Handicapping the 6th Generation iPod 250
An anonymous reader writes "It's that time of the year again, when Apple rumors bloom with the fall foliage and the press is inundated with hype and wishful thinking. MP3 Newswire has a reasonably sober article addressing 17 of those rumors, even giving odds on the validity of each. From the article: 'It is the peripheral manufacturers that now have a heavy sway on what features the iPod will add to its 6th generation. The peripheral market has done more to cement Apple's proprietary technology as a standard than Apple itself, adding to the iPod's dominance. Mr. Jobs will not upset that balance without good reason and Apple's recent deal with Creative to make iPod peripherals shows he wants to feed it further. But the iPod needs something new to keep it fresh and ahead of the competition.'"
Apple is (mostly) on our side here (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Apple is (mostly) on our side here (Score:4, Interesting)
Historically they have never had a problem with incorporating software and hardware features into the Mac that have wiped out third party markets, and they've never been the best partner for retail stores (even before they had their own / own online store).
My favourite rumour (the one I hope is true) is the one about Dashboard widgets for iPods, of which there was some hint buried somewhere.
Given that Nokia phones are using a WebKit based browser, it is not too fanciful to imagine a WebKit port to the iPod, and Widgets would provide a nice sandbox for third party applications on the iPod. With a wifi connection that would be even more useful than just 'sync' based. I'm sure power issues could be addressed there (i.e. don't keep WIfi powered on, until it's actually used). Web access via BT-enabled mobile phones seems a more 'mobile' solution. I can't see a fully fledged web browser yet, given the limitations of browsing on the PSP - but I'd love to have my basic set of widgets on a mobile device.
I can just see Jobs casually pulling out his 6G iPod and showing it tracking some ebay auctions, then the Weather widget, sports results, etc - that level of functionality seems to have the right 'fit' for mobile browsing, but the typical Dashboard widget looks far better than any WAP page or Java App I've seen on a mobile.
Re:Apple is (mostly) on our side here (Score:5, Insightful)
You're describing a handheld computer -- a little Newton or Palm Pilot or something. I'd love to see one from Apple, but I wouldn't like to see the iPod turned into one.
Apple has been very good about resisting feature creep in the iPod.
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See also Blackberry : I've seen executives with Blackberries who are also carrying mobile phones that can do email AND laptops that could use that mobile phone to retrieve email - historically, the trend seems to be from complex multi-function devices to simple single function ones.
However, I s
Re:Apple is (mostly) on our side here (Score:4, Insightful)
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Last night I had my son's birthday at a "fun center." Inside there were some kids playing video games. But outside, all the preteens were sitting on the curb for what must have been an hour and a half, sitting in a
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Because the network operators want to make sure that you buy airtime to transfer the songs, not just copy them to the CF or SD cards using a file manager.
Only one thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's machine has an insurmountable mindshare lead on the competition. They have reached the point where their product name is synonymous with it's purpose. Tell 50 people that you're going to the store to buy a DAP and they'll have no idea what you're talking about, but if you tell them you're going to buy an iPod, they'll smile and tell you all about how they think iPod's are the bee's knees.
However, if Apple falls into the trap of DRMing the iPod/iTunes interface to the point where it becomes too difficult for the average person to use quickly and efficiently (read: anything that takes more than 30 seconds will lose the average person's attention span), just to appease the music conglomerates, people will very quickly lose interest.
Luckily for Apple, they're smart enough to know this, and the powers that be in the recording industry are quickly realizing that they need Apple more than Apple needs them.
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anything that takes more than 30 seconds will lose the average person's attention span
October 12th, 2006.
Steve Jobs was arrested last Monday on suspicion of flooding the black market with Ritalin in anticipation of the forthcoming holiday season. Details at 11.
Dopey Alert! (Score:2, Informative)
And as far as "..DRMing the iPod/iTunes interface to the point where it becomes too difficult...", for me it's too difficult if there is any DRM at all on it. I'm not interested in DRM and I won't buy a player or music with DRM as long as I have an option. And with music-lovers on the internet and flash memory so cheap, I'll always have
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If you won't buy a player with DRM, why did you buy the SanDisk? It does have DRM (namely, "PlaysForSure") on it, you know!
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So should some people be asking "Where are the MP3 players that also play Vorbis?"
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Maybe that's because no-one uses the word "DAP"? But if you mention that "I'm going to buy an mp3-player", most people will know what you are talking about.
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Re:It is already DRMed. Was:Only one thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, but the only real reason one would need to retrieve songs from an iPod would be after a re-format, and god knows that the average user simply does not reformat all that often. Hence this DRM is not really a worry for them.
- Content purchased at iTunes has DRM on it. (yes there are programms or you could burn a purchased track and then rip/mix/burn it to remove the DRM.
Agreed, but I would be willing to bet that the majority of iPod owners get their music from CD's that are ripped into iTunes. While the iTMS may be terribly successful as an online retailer, it's still got a ways to go before it catches up with physical album sales. This DRM, while inconvenient to the
I've always had a theory that the DRM on iPod's is so easy to break by intention. Apple may be being forced to apply some DRM, but they don't have to put good DRM in place.
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There is another legitimate reason: limited HD space.
Up until a year ago, my girlfriend had an old 500Mhz white iBook (20GB drive) and a 20GB iPod. So logically she figured she had 40 gigs to store music. But because of the iPod's one-way street (at least with iTunes) you really
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Plug in iPod. Play songs stored on iPod via iTunes on the computer.
No, you can't permanently download the songs from the iPod to the computer - maybe use a DVD instead, and get a backup in the process? Even Apple's DRM allows you to have 5 (IIRC) authorised copies of a song you've downloaded from iTMS on various computers and players.
Next time you comment, make sure you know wha
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Bullshit. This is not the default action. The default action is to ask you if you want to re-sync the iPod to the new machine, and delete the files on it - or to leave them alone. It gives you this choice when you plug the iPod in.
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They already have the last item (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't need a "ipod dock on a mini" to accomplish attaching a mini to any HDTV input, you just need to be able to get the content to it easily somehow. One friend of mine has had a mini attached to his HDTV for awhile now, and have most of his DVD's on the HD for play. The mini comes with a remote already, all that is missing is convenient movie sales via ITunes, or perhaps it shoud be renamed IMedia. And that seems to be a sure bet, given the "It's Showtime" announcement on Thursday.
IMHO we are on the cusp of a change in the way A/V is delivered to our tubes.... er.. i mean plasma/lcd/DLP/etc...
Ahem (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Well, the article suggests that (Score:4, Insightful)
There are extremely tough glasses, eg as used on quality watches.
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Just to clarify, transparent aluminum oxide or alumina, a ceramic, is often confused by the news as "transparent aluminum metal". Alumina is one of the hardest materials next to diamond. The polycrystalline mineral form of aluminum oxide is called corundum while both sapphire and ruby are transparent single crystal forms with various impurities giving color. Sapphire single crystals [rubicon-es2.com] are grown commercially and sold as substrates for making gallium nitride LEDs, the blue ones, because a gallium nitride sub
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How would it "shatter"? I find it hard to think how it could cause much of an injury, more than if the screen was plastic. If he screen was facing in, unless it was pierced by something very sharp (which would do plenty of damage by itself), your flesh would cushion it and it and be unlikely to break. If facing out, the iPod should block any glass shards from going in.
Perhaps that's why they use soft p
What I'd like to see... (Score:5, Funny)
This is a HUGE issue for me. I'd like the iPod to have snap-in faceplates in various colors, and some patterns like flowers and camoflauge. White is just so... boring.
2) 3D interface
I think, with the color screens, we need to get rid of the boring list interface and do some sort of 3D spatial interface. Imagine flying through your playlist!!!
3) Integrated camera, and bluetooth headset
Get rid of the accident prone earbuds, and go with one of those cool bluetooth headsets that the business guys wear for their phones. And a camera, so I can upload pictures to all of my friends!!
4) Wireless connectivity, and IM integration
I'm thinking like a slide-out keyboard, so I can chat with my friends whenever I'm near a Wifi spot. That would rock!
These are just some of the ideas I think would make the iPod a much better product. I mean, it's a good entry into the MP3 player market, to be sure. But if Apple wants to be taken seriously, they need to start including some basic features. I don't want to pay that much money and then just be able to play MP3's.
Actually the faceplate idea is okay (Score:2)
If you could easily replace the transparant part of the iPod then all the scrath
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2DP [wikipedia.org]
The quality is good way above 8KHz. They are the best wireless headphones I have used ( my wired set are grado 60s )
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1) Bigger screen, better resolution. 15" MINIMUM and at least 1200xwhatever. Widescreen preferred.
2) Built in speakers
3) I like the keyboard idea. Let's have a track pad too
4) DVD burner
5) More USB and Firewire ports, gigabit ethernet and a digital video connector
6) How about a decent processor? Core maybe? Make it dual while you're at it.
7) Magsafe connector.
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Re:Killer feature that would never happen (offical (Score:2)
Playlist management? (Score:2, Interesting)
On-The-Go-Lists (Score:2, Informative)
All you need to do is hold down the center button on the song until it blinks to remove that song from the playlist.
iNewton (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, and if they could put a spot on the back for credit cards and money, I could leave my wallet at home too!
Palm should wake the hell up (Score:2)
Someone needs to release a PDA in the same thinness factor as the nano, and they need to do it stat.
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Yeah, because normally muggers are so picky. "No, not the ipod and cell phone, just your wallet. Thanks. And can you take out that other stuff from your backpack too?"
I haven't read the article ... (Score:2)
Video iPods exist. Apple is doing its downloadable "DVD" video thing with Disney. What are the odds of a video iPod with SD 720 x 540/576 TV output turning up in the next generation or two?
I mean, it's the perfect match. Apple want content, and know that people want to use that content anywhere - but studios want content locked to a device. Well, if you can't have portable content, how 'bout a portable device?
An iPod-sized pocket port
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FM Transmitter would be nice (Score:3, Interesting)
And speaking of FM, why hasnt anyone made one with a AM receiver?
What it will be (Score:3, Interesting)
The device will work in multiple modes. As an iPod you hold it vertically. The entire screen shows the list of artists, menus and so forth. Touch anywhere on the screen and a translucent image of a click wheel appears. The location of the wheel varies a bit according to unit orientation and touch position. You use it as usual. Drag around the circle to scroll, tap or press to click in the five positions. The unit senses strength of touch by pressure on the case and/or variation in area of contact. Bluetooth allows loading stuff on the device albeit slowly, and using BT headphones.
The unit also works as a video player. The click wheel appears on top of the video as you touch. BT allows slow file transfers. Of course the port is high speed.
The unit also works as a learning remote control. A set of remote buttons appears on touch. It is an IR remote for CE devices, and a Bluetooth remote for your Mac. Your Mac shows a second screen on the screen of the device. Your touch controls the cursor and you can use guestures, and type if necessary on an onscreen keyboard. Fully control your Mac through this, ala Apple Remote Desktop. Audio output from Mac transmits to device so you can hear it. Using a bluetooth headset you can both hear the other Mac and transmit your voice to it, to control ot via Apple Speech recognition.
The unit also is a GSM quad band phone. You open the unit and put in your SIM card. Phone controls appear on the touch screen. Use BT headset and voice control.
This is all speculation. But it is perfectly logical and CAN BE DONE NOW. Well worth $500. I don't know if it comes out next week but you can bet the farm it will come out.
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It needs ogg (Score:2)
Re:it needs a phone (Score:5, Insightful)
Eventually you'll see your iPhone, but that time will not be until Apple is the only force behind it.
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Re:it needs a phone (Score:4, Insightful)
No one knows whether the ROKR is buggy or not because when people heard "holds 100 songs", no one bought one to find out whether it was buggy.
Re:it needs a phone (Score:4, Interesting)
However, the ads specifically mention their WMA compatibility, so maybe Apple might be missing the boat in this market.
(and, of course, one of the phones is ATRAC compatible. Care to guess which manufacturer makes that one?)
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True, but I wouldn't put it past Motorola for screwing up themselves. I say this based on my own experience with Bluetooth and infra-red transfer, where you had to go and install extra software on Windows XP and even then it has issues. Then again it could be Windows issue.
For me Motorola is often almost there, but misses out on the detail.
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Maybe the temperature is too high in your glass blowing studio to operate electronics?
Re:it needs a phone (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple did? Multiple choice:
The first thing a person would want to do with such an iTunes-phone is download something from iTunes and use it as a ringtone. But you cannot do this with the ROKR. This is because:
a) Apple hates it when you buy songs off iTunes.
b) Motorola would rather you paid them $2.99 for the ringtones they already provide.
c) The technology to make this happen is just too hard and/or expensive.
Performing the song publicly (Score:2)
But more importantly: (d) The songs you buy from iTunes Music Store are licensed for private listening only, either inside a home or on headphones. If the phone plays a song when it rings while you are shopping, that's considered performing the song publicly, as far as I can tell from the definition of "publicly" in copyright law [bitlaw.com].
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So why do so many people use popular music as ringtones on their phones?
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You think it is that simple? Did you follow the whole Apple-ROKR debacle? It's true that Apple burned one of its bridges on that, but there are still many other options (internal devel, nokia, sony, etc). The fundamental flaw that really killed the ROKR before it was even developed: Cellular Carriers.
The cell carriers are the gatekeepers to the phone bussiness. Without their adop
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
People know what an MP3 is, and talking about OGG and AAC and Apple Lossless just confuses them. Confusion leads to aversion. Aversion leads to fewer sales for Apple. Hence, you're going to have to get by without your OGG supporting iPod.
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Re:Well (Score:5, Interesting)
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ALE vs. FLAC? (Score:2)
But is ALE such a big improvement over FLAC [sourceforge.net]?
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God knows I hate all the overhead of product development and I've snuck some enhancements into releases that PM never saw, but they still got QA'd and rolling a software update to the ~50 customers would have been a lot easier than the millions of iPod users.
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that's not Apple's way when it comes to design and features: if it's not worth making a big deal of it, why is it worth including?
seriously, why would anyone want to use OGG? (I may be wrong but isn't it significantly more CPU intensive than AAC and lesser or comparable quality?)
the only reason is basically FOSS geeks with philosophical reasons and, as per their fundamentalism, they should have the courage of their con
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There's nothing wrong with their using an iPod, but they shouldn't be using the poprietary OS. There are at least two Free alternatives, and using one of them would give them the features they want (including the 'feature' of not being able to play DRM'd music).
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admittedly, this issue used to be more pressing when cpus were slower at encoding audio - but at the same time the "voirbis heavy on cpu" argument is also shrinking in the face of mpeg4 video capable mobile pl
Are there any Vorbis/Theora ASICs? (Score:2)
A lot of these players don't have a beefy CPU and rely on a dedicated ASIC for MP3, AAC, and MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile video decoding. A faster CPU or a second ASIC for Vorbis and Theora would drive up the cost of goods significantly.
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Wait a minute. Both FLAC and Apple Lossless are lossless CODECs. The end result (the decoded output) is exactly the same. Why is Apple Lossless "good enough" compared to FLAC? They give you exactly the same result... I guess you only wanted to do some free Apple bashing here.
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There's much, much more to an audio format than just the accuracy of its output. Off the top of my head, there's also:
-Computational complexity of encoding and decoding
-Compression ratio
-Licensing/openness concerns
-Software/hardware support for the f
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Maybe not everyone knows what OGG is, but just about everyone has heard MP3s that have been re-encoded too many times, and most people DO understand the difference between lossless and lossy formats.
I don't buy from iTunes or any other online sites because I'd rather have the higher quality original and compress it myself onto my portable music players. If Apple, or anyone else for that matter, offered me the
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They may know the name, but they don't know what it is.
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No, you don't have to:
http://www.rockbox.org/ [rockbox.org]
Supports: iPod 4th gen (grayscale and color), 5th gen (Video), Nano and Mini 1st/2nd gen
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guess i should wait a while though for the port to get more polished (maybe i could get a cheaper 5th gen when the new ones come out? but iirc apple was always very good at not having many leftover predecessors in stores when the new gen comes out)
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
- ogg (Face it, it's the BetaMax of this decade. Cross encode to mp3 and get over it.)
- replacable battery (plastic latch => worse design. Battery packs are available for those who need it)
- FM radio (can be bought as an extention => extra sales to Apple + lower unit cost)
- WiFi (which can not replace a wired connection => extra cost for Apple)
- BlueTooth (headsets are not universally accepted yet => unknown by Joe Sixpack => no benefits for Apple)
- CF, SD card bay (ext. for camera available. oh, to transfer music? get real.)
A new one:
- IM integration (I am listening to music in my world => do not disturb)
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
You're falling into the trap of assuming that we are the average consumer group, when in reality, the average iPod consumer is the 14 year old kid whose parents bought him or her and iPod for a birthday present to keep the kid from bitching about how all of his friends have one, but they don't.
Do you think that a kid who believes 50 Cent to be the voice of his generation is going to have any idea about open formats and removable memory/battery benefits?
Just because a group happens to be VERY vocal about their desires, they are not necessarily the majority, or even the most desired demographic.
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I am trying to see the next generation iPod from Apple's point of view; trying to figure out what to expect in the future. In that equation I do disregard the desires of "us" and I even give a reason WHY theese features woun't happen.
I would like to see a survey clarifying your point of view regarding the average consumer group, I don't think you are right.
Dual headphones, wireless... (Score:2)
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Must... avoid.. making... comment...
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Yes, this is the same 50% of users who, after you finish reinstalling Windows, stare in blank uncomprehension when their email/music and copy of Word are missing, and you don't even bother to try explaining because why would they understand when the other 500 users
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Re:Well, You can make your ipod play ogg... (Score:2, Interesting)
I got a 30GB Video ipod as a present (5gen), while I was looking for an irivier, because I wanted ogg vorbis support. But by the end of it, I came across the Rockbox [rockbox.org] firmware, which is an opensource replacement for the apple firmware, and provides a lot of extra features like:
Support for lots of codecs, including AAC,mp3,Ogg,ALAC,FLAC
Gapless playback
Replaygain support
Extensions in the form of plugins (including games)
Fully Theamable
Ca
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Confusion leads to aversion. Aversion leads to fewer sales for Apple.
Fewer sales for Apple leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
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the X5/M5 has this mini joystick, if it is as unusable as the one on my w800i then i would want to avoid that too.
in all other aspects of course, the cowons blow the ipod away. if only they were not considerably more expensive than an ipod with the same capacity, at least where i live
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Then have it boot linux next year.
Given that there is iPod Linux [ipodlinux.org], then there is no need to wait. As for Ogg I am not sure that it is supported by iPod Linux, but then again with a little work is doable and there is no need to wait for an Aplle business case to add it.
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It's been done [ipodlinux.org] years ago.
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I get 8-12 hours of playback, depending on sound level, from a single AAA battery. Meaning the battery is interchangeable, and I can use rechargeables. Great for long road trips where I can't plug the device in... just bring a couple of
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Yeah, the name is really, really bizarre. Why the flying rhino they couldn't come up with at least SOME sort of a name is completely and utterly beyond me. However, with the product itself nothing really seems wrong.