iPod touch

Did Apple finally bring the hounds to the old iPhone jailbreak/unlock cat and mouse game?

Maybe. It's been over 2 months and while the miraculous iPhone DevTeam has jailbroken the iPhone 3G, unlocking the device to work on any carrier has thus far eluded them. Likewise, the brand new iPod Touch -- which might be a sign of things to come with the next iPhone as well -- has proven more resistant to Jailbreaking. Says the DevTeam:

One of the new features in the iPhone and iPod Touch 2.1 firmware is the ability to create Genius Playlists on the fly, and right on the device. iTunes 8 introduced the concept of Genius Playlists, which like Pandora and Last.fm, use algorithms based on audio profiling, metadata matching, and (anonymously acquired) end user tastes, crunched in the Apple cloud. Basically, they take a song you like, what you typically like with it (what playlists you include it on), what others who like it also like (what playlists they include it on), and what music mathematically (tempo, tone, etc.) fits in with it. Then they try to predict other songs you might also like -- in this case already on your iPhone -- and whip you up a near-instant playlist on-demand.

How good is it? That depends entirely on how much music you have on your iPhone (the pool from which it can draw), how closely the metadata matches what's in iTunes (or it won't recognize your music -- try tweaking the fields if you have trouble), and how many other users have contributed their data to the cloud (because the engine will supposedly get better and better the more information it's fed).

Okay, so enough about what Genius Playlists are, how do we get them working on our iPhone? Full instructions after the jump!

Gizmodo confirms what we feared during our meta-live-blog -- the bits that receive the information from the shoe-insert are built-into the 2nd Generation iPod Touch and not any other Apple device. That's not surprising -- hardware is as hardware does.

That's not the real bad news, though. The real bad news is that the 'dongle' that iPod users have been able to use for those transmissions in the past continues to be incompatible with the iPhone and the 1st Gen iPod Touch and that's not a situation that's likely to change.

A colleague of mine just sent me this, along with the screenshot above:

Every time I try to update my iPod Touch I get this message. I do the help about and it says 7.7.1.11 is installed. Looks like it’s in a loop.

Anyone else getting 2.1 for the iPod Touch yet? Anyone else stuck in a loop? Let us know!

Continuing their all iPod Touch, almost no iPhone pre-holiday blitz, Apple has released a guided tour for the new, second generation device and its upgraded 2.1 firmware (available Friday for Touch and iPhone users alike).

The focus remains squarely on games. Sweating yet, Nintendo and Sony? But also shows off the new Genius feature. (Which we'll be getting on the iPhone as well, right Steve?!)

(via TUAW)

Okay, so we pretty much all now know what the iPod Nano 4G will look like, but what about the iPod Touch 2G? If iLounge's sources are right -- surprise, surprise -- the upcoming refresh will see it slightly thicker but more tapered, just like what happened to the iPhone back in June. What else?

Could all the rumors -- and even Kevin Rose -- have been right? Will we see a longer, widescreen iPod Nano that brings the candy-bar shape back? MacRumors rounds up some "leaked" "case designs" that suggest maybe they are -- or merely that even the Chinese read Kevin Rose's blog? Roughly Drafted, on the other hand points out that a new aspect ration for the screen might cause problems for existing iPod formatted videos and games.

We always see (almost entirely incorrect) 'outlines' of keynotes in the runup to any Apple event, now we're getting them before the runup starts. It's a pretty safe be that Apple will be doing something in late September or October, they always try to have new iPod announcements before the holiday season. So go grab your salt shaker, pour out a few grains (actually, you might want to use them all), and take a gander at what Anonymous has told to expect in a "late September event," after the break.

Our take on the list you're about to read: real iPhone file access would be a godsend and it's a natural next step for the platform. iTunes Unlimited Music Subscriptions have been oft-rumored but given how strident Jobs has been about people wanting to own music instead of subscribe to it, we're still doubters. Then again, he did say the same thing about mobile video right before the iPod got video support. Basically, there's nothing there that we really think is a lock.

Here's a better question: what do you think Apple has in store for us this coming holiday season?

The iPhone might be the best iPod ever, but as Steve Jobs keeps saying, if no one else can compete with Apple, Apple will compete with itself. Witness a number of new iPod rumors that have just surfaced.