We normally steer clear of mentioning each and every iPod case which PR people wave in our faces, mainly because life’s too short. Unless the case happens to be particularly hideous, that is. (Although we do reserve the right to make any new employee review them by the dozen until they beg for mercy, a la Dan Moren’s rather cruel hazing at the hands of that MacWorld lot.) That said, a couple of rather neat innovations in the field have recently caught our collective eye.

The iStik (pictured) features a two part design and magnets. We like magnets. You put one half on the inside of your clothes, while the other half — the half with the iPod — stays on the outside. No unsightly bands or straps. Brilliant.

The iDive, meanwhile, is a polycarbonate marvel which will keep your iPod watertight up to a depth of 300 feet. It includes a speaker and push-buttons which allow you to control even the iPhone’s touch screen while keeping it safe and dry.

The iStik costs $19.95 for the 2nd gen Nano and $26.95 for the 3rd gen (with a 4th gen case in the works), while the iDive is $349.99. I just wish I was energetic enough to use either of them.

• iStik
• via Core 77
• iDive
• via Blast Magazine

Boy, some people really do have too much time on their hands. Me, I haven’t even had time to finish my in-depth review of Open Office 3. But this guy? He’s made an iPod out of a paper coffee cup. Oh. It says here that he’s an artist. Well, that would explain it, then. (He’s German, too, which explains the whole Kraftwerk thing he’s got going on.)

• Roger Live
• via Starbucks Geek
• via Mac Blog

The EE Times has an interesting article for those of you who are curious about the guts of your electronics, but get a little squeamish at the thought of actually cracking them open and taking a look. They provide a break-down and analysis of the innards of the 2nd generation iPod Touch, and find that there’s a little more than you’d expect going on beneath the surface.

The short version is that the Broadcom chip chosen by Apple to power the Touch’s WiFi also provides Bluetooth and FM radio support. The Bluetooth is currently used exclusively for attaching to the Nike+, while the FM receiver gets to sit around twiddling its thumbs, unloved. EE Times suggests that Apple could easily add support for Bluetooth headsets (for VOIP) or stereo headsets with only small changes to the firmware. I personally doubt firstly how small the necessary changes would be, and secondly that Apple would ever want to do this. Remember that the code already exists on the iPod — although possibly written for an incompatible chipset — since the iPhone and iPod Touch still share the same OS image.

These kinds of revelations about the un-tapped potential of Apple hardware have me in two minds. On the one hand I can appreciate that Apple keeps things simple, sticking to core functionality instead of tricking out each device with every conceivable bell and whistle, and thus differentiating the iPhone and iPod Touch lines. On the other, I can only call it a crying shame. Luckily there’s a large modding community out there, so hopefully it won’t be long before someone works out how to enable these functions.

• EE Times
• via Mac Daily News

Got a kind of OK-ish product you need to push? Uncertain of the best way to push it? Creatively bankrupt? Or just at the end of another long boring week? Well have we got the thing for you: instant spray-on iPod chic. Yes, PR Bunnies and gentlemen, all it takes is one simple application for a little of that Apple marketing magic to rub off on your product.

This (admittedly not unattractive) desk lamp from Conof is apparently equipped with an iPod dock… by which we assume they mean you can plug the standard iPod USB dock cable into it. By this measure it’s also equipped with everything from memory card readers to laser printers. Get a grip, marketing people. Do you really think that just by throwing in the word “iPod” you’re going to get people writing about your otherwise unremarkable products?

Oh. Bugger.

• via SlashGear

If that solid gold iPhone we featured last week failed to impress you because it was just too damn cheap — and if you’re really not concerned with the amount of music you get to carry around with you — then may we recommend the “iDiamond” by Norwegian jewellery designer Thomas Heyerdahl (man, the Norwegians really hate Apple, don’t they).

The iDiamond features 430 diamonds, 312 on the Shuffle itself and another 118 on the earbuds. The package is rounded off with 18 carat white and pink gold. (And since when could you get pink gold?) The whole things is yours for a perfectly reasonable $41,000. No word as to whether its the 1Gb or 2Gb version under all that junk — assuming that they didn’t scrimp on the non-essentials and went for the larger model, you’re paying approximately £40 per song. An un-desecrated 2Gb Shuffle retails for around £45.

• Yahoo! Video!

A few quick words on Don Reisinger’s latest piece for cnet’s Digital Home, link-baitingly entitled “Why I can’t wait for the iPod to die.” The crux of Don’s piece is (as ever) reasonable enough: when the iPod looses it’s dominant position it will be a good thing for all concerned because it will mean that the digital music player market has grown. Apple invented this iteration of the market, now someone else has come along and reinvented it again.

So what advice does Don have for companies wishing to steal Apple’s crown?

“Here’s a clue: it’ll never happen if you do the same thing Apple does.”

Unfortunately, he then goes on to contradict himself. Attempts at building a product differentiated from Apple’s have already been dismissed. Products such as the Zune or iRiver Clix — offering features like radio tuners or wireless syncing which are available for the iPod only as 3rd party add-ons or else not at all — are “wannabes.” No, when Don says don’t do the same thing Apple does, he’s talking about building a seamless, end-to-end, easy to understand user experience… just like Apple does.

The problem is this: while the iPod as a brand marches ever onwards, individual product lines have — and doubtless will continue to — died. Apple has been ruthless in regards to killing them itself. Look at the hard drive based iPod Mini which was the best-selling member of the family when Apple pulled the plug. The line up is always changing. I for one would be amazed if the Classic was still with us this time next year. The iPod’s future lies with devices evolved from the touch.

I think the next company to dominate the music player market will get there by getting right all the things which Apple gets right now, only better, and with numerous little extra which make their products a compelling upgrade. Unfortunately (at least for market maturation as Don describes it) I think that company’s still going to be Apple.

• Don’s Digital Home

I hear that Amy Winehouse has a similar one.

No, this isn’t what happens when Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive sit down and smoke weed together. This is the wowPod, the latest installation piece by Dali-channelling Russian media artists Aristarkh Chernyshev & Alexei Shulgin. Weirdest of all, it even works. Those crazy Russian cats.

• The wowPod
• via MAKE
• via TUAW

Cast your mind back to this time last month and you may remember that Apple was busy getting a spanking from the ASA [Advertising Standards Authority] over some of the claims made in their iPhone adverts. Well, last night was one of the rare occasions I was home and watching TV in the evening, and during The Lord of the Rings III: The Return of the King (and by-the-way, exactly how long is that movie anyway? It needs some serious paring down. Less Hobbits and more Bernard Hill overacting, please) I got my first chance to see Apple’s latest iPod Touch adverts. And it looks like they’re in trouble again.

Last month’s ASA ruling (see here for a refresher) was all to do with Apple’s claims that the iPhone gave you “the whole internet,” which some sad pedantic sod too issue with on account of there being no Flash and no Java. (Which we all know translates to “I wanted to watch porn one-handed and now I can’t wah! wah! wah! Apple has ruined my love life.”)

Hold on to your hats because I think we’re in for it again. The new iPod Touch ad — the “CroMag Rally” one, embedded above — finishes with these words:

“This is going to change everything!”

(Exclamation mark added for effect, since there isn’t a punctuation thing for smug. And, yeah, I could only find the Yank version on YouTube. Hit the link below for the identical yet superior British version.)

Should be a fairly easy case to prove, given that even with games downloadable from the App Store some things — war, disease, hunger, the desire by un-elected pseudo-civil servant to wield the ban hammer because a) they can, b) it makes them feel like real men and not the impotent little worms they really are, and c) shut up and do not question my authority or I’ll have you banned too — will never change.

• iPod Ads at Apple
• Advertising Standards Authority

Replacement iPod docks must be the most useless thing in the Mac world, with the possible exception of iPhone cases. (Don’t get me started on iPhone cases.) Every iPod ships with a dock: it’s a white cable with a USB plug on one end and an iPod plug on the other. Simple design perfection. If Apple had meant you to dock your iPod via an amp or a food mixer they would have provided the attachment out of the box.

But for every rule there has to be an exception. Check this bad boy out: it’s a dock, a powered 2-port USB hub and a smart card reader. The Simplifi from Griffin Technology: the one and only useful iPod dock. Ever. And all for $69.99.

Now I’d like to see them make a useful iPhone case.

• The Simplifi
• via GeekBrief TV

The recent Podcaster debacle has focused the spotlight on the iPhone’s support for playing back podcasts. While Apple’s claims that Podcaster replicates the functionality found in iTunes have been hotly debated elsewhere — and the question, of course, is whether they meant current or planned future functionality — here we’ll be concentrating on what you can and can’t do in the here and now.

Let’s begin by heading off the negativity. These “problems” are really just minor annoyances and they’re being flagged here in the hope that they will be fixed with the next release of the iPhone OS. No one can doubt Apple’s commitment to podcasting in general. After all, they named it, and through the iTunes store they have given thousands of broadcasters a simple and efficient means to reach millions of listeners. (Yes, the Æ podcast is coming soon!)

These problems have been around for a while, but the recent 2.1 upgrade seems to have made them more prominent. Most galling, they relate to iTunes-iPhone syncing, a problem which would go away if we had full (Podcaster-like) over-the-air download. It seems that separate “played” states are now kept for the iPhone and iTunes. Before, if you listened to a podcast through iTunes on the Mac, it would be marked as heard and not copied to the iPhone. Now these podcasts are copied across. This wouldn’t be so bad if there were an easy way to mark them as heard on the iPhone, but no amount of prodding at the screen has made such an option appear. Partly heard podcasts are kept until they’ve been finished. This is in the iPod application. The video player app gives you a handy swipe-to-delete option, neatly solving the problem. For audio podcasts you have to delete them from iTunes on the Mac.

Small problems, admittedly, but noticeable on an otherwise flawless product.