Logitech Z-10: Touch Your Music A Little Early
Walk into an Apple Retail store and look at the speakers on display. JBL, Soundsticks, Altec Lansing, and similar brands appear on the shelves. However, none of these speakers are truly user-centric. They plug into your computer and that’s it. The speakers fade away and simply become part of your iTunes habits. Since the speakers are a prominent part of the music experience, the user should be able to interact with the speakers as if they were the iTunes control buttons themselves. Logitech has solved this problem with the Z-10 Speakers, a two piece interactive speaker set.
The Logitech Z-10′s aren’t your typical speaker. They’re rigged up with an LCD screen and touch sensitive controls. You can control your iTunes with the touch sensitive buttons, and see what track is playing using the LCD. One can also set up hotkeys or actions using the buttons labeled one through five on the speaker’s control panel.
But wait, how does a Z-10 work on a Mac? Technically, these speakers are Windows only. However, Marc Liyanage over at Entropy put together an app that fixes this, LogitechLCDTool. The app simply sends over HTML and Javascript to the LCD, as well as images. This allows the user to display almost anything on the LCD. LLT comes with a couple of templates, including an iTunes controller and a Stock Ticker.
Sound on these babies are impressive. I was weary about the Z-10′s having built in subwoofers, but they’re pretty decent. Bass was perfect and treble needed to be raised a bit. With a good 30W, these speakers will pump out great and powerful sound.
Pros: Great sound, USB, Backlit LCD and touch sensitive controls, sleek glossy look, auxiliary port for use with iPods, CD Players, etc.
Cons: LCD isn’t truly OS X compatible, expensive.
Price: The Logitech Z-10′s go for $150. It’s expensive, but it’s worth having the great sound, touch sensitive controls, and LCD. I don’t have to pop open iTunes as much if I want to pause or skip a song. Instead, I use the controls on the Z-10, which allow me to touch my music, well before the iPhone.
You mention that the LCD isn’t truly compatible, how compatible is it? I’ve been looking at the Z-10′s since they hit the market, but since it’s requirements only lists XP and Vista, I didn’t get them. How well does it work with OSX?
Well, the Now Playing script that you can load to the LCD is a bit makeshift and not completely finished, but works.
All of the controls work when running LogitechLCDTool
Thanks for clarifying things, I think I’ll look into it a bit more.
/drool
I really like the controls directly on the speakers… not sure if I would use them, but they are cool
The iPad has been presented this week and alongside its introduction, iOS 4.3 made its appearance and will be shipped with the new iPad. Apple also announced that the iOS 4.3 software update will be available on the same day the new iPad will be on Apple Store tables and shelves: March 11. As you may know, iOS 4.3 will present a number of new features such as iTunes Home Sharing and possibly the most anticipated feature, the Personal Hotspot.
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The folks over at Tapbots have released an update to their Twitter client for the iPhone and iPod touch. http://www.itube-stream.de.tl This update adds a couple of useful features. One of these features gives you the ability to add sleep time for its push notifications. This allows you to set a block of time to turn off notifications from Twitter so that you can sleep easy and uninterrupted. Another useful feature is the ability to only receive notifications from people that you follow. Thirdly, have you ever reported a spammer or blocked someone and had to live with the fact that their tweets were still polluting your timeline? http://www.anysim.net Well fret no mo because once you block or spam someone with this new update, their tweets will be automatically removed.
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