PMP Today

Apple sent a short letter announcing that the 8GB capacity iPhone and iPod Touch has reached end-of-life status in the U.K. There are no more stocks online and only a few units left in stores. This heralds the new iPhone with 3G connectivity rumored to be announced in June. Apple may also be deliberately phasing out lower-capacity iPhones. As you may know, Apple is quite the game-changer and their idea of high-capacity phones reminds us of their strategy on the MP3 market. BBC reports that iPhone, along with Sony Ericsson, has lost market share this quarter. Apple will be expediting new releases on their handset line to gain back their leadership in the smartphone market.

[via engadget, bbc]

If you’re in the market for a little clip-on or not so clip-on MP3 player, our friends at Generation MP3 has prepared a comparison chart for us. The lightest is Samsung’s YP-S2, which is shaped like a pebble, and also ties the Zen Stone for cheapest at $39 for the 1GB. The priciest is the Mickey-inspired MPlayer fro a partnership between iRiver and Disney. The MPlayer costs $59 for the 1GB but not nearly as pricey as the original price of the iPhod Shuffle.

Comparison table after the break.

[via gmp3] Read the rest »

A disgruntled supplier, who was not picked by Apple to supply the parts of the new iPod revealed that Apple is going to release new iPod PMPs in Q3 of this year. Wolfson, which is based in Edinburgh, suffered a 30 per cent plunge in their stock after being rejected by Apple. The new iPods were a new version of the Nano and the Touch. Could this new Apple Patent for a “clamshell iPhone” we posted sometime ago be the new iPod Touch or Nano? With a flippable transparent touch-sensitive panel, Apple could put multi-touch functionality on an undersized iPod Nano.

[via reuters]

Sun has announced it will have Java ready for the iPhone and iPod Touch shortly after the June SDK release. Though pple never seemed very interested in Java, Sun is going to offer the Java Virtual Machine based on Java Micro Edition. Java on cellphones is popularly associated with games, but it will also bring enterprise applications like ERP or CRM. “We’re going to work to make sure that the [virtual machine] offers the Java applications as much access to the native functionality of the iPhone as possible,” says Eric Klein VP of Java marketing

Sun came to the conclusion it could make a JVM work on the iPhone after taking 24 hours to look at information on Apple’s SDK. Sun saw nothing in the public statements preventing the JVM from being one of the applications enabled on the iPhone, said Klein. Apple released the SDK in conjunction with the beta release if its iPhone 2.0 software; the general release of iPhone 2.0 is scheduled for June.

The future of Java on iPhone will not be limited to JVM and could include Java Standard Edition (SE) and JavaFX. With that iPhone 2.0

[via infoworld, photo: intomobile]

If you did not know it yet, iTunes allows iPhone and iPod Touch developers to create pages and iTunes, which can only be accessed by a limited group of people. One person in that limited group has stumbled upon the Education First Educational Tours page. On the header of the page, there is a surprise. It’s rectangular in shape and has the Apple logo smack in its black middle. Could this be iPhone second-gen? The design actually reminds me of the Samsung P2, with that eye at the bottom of the “touch screen.” For the rumor hungry tech blogs, the possibility of this being an Apple leak does not go unmentioned. But is this really the new iPhone and iPod Touch? My opinion? Probably not, but there is one Apple gadget that would improve upon adopting the design above… the iPod Nano. Think about it. Sure the Nano Phatty is nice but we all know Apple could’ve done better.

[via engadget] Read the rest »

A study has found out that there is a direct correlation between iPods and crime. The report from the Urban Institute, a think tank in DC, suggests that recent crime waves in the area might have a lot to do with the proliferation of iPods. The writers of the study, John Roman and Aaron Chalfin, notes that iPods are not only pricey they are also status symbols making them very tempting for criminals. Several familiar iPod features like the white ear buds makes them easy to spot and the preoccupied users prove to be easy victims. There has been no causal relatioship established in the study between the ubiquity of iPods and crime rates but the correlation is there.

[via arstechnica]

I wish this was merely printing error like this Zune, but based on the JPEG of the circular, it’s real, Apple has added an eggplant iPod Nano in its color lineup. If this color was going to replace the pink Nano on the Apple site, well, then it just got uglier. Hey, Apple, if you can make it this thin why not give us some innovative colors for the iPod.

[via engadget]

Relatively unknown artist Brendon Benson is now set for superstardom. That’s what you get when one of your songs is featured on the new iPod Touch Commercial. Benson’s single “What I’m Looking For” takes the mellow approach, a far cry from the up-tempo mood of Nick Haley’s commercial. The new ad incorporates the new features of the $20 upgrade for the iPod Touch. It’s not sexy and it omits some crucial details, like you’d have to pay $19.99 for Maps.

Video after the break.

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It’s finally here, but this one is a mystery. Does the 1.1.4 firmware update pave the way for SDK? No one knows what it fixes exactly just yet. You can get it through iTunes if it’s iTunes 7.6.1.9. Engadget brings good news in the form of a healthy jailbroken 1.1.3 getting the aforementioned update. It’s a sizable software update at 162.1MB. ZiPhone works on this update, according to several who have tried it.

[via engadget]

If you’re on of those Apple buyers who prefer refurbished Apple products over the factory mint condition alternative, refurbished iPod Touches are now available. Apple only has stock for the 8GB version and you can get it for only $249, a $50 savings from the original $299. Of you think that’s awfully pricey for a second-hand product, know that the fifty bucks represents a $17 discount from the original price. Apple refurbs are guaranteed with a limited one-year warranty.

[apple]