iPod

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about! None of this "I'm going to MacWorld to check out the professional video news" bullshoes. What? You think is 1995 or something? No way, man. Feel free to pooh-pooh Apple's news, because the one and only reason to go to MacWorld anymore is to check out iPod doo-dads.

Pun intended. But no kidding. This is a combination iPod dock and toilet paper dispenser that they just ROLLED out. Holy crap!

Almost lost in the new iPod rollout was the price slash by $200 on the 8GB iPhone and the discontinuation of the 4GB model.  I'm quite surprised Apple dropped the price so quickly, but according to Steve Jobs, they want the phone to be in a lot of stockings this christmas.

Still don't agree with their decision to lock the phone to AT&T (the hack workaround not for the faint of heart) as they would most likely sold double or triple the devices if it was an open phone for all networks.

But glad to see the phone already tumbling in price, might be cheap enough for me to purchase before next year's NAB!

See, I'm so glad I didn't rush out for the iPhone. Now I can keep my little Razr phone that I like and get the iPod for everything else. Very cool!

http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/

Hi everyone - I've been pretty silent for the last few months because I've been hard at work on a new Creative Cow Master Series DVD - "Internet Killed the Video Star: A guide to Creating Video for the Web." The 4.5 hour DVD will be available very shortly. Feel free to spread the word.

Here's the basic description of the DVD:

Apple is notorious for filing bogus patent applications, but this one looks kind of cool. Ars Technica points to the Apple-filed patent application 20070103454, Back-Side Interface for Hand-Held Devices.

Dude, they really said "Back-Side Interface." 

Very interesting article posted on CNN.com that iPods can potentially interfere with pacemaker monitoring equipment when placed too close to the chest. In some instances as far away as 18 inches. As the article notes, most people with pacemakers are not the iPod listening audience, but still a very interesting development here. As the study notes, only iPods were tested to date and it will be interesting to see if they get around to testing other audio and small electronic devices.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/05/10/heart.ipods.reut/index.h...

Originally posted on The Editblog.

I recently got suckered into a low budget music video. How low budget? The decision was made not to hire an audio person for playback. Without that audio person it meant there would be no audio master made for the song and no timecode slate for syncing later in post. What was the solution? Use an iPod with video and make our own timecode slate!

It's the George Foreman iGrill, model number GIPOD200. (Did I miss the 100 model?) Okay, on closer examination, it's a George Foreman grill that you can plug more or less any MP3 player into. But the ad and the model name namecheck iPod by name. Built in speakers and amp, too. Gotta love that.

George Ou over at Real World IT talks about his quest for a universal power adapter. Wouldn't it be loverly? Then he observes that USB is becoming the new standard for charging devices including iPods and other portable music players, portable GPS, and an increasing number of phones. All true. He leaves out PDAs and portable gaming devices like PSP  and Game Boy.

CNN reports that Apple has started charging credit cards for the shipment of Apple TVs. They continue, "Analysts say it's likely to sell well initially." Wow. You think so? The same analysts believe that Apple has taken pre-orders for more than 100,000 units, and, well, since I read it on the internet, it must be true.