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seeking fresh content for your video-enabled iPod? look no further! iTube (Windows only) is a dead simple tool allowing to download any clip from YouTube straight to your player. just enter the URL of the chosen video, and iTube will download the movie, convert it to mp4 (or mpeg, for other players) and update your iTunes library. it won’t get any simpler. Mac-users may try out PodTube instead…

iTunes 7 received loads of bad press immediately after last weeks release. especially Windows-users complain about heavily increased CPU- and memory-load, disfunctional download of cover-artwork, problems with certain iPod-models and destroyed installations. this reminds a lot of itTunes 6, which was quite buggy in its inital release as well (lets remember this when iTunes 8 arrives! ;)). while we wait for salvation in the form of a - hopefully not too distant - upgrade, this MacWorld UK-article lists Apple’s official support-documents addressing the issues.

Apple’s ‘Showtime’-event focussed on digital media just ended 2 hours ago, and like with augusts WWDC keynote, I’m not too impressed with the outcome. check TechCrunch for a brief summary or Engadget for an extremley detailed live-blog + hands-on reports with all products.

as expected, iTMS now sells feature-movie downloads for as low as $13 (pre-orders and first-week buyers) and $15 (regular price) - that’s right in the middle of Amazon’s Unbox rates ($8-20). movies are encoded in 640×480 H.264 (nearly DVD-quality), include Dolby Surround, and can of course be put on any video-enabled iPod under the same DRM-restrictions as iTMS tv-shows. while this sounds fine, the downside is that - as of today - the iTMS is starting with a mere 75 movie-titles from several Disney-studios.

Apple supplements the iTMS with iTunes 7 (cosmetic changes on the user-interface, album-artwork and gapless playback - a feature I ranted about some time ago) and several new iPod-models. there’s a new aluminium Nano in four selected colours (remember the mini-days) a tiny, square successor to the Shuffle (very cool) and an upgraded 5.5G iPod (better battery life, lower price, more storage - yawn). still missing: the touchscreen-video-iPod which is rumoured about since…well, anyway.

one more thing - iTV (codename!), a streaming-client connecting to any TV-set is announced for early 2007. through a Frontrow-like interface, iTV will bring your existing iTunes-library to your living-room. iTV won’t include any storage itself, and it’s unclear if it will be able to access media-files on a non-iTunes-fileshare or NAS-device (probably not, and even if, there won’t be any support for your pirated backup-divx ).

the death of my ipod (4G, about 1.5 year old, refurbished by Apple only a few months ago) seems to be only a matter of days. since weeks it’s crashing while playback almost on a daily basis. since yesterday the device isn’t recognized anymore when plugged into the dock. I’ll try to remove the rockbox-BIOS, update the firmware and format the harddisk later today, but I guess it’s time to move on…

besides adding video-capabilities (at least to some degree), digital media players seem to stagnate since 2 years. innovation is happening only incremental. according to Steve Jobs, a new iPod should be just around the corner. a microsoft-manufactured media player is rumored to appear soon too. I’ll probably try to revive my old ipod until the major players push out new products… here are some features I’ld like to see in my future player:

• gap-less playback of audio-tracks: when listening to ripped albums, the ipod (and most other players I’ve tried) inserts a very short gap when roaming from one track to the next (mabye <0.5 second). most people won't even notice, but I know two groups of users who get the creeps about that behaviour: lovers of classical- and electronic-music. (I belong to the latter, so I sort of know what I talk about). in both cases, music is presented as a steady stream (i.e. DJ-mix) without any silence between tracks (or parts of the symphony etc.). eliminating this unwanted interruption of music will immediately own the hearts of hardcore-music-lovers to the manufacturer who solves this issue.
• direct recording: this is a feature for fans of live-music, DJs, Bands or solo-musicians: they all’ld love a simple device which records 5 or more hours straight away. hard- & software-requirements should be easy: proper A/D-converters, line-in, recording both lossless and mp3. yeah, I could use an iKey to record to my iPod - but carrying around two devices, cable and power-adaptors - hmm, no. other products (f.e. iRiver) can record but are artificially limited to 2 hours recording-time (thats why pro-users try out alternate software like rockbox or ipodlinux).
• wireless connectivity: to kickstart the next generation of portable digital media players, wireless connectivity is a must. automatic sync of fresh podcasts whenever your player comes in range of an open WiFi-hotspot. wireless upstream from your player to your friends’ WiFi-enabled hifi-stereo (think Apple AirPort). and probably most appealing: wireless sharing of tracks with friends or even the unknown guy on the tube who looks like he’s into electro-punk ;).
  three requirements: it better has to be based on standard WiFi, it has to treat battery life with care, and it has to work independently from digital music stores (the wireless Music Gremlin misses on 2/3 ). agreed, Apple probably can’t enable free sharing without cutting their own profit and scaring off the labels. but here’s an idea: why not let iTunes-customers be your mobile sales-force? integrate wireless sharing with ITMS and smart DRM. lets say I beam my favorite tracks to my friends player. the next time he connects to ITMS he is billed for the music - at the very same time I get a 10% revenue-split credited on my account. of course, your DRM better has to be solid…
• better manufacturing: this is aimed at Apple - please, improve quality of production. at least 50% of my friends who are using an iPod intensely (like, daily) face hardware-defects after about one year of usage. for a 400 EUR-device, this is ridiculous.

Update: the harddisk-format has helped - at least the iPod is recognized by iTunes again

The Free iPod Book by iLounge was recently released for download in its second version. the first 80 pages deliver a wide-ranged shopping-guide to accessories like headphones or docks, cases in all kind of colours and shapes, additionial software, car-installment kits and ipod-customization-options. another 70 pages cover the itunes-software and most of it’s lesser known features. ipod-owners will enjoy leafing through the shiny pages of these ebook, geeks might miss stuff like the alternate opensource-firmware rockbox or more detailed info on ipodlinux.