With a multitude of third party manufacturers making a mint from a multiplicity of iPod accessories, Apple has decided to cut itself a slice of the action with their own high-end Apple iPod Hi-Fi speaker system.
The high-fidelity speaker system comes in at a premium price and looks like an attempt by Apple to scare off the competition from upmarket speaker manufacturers like Bose and Denon, both of whom have done very nicely thank you very much from their iPod accessory ranges.
Powered by the mains or six D-cell batteries, the shiny white box has a slot to accommodate iPod players at the top with an Apple Remote letting users control the player from the comfort of their sofa/bed/hovel.
The all-in-one design features an isolated enclosure, with two custom designed wide-range speakers lurking under the speaker grill and a tuned ported bass system claimed to minimise vibration.
With portability in mind, the iPod Hi-Fi features big handles on either side (but no central grip which is a bit odd).
There’s also a removable front grille with precision-mounting clips, touch-sensitive volume control buttons and a dock connector for all iPod flavours.
While docked, the iPod Hi-Fi automatically recharges the player, with the player’s display showing Tone Control, Large Album Art mode and volume mirroring.
There’s also a handy dual-purpose 3.5-mm auxiliary input that accepts either analogue or digital signals for connection to a wide range of audio sources and third party players.
Initial reports say that it sounds good, but weighs so much (14.5 lbs without batteries) you’ll be unlikely to drag it down the beach.
That shiny finish looks a bit scratchable to us too and we can’t imagine many death metal loving teenagers wanting a great big white box in their satanic bedrooms either.
Our initial impressions: not good
We’ve got to say we’re unimpressed. It looks too bulky to be a take-anywhere beatbox, too delicate to be taken outside the house and with the speakers so close together, unlikely to produce the kind of hi-fi we’d expect for the top-tier price – US$349 (~e292, ~£198) in the USA market.
Mind you, Steve Jobs was suitably enthusiastic, declaring it as the, “home stereo reinvented for the iPod age”.
Smell the leather
Also announced was an eye wateringly expensive leather iPod case, yours for just $99 (~e83, ~£56).
Personally, if we desperately needed a case with a little Apple logo on it, we’d head down to the local street market and get something that would do the job just as well for about £5. But hey! Maybe that’s because we’re just a bunch of cheapskates!
Due to hit the shelves in March, Samsung Electronics’ new YP-Z5 MP3 player is causing a stir because it was designed by Paul Mercer – the very same programming genius who created the interface for Apple’s runaway success, the iPod.
At $199 (~e167, ~£113) to $249 the pricing is similar Apple’s product, and – crucially – Samsung is promising a seamless connection between player and download service via Microsoft’s PlaysForSure digital music standard.”
In a reflection of the growing convergence between phones and digital cameras, Sony Ericsson have declared their new K800 and K790 phones to be worthy of the Cybershot brand.
To help share your photographic masterpieces, Sony Ericsson have struck a deal with Google to enable easy photo blogging with the search engine’s Blogger service.
Sony Ericsson have also announced two additions to the K series along with a new phone in the Z range.
EntertainmentMusic Player (MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ support)
Jogging geeksters! Set your wallets to ‘buy’ as GlobalSat are set to release a wrist-type GPS Receiver aimed at sporty types who get their kicks from running around all over the place on foot, bike, board or ski.
Training projects and analysis come with the bundled Windows-compatible “professional self-training” package, but Apple users can stay at home because we couldn’t find any mention of Mac support.
GPS Parameters 
Announced at the CES 2006 show earlier this month, the Samsung Helix XM2Go has now appeared for pre-orders on Amazon.com (US).
The good news is that the service is commercial free – the bad news is that it’s a subscription service, with plans starting at $12.95 a week.
This lets users ‘tag’ a song they hear on the XM radio, and then buy and download the tune song via Napster. 
In an interesting and innovative twist, Dixons have teamed up with Pulse Rated, a Internet radio station, to fill up the empty space on new MP3 players with tracks from unsigned bands.
We expect this initiative to increase our already impressive tally of artists offered recording deals as a result of our activities – all of which are provided totally free of charge to the artists,” he added with a plug-tastic air.
Samsung have released a few more details about their new i320 Smartphone, which was unveiled at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona.
For a fully featured smartphone, the dimensions aren’t too bulky- 111mm x 59mm x 11.5mm only – so you won’t feel too much of a berk walking around with it stuck to your ear.
Connectivity comes in the shape of Bluetooth with the tri-band (900/1800/1900) GSM phone capable of GPRS/EDGE but no Wi-Fi as far as we can see – a major omission in our book. Bad Samsung.
Video : Video capture/playback
Sony Ericsson has slipped out is slimmest-ever 3G handset at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona, Spain.
Naturally, there’s an integrated music player lurking inside the rounded lines of the K610, with supported formats including MP3, AAC and e-AAC+. 
Sony Ericsson K610i Specs:
Launched at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Nokia’s new 6136 phone is being touted as the handset that brings GSM and wireless LANs together.
The quad-band Nokia 6136 will be able to connect to GSM networks at 850, 900, 1800, and 1900MHz (so no problems using it in the States as well as Europe) and comes with a built in 1.3 megapixel camera and FM radio.
At a press conference on Monday, Jorma Ollila, Nokia’s chief executive said, “We want to help our customers complement their existing mobile services with mobile IP. UMA gives users an alternative to PC-based VoIP,”
Keen to further expand their vice-like grip on the portable digital music market, Apple have unveiled a cut-down 1GB version of their turbo box-shifting iPod Nano player.
The new 1GB Nano can hold up to 240 songs or 15,000 photographs and comes with all the usual Nano features, including the colour display and docking connector.
As Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research, put it: “Apple is selling a $69 MP3 player with the best software. How do you compete with that? It’s tough.”
The iPod range continues to be an outrageously successful money spinner for Apple, with around 32 million iPods shifted last year, including 14 million during the holiday season.