple said yesterday that it will lower iPod prices in Korea. The price drop is only for Apple’s hard-disk drive iPods and excludes the iPod shuffle.

New at iTunes this week: “Ghettochip Malfuntion (Hell Yes)” by Beck; “2005 Grammy Nominees” by Various Artists; “Red White & Crüe” by Mötley Crüe; and “The Lonesome Crowded West” by Modest Mouse.

Following its dissection of the iPod shuffle, AppleMatters has posted an article looking at the device’s file structure.

This year’s Pepsi-iTunes promotion officially launched today. Apple has updated its promo site with instructions on how to play and redeem codes, official rules and a FAQ.

Ina Fried of CNET News.com has written an extensive article on the “iPod economy,” which currently includes more than 400 add-ons (not counting all the various cases).

Buy.com has the 20GB fourth-generation iPod for $279.99 when you use the online store’s $15 off coupon. Shipping is free.

The Financial Times reports that Apple is setting out to cement its dominance of the portable music player market with the help of iPod accessory makers.

Former MTV veejay and podcasting pioneer Adam Curry plans to launch a podcasting network, “offering an edited selection of the web’s best dispatches and tools for neophytes to create their own casts.”

Apple’s iPod shuffle will be sold in 50 Singapore 7-Eleven stores starting next month.

In his latest PBS column, Robert X. Cringely asks if the iPod is “a razor or a blade? In other words, is Apple a hardware company or a media company?”

A Japanese iPod owner has posted photos and specifications of an impressive custom-made machined metal iPod case that he calls the “Armor plate.”

Geek Culture has posted another Joy of Tech comic relating to the iPod shuffle. In it, the artists have created a humorous new game called “iPod shuffle Roulette.”

Sony reportedly plans to launch a global music download service under its PlayStation brand to enable tracks to be downloaded directly to the PlayStation Portable.

Following iLounge’s exclusive report earlier this month, BusinessWeek takes at look at Apple’s “Made for iPod” program.

The International Herald Tribune has an interesting article on the mobile phone industry hoping to cash in on digital music. More than 600 million cell phones will be sold in 2005, according to forecasts.

Gizmodo has found the iBear, a new iPod mini stand/holder designed to match the five colors of the music player. “The bad news is that all we have are pictures, as haven’t quite determined how to purchase them through the [Japanese] Medicom site.”

The folks behind the Playlist iPod party in the UK have put together some pointers for success at the parties from DJ Lisa Rocket.

Ron Harris of the Associated Press says that the iPod shuffle “proves that fewer bells and whistles can be just as good as more” and that the player’s ease of use is “unrivaled.”

MP3.com’s Eliot Van Buskirk notes that the first MP3 player was not Diamond’s Rio PMP300 as many think—it was Saehan’s MPMan, sold in Asia and the US a few months before the Rio in 1998.

Peter Lewis of Fortune says the iPod shuffle is “bound to be a hit.” He says “It’s simple, useful, loads of fun, and inexpensive enough to entice newbies to give digital music a try.”

The Wall Street Journal looks at Russian Web sites—such as AllofMP3.com, MP3search.ru and 3MP3.ru—which tout legal music downloads for as little as a nickel apiece.

Sega’s iDog is an iPod-inspired pet robot. “Seven LEDs on the face express emotion, while an audio jack under the right hind leg let’s you plug in your iPod (or other audio player) to broadcast through iDog’s speaker.”

The New York Times published three iPod stories this weekend. They include articles on iPod-related mishaps; high school students getting their iPods stolen; and the booming iPod-loading industry.

Steven Levy of Newsweek has written an article on the iPod’s shuffle songs feature, asking if the process is truly random.

The PDA Guy has a roundup of the top four Podcasting clients for the Mac: iPodder, iPodderX, PoddumFeeder and PlayPod. “iPodder is my preferred option, followed by PlayPod.”

Praising the iPod shuffle’s “breakthrough price” and “excellent battery life,” USA Today tech columnist Edward C. Baig gives the device three and a half stars out of four.

The February 2005 issue of Wired magazine’s “Wired, Tired, Expired” lists the mythical iPhone as “Wired,” the iPod as “Tired,” and the iBook as “Expired.” Strangely, Wired’s January 2004 issue also listed the iPod as “Tired.”

eWeek’s David Coursey gives the iPod shuffle a C- grade, saying that Apple is “trying to make a virtue out of the fact that the device lacks a screen by making it sound like random playback is an advantage.”

LostiPods.com is giving away an iPod mini to the 500th member to register their iPod in the site’s iPod tracking service. The site will also give an iPod mini away for each 100th member after the 500th milestone.