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ABC News: Although the Christmas selling season is still a few months away, major retailers in the States have placed early bets that consumers will snap up LCD TVs and iPods.

“This year I think it’s pretty obvious that it will be flat panel TVs,” said Len Rand, managing director of venture capital firm Granite Ventures. “And I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that LCD is going to win the battle over plasma.”

Eventually, Rand said, flat panels will evolve into a more holistic media center with broadband connections and fancier set-top boxes. For now, however, the TVs themselves will be the thing to give and receive.

As in years past, analysts are willing to predict another boom year for the Apple iPod. While they voiced caution that the initial sex appeal of the iPod may be wearing off, they also noted that even cynical consumers haven’t found an integrated experience that surpasses Apple’s. Still, consumers are looking harder at specifications rather than brand.

A possible loser? At this point, it’s the Microsoft Zune, which hasn’t convinced analysts that it’s going to make a splash. “I don’t think it’s going to be,” said Shawny Chen, a digital audio analyst for Current Analysis, when asked if she expected the Zune to be a popular Christmas item. “The large screen is nice to have, but the look is not as sleek as what Apple has on the market.”

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Bloomberg: Apple is unveiling a new store design to add more show room for their iPod players and Mac computers and stations where shoppers can get technical help for their products.

The new stores will have an  “iPod Bar” and Studio where artists and musicians will offer advice on creative projects, said Ron Johnson, who runs Apple’s retail operations. Apple stores already have “Genius Bars” for repairs and questions on Macs.

The new design puts twice as many Macs and iPods on display and should speed customer service, Johnson said. More than 10,000 people visit each store a week. Apple, which opened its first outlet in May 2001 to fuel sales of Macs, said revenue from the retail stores rose by almost a third in the latest quarter.

The new design is modeled after Apple’s New York store on Fifth Avenue, which opened in May. It includes stainless steel walls, Italian stone floors, illuminated displays and larger tables for showcasing Mac and iPod models.

Apple is starting with two new US stores in Providence, Rhode Island, and Columbia, Maryland, bringing the total to 164.

Apple’s redesign comes as rival computer maker Dell Inc. is experimenting with retail stores. Round Rock, Texas-based Dell opened its first retail showroom in Dallas on July 25, a 3,000- square-foot center featuring 36 products. The store doesn’t carry any inventory, so customers have to order products online for delivery.

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EETimes: Apple Computer Inc.’s recent iPod introductions were a disappointment, which, in turn, will impact the overall demand for the NAND flash-memory market in the fourth quarter of 2006, according to a report from Gartner Inc.Last week, Apple rolled out new versions of its iPod MP3 line, but Gartner believes that the products were “evolutionary” and “did not redefine the portable media player category.”

“Instead, Apple focused on growing its margins for its shuffle and nano lineup and decided it is not necessary to have the most aggressive pricing at this time,” according to Gartner. “Unfortunately for NAND flash vendors, Apple could have made a much greater impact with its long-awaited refresh of its flash-based music players, through more aggressive pricing and capabilities, but perhaps it chose not to.”

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Next-gen.biz: Microsoft’s unveiling of its portable music player Zune didn’t have much to say about games or Xbox 360, but there is a connection.
When Zune was first being touted it was heralded in some quarters as a portable games player cum music device. In fact, the emphasis is clearly on playing music. Microsoft’s iPod ‘killing’ strategy for the 30Gb Toshiba-built device is to offer Wi-Fi music-sharing and a 3-inch screen. (…) However, according to Zune Insider, “You can plug your Zune device into your Xbox 360 to stream music, pictures, and video, via USB cable.” No surprises there.

In an interview with Engadget Microsoft’s J. Allard said, “Zune is really about music, it’s our deep dive with music first and foremost. Now… knowing that gamers love music, there’s going to be scenarios where they’re going to want to connect those two things.”
He added, “There’s a lot of opportunities for cross-pollinated experiences and we’re building the technological foundation to do it. But right now, we’re just starting with a real focus on music, and over time we’ll light up more and more of those capabilities and ideas as the consumer gets a little bit more conditioned.”

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Techdirt: Insurers may now begin to reimburse you for digital content stored on stolen or destroyed electronics – provided you can supply proof of purchase.

Britain’s The Independent newspaper carried an article that one insurer, Nationwide, has begun to sell insurance for digital content.

So, if your house catches fire, and both your computer and iPod melt, you can get reimbursed for all of the money spent at iTunes.

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Just when Steve Jobs will make some major announcements, the iPod is losing its cool.

The Observer reports: Industry-watchers warn that the iPod could soon be regarded by teenage cynics as their ‘parents’ player’ because a mass-market product rarely equates with edgy fashionability. Although it has sold nearly 60 million actual iPods and a billion downloaded songs worldwide, cracks have begun to appear in the edifice. The Zandl Group, a New York-based trends forecaster which regularly interviews a panel of 3,000 consumers aged 25-35, recently picked up its first significant criticisms. ‘The iPod is far and away the most popular tech gadget with our panellists – however, for the first time we are hearing negative feedback about the iPod from some panellists,’ said the organisation’s spokeswoman, Carla Avruch. ‘Panellists cite that the batteries are not replaceable, so when they die the entire player must be replaced,’ she said. ‘We have heard from some conspiracy theorists that the batteries are made to die soon after the warranty ends.

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Macworld.com: Apple has sent select members of the media and others invitations to attend a special event scheduled for September 12, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco, Calif. (…) Apple does not discuss products prior to their actual announcement, but speculation has run high in recent days that Apple will soon introduce new iPods and iMac models, or will offer full-length movie downloads from the iTunes Music Store.

And since Steve Jobs probably won’t attend the Apple Expo at Paris (September 12-16), we at About-electronics, expect an important keynote. To be continued…

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Anythingbutipod.com: SanDisk has signed deals with 40 companies to produce accessories for the Sansa line of MP3 players, according to their press release. These companies will join SanDisk’s “Made for Sansa” licensing program much like the “Made for iPod” program.

The third party accessory manufacturers are already showing an impressive line up of goods found on their Made for Sansa landing pages: Macally, Altec Lansing, Griffin, and DLO to name a few. These products include a vast majority of the same types of accessories iPod owners have been enjoying for years, including several different kinds of speaker docks, chargers, FM tuners, cases, cables, headphones with built-in docks, and the list goes on.

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Bloomberg: Toshiba Corp. shares rose after Microsoft  announced that the Japanese giant would be producing its Zune digital music player that will compete with Apple’s iPod.

Microsoft is working with Toshiba to get the device in stores for the Christmas selling season.

Apple has sold more than 58.9 million iPods since their introduction in October 2001, including 8.11 million units in the quarter ended July 1.

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ABC News announces that Dell will exit the MP3 player market. Almost at the same time Creative joined Apple and Sandisk introduced an 8GB Player, doubling the maximum capacity of the iPod Nano. Will the Sansa e280 music player be a real iPod rival or must we believe the 32GB ipod rumour?

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“For less than half the price that my BMW dealer wants to hook my iPod to the 530i’s stereo, you can use Belkin’s TuneBase FM for iPod to hear your music collection through your car’s FM radio.”

That’s Fred Manteghian from Ultimate AV spreading his wisdom. And we’re avid readers. Check the full post.

picture: (c) Fred Manteghian

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Windows is not – we repeat: not – working on an iPod killer. So just for now, let’s all pretend we don’t know it will be called Zune.

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