Playlist The latest dispatches from the world of the iPod

Review: Lower East Side Audio Dock Air is a quality AirPlay speaker

Posted by Lex Friedman on

4.0 out of 5 mice

Audyssey’s $400 Lower East Side Audio Dock Air is, put simply, a black, upright, rectangular slab of an AirPlay speaker. Featuring some interesting physical design decisions, it generates impressive sound.

The five-pound Audio Dock measures 8.3 inches tall, 8.9 inches deep, and 4.7 inches thick. The two nearly square sides are covered in black mesh, with the four thinner sides sporting matte-black plastic—if you were to unpack the speaker before seeing a photo of it, you’d need to check the manual to figure out which way is up and which side is the front.

On top of the unit are two tiny LEDs that indicate the Audio Dock’s power and AirPlay-connectivity status, along with a black, inset volume dial that doubles as a mute button if you push down on it. On the front of of the unit—one of the narrower sides—sit a headphone jack along something that looks like it should be a button or an infrared receiver, but is in fact merely decorative. That’s a shame, because a power button would be a fine addition to the Audio Dock. Instead, it’s always on when plugged in, and it offers no standby or off mode. As is typical of AirPlay speakers, there are no playback controls—you control playback on your iOS device or computer.

The Audio Dock’s rear panel includes a port for plugging in the system's power brick, a 1/8-inch (3.5mm) auxiliary-input jack for connecting an audio source directly, and a pairing button.

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Software » Multimedia » Music and Audio

Organize and play your media from a NAS

Posted by Christopher Breen on

As computers have become more affordable and taken on increasingly important tasks in our lives, it’s common to have more than one of them on the premises. While it’s terrific that family members and co-housers needn’t line up to use a single computer, things can get confusing when you have media scattered among a group of computers that everyone would like access to.

This is exactly the situation I faced. Many computers; dabs of media here, larger dollops there; and no really solid scheme for making it available to all the devices I own. Having finally had enough of the frustration, I resolved to do something about it. This is that story.

Gather and organize

Job One was to grab all the digital media I owned and put it on a single hard drive. For this I purchased a 2TB FireWire drive and moved from computer to computer, copying any music, video, podcasts, audiobooks, and ebooks I could find. I wasn’t particularly careful about what went where nor did I care about playlists or play counts. I wanted a fresh start and I was willing to lose the playlists I’d created for the greater good of taming my media. To ensure that I didn’t lose any media I didn’t trash any of the files on my computer. I simply created a Media folder on the drive and copied my media files and folders to the new drive.

I then attached that drive to my Mac Pro, held down the Option key, and launched iTunes. When you do this, iTunes prompts you to either choose a library or create a new one. I then followed these steps:

Software » Multimedia » Music and Audio

Get smarter with iTunes U

Posted by Kirk McElhearn on

You’ve probably noticed it in the navigation bar at the top of the iTunes Store—sandwiched between Podcasts and the much-maligned Ping—but have you ever clicked on the iTunes U link? Millions of people have, and iTunes U has seen more than 600 million downloads since its inception in 2006.

An integral part of the iTunes Store since May 2007, iTunes U is an extraordinary repository of educational content from more than 1000 universities around the world. Here’s how it works.

When you go to the iTunes U section of the iTunes Store, you’ll see that it looks a lot like the rest of the store. There are rotating graphics at the top for featured content, promotional bricks in the middle of the page for different themes, and “top charts” showing the most popular downloads. But what’s less obvious at first glance is the fact that all this content is free.

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Home Theater » Video Players

Apple TV 4.4 adds Photo Stream, NHL, more

Posted by Jonathan Seff on

As part of its barrage of updates on Wednesday, Apple bumped the second-generation Apple TV’s software to version 4.4, bringing with it support for Photo Stream, AirPlay mirroring, NHL hockey, Wall Street Journal content, and more.

Photo Stream, part of Wednesday’s introductions of iOS 5 and iCloud, lets you view photos on your Apple TV that you’ve added to your iCloud account.

Also new is AirPlay Mirroring, which lets you wirelessly mirror the contents of your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S’s screen on your TV via the Apple TV.

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Home Theater » Video Players

Roku releases $50 LT model, adds HBO Go channel

Posted by Christopher Breen on

On Tuesday, Roku introduced a new entry-level model to its streaming video player lineup, and announced the imminent addition of an HBO Go channel for all Roku devices.

The $50 Roku LT is the least expensive Roku model, and comes in a special edition purple color. Like the $60 Roku 2 HD, the LT supports 720p video and has built-in wireless networking. But unlike the members of the Roku 2 family (), the LT forgos Bluetooth and a microSD card slot (which also means it can't enjoy the Roku 2's new gaming options). The Roku LT should be available in early November.

At the same time, Roku announced a new HBO Go channel—a service currently available via iOS app and select cable companies—that allows those who subscribe to HBO via their cable or satellite provider to additionally stream every episode of every HBO show produced for no additional charge (more than 1400 titles, according to HBO).

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Tablets » E-Readers

New Kindle with Special Offers option removes ads for $30

Posted by Jared Newman on

Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from the Today @ PC World blog at PCWorld.com.

Kindle buyers no longer have to decide right away whether they want the ad-free or ad-subsidized version of the e-reader, because Amazon is including an option to remove Kindle ads later.

Removing ads from the fourth-generation Kindle with Special Offers costs $30—the same premium that users would pay up-front for an ad-free model. The latest Kindle, which removes the keyboard of previous generations in favor of a directional pad, launched last week for $79 with ads, or $109 without them.

According to The Digital Reader, ads may be removed only on the latest keyboard-free Kindle, but the feature will presumably be available on the Kindle Touch as well when it launches in November. To remove ads, head to Amazon's account page, click Manage Your Kindle, then click Manage Your Devices on the left sidebar. You'll see an option to unsubscribe from Special Offers.

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iPods

Opinion: Steady as she goes with Apple's iPod lineup

Posted by Christopher Breen on

When last we met to discuss the fate of the iPod I suggested that the majority of the iPod line would live on and, in describing the shuffle, summed it up with “There just isn’t a good reason to not sell the shuffle.” If only I’d written “not sell the current iPods just as they are” and stopped, I would have been hailed as The Great Prognosticator.

But no. I had to keep my big yap flapping and imply that the 2010 nano was no great shakes and needed some kind of design change, that the iPod classic was finally going to meet its maker, and that the next iPod touch would be best served with 3G circuitry and a pay-as-you-go plan. Because that’s the way it always goes, right? New year, new iPod line.

Not this year. While Apple is certainly not giving up on the non-iOS iPods, the company is not putting a great deal more effort into them. Today’s iPod shuffle is exactly the same as the one sold last year. The “new” iPod nano is $20 to $30 less expensive than it was before depending on which model you buy, but it’s the same hardware outfitted with a software update. (Those who purchased their watchband nano last year can upgrade to the new software via iTunes.) And the 160GB iPod classic hasn’t changed in years and remains priced at $249.

This certainly lessens the excitement around iPods. This holiday season you’re not going to hear “Ooh, that new chocolate flavored implantable iPod nano is just want I want!” Rather, the more utilitarian “Mom, I just put my nano through the wash, can you get me another one next time you’re at the mall?” sounds about right.

iPods

Apple updates iPod nano, touch models

Posted by Jonathan Seff on

Apple’s Tuesday press event may have focused on the iPhone, but the company found a little time to talk about minor changes to its iPod lineup, highlighted largely by price cuts for the nano and touch models.

Apple's Phil Schiller talks about the new iPod nano.

“We started the iPod because we loved music, and that hasn’t stopped,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, as he announced the changes to the iPod nano and touch offerings. “We still love music, and we’re stil making iPods.”

iPod nano

The iPod nano retains the design Apple introduced last fall when it shrunk the music player into a 1.48-by-1.61-by0.35-inch design with a multitouch interface. In this year’s update, Apple will make the nano’s multitouch display easier to navigate by using larger icons. The 1.54-inch nano screen will now display a single icon at a time; you’ll swipe the screen to switch icons.

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Microsoft kills the Zune

Posted by Peter Sayer on

Microsoft will make no more Zune music players, building its future music strategy on applications incorporated in its Windows Phone and Xbox platforms, the company has confirmed.

Rumors circulated in March that Microsoft planned to stop making dedicated music players, but the company ducked the issue then, saying this year's new Zune devices would be mobile phones running Zune software. It went on to release a trickle of applications for the Zune platform later in the year.

The company has now updated a help page at Zune.net to announce: "We will no longer be producing Zune players." Instead, the page said: "Going forward, Windows Phone will be the focus of our mobile music and video strategy."

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Tablets » E-Readers

Copy files from your Mac to your Kindle

Posted by Jason Snell on

After I detailed the ins and outs of the new generation of Kindles on Thursday, I got a letter from Macworld reader Gerald A. Wingrove, who is intrigued by the Kindle but unclear how it works with his Mac. Since this is Macworld, after all, I thought it was worth a refresher about how the Kindle and the Mac interact. Gerald writes:

Over the years I have made great use of the free books available on the Gutenberg website. Is it possible, with a Kindle via the internet, to take onboard for reading, books from Gutenberg? As the Kindle has a USB port, is it possible to connect it to the G5 and have it appear on the desktop, so that PDF and MP3 files can be dragged and dropped into it for reading and listening to?
Is it possible to buy and use a Kindle without getting ones self tied into the Amazon spider’s web?

The Kindle’s been around so long, I didn’t really consider how a lot of people have never seen one and plenty more have never attempted to attach it to a Mac. So let me clarify matters a little.

Yes, the Kindle has a USB port. (In fact, the USB port doubles as a charging port—the Kindle power adapter is a plug with a USB port and a USB cable!) Plug one end of that USB cable into a Mac and the other into a Kindle, and the Kindle will announce it’s entering USB Drive Mode. A new volume, called Kindle, will appear on your Mac. You can open it up and see the files inside. The key folders inside the Kindle volume are audible, documents, and music.

The audible folder is where audiobook files from audible.com live. music is a place where you can put MP3s and then play them back while you’re reading, and even listen via the Kindle’s headphone jack! But the most important folder is documents: this is where all your books, newspapers, and magazines live.