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Provides: Resources for iPod

Format: Download or CD

Developer: Talking Panda

Minimum Requirements: Mac OS X v10.2, iPod with dock connector (iPod nano, iPod mini and Click Wheel iPods), 50 to 180MB free space on the iPod for each package, iTunes v4.7

Retail Price: iBar - $29.95; iLingo Euro Pack 2.0 - $49.95; iLingo Asia Pack 2.0 - $39.95; iRocker - $29.95

Availability: Out now

There's no shortage of companies that looked at Apple's iPod and thought, "Hey, let's accessorize!" Funny, how the iPod turned industrial designers everywhere into teenaged girls standing outside of Claire's at the local mall.

Fortunately, while most companies are worried about changing the iPod's appearance, there are a few companies who know it's what's on the inside that matters. One such company is Talking Panda, and they'd like to see you use your iPod to not just listen to music and watch some TV, but to bridge the cultural divide. They'll help you do this by teaching you some guitar chords and ten different languages, including the international language: alcohol.

We'll start with alcohol, since that will probably be the most popular. As terrible as it sounds, it's at least the most practical. iBar contains 1,100 drink recipes, along with mixing tips, glass recommendations, bar lingo, and even a little bit of history. Talking Panda warns you that it's perhaps not wise to reference their history in school reports, but it does make for some interesting bar talk.

1,100 recipes is a lot. Add in all the extra bits, and your poor iPod could become...well, drunk with information. Luckily, the recipes are organized in quite a few different ways, allowing for easy access. There's alphabetical, of course, but what if you're only interested in making a "girl's drink?" Simply click on "400 More Staples," go to "Ladies' Night," then select from any of the suggested recipes. If you're afraid your company might be frightened and confused by drinks with names such as Fontainebleu Sidecar or Novocaine, you can go directly to 50 Classic Drinks section, which then makes popular suggestions for drinks using gin or whiskey, for example, and offers beer cocktail and martini recipes, amongst many others. There's even a section called Sex-Rated, which I think just means they have sexually themed names, not that they'll actually offer any more of an advantage for the evening than any other liquor would.

Now, if you find yourself mixing these drinks in Germany, Italy or any of the other supported countries, iBar will teach you how to say that country's equivalent of "cheers!"

If you'd like to learn to say a little more than that, the iLingo packs are what you need. They come in two varieties: iLingo EuroPack offers French, Italian, German, Spanish, Russian and Portugese, while iLingo AsiaPack covers Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Whereas the iBar pack takes up only 50MB of iPod space, iLingo EuroPack and iLingo AsiaPack require 150MB and 180MB, respectively. This is because of a combination of the number of available phrases combined with the associated audio pronunciations to help with your pronunciations.

As with iBar, the multiple methods of categorization will you help you get to what you need with ease. With over 400 phrases in each language, you don't want to have to cycle through all your options to ask where the hospital is. Or the restroom. So, the phrases are also categorized under headings such as Emergency and Greetings. That's simple enough. The hard part will be to convince the person with whom you're trying to communicate that you're searching for what to say and not for that new Arctic Monkeys single.

Two other features make the iLingo packages more useful than I actually expected. The first is that there are audio files of the phrases, so you can hear what they sound like before attempting to pronounce them yourself. Spend a couple hours on the plane getting the accent down, and maybe you won't look so much like an ugly American...except that, you know, you're using a symbol of American capitalism and materialism to speak with people. And hey, as Talking Panda suggests, if you can't get the pronunciation down, you can just pop the headphones on the person with whom you're trying to communicate!

The second useful feature is that the iLingo packages contain a database of words and phrases specific to the individual countries. Although, yes, some phrases are common to them all, others—such as cuisine, landmarks and customs—are not. So, if you're in Portugal, you're not going to learn how to ask for directions to the Black Forest or cry out, " Vive la France!"

My only real complaint about the iLingo packages is that most travelers aren't actually going to need all the languages in the pack. You're paying up to $50 for four or five languages, depending on the package, when most people will probably need just one or perhaps two. For that reason, I'd like to see each language sold separately for around $15 to $20 a language.

And finally, we come to iRocker. This package provides tools mainly for guitarists, although the whole band can benefit from its features...with some outside help, and provided you don't already own better equipment.

For instance, iRocker contains a guitar tuner. Listen to a clean E and set your guitar to it. This is all well and good, provided you're used to tuning to a pitch pipe or the E on your band's keyboard. In my band, our guitarist has a pedal with an LED meter that lets us know when we're in tune. We find that's faster than doing it by ear, watching for the thumbs up or down from other members depending on whether we're sharp or flat. iRocker also contains a metronome. Again, this is built in to a lot of band hardware, so I'd be surprised if your band doesn't already have one. It also only offers 10 settings, so your tempo is somewhat limited. Plus, in order for it to really be functional, you need to have your iPod connected to a set of external speakers loud enough to overpower your amps. It can be more practical in a solitary practice setting, but you're still dealing with external speakers or a set of headphones. Maybe try connecting your iPod to your amp.

For those just learning guitar, iRocker does become more useful. It contains a Virtual Chord Book with diagrams of over 200 chords. This is very handy not just for learning chords, but also for writing songs when you're looking for a progression a bit more interesting B, C, E. And of course, because it's an iPod, you can hear audio representations of the chords to make sure you're playing them correctly.

Once you've got your chords down, move on to scales. I always hated practicing my scales when learning trombone back in junior high and high school, but it certainly made soloing easier, and a knowledge of scales makes song writing much easier as well...provided you're the type of musician who even bothers to learn how to read music. Our guitarist doesn't know a D flat diminished from a toaster oven, but he picks up songs faster by ear than the rest of us can by reading music.

iRocker also includes Jam Session. This includes five sets of rock and blues chord progressions over which you can practice your scales (sure) or rip open a solo (more likely). Again, good to have, but limited by the ways in which you're accustomed to using your iPod.

This review looked at each package individually, and that's because you have to use them that way. You cannot install more than one Talking Panda product at a time, as each installation takes over the Notes folder in your iPod. Although this limitation may only concern English band managers tending bar while on tour in Russia, it's still unfortunate (and may be the reason that European languages are all installed in one pack; you won't have to dump a language and add a new one when traveling from Portugal to Spain). This is wise, because whereas installation is easy (although it can take a while), uninstalling or over-installing requires you to dig into the iPod's folder system to completely clear out all the files.

The Talking Panda products aren't perfect in their execution, but they do what they claim to do. The iLingo packs could prove tremendously helpful to their target audience, and I imagine iBar will find an audience of its own, but iRocker...not so much. Still, I'll leave their usefulness up to you. Check out the site. If the pack seems like it would offer something you need, rest assured it'll adequately satisfy that need.

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