Have you always dreamed of a giant, wall-hanging iPod seemingly warped and twisted like a big, crappy, old television? Well, Russian artists Aristarkh Chernyshev and Alexei Shulgin have, and now they're subjecting the world to it. Yes, say hello to the wowPOD, a fully functional iPod mutation which is absolutely worth whatever our business manager has been authorized to pay for it.

[Via TUAW]

Hope you don't mind two similar worlds running together, because today we're asking about not one, but two of Cupertino's latest. The iPod touch 2G and iPod nano 4G were both simultaneously (give or take a few minutes) announced back in early September, and after getting a chance to handle both, we felt that Apple did a stand-up job with the each of 'em. That being said, there's always a thing or two that could use tweaked, added or removed completely, but we'll spare you any additional opinions from us on that. Instead, we want to know how you, dear reader, would change either of Apple's freshest PMPs. What are you digging? What's still not good enough? The floor is yours.

Well it took three years, but Rockbox 3.0 has finally made it on the scene, with a major overhaul in the sound decoding department and support for several new players. This open source firmware replacement is chock full of tasty new features, including codec support for over 15 formats like FLAC and Ogg, 5-band parametric EQ, MPEG video, multilingual interface, Doom and a pile of other games, not to mention freedom from iTunes. Oh yeah, and it can talk to you via a spoken interface -- which comes in handy for not driving off bridges and what not. iPod, iriver, Sansa, iAudio, Gigabeat and Archos models are all supported, though Archos didn't get many of the major 3.0 improvements like expanded codecs.

Look, we know there's some kind of good explanation for these things existing, but Apple, don't you think it's a little weird how they keep cropping up in stores even though you never, ever mentioned them? That's right, those 4GB iPod nano 4Gs we saw at Dutch retailers last week have now made their way onto Best Buy's Canadian website. Over in North America, the players will apparently sell for $139, and will be available tomorrow... or so they say.

[Thanks, Robert]

Now this is an interesting development. According to two separate tipsters (with two sets of photos) Apple has released a third version of the new multi-hued iPod nano to the world -- a 4GB model. As there's been no announcement from the company, and there was certainly no mention of it at the 'Let's Rock' event, this is quite a head-scratcher. According to sources (and a Dutch retailer's site), the models are available in all nine colors and are priced at €119 (or about $168) -- though there seems to be some debate as to whether these lower capacity versions are limited editions or simply an incredible gaffe on Apple's part. Regardless, they appear to be the real thing, and they appear to be on store shelves right now (in some countries, at least). If you're looking for the ultimate Apple collector's item, this may be just the thing. Check out the gallery below for lots of looks at the mystery nano.

Update: The UK's Pocket-lint got hold of an Apple spokesperson who told them Apple "made a limited number of 4GB iPod nanos for some international markets, but this is not one of our main configurations." Mystery solved, we guess -- but that "limited number" bit has us thinking this was still some kind of mistake.



Read - 4GB iPod nano 4G at Dutch retailer
Read - New iPod nano, very briefly in 4 GB

Well, that was fast -- iPod touch firmware 2.1 was just released on Tuesday, and the QuickPwn project already has it jailbroken. It's not quite the GUI one-click process it's been in the past, but if you're anxious for a little underground code to go with your Genius playlists, it's not overly complicated. Let us know how it goes, we'll let you know when the iPhone 2.1 jailbreak inevitably hits.

Update: The Dev Team just pinged us to say that this isn't one of their official releases, if that sort of thing matters to you.

Why, this is downright preposterous! How dare the copyright-ignoring, astonishingly uncreative minds of those at Miao copy Apple's latest iPod nano design a full year in advance? They should be implausibly embarrassed by churning out a so-called Cottage MP3 player in 2007, all while the brains at Cupertino sat and pondered how to make its tiny little PMP that much better. This, people, is an outrage. An outrage!

We've seen the iPod-as-cassette-tape design in older speaker docks like Altec Lansing's inMotion iM7 bazooka tube before, but Sony's bringing it back with its new ZS-S4iP boombox, which appears designed for only iPhone and iPod touch owners. Apart from the novelty of hitting eject to insert and remove your player, it's pretty much the generically boring CD boombox it looks like, although you do get MP3 CD playback. It's preordering in black and white in Australia for about AU$179 ($142), should make it Stateside in October.

We had a chance to paw this beauty on Tuesday at the Apple event, but finally getting home and spending some quality time with the device has given us a far deeper impression of just what the folks in Cupertino have done. So far our impressions are favorable: physically, the nano redesign is a move in the right direction for the company, leaving that awkward previous generation nano on the cutting room floor, and falling much more in line with Apple's current design language. The player feels solid and compact -- maybe a bit too tiny for our big paws -- though build quality is on par with the 1st generation iPhone. You can tell a lot of careful rethinking went into this, and there's not an edge out of place. We're going to be doing a full review of the device and its new software, but for now feast your eyes on the gallery below.

Usually product teardowns are only interesting for the raw, visceral thrill of seeing chipsets and circuit boards splayed wide open, but iFixit's disassembly of the new iPod touch revealed something rather more interesting: a Broadcom BCM4325 Bluetooth 2.1+EDR chip. (That's the silver rectangle in the middle of the top circuit board there.) That's got a lot of people all atwitter, but there's an obvious explanation for it: Nike+, built into the new touch, is based on a proprietary low-power 2.4GHz communications protocol called ANT -- not quite the standard Bluetooth frequency, but awful close. Yep, sorry, it's for technojogging, not secret A2DP -- although we'd welcome actual Bluetooth support in the touch with open arms. Hit the read link for the complete breakdown.

Update: Just to be totally accurate, the BCM4325 also does WiFi -- and Nike+iPod has been called a "proprietary 802.11 protocol" in the past, so it's even less likely that it's there for actual Bluetooth usage.

Apple and Microsoft both issued a slew of updates to the iPod and Zune lineups in the past two days, and it looks like some of the new features will be kicked down to older devices as well. Although it was expected that second-gen Zunes would get all the new Zune 3.0 features, Microsoft says that the older Zune 30 will also receive an update to enable Buy From FM, Channels, and WiFi music store features, and Apple reps at the Let's Rock event told CNET that the iPod classic will eventually get an update to enable the new Genius playlists. That's particularly interesting since Genius is most definitely a new feature, but it doesn't sound like Apple's going to charge for it -- which flies in the face of the company's "we have to charge for new features because of Sarbanes-Oxley accounting requirements" $9.95 iPod touch update price reasoning. We won't complain too loudly about free updates, but that's definitely a little odd -- care to explain, Steve?

Update: We just spoke with Apple, and it appears people are getting all kinds of facts wrong. The iPod classic will not be getting an update with Genius functions. Don't ask us why... it just ain't.

Read - iPod classic getting Genius update
Read - Zunes getting Zune 3.0 firmware update

It would have been juicier if Microsoft hadn't announced the fall Zune lineup a day early and gone directly head-to-head with Apple's newly refreshed iPod lineup, but the fact is that if you're in the market for a new player the past 48 hours have delivered a slew of new options. Microsoft concentrated on the software side of the equation with Zune 3.0, but Redmond's players themselves got a WiFi music store, some new games, and Buy From FM, while Apple added in new Genius playlists across the board and updated the iPod nano's form factor and UI. At the high end of the capacity scale, the Zune seems to have the win on paper -- both the Zune 120 and the iPod classic frustratingly top out at 120GB, but the classic's stagnated essentially at the level of the 5.5G video iPod while the Zune 120 carries all the features of its smaller siblings. On top of all that, you have the newly-thinner iPod touch, with all of its browsing, media, gaming, and third-party application features -- and the lost purity of purpose adding all features those entails. That's a ton of choices -- so c'mon, kids, what's it going to be?

We know it's been a long day of Apple news, what with all those colorful new nanos, the thin-as-all-get-out touch, a fresh version of iTunes, and that forthcoming iPhone / touch update (and don't forget about those new shuffle colors). It's all a lot to take in, but as usual, we're presenting it to you in one delicious, easy to digest roundup. Enjoy!

The liveblog:

Live from Apple's 'Let's Rock' event in San Francisco

Hands-on coverage:

iPod nano 4G hands-on
iPod touch 2G - first hands-on

Product announcements:

iPod classic refreshed, only comes in 120GB flavor now
Official: iPod nano reaches 4G, looks tall for its age
iPod touch updated -- same screen, new case, Nike+ integration
Apple introduces $79 in-ear headphones
One more thing: New iPod shuffle colors

iTunes / iPhone / touch updates:

Apple launches iTunes 8, NBC comes back, TV shows at $1.99, Genius in the house
iPhone 2.1 software update announced (update: $10 for some iPod touch owners)
iPod touch 2.1 firmware update now available

Stoked about all those new features you heard about during today's Stevenote? Dying to get your paws on the improved battery life, smoother UI, and other bug-destroying goodies? Well if you're a current touch owner, you can download the update right now (for a tidy $9.95, of course). Just follow the read link's "buy now" button to iTunes, and keep a credit card handy.

Update: If you already have firmware 2.0, this upgrade is free.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]