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Apple releases iPod
The BrownFury writes "At an invitation only event Apple has released their new MP3 player called the iPod. iPod is the size of a deck of cards. 2.4" wide by 4" tall by .78" thick 6.5 ounces. 5 GB HDD, 10 hr battery life, charged via FireWire. Works as a firewire drive as well. Works in conjunctions with iTunes 2. Here are Live updates". No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
FireWire (400Mbps) data syncing _and_ recharging at the same time. That's cool.
I wonder if it's hackable for a bigger drive...
Plus, you can use it as a portable disk. No "content protection". Yay!
Apple is being distroyed by the rumors that are being created. When they announce that they are going to have a new product, everyone thinks it's going to blow their worlds. Rumors start flooding in about even the most outragous products ( I even heard a few "sources" mention teleportion) This is getting plain stupid.
Apple is a normal company. Why does the public constantly expect them do the impossible?
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
Less space then the Nomad yes, but also MUCH MUCH SMALLER. You ever try putting a Nomad in your pocket and go for a walk? The Nomad is only good as a psuedo stereo component, or perhaps in your car. Not to mention the horrible battery life!
//lame my ass.
Also, how many HOURS does it take to transfer your 6.4gb MP3 collection onto your Nomad? I know my USB player takes forever to even fill up its 64mb memory. Firewire let's you do it BLAZINGLY FAST.
This is a marvel of engineering, very useful and I give apple much credit for coming out with this device.
Also, did I mention automatic playlist/sing library synching with iTunes2? THIS is what portable music should be.
http://kered.org
Nomad: 5x5x1.5 at 14oz
iPod: 2.4x4x.78 at 6.5oz
I'll give up a gig for size and weight.
Not only is this a lackluster MP3 unit
Considering that it's got far more memory than your average 128MB MP3 portable, and that it's clearly smaller and more portable than a Nomad, I think this is a hasty judgement.
which by virtue of being firewire will be limited to Apple Mac owners
PCs have access to FireWire, as does Linux. The direct connection to iTunes is the only Mac-only feature that I can see; I should hope Apple will be smart enough to enable compatability with PCs, or if not, develop a Windows version of iTunes to do the same job.
but it has virtually no UI wizardry that might define it as an Apple product.
It has a six-line LCD display, backlit, a simple four-button interface, and a circular scroll wheel to navigate your songs (which can organize by CD, artist, or your own custom playlists). You call that "virtually no UI"?
Methinks some people's "first post" ambitions are getting in the way of a decent review of the features.
You mean other then the scroll pad, and the seriously small number of controls and options on it? (yes, cutting down on choice is a UI feature, and one that Apple is very good at)
Having it all go through iTunes is also a good UI choice (a no brainer for Apple of corse), you don't need to deal with another little lame MP3 manager (my most despised part of my Rio). Of corse once you have more then 5G of music you actually have to do work...
Still, not the product for me. I don't really need all that much music when I'm not already next to my laptop, or my car stereo...
oh yeah, and did i mention that it doubles as a portable firewire HARD DRIVE?
http://kered.org
$400!!!! for a freakin MP3 player!?!?!?
.2x1.8" 5 GB Toshiba FireWire bus-powered hard drive.
c ts/Hard%20Drives/FWFL.asp
No, $399.95 MSRP for a freakin'
http://www.smartdisk.com/Products/Storage%20Produ
Apple's version throws in the MP3 player for free.
Not such a bad deal looked at that way, yes?
How many computer makers let you into the case without turning screws? How many include an incredibly useful and easy-to-use external connection port like FireWire? How many include digital video editing? How many ship an optical mouse standard? How many include a full productivity suite? How many include a DVD-R/CD-RW drive as standard? How many have given up CRTs and moved on to LCDs, the displays of the future? One.
Apple is the innovator in the industry. If you can't see that, then you're blind. Everyone else has been playing catch-up since 1984.
Raise your hand if you have iTunes ...
...
...
...
Raise your hand if you have a FireWire port
Raise your hand if you have both
Raise your hand if you have $400 to spend on a cute Apple device
There is Apple's market. Pretty slim, eh? I don't see many sales in the future of iPod.
~LoudMusic
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
The Apple product has 83% of the storage space, 20.% of the volume, and transfers files 16500% faster (assuming 2.4 Mb/s USB spec and 50MB/s firewire, im unsure).
Just because Apple didn't choose to significantly increase its volume by adding a 802.11a antenna, just to add a *very* slow transmittal solution (compared to its firewire), means it's "lame?"
I don't have a religious bent for or against Apple; when intelligent people make these kinds of comments, it confuses me.
Since when is Apple concerned about market share? They do what capitalism was born to do. Cater to a small market, and do it the right way.
/did/ (and many do/will have OSX within the next year), this piece of gear was BORN for that market. All while keeping Apple gear at the front of the pack in terms of usability, transfer speed, and respectable battery life.
.. you'll understand why having a big market share essentially garauntees tha you you have to give up innovation. Heck, Intel shipped their latest chip with features /disabled/ .. so I, for one, am glad that apple is content to own just a small slice of the pie, because its the most /delicious/ slice.
I don't have an OSX box, and consequently, no firewire and iTunes, but if I
Apple has never been about selling the most number of units. Just look at the market leaders for cars, OSes, books, movies, CDs
And no, I dont own any Apple gear. I wish I could justify it tho; unfortunately, MS keeps underselling quality, thus keeping wk2 on the the corperate desktop, and *nix just happens to serve the 'net industry better than anyone else.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Last time I checked, they only sold hardware and software to the "tiny percentage" of Mac users, and yet they somehow manage to stay in business... unthinkable! We all know that market share is the only indicator of a company's success!
At the end of the year, look at who had a higher profit margin.... Dell, Gateway, or Apple.
Apple is making an MP3 player for the Mac users. It's an AMAZING product tied into the hardware they deliver (when will all Winderz boxes ship with firewire), OS X, and iTunes
If you have a Mac, this is a SWEEEEEEET thing. If you don;t have a Mac, guess what, Aplle does not care.
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001
Keep in mind it's $400 right now becuase the Apple Fanatics will have to have one. They'll pay anything for the latest cool toy from Apple.
In 6 months, hopefully the rest of us will be buying the 20GB version for $200.
Raise your hand if you have iTunes
Raise your hand if you have a FireWire port
Raise your hand if you have both
Raise your hand if you have $400 to spend on a cute Apple device
What, is there a large market for mp3 players with people who don't own computers?
Apple knows that their biggest market is existing Apple customers. If Apple sells one of these for every 5 iBooks they sell, they'll be sitting pretty.
Why should Apple fund a software team to port iTunes to Windows, just so they get a few $400 slim margin sales of an mp3 player?
Better to let the Windows users wish they had an iPod, and go out and buy an iBook to get it.
Apple's finally learning to bring the market to them, instead of chasing it all over the map.
How about using it as a storage device for your firewire camcorder or digital camera (if there are firewiere still cameras).
5GB is about 22 minutes of DV video. It's easier just to pop in another 15GB DV tape.
Since firewire devices are peerless, it shouldn't be much of a problem to connect the devices.
They're peerless when they provide a unique service on the bus. FireWire video cams are DV publishers/consumers. The HD claims to be a mass storage device. The camera would need UI for selecting a mass storage device other than the one built in (the DV tape).
For example, hook 3 DV cammeras together with FireWire. Hit play on one, record on the other two, and you should get two perfect digital copies. Hit play on two of them, record on the other, and unless the recording camera provides a UI for selecting from multiple DV streams, it's probably random which one you'll get.
iPod and iTunes are for legal or rightholder-authorized copying only. Don't steal music.
Apple seems to have the right theory on "content protection"
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
And why does everything have to be wireless? I don't understand this.
1.) plug firewire cable into the back of your computer
2.) bring other end of cable on to desktop
3.) plug in MP3 player when needed
I don't get how this makes life easier. By adding a wireless recieving unit in the thing, it would be bigger, weigh more, and cost more. Probably be more complicated, slower, and use more batteries, too. Or to cut costs you could put an IrDA port in it, although I think less people own an IrDA port for their desktop than firewire, and it would be sitting there transfering data wirelessly so long, you might as well have taken the 4 seconds to plug it in. Why is this a good idea?
I guess i'm just not getting it. Mabey i'm too practical from a monatary standpoint, but i wouldn't spend $400 on a wireless setup for my apartment when i can run $6 worth of cat 5 myself anywhere it wants to go in the apartment. Wireless is for cell phones and possibly for laptops at how much it costs right now, and i can't even afford it at that. Beyond that its just extra gadgets.
~z
sig?
Apple is in the rich person's market now. Create expensive, beautiful, top of the line products. Market them to rich people as part of a "lifestyle" in elegant stores. Have extremely high profit margins.
The iPod is an integral part of Apple's "digital lifestyle" idea, and fits perfectly into their Apple stores. Apple may not be brilliant, but they are not Commodore. Commodore had no plan. Apple has a plan - it just might be the wrong plan.
Ok, listen the 1.8" drive apple is using in the damn iPod is $400 by itself (to purchase it in a firewire enclosure). The sucker has 32 megs of ram to load music then spin down the drive (which is something I was waiting for someone to start putting in their MP3 players).
It uses Firewire to transfer files and recharge. It can be used as a portable hard drive.
Apple is trying to add value to their current product base. Wow, all of a sudden all those machines apple just sold in the last 2 years are now able to interface with currently the coolest MP3 player ever. That is very significant for an "average joe user" trust me. So you don't like it, or don't want to spend money on it, big freaking deal, but I doubt Apple is going to lose big on this, and in a few months apple with probably announce a cheaper one, and put a 20 gig model in the $400 ones place. If the drives get there.
This is by far the coolest MP3 player out there. And yes, it is upgradable, so people can get Ogg working on it. And It is sturdy, if you have seen how much effort it takes to break one of the first ibooks, and usualy by break, it was a screen that broke, apple knows how to consumer harden their stuff. This thing will rock.
This thing must get pretty warm after an hour of use. I've had a couple of laptop HD drives get pretty damn hot on me. I don't see any vents on this toy. For $400 I'de get cheesed off if it just decided to stop working.
Sure, it's easy to learn the Mac. I did when I was 5. But I need to be more productive now, and the Mac interface makes it too hard.
Speaking particularly of iTunes, how do I script it into apache? How do I use it from the command line? How do I run it on the machine hooked into my stereo from my desktop with the display that is in the other room? This is trivial and elegant in my UNIX environment.
The Macintosh way (much like the Windows way) is to have applications that do everything you want to do. All your word-processing needs in Word. All your web-browsing needs in Internet Explorer. All your audio needs in iTunes.The problem with this way is that in the end it is too restrictive. If all you have is internet explorer, what if you want to do an ``internet-explorer -dump http://go-gnome.com | sh'' Or maybe you want to use internet explorer to recursively download a site for mirroring or archival?
Ahhh... you say... but with OS X or Cygwin I can use bash and lynx! True, true. But at the point you're using lynx and the bourne shell and scripts pulling together cdparanoia, lame, and cdrecord, you're not doing things the Mac or Windows way, you're doing things the UNIX way.
I do computer architecture as my job. It would be impossible for us to use Mac or Windows machines. Some of the things would work -- the assembler would be fine to do in Windows (and there's one that works in Windows) and the simulator would work ... but there are times when we redirect the trace output of one simulator into another to verify things... piping *that* output into a scrpit that gathers statistics and such. You don't just open up the ``save trace as...'' dialog box when you are about to spit out a 100-gig trace file, you need the flexability of being able to stream it into another application. And you don't want to have to open dialog boxes for 80 different possible configurations and sit there and wait for them to run when you can script together doing all the configurations on all the test files spreading across several machines over the weekend.
The UNIX way is about flexible tools. Tools that work well together. Tools that are elegant and flexable. Tools that work well regardless of where you are, where you're coming from, or where you're going. This provides power for the UNIX user that surpasses that which someone using GUI tools on Windows or a Mac can ever know.
Sure, it takes longer to learn. Most of the best things do. The sharper the learning curve, the bigger the payoff. That's why most UNIX gurus use emacs or vi... they're not easy to learn, but they are powerful.
A UNIX guru can't take working with inferior tools. She can't stand sitting there doing a repetative task when she should be scripting it. She understands that her job is to be the master, and the computer is the tool to do the repetative job.
-- Erich
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