To access the service just click on the “More” tab on the iTunes Store app ( bottom right ). To hone your choices you have the usual options of filtering based on genre etc.

Further information on this update is available at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

The Web site access has not been optimised for the iPhone interface so to actually select the programme you require involves a fair amount of zooming and panning of the page. Hopefully this is a short term thing and the Beeb will improve the front end for easier navigation. What I can say though is that the video actually looks superb on with not stuttering or pixellation what so ever.

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch head straight over to http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer for preview. If you are interested in the technology behind this new service there is a blog article at the BBC Internet Blog that explains the approach being taken to encode and produce the iPlayer versions of BBC programmes that is also worth read.

Any good Mac casts that you think everyone should know about ? Drop a comment.

According to the article the EU directive will mandate that by 2012 25% of all portable batteries must be recycled and the implication is that the consumer should be able to readily remove the battery themselves, something that is currently not possible for Apples iPods and the MacBook Air.

This release has been significantly redesigned and looks much slicker then previously. From what I have seen so far it also seems as this version seems more stable as so far it has behaved flawlessly, something I could not honestly say used to be the case.

Not being an iPhone owner ( I use this on an iPod Touch ) I can’t comment on the 3G performance of this app, though I would be interested to hear from anyone who does use it over their cellular connection rather than WiFi.

Overall a thoroughly recommended app that should be on everyones home screen.

You did ? So it wasn’t just me then ? To be honest I am astounded that this fact seems to have largely escaped the Apple blog network and the mainstream gadget press, because personally I think this is a REALLY big deal ! The Apple Support Forum has a long thread where many disgruntled customers are venting their displeasure after spending a lot of money on second generation iPod Touch and Bose speaker combos only to find that when they plug in the iPod they are greeted with the message “CHARGING IS NOT SUPPORTED WITH THIS ACCESSORY” !

From what is said in the thread it appears that the dock connector on the new iPod uses pure USB charging whereas the original model used a hybrid USB/Firewire charging arrangement hence the accessories designed for the first gen iPods will no longer charge newer models. This means that there is NOT going to be a software update that will fix this, and many customers will find that their older speaker setups will NEVER work fully with their new iPods.

On a personal note I convinced my sister to shell out for the new iPod Touch from her birthday money and so this weekend she tripped off to the local Apple store where she parted with a pile of cash for the iPod and a Bose SoundDock only to find that the two devices are really not meant to play with each other. I feel responsible for her now having a partially working solution, especially as I initially advised her that it would “probably be fixed in the next software release”. I have now advised her to return the speakers until a fully compatible model is released.

Apple have really disappointed me with the latest updates, not only has my first gen Touch been broken, but it now seems as though Apple have decided to purposely re-engineer the dock connector which I for one thought was a “sort of standard” without so much as a passing mention.

Somebody should get a rocket for this !

Since updating to V2.1 firmware users have been left with a completely broken app. According to this thread the fix should be released to Apple this week. Heres hoping Apple don’t decide to do the dirty on Last.fm as they have done with Podcaster

When the first gen was released last year Apple must have known that the App store was coming shortly and that games were certain to become a major selling feature of both the iPhone and the Touch. The speaker design was already there in the iPhone and as such would have been very easy to transfer to the Touch, but Apple elected to not include it. Now a little over a year later they have released a Touch with speaker included, and Touch users like myself are all thinking about whether they should “upgrade” to a virtually identical device so we can get sound in our games like iPhone users.

Clearly without the addition of the speaker there is little reason for first gen Touch owners to upgrade to the latest model, but WITH the speaker I am sure many will find the upgrade worthwhile.

What do you think ? Are you thinking of upgrading ?