Art La Flamme

Know what I really want for my iPhone? Batch files.

I want a pretty button on my main screen that, when I hit it, toggles on/off WiFi and Bluetooth, and then updates / synchs with iTunes (to include updates to apps); synchs mail, calendars, etc with my Mac; and then plays a nice little jingle when it’s all done, so I can press the button again and go back into battery-saving mode.

Surely, I can’t be the only one with these kinds of wants – more than just this combo, but this capability.

Why can’t we have this?

How bad can a movie be, if the most redeeming thing it has is a hot leather jumpsuit worn by the heroine?

Bad.

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So, I now have three iPod variants — a 2GB iPod shuffle, an 8GB iPod Touch, and a V1 iPhone.

All play music. All synch from the same iTunes library on my MacBook Pro.

The shuffle just does audio. I have a nice set of nested Smartplaylists that serve up music for me to listen to when running, which is pretty much all that I use the shuffle for.

But the iTouch and the iPhone both play video. I have the same music library for them, but really, should I be loading audio? Or should I be loading music videos?

Internet rock star Wil Wheaton today mentioned Dark Side of the 80s, saying to get it if you can. It’s on Amazon (here), and it’s uncommon, and it’s expensive. And if I saw where he mentioned it, so did 33,000 other internet rock stars. It only became that much more rarer today.

So, I went to YouTube. And I put together a playlist in my iTunes of the same songs, just with videos from YouTube instead. Almost all of them are studio-produced music videos, but a couple are live performances (when there weren’t other choices). And I think I had one song for which I could not find a video, so I added the MP3 file that was already in my music collection.

Will I pay attention to the video screen while the music is playing? Probably not. Is battery life a big deal to me? No, not really. I think I’m starting to see the merit in the music videos now, finally, after all these years. And that’s only because the iTouch and the iPhone are nothing but video screen; seems a waste to not play the video when I want to hear the music.

So, I synched up my iTouch iPod.

I told it to synch all of my music and all of my playlists.

I specifically told it to synch no movies, no podcasts, no TV shows, etc. Just music.

So, when it was done, it showed that it had synched all of the music — and a bunch of video. 500 MB worth.

What did it synch? 30 podcast video files that met criteria to be included in one playlist or another. Even when I told it no video, and even when I told it no podcasts.

Interesting.

It lists to my instructions about as well as my cat does.

Thanks, Apple.

[Update: Select all songs you want to be able to shuffle - Go to "Get Info" menu - In the "Multiple Item Information", in the bottom is the "Skip when shuffling" menu - click no and OK to be able to shuffle between videos.]

When I was in Atlanta the other day, I stopped by the Apple store to talk about my new (to me) iPhone.

It’s tax-free weekend here in GA, so the store was swamped.? So much so that they emptied out the nerds from the back to help customers up front.? I ended up with just such a nerd — a guy who toils away in the back repairing the broken things folks bring in.

So, I asked him.? I keep my iPhone in this little pouch, but do I need something more to protect it?? Yes.? This.

A hard case?? Yes.? Wouldn’t something soft and squishy help if I were to drop it?? No; this works.

OK.? I bought one for the iPhone, and one for the iTouch.

Oh, and it’s cheaper via Amazon.

I went up to Atlanta for the weekend.? Went to see A & T & their daughter, MacAttack.? T and I went to college, and being as it’s only 120+ miles to their house, it seemed to close to not do.? Awesome, awesome weekend.

Let’s see. There was:

1.? The new iPhone.

2.? The trip to the mall.

3.? Dinner at Ted’s.

4.? A morning of unlocking the iPhone and T’s iTouch.

5.? A lazy afternoon of looking at the new iPhone like it’s a naked lady who moved in across the street.

So, bear with me — this will take a bit to recap.

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