Say Goodbye to the iPod Classic

My iBob classic

 

Only for charging. I suspect within a year or two, any new devices will be entirely wireless, using Bluetooth or Wifi to connect. And charging will likely move to inductive surfaces.

Dude, just buy one of these. If you can afford a $3,000 system, you can spring for a $30 cable:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD824ZM/A/lightning-to-30-pin-adapter-02-m?fnode=72

The new BMW's support album art over Bluetooth. I'm assuming most other solutions will as well soon enough, if there aren't a few doing so already.

Yeah, Apple. I've heard nothing but bitching and complaining for about 35 years now. Yet, here they are, bigger than ever (and, indeed, bigger than just about every company...).

Yeah, Apple.

Any other questions?

Apple could give a flip if they "pissed off" every single car radio vendor on the planet. In fact, *any* technology company would be crazy to worry about car radio vendors.

Technology changes rapidly. Their advice to car radio vendors would be to adapt or die. Apple has always been the first to move on to whatever new interfaces are available in the marketplace - from SCSI to USB to Firewire to Thunderbolt. And that early-adopter stance has worked out extremely well for them and their customers.

 

Apple often seems to abandon widely-used, current interfaces as well. There is no really good reason to not include USB on their devices... If they want to add newer options as well, then fine. They certainly can't play the "that's how we keep our prices so low" card.

So it may work out extremely well for them, perhaps not so much for their customers.

 

That's not correct.

 

I don't doubt you but I can't find anything on controlling the device through the lightning connector. All I can find is articles over a year old that say you can't. Can you point something out that does it or an article that talks about it?

 

Grrrr.

Just spent $350 to get a new 7th generation to back up my 6th generation 160G unit that's now in senior citizen status (5 years and counting). Hate iTunes, hate the cost, hate the lack of replaceable battery, hate the tiny album covers, hate the synchronization problems, hate the occasional freezing, hate Apple in general....

But: Until someone comes up with a 500G+ flash drive simple-as-pie unit for playing music, the iPod classic was and remains the most perfect portable music player ever built.

 

I dunno about an article, but I was controlling my iPhone with lightning connector via USB/my car, just this morning.

 

You know what's funny - I've walked into stores looking for those - and I get lost in a sea of adaptors.

I'm still confused what to tell my headunit when it asks what kind of Ipod I'm using when I tell it to forget about my son's Android.

Yes... if you attach an Android phone to the correct cable - and you don't go in and change the software setting away from "Ipod 30 pin" it doesn't work.

Similarly, if I attach an Iphone and I don't forget to tell it to forget about the Android - it doesn't work.

It might just be bad software design in my Pioneer - but that's the horse I'm riding for a few more years.

But I don't have a clue what to tell my headunit when my son walks up to it with an Iphone5 and tries to use a 30 pin adaptor. I guess I can try bothsoftware settings since there are only two choices... but is a lightning device converted to 30 pins treated like a lightning device by my headunit ? or is it treated like a 30 pin device ? or does it just throw up its hands because it thinks my phone is lying? (I'm guessing its gonna be the last option)

And if it doesn't work - do I get to go back to the Apple store and tell them I don't want their Iphone5 because it doesn't connect to the same things my Iphone4 used to connect to ? Or do I get a puzzled look asking me why I care?

I can't use kids Iphone5s for a 39 dollar test because they moved on to Android.

My older son is a klutz who dropped his and broke his screen.

My other son is away at college with his functional Iphone5.

I guess I can spend $39 and see if I can find an Iphone5 user in work who is willing to let me try.

I did something similar with an Ipad - when they were brand spanking new.

Guess what? That test failed - the Ipad couldn't take to the car radio - because the car radio didn't know what it was - despite having the right connector type... Given the link provided by Vidiot earlier in this thread - I believe I now understand why. The technical reason it was never going to work was the Ipad was a power hog


But the reality is this... the Iphone is a bad product for one big reasons unrelated to the connector it uses.

For reasons I don't understand - I can have my son's android going to the same spot on the internet as my Iphone - using the same provider and presumably the same tower - on the same cell technology... basically with ALL THINGS EQUAL between my son's android and my Iphone... but my phone can't seem to keep a stream moving along to listen to music - and his Android can. I've tried this repeatedly with different Iphones and different Androids and the Iphone always sputters and never works - UNLESS - I change the place I'm trying to go... for some reason Apple Itunes radio never has a hiccup.... tis a pity it has a limited uninteresting cycle of songs to supply - because for some reason it has no bandwidth problems.

It's like Apple uses some sort of intermediate proxy between my phone and the file source - and Android skips that extra step.... like anywhere I go on the internet, my Iphone has to check with Cupertino first to make sure they can copy my stuff and hold it for their big gigantic demographic database

That's my theory.

But I don't care about technology that causes me to think too much - and gives unacceptable performance.

That's why I used an Ipod and stopped caring about the Iphone.


Why pay more for less ?????

 

The car is an important battleground for any company that wants to battle for a share of the music business.

I'll agree that cars don't matter in places like Tokyo where most people ride public transit - but its still not a spot that any technology company would want to lose control over. It's an extra screen.

I bought an Itouch because I bought a new car that came pre-wired for an Ipod.

I bought an Ipod classic because I liked the Itouch when I used it in my car.

I bought an Iphone for my car because I wanted to try Pandora while driving (and Android didn't have a headunit that was compatible).

I bought an Imac because I was enjoying the Itunes I was using to sync with my devices that I listen to in my car.

I bought a 2nd Iphone for another family member.

I bought my first AppleTV as a strange way to back up my Itunes library.

I bought a second AppleTV for a different room in my house.

I bought a 3rd Iphone for myself.

I bought another Ipod classic because I filled the first one and thought they were cheap enough to just fill another.

I bought a third Ipod classic because I filled the second one.

Now - that's four devices so far that are working just fine with the 30 pin connector in my car (and one Iphone5 that doesn't connect in the car - because we never got serious about trying - partly because I had to wait for a software update from Pioneer before I could even TRY to use it)

My son decides he'd rather try Android.

My car gets totaled in an accident - and I use the insurance money to get a new car. While shopping for a car my son finds a replacment headunit that claims it can support all three connectors (Android, Iphone4, Iphone5) but after I buy the thing - I realize it's not a graceful swap between each phone... all I could get the Iphone5 to do was charge (not sync) - probably because I'm not using the right cable that runs back into the dashboard.

Meanwhile - every month of so - I see new and more interesting things that my son's Android can do - that my Iphone can't. Playing video is one of them... farming the complete Android display and control of the phone from the headunit (WHILE DRIVING) through the touch screen on my headunit is one of those "interestesting things" that just doesn't work with an Apple product. He can sit there and use my screen as a GPS, read his email - respond to his email - cruise the internet - watch youtube - watch his slingbox back at the house - etc -all right there from a command center on the Pioneer touch screen.

Me??? I try to not look at the fun and focus on the road. LOL

And I try to forget about that apparent proxy host in Cupertino that seems to prevent packets from moving to my Iphone that don't come from Apple servers.


Meanwhile my son tells me that Android has formed partnerships with every major car manufacturer in the world and offers to pay for the screens they need to install to if they are willing to sell cars that are compatible with their phones.

But I guess Google is kind of foolish that way... just gonna be bad money thrown at people who don't buy devices...


No accidental discovery of Ipod pre-wiring in the vehicle I purchased about four years back - and I make NONE of the Apple purchases described above....


That's a lot of Apple stuff in exchange for one USB port.


I rented a minivan last month to take my kid back to college. I think we counted 10 USB ports sprinkled throughout the car - and one HDMI port - which my son enjoyed using when he plopped his chromecast into it.

Me... I was just angry that none of the USB ports worked in a way that could send artwork to the display.
I played with the radio for a long time - but couldn't find the hidden setting. Fords hide the ability kind of well in a menu somewhere - but the rental place gave me a Chrysler and it seemed to be missing.

I'm guessing the software developer didn't feel like writing three different drivers for three different devices and said "just sound" will be good enough...

 

The USB port itself doesn't really have anything to do with whether the artwork gets displayed or not, it just sends digital data to the head unit. If the artwork is embedded in the MP3 files then it is getting transmitted to the head unit, however the software controlling the head unit has to be able to extract the artwork from the MP3 and display it.

 

My recollection when lightning came out was there was discussion - and actual quotes from Apple saying that they would not transmit video through the lightning connector - like they were able to do previously with the 30 pin connector.

I just messed with it in my car. The 30 pin connected Iphone4 (and I believe my Ipod classic) can ship video to my car head unit.

It's not that big of a feature - but it is nice to watch a movie or several music videos - if you're sitting in a parking lot waiting for crowds to disperse after a sporting event... or a concert....

Being able to watch video content while driving is somewhat dicey - and usually involves a modification to your car - to trick the head unit into thinking your parking brake is enabled.

Amazingly, Android phones ignore that... because some clever software developer realized that he could tell the head unit that it's sending data to the phone instead of video. I expect that will eventually be changed when some lawyer figures this out and worries about a lawsuit from someone who runs his car into a pole and blames the accident on his phone... But for now, there are some android phones that treat you like an adult and let you gain complete access to the phone without having to modify the software... just go to a website and swear you're responsible for whatever happens - and 5 seconds later - the phone is fully yours - to set however you want. It's like being a Unix admin. Ever file in that puppy is yours.

Keep in mind, Google is the company who is trying to build cars that go up and down public streets without drivers. Do you think their lawyers have the time to worry about a software developer who allows a phone to display something on a screen inside of car that has a human driving it ??? LOL


OK..... so what was the official explanation for the change from the 30 pin interface to lightning ?

Was it to enable some whiz bang feature ?? Perhaps, but I don't know what that feature would be - since they took a fairly nice feature AWAY when they went to lightning... no Seinfeld for YOU...

Was it to allow for smaller phones ?? I think that may have been the official story... but that sure seems like a dumb reason when a year or so later they brag about how it's time to make phones BIGGER - LOL

Was it to make life easier for some engineers inside Apple ? Perhaps... but does that really mean anything to it's worldwide user community... I think not...

Was it to enable faster sync times ? Perhaps.... but did the world really mind the previous sync time ? What is the sync speed on a 30 pin connector? I'm guessing a 10 song album can sync in approximately 2 seconds using a 30 pin connector... and I'm guessing maybe a lightning connector can cut that same sync down to maybe 0.5 seconds ??? Does the world really care ? Maybe when you're trying to resync an entire phone - or if you're trying to load new software at the factory (aha ! the real reason!!) but that's why God invented a cup of coffee... just walk away and come back in a little bit... psychological studies have shown that users really don't care about how fast or slow something happens - what they hate is when a task is slow one day - fast the next day - and then slow again the following day... inconsistency is what annoys people... humans actually adapt to slow by figuring out something else to do.


I don't think album artwork disappeared - it would have been too much heartache to just explain away. Ditto for rudimentary controls like "skip" and "previous"... Those must still be there.

When you said "control" disappeared - I think what you're actually thinking about is the ability to display a remote touch screen (transmitted by video) may have disappeared... this missing capability would prevent Apple from doing what Android is now doing - where the phone turns off its screen and sends the whole thing to my Pioneer headunit - and allows the user to pretend that the head unit IS an Android phone - with all touch motions (as felt by the screen) traveling back to the phone. The controls that remained were probably limited to a few buttons that are not on the screen. Stop, Play, forward, reverse.

Again - I see nothing of value that was provided by the change - and tons of value that was removed.

That's not "cannibalizing a product before your competitor forces you to..." that's putting 10 pound weights on your ankles and allowing the runner behind you to run past you while you wonder where he's going and why he didn't follow your lead and also put 10 pound weights on his ankles...

It was a stupid pointless gesture that at best reduced their cost to manufacture and increased their profit margin (at the risk of losing market share???)

I'll agree that Apple did create a new complementary product: the wonderful 39 dollar adaptor that doesn't allow for video and possibly other things to happen...

All in the pursuit of "progress" that can't be measured in tangible features...

And I'm saying this as a person who LIKED Apple products and WANTED them to continue to make new ones.

 

Smaller connector, allowing for thinner devices. It's also more robust, reversible, and supports more functionality, i.e. direct digital connection to headphones, etc.

They may have taken away video support from the connector, but they added video Airplay, which is much more useful, in the grand scheme of things.

Having owned plenty of each type of connector/device, I can say with confidence that it will be a great day when I get rid of my last devices with the 30 pin connector.

The Lightning connector supports this and more via the CarPlay functionality.
http://www.apple.com/ios/carplay/

 

LOL - sounds like a reason to explain why one wine tastes better than another - LOL

That looks like the failed "appRadio" interface that Pioneer tried to push for a few years.

Problem was the apps were supposed to be developed by third parties and they never arrived.
Or more accurately, the ones that DID arrive were clunky and not worth using.

Google's approach lets you use the apps that were developed for your phone. You don't need a separate army of developers writing car specific apps.

But ever the opportunist - I'm sure Apple is salivating at selling its target consumers a car specific map application - that is slightly different from the phone specific map app that they already have.

The simple fact that the link you provided mentions something about "allowing you to keep your eyes on the road" tells me they already figured out Google's approach is more fun...

So instead of trying to match it, they're reduced to saying "Don't try the other guy's phone - because it may kill you"

The most dangerous thing I deal with regarding car phone apps is the constant nagging that they do - which tempt me to reach over to the glovebox to hit the same exact "yes - I really want to do this" button (even though I've hit the same button the last 1,000 times it asked me the same question)...

And the basic stuff they bring up the prompt for is dumb - like "Do you really want to listen to Pandora?" Somehow the same concern for my safety doesn't come up when Apple wants me to give Itunes Radio a try.

The leader is now the follower.

 

Yep... one proprietary connection begats another.

Why do headphones need a new connection ? Bluetooth wireless isn't digital ?

Or is it the concern for battery life in the headphones? nah... The digital headphones still need power to decode the ones and zeroes...


Many years ago, I had a friend who was conned by a guy in a parking lot into buying speakers out of the back of a van when he walked to his car in the parking lot of a Roy Rogers fast food restaurant. The official explanation given to my friend was he was supposed to deliver 8 pairs of speakers to Bennigans... but when he got there - he found out Bennigans only wanted 8 speakers (or four pairs)... so "his boss" told him to "sell them to anyone" he can...

What's funny is my friend said "I don't have money"... and the con man said "Don't worry, I can follow you to your bank".

His bank was the credit union at Bell Labs. I think the con man must have been quite amused to follow my friend's car (complete with a Princeton Univerity window decal) back to Bell Labs - so he could run in and get $1,500 cash for these speakers.

My friend said he "thought" he was getting stolen merchandise... and that this no-name speaker brand (with a name similar to a real brand) was going to be his for much less than he would pay for the same speakers retail.

When I arrived home that night - I walked in on my room-mate - taking these speakers apart - trying to figure out why there was no internal cross-over circuitry.... He had already decided that they sounded like junk.... it never occurred to him that someone might purposely
SELL junk - using a quick non-reversible transaction in a parking lot... but he was raised in the burbs... and he wasn't aware of how it's generally a bad idea to even TALK to a guy with merchandise in a trunk or a van...

My friend from Brooklyn laughed when I told him the story several days later. He said "He's luck there were actual speakers in the boxes... when you started telling me the story, I thought it was going to end up with him buying some cinderblocks..."

Anyway... the reason I mention this story is because for years my friend/room-mate (the one who bought the speakers ) laughed about the experience... and often mentioned he should have known something was up when he saw the claim on the side of the speaker box that said they were "digital ready"...

My friend had a masters degree in Electrical Engineering fron an Ivy League school and he knew it was impossible for a speaker to take a digital input... at least back in 1987.

But looks like we're about to see the dawn of the age of headphones that CAN play a stream of 1s and 0s.... Hot damn !

Digital is always better...

Plus Apple gets the extra bonus of getting to sell a device that is missing a D to A convertor inside of it... except when you consider they are just passing the cost along to new member of the Apple corporate empire that is now tasked with puting a D to A convertor inside their complimentary product.

Wireless headphones - at least make sense because they eliminate the tether... but digital headphones that use a cable??? That's just pure snake oil.

Keep going... you're reminding me why it doesn't really matter that they put another nail in their coffin... they've been whistling to the graveyard for a few years now.... and they're walking faster every day to that cliff at the end of the field.

 

Why are you waiting ?

The great day you spoke of could have happened the day Apple sold it's first lightning connected device.

You had the freedom, to walk all the pesky 30 pin devices to a dumpster and buy a set of improved lightning devices.

The only thing stopping you was the apparent desire to not throw working hardware into the trash.


But a "great day"???

I'm kind of trying to imagine that... Will you buy a round of drinks for everyone at the pub ? Will you take photos of that day and send them to friends and family ? Will you talk about that day wistfully for years to come ?

That's how I've acted on my truly great days... like the ones where my children were born, or I graduated from college, or my team won a championship, or I was given a promotion at work.... all events that I couldn't force to come sooner - because I couldn't just walk into a store and buy such moments.

But in your case, the robust products are sitting there waiting for you to enjoy them... and the non-robust products are anxious for you to put them out of their misery...

Don't hesitate.

Apple's stock price depends on it.


I find it interesting that my son told me that Steve Jobs, the parent (as opposed to Steve Jobs, the CEO) actually DISCOURAGED (and in some cases outlawed) how HIS children USED the Iphone/Ipod/Ipad products in his home. It's nice to know that the man who helped to create a culture of zombies all looking down at their phone at the dinner table (sometimes texting a brother or sister a few feet away) had the wisdom to not allow such shenanigans in his house.

I will give the man credit for one thing... my Iphone did participate in some of the joy I felt when my youngest son graduated - because I happened to be blessed with an Iphone in my pocket and pulled it out and got a nice photo of a smiling young man that I probably wouldn't have captured with a regular bulky camera (that I always forget to bring along).

That's the one thing I do greatly enjoy about the Iphone. It's great to have a camera always in my hand - and it's nice to show my son his dogs via "dogtime" when he has a lonely moment 2,000 miles away on his college campus.

That's my son's word for "facetime" when one (or both) sides of the RTP session features a family pet

 

I will probably offer to buy you a drink, mainly for all the laughs you're providing me with via your posts in this thread.

 

Fair enough

 

If you want some more extra laughs trying googling for "speakers purchased in a parking lot"

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/off-topic/846480/

It's happened to a LOT of people. And yes, the guys in the van are always happy to follow the
buyers to the bank.

I believe the speakers my room-mate purchased said "Boston Research" on the box

I think the scammers were trying to come up with a name that was close to both "Boston Acoustic" and "Acoustic Research"... both legitimate speaker vendors.


What sticks with me most was my friend gazing at the internal wiring... or lack thereof... just parallel wires from the post to each cone... basically he got a three port speaker with a full range "tweeter," a full range "mid-range," and a full range "woofer"... with a cabinet that may or may not have been suitable to be used for a "home brew" speaker project.

My room-mate threatened to build his own cross-over circuit but I think he just put the speakers back together and he used them during parties - without fear that they might get ruined by accidental beer spills. Or he may have
asked me to drag my Cerwin Vega's into the living room during parties - and left his speakers silent. They were used more like expensive end tables... good for throwing your keys on to as you walked in the door... or maybe a common spot to drop the mail...

I don't remember the exact amount he paid for them - but it was a LOT...


It's also been talked about here on this forum. Love the comments from the guy who started that other thread. He was kind of bemused to realize this wasn't just an urban legend...

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/not-an-urban-legend-the-white-van.136038/

And yes - I just noticed that I posted the same story in the earlier thread - stating a lower price that my friend paid... I'm guessing that I did a "time-value-of-money" adjustment as the story grew older - LOL

And yes, there's a wikipedia page for this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_van_speakers

 

I played around again last night with the "all access" service last night.

I realized one way I could avoid the songs I don't want, is to peak ahead and look at the upcoming queue. It was kind of like using the skip or "thumbs down" function in Pandora - but doing it BEFORE the song showed up...

Thankfully there is no restriction on the number of "songs deleted from your queue" per hour.

But it was still a hassle to constantly babysit the queue - to purge stuff that isn't desirable.

It didn't help that I was doing it for a radio station that started with "Monkey's Uncle" by Annette Funicello and the Beach Boys... the "intelligent" algorithm seemed to be completely stuck on the idea that I want to hear children's music from Disney films... versus... early 60s surf/pop... like it used to suggest - because I had only had about 10 disney songs in my 20,000 song library...

It clearly was using some non-musical attribute to keep serving up songs from Disney movies... but what was odd was the songs I kept purging quickly reappeared farther down the queue... so "Hal" was truly stymied about what he thought I wanted to hear.

I think the problem of repeats in Pandora is a function of the seed songs/artists.

My first Pandora station was created using a list of songs that was about 200 deep. I had decided that I liked the taste of a specific (human) DJ... and this guy was posting the artist and title information for songs he was playing on his weekly show... I took several weeks of his (lengthy) lists and typed them into Pandora. Amazingly, that "station" rarely ever suggests repeats - and it's very very good at finding music I've never heard before that I enjoy instantly...

That's almost heaven, with respect to what I want to hear

This station plays about five songs in one style, and then goes to five songs in a different style... and cycles around between about 8 or 9 styles... but rarely ever suggesting a repeat... only odd thing is every once in a while it plays some female artist that sings very very raunchy lyrics... I forget her name, but I laugh every time it plays her... these songs are the most X-rated things I've ever heard... I'd be embarrassed to hear them in most contexts.... but alone in my car, it's just funny - LOL

Funny thing is I don't know HOW it decided to suggest her... I don't own any music like that - nor have I ever heard anything like that elsewhere... must be somehow she aligned with a Frank Zappa music gene....

Yes... this topic is reminiscent of the discussion found on that under-rated HBO television show "Mind of the Married Man" where the guy laments that his TiVO is questioning his hetro-sexuality.


I'm pretty sure Google's "all access" service uses the same technology as Pandora: the music genome project. It's possible Google was somehow restricted from using it when they bought (?) Pandora. I know the founder wanted to keep the two things separate.

The intellectual property developed by the human genome project is a fascinating topic in and of itself... it's a combination of complex multi-vector math and real live human musicologists defining musical attributes for every song reviewed by the project team members...

 

Well, they do "include" USB - you need a Lightning cable to connect to USB devices. The alternative would be Micro USB, and Micro USB sucks. That's not Apple's fault, and I can't blame them for coming up with a superior connector.

Although I do find that the quality of their cables ain't so hot. They're well-built, but tend to fray at the connector if flexed a lot. Apple refuses to add a lot of strain relievers to the connectors because they look bad. I keep hoping their R&D folks will come up with some high-tech, good-looking way to keep the cables from fraying (and given their purchase of Beats, it wouldn't surprise me if they did just that).

That's what I'd try. Apple is pretty good about returns in my experience, so if it doesn't work...

You could also just sell the adapter or give it away to an iPhone-owning friend (or maybe trade it for some other gadget).

A stream in which app? Pandora works fine on my iPhone, although I seldom use it. Amazon Music is patchy at best, but I blame the app for that and Amazon's connectivity. YouTube seldom has much trouble streaming video to my iPhone, so I doubt it's a problem with the device.

Apple has lots of bandwidth and their server farms seem to be really speedy most of the time. They may also be paying the providers a lot of money to setup proxy servers inside the provider's networks, increasing the bandwidth and decreasing latency.

 

That's the flip side of the problem I'm describing...

It could be that Itunes Radio works great because they have servers closer to me.

I remember they were one of the original customers of Akamai.

I worked for a large dial-up ISP at the time, and Akamai was very anxious to put servers as close to our modems as possible to make the user experience better for our users who were looking for content that was cached by Akamai.

As for the "head to head" comparison between my Iphone and my son's Android... it's pretty much anywhere on the internet... the Iphone seems to always go slower than Android... with a couple of exceptions.

Pandora seems to work the same on both phones (Iphone and Android). I think the deal is there is a threshold where things work fine if the network requirements are not as stringent. Pandora streams seem to be below that threshold - and the phones perform equally (or at least SEEM to).

I can't put my finger on why the Iphone would always seem to be the slow alternative if we're doing a fair "A-B" comparison (same cell tower, same time of day, same cell phone provider, same internet content, etc.).

It's possible that Apple is going through some kind of slow complicated DNS search looking for an appropriate server -and - then when it finds it - things are fine. That's kind of how it seems to shake out... my son's Android phone usually loads the page or is streaming a song - and my Iphone seems to be getting "warmed up" to do the same.

My memory of Akamai (which may have been replaced by now) is they had a very complex way to suggest an alternate answer to a DNS query.

I wouldn't be surprised if Google uses something different and that's the answer.

But I still think it's something where Siri is having a background conversation with Siri's mother in California.


And since someone mentioned something about technology "that just works".... I can't say enough about how impressive Google's voice recognition software is. My son constantly talks to his phone with a lot of LOUD background noise and the thing rarely (if ever) fails to understand what he said. I've given up on Siri because she only works if I turn off the radio, and tell everyone in the room to be quiet.

My kid said today that Apple is threatening to do something with "HD" (hi-res?) audio - and that it will be using Bono to steal thunder from Pono. But the details are thin - except that they promised "higher royalty" payments to the artists - which of course means they are planning to charge higher prices for hi-res content.

That won't stop me from buying HD content if and when it shows up in the Itunes store. I may buy less of it than if it was priced the same as the current audio content (which presumably will still be there - sitting next to the premium tracks), but I won't ignore "hi res" if it shows up.

My big question is are my current AppleTV's going to be able to participate ? I've got a lot of DVD-A discs that I've ripped to my hard drive and I'd love to start converting them to hi-res ALAC files and then stream them through my existing AppleTVs.

This is one area I won't even care if they force me to buy a new AppleTV since its not very disruptive to pull one out and replace it with a higher powered cousin.

 

Most of my stations are just one or two artists. I have about 30 stations set up and if I choose to use all the stations, it doesn't repeat much. Classical music is particularly bad for repeats, not so much an individual track, but they seem to love particular albums and keep going back to that album every 10 tracks or so to play another track. It's very strange, especially when it's a broad genre station like 20th Century Classical.

Is the female artist Lilly Allen? I've not heard her music but I've read that it's very poppy and very raunchy at the same time so unplayable on the radio. Very much like some of Zappa.

 

No... I don't think that's her. I can't remember the name of the female or I would have said it.

But I just looked up some stuff about Lily Allen and I don't recognize her album covers.

I want to say the raunchy female artist is from Europe - but I can't remember more than that.

There's another female artist that is kind of dirty (the one with the $ in her name) but she's almost tame compared to the one I'm talking about. I can't remember her name right now - but I watched a very funny "funny or die" video where she made fun of the $ in her name (claimed it was from a childhood birthday party at Shakey's Pizza where they were out of the letter "S" and used a substitute on the welcome sign).

When Pandora finds the singer I'm talking about - it goes on a "dirty song" kick for about five songs... usually playing 4 of the 5 songs from the same singer... I don't dare give her a "thumbs up" for fear of what else Pandora will find... but don't want to give her a "thumbs down" or a skip either...

From what I understand a "skip" is neutral... it doesn't help define your taste.

 

Kei$ha for the one with a $. I've heard one or two tracks and that's plenty for me. I think a couple other artists have a $, or maybe other symbols in their name now, but she was the first if you don't count Prince.

 

Was thinking some more about the apparent "need" for young engineers to declare working technology dead and forge ahead with an alternate technology.

Some things die a natural death... like floppy disc drives... or even CD drives....

Where I fall of the truck is when a decision impacts an existing community.

A long time back, when I was a young pup, sitting in a lab with an oscilloscope - my elder mentor mentioned to me how it was a huge compromise when color television came along to "hide" the color inside the phase of the signal - thus retaining the luminance (or B&W) part of the signal... allowing older TVs to simply ignore the new color information. This discussion happened because he was showing me a specialized oscilloscope called a "vector scope" that works in a similar manner to its cousin - but the signal is displayed on a rotational axis (where the color lives).

The alternative would have been to start from scratch and tell the people with existing televisions that they need to get with the times and buy a new one - or just go back to listening to a radio or reading a book.

Yes... that backwards compatible design had flaws... if they had thought about color from the beginning - it would have been done differently.

But my basic point was the NTSC television signal had a long life... and no one cheered on its demise until it was clear that there was a much better alternative - followed by a long industry wide discussion - followed by another industry wide transition to the new technology.

Maybe the difference is there was a governing body that controlled how spectrum is used... but i still think the people who came up with a way for both signals to co-exist deserve a huge (belated, if ill-timed, posthumous) kudo.