Tag Archive for ‘Apple’ at Walking Amongst Dark Shadows

Tag Archive for 'Apple'

iPod Touch Review

Published

on October 14, 2007

. 8 Comments

Yes I know that one isn’t real!

Well up goes a review that I have struggled to even complete. It is a good couple of days late mainly because my life has been taken over by a combination of Team Fortress 2, Work (no change there then), a nagging girlfriend who wants to go shopping, and a France Booze Cruise in two weeks time. All of this isn’t helped by the fact that there are a whopping three birthday parties I have to attend, a wedding (hate these) and two PC’s I have to set-up for two clients all in October! Happy days eh?

Anyway, you can read how I feel about this spiffy new device in the reviews section or just click Here. Want a more detailed review? Well me good mate PR has been blithering on about his one, so you can find his review on his blog.

Creative - Where do they go from here?

Published

Darren/Kain

on September 23, 2007

in Technology

. 4 Comments

Good things come to those who wait

I have had quite a few emails over the past week mostly asking where Creative’s answer to the new iPod’s are. Truth be told, there isn’t one - yet.

On August 30th 2007, Creative leaked out images of their next generation replacement for their flagship MP3/Video player - the Zen Vision:M. The new Creative Zen was a flash based player coming in three capacities of 4, 8 and 16GB. The player was almost identical to the ZVM, aside from having SD storage expansion, a superior screen and er, well that’s all sadly. For most users it was a downgrade because Creative, like most MP3 manufacturer’s seemed to be following the trend in moving away from hard disk based players onto Flash based players, which are cheaper to manufacture and more reliable.

The ZVM was one of the best DAP’s (Digial Audio Players) to come out of the portable music industry. In terms of sales it never could match the iPod, but specification wise it was a lot superior and for those owners who had one, they knew how powerful it was within minutes of using the player. It offered heaps of features, was solid and robust albeit a bit of a fatty. It could play almost any video format you could throw at it and it’s screen was far superior over the iPod and the rest of the competition.

September 5th 20076 saw Apple release their ‘new’ iPod range, with the main focus being on the lovely, sleek flash based iPod Touch. This device, whilst inferior to the ZVM feature wise, was enough to even grab my attention and I have one pre-ordered to arrive early October 2007, look out for a review. Creative have no answer to the iPod range, and at the IFA convention where all the Creative fans were hoping to see a new next generation player were left unimpressed by the Zen - hardly an impressive upgrade over the ZVM. Zen fans began to look elsewhere for a next generation player, as did I.

The industry is moving away from hard disk based players, and sales wise it has been clearly shown that flash players are selling much faster. The iPod Nano outsells it’s bigger iPod brothers, whilst Creative’s range of flash players are more popular than their hard disk based models. Apple customers have a good range of models at their disposal, while Creative have let their fans down by offering nothing but a smaller capacity ZVM. From a sales point of view you can’t blame Creative for ditching their support for hard disk based players. Apple can afford to take that risk because their products sell themselves through hype and advertising, the latter of which Creative have been rather slack on.

Where to now?

So Creative’s showing at the IFA was a disappointment and they’ve let down their fans somewhat. Most including yours truly were expecting an X-FI based player but instead we ended up losing our larger hard disk capacity to a flash based product.

The chaps at Tech.co.uk spoke to Alan Devine, Creative’s brand specialist after the IFA convention and he had this to say about Creative’s future. "We’re here today to talk specifically about the newly-announced Creative Zen," he said. "But yes we do have some spectacular new products in the early stages of development in Singapore. The Creative Zen will be our flagship player for the next couple of months at least."

On Creative adding XFI technology to their players, he had this to say. "It’s something we’re actively working on," he said. "The trouble is that the technology is so good that it’s quite battery-intensive, so wouldn’t currently work well in a portable device. There’s nothing arriving in the short term but we are working hard to try and get X-Fi into a player."

As to weather we can expect any more products from them in future, he had this to say. "We have a range of products coming out over the next year. We’ve done well in the entry level with the Zen Stone; the Creative Zen fits nicely mid-market. That leaves a pretty obvious area of the market for us to fill, and I can’t say more than that."

This is certainly good news indeed and proves that Creative haven’t given up on the DAP market yet, they’re branching out making different products, which includes third party devices for the Ipod range as well as their own. They have so far replaced the ZVM with the new Zen, but have yet to see a replacement for their Zen Vision:W - the widescreen version of their ZVM. So Creative will be announcing new players in future, but will they have the storage music enthusiasts really require? We haven’t seen the last of Creative that’s for sure.

Bioshock, Pizza’s, and iTunes

Published

Darren/Kain

on September 9, 2007

in Babble, Technology and Xbox 360

. 8 Comments

Would you kindly bend over…

It’s been a hectic weekend! I wasted money, and then some. Oh, there’s a Bioshock review that has been added to the reviews section. Not the best I might add, but I had to let loose my opinions on such a heavily rated game, especially after seeing it’s rating on Metacritic.com.

After finishing work on Friday, I was in a spending mood. I had about £350 saved up to blow on either clothes, pc/console bits, a low end DSLR Camera or a new MP3 player. The past week saw the release of the next generation of MP3/Video devices from the likes of Creative, Apple, Cowon, Microsoft, Archos and a few other manufacturers. I was already looking for a replacement for my Vision:M despite it being regarded as the best MP3 player on the market. I’ve had the thing for ages now and would like something a bit thinner - an excuse I recently used for buying a new mobile phone, the Sony Ericsson w880i.

Some things not to admit to on Irc…

Published

Darren/Kain

on September 5, 2007

in Music/TV/Films, Technology and WTF?

. 7 Comments

What are your worst tunes on your MP3 player?

Today was the launch of the new Apple iPod range over in the states. Needless to say there were good and bad products shown here, the highlight being the iPod Touch thing, which I’m sure people will quickly snap up only to realise that touchscreen’s aren’t too COOL in use. The iPod Touch doesn’t have that much storage space either, well for some people anyway. For those who require over 16GB of space for their albums, they’ll have to carefully manage what goes onto their new iPod. Anyway, over on our quakenet channel where most of us old-school gamers chat and complain about life in general, PR was getting rather amped up about the new iPod despite stating he wasn’t wanting one.

An hour later after the Apple announcement ended, he’s started pruning away at his iPod music collection… So what follows are various snippets cut out of the channel, because some of the tracks PR has puts my collection to shame!. Let the shaming begin!

[21:26] * PR|PC prunes music collection
[21:28] <PR|PC> Call of Duty 1 soundtrack
[21:28] <Kainz> lol
[21:28] <PR|PC> keeping that
[21:28] <PR|PC> back in the day when they had real orchestras playing real music
[21:31] <PR|PC> 2 Faced by Louise (pre redknapp)
[21:32] <Kainz> LOL
[21:33] <PR|PC> shup!
[21:34] <Kainz> Louise lol
[21:34] <PR|PC> Lighthouse family!
[21:35] <Kainz> Better then Louise!
[21:35] <PR|PC> She’s hot!
[21:35] <Kainz> and now married!
[21:35] <Kainz> Ya got J-LO!?
[21:38] <PR|PC> Fahrenheit Soundtrack
[21:39] <PR|PC> Hang it Up!
[21:39] <Kainz> Teh what
[21:39] <PR|PC> When you play basketball with the cop!
[21:39] <Kainz> lol
[21:49] <PR|PC> Samantha Mumba!
[21:49] <Kainz> lmao
[21:49] <Kainz> and you have the balls to take the piss out of me for my taste!
[21:50] <Kainz> So what iplod bloat are you buying?
[21:50] <PR|PC> Who said I’m buying it?!
[21:50] <PR|PC> Tempted I must say
[21:50] <Kainz> You’re pruning e.g prepping your music collection!
[21:51] <PR|PC> Deleting Sam Mumba is hardly pruning!
[21:51] <Kainz> What about louise!
[21:51] <PR|PC> Gone

The New Creative Zen! [Update]

Published

Darren/Kain

on August 30, 2007

in Technology

. 10 Comments

iWant!!

This is the replacement for the Creative Vision:M, considered as the best MP3 player on the market. Recently Creative have stated that the Vision:M is an EoL (End of the line) product so a replacement for their top of the range player is more or less due and boy have they surprised Zen fans with their latest effort.

Yesterday, Creative leaked out photo’s of their new Zen, a super-slim flash based player, which arrives in 4, 8, and 16GB capacities, as well as having a high quality 2.6" display and an SD card expansion slot. If memory serves me correctly it is the first 16GB flash player to hit the market too. People could say that 16GB isn’t enough and a hard disk, which the Vision:M has is a better feature. While I’d agree with that, you have to admit that RAM prices are falling through the floor and if 16GB isn’t enough, then a simple SD card upgrade should suffice. At the end of the day, flash ram is always the best solution, even though it has been expensive in the past. For that reason alone I will be after it and doing an in-depth review!
Continue reading ‘The New Creative Zen! [Update]‘

Apple Store, Fifth Avenue

Published

Darren/Kain

on May 21, 2006

in Links and Technology

. 5 Comments

There has been a lot of talk going around about the web about the new Apple store that recently opened up in New York, and now I can see why. What a stunning piece of work! The store is located on Fifth Avenue, and will be supplying Apple products 24/7. You can see photo’s of the opening at gothamist.com.

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