Via Mashable.com - USA Today is reporting that Amazon’s DRM-free music store is second to iTunes, having passed eMusic.

I’m not surprised at all. They’ve got higher quality files (256kbps vs 128 for iTunes), lower prices, iTunes integration, and the more portable MP3 format. While I love my iPods, I’m not that enthralled with the iTunes store or being locked into the iPod via their AAC format. Even though iTunes does offer some music in 256kbps AAC with no DRM, it never seems to be the stuff I’m looking for.

All we need now is for one of them to offer a lossless format.

One of the things I find I enjoy more and more as I get older is music. I never listened that much when I was younger, but now I find it’s a great escape. I discovered the bliss of in-ear monitors back in ‘99 when I was traveling a LOT for work, and was using music to deal with the occasional bout of homesickness. My Etymotic ER4-S ‘phones were awesome even if they required an amplifier to get the best sound. It was ok - with a Creative Labs Jukebox, my HeadRoom amp and the Ety’s I was a happy camper.

Later on I got an iPod and later still I moved up to the Sure SE530 phones and no longer needed the amp. The sound & fit are stellar but with small children around the house wearing headphones that block a lot of sound isn’t a very good idea. A frustrated “help me!” call or crying child going unheard is not a good thing. Other than for running, headphones that don’t block sound just don’t make sense to me – if I’m going to hear background noise why not use speakers?

So I was trying to figure out how to put together a small, inexpensive, but nice sounding speaker system for the office and/or shop. I’ve got some old stereo equipment, but it’s a gigantic JVC multimedia receiver – about 18” deep. Not easy to find a home for. I also didn’t need the gazillion watts the old stereo was capable of. Heck, I probably wouldn’t need more than 5.

I thought about getting one of the iPod dock-plus-speakers appliances that a lot of folks are selling, but I don’t need portability and I wanted better sound quality and speaker placement.

After some thought and some reading I figured out that all I really needed was a dock for my iPod, a small amp, and some speakers. I have a set of old JBL 2500 book shelf speakers, and while not great they work for now. The dock was a small purchase at the Apple store. That left the amp.

I looked around a bit and after finding the Sonic Impact t-amp was getting rave reviews from audiophiles I got very interested – the thing is only $30 after all. Turns out that Sonic Impact developed a very cheap amp using a chip made originally for products like big-screen TVs. It is a special kind of amplifier circuit that’s very efficient and produces very little heat. The result is a small, inexpensive amp that has very good audio quality if not a lot of power – something like 10 watts per channel max, with about 6 being the limit for really good sound quality.

Unfortunately Sonic Impact realized the demand and improved the amp and raised the price. Others joined the fray with similar but better designs and the “Class T” audio amplifier market was born. There’s several models out there, and a few companies that offer kits. I think I will ultimately build on of the 41hz kits, but in the mean time I decided on the Trends Audio TA-10.1, which I bought from AudioMagus.com. The Trends is about twice the price of the latest version of the Sonic Impact amp, but it gets better reviews and the build quality (it’s in a metal case with high-quality connectors) was much better.

It’s pretty tiny and has only an LED and a knob on the front. It’s just a simple amp with 1 input and outputs for pair of speakers. Perfect.

So I have an iPod sitting in the dock, the dock connected to the amp which has its volume turned to max. I use the remote for the iPod to change volume, advance tracks, etc. The remote is small and simple and easy to replace if needed.

The sound is excellent at low volume and still pretty good with everything turned up. Something mentioned in every review of the amp was that speakers less efficient than 90db@1 watt would be disappointing and the JBLs are at ~86 so I will probably be replacing them soon. Still, for a system that takes up about as much space as a small alarm clock, and holds about 300 CD’s worth of music encoded in a lossless format, it’s pretty remarkable. If I need to move it to the patio or a different room it’s pretty portable.

What’s with the anemic web apps being developed for the iPhone?

I don’t get it. If you want limited-use WAP applications, you get a regular phone, not the internet-in-your-pocket iPhone. For whatever reason, companies that should know better are making special iPhone versions of their websites that are almost useless. In fact, most of the WAP applications out there are actually more useful. Here are some examples:

Whatever Plaxo is doing with Pulse, they are a contacts storage company in my mind. Guess what you can’t do via their iPhone interface? That’s right – edit a contact. You can add one, but you can’t edit one. The site also won’t remember you, so you have to log in each time you visit.

Linkedin is worse. You can view network updates and invite people but you cannot respond to anything in your inbox or even see your inbox. You can of course invite someone. Despite their puritan posturing Linkedin knows their business is a numbers game and members mean more to them than responding to one’s network.

Google Docs won’t let you edit. While writing a document from scratch on the iPhone would be painful, editing one wouldn’t be. We also have to remember that eventually Apple will let someone make a keyboard driver for all the Bluetooth keyboards out there, and then the iPhone will be even more of a laptop replacement.

Google Mail won’t let you search, even though search is one of the most compelling features of Gmail.

Even Facebook’s notable site doesn’t let you add or remove a friend. But I can edit my profile – why I’d need to do that on the go, I have no idea.

You might be tempted to argue that since one can use the normal web page anyway, why do we need these features on the iPhone version? I would counter that if I need to go to the regular website to get anything done you might as well ax the iPhone version.

What we need are versions of these sites that allow us to get the full value of the product, but in a layout suited to the iPhone’s screen. Anything less is just making the iPhone as handicapped as a regular phone.