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iPod, iTunes, and an HD Radio Receiver with a Dock: Tag, You're Bought
Something new under the HD Radio sun: Interesting announcement today from Apple and iBiquity: iTunes Tagging. This will allow you when listening to a song on a properly equipped HD Radio receiver to press a hardware button--the Tag button, naturally--and have that choice recorded to a docked iPod or iPhone. Then, when you sync that iPod/iPhone to iTunes, the program will tell you which songs you were interested in. (Most, ostensibly, will be in the iTunes Store's huge catalog.)
To use the Tag button, you'll have to get an HD Radio receiver that has both an iPod dock and this special button. Part of today's announcement was that Polk Audio's second generation i-Sonic would forgo its DVD playback capability--via an external jack--and replace that with an iPod dock. iPod audio can be played through built-in speakers, and iPod video via S-Video and component outputs.
Radio stations also have to get in on the action to make iTunes Tagging work. They'll have to broadcast the tag information. The HD Digital Radio Alliance said that hundreds of their HD Radio broadcasting stations will participate in tagging initially, with more to follow.
What's neat about this is that it's the first step in tying together two different kinds of digital music listening. What's also cool is that it shouldn't leave college, independent, and alternative stations out in the cold as previous technologies that alleged to offer this service did. (Sony eMarker, I'm talking to you.) I don't know right now whether Apple or iBiquity will charge fees or share revenue with radio stations for broadcasting tags.
The price is $499, $100 less than the first i-Sonic, but this unit omits DVD playing and the slot for an optional $50 add-on XM satellite radio module.
(For some reason, Polk decided to mock up the iPod screen that's in their promo image: what, they think we've never seen an iPod before and wouldn't notice?)