Apparently iTunes, iPods, and Vista don’t play nice just yet. A variety of issues have been reported, including: purchased tracks not playing, synchronization glitches, and computer gremlins “may corrupt your iPod.” Apple warns:

iTunes 7.0.2 may work with Windows Vista on many typical PCs. Apple recommends, however, that customers wait to upgrade Windows until after the next release of iTunes which will be available in the next few weeks. Apple is preparing to address a number of iTunes compatibility issues in the next release of the software.

Apple suggests folks who have upgraded to Vista reinstall the current (buggy) version of iTunes and to use their repair tool to authorize playback.

(via CNET and iLounge)

In case you hadn’t heard (yeah, right), Windows Vista is now shipping. One of the more interesting features is Windows Media Player’s ability to stream media, not only to Xbox 360s and Media Extenders, but to other LAN PCs running Vista. Though WMP 11 has been available on XP for some time, this particular feature is not supported. Yes, I know, iTunes enables library sharing as well.

Microsoft writes:

You can share nearly any digital media file in your Player library, including protected Windows Media files that you have downloaded from online stores. To share a file in your library, the original file must be stored in one of your monitored folders.

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A periodic roundup of relevant news…

• Microsoft eying WiFi-enabled Zune filling stations: Engadget
• Flash-based Zune due in Q407, better WiFi soon: Digital Music News
• Microsoft made Zune because partner hardware “sucks”: Bloomberg
• Universal and Sony prohibit Zune sharing for certain artists: Zune Thoughts
• Europe dreaming of a brown (Zune) Christmas: Washington Post

I get a decent amount of questions via email covering a variety of topics — Believe it or not, I try to answer everything that comes my way. I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this sooner, but I’m going to start running selected questions and answers. Perhaps my response will be useful to a larger group, and perhaps you readers will have alternate suggestions worth considering.

First up we have a question from a long-time supporter of the site. The last time I heard from John he was debating between television models at Best Buy. We had a few back and forths and then he didn’t take my advice. Ha! This time around, I think John and I are in agreement:

I bought an 20 gig iPod 2 yrs ago but now it has some sort of - can you believe it - frown face. Apple wants $250 to “fix” it. I have all of my tunes backed up so it’s not a problem to start over. What do you recommend? Also, have you ever heard of the frown face icon on the iPod? Weird I know.

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If you missed Post-Mortem Part 1, I covered the Christmas gadget insanity in my house with the Wii, Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick and iRecord. Part 2 starts with the Dash.

The Dash
Way to Ruin the Surprise

I should have listened to my own advice. I knew it was a bad idea to buy a cell phone for a present strictly on the basis of having to commit to a service agreement. What I didn’t realize was how impossible it would be to keep a cell phone gift a surprise. It used to be you could buy a phone from T-Mobile without having it attached to an account. Perfect for gift shopping because you just switched the SIM card and activated the account after giving the present to your intended recipient. Now, however, you have to list a T-Mobile account when you buy the phone. I spent quite a while on a call with customer service making sure that everything would be more or less hidden from my husband until after Christmas, despite the fact that I was accessing his mobile account. Everything seemed to be well-arranged, and then the next day hubby got a text message on his current phone.

This is a free message from T-Mobile! Thank you for purchasing a service upgrade from T-Mobile! (i.e. locking you in for 2 more years…) If you didn’t make this purchase, please let us know! Thanks!

Arrgh.

At least the Dash has proven a worthy present if not a surprise one. Maybe a comparison later to the Blackjack?

Squeezebox
Ask and Ye Shall Receive

My new Squeezebox is not yet out of the box, but only because I just arrived back home after the holidays. I have a space cleared and ready for it. It’s nice to get what you wish for.

Stay tuned for Part 3: The eStarling WiFi photo frame and the DigiMemo.

Another quick note about Pandora as the next-generation MySpace… They’re taking a very social-networking approach to marketing. A musician friend of mine attended an event back in November hosted by Pandora at UPenn. The event was not directed at press, but instead consisted of founder Tim Westergren talking to students and gathering feedback and suggestions for the Pandora service. (According the Philly City Paper, the student audience members were complemented by “marketing-minded men in blazers and Web geeks.”)

While every company should be doing grass roots marketing, it’s interesting to see Pandora targeting the college crowd. These are the folks that fill the MySpace and Facebook realms. Given another alternative, will this fickle crowd migrate elsewhere? Or at least the music-minded ones among them?

(Thanks, Matt!)

I’m not an expert Pandora user. I only discovered it this year, and I haven’t remotely finished plumbing the feature set. Mostly I just create new stations when I remember a particular artist or song I love and leave it at that. That’s one of the great things about Pandora. You can be a casual user and still thoroughly enjoy the service.

Last week, however, Michael Arrington and I got an email from the Pandora folks: Seems they’ve gone and made the service more Web 2.0′ish. Now you can find shared stations within the Pandora community, see who is listening to what, and search for songs, stations and listener profiles by keyword.

The original, innovative idea behind Pandora is music discovery, and the fact that you can do things like seed stations with specific music to discover similar works is a great one. While the latest features still clearly fall under that concept, there is also something else going on here. Check out this quote from Pandora’s blog:

Find other Pandora listeners that share your musical tastes, hometown, school, or place of work. Explore their favorite songs and artists, listen to their stations, and leave them comments. Even bookmark them so you can check what they’re into later.

Once you add in elements like “hometown” and “school,” Pandora suddenly starts to sound a lot more like MySpace or Facebook to me. And indeed, I’ve heard from a lot of companies lately suggesting that the next wave of social networking sites will be based around specific interests. Vertical social networks.

So is Pandora the new, cooler MySpace?

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