Hasta La Gadget!

It’s been a few years and a couple of different nano generations since the first lawsuits started flying, but it looks like those that found themselves with the scratch magnet known as the first-gen iPod nano may soon be able to get a bit of payback for their troubles, as Apple has reached a $22.5 million settlement following a class-action lawsuit. Under the settlement, Apple would pay out $25 to each person that bought a first-gen nano that didn’t include a slip case, and $15 to those that bought one after Apple started including free slip cases, not to mention the usual attorney fees and other litigation expenses. All of that is still subject to a judge’s approval at a court hearing on April 28th, however, and it could possibly be further delayed by appeals, but those looking to get in on the action (and willing to wait) can find all the necessary details at the link below.

[Via AppleInsider, thanks Mark]

Filed under: Portable Audio

Apple reaches $22.5 million settlement for scratched iPod nanos originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Recession, reshmession. Apple defied the economic downturn for the fiscal quarter ending December 27, 2008. The company posted a $10.17 billion revenue and a net quarterly profit of $1.61 billion–both records for Apple. Those numbers are up from $9.6 billion and $1.58 billion respectively from the same quarter a year prior.

Much of stellar numbers can be chalked up to record sales for the quarter. Apple reported the sale of some 22.7 million iPods and 4.36 million iPhones for the time period, marking a three percent and 88 percent unit growth, respectively.

“Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history–surpassing $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time ever,” Steve Jobs said in a statement issued yesterday.

We all know iPods have taken over the world, but the Cowon S9 looked like the perfect alternative to the iPod touch for those of you who hate Apple, so I ordered one in.

This review has been over a month in the making. Let me explain. While the S9 comes packaged with proprietary PC-only iTunesish software, I planned to mount the S9 like a USB drive and drag and drop my music and videos. While a firmware update and the actual file transfers seemed to go fine, when I started opening folders within the S9 itself (yes, you have to deal with folders), I’d get endless lists of gibberish, often followed by a system freeze that only a hard reset would fix.

I dealt with tech support (who of course had never seen the problem), and it was finally determined that I should get a new one. I was shipped another unit and the same thing happened. I have no doubt that somewhere along the line I was doing something wrong (though it’s hard to fathom given the dragging and dropping), but no one could spot it. That’s disconcerting.

I was finally shipped an updated, promised-to-be-working S9, and it really did finally work. It plays XviD and WMV movies, but no generic MPEG-1, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 content (you can forget about h.264). Also, like other players, if the file has too great a resolution, it fails—my high definition .wmv of The Dark Knight just wouldn’t play, nor would a high definition XviD that I tested. Music-wise, the S9 plays MP3, WMA, and a bunch of others, but no DRM-free AAC. (Again, possibly an MPEG-4 codec issue.)

On the plus side, audio reproduction seemed good and the system is very quick with video media—I could skip around a one-hour, standard def XviD of Mad Men instantly. And I should add, clips really pop off the S9’s 3.3-inch OLED screen with smooth framerate reproduction.

Recording audio with the integrated microphone worked fine—functional but not stellar—which is to be expected: The mic is but a tiny hole in the case. You can also conveniently one-button record the radio, the quality of which is only limited by the generally decent reception. Plus, after bootlegging the radio, you can drag the created WMA files from the S9 right onto your computer’s hard drive, no questions asked.
Despite many of these functions being excellent, nothing about the UI is as fluid or intuitive as you’d hope to make the experience fun or fulfilling.

For instance, you want to listen to music, so you click the “Music” icon. Easy! But your music isn’t necessarily there. You actually have to follow a green, animated arrow that leads you to a submenu of subfolders. That’s where you actually find your content. Once you’re within these folders, you can actually skip album to album smoothly (just hitting the track forward button), as the system remembers where your content is and even sets up other virtual folders for organizing by genre or year (depending on your meta data information). But why did we mess with this green arrow garbage? If you know where my music is, just skip the maze of clicks and take me to it.

The problems are beyond mere organization. Following the well-designed home screen, the entire OS is driven by icons that are only identifiable by trial and error. It’s frustrating, and I could never just hand this player to one of my parents to use.

It’s not just that I’m an Apple fanboy. I loved the Clix—remember the Clix? The Clix was great! Its interface made sense and was pretty to boot. And other devices from Samsung, SanDisk and Creative have had decent showings in spite of the iPod’s success. It’s just that the S9’s interface is alright-looking, but nowhere as quick and convenient to navigate as you’d hope.

But here’s the thing—to me, the fatal flaw with the S9 wasn’t that strange series of bugs I was able to duplicate on two units, nor was it the confusing directory system. It was that when I held the S9, a pretty decent-looking device, it felt cheap.
It’s too light for its size, almost hollow. In the above shot you can see that the S9 is thicker than an iPhone (and way thicker than an iPod touch). And touching a plastic screen that’s not lightning responsive —there’s a micro delay after each button press—is simply a second rate experience to the iPhone/iTouch super-responsive glass.
At $240 for 16GB, maybe you thought that the Cowon S9 would be a tempting device to play your Bittorrent collection of movies without conversions. But given limitations with resolutions/format, a disappointing UI and the subpar build, it’s hard to know why the S9 makes a solid alternative to the iPod touch. [Cowon]

Swiss company Ewoo, a new maker of high-end audio equipment, has released a line of iPod-compatible products in conjunction with Cabasse, a French high-fidelity speaker manufacturer.

The HandMusic (above) is a dock and remote control for iPods. It lets you browse content from up to 500 feet away, sync iTunes through USB, or search alphabetically through your iTunes on the HandMusic. The HandMusic, however, does not actually play music–you have to hook it up to speakers or a docking station. The remote is simply a way to know what’s playing on your iPod while you’re sitting down, without having to get up to look at your iPod. The HandMusic is $199.99.

More products after the jump.

Heck, we were in the Sands already anyway for CES, so we figured, why not swing by the Adult Expo to see what it had in store? One of the first pieces of emergent technology that we saw (please forgive the phrasing) was the OhMiBod, which, in its first incarnation, made quite a splash on Gearlog.

Oh course since neither the porn nor technology industries ever rest, the company has is working on the next generation of the iPod-powered vibrator. The new OhMiBod Freestyle uses RF technology, taking away the need for messy wires–almost certainly a good thing, when it comes to vibrators.

The new OhMiBod Freestyle will be available in March. Check out the (non-graphic) video, after the jump.