Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • The New iPod shuffle and nano

    It’s been a while since Apple revised any of the iPods, and a few weeks ago, we saw some major changes to many in the line. The iPod touch saw its first major change since its original release with the addition of HD video recording and Face Time, to name a few. The nano and the shuffle changed most drastically, though, with completely new form factors and features.

    For many customers, the nano and the shuffle are now closely matched products. Both feature a convenient built-in belt clip, both are very small in size and are easily clipped to clothing/bags, etc. and both models come in a variety of colors. However, the similarities between the two models stop here.

    The shuffle is still the perfect solution for the athletic iPod user looking for something small, lightweight and simple to use. A great improvement was made to the shuffle by reverting back to a style seen a few years ago (rarely, if ever, has this happened in Apple history!). The shuffle once again has the clickwheel on the iPod itself, rather than on the headphones.

    Apple did keep the VoiceOver feature, which is great for finding your playlists and identifying artists. The shuffle also works great for Podcasts, so don’t limit yourself to just music! Unfortunately, the one thing that the shuffle is not great for is audio books (due to both the lack of screen and capacity size), so if you’re an avid audio book listener you might want to consider the nano instead.

    Speaking of the nano, it now features a whole new look and a touch screen that is very similar to the iPod touch. You simply swipe your finger on the screen to navigate through different options on the screen and tap an icon to select a feature such as music, audio books, photos and radio. One thing Apple omitted: the iPod nano no longer includes a video camera–perhaps because the small, shuffle-like form factor is not really conducive for video playback. If you’re looking for video capabilities, you’ll want to look at the iPod touch.

    The iPod nano still uses Apple’s dock connector, so it will fit into most third party docking stations, stereos, and any other accessory that utilizes that connection. Of course, it is still compatible with any device, headphones or headsets that use the standard 3.5mm port.

    iPod nanos and iPod shuffles are in stock (though supplies are somewhat limited initially due to popularity), so stop in and check them out!

  • _Dear Friends,_

    The countdown has started with only 8 days until our Grand Opening at the Manchester, NH store. The store is coming together and after we finish our year-end inventory we will be sending trucks from Waitsfield to Manchester with inventory for the new store so the Manchester team can stock the shelves and get ready to open the doors a week from Saturday. We will have a lot of special promotions and some great deals from our vendor-partners for this newest addition to Small Dog Electronics.

    I could not be prouder of the teamwork that has gone into making this store a reality. Every Small Dog employee has had a hand in helping to make the store and many will be on hand for this gala opening next week. We will have all of the latest Apple products including the new iPods, iPads and Mac in stock as well as a complete selection of peripherals and accessories. I’ve just seen pictures of our Help Desk and it looks sharp! I’m heading over to the store on this Saturday to help out and of course, to go to the famous Manchester Chili event.

    We are definitely in full peak foliage now here in Vermont. In fact, some of the trees in my neighborhood have already lost most of their leaves. The rain and wind from a couple of storms did their number. The drive to New Hampshire is pretty spectacular this time of the year with the combination of greens, browns, yellows, orange and reds just an amazing quilt of colors as you look at the mountainside.

  • *Happy Fall!*

    **Fall is here, as is our Grand Opening in Manchester NH!**

    This Fall we encourage everyone to get out, enjoy the colors, visit your local apple orchards and travel south to the Mall of New Hampshire in Manchester, NH! Small Dog is growing and we extremely excited about our third retail store. We will have a Grand Opening celebration on Saturday October 9th. During the day and all throughout the week we will have a number of specials and giveaways, including drawings for 14 iPod nanos, an iMac and more.

    Join the party and visit our newest retail location–at the very least, it’s a gorgeous drive down! Learn more at “Smalldog.com/nh.”:http://www.smalldog.com/nh/at_bis

    No matter how many years I have lived in Vermont, it seems that literally overnight the trees seems to turn color all at once, and this year is no exception. You start to notice trees beginning to change in some areas as early as August and you know that once again, Fall is here. Driving around this past weekend, it seemed that the roadsides and mountains were lighting up with color everywhere I looked.

    Have a wonderful October, and we hope to see you in the store!

    Emily and the Waitsfield team
    “emily@smalldog.com”:mailto:emily@smalldog.com

  • Hammerhead Screen Protector Install

    Mikhael installs a Hammerhead antiglare screen protector on an iPad, and lets us know how he does it. This awesome screen protector allows…

  • Someday Soon…

    Behind the scenes of construction at our new store in NH.

  • Apple's Remote App Updated

    This morning Apple quietly released an update to their Remote app for iOS. Bringing about a number of highly requested changes, the update…

  • Tip of the Week: Flash vs. Battery

    I spent some time last week in Cupertino, CA for meetings at Apple’s headquarters with fellow service managers and senior managers at AppleCare. There is a lot of exciting progress being made in diagnostic tools, technician guides, and the online system we use to order parts for repairs.

    Of course, California is about 3,000 miles and two airports from Vermont. I set a goal for the trip: I would keep my computer on and get work done the entire time I was airborne.

    I used an old-style 17-inch MacBook Pro for a while, and had no trouble at all working through transcontinental flights, because I would simply take three batteries with me. With the latest MacBooks, batteries are not removable; they are, however, a vast improvement over the older batteries. I did manage to work the entire time I was airborne.

    By charging the battery for 90 minutes during the layover, I had enough juice to get me from Chicago to San Francisco with time to spare. But during the first flight to Chicago from Burlington, I almost ran out of juice. It turns out that Adobe’s Flash plugin, which powers sites like YouTube and advertisements on The New York Times’s website, had been consuming nearly all of my processor’s capacity. This, of course, caused the battery to become depleted sooner than it should have; it also made the laptop quite warm.

    It’s “no secret”:http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ that Apple is moving away from Flash. I fully support that move towards HTML 5, as Flash is a nearly constant source of frustration for me. I find that the plugin crashes at least daily, forcing me to use Activity Monitor to kill the process.

    If your computer ever seems warmer than usual, or you’re noticing that battery life is less than it should be, fire up Activity Monitor from the Utilities folder. Sort the list by %CPU and note which process(es) take up the most processor capacity. You can force quit the Flash process from within Activity Monitor. When I did this somewhere over western New York, my estimated battery life went from about an hour to over 5 hours.