Apple today released a statement warning buyers against unlocking their iPhones: Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed.¬† Apple plans […]

Russell Holliman, Founder and CEO of Podcast Ready, tells us his company has just signed a distribution deal with consumer electronics manufacturer Coby that he expects will ship 5-10 million mp3-player/ podcatching devices over the next 12 months, starting with the fourth quarter of this year. By Holliman’s reckoning, “that brings the total projected to […]

It looks like Apple’s controversial iPhone price cuts have turned the phone and portable media player into a hit: iPhone carrier AT&T said sales of the iPhone have increased since Apple announced the price cuts. “The price cuts are going to help us,” said AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega. “We see a very significant uptake […]

Zune Scene and others are reporting that Microsoft will release its second-generation Zune portable media players on October 16th. And while Microsoft tried to use the first-generation Zunes to turn “squirting” into a trendy term, this time around it’s “squircle”. Here’s the specs, via Zune Scene: “We have also verified that in addition to the […]

Apple and T-Mobile today announced that T-Mobile will be the exclusive carrier of the iPhone when it makes its debut in Germany on November 9. The iPhone is scheduled to go on sale on November 9 and will be sold in Germany through Telekom Shops of Deutsche Telekom and the T-Mobile web shop. The phone […]

Apple and O2 announced today that the iPhone – aka the “Jesus phone” – will debut in the UK November 9th. O2 will be the exclusive UK carrier for the iPhone. Unique to the UK, iPhone users will have free access to the UK‚Äôs largest single public Wi-Fi network, covering over 7,500 cafes, restaurants, airport […]

Troubled free music site SpiralFrog made its debut today, after months of delays and management changes. The site, which lets visitors download music and videos free of charge, hopes to find success with a business model based on offering DRM’d music to users via an ad-supported site. “We believe it will be a very powerful […]

Here‚Äôs a roundup of portable media news for Sept. 17th: EMusic offering MP3 audiobooks – eMusic is offering more than a thousand books for download, with many of them cheaper than on iTunes. For example, ‚ÄúThe Audacity of Hope,‚Äù read by author Barack Obama, will cost $9.99 on eMusic compared with $18.95 on iTunes. This […]

Here’s a roundup of portable media news for Saturday, Sept. 15th: TorrentFreak has an expos√© on Media Defender, publishing internal emails that appear to show how the company created a website and leaked copyrighted content to entrap people into infringement. According to TorrentFreak, “The sole purpose of the site is to trap people into uploading […]

The Wall Street Journal has an article today that suggests that iPods and MP3s are ruining pop music. The idea is that the dynamic compression that has become popular to make music sound louder, combined with audio file compression, which throws away details of the music, have combined to make pop music horrible. According to […]