What is an iPod? A short definition would be like this: an iPod is an electronic device created to play music, and unlike the traditional players, cd-player, walkman or even mp3 player, its storage capability is considerably larger. Another important difference is that it has a much longer battery life than the devices mentioned before. iPod is well known not for its functions, but for the way it helps users do what they want; it is the best combination between simple and functional. This article is a short definition and description of iPod, and it contains few general data about iPod and its history.

In the beginning, iPod had a monochrome screen, a 5 Gb capacity and it was the size of a deck of playing cards. Now it can be purchased with 60 Gb of memory, color screen which can play from television shows to movie uploaded from the computer. It can be connected to a computer with a FireWire or USB port. iPods have a strong reputation for being user-friendly.

The navigation through the iPod is done with a "touch wheel" and it is basically a one hand operation. iPod has a calendar, address book, to-do list application, alarm clock with sleep timer, games and text reader. There are many peripherals special created for iPod, like docks for digital cameras, digital voice recorders and docking stations that are integrated with stereo systems, powered speakers or even entertainment systems for automobiles.



Originally, iPod was platform dependent, but after July 2004, it has been improved and it works on either Windows or Mac, with Apple's iTunes software. iTunes offers the user the possibility to load an entire CD onto the iPod very fast, to organize thousand of songs in playlists, purchase songs and videos from the online store, and subscribe to podcasts. A podcast is a series of digital computer files, most of the time audio or video, which is periodically release and made available for download by web means.

The name for this product from Apple, iPod was suggested by the copywriter Vinnie Chieco, who went to Apple to find a way to introduce the new media player to the public. Seeing the prototype, he thought of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and the phrase "Open the pod bay door, Hal!", (reffering to the white EVA Pods). The trademark was registered and assigned to Apple Inc. in 2005.

iPod supports most of the existent audio file formats including MP3, wav, and AAC. It became a personal extension of digital music lovers, and it is continously suffering improvements. Currently, the iPod is the world's most popular portable digital player, with more than 173000000 iPods sold worldwide as of September 2008.

All iPods have an internal hard drive and this means each iPod can also be used as a hard drive. More than a simple music player, the iPod can be used as a backup device, an organizer, or an alarm clock.The exception, concerning the internal disk, is the iPod Shuffle, which uses flash memory, but this doesn't bother its basic functions.

Because it has a superb interface and unmatched ease of use, iPod became the best product on the portable music player market. The "cool" factor of owning an iPod, among other factors, helped it to gain more and more popularity every day.

iPhone 3.0, the new OS for iPhone gives users a lot of features, and while some of them are new, there are new features also. In this article you will find out a short description for iPhone's features.

If in the previous versions of iPhone's OS you could e-mail no more than one picture, now, with iPhone 3.0, you can attach up to 5 pictures to each e-mail. To do this, go to photos and tap the arrow on the left bottom, select all the photos you want to share, press "share" and then send the email with the attached photos.

A very interesting iPhone feature is that while typing something, to delete what you have written, you can shake you iPhone, and if you want back the deleted text, you should shake again. On the same gesture is based the "shuffle" option in the media player. If you want to switch it to "shuffle" mode, you should just give it a quick jiggle and here you are, random songs from the library.



You can also forward or delete individual messages, so if you want to send John what Mary said, it's very easy now. The basic function "copy/cut/paste" is working everywhere in iPhone, so if you want to copy something from Safari browser and paste it in a text message, this is possible now with 3.0 version. There is a landscape keyboard also, which was available for Safai only, and now can be used for texting messages also, email, or notes.

In this version you can hold a link in Safari, to open it in a new page, and, by creating an account for yourself, iPhone can fill out the usernames and passwords, based on what you entered before on that site. While a  text message is sending, you can already start another one, because the progress bar is at the top. Spotlight search is a search engine which searches through everything. Type a word or and see all the results from contacts, email, calendars, notes and apps.

There are no main changes in Safari, but there are some little improvements, which, overall, improved performance of browsing on iPhone. There are fewer crashes, you can now close out of a "single page" in the "Tab View", Safari includes the auto-fill option and the link copy possibility, both mentioned before. App Store has a new look, and another important feature is that you can keep the data on your iPhone backed-up behind a password.

Internet tethering allows you to access the iPhone's 3G internet on your laptop using the iPhone as a modem and it works through Bluetooth and USB. MobileMe offers the coordinates of a certain iPhone at a moment, and this can help you find your lost iPhone for example. Text messages which don't reach their destination will have a red exclamation mark and you have the option to retry. When listening to an audiobook, you can change the speed of the rendering, according to your preferences.

There is also an App Counter and when you receive a call from someone who's not in your contacts you will see their location, as in state/country/city just to have an idea about who is calling.

All these iPhone features are improving Apple's image in the customers' eyes, and make their life easier when using iPhone. We are waiting for more improvements and we look forward for more possibilities of unlocking the iPhone from AT&T network.

The new order that Apple made was delivering camera and its next update to every iPod, according to an Asian claiming, but it isn’t specified yet which model would get the update. As to the case of the video capabilities for iPhone 3GS (take near-HD video, excellent basic editing software) customers were totally satisfied, that is the reason why Apple has decided to add camera to its line of iPods.

The massive Apple’s order of camera modules reveals them at a price of in the $10.00 range, and because of the size of the order, these cameras could be released only for one thing – the iPod. The fact is that the cover case of these iPods does not show any hole that normally would fit a camera mode. But for this matter Apple has posted for jobs through which engineers develop cameras for both iPods and iPhones. At the same time “Macrumors” displayed two images that show the cases that are presumed to be created for the future iPod Touch and iPod Nano.

Introducing a camera in the iPod touch reflects the next logical step for Apple inc., however there isn’t’ any information to reveal the fact that Nano and Classic iPods might have pretty soon this video feature ready. Although Apple didn’t turn video on the iPhone 3G, its users were enabling it through unlaunched applications from Qik, Ustream and others. Maybe Nano could follow the same route.

Adding a camera module at an extra price, might not be such a good move, since the software that is working already on the iPhone is ready to go. The price equals the high end Flip Mino HD, and Flip is ready to take better video, though it doesn’t have uploading to YouTube and on-device editing. Not to mention that it doesn’t support Internet browsing, email and other apps that are available for the iPod Touch.

But somehow this introduction of a camera is seen as an important impact on the Internet photo and video markets. Quadrupling of YouTube uploads have been added together with the addition of video in the iPhone 3GS; including a camera in the iPhones was a smart thing to do in that the unit became one of the most favored cameraphones on Flickr. The fact that the iPod Nano has an interface and processor concerns, allows iPod Nano to have a still camera, but at the same time it could present the risk of disrupting entry-level compact cameras. Including video on iPod Touch may affect the sales of pocket camcorders such as Flip Ultra HD (that have the same price) which as mentioned before lack on-device editing and Internet sharing.

Palm Pre customers have commented via Web forums and tech blogs that the new smart phones offer them the disillusion of falling apart from their joints. Some say that the screens have cracked; others complained that the two sides present a gap and problems while sliding. Due to the warranty terms many of the Palm Pre fans have returned the device two times already, hoping that the third time would bring them more luck.

The editor of PreCentral.net, Dieter Bohn, has declared that following all the given complaints, is obvious that there is something wrong either with the functioning or with the design of the unit. At this point it’s still uncertain the number of Palm Pre customers who are having troubles with the device’s hardware, but one thing is certain: the ones having problems are more than the ones that don’t.

Analyst of this issue say that actually the problems revealed on online forums are treated in an anecdotal note, therefore one can not take them too serious for solid evidence. But Bohn is still worried that they might actually face a poor build quality at a larger set of Palm Pre phones. One of the customers has declared that his third Palm Pre in the last two weeks presents a large gap on the left side of the device, in fact that large that he can actually see the innards; also the two sides make a squeak noise while pushing. Other customer complaints of the squeaking noise while typing and of the thing that if slide the screen down a little bit too hard, the phone instantly turns off.

The representatives from Palm didn’t have an immediate reply when ABCNews.com approached them in this matter, but the principal analyst with Charter Equity Research declared that the online comments do not represent enough prove to be considered as data points. Palm agrees that there are flaws here and there that need to be taken care of, but the company’s success mostly depend on webOS, the new OS of the company that allows the users to keep several applications open instantly and incorporates information from various mobile applications. The sell of the new Palm Pres doesn’t show an impressive figure compared to that of iPhone 3GS, but it outran the company expectations.

An independent analyst sees this matter as a usual aspect for Palm Pre, since the company is known to come with good hardware but it has some issues when it comes to new released products. His advice for the customers is to refrain themselves from buying the new device at least for a few weeks and then to buy new designs that come with the past flaws already fixed.

The Palm Pre fans do not complain at all, they say that their device is working properly, no sliding issues, no squeaking noises… So it seems that in this tough time of competition with constant new devices emerging on the consumers market, phone users need to be satisfied, and the more they are, the harder it is.

Leslie Cauley reported for USA Today that the success of the Apple iPhone has gathered millions of customers for exclusive US carrier AT&T and this, according to Senate penal, has an important impact on wireless prices, innovation and competition. Paul Roth, the head of retail sales for AT&T noticed that exclusive arrangements have the benefit to give impulses to the competition, underlining the fact that now there are more than 30 smartphones to compete with iPhone. These effects help keep prices under a close check, enabling the customers to have several choices.

A contrary opinion comes from John Rooney, the CEO of US Cellular, saying that the exclusive deals can damage the market, limit choices, restrict innovation and options of the subscribers, especially the ones in rural areas, thus a wireless ‘digital divide’ will start to prevail. To make his point, Rooney holds a list of the top 14 devices, iPhone included, locked down in exclusives with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, this lowering their ability to serve the customers.

Cauley added that normally a device exclusive typically ends after 12 months, but AT&T deal, enclosed around 2006, is still on, Roth claiming that it was due to a ‘multiyear’ arrangement with Apple, according to their contractual terms. Going deeper into the matter, the limited duration of exclusive deals between carriers and handset producers do not restrict the developing and selling of the revolutionary products, such as iPhone, and to spread such innovations to more people. The question is: what can happen a year before the law conditions that deal must end? Do the subventions stop? For example, the iPhone 3GS that start at $699 will have the same price for everyone when it comes in the last year of legal exclusivity? This is a thing to be considered by lawmakers and Federal Communications Commission.

This issue can become more complex with any legislation bound to appear, along with unexpected consequences. If we let this matter up to the market’s decision, then we already have the solution: the exclusive AT&T and iPhone deal is a resounding success. An end to this exclusiveness would raise other issues: the carriers’ stimulant to improve their services would be impacted?, how could competing handset makers even compete so long as there won’t be a network to offer iPhone? US government can force Apple to create device compatible with other wireless standards so it can work on other networks? Would there be a law to legally bound Apple in producing a certain number of different devices? Would Apple have to sypply iPhones to carriers with bad service, not taking into account the fact that in this way Apple’s brand is damaged? In this case would the government compensate Apple for the damages it was submitted to? The limit for exclusiveness would apply for all the devices or only for the successful ones? Any
way, on government’s behalf this would be done at no cost to require multiple versions of unsuccessful devices for all the qualifying carriers.

But what represents a qualifying carrier; how would the law characterize a device to be successful enough so that it calls for exclusivity limits? Till we have the answers we may carry on purchasing iPhones with the competition constantly on stand by positions, while iPhones’ success draws exclusivity limits on the market.