New 2.0 firmware for Ipod Touch

I'm a happy owner of an Apple Ipod Touch 16GB. Today, the new Iphone 3G is launched. With it comes new firmware. The firmware is also available for the Ipod Touch. You can buy it for 10 dollar. Iphone firmware 2.0 is for free (meaning Apple is getting 10 bucks from you in an other way). I bought the 2.0 version because my employer uses Exchange. Until now I was using Google but small details prevent me to transparently interact with my work collegues.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Before you upgrade to version 2.0 you must upgrade Itunes to 7.7. One of the nice features, that comes with Itunes 7.7 is that it allows syncing your Google Mail contacts with those in Addresbook and on the Ipod in both ways. Just connect the Ipod with the USB cable to your labtop, fire up Itunes and go to the info tab :

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Now we have to wai untile the Itunes server become available. It seems they are flooded massively by al the new iphones. Let's hope Apple sorts this out soon.

iGoogle on Ipod Touch

Recently, Google homepage iGoogle got an Iphone/Ipod Touch specific overhaul. It can be reached on http://www.google.com/ig/i. This is how it looks on my Ipod Touch:

New Google homepage in Ipod Touch in Belgium

just surf to http://www.google.com/m

In a previous post "No new Google homepage for Ipod Touch in Belgium yet" I remarked that when entering the URL http://www.google.com in mobile Safari, the browser is redirected to the classic Google homepage with the URL http://www.google.be/m. So Ipod Touch users in Belgium can not try the new integrated that Google announced. However, if you type in http://www.google.com/m in Belgium on the Iphone or Ipod Touch you reach the new Google interface on the Ipod/Itouch.

No new Google homepage for Ipod Touch in Belgium yet

Google announced a new Google home page for the Iphone. Here are screenshots how the new homepage looks on the Iphone. However, if you surf to http://www.google.com in Belgium on a Ipod Touch, you still get the classical homepage:

It looks that because the Apple Iphone is still not available in Belgium, Ipod touch owners have to wait. I know that Wifi is far from ubiquitous in Belgium, so large pratical value is not to be expected. Still I'm eager how the new Google homepage is experienced. I already value a lot the Gmail, Google Reader and Google Calendar are refitted for the Ipod Touch.

Web pages especially for Iphone/Ipod Touch

I was wondering how the embed a media file into HTML for the mobile Safari browser on Apple's Iphone or Ipod Touch. Therefore, I looked up how others are doing it and what's in the documentation Apple:

1. BBC has made a portal to its podcasts : http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/directory/ip/ or you can just go to bbc.co.uk/podcasts.
   
   The code used to embed the mp3 podcasts is:
   
<embed width="100%" height="22" enablejavascript="true" controller="false" autostart="false" pluginspage="www.apple.com/quicktime/download" src="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/northernireland/nimusic/nimusic__20071112-2215.mp3"/>

   More info on BBC podcast portal.
   


2. Also Apple makes their trailers available in an Ipod Touch / Iphone friendly way. The URL is http://www.apple.com/trailers/iphone/
   Here's the HTML code that Apple uses to embed the Beowulf movie:
   
<embed src="http://movies.apple.com/trailers/iphone/images/greenband_320x133.png" href="http://movies.apple.com/movies/paramount/beowulf/beowulf-fte_i320.m4v"
target="myself" width="320" height="133"
controller="false"
autoplay="false"
scale="1" cache="true" type="video/quicktime" pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">

   Ars Technica has some screenshots of Apple trailers on the Iphone.
   
3. The code proposed by Apple looks like this:
   
<script src="AC_QuickTime.js" language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"></script>
QT_WriteOBJECT_XHTML('http://d2.mikseri.net/m/30a/30007249206/Frozen%20Silence%20-%20Cherish.mp3', '32', '16', '',
'autoplay', 'false',
'emb#bgcolor', 'black',
'cache','false',
'align', 'top');

   The URL is to a piece of music of the album "Frozen Silence" by Matti Paalanen.
   


4. Also the indie site http://ourstage.com has Iphone specific pages according to Techcrunch. But when surfing to that page on my Ipod Touch i get no specific content.
   

To get those HTML codes, go to about:config in Firefox and set the value of general.useragent.extra.firefox from something like 'Firefox/2.0.0.9' to 'Useragent "Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML,like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3A100a Safari/419.3' and then surf to the URL for ipod touch or iphone and inspect the page source.

Impression of Google's Android UI on Ipod Touch

I downloaded Engadget visual tour of Android's UI in Iphoto, cutted out the screens and synced them on my Ipod Touch. Voila, a visual impression of Google Android UI on Apple Ipod Touch:

Ipod Touch Firmware 1.1.2 also in ITunes Belgium

Already a few days announced, the new firmware for Apple's Iphone and Ipod Touch is available trough Itunes. Also in Itunes België :

The main new feature is that you can edit the calendar and the contacts with the Ipod Touch. The new update is a whopping 157 megabyte big, so it took 10 minutes to download via my DSL line. Installation went smooth. I'm reconsidering installing Spanning Sync
to synchronize my Google Calendar and Gmail contacts with Apple's Ical and contactbook. Spanning sync is free for the first 15 days.

Streaming video with EyeTV 2.5 to an Ipod Touch

EyeTV Version 2.5 from Elgato Systems allows to stream a recording to an Ipod Touch or Iphone.
I found no good documentation or howto after a few searches on Google. Therefore, I documented the process for your further reference. I tested this on an Ipod Touch but assume it's similar for the Apple Iphone. I also assume the mac with the Eyetv software and the ipod touch/iphone are on the same wireless network.

First, open the EyeTV Preferences panel and select Wi-Fi Access :
and click on start. The following question comes up:
Don't click "Prepare All" because it will transcode all your recordings to H2.64 and that will take a while. (Depending on the number and the lengths of the recodings you have. You can start it later when you've verified your set-up works and pleases you). After pressing "Don't prepare", you get the following window:
The addres where your Ipod Touch/Iphone has to connect to is, in this particular case, http://192.168.2.4:2170/eyetv/
In your case, the URL can be different. Take the URL to left of the "Send Email" button in the EyeTV Preferences window under the "Wi-Fi Access" tab. You can immediately enter that address into the browser to verify the EyeTV streaming server is up and running.

Next, go to "Show EyeTV Programs" in the Window menu of the EyeTV program. Select a short recording (or make one for a test) and select the recording. The recoding turns into blue. In the action menu (the one with the gear icon) select "Prepare for Wi-Fi Access Again" :
After a while, the recording is transcoded to H.264 and stored for streaming to the Ipod Touch. This can take as long the time of the recording or longer depending on the speed of your system.

Next, take your Ipod Touch, start Safari and surf to http://192.168.2.4:2170/eyetv/ :
Tap on the recording you want to stream and, after a short period, a thumbnail with a start button in lower right corner appears (a small triangle inside a cirkel). Tap the start button.
And the recording is streaming to your Ipod Touch/Iphone:
After a while, the movie controller automatically disappears.
The recording can be streamed from your mac to the Ipod Touch while your mac is showing live TV.

Unboxing Ipod Touch