ipod touch

Is Apple unstoppable? If it is, the Zune HD has long appeared to be the best shot at unseating the MP3-player kingpin. Knowing that, when a Zune landed at PopSci HQ, we had to see if such a thing could actually be true.

For a week, I split my commute between a Zune HD and a brand new iPod touch (my fourth Apple player). These are the high- (and low-) lights of my week with the Zune HD.

Well, the prophets were right: No App-let (Ta-pple, Ta-cintosh, whatever) today. The real news: Steve's back, the iPod nano is trying to kill Pure Digital's Flip pocket camcorder, and iTunes lets you copy files within your home network.

Jalopy-bound Sirius XM devotees don't have to spring for a full sat-radio upgrade to listen to Howard Stern in their hoopties anymore. Today Sirius XM intro'ed the XM SkyDock, a device that turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a car satellite radio, letting subscribers kick finicky streaming apps to the curb.

ATMs have done their part to keep us off long teller lines since the first one was installed in the U.K. circa 1967. Now we stand on ATM lines instead. An upcoming upgrade to USAA bank’s iPhone app could cut those off, too; the app will allow bankers to deposit checks from their iPhone by sending two images of the check (one front and one back).

Leander over at Cult of Mac has been busy doing some iPod sleuthing, and stumbled upon plenty of Chinese-made cases for the forthcoming iPod updates. What did he find? Cameras!

In the previous two installments of this series, we labored through some ornery hardware wrangling and tested our mettle with some serious Objective-C coding, now it's time to deliver our app to the masses.

The third and final installment in this series takes our App to market, err, the App Store.

In the first part of this series, we covered the "nuts and bolts" for assembling a workable iPhone app development platform. Now that our desktop is cluttered with a mess of cables, it's time to roll up our sleeves and start cobbling some code together.

See part two on coding your App.

Love it or hate it, it's tough to argue about the success of the Apple App Store. While this venture might be a successful cash cow business model for Apple, how does business fare for the app developer? Pretty good, it turns out.

As we mentioned earlier, iPod Touch Mods has a project for adding a microphone/preamp to your iPod touch. Coming on New Years Day 2008, you will be able to download the SIP-VoIP software that will add voice-calling capability to your iconic Apple MP3 player. More than just good cheer is at work here, so donations are being solicited.—Dave Prochnow

(Image: touchmods.blog.com)