November 26th, 2008 | Posted in Audio, Mobile, Net TV | 
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Nokia’s new touchscreen phone, the XpressMusic 5800, is being pitched as an affordable music and video centric phone — it’s the third handset to support the company’s all-you-can-eat music subscription service, Comes With Music — rather than being an outright iPhone killer (it isn’t). On that note, after playing with the device for a few weeks — see my first impressions — here’s a hands-on video I shot walking through the 5800’s media playback features.
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November 26th, 2008 | Posted in Audio, Mobile | 1 Comment
Last February when Microsoft announced it had purchased Danger, makers of T-Mobile’s consumer friendly smartphone the Sidekick, I suggested that rumors of a Zune-branded phone would quickly resurface. Today, CNBC’s Jim Goldman claims that a new device from Microsoft, codenamed ‘pink’, is indeed in the works and that it will combine the company’s Zune with technology from Danger, with an end goal to develop a viable competitor to Apple’s iPhone.
All of which seems perfectly plausible. Both the Zune and Danger teams fall under the company’s Entertainment and Devices Division, which also overseas the XBox 360 — Microsoft’s most successful foray into the consumer electronics space — and is all about what the company calls “connected experiences”. As I wrote at the time, it’s in this context where the Danger acquisition made most sense, with Microsoft citing Danger’s mobile Web browsing, instant messaging, games, multimedia, and social networking applications, which in combination with MSN, Xbox, Zune, Windows Live and Windows Mobile technologies, would help it deliver “industry-leading entertainment and communication experiences”.
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November 20th, 2008 | Posted in Audio, Net TV | No Comments
It’s nice to know that Steve Jobs and his faithful army of Apple engineers are still able to find time to spend on the company’s hobby. I’m talking about the Apple TV of course, which today received a minor software update.
The Apple TV Software Update 2.3 adds the following features to the company’s set-top box:
Although this latest update is a minor one, it’s at least proof that Apple hasn’t abandoned the Apple TV completely. Having said that, the company’s Internet TV set-top box is starting to look really long in the tooth with it’s closed nature (the 2.3 update breaks existing hacks) and nearly sole existence within the iTunes eco-system.
See also: AppleTV 2 breaks free from the PC, remains under Apple’s lock and key
As I’ve argued many times before, Apple should open up the Apple TV to third-party developers or at least take a page from TiVo’s book and partner more aggressively, something that the company seems loathed to do in order to protect sales of movies and TV shows through the iTunes Store.
On that note, I wonder how Steve Jobs feels about the prospect of YouTube, a third-party video service the Apple TV does support, adding full-length movies and television shows from major Hollywood studios.
November 20th, 2008 | Posted in Audio, Mobile | 3 Comments
Do you like to rent your music collection or own it outright? With the updated Zune Pass, Microsoft’s subscription service for its Zune line of portable media players, you can now have the best of both worlds. Sort of.
For a monthly fee of $14.99, Zune Pass subscribers get access to millions of tracks on a rental basis — once the subscription ends, access is shuttered — but with today’s changes they can also keep ten DRM-free tracks on a to-own basis to add permanently to their music collections.
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November 19th, 2008 | Posted in Audio, Mobile | No Comments
Having spent a fair amount of time driving around London over the last few days, one thing is evident: Comes With Music, Nokia’s all-you-can-eat music service, has definitely launched in the UK, backed by a costly ad campaign and a big holiday season push by retail partner Carphone Warehouse (prime time TV ads shown during X Factor, if I recall correctly). But how well is the message getting through?
On that note, I decided to pop into one of Carphone’s larger stores to take a closer peek at the display advertising for Comes With Music — there was plenty of it — and to ask a few subtle questions about how well the concept is resonating with consumers.
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October 28th, 2008 | Posted in Audio, Mobile | No Comments
Similar to Apple’s own ‘Remote’ app for iTunes, Sonos today released a free download that turns an iPhone into a wireless controller for the company’s Multi-Room Music System. Now Sonos owners or prospective buyers can do away with the official remote and opt to use their iPhone or iPod touch instead, which not only may work out cheaper – the Sonos CR100 is priced at $400 – but also provides the touch interface that some users have requested. On that note, Dave Zatz shares this interesting tidbit:
… more fascinating than the software itself is the iPhone Controller back story. Sonos has heard the touchscreen requests, but hybrid analog/touchscreen prototypes didn’t fare well in their usability testing and a pure touchscreen device was uncomfortable for some. Whereas the iPhone demographic is obviously already in tune with touchscreen conventions.
While it’s surprising to learn that Sonos has thus far been unable to develop a touchscreen controller that resonates with its userbase, by releasing an iPhone app out in the wild they’ll gain a lot of valuable user feedback that would otherwise be hard to come by. The move also demonstrates once again the versatility of Apple’s multi-touch UI, whereby the on-screen virtual buttons can be infinitely reconfigured for different purposes.
See also: Logitech announces Squeezebox Duet, takes aim at Sonos
View the official video demo of Sonos Controller for iPhone after the jump…
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October 22nd, 2008 | Posted in Audio, Mobile, Net TV | 1 Comment
Much of the iPod’s success, says Steve Jobs, is down to the fact that Japanese consumer electronics companies don’t produce elegant software. He makes the same accusation of handset makers too. They can do hardware but they “just can’t seem to get the software right.” Enter Android, Google’s open source OS, which although explicitly designed to deliver better software for Internet-connected cellphones, will also soon find its way onto all manner of devices.
“Over the last few weeks I have learned that numerous companies are tinkering with Android in an attempt to get the OS to power a whole slew of gadgets — everything from set-top boxes to navigation systems to mobile Internet devices to smart picture frames”, reports Om Malik.
Motorola have already confirmed that it has at least one Android-powered handset in the pipeline, but the company is also a major player in the television set-top box space and is said to be exploring the potential of Android in the living room too. Malik also says he’s heard from “fairly reliable sources” that two large PC makers are experimenting with Android-based Internet devices. None of which I find surprising. From both a technical and business point of view, Google has laid the foundations for Android to move quickly beyond its cellphone roots and, the company hopes, eventually become a ubiquitous platform.
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October 8th, 2008 | Posted in Audio | 1 Comment
In an effort to make money from YouTube, Google introduced this week an e-commerce component to the popular video-sharing site that allows users to click buttons to buy music, video, and games from iTunes or Amazon.
The idea has merit, but its execution — at least in this early stage — is in need of improvement. It’s not unlike other Google initial-release products.
Here’s how it works: The Good
Say you’re messing around on YouTube and you watch a video from an artist you like — Katy Perry or Raphael Saadiq. Just underneath the video, below the ratings and the sharing and social network links, there are two buttons to download the song or video from Amazon’s MP3 store or iTunes.
Clicking on either one takes you directly to the song at either store. The purchase process is exactly what you’re used to at AmazonMP3 or iTunes.
“If you like the song, you don’t need to leave Google or leave the site to buy it,” Bakari Brock, business affairs counsel at YouTube, told The New York Times. [See also Advertising Age]
That’s not exactly true. Clicking on Amazon, of course, takes you to AmazonMP3, while clicking on iTunes takes you to, naturally, iTunes. But you still leave YouTube, although the page you were viewing remains intact.
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October 6th, 2008 | Posted in Audio, Review | 1 Comment
It’s certainly a noble notion — and here’s to the success of the Featured Artists’ Coalition, even if it does appear to be a longshot.
Dozens of UK pop and rock stars, including Radiohead, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, Kate Nash, Gang of Four, and The Verve, are among the acts who have signed on to a new music-industry pressure group, the Featured Artists’ Coalition [via the BBC and others].
As the music industry continues to shuffle, kicking and screaming, into the digital age, the FAC seeks to protect the artists’ rights over their own music, in addition to having a greater say in how their songs are sold and getting a bigger slice of the profits.
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October 2nd, 2008 | Posted in Audio, Mobile, Net TV | 3 Comments
At long last, Nokia has taken the wraps off its much anticipated entrance into the touchscreen smartphone space, post-iPhone of course.
The new device – dubbed 5800 XpressMusic – is, as the name suggests, being pitched as a music (and video) centric phone, and is to be the second handset to support the company’s all-you-can-eat music subscription service, Comes With Music, which also officially launched today. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nokia is also emphasizing the 5800’s media production and sharing capabilities, two areas where the company feels it competes strongly against Apple, especially since the iPhone lacks video recording functionality. On that note, the 5800 features a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and is capable of 30 frames-per-second video playback and recording.
There’s also the now standard support for Nokia’s ‘Share on Ovi’ web service, which along with the ability to upload to Nokia’s own media sharing site, also supports uploading to Flickr and Facebook. Additionally, music play-lists can be shared via Bluetooth, although this feature will likely only be of real use to Comes With Music subscribers.
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