Music

Welcome to the social? Not exactly.

I spent a week trekking around San Francisco, Zune in tow, hoping to find more of the players to share music with. I nearly gave up in failure but finally found one other Zune on my downtown expedition.

It's early on, of course--the Zune has only been available for around a month. Still, one of the main reasons Microsoft is hoping that consumers will opt for the Zune over the iPod is the MP3 player's wireless sharing feature. And, as I found out, it's not much use if there is no … Read more

The new iRiver MP3 player coming to market in South Korea looks like something you'd see for sale at a Starbuck's counter while waiting for your chai latte. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, either. As mass-market media players rapidly descend into commodity status, companies must do more to separate themselves from the pack through design and distribution.

This is not to say that iRiver's S7 has throwaway features: According to Akihabara News, it has 1GB of memory in a tiny case that's 1.7 by 1.2 inches and less than half an … Read more

Even those with perfect eyesight would get ocular fatigue trying to watch the small screens on most media players for extended periods. And for those of us who are legally blind without corrective lenses, it's almost impossible.

In these cases, the "iProjector" from Ion Audio is designed to prevent early bifocals by taking the video from your iPod and projecting it onto a screen of up to 30 by 90 inches, all the while charging your player. It will also work with a computer, DVD player or game console.

Ion claims 800-by-600-pixel resolution, but it remains to … Read more

With all due respect to our fellow Cravers, we weren't exactly huge fans of speakers recently incarnated as penguins and hogs. It's just that they seemed so ... predictable.

But how often do you see stuffed animals with their own working headphones? Now that's original. The 'phones, in this case, are actually speakers that connect to your MP3 player. These iFlops come in a menagerie of bears, elephants, frogs, pigs and monkeys, as seen in this photo from Chip Chick. No penguins, though. (Sorry, Caroline.)

Sometimes, it seems that iPod speaker makers are just trying to outdo each other with the tallest models they can get away with. (Not that we have anything against tall models.)

The "Philips Docking Entertainment System DCM270" appears to be entering the contest, though its dimensions have not yet been revealed. In fact, not much of anything about it has been revealed, other than that it will work with Philips' GoGear MP3 player as well as the iPod (big surprise). One thing we do know: Like the Intempo Digital's Stereo Tower, the Philips system is at least … Read more

Here's yet another excuse to have those white headphones stuck in your ears: Wear your iPod Nano while flying down a snow-covered ski slope at death-defying speeds. It'll be like you're the star of your own extreme snowboard movie, complete with awesome soundtrack.

We brought you the iSoundCap hat a while ago, but it being, you know, cold outside now, there had to be another reason to sell an iPod holder, right? Of course.

The iSoundCap ski cap comes in red, white, black and kakhi, and is made of 100 percent acrylic. Though the idea of synthetic … Read more

Let's say that, by day, you're a thirty- or fortysomething who works in a buttoned-down office setting. But by night, you still get the occasional urge to boogie, much to your children's dismay. (Not that we know anyone like this--it's a strictly hypothetical scenario.)

Griffin Technology may have something that can help you maintain your dual identity. The self-described "creator of all things iPod" says it is introducing two popular cases for the new Nano lines. The "iClear " model holds true to its name, a transparent but durable polycarbonate shell that won'… Read more

Few categories have been so overdone than iPod speakers. After posting our last item on a pair of these ubiquitous products, we imposed an unofficial moratorium on them. It lasted a lot longer than expected: a whole six days. We figure we missed 40 or 50 speaker announcements in that time.

So why are we breaking the fast now? Just look at the picture, Sparky. It's a speaker shaped like an iron. And a pink one at that, though it also comes in orange and lime green. Even Chip Chick was moved to declare it "the oddest iPod … Read more

The Apple iPod is, far and away, the most popular MP3 player on the market--less a product and more a way of life for many people. But just how reliable a product is it? That's the question posed by Nick Wingfield's article in today's Wall Street Journal. "When iPods Die" (which, like most WSJ content, is locked behind the paper's subscriber firewall) compiles some compelling iPod war stories. Among the frustrated 'Pod users chronicled is Tom Westrup of Austin, Texas, who--after suffering from repeated freeze-ups during playback--is currently awaiting his fifth replacement iPod. There'… Read more