Apps for the iPod Touch

Have you ever tried to write something on your iPod Touch? Whether you’re a professional writer, like to just jot down lines of poetry when they come to you, or just want to send off a letter to your friend, there doesn’t seem to be  a way to do it. Unless you visit the App Store, of course. The Notes app that comes as a default on the iPod Touch is great for things like grocery lists and maybe even the odd thing you need to remember. But when you need to really write, what are some writing apps for the iPod Touch that will help you do it? Here are the best 3!

Momento

Momento is an app that allows you to keep a mini journal on your iPod Touch. When you open the app, you’ll be given a list of all the days that you’ve written down an entry. And, just click on the pencil in the top right-hand corner and you’ll be able to enter anything you want. Memento is meant to be used like a mini Twitter for your iPod Touch, with casual observings or musings that you come up with during the day. And for that reason, it’s also linked to major social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook so that you can easily upload and get your feeds, all from this nifty little app.

Postino

Snail mail is so yesterday. And that’s even true for postcards when you go on vacation. So don’t worry about scurrying around trying to find different postcards for all the different people back home. Download Postino and let it do all the hard work for you. With Postino, you can use pictures that you took yourself on vacation, so you can show all your friends your very favorite parts, and then you can email them all off, without ever leaving the beach!

WriteRoom

WriteRoom is an app that closely resembles that of the Notes app but is actually way better! Not only can you write in landscape mode but the keyboard is also much bigger too, making it even easier to type away. Plus, you can sync your documents with the desktop application and anything that you write in WriteRoom will be available over Wi-Fi. This third-party app might be the most expensive writing app that’s available for the iPod Touch, but it’s also probably the best!

http://www.applerepo.com/

How to Play Your iPod Touch in your Car

Don’t ya just love your iPod Touch? With thousands of songs and video, not to mention all the iphone apps and podcasts, what’s there not to love about the Touch? Well, it does have one inherent flaw that, even if you jailbreak it, you won’t be able to do. And that’s listen to your iPod Touch in your car. Sure, you can listen to it anywhere else but, put those headphones on in your car, and you have a serious safety issue. While the situation may seem hopeless, and you may think that you’re destined to onlylisten to your car radio, there are a few things you can do. Here are some simple solutions for listening to your iPod Touch in your car.

Cassette Player
If you have an old tape deck in your car, you can use this to play your iPod Touch in your car. There are tapes cassettes available that are made especially for playing your iPod in your car. It’s a simple tape that has an audio cord attached to it. This cord comes out of the cassette and attaches to the iPod while it’s playing. The cassette player then reads the audio signal from the iPod instead of from the reel of tape that’s in the cassette. These are fairly cheap and can be picked up for about $10. You’ll lose a little bit of sound quality, but will be able tolisten to all of your favorite songs! The downside? Your iPod will not charge while listening to it.

FM Transmitters
If you want to be able to charge your iPod Touch while you listen to it, you might be better off with an FM transmitters. These cost around $30 and will charge your iPod while you listen to it. These transmitters simply plug into your iPod and then plug into your car’s cigarette lighter or electrical outlet. Simply set it to the FM station the instructions indicate and voila! You’ll be listening and charging youriPod Touch in your car in no time!

Aux-in Connector
These connectors can cost you anywhere from $75 to $100. These are special cords that are made to fit into more modern cars that have been designed with a special outlet for aniPod . One end plugs into your Touch and one plugs into the outlet that has been made specially on the radio console. If you don’t have a modern car, there are many car stereo systems that can be installed yourself, and that will have this outlet available on them.

Car Stereo for iPod
These are different from the Aux-in connectors because they are stereos that have been designed to hold an iPod. These are also your most expensive option as they usually cost more than $300. But it will also do everything that you need it to do. It will play your iPod beautifully, you’ll lose no sound quality, and it will charge your iPod while youlisten to it. The downside? They’re also uber-expensive!

http://www.applerepo.com/

TUNEWALLET iPod Touch cases

Tunewear has introduced a new set of iPod Touch cases called the TUNEWALLET. TUNEWALLET is a wallet-style case featuring a horizontal flip-open design and accented with a colorful elastic band. iPod touch tucks securely inside and there are two card holder slots for your credit card, driver�s license, IC card or cash. Read more...

The TUNEWALLET iPod Touch cases feature dual interior card slots, one with a quick release hole, open access to all ports and controls, an included screen protector and cleaning cloth.
The quick release hole in the card holder slot helps you to take out the card you use most often. When you are done, close TUNEWALLET back up and keep it tucked away in your bag or pocket. The elastic band will keep it from popping open and the TUNEWALLET cover will protect iPod touch from getting scratched by loose items in your bag or pocket. These cases are available for $24.95.

http://appleipodtouch.blogspot.com

Download iPod Touch Firmware 3.1.3

The new iPhone firmware 3.1.3 is now available for iPod Touch and iPhone

, the firmware comes with various bug fixes like app launching problems, apps crashing etc, if you are on jailbroken iPod Touch/iPhone, you will have to jailbreak again with the corresponding jailbreak tools.


Download Firmware 3.1.3 for iPod Touch

iPod Touch 2G filename: iPod2,1_3.1.3_7E18_Restore.ipsw
iPod Touch 3G filename: iPod3,1_3.1.3_7E18_Restore.ipsw
iPod Touch 1G filename: iPod1,1_3.1.3_7E18_Restore.ipsw

The links may not remain alive forever so download as soon as possible. 

Recommended Reading

1. Download iPod Touch 1G/2G/3G Firmware OS 3.1.2Apple has recently released new firmware version 3.1.2 for iPod Touch, the new version fixes most of the bugs that were prevalent in the previous...
2. Upgrade to iPod Touch OS 3.1.1 for Free [Download OS 3.1.1 IPSW]Currently Apple is charging $4.95 if you want to upgrade to latest firmware OS 3.1.1, so like our previous posts on iPod Touch 1G/2G free..  

http://ipodtouchtricks.net

Keyboard Tips for the iPod Touch

Due to its sleek and magnificent design, the iPod Touch can’t possibly have a regular QWERTY keyboard complete with keys and all the tap-tap-tappin. Instead, those geniuses at Apple have included the touch keyboard feature, where users can simply tap the keys on the touch screen to type whatever’s needed. However, just like all other features on all other devices, this one comes with some annoyances and nuisances. Here’s how to customize your iPod Touch keyboard so it’s less annoying and let’s you enjoy it the way it should be!

Start by going to the Settings icon on the iPod Touch Home screen and tap on it. Then select “General.” Find “Keyboard” towards the bottom of the list, tap on it, and you’ll be given a wide variety of options.

The “Auto-Correction” feature is turned “On” by default and will automatically correct commonly misspelled words, such as the spell check in Microsoft Word does. However, this can become irritating if you use a lot of slang so many people like to turn it off. “Auto Capitalization” is much like Auto-Correction but it will insert a capital letter in place of a small letter when it feels necessary. Again, it today’s world of texting and computer lingo, this can be frustrating so it’s one people commonly customize and turn off.

“Enable Caps Lock” does just that and is only useful if you plan on typing a lot of text in capital letters. It comes in the “Off” position by default. The “Shortcut” feature onthe iPod Touch keyboard is a pretty nifty little one. Instead of always adding a period at the end of your sentence, you can just space a couple of times and thekeyboard will automatically add it in. This default comes in the “On” position because, how cool is that?

The last option is the International Keyboard and it will supply you with a list of countries with associated languages that you may need to type in. All of these will be listed as “Off”, except for the country’s language of your choice.

http://www.applerepo.com

iPhone, iPod touch, iPod classic 160GB (Late 2009), iPod nano (5th generation): Understanding Genius Mixes

Summary

Genius Mixes are preselected compilations of songs from your iTunes library that can be synced to your iPhone, iPod touch, iPod classic 160GB (Late 2009), or iPod nano (5th generation) when you enable Genius in iTunes. To learn more about Genius you can see this article, or open iTunes and choose Help > iTunes Help. Then type "Genius" or "Genius Mixes."

Products Affected

iPhone, iPod touch, iPod nano (5th generation), iPod classic 160GB (Late 2009)

To sync Genius Mixes from iTunes to your iPhone, iPod touch, iPod classic 160GB (Late 2009), or iPod nano (5th generation), you can either:

1. Sync your entire iTunes music library to the device, including all playlists, artists, genres, Genius playlists, and Genius Mixes*

or

2. Sync selected playlists, artists, and genres, as well as selected Genius playlists and Genius Mixes

To sync selected Genius playlists and Genius Mixes to your device:

1. In iTunes, select your device in the device list and click the Music tab.
2. Check Sync Music, and then choose "Selected playlists, artists, and genres."
3. Under Playlists, select the Genius playlists and Genius Mixes you want.
4. Click Apply.

Notes:

• Genius Mixes can only be synced automatically, so you won't be able to add Genius Mixes to your device if "Sync only checked songs and videos" is checked in the iTunes Summary pane.
• If you select any Genius Mixes to sync with your device, iTunes may select and sync additional songs from your library that you didn’t select.
• If you choose to sync your entire music library, iTunes will sync all your Genius playlists and Genius Mixes to the device.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3843

iLuv launches new series of Nano, Touch cases

iLuv has launched its new line of cases for the new iPod nano and iPod touch. The new series features four types of Nano cases, the first of which is a silicon case with a flame pattern on the back. The second and third case designs both feature a clear plastic shell with various graphics of famous cityscapes or a video camera graphic on the back of the device. The last model utilizes an elastic armband and features a glow-in-the-dark frame for running at night.



The latest line of iLuv iPod touch cases includes a gamer-specific case with an ergonomic grip. The case also features a protective film to prevent the Touch screen from being scratched. iLuv has additionally released another silicone case similar to the new Nano case, which also has the flame pattern and a protective screen film.

                              

                                                                                            

http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/09/09/18/both.silicone.and.clear.plastic.models/

Watch Apple Events Online

A friend just asked if there was any place he could download the video from Apple's September 9th special event announcing iTunes 9, the new iPod nano, and the iPhone OS 3.1. He knew all about the liveblogging done by the likes of Macworld and Ars Technica, but he wanted to see the real deal, complete with Steve Jobs and the musical performance by Norah Jones.

The easiest way to tune in - albeit a day or so afterwards - is to subscribe to the Apple Keynotes podcast in iTunes. You may need to update the podcast manually every so often, since new episodes appear only every few months, so iTunes may decide you aren't listening sufficiently often to continue with automatic downloads. An added benefit of this for people like me is that I can keep the videos around to see what Apple really said at some time in the past in case I suspect that a story is changing.

Readers Ben Wheeler and Michael Schmitt informed me of two other ways you can reliably find the video of an Apple event, either later that day or the next day. Ben pointed out that the Apple home page will usually have a link (one of the boxes at the bottom) to the video of the event, though that will disappear once Apple has something more timely to replace it with.

Michael noted that Apple provides an Apple Events page in its QuickTime Guide that lists recent events; this is probably the most reliable place to find events after the fact if you don't want to subscribe to the Apple Keynotes podcast. The other advantage of this page is that you can choose among different formats, including full HD.

Source: http://db.tidbits.com/article/10557

New iPod Touch Has 802.11n Chip

The folks at iFixIt, who disassemble and examine new hardware, found a Broadcom chip that uses single-stream 802.11n in the new, faster iPod touch models released just this week. Does that mean that the iPod touch is suddenly much zippier on the network? Not quite.

The 802.11n standard - finally ratified by the IEEE engineering group on 11-Sept-2009 - sped up Wi-Fi network throughput by several factors. Apple started putting a relatively compatible version of 802.11n in all its new computers in October 2006, and all its new router models in January 2007.

However, 802.11n hasn't appeared in any major handheld devices, such as the iPhone or other smartphones - at least, until now, if Apple has already activated 802.11n in the new models, or has plans to enable it through firmware and driver upgrades later. It's barely possible that Apple used the chip for cost and integration reasons, and has no plans to enable 802.11n. (Back in October 2006, Apple started shipping 802.11n chips within Macs, but didn't release an enabler until February 2007.)

The lack of 802.11n before now was partly due to some basic design principles. The flavor of 802.11n that's in nearly every computer adapter and base station shipped to date uses at least two antennas, and has the equivalent of two separate radios inside for each of the two common unlicensed radio bands. (802.11n can use either the 2.4 or 5 GHz spectrum bands, but aren't required to use one over the other, nor support both. Newer base stations, including Apple's, can broadcast simultaneously over both bands; such base stations have, in the simplest terms, four radios, two each devoted to each band.)

The radios and antennas work together in a system called multiple in, multiple out (MIMO) that takes advantages of wireless signal reflection. Each radio carries a unique stream of data, and different power levels sent to each antenna steer the stream's beam so that a receiver can separately distinguish and decode both streams.

Fitting two radios, two or more antennas, and the necessary chips into a handheld is pretty much impossible. That led to the development of single-stream 802.11n, which uses one radio stream and one antenna. Single-stream has the advantage of a faster encoding than its predecessor, 802.11g, giving it a baseline improvement in speed.

Chipmakers also worked to drop the power requirement. Single-stream N is likely more efficient than 802.11g in battery use, in fact. The Broadcom chip integrates an FM receiver and a Bluetooth radio, which also contributes to a reduction in battery use. (Oddly, the Wi-Fi-less iPod nano is the model that publicly gained an FM tuner, while the iPod touch hasn't enabled that function on its chip.)

The better battery usage means that a handheld can use 802.11n, and putting 802.11n into a mobile device lets a unit like the iPod touch send and receive 50 percent more data in the same period of time - maybe a net throughput of 30 Mbps or faster instead of 20 Mbps or so. (For far more techical detail, read my Wi-Fi Networking News article, "Does the iPhone Need 802.11n?", 2009-03-26. I wasn't prescient; there was a lot of chatter early this year about single-stream chips, and I thought what turned out to be the iPhone 3GS was a likely first use.)

That higher speed would make it possible to stream movies or transfer data at far higher rates, but would have nearly no practical impact on routine activities. This might be the precursor to iTunes over-the-air sync (via something like the new Home Sharing feature) for media with the iPhone and iPod touch.

But there's also a "good neighbor" part of single-stream N that improves network efficiency, and makes, say, other video streaming or transfers on the network perform better.

Single-stream 802.11n can be bad for a network, because each packet transferred takes the space of at least two multiple-radio packets. However, there's a clever way around that called space-time block coding (STBC).

Without getting into any of the gory details, STBC lets a base station transmit separate data streams to single-stream devices, one per radio in the base station. Devices with a single-stream chip are more likely to consume data than produce it (most of the time, at least), and thus this effectively restores network throughput instead of halving it when multiple one-radio 802.11n devices are using the network. (SBTC isn't yet built into Apple's base stations, but it could be as simple as a firmware update.)

The other advantage of Broadcom's chip is that it allows the use of either the 2.4 or 5 GHz bands. While 2.4 GHz has greater range, it's far more crowded, and you're less likely to get anywhere near the full possible throughput with even 802.11g.

Signals sent at 5 GHz can travel shorter distances (using the same signal power), but because of a dramatically lower level of use and more available spectrum, the odds are much better you'll get something close to the highest possible throughput.

Chipmakers have been pushing single-stream 802.11n to sell new chips at higher profit margins, of course, but also because they want to move away from the older 802.11g standard to push out the benefits of 802.11n - which then provides incentives for users to buy newer base stations!

But Apple's move may spell a greater interest in moving media on and off the iPod touch and (possibly shortly) the iPhone 3GS. Far higher throughput makes it far easier for an iPod touch to act as a media outpost on a local network.

Source: http://db.tidbits.com/article/10558

Kaleidescape joins the iPhone as a remote party

It is only a matter of time before every single company in the world makes some kind of iPhone/iPod Touch app and if you make home theater gear that mean it is a remote. Remotescape for the Kaleidescape is the latest addition and from the looks of the Youtube video embedded after the break, it is a pretty slick mix of gestures and cover art goodness. The bad news of course is that the graphics in the interface are on par with the rest of Kaleidescape's products and the price tag is $69 -- but if you dropped the $50k on the Kaleidescape media server, then you probably think that is cheap for a iPhone app.

 

Apple Unleashes New iPod Touch

 Apple today announced the new iPod touch lineup starting at the breakthrough price of just $199, giving users a great iPod, a great pocket computer, a great game player and access to Apple’s revolutionary App Store with over 75,000 applications. iPod touch features Apple’s revolutionary Multi-Touch user interface, a gorgeous 3.5-inch widescreen glass display, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a built-in accelerometer and speaker - all in an amazingly thin metal design that slips easily into your pocket. The 8GB iPod touch is now available for just $199, along with new models which deliver twice the capacity for the same price, with the iPod touch 32GB model for $299 and 64GB model for $399.

“At just $199 the iPod touch is the most affordable gateway to Apple’s revolutionary App Store with more than 75,000 applications that you can wirelessly download right into your iPod touch,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “You get a great iPod, a great pocket computer with the industry’s best mobile web browser and a great game player, all in this super-thin beautiful enclosure.”

iPod touch features up to 30 hours of music playback or six hours of video playback on a single charge. The 8GB model holds up to 1,750 songs, 10,000 photos and 10 hours of video; the 32GB model holds up to 7,000 songs, 40,000 photos or 40 hours of video; and the 64GB model holds up to 14,000 songs, 90,000 photos or 80 hours of video. The 32GB and 64GB models also include up to 50 percent faster performance and support for even better graphics with Open GL ES 2.0.

Source: http://news.worldofapple.com/