Latest Posts in Playlist

Macworld's complete iPod buying guide

In September, Apple performed the now-yearly ritual of updating its iPod lineup in anticipation of the upcoming holiday season. Why? Apple sold 22.7 million iPods in the previous holiday quarter, compared with 21.2 million iPods in the two quarters that followed—combined. In other words, now’s the time that people love to buy Apple’s digital music players.

Are your loved ones starting to leave magazine ads, scissor-clipped photos, and crayon-scrawled images of this year’s crop of iPods in obvious places around the house? Are you looking to join the fun or upgrade your older iPod? If so, we’re here to help you sort out which iPod is the right one for you or that special holiday someone.

iPod shuffle

The iPod shuffle has always been about economy and ultimate portability and that’s never been more true than it is today. Available in 2GB () and 4GB () capacities for $59 (Get best current price) and $79 (Get best current price), respectively, the third-generation (3G) iPod shuffle is a little larger and twice as thick as a piece of Dentyne gum. That 2GB and 4GB capacity buys you 500 and 1000 four-minute 128kbps AAC songs—more than enough music to get you through the most vigorous workout. It’s available in a brushed aluminum finish in silver, black, blue, green, and pink.

Because it weighs next to nothing, clips to clothing, and is so tiny that it won’t get in the way, the gym is one of the most appropriate places for this diminutive iPod. Another is in your kid’s holiday stocking. Because the shuffle has no moving parts to damage and costs little more than a console video game, it’s a kid-appropriate gift. If it’s lost, stolen, or goes through the wash, you’ll have a measure of regret, but a measure commensurate only with the shuffle’s size and price—not much-bigger-bucks iPod touch regret.

Read more...

iPod touch

Apple’s latest marketing campaign paints the iPod touch as a great iPod, a great pocket computer, and a great portable game player. And, indeed, it is all these things. But you could also less elegantly describe it as “an iPhone without the phone, messaging, microphone, compass, camera, cellular network, and GPS features.”

The iPod touch comes in three capacities—8GB (), 32GB (), and 64GB ()—priced respectively at $199 (Get best current price), $299 (Get best current price), and $399 (Get best current price). These models, in ascending order, hold 1750 songs or 10 hours video, 7000 songs or 40 hours video, and 14,000 songs or 80 hours video. While the iPod touch may not pack the capacity of the iPod classic, a 64GB iPod touch that can hold 40 two-hour movies is nothing to sneeze at.

One of the things that makes the touch such a great iPod is the 3.5-inch (diagonal) touchscreen display. Because of its bright and fairly large display, this is the iPod you’ll want to take to bed with you when you’re in the mood for a late-night movie. Unlike with the nano and, perhaps, the classic, this is an iPod you can stare at throughout a double-feature without squinting for hours afterwards.

The 8GB model is the previous iteration of the iPod touch. As such, it doesn’t have the faster processor and graphics chip found in the 32GB and 64GB iPod touches. It also lacks these iPods’ Voice Control and VoiceOver features. (Voice Control is managed through the microphone/controller found on the cord of the right earbud. The 8GB iPod touch’s headset lacks this controller.)

All iPod touches support the creation of Genius playlists and Shake-to-Shuffle, operate as Internet appliances (for Web browsing, e-mail, YouTube, MobileMe syncing, and weather and stocks updates over Wi-Fi only), include a tinny internal speaker, and let you purchase and download media from the iTunes Store and apps from the App Store.

Access to these stores is one of the primary attractions of the iPod touch. With iTunes Store access you can acquire media on the go (provided the place you go has Wi-Fi). This is highly convenient when you’re sitting in an airport between flights and wish to download an album, TV episode, or movie for the next leg of your journey (go after that movie only if you’re sure you’re connected to a very fast Wi-Fi network). Just as convenient is grabbing a free or low-cost game from the App Store that helps you while away the hours in Coach.

Best for: Those who want to enjoy most of the advantages of add-on applications, the iTunes Store, Wi-Fi access to the Internet (and all that comes with it), and portable video, but don’t need a phone.

Not for: Those looking for an exercise-only iPod—it’s a little bulky and, with its glass screen, you don’t want to drop it on a locker room’s tile floor or the jogging trail.

iPhone

If the iPod touch is a great iPod, pocket computer, and portable game player, the iPhone is all those things plus as good a mobile phone as that phone’s carrier and reception allows. And that’s largely what the iPhone as phone boils down to—the quality of the service. For those who get great reception from AT&T in the areas in which they travel, the iPhone is a solid choice. If AT&T’s service is flaky or non-existent, you or the person you give the iPhone to will be unhappy.

As a holiday gift, the iPhone remains problematic. Unlike an iPod, the 8GB 3G (), or 16GB () or 32GB () 3GS iPhone is the gift that keeps on giving in the form of at least 24-months worth of service charges (including a mandatory $30-a-month data plan). Unless you’re so generous that you’re willing to pick up this tab, be absolutely certain that your gift will be welcomed. Be doubly certain if that person has an existing mobile phone contract that, when terminated, imposes additional fees.

Best for: Those who have good AT&T coverage; who desire a very cool mobile phone; and can afford the two-year commitment.

Not for: People who are largely after the iPhone’s media capabilities and happy with their current mobile phone and service.

The last word

As with many purchasing decisions, this one can be boiled down to budget and need. In tough financial times, if you seek a simple music player only, the iPod shuffle is ideal. If you’re after big features in a small, reasonably affordable package, it’s the iPod nano. If you desire to pack as much of your iTunes media in your pocket as possible—expense be darned—the iPod classic is the classic choice. If you’re after a very good iPod, great portable video player, and versatile pocket computer, and can afford at least $199, the iPod touch is right for you. And if you or a loved one needs a new mobile phone, that mobile phone will be used in an area well-served by AT&T, and you’d like that mobile phone to perform the iPod touch’s hatful of tricks (and more), join the ranks of the many satisfied iPhone owners.

Senior editor Christopher Breen is the author of The iPod and iTunes Pocket Guide, fifth edition, The iPhone Pocket Guide, fourth edition, and the upcoming The iPod touch Pocket Guide.

Copy music off your iPod

It’s happened to the best of us: a hard drive crash takes our precious iTunes library down to Davy Jones’ Locker, and we either don’t have backups, or our backups are corrupted or out of date. If those files are on your iPod, however, you can restore them to your computer—with a little bit of work.

I’m so obsessive about my music collection that I keep two backups of my music, because Kirk’s First Rule of Computing is that you will, one day, lose your files. But let’s say something happens to your backups and you can’t get your music files restored. Apple doesn’t provide any way for you to copy files from your iPod back to your Mac. While there are legitimate reasons for blocking bi-directional copying—it would be simple to dump your entire music collection on a friend’s computer, for example—there are also good reasons why you might need to do so.

A friend of mine e-mailed me the other day asking how he could recover files from his iPod. There are several ways and utilities to help you, but let’s start with the easy and free way.

First, connect the iPod to your Mac; as soon as you do so, hold down the Command and Option keys, which will tell iTunes not to sync to your iPod. You’ll then see the iPod (but not iPhone or iPod touch) show up in the Finder sidebar. If you click it, to see its contents, you’ll see four folders by default: Calendars, Contacts, Notes and Recordings. But what you won’t see are any of the music files stored on your iPod; that’s because Apple has hidden them. You’ll need a way to display these hidden files in the Finder. If you’re comfortable using Terminal, you can run this command:

Read more...

Review: Roth Audio Alfie

Referred to throughout the marketing material as a ‘he’, Roth Audio’s Alfie appears to have quite a grand opinion of ‘himself’. And if you consider that it’s an iPod docking stereo system with a CD player, AM/FM radio, and a DVD player all rolled into one, you may be inclined to agree.

It certainly looks the part when you take it out of the box. The Alfie has a curved design with silver sides and a shiny piano-black top panel.

The connectivity ports for your TV are on the back of the unit, while the top has a row of touch-sensitive red lights that act as buttons.

However, Alfie’s looks are blighted somewhat when in use. There’s a click-to-open iPod dock at the back—inexplicably it’s slightly to the right of center. The touch-sensitive buttons are also on the unresponsive side.

Overall, the sound is OK, but the high price tag ($815 on Amazon.com) reflects the unit’s multi-purpose nature rather than any exquisite audio output.

Macworld’s buying advice

The Alfie promises much with its cool styling and all-in-one approach to your living room entertainment. We have to say, though, that the sound really isn’t good enough for this to be a main speaker unit; but as a DVD and CD player to play through the TV set, it does a good job.

HDTVs for the holidays

HDTV aren't new to the marketplace, but they're more attractive than ever, thanks to new lower prices. Now is a great time to upgrade your old TV, and a new HDTV goes great with your Apple TV. You can even connect your Mac laptop to an HDTV with the proper adapter. And you'll definitely need a HDTV if you're planning on buying a new Blu-ray set top player for your entertainment center.

Our lab has been hard at work testing HDTVs ranging in size from 40 inches to 52 inches for image quality, usability, audio quality, and features. Here are the test results of 16 HDTVs that have been through our lab—use our reviews to help you make the right buying decision.

Headfunk offers Sidekick Speaker Bags for iPod

Headfunk has announced the launch of the Sidekick Speaker Bags for iPod, iPhone, MP3 players and any device with a 3.5mm jack. The Sidekick is billed as a small, tough, durable, handy and stylish stereo speaker and storage bag in a range of camo colours including Blue Ocean,Green Woodland and Pink Terrain.

According to the makers, the 30mm Headfunk speakers use one of the most powerful magnetic materials known to mankind and the high sensitivity  increases volume output, improving battery life from the 2 AA  batteries that drive the built-in amplifier. An EVA/PVC Dual laminated case promises to protect from everyday knocks, scratches and bumps.

The Headfunk Sidekick Speaker Bags cost £24.99 each and are available for purchase through the Headfunk Web site. According to the Web site, the company delivers worldwide via the Royal Mail Signature Service and delivery of most orders is 7 to 14 days.

UK-based Headfunk offers a range of earphones and headphones, as well as personal and portable speaker systems, targeted at the skate/surf generation.

For the environmentally aware, Headfunk points out that its packaging is now made of 100 percent recycled materials and is designed to be more easily recyclable through reduced use of printing inks and plastics.

Review: Vizio SV420M HDTV

Vizio’s SV420M isn’t the least-expensive HDTV in Vizio’s current 42-inch lineup. But this 42-inch, 120Hz, 1080p LCD model won’t break the bank either, and it delivers midrange image quality and excellent usability, plus one feature (picture-in-picture) that you typically don’t find at its price point.

Vizio also touts the set as exceeding Energy Star 3 requirements, and in our tests we found that it did fall on the lower end of power consumption.

The SV420M landed roughly in the middle of the pack in our juried image-quality tests in our lab. Judges found its colors generally pleasing but complained about loss of detail in some dark areas, as well as about artifacts such as moiré on a suit in The Dark Night and shimmering bricks in Mission: Impossible III (both on Blu-ray Disc).

Read more...

Review: Panasonic Viera TC-P42X1 HDTV

Panasonic’s TC-P42X1 42-inch plasma HDTV set can accept a 1080p input, but it downscales the image to its native 720p resolution. This was the likely cause of the set’s biggest problem in our tests: a noticeable “screen-door” effect.

Every digital screen is made of a grid of squares—namely, pixels. Ordinarily this grid is too small to notice when you’re watching the TV from the recommended viewing distance. If the grid is large enough to be noticeable, however, the result is a bit like watching a movie or TV show through a screen door (though not as severe, of course). On several of our tests, the TC-P42X1 had a noticeable screen-door effect. It looked the worst against light images and white backgrounds, but I saw it even in a dark scene from our DVD of The Phantom of the Opera. This wasn’t exclusively the result of downscaling the image either: We saw the effect even when the set was upscaling from 480p to 720p.

In addition, the TC-P42X1 suffered from a bad overscan that cropped all four edges of the picture. Unfortunately, the unit has no overscan setting that can be switched off to alleviate this issue.

Read more...

Review: Samsung LN40B650 HDTV

Samsung’s LN40B650 produces great-looking on-screen images, and its Internet and home-networking capabilities will keep you entertained when there’s nothing good on TV. You can find cheaper 40-inch HDTVs, but the image quality and the extras make the LN40B650 worth its $1200 price.

The LN40B650 is, as of this review, tops in overall picture quality compared with other TVs we’ve tested. It earned a score of Very Good. The set displays sharp and crisp images, and according to one judge in our testing panel, it looked “very pleasing overall.”

This TV’s foremost weakness was its upconverting of 480p DVD movies to 1080p. In this area, most jurors put it slightly lower than its competition; two judges noted mediocre-to-poor contrast in scenes from the Phanton of the Opera DVD.

Read more...

Review: LG Electronics 42LH55 HDTV

LG’s 42LH55 42-inch HDTV covers the basics well, delivering a good picture and very good sound. It’s short on extra features, however, and it doesn’t display motion as well as some of the other 240Hz LCD HDTVs we’ve tested.

In our lab’s image-quality tests, judges complained occasionally about the colors and contrast. For example, we found that a clip of Wheel of Fortune at 720p was a touch too bright, or a scene from the Phantom of the Opera DVD was somewhat muddy, with indistinct details lost in darkness. More troublesome were the digital artifacts we spotted, which indicate that the 42LH55 struggles with complex patterns, especially those that are moving. In a 720p baseball clip, moving objects exhibited noticeable haloing effects. A brick wall in Chapter 7 of the Mission: Impossible III Blu-ray appeared to vibrate as the camera panned across the scene. The weave of Morgan Freeman’s jacket in Chapter 9 of The Dark Knight danced with moiré patterns.

In our motion and panning tests, which push a TV’s motion-handling capabilities to the limit, the 42LH55 showed mixed results. It did well on the horizontal-panning test, although not quite as well as other 240Hz LCD sets we’ve tested. On the diagonal-panning test, it performed quite poorly: The image juddered and showed considerable artifacting when it should have been a smooth pan. Changing how the set converted 240Hz content to 120Hz through the 42LH55’s TruMotion 240 setting didn’t help. Our motion tests confirmed the (less extreme) motion problems it exhibited in the Mission: Impossible III and Dark Knight tests.

Read more...

Review: Vizio SV471XVT HDTV

No doubt about it: With an estimated street price of $1200 sounds good for a 47-inch, 240Hz LCD HDTV—especially one with multimedia capabilities and a terrific remote. But Vizio’s SV471XVT major compromise comes to image quality.

Our test jury was not particularly impressed with the SV471XVT’s picture clarity: The TV struggled with moving objects on screen, and occasionally had trouble with still objects, too—it displayed plenty of digital artifacts and pixelation in lab’s image quality tests. Halos of garbled pixels surrounded running players in a 720p baseball clip. Artifacts around small objects appeared in a 720p clip from Wheel of Fortune. Two of the three 1080i clips also had artifacts, and a scene from the Phantom of the Opera DVD had a halo even around someone walking slowly (artifacting is usually more of a problem with fast-motion sequences).

The SV471XVT did better with Blu-ray discs screening at its native 1080p resolution, but even here I saw moiré patterns in images of the Hong Kong skyline (shot in the large Imax film format) in Chapter 9 of the Blu-ray version of The Dark Knight. At least one other judge noticed moiré patterns in the weave of Morgan Freeman’s jacket (in a scene that wasn’t shot in Imax).

Read more...