vulture bytes

Vulture Bytes: For the Young Lovers

Photo: Cassette Mate/Courtesy shot

The government may not have a budget, but that doesn’t mean you don’t. Think about spending it on this week’s Bytes. Featuring: an app that lets two people listen to one song, a better way to manage podcasts, new iPad magic with magnets, a cassette-to-MP3 converter, and the best way to doodle.

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On the subway the other night, Vulture Bytes saw a young couple in the midst of modern love’s iconic pose: Necks strained, cheeks juxtaposed, and heads stiff, they were sharing one pair of headphones. The two-people-one-song problem has vexed society for decades, with everything from the Walkman to the original iPod failing to provide a built-in headphone splitter. But now, finally, there’s a solution: MyStream. If you and your listening partner both have the app, she can stream the song at the same time over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and listen on her own set of headphones. Everyone’s more comfortable. And more alienated. But this is a technological solution to a not-terribly-large problem. Alienation is to be expected. PRICE: Free
Vulture Bytes is fond of reminding you what an awful program iTunes has become. The menus! The token social networking! The general bloat! It’s like using a rhinoceros as a phonograph. One of its chief problems is its confusing podcast system, and the way those podcasts ultimately get to your iPod or iPhone. Apple likes you to download the podcasts on iTunes, hard-wire your iDevice to your computer, and sync the podcasts to your phone/pod. But now remember that your iPhone and iPod almost always have their own Internet connection, and read that last sentence again. Why do we have to go through iTunes — a program that’s rooted to our computers — to get a mobile hit of “The Moth”? The people behind Instacast realized we shouldn’t have to. They’ve designed an app that knows what podcasts you subscribe to, checks for new versions, and then downloads them automatically from your phone. No rhinoceros necessary. PRICE: $2
Remember when those iPad 2 magneto covers were revolutionary? They had the Jobs imprimatur, the fancy peel-and-roll motion, and the rainbow colors. But now we have a few weeks’ perspective and they look so … pedestrian. What are they made out of, anyway? Plastic? Gross. What are you, a planet-hating American? Why buy a plastic cover when you can buy one that does the same thing and happens to look ten times as handsome? And, oh, look! Here’s one now, from the Dutchmen at Miniot, an outfit known for its handcrafted iPhone cases. Its new iPad 2 cases are slotted and magnetized just like the plastic ones, so it has all the same functionality but with none of the conformity. Think of this the same way you do that armoire you bought at the antique store on the other side of town. When your friends will be over, they’ll be fully impressed. Especially when they compare it to the cheap one they bought at Ikea. PRICE: Starting at 50 Euro, available in various materials and finishes
Vulture Bytes was at a family friend’s house a few years ago when, as inevitably happens, it became time to watch home movies. But it wasn’t to show off the mullet Little Johnny had at a wedding in 1989, it was to show off the technology that put Johnny’s mullet on a DVD in the first place. Our friend had used a VHS-to-DVD converter to move his old tapes onto discs. For him, this was the moment technology actually became useful — proof that gadgets could fill the heart as powerfully as they drain the wallet. There are surely those of you who have wanted to do the same to your old audio cassettes. (New Kids on the Block albums don’t digitize themselves.) If that includes you, take a look at Cassette Mate, a Japanese import that plugs into your computer through a USB cable and converts your cassettes into MP3s. There must be something in your back catalogue that you couldn’t find on Napster ten years ago. PRICE: $34, converted from Yen
Vulture Bytes is dedicated to helping you use your iPad’s touch screen in as many ways as possible without actually requiring your fingers to touch it. First we brought word of pads you stick on your winter gloves’ fingertips so you can interact with it even when it’s cold. Then came a paintbrush that at least nominally made you look like you knew how to use the iPad as a canvas. And now, for the doodlers/dot-com executives among you, comes the Cosmonaut, a marker designed to turn your iPad into a white board. Not quite a stylus, the Cosmonaut is shaped like a big, fat crayon. Nearly 5,000 people have signed up to buy it on Kickstarter, and it has nearly doubled its fund-raising goal with thirteen days to go. Buy it and start scribbling. PRICE: $25
Vulture Bytes: For the Young Lovers