Probably not at Apple’s newest product launch next week. But music executives say they do expect a big overhaul of the iTunes music store. And we could see that next Wednesday. Think social, not streaming.

Industry executives tell me Apple (AAPL) has yet to approach the big labels for new license deals, which they say Steve Jobs and company would need if they want to run a streaming “locker” service. But Apple can do interesting things at iTunes without new label deals.

Apple plays its cards close to the vest even with the music labels it works with, so the people I’ve talked to are making informed guesses. That said, music sources tell me they’re expecting a lightweight, Web-based version of the iTunes store. The new version would be designed to synch up easily with the rest of the Internet and make it much easier for customers to share their musical tastes (but not songs) with friends.

Right now, you can get to the iTunes store only by using a downloaded program on your Mac or iPhone/iPod/iPad. But a Web-based version would allow buyers to get there without having to quit other applications. And if Apple makes it easier for services like Twitter and Facebook to link into the store and share recommendations, playlists and the like, then you can imagine some pretty interesting possibilities.

“There’s a reason Steve Jobs calls it an iPod–he thinks you listen to music by yourself, on your headphones,” says a label executive. “But lots of people like to share music, and if this lets you do that, that’s exciting.”

Some label executives also speculate about a wireless system that makes it easier for you to manage iTunes purchases. In theory, Apple could make it possible for you to move a copy of a song you bought on your iPhone onto your laptop without having to manually connect the two devices.

Apple’s license already allows users to synch their music on five devices at a time. So that wouldn’t require a new deal, just new technology. But it’s not the “jukebox in the sky” that many techies are eager to see.

Caveat: It’s possible, but not probable, that Apple goes ahead and launches a more ambitious locker/streaming service without the approval from labels.

That’s what small start-ups like mSpot are already doing. And subscription service eMusic has announced that it will launch its own locker service next year, and that it doesn’t plan on paying the labels any additional fee when it does.

But Apple is working very hard to persuade big media companies to let it sell their stuff. (It intends to announce a TV show rental service next Wednesday, though industry sources say most of the big networks still haven’t signed on.) Launching a new product while the labels squawk doesn’t seem to be a great way to go about it.

[Image credit: ExplorePAhistory.com]

Digital music service eMusic has a new CEO: Digital veteran Adam Klein.

Klein, whose resume includes stops at MTV, EMI and Video Egg, replaces Danny Stein. Stein runs eMusic’s owner, JDS Capital Managment/Dimensional Associates, and has been running eMusic since former CEO David Pakman left for a venture capital gig nearly two years ago. Dimensional, meanwhile, just swallowed up digital distributor The Orchard.

So now that we’ve got that cleared up: What’s the plan at eMusic?

The service is in a weird middle ground between the “buy a song for a buck” model that Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) push, and the “$10-a-month for all the streaming music you can eat, wherever you want to eat it” model that Rhapsody, MOG, Rdio and, maybe one day, Spotify are pushing.

Instead, eMusic’s core offering is a $12 a month subscription service–it prefers the term “club”–that gives users up to 24 MP3 downloads a month, which they can keep forever.

For a long time, the service targeted niche music lovers, primarily indie aficionados, but in the past couple of years it has added back catalog from two majors: Warner Music Group (WMG) and Sony (SNE). So users can now download Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin along with MGMT.

That’s an interesting approach, and there is a business there: There are 375,000 subscribers, down from 400,000 a couple years ago, but still enough to generate some $65 million a year.

But Stein and Klein think they can expand the business again with a redesigned site, set to launch in Q4, that will be more appealing to non-subscribers and give them more incentive to stick around and eventually sign up. We’ll check back in later and see how they’re doing.

UPDATE: I must have fallen asleep right before Stein and Klein told me about their plans to launch a cloud-based “locker” service, which would let users stream their music no matter where they are, in the near future. As it turns out, those plans are still bit fuzzy–or, at least, eMusic isn’t willing to talk about them in great detail. But the gist is:

• EMusic says it will let users stream music they’ve bought from the service, and possibly other music they own, to PCs as well as mobile handsets like the iPhone and Google’s (GOOG) Android phones.
• It says it doesn’t believe it will need to pay the labels an additional royalty to be able to do this. I find it hard to believe that the labels will sign off on this, but we’ll see.
• It isn’t sure whether it will charge eMusic subscribers an additional fee for the service. If it doesn’t, it could be a very expensive marketing tool, as bandwidth and storage for this kind of thing could be pricey if a lot of folks use it.

Here’s some more info, via an “internal Q&A” the company has provided. Obviously, we’ll be following up on this one…

What are your thoughts on a potential cloud-based iTunes from Apple? How will this affect eMusic’s position in the marketplace?

- We agree that customers want to be able to access their music collections from any device, wherever they are. eMusic has a locker system in development, which we’ve been working on since early this year.

When will the locker be available?

- A preliminary version will be available to select members in late 2010, and we’ll roll it out to our full membership in 2011.

Have you talked with your labels about the service yet? What was their reaction? Aren’t the major labels requesting that Apple pay additional costs for streaming from the locker?

- The labels we’ve talked to are interested in supporting this feature on eMusic because of the nature of our membership service. We have a regular, repeat billing relationship with our members, which iTunes doesn’t have and the locker is a compelling feature that will keep customers happy…which ultimately benefits the content owners.

- We are aggressive stewards of copyright and believe that a locker with the functionality we plan to roll out is covered by the safe harbor for such devices provided by the Audio Home Recording Act. Therefore, an additional royalty is not necessary.

Will customers have to pay extra for the locker?

- We haven’t yet determined if we will charge for the locker. It will depend on a variety of factors.

How much storage for music will be available to eMusic members?

- The exact amount is a function of several variables, and is still undetermined.

Will they be able to store all of their music collections in their locker, even music purchased from other services?

- Yes, they will be able to store and stream their eMusic purchases and, potentially, other music that they own.

How will the locker work with eMusic? Will eMusic tracks automatically be placed in the locker when someone makes a purchase on eMusic, or will they need to upload them independently?

- Purchased tracks will automatically be placed in the locker. Members can then stream or download those songs on demand from an internet connection.

What other features will the locker offer? Will the locker include a music player?

- Members will be able to upload and download purchases to the locker and stream music on demand. eMusic Save for Later lists and ratings will be handled by the locker as well.

Will members be able to access the locker through their mobile phone? Which phones will work with the locker?

- We will also launch eMusic locker applications for most smartphones, including iPhone and Android.

Release on Klein’s hire:

eMUSIC APPOINTS VETERAN MEDIA INDUSTRY AND STRATEGY EXPERT
ADAM KLEIN AS PRESIDENT AND CEO

NEW YORK, Aug. 3, 2010 – eMusic, the digital music club, today announced that it has appointed veteran media industry and strategy expert Adam Klein as President and Chief Executive Officer.

Klein has more than 20 years experience leading strategic, operational and organizational change with both established and technology-led media companies. His background includes work as a strategy and change management consultant as lead partner with Booz Allen Hamilton’s media practice, with Boston Consulting Group and his own company, Klein & Co. He also has held executive roles at AskJeeves.com, as president and chief operating officer; Hasbro, Inc., as executive vice president and president of global marketing; VideoEgg, Inc., as president; EMI Music, as executive vice president of strategy and business development, including Digital P&L; MTV Networks, as executive advisor to the chairman and CEO; and South African Broadcasting Corporation, as executive advisor to the CEO. Currently Klein runs his own consultancy, Media Leader LLC, and is an adjunct professor at Columbia University Journalism School.

Klein will succeed current President and CEO Daniel Stein on August 23. Stein will retain his role as eMusic Chairman and continue to be substantially involved with the company as part of its management team. He also remains CEO of Dimensional Associates and President, JDS Capital.

Stein said, “As eMusic continues to grow its business and provide the best online service for people who are passionate about music, Adam’s leadership in digital media and his successful track record as a business builder is custom-made to take on the CEO role. His decision to join eMusic speaks to his high regard for the platform we have worked so hard to create, and we are now poised to take the company to the next level together.”

“What a great opportunity eMusic represents! It is a well-established platform ready for its next chapter of value and service to its members. I am excited to be a part of eMusic’s ongoing evolution,” said Klein.

But I have a question: Whatever happened to eMusic’s search for a new CEO?

David Pakman, who ran the company since 2005, left last fall to join Venrock, the Rockefeller family’s venture capital arm. Last I heard, in late October, the company was “looking at a handful of very qualified candidates” to replace him. And in the meantime, eMusic Chairman Danny Stein–who runs the investment company that owns eMusic and who ran eMusic himself prior to Pakman–was serving as interim CEO.

So who’s the new boss? Same as the old boss. It’s also old news.

Stein says that’s he’s going to run the company for the foreseeable future, and that he figured that out way back in December: He just never announced it. “It was an easy decision to make”, he says.

Stein says he saw plenty of “very capable people”  but figures, a la Dick Cheney, that he was the right man for the job. He also says that the various headhunting companies who say they’re helping eMusic find a new CEO are doing so without his knowledge (or dollars).

Fair enough! The bigger question, as it has been for many years, is how eMusic fits into the larger digital music ecosystem. It sells DRM-free MP3 downloads, which some consumers like, via a subscription service, which most consumers don’t enjoy. Stein says the company has around 400,000 subscribers, and that that number has remained stready for a while. But he says his topline revenue still grew 40 percent last year, to $70 million. (No word on profits or lack thereof).

That’s a pittance compared to Apple’s iTunes (AAPL)  store, which moves about $2 billion worth of songs every year. And while eMusic was once a couple of signatures away from selling to Amazon (AMZN), that window looks like it’s closed, as the retailer launched its own MP3 store a year ago.

But perhaps there’s still an M&A opportunity for eMusic for a different retailer that wants to get into digital goods; Best Buy (BBY) did something similar when it bought up Napster last year.

With the new iPods coming out, how do you deactivate an old one? I think Apple only allows a certain number to be used with an account.

You don’t have to deactivate an iPod if you replace it. The copy-protection rules imposed on Apple by the entertainment companies allow for copy-protected music and videos purchased from the iTunes Music Store to be stored and played on an unlimited number of iPods.

The only “deactivation” iTunes users have to perform is on a computer — Windows or Mac — because the copy-protection rules allow purchased, copy-protected songs and videos to be played on no more than five computers at a time. So, before you replace a computer on which you are storing such purchased, protected iTunes material, you should deauthorize the machine by going to the “Store” menu in iTunes and selecting “Deauthorize Computer…”.

Of course, if you aren’t at or near the five-computer limit, this issue may not matter. It’s also irrelevant if none of the music or videos you play from within iTunes is copy-protected material purchased from the iTunes store. You can happily use iTunes and iPods without buying any copy-protected stuff from Apple. You can restrict your music and videos to those you copy from legally obtained CDs, those you create yourself, or those you buy in unprotected formats from iTunes, or other sites, like eMusic.

I have a printer hard-wired to a desktop computer, but would like it to be available to my laptop wirelessly over my home network. How can I do this?

There are two main methods, assuming the printer doesn’t have a built-in networking port or Wi-Fi transmitter. One method is to buy a small box called a print server and plug it into your router. Then, you plug the printer into the print server, and, with the right software and settings, it will appear on your network and be available to any computer on the network, wired or wireless.

The same companies that make routers, such as Linksys and Belkin, also often make these print servers. The other method is to buy a wireless router that has such a print-server function built-in, with a USB port for connecting a printer.

If I have a laptop with Wi-Fi capability, does that mean I can surf the Web while sitting in a car?

Yes, but only if the car is in range of a Wi-Fi network that is either open (not password-protected) or for which you know the password. And it would only be practical if the car was stopped or parked, since a car moving at normal speed would very quickly drive out of range of any networks you encountered.

A better option, which works even when a car is moving, is to purchase a high-speed cellular wireless modem for your laptop, or buy a laptop with such a modem built-in. These modems, which get you on the Internet via citywide cellular-data networks instead of Wi-Fi, can remain in range for miles. But they require hefty fees, typically $60 a month. And, of course, you should only be surfing the net in a moving car if you are a passenger in that car, not the driver.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Music services

The iTunes Store is the digital equivalent of a music shop. You buy individual songs or albums and own them thereafter, with some restrictions on their use. But several other services, such as RealNetworks’ Rhapsody, Napster and Yahoo Music Unlimited, take a different approach. They charge a monthly fee that entitles you to stream or download an unlimited number of songs. In effect, you’re renting these songs, typically for $10 or $15 a month. Some music lovers prefer this system, since it makes it easier to experiment with new artists and genres, and cheaper to fill a portable player, even though the songs can’t be used on an iPod.

Now Microsoft has joined the battle against iTunes with Zune Marketplace, its own online music service that offers both subscription plans and iTunes-style individual song purchases. Music from the Zune Marketplace will work only on Microsoft’s new iPod competitor, the Zune player.

There is another notable online music service: eMusic. It’s a sort of hybrid. You get to download and own tracks, as with iTunes, but you’re charged a monthly fee instead of paying by the song. The upside of eMusic is that its music is in the plain, unprotected MP3 format, meaning it will play on any portable music player including the iPod, and on every music-playing software program on Windows and Macintosh computers. The downside: eMusic offers songs only from independent record labels. It has none of the catalogs of the majors and tends to be nichey, not mainstream.

Music players

Companies like Creative, Samsung and iRiver offer many models that match up well in price and features against the various versions of the iPod. At one time their hardware and software designs were much clumsier than Apple’s, but they have improved a lot. They still trail the iPod in overall elegance. But many have features Apple gadgets lack, such as built-in FM radio, microphones, longer battery life and even transmitters for beaming music through car radios.

These non-iPod players have suffered because they use a Microsoft-developed system called “PlaysForSure” that supposedly allows smooth, iPod-like synchronization between players and Windows PCs. Unfortunately, PlaysForSure often behaves more like “PlaysMaybe,” with sync problems being common.

SanDisk, a company best known for its flash-memory chips, has roared into a distant second behind Apple, with a series of handsome flash-based players under the Sansa brand. These devices, roughly comparable to iPod’s Nano and Shuffle models, mostly use the PlaysForSure system. But recently, SanDisk debuted the Sansa Rhapsody, which uses RealNetworks technology and is tied closely to Real’s Rhapsody subscription service.

Certainly, the biggest news for iPod haters is the introduction of Microsoft’s Zune music player, an iPod competitor with plenty of marketing muscle behind it. The Zune holds 30 gigabytes of music, the same as the smallest full-size iPod, and costs the same $250.

But the Zune abandons PlaysForSure in favor of an Apple-style, tightly controlled, integrated approach. It works exclusively with Zune software, and the only encrypted songs it will play are those bought at Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace.

As for design, the Zune is bigger and somewhat clunkier than the iPod. But it has three things the iPod lacks: a bigger screen, an FM radio and built-in wireless capability. The latter can be used to send songs to nearby Zune players, where they can be played three times before expiring.

But many folks — even some who own iPods and other players — are still confused over how legal digital music works. So here’s a quick-and-dirty guide to the digital music world, in question-and-answer form. We’ve included the questions we are asked most frequently, plus a few other topics.

What’s the difference between the Apple iPod and all the other portable music players? Some of them seem to have more features.

The main difference is that Apple has created an entire end-to-end digital media system around the iPod, and it works. In our view, and those of most other reviewers, the combination of the iPod’s design, the iTunes music software, and the iTunes Music Store, provides a superior experience to buying a player separately, using software from Microsoft, and buying music from an unaffiliated store.

As a result, the iPod, and the iTunes store, dominate the legal music world, with shares of more than 70% of the market, depending on how you measure it.

Still, players from companies like iRiver and Creative are attractive and have some features the iPod lacks, such as built-in FM radios. And music services from RealNetworks, Yahoo, Napster and others offer an interesting alternative to iTunes.

If I buy an iPod, must I buy music from Apple’s iTunes store? Conversely, can I buy music from Apple, and play it, if I don’t have an iPod?

No, and yes. You don’t have to buy a single song from Apple. You can fill an iPod entirely with music you convert from your own CDs, or which you get from unauthorized download services, or from friends. The latter two sources are probably illegal, but they are technically easy to use. In fact, most of the song files on most of the world’s iPods weren’t purchased from Apple, or anyone else. That’s because the iPod, and iTunes, can play back files in the open MP3 format, and in other non-copy-protected formats.

Conversely, you can set up an account with the iTunes Music Store and buy as many songs, videos, and other material as you like, without owning an iPod. You would simply play back your purchased media on Windows or Macintosh computers. You can play any one song on as many as five different computers. All you need is the free iTunes software, which can be downloaded from Apple’s Web site in either a Windows or Mac version.

Will songs purchased from iTunes play back on non-iPod portable players? Will songs purchased from competing services play back on iPods?

No, and no — unless you use a workaround (see next answer). At the insistence of the record labels, all songs from major label catalogs that are sold as online downloads must be encrypted to limit copying. There are two encryption formats. One is owned by Apple, and the other is owned by Microsoft. The iTunes Store uses the Apple encryption format, and most other legal download services use the Microsoft format.

Any player from any company can theoretically be enabled to use either format, but Apple refuses to license its encryption format to any competing maker of players. And Apple also refuses to incorporate the Microsoft format on iPods. The result is that songs bought from iTunes only work on iPods, while songs bought from most other legal services only work on non-iPod players.

There is one exception. A service called eMusic sells its songs in the open MP3 format, without encryption or copy-protection. Thus, these songs will play on iPods and all other portable music players. But eMusic doesn’t carry the catalogs of the major labels. It has a much smaller selection than iTunes does.

Is there any way around this? Can I legally modify or convert encrypted songs so they will work on portable players for which they weren’t intended?

Yes, but the method is clumsy, especially if you try to apply it to a large number of converted songs.

To convert songs purchased from iTunes to an open format that will play on, say, a Creative player, or in Windows Media Player software, you first must burn the songs to CD. Then, using iTunes or other music software, you re-import them from CD, turning them into open MP3 files that can be played on any player. This works fine, but it has two big downsides.

First, it can take a long time to convert, say, 500 songs this way. Second, the process strips off all the identifying data from the song files, and home-burned CDs typically aren’t recognized by the automatic song-recognition process used by iTunes and other software. So you’ll have to manually re-enter info like artist, album and song title.

Independent site iLounge has a free manual on getting the most from your iPod.

This process works the other way as well, with a big “if.” You can convert Microsoft-encrypted songs this same way, so they become MP3 files that can be played on an iPod. But the catch is that songs offered by the leading Microsoft-based services often can’t be burned to CDs. (See next answer.)

There is some software that claims to efficiently strip the encryption from copy-protected song files, turning them into MP3 files. But these programs are almost certainly illegal under recent copyright laws, and Apple and other companies constantly change the innards of their encryption formats to foil the programs.

What is the difference between Apple’s iTunes store, and competing services like Rhapsody and Napster 2.0? Does one carry more music?

Apple’s iTunes store claims to have more than three million songs licensed from the major labels and from independents. Rhapsody and Napster claim more than two million songs, and Yahoo Music Unlimited claims more than one million. So, iTunes has by far the most music. In addition, iTunes has a strong selection of videos, including 150 television series, plus tens of thousands of audio books and podcasts. Its competitors are much weaker in these non-music categories. Most have nothing at all besides music.

The main difference lies in how the services work. iTunes works like a physical record store: you buy songs or albums, paying separately for each. Songs are 99 cents each, albums are usually $9.99, and videos are typically $1.99. Apple is reportedly negotiating to sell full-length movies as well.

Rhapsody, Napster and Yahoo work on a subscription model: you pay a monthly fee, and can download an unlimited number of songs. For Rhapsody and Napster, the fee is $10 a month if you want only to store and play music on a computer, or $15 a month if you also want to play your music on a portable player. Yahoo charges less — $6.99 a month for a PC-only plan and $11.99 a month for a portable plan.

The upside of Apple’s approach is that, once you buy a song, you own it. It never expires. You can burn it to CD an unlimited number of times, and transfer it to an unlimited number of iPods. The downside is that, to fill an iPod with, say, 5,000 purchased songs, you’d have to spend $5,000.

With the subscription plans, you can fill a portable player for just a monthly fee. But there’s a huge downside: you don’t own the music, you merely rent it. If you stop making your monthly payments, all the songs you downloaded over the years will suddenly expire and become inert and unplayable on your computer and on your portable player. Also, rental songs usually can’t be burned to CD and can only be copied to a limited number of portable players. In order to burn the tunes to CD, you generally must first buy them for an individual price, just as you do on iTunes.

How do I use multiple iPods with one iTunes library on my PC, if I want different music on each iPod?

In the Preferences section of iTunes, you can set up each iPod so it synchronizes only with particular playlists, not your whole library. Just set up a playlist for each iPod, and set it up to sync only with that playlist.

Or, you can set up each iPod so it doesn’t automatically synchronize with iTunes at all, and simply works in manual mode. Then, you can manually drag different songs into each iPod.

Can I copy the songs on my iPod to my second or third computer?

At the insistence of the record labels, Apple was forced to cripple the iPod so it can’t copy music to a computer, out of the box. Copying only works from a computer to an iPod, not the other way. But there are many third-party utility programs, for both Windows and Mac, that allow copying from an iPod to a computer. One example is PodUtil, which has versions for both Mac and Windows. It’s at: www.kennettnet.co.uk/software/podutil.php.

One thing to bear in mind: you can only play any song you buy from iTunes on up to five computers, Windows or Mac. Songs in the open MP3 format can be played on an unlimited number of computers.

Can I share the music in my iTunes software with others?

Yes, within limits. You can set up iTunes on your Windows PC or Mac so that others on your computer network (but not over the Internet) can stream, or listen to, your songs, without actually moving the song file to their computer. The receiving computer must have iTunes installed, and both machines must be enabled for sharing in the Sharing section of the iTunes Preferences panel.

What can I do with an iPod, other than play music on it?

Current iPods can play videos, like TV shows. And most iPods can play audio books and podcasts. Recent models also can play back your photos as slide shows, accompanied by music and fancy transitions. And, with a $20 cable, the iPod can display videos and photos on a TV set.

But there’s a lot of other stuff buried in an iPod. The iPod can display, but not edit, your calendar and contacts and notes, synchronized from your computer. This works with Microsoft Outlook on Windows and with the Address Book and Calendar programs that come with every Mac. Current iPods also have a built-in stop watch and multi-city clock.

You can also use your iPod as a portable hard disk. It can be set up to appear as a regular hard disk on both Windows and Macintosh computers. Any space on the iPod that isn’t occupied by your music, videos, photos and so forth can be used to store any type of file you want, for backup, or for transfer among computers. You just have to plug your iPod into your computer, go to the iPod preferences tab, and check “Enable Disk Use.”

The iPod also has some built-in games. My favorite, Music Quiz, tests your knowledge of your own music. It plays a short clip of a randomly selected song from your collection, then displays five multiple-choice song titles. Your task is to select the right title in the shortest possible time, while a clock counts down the points you can win. It’s addictive.

There’s a ton more to know about digital music, and specifically, iPods. Apple has a series of iPod and iTunes tutorials at http://www.apple.com/support/ipod101/. The independent Web site iLounge (ilounge.com) is packed with tips and tutorials and even offers a free, downloadable 194-page book about the iPod, at: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/download-now-the-free-ipod-book-20.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to offload the pictures from your digital camera while traveling, without lugging along a laptop? And, when the trip is over, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to show people your digital photos, again without the aid of a laptop, or any other computer?

This week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I reviewed two products that aim to solve those problems. Both let you keep a collection of your digital photos with you at all times, on a pocket-size device. And one also doubles as a high-capacity storehouse that can directly offload pictures from a camera.

We tested Kodak’s new $150 EasyShare Picture Viewer, which will hit store shelves on May 20, and Apple Computer’s $29 iPod Camera Connector, which came out in March and works with the iPod Photo music player — either the 30-gigabyte ($349) model or the 60-gigabyte ($449) version.

Apple’s Camera Connector turns the iPod Photo into a portable repository for digital photos rather simply. While companies like Belkin had previously introduced gadgets that enabled the use of a regular iPod’s hard drive for storing photos on the go, this adapter is much smaller and simpler. And because it works with iPod Photo, you can instantly view the images that you upload. It’s just a small, white adapter that plugs into the base of your iPod Photo on one end and has a USB port on the other end, therefore allowing you to attach your digital camera via a USB cord.

Katie tested the Camera Connector with a 30-gigabyte iPod Photo, which Apple estimates can hold as many as 25,000 images. She downloaded the latest software update for the iPod Photo from Apple’s Web site. Then, after she attached our camera’s USB cord and turned on the camera and iPod, the iPod’s screen showed the number of photos on our camera’s memory card (21) and the total size of those files (38.1 megabytes).

iPod Camera Connector, Price: $29; For more info: www.apple.com/ipod

Though we couldn’t see the photos before importing them, after we clicked “Import” we saw thumbnail images of the photos as they loaded onto the iPod. After importing, an option on the screen offered to erase our memory card, but we opted not to do so. Our new “roll” of film was listed underneath the Photo Import menu as “Roll #1 (21).”

We browsed through our imported images by turning the iPod’s scroll wheel and scanning through each of our photos on the iPod Photo’s 2-inch diagonal color screen. The next time we attached the iPod to our computer, it offered to automatically synchronize those photos with our computer’s collection, or you can also manually move them over to the computer, which we chose to do. The Camera Connector is as simple as the device it complements, and we didn’t have any trouble using it.

The Kodak EasyShare Picture Viewer is also white, like the Camera Connector, but that’s where the similarities end. It’s a handsome credit-card-shape device that measures a half-inch thick and weighs just 2.4 ounces. It has a bigger screen than the iPod, but very little internal memory, so it’s mainly for viewing pictures, not for offloading them from a camera. In fact you can’t connect it directly to a camera.

A gorgeous 2.5-inch display screen takes up most of the device, and control buttons are positioned directly to the right of the screen, making it easy to hold and operate in one hand.

You can view — but not offload — photos from a memory card by inserting SecureDigital (SD) or MultiMedia Cards (MMC) in the slot positioned on one long side of the Picture Viewer. A small power button is next to this slot. Katie pushed the SD card from her digital camera into the Picture Viewer, and a message on the screen read “Reading memory card,” before displaying the card’s photos. Later, I popped in a memory card from my Treo camera phone. Both worked fine.

A number in the top right of the screen showed us how many images were on the card, and she paged through them using left and right arrow buttons. The “up” arrow shows you a 2x magnified view of a selected photo, while the “down” arrow displays the photos in up to nine thumbnail images on the screen at once.

Pressing the “menu” button lets you adjust settings or start a slide show of the images. This allows friends or relatives to just sit back and hold the tiny viewer as pictures flash on the screen for intervals that can be set to last anywhere from three to 60 seconds per photo.

Kodak EasyShare Picture Viewer, Price: $149.95; For more info: www.kodak.com

Unlike the way Apple’s Camera Connector works with the iPod Photo, you cannot directly offload images from your camera or memory card onto the Picture Viewer. To load photos from a computer, Katie installed Kodak’s EasyShare software on her Dell PC and dragged and dropped the photos that she wanted on the Picture Viewer into the “Favorites” folder. She hooked her PC to the Picture Viewer using its USB cord and selected “Update” to send the images to the smaller gadget.

You can also opt to automatically send photos from your Mac or PC to the Picture Viewer whenever you connect the two via a USB cord.

Katie loaded about 30 high-resolution photos onto the Picture Viewer’s internal memory, but Kodak estimates that it can hold about 150 at full capacity. Adding a memory card can expand the device’s measly 32 megabytes of internal memory, but this might be costly if you don’t already have a high-capacity card.

The Picture Viewer’s screen is very impressive, and we noticed that images in the device’s internal memory appeared quickly as we scanned through the photos. Images from our SD memory card, however, took longer to display and some were blurred before coming into clear focus.

Kodak explained that EasyShare software sends reduced resolution images from your PC to the Picture Viewer’s internal memory, while images on memory cards aren’t reduced and tend to have higher resolutions. Therefore, it takes a bit longer to open and view each image on a memory card. The lower resolution of the transferred pictures didn’t affect the quality when the photos were viewed on the Picture Viewer’s small screen.

If you’re away from your computer, you can “tag” all or certain photos on the Viewer for printing or emailing, and the images will perform the desired action when you connect to the computer again. The Picture Viewer charges by attaching to your computer or certain EasyShare docks, and its battery is supposed to last up to three hours.

There’s no doubt that using the iPod Photo with a Camera Connector offers greater versatility for storing and viewing photos than the Kodak EasyShare Picture Viewer. But if you can’t afford an iPod Photo and you’d like a way to bring your digital memories with you on the go, the Picture Viewer is a less expensive, lightweight option. Just don’t count on it for heavy photo storage, especially without expanding the memory with an SD or MMC card.

With reporting by Katherine Boehret

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com