A friend was going to get one, but got distracted by something as yet unreleased that has a bigger screen. He thinks he's excited. I totally can't wait.

I've got an appointment this afternoon to take DH's iPod to the Genius Bar, but I have a feeling it's pretty hopeless. This means he needs a new iPod AND a new iPod recorder accessory to record interviews with (since the iTalk he has isn't compatible with the new iPod models).

The Apple store seems to have three options - anyone have experience/opinions on relative quality?

Belkin TuneTalk

Griffin iTalk

XtremeMac MicroMemo

The TuneTalk is very solid and simple, and I've had a lot of success with it. I actually like the MicroMemo even better as far as the sound goes, because the flexible/removable mic pickup doohickey gives you more options for setting things up, but I've seen a number of them break off. Moving parts = not good on a portable device.

I haven't used the current-generation iTalk, but the user reviews I've seen all point to a whole lot of skipping. It's been my impression that this is an issue with all of the mics, and our troubleshooting points to iPods running low on battery rather than the specific mic model: which gets to my last point... all the new iPods can give you a much better-quality recording than the old ones, but the tradeoff is that recording sucks batteries much faster than E is probably used to with the old one. The Belkin allows you to plug in to a computer (or a USB charger, if you have one) to charge while you record, and the MicroMemo doesn't. I don't know about the iTalk. At any rate, since it's something he needs for work, it's definitely worth looking for.

all the new iPods can give you a much better-quality recording than the old ones, but the tradeoff is that recording sucks batteries much faster than E is probably used to with the old one

That's the impression I get from browsing the reviews, but it seems to be an issue across the board, unfortunately.

Macworld.com prefers the Griffin.

It's too bad Olympus's digital voice recorders aren't Mac-compatible. They seem so much more reliable than any of the iPod accessory versions. [eta: Unless they are now, in which case tell me which ones! The last time I checked, they were Windows-only.]

That's the impression I get from browsing the reviews, but it seems to be an issue across the board, unfortunately.

Yep. It's an iPod issue, not a mic issue. If you record on low quality, the battery will last like it used to, but I don't know how much the quality is likely to be an issue for E... (I assume not that much, if he's using it for note-taking and he's been using the old one with no problem - but there's always gotta be a tradeoff, right?)

I would really love to be able to open files read-only from my right mouse click menu.

Anyone know if that could be finagled?

Looks like something is happening with Palm tomorrow... [link]

New category of mobile device? Let me bate my breath a second...

It had to happen. OK, probably, anyway... This shit had me LOL!

LOLCODE

COUNT!!1:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
IM IN YR LOOP
	UP VAR!!1
	VISIBLE VAR
	IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10? KTHXBYE
IM OUTTA YR LOOP
KTHXBYE

FILEZORZ:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
PLZ OPEN FILE "LOLCATS.TXT"?
	AWSUM THX
		VISIBLE FILE
	O NOES
		INVISIBLE "ERROR!"
KTHXBYE

Gris,

after the fiasco that is the Palm Lifedrive, I'm not going to get excited about any palm/palm-related product. My lifedrive is a friggin doorstop after 1 year of use.