TapeDeck
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The in-dash tape deck is dead, mixtape memories will live forever
The rattling of naked cassettes in the glove box. The crunching of plastic cases in the footwell. That satisfying clunk when a tape got pulled down into the dash. For those who drove in the '80s and '90s those are memories of in-car audio, the ubiquitous tape deck, and it's now dead. Well, dead as a factory option, anyway. The 2010 Lexus SC 430 was the last car to offer one, no longer available in the 2011 edition. Thank goodness we'll always have Tape Deck Mountain.
TapeDeck discounted for National Day of Listening
I don't know that I've heard of the National Day of Listening before, but I like the idea a lot -- right around the holidays, StoryCorps and NPR sponsor a day when you're meant to sit down with loved ones and pick up some of that oral history that has served the human race so well so far. And the folks at Toasty Code are doing their part to get these recordings done by offering their TapeDeck audio recording software for 20% off all this week -- just follow the instructions on their website, and you too can pick up any oral history your folks can dish out along with the turkey and cranberries.Of course you can do that with any software, from GarageBand (came free with your Mac) to Audacity (free to anyone). And it doesn't need to be only audio -- I'm taking a new Flip MinoHD home for the holidays with me to get some shots of my folks in my childhood home (they're currently trying to sell it off). But the Day of Listening is a great idea no matter what you use -- in these days of high definition, 1080p television, multichannel speaker setups, ubiquitous computing, and the 24/7 flow of text across blogs, Tumblrs and Twitter, it's easy to forget the value of actually sitting down and talking to someone. This week, as you're home with family, try it out.
TapeDeck updated to 1.1, adds YouTube export
More audio news on the Mac today: the undeniably cute, surprisingly functional TapeDeck recording app (yes, it looks exactly like a cassette deck, and works pretty much the same way) has been updated to version 1.1. The headline features in this version are improved export capability (to most QuickTime-supported audio formats, including MP3 and AIFF), the option to record high-quality at 320kbps, and built-in YouTube exporting, complete with a charming tape-playing video.TapeDeck's simplicity, and the very easy (possibly too easy) YouTube export, are bound to have plenty of Mac users releasing their quick & dirty audio recordings to the world in short order. TapeDeck (Universal Binary) is $25 and a demo is available at the tapedeckapp.com site.Video of the YouTube export in action after the jump.
TapeDeck 1.0
Call me a curmudgeon if you must, but I am wary of any app that replicates a physical object with its UI. Isn't a large part of the power of computing come from the fact that programmers can transcend the limitations of the real world and offer up better ways of doing things?In this frame of mind I started looking at TapeDeck, a new $25 Leopard only recording app from SuperMegaUltraGroovy and Toastycode. As the name suggests it looks like a cassette recorder of old, but it does offer up some improvements. Each recording is saved on a new 'tape' automatically, so you never have to record over a previous file (TapeDeck records audio in the AAC format, so the files are small, but you can make them even smaller by lowering the recording quality). It also allows you to annotate your tapes and then search your recording library using that information, and you can send your audio to iTunes if you prefer to organize your files that way.The real question is: does the UI help or hinder TapeDeck? I'll have to spend more time using TapeDeck to fairly answer that, but at first blush this app is great fun to use (especially if you remember using tape recorders like these).
Denali tape deck modded for iPod docking
While there's no shortage of ready-made options for connecting your iPod to your car stereo, if you want a truly integrated look you''ve really got to get your hands dirty and rip into your vehicle's factory parts. If you do, you could end up with a ghastly mess, or you could have something that looks like like JPPadula's new-and-improved GMC Denali tape deck here. While it'll likely never play a Huey Lewis & the News cassette again, it will accept an iPod quite nicely, with a full-functioning ejection mechanism and its innards wired up to the vehicle's Kenwood deck to allow for control over song selection. Of course it does have the slight downside of needing to be completely retrofitted for each new iPod, but who says iPod mods always have to be practical?
