Yes, the ritual of Apple’s annual September new-iPods announcement is so well entrenched at this point that you can practically reuse the same news item every year.
But even if it’s a formula, it works. Even after nine years, no other company’s music/video players come anywhere close to the iPod in popularity.
That’s not to say, however, that the obligation to cough up new designs every year doesn’t sometimes force Apple into corners. Sometimes, redesign for its own sake isn’t always an improvement. Last year’s Shuffle, for example, had no buttons at all, so operating it was something of a challenge.
There are no design missteps this year, though, at least none as egregious. The 2010 iPod crop takes some design risks and, in some cases, subtracts some longstanding features. But in general, the tradeoffs are worth it.
Last year’s minuscule, buttonless iPod Shuffle, with its earbuds, almost looked like dental floss snagged on a tie clip. The new one, though, looks a lot like the Shuffle of two years ago, complete with playback and volume buttons, although it’s slightly smaller (1.1 by 1.2 by 0.3 inches).
When you press a button on top, the new Shuffle speaks the name of the current song or playlist out loud in a computer-generated voice (a feature retained from the tie-clip Shuffle). Apple would probably tell you, though, that the Shuffle’s best feature is its price: $50. (The storage is 2 gigabytes, and you have a choice of five metallic colors.)
The riskiest new iPod is the Nano, which dispenses with the click wheel that has come to define the iPod. Instead, the entire front surface is a glass touch screen like an iPhone’s. The software looks like the iPhone’s, too. You navigate by swiping the screen left or right, you play a song by touching its name and you rotate a photo by twisting two fingers on the screen.
In fact, you can rotate the entire screen that way. That’s handy, because the Nano now has a clothing clip, too, and you don’t always clip it on upright.
The Nano is now about the size of a Triscuit, so only about four of the traditional iPhonish icons fit on a screen. You will have to do a lot of flipping through the screens until you find the control or the list you want. To return to the Home screen, you can either keep swiping to the right, or just hold down your finger for a moment on any empty part of the screen. (You can rearrange the icons, but you can’t install any new ones; it’s not really the iPhone software.)
The touch screen is smooth as silk, quick to respond, and crazy fun to use. So much fun, in fact, that you may completely miss how inefficient it really is. In lists, only three song or album names at a time fit on that tiny screen.
Note, too, that while Apple giveth, Apple sometimes taketh away, big time; in this round it has removed the previous Nano’s camcorder, video playback and alarm clock, and even its tiny speaker. Maybe that would have been too much to cram into a 1.5 x 1.6 x 0.4-inch square, but it’s sad to see them go.
The FM radio is, mercifully, still there, and you can even look at your photos, although an electron microscope would be helpful. (You can’t spread two fingers to zoom in, as on the iPhone and Touch. You can double-tap to enlarge a photo a bit, but that’s it.)
The really bad news: bizarrely, the earbuds supplied with all of this year’s iPods no longer have playback controls on the cord. That’s O.K. on the Shuffle, which has physical buttons for Pause and Next Song. But on the new Nano and Touch, you can’t pause or change songs without stopping your run, looking down, waking the screen and tapping buttons on the glass (or yanking out the earbuds). Bad Apple!
Your only option is to pay $30 for Apple’s playback-control earbuds, or $11 for a Scosche adapter that adds these controls to any earbuds or earphones. Factor that in when you’re considering the new Nano, which otherwise costs $150 for the 8-gigabyte model and $180 for 16 gigabytes.
Without question, the most droolworthy new iPod is the new iPod Touch ($230 to $400, for capacities of 8 to 64 gigabytes).
Minimal The LunaTik watch designed by Minimal will house an iPod Nano.
Minimal
Apple Apple AirPlay can stream video and photos from the iPad to a television equipped with Apple TV.
Apple Apple added the ability to organize applications into folders on the iPad.
Vatican says Catholics an app for your iPhone can't replace a visit to the confessional. 
Monday February 14, 2011 05:00 PM EST; Category: 
Chair Entertainment“Infinity Blade”
In a research note, analyst Craig Berger of FBR Capital markets makes the bold claim that the 
Audyssey’s Audio Dock is an iPod dock that also doubles as a computer speaker.
Early product renders showed the Clamcase with a glossy black finish, but the final shipping product has a matte enclosure. We actually prefer it, though we think a soft touch coating would've been a bit nicer than straight up plastic. Closed, the Clamcase very much resembles a laptop, albeit one with a smaller footprint than Apple currently offers (notice we didn't say thinner). 
Inserting the iPad is as easy as aligning the edges, and the fit seems to be secure and tight. Removing it requires a bit of force as well as some fidgeting to make sure all the edges get freed. We have a small possible concern in that the mechanism for holding the iPad securely in place is a lip that actually digs into the small line between the silver iPad enclosure and black iPad bezel (see photo above). It's very minor -- and could just have been this instant -- but something to keep in mind if you plan on constantly inserting and removing it from the Clamcase. We should also mention that the Clamcase itself weighs in at 1.8-pounds, which is more than the actual iPad, and together weighs more than both the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air models. Friends who picked up the device noticed the weight immediately, and to be frank it could be a dealbreaker for many. If there's no weight advantage provided by this, why use it over a traditional laptop? You've also got to keep in mind that with the iPad 2 seemingly around the corner it likely won't fit in Clamcase V1, so that's another fundamental issue right there.
The meat and potatoes of the Clamcase is the keyboard itself, as that's the real reason you'd want one of these. We appreciate that the Clamcase guys tried to make the keyboard as wide as possible without adding more width to the iPad itself, but to be quite honest it feels cramped. We initially found typing to be a bit awkward, but we certainly improved with some practice. Other friends we consulted agreed that the keys are just far too small and spaces way too close together. Part of the problem is that there's just not enough space between the keys, so you could find yourself accidentally triggering neighboring letters. Quality wise, the keyboard feels cheap and that's really unacceptable for a product whose main purpose is to make typing better. Don't get us wrong, we typed faster on this than on the virtual keyboard, but there's only a small amount of travel to the keys and the click is only moderately satisfying. Being nitpicky, some of the keys appear to be a little slanted and the key labels are somewhat sloppily placed. Our biggest issue was with the space bar, which just seems far too small and not far down enough. We don't understand the constraint, especially given that there's no trackpad to take up space below. 
On the upside, however, there's a row of convenience keys above the numbers that do add some welcomed features. There are home, lock, and search keys as well as volume controls, play/pause, and fast forward. You can also cut, copy, and paste, and activate the Slideshow feature with a single click -- but more on that in a bit. 
We typed the entirety of this review using the Clamcase in a variety of use cases and have found scenarios where it's both most useful and highly clunky. The most interesting aspect of using it is that unlike laptops, most of the weight is in the top part where the iPad itself sits. This made it a bit frustrating to use on a couch, as any time we moved our hands from the palm rest the weight of the screen would pull it backward. This problem didn't exist when using it on a table, and the hinge did a good job of keeping the screen in place though. The other interesting thing about using the Clamcase is just how much it tries to aesthetically transform your iPad into an actual computer. This sounds great in theory, but we found ourselves searching for the trackpad on more than one occasion. iOS was really designed for direct input from your finger, so pretty much anything besides text input 
In addition to keyboard mode, you can flip the keyboard all the way around back and use it as a regular tablet case, but for that kind of use it's really unacceptable the amount of heft it adds. Not to mention the fact that you will have to power it down to avoid accidental input, and possibly even damaging the keyboard itself. You need two hands to hold the iPad + Clamcase together comfortably, and even at that point it's still seriously heavy. On top of this, fingers grasping the case will inevitably activate keys accidentally, so you've got to remember to power down the device if you're using it in tablet mode. This reminds us of another qualm with the hardware -- the lack of a power toggle. Instead there's a key in the upper right corner that handles powering the unit on and off, but there's not even a status light or any feedback other than the Bluetooth icon activating on the iPad screen. We would've much preferred a switch that would more quickly indicate the power status -- and more quickly toggle it -- and a battery meter would've been nice too. (Update: Clamcase tells us if you hold fn+ctrl LED blinks indicate percentages.) 
The Clamcase is a decent offering in terms of iPad keyboard cases, but the amount of heft it adds for the limited functionality it brings makes it seem a whole lot better in theory than in reality. We won't be making this our primary iPad case, but for those times when you know you'll need a keyboard, the real thing certainly beats the virtual alternative. For students looking to use an iPad in class rather than lugging around a full-sized laptop, we could see this being a real hit if it was lighter and had a better keyboard -- but we still don't think the iPad is a good enough laptop replacement. Friends we showed the device to agreed that typing was difficult and that the weight gain was a problem. We'll probably keep waiting for the perfect iPad keyboard case to call our own, but if you don't have the patience to do the same you may want to give the Clamcase a shot.
