Not often do we come across a piece of gear that makes us wish we’d thought of it. But when we saw this in-dash iPod dock (more of a slot, really) adapted from a car cassette deck, we dusted off the award statuette. With a Kenwood head unit, you can select the iPod as a source so song information and playlists are visible on the stereo’s LCD readout — good to have, since your iPod’s clickwheel and screen will be a little obstructed. And that Apple button is a nice touch.
Tragically, the highly evolved dock is a one-shot mod of a dashboard cassette player done by CarDomain.com user JPPadula, and it’s doubtful he’s taking orders. We hope that some smart manufacturers are paying attention, but in the meantime, Alpine’s iDA-X001 can stand in as the next best thing
Not too fast! Apple is warning iTunes users not to upgrade to Vista until the iPod maker releases an upgrade to the music player software. Among the incompatible issues that Apple aims to resolve include an inability to play music or video purchased from the iTunes Store, problems synchronizing address book contact and calendar functions, and slowed runtime.
Big changes are afoot for the iPod in the wake of the Beatles settlement — the iPod is about to become the new CD.
On Monday, Apple Inc. and the Beatles’ Apple Corps announced that a 15-year legal spat over the “Apple” trademark had been settled in Steve Jobs’ favor.
But the biggest news wasn’t mentioned at all in the joint press release: The new contract clears the way for Jobs to sell iPods loaded with music. More
Chinese company Meizu has already released an iPhone copycat, and reviewers are claiming that the Meizu M8 player is “everything the iPhone should’ve been.”
From the promo site, Meizu offers:
The Meizu m8 Player - The Music Phone
The Meizu M8 is going to be a music phone (57×105x11.5mm) for the GSM and TD networks with a 3.3-inch 720×480 pixel VGA+ touch sensitive screen, 3 mega-pixel camera, ARM11 CPU capable of recording video in 30FPS utilizing the entire screen resolution, Bluetooth and TV Out. Supposedly, it will also run the latest version of Microsoft’s Windows for mobile devices; Windows CE 6.0. After the release of the official concept renders, the M8 has already been stamped as an Apple iPhone clone.
It’s funny to see this out so quick as just yesterday I watched Steve Jobs say that the iPhone is five years ahead of the competition in his iPhone keynote address. How about five days?
The most talked-about mobile phone in the world won’t even be on display at next week’s 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, the year’s largest mobile industry exhibition.
Software and phone developers are comparing the products they’ll exhibit at the conference to the iPhone, even though Apple won’t be at 3GSM and the iPhone isn’t available yet.
Funambol plans to show off its Linux-based applications, including mobile email, as an open alternative to Apple’s phone, which is based on proprietary software.
One handset maker, Neonode, says that the iPhone follows its design lead. Neonode introduced a buttonless, fully touchscreen phone in 2004 and plans to announce a new one at 3GSM. More
