Really? Other companies are still out there making PMP’s? We’d have figured that besides Creative, all but Apple had hung up their hat for the day. Apparently nobody told SmartQ. Their latest device, the TAO, is actually not too shabby looking. It’s got a nice 3.3 inch 480 x 320 HVGA screen offering 262,000 colors and is a code beast (it’s capable of handling MP3, OGG, WMA, FLAC, APE, AAC, WAV, PCM, and ADPCM for audio. Xvid, Divx, FLV, WMV, ASF, 3GP, MPEG, DAT, and MP4  for video). All of this running on a handy dandy 500mhz Blackfin processor.

This device seems to be China only as of now, but considering it’s only around $100 for the 4GB model, we may see it making it’s way over sooner rather than later.

Tags: media player, MediaPlayer, mp3 player, Mp3Player, pmp, smartq, tao

After three long years, Rockbox 3.0 is available for iPod, iRiver, Sansa, iAudio, Gigabeat, and Archos media players. This open source firmware offers up a lot of different options for those of you looking to spice up your media player. Features include a codec support for over 15 different formats, 5-ban parametric EQ, MPEG video support, a multilingual interface, a butt-load of video games (including the shareware version of Doom), plus the firmware can talk to you through it’s spoken interface which is pretty handy. If you’re using this firmware on an iPod, you also no longer have to use iTunes to sync everything together.

Tags: Archos, Gigabeat, iaudio, ipod, iriver, rockbox 3.0, Sansa

We’ve been trying to grasp why Apple keeps blacklisting useful apps. For example, the latest app blacklisted that we find extremely useful is Podcaster.

Now, Podcaster was built exactly to the SDK specifications and actually allows you to download and manage any podcast you would like on the fly. Sounds really useful, doesn’t it?

Well Apple decided that it shouldn’t be on the App Store for the following reason: “Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.”

Think about it for a second. As David Chartier from ArsTechnica made clear, there are a clear abundance of calculator and stopwatch apps for the iPhone. Doesn’t the iPhone do that on it’s own already?

The developers are doing their best to keep this app alive by providing it Ad Hoc for a donation of $9.99. While Apple can shut that down at any point, the developers claim to be trying their hardest to keep everything together for at least one year. Check out their website for more info.

Tags: ad hoc, app store, arstechnica, iphone, ipod touch, itunes, podcaster

While there was clearly a bit of a head start to be had by the fact that the iPod Touch 2.1 firmware had already been jailbroken, it only took ONE DAY for the DevTeam to officially jailbreak the iPhone 2.1 firmware. This firmware update will allow you to run third party/non-app store apps as well as 2.5G/EDGE unlock your iPhone. There still isn’t an unlock for the 3G band as of yet, but you’ll be happy to know that this process has become a lot easier.

PwnageTool and QuickPwn have both been updated to handle all 2.1 devices EXCEPT the new 2G iPod Touch, so hold off on that for a bit.

Tags: 2.1 firmware, 3g, apple, devteam, Edge, iphone, ipod touch, pwnagetool, quickpwn

Last week was a week of new firmware and new cracks apparently.

The iPod Touch firmware 2.1 launched just last Tuesday and by Friday it was already QuickPwn’d. The process isn’t exactly the one click solution that we’ve all grown accustom to, but if you’re the type that just can’t wait for the DevTeam to make things a little bit more noob friendly, you can go ahead and give it a shot. the whole process isn’t that difficult to handle.

While this method does work, the DevTeam has made it clear that this isn’t one of their official releases, so keep that in mind!

Tags: apple, devteam, firmware 2.1, genuis playlist, iphone, ipod touch, itunes, quickpwn

On Friday, Apple released firmware update 2.1 for the iPhone officially. It had previously been released to the iPod Touch community earlier during the week. While the results have yet to come in clearly, the promises made for this patch were fairly significant. Steve Jobs himself promised a laundry list of fixes, including fewer dropped calls, improved battery life, less app related crashes, and a much faster back up time to iTunes.

The update process took a significant amount of time as they always do and overall the iPhone is performing a lot smoother. But that’s just what this writer has experienced. Many other users have found themselves having to completely restore their phone due to this update. Hopefully we’ll be hearing more in later this week.

Tags: 2.1 firmware, apple, dropped calls, iphone, ipod touch, steve jobs

It’s always confusing when one competitor makes something that works so wonderfully with their rivals. So when we heard news of the Sony ICF-CD3iP we just had to share it.

This $100-ish Dream Machine isn’t just another CD playing clock radio, it can actually work with your iPhone or iPod. Surprisingly enough it looks very sophisticated and very appealing to have on a desk.

The features of this yet to be released device do include a remote for the iPod/iPhone and even an alarm function that can work in conjunction with your devices alarm. Hopefully the audio is as good as the device looks.

For those of you who think it looks spiffy enough without the iPhone/iPod connectivity you can easily remove that little side attachment and get things going the way you truly want them to.

Tags: apple, cd player, clock radio, dock, iphone, ipod, mp3 player, sony

Tried out the new iTunes 8 yet? Well if you’ve got a jailbroken iPhone or are attempting to jailbreak your iPhone, you may not want to give it a shot after all. As of right now the PwnageTool doesn’t exactly play nice with iTunes 8. While Apple can’t undo what the PwnageTool does through firmware updates, the new iTunes does make it currently impossible to restore your iPhone to an iPwned ipsw.

The DevTeam is working their hardest on making their next release handle this issue, but is it really needed? Considering you can’t yet unlock the 3G network, there’s not a whole lot of use for it besides customizing how your iPhone looks. Perhaps if that’s your thing you should avoid the latest iTunes.

Tags: 3g iphone, apple, devteam, iphone, itunes, jailbreak, Mac, pwnagetool

iPhone and iPod Touch users are going to have quite the bit of extras on their hands in the coming months. The first of many interactive album applications has officially been dated for release! What this means for you is that future albums that you download to your iPhone or iPod Touch will come packed with a digital booklet, extra videos, lyrics, images, behind the scenes footage, and artwork. You’ll essentially have the limited edition junk you always wanted right on your iPhone.

The first band to go through with this is Snow Patrol. So check out their latest album release due out next month if this is your kinda thing.

Tags: app store, interactive album applications, iphone, ipod touch, itunes, itunes 8

While the iPhone and iPod Touch are the current glory hogs of the portably media player market as of late, Zune is still kicking around out there. We’ve got unconfirmed reports that there have actually been two new Zunes being released in the near future, the Zune 120 and the Zune 16GB model. Both offer an increased storage and slightly different look, but is that enough to keep Zune fans with Microsoft?

These are leaked screenshots compliments of Gizmodo. Check back for more details as we find out when and where we’ll be able to see these PMP’s live and with our own two hands.

Tags: iphone, ipod touch, microsoft, zune, zune 120, zune 16gb