Copulare iCoral is expensive iPod Dock

There is iPod and iPhone accessories everywhere we care to look. Do we need more? This post is evidence that we have reached that all critical point where going much further is overkill. Copulare is an audio rack manufacturer that has probably seen an opportunity to ride the wave of Apple’s mobile product success.

The price is -better sit down- €1500 and you get -wow!- analogue outputs, S-video -who remembers this any more?- and a USB connection. You can also chose between white and black finish!

Wadia will release the iTransport iPod dock

Wadia is an audiophile brand whose all-digital signal processing wonders have gained enormous respect from audio enthusiasts everywhere. The iTransport is its effort to grab the higher end of the iPod user market. Its big marketing point is the fact that it completely bypasses all analogue audio parts of the iPod to access music files exactly as they are stored. Video signals can also be handled. For a Wadia product, price is a bargain $349 in the US.

So far so good. However, in order to hear the promised audio performance the iTransport must be accompanied by a good amp and speaker system. Sorry but PC speakers are here unacceptable. Furthermore, MP3s will be insufficient and music goodness has to come from either .WAV or uncompressed .m4a Apple files. I do not know any iPod users storing their music in those formats as they have large size and are of closed nature respectively. And after all who would want to store all their CD collection in a new format from the beginning? Uninterrupted digital or not, home cinema amps now come equipped with USB for iPods and are bound to be the most practical option. Or even better at home, CDs still provide the best possible audio quality.

Link 1: Audiojunkies

Link 2: Wadia

When is the market dominated by a single player?

This post is a direct result of recent rumours in several blogs that state that Intel’s Penryn chips might appear later in the market than originally projected because AMD currently has a very weak product line and is not a threat even for Intel’s current CPU models! Of course Intel has the last word in this, but even the rumour is enough to make me think that there are cases when users do not receive the freshest technology developments as they become available at company R&D departments. For this to happen, the particular company must be the absolute leader in its market, the undisputed number one. Here is some examples:

• Intel obviously. It dominates computer CPUs for ages now.
• Canon in photographic cameras.
• Microsoft in operating systems.
• Apple in portable music devices and music downloads.

So apart from market share how do you judge that a company is in such a strong position?

Where do Apple computers stand in Greece?

We owe Apple a lot. They manage (together with Linux) to remind both users and Microsoft that yes there are alternatives in the market and they offer as much or more to both casual and professional users. Since the smart move of switching to the Intel platform, Apple computer sales have increased impressively. The iPod has been so successful that now Apple is holding the music industry by the neck, in similar fashion to Microsoft in operating systems… The share price has soared, the last few years are indeed success, success, success…

So where does Apple stand in small markets like for example the greek one? Well, up to the start of the decade its operating systems have offered incomplete support for greek characters. The market might not be India but yes people here happen to use a non-latin alphabet. The result? The Apple computer platform has been abandoned in the late 90s and the start of the current decade like a sinking ship, following bad reviews by the local press and users struggling with language support problems. Notably, the local as well as most greek universities switched completely to Microsoft more than five years ago, and these are all well educated people that happily go out and buy computers for their studies and even more importantly for their professional lives after finishing their degree… The only group that remained loyal was graphic designers.