When the mp3 was created, it didn’t take long before people wanted a way to play these digital music files in vehicles. Juggling cassettes and compact discs was cumbersome, and “skipping” discs were exceptionally annoying. The mp3 was a perfect solution for audible, mobile content, but the adoption of this format has hardly been seamless.

Around the year 2000, we rocked a hacked Netpliance i-Opener, which we hooked up to our car via auxiliary input, if not through a cassette adapter. The whole point was playing mp3s via Winamp, but our solution required a sizeable footprint near the dash, and didn’t work out long-term. We sported an another auxiliary-in solution with our first mp3 player, the Creative Jukebox. The solution remained poor, and even though a later car of ours sported the ability to play mp3s via compact disc, the interface for this implementation remained poor, just as it still is in most disc-based mp3 solutions today.

Even when we picked up a Volkswagen R32 in 2007 and had a built-in iPod interface, we weren’t happy – the console-based solution meant that we had no access to the actual iPod controls, and instead had to use the poor deck-based interface of the stock audio system. Even in 2007, some developers still refused to show full song identifiers on LCD screens, let alone a truly integrated iPod solution. At least the system functioned with our 2G iPhone, but upon upgrading to a 3GS iPhone, the iPod interface stopped working as a charger. Worse yet, audio through the iPod interface would only work via the main music app, which meant that apps like Pandora wouldn’t push audio through the car’s speakers. So we were back to using a basic aux-in solution.

Some people maintain that given how poor most car stereos are with handling mp3s, that we should continue relying on disc-based solutions. But why rely on an older technology that didn’t even work well at its peak, when adequate technology for a solid digital music experience exists today?

The turn-around for us was playing with a stock Toyota sound system in a 2010 Prius. Between an aftermarket ProClip mount and power cable, and A2DP bluetooth audio, the ability to listen to our digital audio on our iPhone via the vehicle sound-system is nearly flawless; as soon as we start the car up, the Prius finds our iPhone and immediately begins playing from where it left off, not only via the iPod app, but via Pandora as well.

Why rely on an aftermarket iPod interface when the one on your iPhone works fantastic as-is? With the various mounting options ProClip offers, for nearly every modern vehicle out there, the only obstacle is a sound-deck sporting bluetooth audio. That’s a pretty cheap requirement for production, too, so it’s nearly inexcusable for audio decks not to incorporate this feature for all but the most bare-bones of systems. Props to Toyota for figuring this out.

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We’ve ruminated at length about the rumoured Apple tablet computer, from the iPhone “dock” that is our Apple Annex, to the Macbook sibling that is our iTablet Excelsior. And with recent clues shoved down our digital throat across the blogosphere suggesting that an Apple tablet will indeed be announced sometime next year, we find ourselves once again justifying its impending existence.

The truth’s in the Air.

It began with the MacBook Air and may indeed end with it. Almost two years ago, we complained that the MacBook Air was overpriced for a poorly performing machine with so little to offer other than a reduced physical footprint. To be fair, that same complaint holds even truer today, with even the basic 13″ MacBook Pro beating the MacBook Air out on all specs to include price, with the Air merely coming in at 1.5 lbs lighter. How many real-world applications is that 1.5 lbs going to make a real difference for?

But the Air, as we stated back in January, 2008, is a great proof-of-concept. And that proof-of-concept has gotten slight buffs during its two generational updates. One could almost say that the Air is Apple’s notebook AppleTV, in the sense that it’s more of a hobby to set the future stage than to sell based purely on its present merits. That’s not to say that the Air isn’t decent; we’re even considering picking up a used Air if the price is right, just so we have a very portable, no-frills writing device that runs OS X (we’ve seen first-gen models go for what amounts to the price of a netbook hackintosh). But if money is indeed a consideration, the Air today is a poor purchase when the 13″ MacBook Pro offers so much more for less money.

Back to the Air as a proof-of-concept, the makings of an Apple tablet were all thrown in front of us in 2007. The iPhone had the touch technology, and the Air had an ultra-portable form factor. Apple explored SSD hard drives with the Air, and in a sense, teased the niche market for expensive-but-polished notebooks. The unibody design was touted as an end to user-replaceable batteries, offering solid battery life that trickled into the MacBook Pro lineup. And with all that, Apple proved that there was a market for the Air, and one that could likely grow with cheaper hardware costs.

So what’s left? Take the Air, throw away the keyboard, and tablet nirvana is just around the corner. While we wouldn’t expect Apple to revive the Newton or Air names for a future tablet, one has to admit that the latter name is catchy and far more apt for a tablet than for what the Air is today.

Apple Tablet as the new king of media.

Looking at iTunes LP and iTunes Extra content, we see a pretty exciting, open technology for developers to exploit. These technologies add even more reason to go all-digital, as consumers won’t have to feel like they’re missing out on bonus content if they don’t buy a CD with art and lyrics on the pull-out jewel case pamphlet, or the extra content on DVD menus. The best thing about iTunes Extra, though, is that it’s flexible enough to be used with other media, like print. That is to say, books, newspapers, and magazines, in digital format, could have a degree of interaction that typical e-publications don’t. Instead of simply reading a PDF or ePub document, consumers will be able to interact with their digital downloads in a way we expect one to interact with web sites, only in this case, an online connection would only be leveraged sporadically.

For example, newspapers could have polls. When a user submits their response to the poll, the information is transmitted the next time the Tablet has an internet connection. Thereafter, the newspaper poll will show results to date, without the user having to manually reload the poll data. Local weather information could be dynamically generated upon purchase, while old issues of the publication would have static records based on the actual weather histories. Users could enable/disable audible readings of articles, and magazines could include video clips of product reviews, better leverage advertising, and generally include more media that would otherwise have been cut in a print magazine because of limited space. And books could leverage interactive media in another way: imagine reading through Lord of the Rings, and having an easy-to-access map of Middle-earth, where the Fellowship’s location is marked, and corresponds to where you are in the book’s reading. With enough foresight, one could even cross-reference terms from Lord of the Rings to Tolkien’s other works, assuming they too were purchased. In other words, digital publications could link to one another in a sort of quasi-wiki method.

Ultimately, these are things that will add value to a digital download, thereby making them more attractive for consumers. Considering Apple’s success with music, and to a more limited degree television and film, it would not be surprising if Apple took on the e-publishing mission with a zest yet unseen by the eBook industry. And why shouldn’t Apple carve out this rather important niche, especially since it won’t be competing head-on with today’s eBooks: the type of interaction we’re talking about isn’t suitable for an e-ink display. Apple will want colour (lots of colour!), and the quick, reactive display that one would expect to see on the iPhone or, in this case, an Apple tablet. Sure, the battery life won’t be as good as an eBook reader, but the experience will be better.

There have already been plenty of rumours suggesting that Apple has met with print-industry big-wigs, and other rumours indicating that print-industry execs are meeting with one another to address their future digital distribution plans. (Supposedly, Apple has even offered a 30/70 split to publishing houses as financial incentive.) It should be obvious to anyone that standardizing this distribution, to a firm degree, will be beneficial to all companies involved. And with Apple leading the charge, would it really surprise anyone if iTunes was rebranded as something more like “iMedia?”

The Apple Tablet as a MacBook.

With the type of interactive content we’re talking about, Apple won’t release a dedicated device. Anyone with iTunes will be able to download the latest music, movies, and magazines, and be able to sync them across all their iTunes-capable devices. What better way to showcase the multimedia prowess of the music/movie/magazine conglomeration flipping through virtual pages of the latest New York Times bestseller with an actual flick of one’s finger, using similar gestures to control music and movie playback? The processing power we’re talking about, particularly for the multimedia elements, will be greater than what most eBook readers have today.

Apple is about totality of experience. That’s where the iPhone trumps every other smartphone on the market, and why Apple was able to beat out competitors in 2007 when the iPhone, to much initial criticism, was unleashed upon the masses. Apple’s only going to duplicate this effort with a tablet: a perfect machine to showcase its multimedia initiative, but still capable of tackling most average computing needs. So yes, the tablet will support a wireless keyboard/mouse, and run the regular version of OS X. Its specs will likely be similar to that of the MacBook, or maybe even the 13″ MacBook Pro. But the market for a tablet is clearly different than the market for these more traditional laptops, so it won’t cannibalize sales of other Apple products any more than the Mac Mini cannibalizes sales of the iMac. Users who need a traditional notebook experience for class or work will still get a MacBook: it’s the desktop baseline for getting work done with mobility in mind. But those who can spare not having a physical keyboard will love the tablet, because it offers extra mobility at the expense of easy desktop integration. Some tablet owners may cart around a wireless keyboard in their tote bags, but they will likely be the exception. Everyone else will treat their tablets like an eReader that can do so much more; the tablet will be the perfect, portable entertainment tool aimed at those who consume information rather than games. It won’t be a one-trick pony like the CrunchPad Joo Joo, because as Steve Jobs said, an Apple tablet will be expected to do more than simply serve as a web-reading tool for toilet-surfers.

The assumed $1,000 price-point seems entirely realistic at this point, especially when one realizes that the tablet will be little more than a MacBook Air whose keyboard was replaced with a capacitive touchscreen. That price doesn’t make us gawk at all. In fact, we’re ready to jump at a tablet purchase under these conditions, and we wouldn’t be surprised if the device is ready in time for CES 2010.

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Despite Apple’s sordid foray into the video gaming market with the ill-fated Pippin, TUAW’s Mike Schramm believes that Apple is willing to give console gaming another go. His speculation is based in large part on a piece by Erik Sherman at BNET, in which Sherman notes various patents Apple filed, and various individuals Apple hired, as evidence of Apple’s gaming console initiative.

No TV console aspirations.

We’ll address Schramm first, by noting that an escapade into console-gaming-land would be a horribly poor move for Apple. Apple’s success with the iPod, and later the iPhone, was due to them being able to put a decently-priced but amazingly polished device into consumer’s hands. Before the iPod, mp3 players weren’t particularly notable aside from the fact that they existed at all. Apple pretty much defined the portable mp3 market, and arguably, created the mainstream movement towards legal mp3 downloads. With the iPhone, Apple entered a market densely packed with crappy phones, where even the best sported comparably poor user interfaces and little real online functionality. With the AppStore, Apple blew the doors open on downloadable content, and once again redefined a market, now being emulated by contenders.

The console market is nothing like the portable music or cell phone markets were before Apple got involved. The console market consist of only three key players, all of whom do a great job at building systems, and all of whom have significant industry backing in the form of third-party titles. Plus, all have an indy developer component, and significant mindshare among consumers.

That’s not to say that Apple couldn’t be successful by entering the console wars, but their timing would be way off. Releasing a console before circa 2013, when Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony will reveal their latest offerings, would be dooming an Apple console to irrelevance in only four years time. Furthermore, Apple would fight an uphill battle, akin to what Microsoft dealt with when they unveiled the original XBox. Only, Apple’s experience with the mainstream gaming market (Microsoft had years of experience dealing with PC gaming), is virtually null prior to the proliferation of iPhone games. Simply put, the console marketplace is too volatile a place for Apple to push itself into – the competition is too fierce, so why take an unnecessary risk? Apple is better suited to define a market with much less competition, and the handheld gaming market is a prime target.

The accidental success.

We’re not so sure that Apple expected to be successful with iPhone gaming. Surely, Apple expected to find games developed for the iPhone, but titles from big-name publishers using big-name IP? Maybe Apple even built the iPhone hardware to be capable of running games with decent graphics and framerates, but the very lack of input options makes us question Apple’s expectations that the iPhone might become a veritable Gameboy and PSP competitor. But here we are: leveraging the AppStore’s framework, the iPhone is able to market pretty amazing games via a convenient, cutting-edge distribution model, all for a much cheaper price than games released for the Gameboy or PSP. Like the proliferation of the Wii, iPhone gaming is build on a solid foundation of more casual titles, but as time goes on, we’re now seeing more and more “mature” titles requiring more of a user’s focus. It’s one thing for Apple to have given Mac gaming a mere head-nod in the past, it’s another for Apple to dismiss a clearly growing phenomenon. So, Apple will continue embracing iPhone gaming, and that’s at the heart of Sherman’s observations.

The acquisition of Bob Dreblin, Raka Koduri, Mark Papermaster, and Richard Teversham, might not even indicate Apple assembling a “dream team” for the iPhone gaming market, but let’s assume this to be true. Dreblin’s contribution to the Gamecube CPU may be most telling: the Gamecube was underpowered compared to offerings from Microsoft and Sony, but the thing was admittedly compact. If anything, the rest of the team would play into embedded gaming just as easily as they would in traditional console gaming, not to mention Apple’s acquisition of PA Semi and their investment in PowerVR. If Apple’s going to be serious about iPhone gaming, they’ll want to develop hardware specific for that purpose, especially since this kind of specialized hardware will still be able to power the thousands of non-gaming iPhone applications. By controlling the hardware supply chain specifically, Apple ensures that the competition won’t be building similar products, and furthermore, secures its hardware from additional vulnerabilities.

Sherman makes some good observations about Apple’s patent filings. If anything, it should be pretty clear that Apple is looking to link gaming and outside media. Much as iTunes can suggest music based on one’s existing music library, application 20080076495 proposes similar functionality, only rather than just making recommendations, games could identify appropriate music to play based on a user’s preference. For example, a scene in a game calling for fast-paced, action-packed combat, may query a user’s music library for metal or hard rock music, and based on the user’s ratings, will play a top song in that category. In other words, games will be minimally tailored to suit the user’s tastes based on other media they own. The patent application, at absolute minimum, forms an extension to the iTunes store, in that games may be recommended based on songs a user owns: lots of metal songs may mean a user prefers more action-oriented games, for instance.

The other patent applications Sherman identifies give further insight into Apple’s direction with iPhone games, but it should be pretty clear by now that Apple is looking at solidifying the iPhone game user-base. Arguably, Apple is already ahead of the game with their application distribution model, as Nintendo and Sony are now moving ahead with their own online stores. The difference is that the iPhone is a more flexible system, is nearly always connected to the internet, and meets an application price-point easily suited for growth. By the time the AppStore starts including games costing $20 or higher, the handheld gaming market will be a shitstorm of competition, because Apple will have become a major contender well before that, assuming the next iPhone version further advances a long-term gaming plan (and the 3GS appears to herald this). At that time, Nintendo and Sony better have stepped up their game, because unlike with the traditional console market, the handheld market is far more malleable, especially when the iPhone’s chief gaming success is drawing spontaneous buyers into a web of easily-accessible, easily-downloadable content.

So for those longing for an Apple console, look no further than your iPhone. While it’s already successfully integrated the iPod and cell phone, it’s now looking to devour your friendly neighborhood Gameboy, too.

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We can’t help but love the aesthetic of this acorn-shaped mp3 player complete with wooden enclosure. Sadly, this baby only sports 1GB of data, and it’s not an iPod. Still, the concept is very cool, and one could imagine a pretty cool interface for this baby by changing the track, or volume, with a twist of the top.

In any case, this mp3 player certainly beats the Shuffle’s form factor, and could be a viable alternative to Apple’s products. For $21, though, we’re not holding our breathe.

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Two days ago, Bones Wiley posted two more videos on his YouTube page. The videos suffer from minor synching issues (likely vidnik related), but otherwise showcase a very nice transition of Wiley’s musical style to something more folkish, ala Bob Dylan.

We’re quite fond of Wiley finally singing at a lower octave, and this departure from his more pop-ish tracks sounds a lot more natural for him. Drop the man some comments at his YouTube page or at the end of this post, and tell him what you think.

You can check out the aforementioned videos below.

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We bought Rock Band 2 a week after it was released, and after getting our groove on, we hopped online and ordered the ION Premium Drums, having sold out Rock Band drums months earlier. We held off on a pre-order because of the price, but who can resist the allure of a more customizable drum setup when Rock Band 2 is already in your possession?

We won’t bother with a full-on review of the drums because there are plenty such reviews out there already. What we will say is that despite being a tad top-heavy, the drums are a joy to play with. Unfortunately, we had to delay playing with them after we set them up, because upon tightening the wing-nut to fasten our blue drum, we heard a weak “snap” and noticed that the O-ring that holds the drum in place separated from the screw it was attached to. We’re guessing these two pieces are epoxied at the factory, and somehow we got a dud, because we didn’t tighten the wing-nut on this drum any more than we did the wing-nut for the others. We can’t help but think the design for this pieces is poor, as the screw could easily have been longer and “hooked” at one end so as to make the O-ring unnecessary.

In any case, rather than disassemble everything and pack it back up, we did what any hobbyist would do: we grabbed the super-glue and decided to put the two pieces back together ourselves. Fortunately, super-glue worked, and we were off and playing after waiting for the glue to dry.

Unfortunately, a week later, and the banging away at the set caused the blue drum to sag sadly, because the super-glue didn’t hold what with all the drum-pounding we did. Surprisingly, the screw and O-ring are a very tight fit even without any new super-glue, but we’re off to try the homebrew fix again. We also sent ION a message through their web site hoping that they’d send out a replacement part, rather than have us pack everything up again and return it to Amazon. (It’s a piece that has to cost, what, $1 or so?)

We’ll keep readers apprised as to how ION responds.

Update (10/02/2008): Our e-mail to ION resulted in an automated response to check the FAQ. There, we found their Technical & Warranty Support number (401-658-3131). We were able to get through to a representative immediately, who quickly provided us with a form to fax in for replacement parts. Unfortunately, the representative also said that the part we needed may not be readily available given how popular the product has been, so we may have to wait a little while. In the meantime, our super-glue method has held, though we haven’t actually hit the affected drum yet to see if it fails again. Nonetheless, props to ION for having great customer service, even if it takes an extra week to get us the part in question.

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We’ve been urging Bones Wiley to update his website, as we know he’s been hard at work coming up with lyrics and new tunes now that he’s back in the United States. While there’s no update just yet, there’s a new video up on YouTube under the name FolkClouds. The video shows a dark figure hammering out a new tune, and for those in-the-know, that dark figure is Bones Wiley hisownself. Check it:

Here’s hoping Bones Wiley FolkClouds will keep up with the updates. Oh, and pick up some better lighting equipment.

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So Rock Band brought the music party game genre to a new level when it added drums and a microphone to complement the guitar scene. What it did best, however, was make subtle improvements on the existing crop of guitar controllers, but leave the general mechanics in place. Apparently, Guitar Hero IV will jump on the drum ‘n mic bandwagon with Guitar Hero IV, which is all well and good, but the game will be designed to work with a different drum layout, in which instead of four simple drums, Guitar Hero IV will go with three, plus two elevated cymbals. We’re guessing that the cymbals are both tied to the same note, else the Guitar Hero IV set would be adding an additional drum, and that would make people very unhappy, given that the game would not be backwards compatible with Rock Band’s drum set.

Things are starting to go a bit far; the plastic controllers shipping with each game variant are piling up in living and storage rooms across the country, creating a major surplus of unused plastic. That’s not just costly and not green, but overall a waste of space. Thus, here’s a call for some standardization of these kinds of peripherals: let’s come up with a standard that is is ideally based on what people have already been using, and make improvements to the gear’s quality, not drastic layout and functionality changes. If you’re going to change anything about the drums, make them less noisy.

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Is anyone surprised that the copy protection announced for Mass Effect and Spore is being reconsidered? In short, publishers Bioware and EA, respectively, initially decided to include a copy protection mechanism that would cause the aforementioned games to “phone home” every ten days to ensure that the game played was legitimately purchased. The ten-day authentication angered a lot of gamers, despite the fact, as Tobold points out, they’re online all the time anyway. In reality, the group of gamers who have the most to complain about are the ones who won’t consistently be wired once every ten days, but this is a very tiny subset of those complaining.

Let’s be honest about software piracy, though: the lengths taken by a lot of companies these days (e.g. the RIAA) to protect their sales has ballooned to the point where it’s instead determining who can do what with media and software in a “fair” manner. In other words, the “protections” proposed have gone beyond simply protecting a company’s assets, to simply being unfair to the consumer.

Tobold’s take on the matter is not an unusual one, because like most others, he seems to forget that a pirated game does not equate to a “lost sale”. That’s because there are plenty of people who have no qualms about illegally obtaining a song, movie, or video game to try it out, who might very well never have bought the item in the first place, even if it wasn’t available illegally. In other words, the a chunk of software pirates have no effect on a company’s sales, but corporate big-wigs like to inflate their problems to impose stricter regulations out of greed, not simply financial security. That’s precisely why, after years of piracy increasing, the music, movie, and game industries are still seeing an increase in yearly profits, despite claims that they’re hurting.

We’re not sure what Tobold’s source is when he claims,

“There are several good game studios that have gone under or been forced to sell out because while lots of people played their games, less than half of their players had actually paid for them.”

Interestingly, he didn’t name one example, and the more likely suspect of them failing is because while some people may have enjoyed their products, they probably didn’t appeal to most gamers. Look at the considerable number of games that do manage to make money, which began as free products. Counterstrike is a prime example of a polished game, released as a free-download for Half-Life, that would later be sold, with minimal changes, to the same players who enjoyed it for free for years. Look at XBox Live Arcade, which features games based off free, web-based Flash games. Or, take a gander at Nintendo’s Virtual Console, which features titles many years old that are easily obtainable for free, illegally, by doing a simple Google search. Good games will sell despite piracy, and that’s a lesson the music and movie industries will need to learn, also.

Even assuming that strict copy protection was necessary, it still doesn’t justify a product phoning home every ten days. Nor does it require a physical check of the purchased media.

As far as video games go, it wasn’t too long ago that copy protection was based on the user looking up content from material bundled with the game. Some games made users look up certain words in the included game manuals, while other games found a way to incorporate bundled items into the game’s context. With how common bundling material in “collector’s editions” has become, developers could just as easily throw in a nice physical item that’s needed to decode an in-game puzzle or riddle. These methods were relied upon until CD-ROMs became popular, because at the onset of their release, they were not copyable by the average consumer.

Now, however, why not go back to this proven system that requires no media checks or online access?

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It’s an alchemical breakthrough: the transmutation of optical media to an older, analog format. According to Boing Boing, Aleks Kolkowski is using a vintage record cutter to cut grooves into CDs/DVDs such that they can be played on a record player. This physical mutilation obviously destroys the ability to keep playing the old CDs/DVDs in their original forms, but for turntable fans, this is a cool function, despite it’s limited applications.

What applications, one asks? For one, DJs who refuse to use newer forms of media will jump at the opportunity to dig out old AOL CDs that they threw in the closet back in 1998. So too will fans of steampunk phonographs jump, merely because of the novelty behind the concept. Others will release their small-label songs in hybrid forms, requiring a turntable to listen to their album’s bonus track.

Then there are those who might actually do this en masse, because gramophones don’t use electricity thanks to their hand-crank technology. This means that reusing otherwise discarded optical discs could very well become the green solution for recorded music playback. All that’s missing is an easy way to obtain a reasonably-sized record cutter, and a reputable gramophone dealer with solid restoration work.

Unfortunately, modern record cutters are quite expensive, even if restored gramophones make it to one’s local flea market. This means that to leverage hand-cranked, recorded music on the cheap, paying for the service to have a record cut onto CD is a more likely scenario than the overhead one would pay for the machine to do it at home.

Considering there’s a pretty cheap way to build a replica phonograph, we’re surprised there’s not a cheaper record cutter on the market. Maybe we just missed it though – anyone have more information?

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