iLounge

My friend afallahi and I are both proud iPod owners and I happened upon this chicken one Easter (thanks Mom) and it just made sense to put one and one together. Apple’s “new” iPod and iTunes commercials are great and haven’t been parodied too much yet, so the opportunity was prime. We both hope you enjoy the show and please feel free to send the link to your friends.

Robert X. Cringley, best-selling author and writer for PBS has posted his predictions for 2004.

This software will let you create contacts in vCard format supported by iPod. You can manage your contacts on iPod once you export the contacts to iPod.

iLounger Larry W. has informed us that Griffin Technology has announced it has canceled the production of the iFM Radio for iPod in an email to customers who pre-ordered. The Griffin website has also removed the iFM from its products page. Click ‘Read more’ for the letter from Griffin.

RipDigital recently announced a new CD ripping service to save you time from doing it yourself - ideal for those with large collections of CDs that have yet to digitize them. RipDigital will turn your CD library into an MP3 library of 224Kbs bitrate song files with “a traceable, unique identification code in each converted track” to discourage illegal file sharing. You can opt to have the MP3 library stored on a DVD or a hard drive. Prices for ripping your CD collection start at 100 CDs for $129. After placing your online order, RipDigital will send you all the packing materials for shipping your CDs. When we asked RipDigital if they offer AAC encoding the response was, “Currently we only offer MP3 conversion. In the near term, we’re keeping it simple. I take your point about AAC and this may be something we add down the line.”

Dealmac: SendStation’s PocketDock for third-generation iPods is back in stock at MegaMacs.com for $16.99 plus around $8 shipping. We still haven’t found a cheaper price elsewhere. (MacMall charges the same but adds an inexplicable $24 or more for shipping.) The PocketDock converts the iPod’s docking port into a 6-pin FireWire port.

A recent AudioRevolution.com article states, “sources at an Apple retailer in Los Angeles tell AudioRevolution.com that the rumors of the new budget priced iPod are completely true. Apple has not made any official statements on the matter, as they tend to prefer to make their new product announcements public at MacWorld.”

Several mini iPod concept designs have popped up on the web. Here is a list of links to several.

 This is not the new mini iPod
 First Look at the new mini iPod
 Mini iPod Mockup
 Mini iPods (Version 5)
 SirGiggle Would Buy This Mini-iPod
 Mini iPod
 Mini iPod
 Simple idea for miniPod
 New iPod Remote with SD Flash Card Sticking Out
 My mini-iPod

It was the must-have Christmas gift of 2003: a gadget that stores your favourite 10,000 tunes and looks incredibly cool, too. So why do people become such bores when they get one? Stephen Moss on the invasion of the Poddies. [...]

Poddies radiate joy - the joy of first love or true belief. “I love my iPod,” says Gareth. “It’s changed my life. Mine’s a 30-gigabyte [already superseded by the 40-gig, note] and holds seven and a half thousand songs. I’ve downloaded 6,000 - the soundtrack of my whole life.”

Macrumors reports that an interesting photo has appeared at Target.com. It seems that their web designer has ‘over’ edited a product photo of the ‘iPod in Dock’ to the point where there is no LCD display.

UK resident Geoff really wants an iPod. So he’s simply asking you to give him money so he can buy one. His website is complete with photos of people handing him money as well as statistics on money collected, how it was contributed, contributors sex and more.