And it turns out that people still care about John, Paul, et al.

EMI says it has sold a staggering 10 million copies of the band’s remastered albums since September. The total includes the giant box sets of the band’s work (if you bought the stereo set, that accounted for 14 albums in one purchase; if you went with the mono discs, that counted for 11), as well as downloads for the sort-of successful Beatles Rock Band game.

And, of course, nada from iTunes. Sidebar: If and when the band finally starts selling its music on Apple’s (AAPL) digital storefront, will there be anyone left to buy it?

But back to EMI, which has much more unpleasant news to deal with, namely that owner Terra Firma seems to be at the end of its rope. The private equity firm is now suing Citibank (C), which lent it the billions it needed to buy the music company in 2007, for fraud.

And Terra Firma is reportedly looking for investors to lend it another $1.6 billion to keep the company afloat, in large part because it fears it will default on the money it has already borrowed from Citi.

The conventional wisdom, meanwhile, is that all of this is simply a precursor to an eventual combination between EMI and Warner Music Group (WMG)–a deal the two companies have been trying to pull off for close to a decade.

Terra Firma’s complaint, via the New York Times’s Dealbook, makes for fascinating reading, in large part because of the cognitive dissonance created by Terra Firma’s description of itself.

The company describes itself as a clueless investor duped by Citigroup into buying the music company in an auction with no other bidders and as a savvy manager that has turned around the ailing music company.

Can both descriptions be true?

Terra Firma’s Lawsuit Against Citi Over EMI

(Also, some free fact-checking for Terra Firma’s attorneys: The iTunes Store launched in 2003, not 2005.)

Astonishing, really, when you think about it. The App Store isn’t even two years old yet. Nor is the iPhone software development kit. Before the SDK was released March 6, 2008, the only developers working with it were the handful of outfits Apple (AAPL) had partnered with while it was in beta.

So Apple is entitled to a bit of gloating. And gloat it did, in a press release celebrating the 100,000-app milestone this morning:

Apple Announces Over 100,000 Apps Now Available on the App Store

CUPERTINO, Calif., Nov. 4 — Apple® today announced that developers have created over 100,000 apps for the revolutionary App Store, the largest applications store in the world. iPhone® and iPod touch® customers in 77 countries can choose from an incredible range of apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel. App Store users have downloaded well over two billion apps, continuing to make it the world’s most popular applications store.

“The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating.”

“The App Store has forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve,” said Travis Boatman, vice president of Worldwide Studios, EA Mobile. “With a global reach of over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch users, the App Store has allowed us to develop high quality EA games that have been a huge success with customers.”

“With 10,000 downloads a day, worldwide customer response to our I Am T-Pain App has exceeded our wildest expectations,” said Jeff Smith, CEO of Smule. “The App Store has given us a unique opportunity to create and grow a very successful business, and we’re looking forward to an exciting future.”

Apple continues to improve search and discovery with new features including Genius for Apps, App Store Essentials selections, sub category listings and more valuable customer reviews. With the recently introduced iTunes® 9, it’s also now easier than ever to organize and sync your apps right in iTunes and they will automatically appear on your iPhone or iPod touch with the same layout.

The release of iPhone OS 3.0 this summer made over 100 new features available to iPhone and iPod touch users including Cut, Copy and Paste; MMS; landscape view for Mail, Text and Notes; stereo Bluetooth; shake to shuffle; parental controls; automatic login at Wi-Fi hot spots and Push Notifications. These new features have been incredibly popular with customers and there have already been more than two billion Push Notifications sent to apps available from the App Store. Additionally, the recently introduced In App Purchase feature for free apps means leading developers will now be able to offer customers the choice of buying content, subscriptions and digital services from directly inside their apps.

[Image Credit:148apps.biz]

$279.99, exactly.

What do you get for that? The same thing the band and EMI Music Group are already selling for $219: All of the band’s music, in a remastered stereo mix. But if you’re willing to pay extra, you can now get the same tunes bundled up in a single USB stick. Like so:

People who care about this stuff will be pleased to know the files will be available in both FLAC and MP3 formats. More details here, although there does seem to be some confusion about whether there are 30,000 of these puppies or just a couple hundred. Either way, they go on sale Dec. 7 in the U.K. and the next day in the U.S.

By the way, if you’re the kind of Beatles fan who considers plunking down more than $200 for music you already own, then you’ve most likely seen this. But it’s free to everyone, thanks to Google’s (GOOG) YouTube:

The unit boasts 14 different tuners compared with the typically high-end set, which has about three. Its speakers are reportedly comparable to those of a high-end stereo system, and with its Cell chip and image-processing technology, it is capable of improving the resolution of a crappy YouTube video to near high-definition quality. Finally, in addition to displaying eight high-def broadcasts at once, the TV can record them–simultaneously. Oh, it can time-shift them if you’d like, too.

What is this TV among TVs, this holy grail of couch potatoans called? the Cell Regza 55X1. And it costs $11,115.

$11,115? For a TV? In this recession? When TV prices are declining?

Damn right. And Toshiba expects to sell about 1,000 of them a month in Japan before bringing them to market in the U.S. and Europe in 2010.

[Image credits: Toshiba and AVWatch]

But every time I wanted to change songs, I had to go to another room and make a few mouse clicks on my computer. Ever since then, I’ve been waiting for someone to come up with a good, affordable remote control that lets me change tunes no matter where I am in the house.

Apple’s Remote program

It turns out, I already owned that device. It’s an iPod touch. A new program released by Apple (AAPL) in July was all it took to convert my MP3 player into a sophisticated remote control for my digital-music collection. That program, called simply Remote, runs on the iPhone as well as on the iPod touch, a version of the Apple MP3 player that has an iPhone-like touch-sensing screen and Internet-access capabilities using Wi-Fi wireless technology. Remote is available free of charge on the online App Store that Apple has used since July to distribute software for those devices.

In essence, Remote is a remote control for all music stored on a Mac or Windows PC that’s loaded into iTunes, Apple’s music jukebox software. It allows you to jump between playlists, browse artists and pump up the volume. For the program to work, you need to buy into using other Apple entertainment products.

In the simplest setup, Remote lets you control the music from stereo speakers connected directly to a PC. But it’s most useful when you use a PC to deliver audio to additional speakers around a home — say, a pair on the patio and in the living room.

Apple sells a couple of products that receive audio signals from a PC running iTunes. Both work wirelessly over a Wi-Fi home network so you don’t need to put holes into your walls to run computer and speaker wires. I tested Remote using both. One is an Apple TV, a $229 set-top box in my living room that plays digital audio and video through a standard home-theater system. The other is an AirPort Express, a $99 Apple wireless networking device on my patio connected to a pair of powered A5 speakers made by Audioengine, of San Jose, Calif. A third set of speakers was connected to an iMac in the kitchen, where I store all of my digital music. (The least expensive iPod touch costs $299.)

It was a breeze to configure the Apple TV and AirPort Express to show up as remote speakers in iTunes on my computer. Setting up Remote to give me mobile control over this array of speakers was trickier. After installing the program on my iPod touch, I couldn’t get it to work with iTunes on my PC. After 20 minutes of fiddling with the security settings for my Wi-Fi base station, iTunes finally recognized Remote. I was in business.

We all know how confusing the remote controls for TV sets and stereo systems can be. Remote, by contrast, cleanly displays all the music on my PC on the color screen of my iPod touch.

The program let me flip through artists, albums and playlists with simple finger swipes. But I was sorry that Remote doesn’t have a feature in the iPod touch called cover flow that lets users browse their music libraries by flipping through album-cover art. Apple says it may offer the feature in the future.

The software also let me easily turn on and off the music from my speakers in my kitchen, living room and patio. I could have all the speakers on at once — good for a party. The sound was terrific. The crisp-sounding $349 Audioengine speakers don’t require a stereo receiver.

Because Remote uses Wi-Fi to communicate with iTunes, I could control music anywhere around my house and backyard, which are small enough to be fully covered with a signal from my Wi-Fi base station. That’s a big plus over conventional remote controls that use infrared, a technology that doesn’t work through walls.

One drawback: The battery in my iPod touch drained overnight when I configured the device to stay connected to iTunes, a feature that increases software responsiveness. Changing the setting let me go days without recharging my iPod touch, but it meant I had to wait a couple of seconds for Remote to connect to iTunes when I started up the software — an acceptable trade-off.

Another multiroom audio product with a good remote control is the ZonePlayer from Sonos, an equipment maker based in Santa Barbara, Calif. That system has some advantages over Apple’s offerings, including the ability to access tunes from online music services, such as Pandora and Rhapsody, and separate volume controls for each set of speakers.

The Sonos system starts at $999 for a remote control and wireless receivers, without speakers, that can deliver music to two rooms.

For people who already own an iPod touch or iPhone, Remote is a good reason to buy an AirPort Express, and fill your home with music.

Walter S. Mossberg is on vacation.

• Email Nick.Wingfield@wsj.com.

As technology continues to shrink, more features are being packed into these small mobile devices, making navigation and ease-of-use more important. This week, I tested the Motorola ROKR E8, which costs $199 with a two-year T-Mobile service agreement and makes a real attempt to be more user-friendly. The device, which comes out on July 7, isn’t much bigger than a typical cellphone but its standout feature is its keyboard, which dynamically changes to accommodate whatever you’re doing at the time, revealing only buttons that would be of use to that particular function.

The secret sauce on the ROKR E8 is its keyboard, which changes when it’s used as a phone, music device and camera.

The surface of the ROKR E8 has no physical keys at all. In its off or resting state, in fact, it’s just a black surface with rows of tiny, unlabeled bumps. But this surface is actually divided into two: The top half works like a typical cellphone display while the bottom half projects virtual keys onto its surface and uses the rows of bumps to give these keys a physical presence.

When making a call or sending a text message, the ROKR’s surface displays a regular phone keypad. But as soon as a music shortcut button is pressed, the surface morphs into five buttons for music navigation: play/pause, seek forward, seek backward, shuffle and repeat. Pressing another shortcut button to start the ROKR’s camera mode shows four buttons for zooming in or out, switching to playback mode or changing to video. Motorola (MOT) calls this its ModeShift technology. Though the lower half of the ROKR can be considered a touch device, objects can’t be manipulated with gestures like pinching or dragging as with the Apple (AAPL) iPhone’s multitouch screen.

Overall, I found that the ROKR E8′s dynamic keyboard gave me a real advantage in figuring out how to use the multi-functionality of the phone. Its changing keyboard eliminated a lot of guesswork and time that I may have spent hunting through menus for a command. And true to its name, the ROKR (pronounced “rocker”) is focused on its music phone functionality with an FM radio, a neatly organized music menu and a speaker that has convincingly simulated surround-sound effects.

But this ROKR didn’t always jam out in perfect pitch. A touch-sensitive semicircle in the center is meant to make scrolling through long lists easier — much like Apple Inc.’s iPod wheel. But because this tool on the ROKR isn’t a full circle, scrolling felt unsatisfying. You also can’t buy songs with the ROKR, or even mark songs for purchasing later on a PC.

And while the morphing buttons look futuristic and hip, I experienced a few instances when the phone was slow to react after I touched a button, as when I touched the seek forward button while listening to music or when I chose to open an MMS message I sent to a friend.

Twenty-two tiny bumps dot half of the ROKR’s surface, and the surface below each bump vibrates when it’s touched to provide sensory feedback. Nothing is ever physically pressed down, though the vibration response leads you to think otherwise.

A smart switch on the side can be held down to turn it on or off, or switched into the upward position to lock the device, preventing accidental calls or battery drain.

The ROKR E8 runs on T-Mobile’s (DT) GPRS/EDGE connection, which felt sluggish at times. And not even the dynamic keyboard on this device could help make email or instant messaging easier.

It has a two-megapixel still camera with an 8x digital zoom that can change into video-camera mode in one step. Two gigabytes of memory are built into the ROKR, and more memory can be added via a microSD card slot, which is hidden beneath a back panel. A one-gigabyte microSD card comes with the ROKR. Without this card, the internal memory will hold about 1,500 songs.

With help from a USB cord and Windows (MSFT) Media Player 11, I transferred over 200 MP3s onto my ROKR. Album art that transferred with my songs appeared on-screen as songs played, and the speaker gave off a powerful sound. Built-in stereo Bluetooth can send tunes to Bluetooth-enabled stereo speakers, and it took me just a few seconds to pair my ROKR with Motorola’s EQ5 speakers.

A preloaded program by Shazam lets users hold the ROKR up to any speaker playing a song, and in 30 seconds, identifies the track title, artist, and album art. I held the ROKR up to my alarm clock radio and it worked perfectly. But once these songs are recognized, the track data can’t be used to buy the song or even to transfer a request to buy that song to a PC for buying online at another time.

The ROKR’s FM radio will work only if its included stereo headset is plugged in because the headset has the radio antenna. But once the headset is plugged in, the radio will play via the ROKR’s speaker.

The ROKR E8 has an audio technology called Crystal Talk, which Motorola says allows your phone to perform better in loud environments. Even if the person on the other end of your phone is in a noisy place, the company says Crystal Talk will raise the volume to improve the call. I tested this by speaking to someone on the ROKR while turning a hairdryer on beside the phone. I then used a regular Razr cellphone. The person on the other end said that the ROKR sounded slightly, but noticeably, better.

Motorola’s ROKR E8 is a head-turning phone with many built-in advances that give it a smarter interface. One might wonder what other ModeShift functions the company will integrate into its devices in the future, such as a full QWERTY keyboard. The overall idea of a dynamic keyboard is a step ahead for small devices. It forces the phone to work more intuitively and improves navigation while looking stylishly sleek at the same time.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

In an astonishingly unimaginative report called “The Future of Apple Inc.,” Forrester attempts to divine the products Apple will be peddling five years from now. “Apple will aim to become the hub of the digital home, offering eight key products and services to connect PCs and digital content to the HDTV-stereo audio-visual infrastructure in consumers’ homes,” Forrester explains. “To fulfill this strategy, we predict that Apple will launch new products, re-engineer the Apple Store, and expand into in-home installation services.”

Sadly, the speculative product and services roadmap Forrester has devised seems more a roadmap to ruin than anything else, and a laughable one at that. Among the products the company sees Apple developing by 2013:

• A network-enabled “clock radio”
• An AppleSound universal music controller
• A digital picture frame
• A “Genius Bar” that makes house calls just like the Geek Squad.

Huh. So Apple, after reinventing the desktop UI, the digital media player, and the phone, will set its sights on the lowly clock radio and picture frame. Really? If Apple’s product dev team pitched Forrester’s clock radio idea to CEO Steve Jobs, he would probably hurl them one-by-one into rush-hour traffic from the roof of 1 Infinite Loop.

Forget next month. It’s more fun thinking about what digital toys Apple might be making in five years. Of course, Mr. Jobs’s penchant for secrecy means such predictions are often little more than daydreaming. Just do an Internet search for “Apple” and “mockup” to see photos of products invented by Apple fans.

Forrester Research (FORR) is the latest to look into the crystal ball in a new report that imagines the Apple products of 2013. But rather than predict Apple jet packs or other outlandish new directions, the research firm uses the company’s recent history as a guide to forecasting.

Forrester’s conclusion: While much of Apple’s great successes have been mobile products such as the iPod and the iPhone, the company will seek to colonize rooms throughout the home.

Among the new products Forrester predicts Apple will create are wall-mountable digital picture frames with small high-definition screens and speakers that wirelessly play media, including photos, videos and music, stored on a computer elsewhere in the home. Such products already exist, but Apple could put its own twist on them — for example, by adding its design panache and a touch-sensitive screen that lets viewers flip from image to image with a finger swipe, a la the iPhone.

For the bedroom, Forrester envisions an Apple “clock radio” that pipes in music and other media across a home network. Possible, too, is an “AppleSound” universal remote control, also with a touch-sensitive screen, that lets users browse their music collections and change the songs playing through their stereo as they stroll around the house. This latter technology is already available in primitive form through an application called Signal (www.alloysoft.com) that turns the iPod touch and the iPhone into remote controls for Apple’s iTunes program.

Forrester also thinks Apple could extend into the home the technical assistance currently offered by “Genius Bar” personnel in Apple retail stores. Apple in-home installation services will become especially important as its array of products for the home grows. “The complexity level here can be quite daunting if you have five or six of these different devices,” says J.P. Gownder, one of the Forrester analysts who wrote the report.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the company’s product plans.

Apple prognosticating is such a popular pastime, in part, because Mr. Jobs has proved so adept at becoming a power broker in markets a Silicon Valley computer company — once known as Apple Computer — has no right to dominate. The iPod remains the top MP3 player, with more than 70% of the market, and Apple is now the top retailer of music in the nation, ahead of Wal-Mart (WMT) Stores. Less than a year after entering the cellphone business with the iPhone, Apple became the second-largest provider of smart phones in the U.S.

That said, the company had an underwhelming foray into the living room with a television set-top device called Apple TV that plays music, photos and movies downloaded from the Internet and PCs on a home network. In an interview earlier this year after dropping the price on the product by $70 to $229, Mr. Jobs said he was disappointed in its sales.

Despite the hiccups, veteran observers of Apple say Mr. Jobs’s intent is clear. “I see everything Steve is doing as positioning himself to take over completely the living room,” says John Seely Brown, a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California and the former director of Xerox’s PARC, the Palo Alto, Calif., research center that inspired some of the innovations of the original Macintosh.

One long-running prediction, proved wrong again and again: that Apple might make a television set. Forrester throws cold water on the idea. Yet some still believe that Apple will one day get into the business as conventional TV makers start to integrate into their sets the ability to surf the Web. Apple already designs computer displays that are as large as some HDTVs.

Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple with Mr. Jobs, says it would make “a lot of sense” for Apple to do a television set that can also access media stored on the Internet and local PCs. “I only started thinking that way recently,” Mr. Wozniak says. “Apple is obviously in the world of delivering display devices already.”

Mr. Brown thinks Apple could simplify the traditional functions on TV sets, like the bewildering electronic programming guides that list the hundreds of channels available to viewers. “Most people find operating high-quality TV systems incredibly awkward,” he says. “They’re as bad as our computer systems.”

• Send comments to Nick.Wingfield@wsj.com. Walter S. Mossberg will return on June 5.

To make Bluetooth even easier to use in cars, most new luxury cars and some standard cars are sold with optional built-in Bluetooth speakerphone technology which doesn’t even require an earpiece. Some cars also come with built-in iPod integration, displaying song titles on the dashboard and controlling the iPod using buttons on the steering wheel, again to minimize distractions. One new built-in product, SYNC, the voice-activated system created by Ford Motor Co. and Microsoft Corp., lets users do both things hands-free: play music or make phone calls using simple voice commands.

The $120 Parrot PMK5800 uses voice recognition for a more hands-free experience.

This week, I tested two devices that bring Bluetooth technology to older cars in hopes of integrating hands-free phone calls and music with a car’s stereo system. I tried the $130 Venturi Mini from NextGen Venturi Ltd. (www.myventuri.com) and $120 Parrot PMK5800 from Parrot Inc. (www.parrot.com) on three cars made in 2000 and 2005.

Neither device offers a surefire solution; each is limited by your particular car and cellphone. But the Parrot sails ahead of the Venturi Mini by using voice activation for phone calls, something the Venturi Mini can’t do. Venturi’s version of “hands-free calling” requires initiating a call on the cellphone itself or by looking down at a tiny, grayscale screen and painstakingly scrolling through names of contacts. Furthermore, the Parrot worked after only a few steps, while the Venturi took much longer to set up and get going.

Both of these are one-piece black gadgets that plug into your car’s cigarette lighter and use FM transmitters to play on unused FM radio stations. Each has a tiny screen, though the Parrot screen is used solely to display the current station so as to match it with the radio. The idea is that after initially “pairing” a Bluetooth cellphone with one of these devices, the phone and device will automatically find each other whenever both are in the car and on, making calls easier and music a bit more hands-free.

The Parrot and Venturi Mini will only play music via Bluetooth using cellphones that have a technology called A2DP, which enables music streaming. More and more new cellphones have this technology, such as the Nokia 6555 that I used, but many — including Apple’s iPhone — don’t. Most people will play music by attaching an iPod or other portable music player to these devices using cables that come with them.

The $130 Venturi Mini doesn’t work with voice commands.

Neither the Venturi Mini nor the Parrot PMK5800 enable voice commands with music: songs streamed via Bluetooth are controlled using buttons on the devices, and music coming from a wired-attached player can only be operated using buttons on that player.

The Parrot isn’t as compact or as stylish as the Venturi Mini, but its best feature is unseen: built-in voice recognition software that guides you while using this device. If your cellphone has built-in voice-recognition software, which many do, you can plug in the Parrot and get started. Otherwise, contacts must be loaded on to the Parrot and assigned a voice tag. Large green and red buttons initiate or end phone calls, but speaking commands also works. A knob turns to different stations or can be pressed and turned for audible descriptions of menus. Three glowing Play/Pause, Skip Ahead and Skip Back buttons are easy to find without looking down so as to navigate through music.

While I was listening to music coming from one paired cellphone, my sister called me on another paired cellphone that I had forgotten I had in my purse. The music automatically paused, and the sound of a ringing phone came from the car speakers until I answered it by pressing the Parrot’s green button (speaking the word “phone” also works).

If voice tags are assigned to contacts in your phone, the name of the person calling can be announced over the speakers, like caller ID. Music automatically re-starts after a call ends.

I made calls on the Parrot by pressing its green button and speaking directions like “Call Allison Mobile” to call the correct number from my phone’s contact list. The voice recognition sounded a bit robotic, but almost always found the right number.

Most voice calls sounded rather clear to the people with whom I spoke, but in the car, calls suffered when stations were interrupted with static as I drove around the Washington, D.C., area. One major issue with relying on FM transmitters in major cities is the small number of unused radio stations. Static also affected streamed music, making it sound scratchy at times. Music playing from a cord-connected iPod had no trouble.

The same static problems arose with Bluetooth calls and music on the Venturi Mini. This device’s rectangular face has a scroll button in its center, which seems like it would be a useful addition. But this can’t be pressed down to select anything on the screen, which is maddening. Instead, selecting anything from the Venturi screen must be done using a separate button, as if it wasn’t even designed to be a hands-free device.

To set up the Mini, a paired phone’s contacts must be copied from the phone onto the device. Once these contacts are added, calls can be initiated through the device by finding the correct name on the screen using the scroll wheel and pressing more buttons to select that name and place the call. None of this involves voice recognition, and it’s all supposed to be done while you’re driving.

For all its faults, the Venturi does have a few features that the Parrot doesn’t, including the ability to display Bluetooth data — like the name or number of an incoming caller and a song title and artist — on your radio display if your car has this ability. But most older cars don’t allow this, and I couldn’t quickly figure out how it worked even while driving in a 2005 car. You can also charge devices through the Mini using a built-in USB port.

The position of a car’s cigarette lighter matters to the Venturi Mini and the Parrot. This plug is often positioned near the gear shift, and in my manual car, it would’ve been difficult to operate these gadgets while in fifth gear (I didn’t try). The location of this plug also determines how loud or soft your voice sound to callers. So as to not sound so far away during calls I tried to lean closer to the devices, but this isn’t safe while driving.

The Venturi Mini looks like a hip device, but without voice recognition software and a smart interface, it’s frustrating and dangerous to use. Parrot’s PMK5800 plugs in and works and its voice-recognition software makes it a true hands-free device that will improve the way you use Bluetooth in your car. Just look out for static, especially in big cities.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Next time you get comfortable on the couch, remember that you’re relaxing in the consumer electronics battleground: the living room. Major tech companies are pouring resources into products they hope you’ll use to remotely receive your computer’s content — namely videos, music and photos — in a more comfortable place.

But while some of these complex solutions are still struggling to catch on, digital music marched steadily into the land of recliners long ago. IPods naturally plug into home stereos, multiplying music collections and bringing playlists to parties. And an industry of devices sprouted up specifically for playing iPods and other music players to a crowd.

This week, I tested a new version of one of these dock systems that specializes in wirelessly distributing music via small, cube-shaped speakers that can be spread throughout your house: the $300 Evolve speaker system from Griffin Technology Inc. (http://evolvespeakers.com). This setup offers a straightforward and stylish solution, delivering what I consider good quality sound.

Griffin Technology’s $299.99 Evolve is an affordable wireless speaker system.

Griffin’s attempt at claiming valuable real estate in the living room pits it against Sonos Inc., a high-end competitor that is already well-established in the wireless-music arena. Sonos sends digital tunes from your computers to up to 32 rooms using an attractive remote with a full-color screen. But this system starts at $1,000, not including speakers, and its computer-related set-up might intimidate potential buyers.

Closer competitors to Griffin’s Evolve can be found in Brookstone and Hammacher Schlemmer catalogs, where similar wireless speaker systems for the iPod are sold for $150 (on sale) and $400, respectively. Brookstone’s set-up includes small, spherical wireless speakers and Hammacher’s uses bulkier, rectangular-shaped wireless speakers with visible antenna.

I tested the Evolve system using my iPod touch and a first generation iPod nano bought in 2005. Both devices worked with the system, and the Evolve speakers connected wirelessly to the base station from up to 150 feet away on the digital 900MHz spectrum, which doesn’t interfere with Wi-Fi and works through walls and floors. Two speakers come with the system, each carrying a charge of 10 hours according to Griffin, though I got 11 in my tests.

Evolve has some downsides. While it’s great to know that its speakers work 150 feet away from the base station and iPod, they can only be controlled by the base station or by a remote control in view of the base station. So, if you and the speakers are in a room without the base station, you can’t see any information about the song that’s playing, nor can you adjust the volume. Each speaker does have its own power button.

And when I switched from my iPod touch to the iPod nano, the Evolve remote stopped working, and I couldn’t get the remote to work with my iPod touch again. Griffin acknowledged a bug that occurs with speaker systems when an iPod isn’t up to date with the latest firmware, which it wasn’t, and assured me that updating the device, unplugging and re-plugging the Evolve would fix the issue. These fixes didn’t help, nor did repairing the remote, and there wasn’t time for Griffin to send a new remote. I continued to use Evolve without the remote, but hope that other units won’t operate like mine.

Griffin’s Evolve base station seems to hover just inches off the ground and is made of a brushed aluminum. Left to right, it measures about 16 inches, and an iPod dock and three buttons mark the center of the base station. Two squat antenna stand behind this dock, and square wells on the left and right give the speakers a place to rest while charging. These wire-free charging wells are designed with overcharge/undercharge protection, so each speaker’s battery isn’t harmed by resting on the base station for a long period of time.

When the remote was working with my iPod touch, I navigated through songs from across the room, pausing and adjusting volume. I easily carried the speakers into my kitchen using handles built into the back of these cubes, and my roommate enjoyed listening to Amy Winehouse in stereo while she made dinner. But during the actual dinner, when we wanted to turn the volume down, we had to walk back to the living room where the base station was located while calling down the hall to one another to find out if the sound was low enough.

Hidden indicator lights in each speaker tell whether they’re charged or not; orange signifies a charge is needed, while green means you’re in the clear. A switch on the base station changes the speaker sound from mono (useful when listening to audio books) to stereo. Each speaker contains built-in technology that assigns it to automatically know if it’s right or left. To conserve battery, a speaker that’s turned on but isn’t playing music will turn off after 60 minutes.

I kept my speakers on for 11 hours straight before they pooped out, moving them to different floors and as far from the base station as possible — the signal stayed strong. In just two hours, the pair was recharged. I kept the volume pretty low for at least half the time my speakers were on, and Griffin says lower volumes conserve battery, and vice versa. I listened to all sorts of music, including hip-hop, jazz, country, rock and classical. I’m no audiophile, but to my ear, the Evolve handled each genre with aplomb.

All iPods (even the iPhone) work with Griffin’s Evolve, and this gadget will also work when connected to other MP3 players, stereos, TVs, and CD players, which could come in handy. In early March, Griffin will sell add-on speakers for $99 each with separate charging plates for $30 apiece; $200 bundles will include two speakers and two charging plates. There’s no limit to the number of speakers that you can add to a system.

Though Griffin’s Evolve lacks some of the luxuries that high-end systems have, it solves a problem with minimal effort on the user’s part, and looks good while doing it. If you don’t mind returning to the base station to make adjustments, and if your remote doesn’t stop working, you’ll enjoy this sleek and functional device.

• Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications:

Griffin Technology Inc.’s Evolve wireless sound system uses a remote that can control certain functions of the iPod, even when it is out of sight of the base station. This column erroneously implies that the remote must be in view of the system to work.