Altec Lansing's InMotion Speaker System
$89.99 at Amazon/OfficeDepot

In today's Wall Street Journal, Walter Mossberg reports on the best accessories for your Apple iPod. Just this week, Apple and BMW announced the ultimate iPod accessory: a $50,000 BMW. Fortunately, Mossberg's suggestions are much less expensive!

The first accessory that Mossberg mentions is the Altec Lansing InMotion speaker system. This was interesting timing as our friend from Seattle, Julie Ann, was raving about this product on Sunday. Here's what Mossberg had to say:

This device integrates a pair of potent speakers and a mount for the iPod into an attractive unit that folds up for traveling. It can run on four AA batteries -- which the company says will keep the speakers playing for 24 hours straight -- or it can be plugged into the wall. Once plugged in, inMotion also serves as a charging cradle for the iPod.

For portability, the inMotion folds down into an 8-by-5-inch rectangle that weighs a light 19 ounces (with batteries), and fits into an included drawstring pouch.

...

Using inMotion is as simple as turning it on, dropping your iPod into the center cradle and pressing play. Even if you have one of the original iPods that doesn't charge in a cradle, Altec Lansing throws in a stereo cable that you can use to connect your iPod to the inMotion. IPod Minis fit onto the cradle by first setting a small plastic piece in so the Mini doesn't move around. The inMotion's speakers sounded great, more like a large stereo system than a set of portable speakers.

Another interesting iPod accessory that Mossberg mentioned was the Belkin Digital Camera Link, which moves photographs directly from a digital camera to an iPod or iPod mini.

Digital Camera Link, $91.95 at Amazon.com

The Digital Camera Link is a great solution for extended trips or vacations. Instead of lugging a laptop with you, you can now use the Digital Camera Link to offload photos from your camera to your iPod. Two things to keep in mind:

• For photos, the iPod simply acts as a storage device which means that you will not be able to view your photos on the iPod.

• A typical digital photo consumes about 1 MB of storage space, so 1,000 photos will take about 1GB of space. This means, of course, that you will have less room for your music. Keep in mind that the iPod mini comes with 4 GB of storage, while the low-end white iPod comes with 15 GB.

Here's Mossberg's review of the Digital Camera Link:

[The] Digital Camera Link also worked with our iPod Mini in our tests, though Belkin doesn't advertise that fact.

The white Digital Camera Link measures about the size of the larger iPod and has a USB port and small cord for connecting to the iPod that tucks into one side. Katie [Mossberg's assistant] pulled the cord out and plugged it into the iPod Mini, connected a Hewlett-Packard digital camera to the Digital Camera Link using a USB cord and pressed a button on the front of the Link. Running green lights raced across the front of the device, indicating that photos were being transferred from the camera to the Mini. When finished, the lights stopped moving and shone solid green.

Katie then plugged the Mini into her PC and opened and viewed the photos stored on the iPod on the PC's screen. And the photos all looked fine. We also tested the Digital Camera Link on our larger iPod, with an Apple iMac computer, and used iPhoto to view the images stored on the iPod.

The success of the iPod continues to inspire new and innovative products. Clearly that's a good thing for music (and photo) lovers everywhere.

-Tim

P.S. I've included links to other products that Mossberg reviewed in the "Buy Products Related To This Story" section.