More iPod and iTunes news

They're at it again. Apple's competitors are touting their "iPod killers." Samsung has announced that they will be releasing sixteen new digital music players. Yup. You've read it right. Sixteen. Six by the end of this year and another ten on 2006. They seem to think that numbers will be enough to take on the iPod line, not learning from their past mistakes. People would like to own a cool looking device but looks aren't everything. Equally as important is usability and function. And from the market's reaction, Samsung has neither of the two. MDN

Sony, in the meantime, has released their Walkman Beans to challenge the iPod shuffle. Beans! Beans! Beans! The muscial fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot! Let's see how much Sony's latest product stinks. MDN

More and more companies are offering iPods as an incentive for their customers to try out their products. The article cites Gap (offering a free iTunes song for trying on a pair of jeans), Bankone, Chase, and Citibank (each offering iPod shuffles to new customers) as a few of the many companies that has woven in Apple's products into their merchandise.

In a rather strange (and sad) note, one of the models for Apple's iPod silhoutte campaign, a dancer and a nanny, can't afford to buy an iPod. She said that a $400 iPod is too much and her dancing and nannying earns just enough for her family.

It's Microsoft and the Dave Mattews Band vs. Apple's iTunes and iPod. The Dave Mattews Band has decided that they don't want Mac users to listen to their songs. So, they encoded their latest album in Microsoft's WMA-DRM laden music format. If that wasn't mean enough, now they want Mac users to appeal to Apple to collaborate with the "industry" so that they can listen to their music. I'm trying to remember a song that DuMB has made. Nope. Sorry. Can't remember a damn thing. You're not worth it DuMB.

For those who are annoyed, irritated, exasperated to those who are ranting about the iPod, then you are not alone. Corilyn Shropshire of Post-Gazette.com apparently is also fed up, too. She rants about how much hype there is surrounding the iPod and there's a league, a crowd, a mob of iPod-haters out there, too. They have started going out into the net spreading the news that the iPod is over-hyped and over-stated. The article features a couple of these I-am-fed-up-with-iPod individuals. This piece goes so wel with Peter "The Dork" Griffin's write up about who much he hates iTMS.

If there are naysayers then there are the umm... yeasayers(?). Jose Antonio Vargas writes about how the love story between man and iPod. The iPod has become more than a digital gadget accesory, it has become a "personal memory bank." It allows people to travel back to a particular moment in time at the prompting of a song that a user plays. One user recalls that at first it was a monotonous uploading of music from his CD collection and then listening to it. But later on he noticed that he has started to reach far back into his life when he was 20, 15, or even, 10 years old to try to remember the songs that made each of those times memorable. The iPod is a great gadget: it lets you escape the everyday turmoil by wrapping yourself in your chosen music. It also accompanies you during your workout. But most of all, it's a time machine, being able to take you back to enjoy and relive the things that were worth remembering.