A Bit Eclectic

You don’t have a case on your iPhone!

I get this comment all the time. People act like I just committed a terrible crime against a defenseless child. I had broken an unspoken rule. iPhones aren’t cheap and apparently they needs to be protected.

I haven’t always been this way, I used to be paranoid about scratches on my iPods.  I would leave a new iPod in the box until I got a case to protect it. I would search the Internet for weeks looking for the best case available. No price was too high to protect my “investment.”

I would rationalize that the shiny back looked better without any scratches on it.  What ridiculous and backwards thinking since I will never see the back if it is always covered.  People say the iPod looks great then slap on a bulky and ugly case.

Those clear plastic cases always make me chuckle. You can still see the iPod so you can still bask in it’s beauty, sort of. The clear hard plastic cases are even worse than the rubber cases. They are tacky and destroy the sleek image of the iPod/Phone.

The sleeve type cases aren’t as bad as the others.  These will protect the device and still allow you to see it’s original beauty on a regular basis.  However, they add bulk to the device and make it take up more pocket space.

The sticker type screen protectors avoid the bulk problem, but still aren’t a good solution. Most of them just add a foggy layer. They have a textured surface and dull down the image. I haven’t used Invisible Shield so it may be the exception.

A case doesn’t offer much protection if the device is dropped or subjected to other physical harm. It mostly protects against scratches, which I have stopped obsessing over. I would rather use my iPhone than handle it like a delicate luxury good. It sits in it’s own pocket so there is less of a chance of scratches, but that is about it. The screen is made out of optical glass that is pretty scratch resistant and I am not too concerned about the back. So far it still looks great.

Stop babying your device and start using it. The first minor scratch will be the hardest, but afterwards you will be able to take a deep breath and suck it up. There is no point of using a case to protect the exterior if you never see it.

Back in the day there were mix tapes.  You would take a set of songs that you liked and made a tape for your friends or yourself.  Then CDs came along and started to change the game.  It was faster and easier to make.  Plus, you had way more room to write the names of the songs.  The name also changed.  No longer did we have mix tapes, instead the mixes took over.  People started making these all the time.  It was one of the best ways to share your favorite songs.  Everyone could enjoy a piece of your world.

I have taken it one step further.  CDs don’t hold nearly enough music in this world full of iPods.  So I moved over to an iPod, the iPod shuffle that is.  My girlfriend and I both have shuffles.  Each of us has a playlist full of songs we love.  Whenever we visit each other we fill our shuffles with a random selection from these playlists.  Now we can rock out to the other’s musical taste.

I have always thought of the iPod as my personal music cocoon.  It wraps me up and takes me to my own place.  Now with the shuffle, I can choose to be encompassed in either my great musical taste or my girlfriends.  The lack of display isn’t really a problem.  The only button you need is the one that takes you to the next song.  This helps on those songs where your musical tastes don’t quite mesh or if you don’t want to hear that Ted Leo song for the 20th time.

The Zune.

I really really wanted the Zune to be outstanding. I wanted the press to get a hold of it and actually dub it the device that will dethrone the iPod. This has not happened. It hasn’t necessarily gotten bad reviews, it is just good. I was actually a little bit puzzled that my fellow Mac fanboys do not share my disappointment that the Zune was not the iPod killer.

Why do I want the Zune to be amazing? It is quite simple actually. If Microsoft made a product that the media was raving over, what would Apple do? They would make the iPod better by leaps and bounds. Apple wouldn’t sit around as their “golden child” got trampled by a competitor, they would go out and make it regain its throne. I am not saying that I am not satisfied with the iPod by any means, I just think that Apple can do better. I feel like they have a lot of cool things that they are planning to do with it but are holding out so they can release it in a steady stream and gain more revenue. This isn’t wrong from a corporate standpoint, but it doesn’t really benefit me the consumer.

So far it seems like the Zune isn’t necessarily bad, it just has some broken features. The biggest example is the wifi. It is an excellent idea but the limitations cripple it. I understand that the restrictions are in place to keep the record labels happy, but I believe that they could have made the restrictions a little more laid back. Also it could have been made a little bit more viral, they could have allowed you to re-share songs. That ways if “friend A” gives me a song that I like then I can pass it to “friend B” so that he can get a taste of it as well. Also it would have been neat if they could not only have done sharing but also a broadcasting type of thing. This way if you and your buddies are taking the train or something somewhere you could all tune into one Zune as if it were a radio station. One major thing that the Zune is lacking is Podcast support. I am a huge fan of podcasts and believe they are an excellent source of entertainment. The mere fact that the Zune does not support podcasts is a deal breaker for me.

Overall I think it is a good thing that the Zune has come in to battle the iPod, it will help force Apple’s hand to put more neat idea’s into the iPod. I am hoping that they incorporate the wifi functionality except do it better and hopefully include what I said above. Also, Apple could adopt a better interface to compete with the one on the Zune. I like the minimalistic one but it is starting to show its age. The form factor of the iPod is fantastic. I don’t want them to change the metallic back and polycarbonate front that they have used for so long. They can change up the screen layout and do some interesting stuff with the clickwheel, but in general I want it to remain the same. The last main difference means very little to me and I think that Apple’s approach is the better one. That is the built in FM tuner. I don’t need to have radio on my iPod and would personally like it to stay the way it is without it. Apple offers the FM radio add-on for those who want it and I think that is the way it should stay. That way people that want it can have it and it doesn’t add bulk to the iPod for those of us who don’t need it.

Overall I think it is good that the Zune has been brought into the market. It will force Apple to keep innovating and make the iPod better. As always, Arstechnica has done an outstanding job reviewing the Zune. You can find their review here.

I opened iTunes the other day and connected my first gen iPod Nano. Then this window popped up and told me to download and install firmware version 1.3. With the update it said something about Nike+ voice track overlays were supported. A quick search on the web gave me nothing. Then today I connected my battery drained iPod to the computer and instead of giving the old black battery icon with the slash through it, it gave me this new message. Pretty interesting if you ask me. Has anyone else noticed this or gotten an update for their iPod?

After a few days of release troubles, the folks over at pzizz.com got their software up and license upgrades working. Today I finally got to download the new version of pzizz and try it out.

If you have never heard of pzizz, it is a piece of software that assists you in taking power-naps, or helps you fall asleep at night. To use pzizz, you need to purchase the modules that you would like to use (sleep or energizer) and then download the software. When you go to take a nap, you start pzizz and load up the appropriate module that you would like to use. (you can purchse either one or both) Then you just lay down and let the sounds lull you to sleep.

When I first heard of pzizz I was extremely skeptical. Often times when you hear people trying to sell this type of stuff it is just cheap gimmicks to steal your money. I then decided to give pzizz a try and see if it would actually work. I decided I would use it for 5 days to give it a fair shot. This way if I was over thinking it on day 1 then I had 4 more days to see if I could get it to work. By day 3 I was hooked, pzizz actually does help you get energized in the middle of the day. When I first started using it a few months ago, I would always set an emergency alarm just in case I slept through the end. I no longer need that alarm, no matter how long the nap is I always get awoken at the end by the voice gently pulling you back to reality.

Being a student, I never really got all the sleep I needed. By the time I got to my classes in the afternoon I was half asleep and sometimes would forget what we talked about in lecture that day. Now all I need is a pzizz nap in the middle of the day to keep me going strong through the night. The people who made pzizz even offer a student discount (see the end of the post for the links).

With the new version of pzizz brings a brand new interface. In my opinion this is a much needed improvement over the old one which I personally did not like very much. The new interface is more intuitive and looks great. The best thing about this new pzizz is the export to iTunes feature. Originally you had to download them to your desktop using the cryptic quicktime preferences that popped up and then drag it over to your iTunes. Now it does all this for you AND adds album art (which looks fantastic).

If you have never checked out pzizz or have been skeptical about if it works or not, then I strongly suggest heading over to pzizz.com and reading more about it for yourself. Also, before you go and drop some dough on a piece of software you can download some sample tracks from their website to see if it is right for you. Pzizz has been a lifesaver for me after a full day of classes and when I still have a whole night of studying ahead of me. I hope you give it a try and it works for you. Oh ya, and it is available for both Windows and Mac.

One last thing I need to mention before I close out this post. I wanted to mention the excellent customer service that you get from the people at pzizz. Edward Laing has been very helpful over the past few days when their upgrade system was not working properly. He really works hard to make sure you get the best experience possible and I am sure he would be more than happy to answer any questions you have about the software. Feel free to stop by the pzizz blog or contact him at customercare AT pzizz DOT com.

I really hope that you take the time to check out this great software. Until next time. Happy pzizzing.

Links

Student Discount
Upgrade your license
More Info
Purchase

So I have been planning on writing this post for about 2 weeks now. Finally I have the time to type up my thoughts on the rumored iPhone. In case you haven’t heard about it, a lot of the rumor sites and Mac bloggers have been repeating rumors that Apple is going to release a phone with a built in Mp3 player, similar to the Motorola phones. It is being hyped up to be this great amazing product and a lot of people have been saying that they want one. To begin with I want to say that I do not want it, well the way people say it is going to be. I do not want a phone/music player, it does nothing for me. If I want to listen to music I have an iPod. The nano is small enough that it is almost un-noticeable in my pocket. Also the iPhone will either have a very small song capacity or it will be huge. I want my cellphone to be smaller than it is now, not bigger. Also there is the thing about battery life. I want my cellphone to last 2-3 days without having to charge. If I have in on and am listening to it that will kill the battery life. A phone’s battery life varies on how you use it. It has a shorter battery life if you are constantly making calls and longer if it is sitting idle. Now think if you constantly use it to play music, your battery life will be even shorter. I have had my iPod die on me a few times and it is not a fun experience. It would be 10 times worse if my cell phone died. During the day I am not near my phone charger so it would just be an incredible hassle. There really is no benefit to me in having a music player/phone. Plus it would cost more.  On the other hand…

I wouldn’t mind if Apple released a cell phone that was not also a music player.  I am not happy with the cellphones on the market today.  Very few of them have bluetooth and even fewer sync naturally with my Mac.  If Apple created a phone it would do both of these things plus have a nice UI and more.  What I want is a good cellphone that works and makes me feel good the same way my iPod does.  Is this to much to ask.  Apple doesn’t even have to be the one who makes it, I just think they are the ones that could.

All that being said, iPhone is a no in my book unless they have a cheaper model sans music player.

In my last post I took a look at games on the iPod. Now I think it is time to look at another new addition to the iTunes Store and that is movies. Like the games, at first I was extremely skeptical of this new addition to the iTunes Store. Unlike the games, I am still a little skeptical about the movies. Now let’s take a minute to get a closer look at the three main things that could either hurt or help the iTunes movies.

First off lets look at video quality. It actually isn’t that bad. Im not disappointed because the movies I will ultimately end up buying I won’t care if they are a little pixilated. I won’t buy new releases, I’ll get to my reasons for that when I cover price. So this means it only costs me $10 to get a movie, that is the same amount and sometimes less than a music album off iTunes. It is extremely convenient for me to download classics that I want to see. These are the movies that I don’t want to waste time and gas to drive over to Target and pick up a DVD copy. They are fun to just be able to watch when the mood strikes. So overall the quality is actually quite good compared to what I was expecting. The movie looked good on my 20″ display and on my 30″ TV.

The next thing that could hurt movies is how people have to watch them. No one wants to watch them on their computer, period. The good news is that you don’t have to. If you own an iPod I strongly recommend throwing in the dough to pick up the A/V cables. To me it is well worth it, I put all my ripped TV shows on there as well as my movies and I must say it is great solution. That being said if you have an iPod and A/V cables then how you watch your movies will not be a problem. Like I said before, the movies looked good on my 30″ TV. They were not DVD quality but they did not look bad by any standard (unless your a videophile). Also with Apple’s iTV coming out early next year we will have another solution so that we do not have to watch on our computers.

So far it is looking pretty good for these downloadable movies. Now lets get to the one problem I have, price. $10 for a movie isn’t bad, but $15 is. To be fair it technically is only $13 because if you were going to buy the new release you would most likely pre-order it or order it the day it is released and it would only cost you $13 compared to $15 after that. If you wanted to get the movie when it first comes out, chances are you have only seen it once before and that was in the theaters. If that is the case you would probably want the full quality DVD version so that you can get the highest quality and the special extras. Also you get a good physical copy of the movie. The only problem is really new releases, for the $10 movies it isn’t that bad of a deal to get them on iTunes. You don’t have to waste any time going to the store, and they cost about $10 less than the DVD version. The $10 movies is great for impulse buying when you actually take a minute to see how much it costs compared to the DVD version. Impulse buying is really what the iTunes store is all about, and at $10 I believe that can grab that market. $15 is way to high but the $13 dollars is a little closer to home.

Overall, I think that the movies sold on the iTunes store are worth the price and will probably do pretty good once people stop complaining about the price and realize it isn’t that bad of a deal. In the end you will either buy them or you won’t. Some people just won’t stand for lower than DVD quality movies which is understandable considering we all have different tastes and standards. All I can recommend is that you take $10 and go buy a movie that you like but have not seen in awhile. Then make your decision if it was worth it or not to you.