The Guts Of An iPod

The Infamous Grimace writes: "The folks at this Japanese web site have provided pics of the inside of an iPod. A quick breakdown of it in English is here. The FireWire contoller appears to be TIs TSB43AA82, the chip is PortalPlayers PP5002B w/ an ARM7TDMI-based core. Apparently it has encoding abilities as well. The hard-drive is Toshiba's MK5002MAL."

Comments

It's great to have sites like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I wasn't about to waste my money by tearing my iPod apart.

Can it run Linux? Can you imagine *smack*smack*smack*

Sorry.

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[mcspock]

Linux is available for the arm7tdmi. This is different from the portal player processer, since portal player (iirc) has a dual core cpu. The second core lets them do mp3 encoding with, presumably, the standard ARM encoding library.

The funny part about "can it run linux" here is that the line is suddenly blurred. This device is $400, has a fast processor, 5gb hard drive, and 32mb of ram - much nicer features than your standard PDA. Additionally, it would be (relatively) straight forward to enable all the standard device features (read: mp3 playback) under linux.

Yep, an iPod will totally outclass any windows CE devices we are likely to see in the next few years.

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[Unknown Bovine Group]

The really inspiring thing about this site is that it's created by Japanese and doesn't contain any bukkake.

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[Jeffrey Baker]

I don't really want to replace the entire operating system in my iPod, but I *would* like to get Ogg Vorbis playback support. Does anyone know how this thing boots; from a ROM or from the hard disk or both?

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[Anonymous Coward]

This would have been a more convincing troll if you had done an image search of google.

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's so hard to type in those a href's huh.

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[AzrealAO]

You do know that this is an 80-133 Mhz Arm7 (80-110 for .18 micron, 100-133 for .13 micron) chip, and all current PocketPC (PocketPC2002) devices are based on a 206Mhz StrongArm with 32MB or 64MB of RAM, right? The Intel product info says that 206Mhz StrongArm's are software compatible with Arm v4 processors (which the Arm7 is)

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[DrSbaitso]

Yep, an iPod will totally outclass any windows CE devices we are likely to see in the next few years.

You're right... I am really sick of displays I can read on handhelds. Why have 32 bit color and 400x200 resolution (or whatever it really is) when you can have 1bit color and half that screen size? Also, who needs a pen to input stuff when you can enter letters by pressing the up and down arrows on your iPod!

*sarcasm off* This thing is cool but let's not get TOO ridiculous. Hehe.

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[mcspock]

Yeah, i'm aware that the arm7 line are slower clock speeds than the strongarm processors being used in CE devices. We've done work on both at my company. The difference is pretty minimal though, unless you are trying to do video most users wouldn't be able to tell.

The big thing about the iPod is that it's 32MB of ram _and_ a 5GB hard drive. PocketPC devices have large amounts of RAM but use flash for static storage, which is expensive (on a per MB scale) and requires a lot of board space. To get a hard drive into a pocket PC, you have to do something like the compaq piggyback system and use a IBM microdrive. kinda clunky.

It's not quite as ideal as i make it out to be - the battery life estimates on the iPod are 10 hours assuming you are playing 160kbps MP3 and you are using the disk in a predictable way - it prebuffers 32mb of data. If you used a real operating system on that thing, it would want to access the drive a lot more, and your battery life would sink significantly.

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[mcspock]

Hahaha, you have a definite point there. The iPod hardware was designed with a totally different user and UI in mind than the standard CE device, you are indeed correct. On that note though, considering the price difference between CE devices (an ipaq is $500 still) and the iPod ($400), it seems like you could get a pretty decent color touch screen. :)

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[AzrealAO]

Ok, but how is that totally outclassing any windows CE devices we are likely to see in the next few years? About half of the newer PocketPC Devices can use IBM Microdrives. Several of the current or near future PocketPC 2002 devices can use PCMCIA Haddrives (Like the 5GB Tochiba drive), through sleeves/sleds, and one of them has a PCMCIA Socket integrated into the device.

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[mcspock]

Yeah, the ipaq has been able to use a microdrive through a sleeve for a while too. The difference is that you have to go out and spend $300 on the microdrive before you can use it, and you only get 1GB. With the iPod, it comes with the 5gb drive.

As was made by another poster, i think the only downside to the iPod is the UI, with a color touch screen you would have a CE class device with a built in 5gb drive, and you could almost certainly match the price point.

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[AzrealAO]

Toshiba makes a 5GB PCMCIA Drive. The Compaq iPAQ can use this drive in the PCMCIA Sleeve or Dual PCMCIA Sleeve (which includes an additional battery to offset the load from the drive). The iPod is certainly cheaper, and you're getting what you pay for, an MP3 Player. It does not, however, totally outclass anything Windows CE will see for years, which is what you said in your initial post.

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[Skuld-Chan]

That would be 240x320...

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[viking099]

But you can buy a 1 or 2 year old Cassiopeia for under $250, and still get the 320x200 16bit color, mp3 playback, network support, etc, etc.
Just have to be willing to buy it all new, ya know?

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[nougatmachine]

All right, it was a joke, but I just could not resist pointing out that this is actually one of the selling points of the iPod. They didn't try to make it a game boy, it just does all it needs to, which is display text and provide a backlight if it might be dark.

To rephrase, why can we have a device with hours and hours of battery life when we can waste computational power by displaying a cool animation of musical notes coming out of a boom box, that will not help the sound quality in any way? See Steve, bloatware can be fun!

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[pagercam]

Speaking of the Gameboy this could be a terrific Gamebody emulator. Surely you could store every gameboy game ever made in 5GB, and have backlighting which the True GB always lacked. If they upgraded to a colour screen and offered low cost downloads, this could be the ultimate portable gaming machine of all time, the screen is a little small, but you could also emulate the Palm on a device like this. People have been waiting ages to get a Apple PDA, probably not the best time to introduce another consumer device, but all that storage to sync home and work machines plus PDA functions like calendar and address/phonebook would be a killer product.

Re:It's great to have sites like this

[Anonymous Coward]

I will never understand how this gets marked as 'redundant' when i was the first person to post it, and was discussing an original usage for the device.

Whoever moderated this redundant forgot to read the moderation guidelines.

Reverse Engineering?

[Calle Ballz]

I don't know how it is in Japan, but in Korea there are people who will pay up to 10x what an electronic item is worth just to study the design and create knockoffs. Many US Army soldiers are bribed to buy electronics from the PX and sell them to the koreans who do this. I am wondering if this is something similar...

Re:Reverse Engineering?

[Anonymous DWord]

IANAK, so I don't understand why they'd do that. Haven't they heard of Ebay? Are there gov't restrictions on importing stuff?

Re:Reverse Engineering?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, for the Army, because it is US territory... the soldiers there can buy any electronic item found at your local walmart for about the same price that you'd get it here. In fact, because there are no sales taxes applied to sales on Army installations, they get it much cheaper.

Say a Korean company would like to produce a knock off of the new video camera. They'd have a hard time legitimately getting ahold of one, so they find PVT Whoever to go to the PX and buy one, then they buy it off of him. No paperwork, only cash exchange. PVT Whoever just made himself a pocket full of chump change, while the Korean company now has a product with absolutely no trace to how they obtained it to reverse engineer it.

I have a friend who is stationed in Korea, and she found what we both thought was a great deal: a Geforce3 video card for $90. He bought one and tried it and it ALMOST outperformed a Trident 1 MB video card found in older 486's. This was obviously a poor knock off of the Geforce 3 chip.

Re:Reverse Engineering?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that what VIA does?

Re:Reverse Engineering?

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAK lol!

Re:Reverse Engineering?

[superdan2k]

Here's the deal. A Sony TV that would cost you $200 in the PX would be several hundred dollars more in Korea, due to trade tarriffs, and local protectionism. (Buy the local stuff, not Japanese.) It wasn't just for the purpose of knocking stuff off, either. If you had to pay $1000 on your local economy for something that the troops protecting your country could buy for $200, what would you do? Right.

As a someone who was stationed in Korea in the early 90's, I can vouch for this shit happening all the time. While I was there, they actually kept track of who bought what, and you had to be able to account for what you bought when you left the country, or if they started getting suspicious. You buy 2 TVs in a month, and you're busted, obviously.

Part of it is so that the stuff being brought in by the PX is used for the people the PX is for, and part of it is to avoid destablizing the local economy...

Big Uncle Sam is watching you.

Re:Reverse Engineering?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, 'cause we all know that those little slant-eyed bastards are living in caves and banging rocks together trying to make fire, while all the electronics in the entire world are built in the USA!

You fuckin' military pricks are all alike... people from other countries are only there to be shot at or raped.

Re:Reverse Engineering?

[Anonymous Coward]

Usual story, americans pay less, and everyone outside usa pays more....

Free trade my ass!!!!, its only so usa makes more profits.

Re:Reverse Engineering?

[Anonymous Coward]

While this type of product study happens with most companies in most countries, it is laughable to think the firms here in South Korea need to rely on the US Army for such price reductions....they don't let inflated retail prices stand in their way.

The local consumer might take advantage, but the firms have no need.

I'm right in the middle of it...I know.

Re:Reverse Engineering?

[Anonymous Coward]

While consumers might rely on the lax morals of the US Army, Korean firms have no need to worry about inflated retail prices. They buy them or bring them in....they don't have time to worry about the cost.

Also, keep in mind that this sort of 'product study' is common in most countries. Take Dell for example...what little R & D they actually do peaks every time Apple releases a new product.

Re:Reverse Engineering?

[Hadlock]

worked at comp usa, had some asians walk in and order 3 visor deuluxes to study 'processor design' of somthing.... :-\

that was about a year back, of course.

*sigh*

[jpellino]

this is why i got out of biology - all the guts!

oh, the humanity!

lots of wires and junk

[Ledge]

All this to replace my good ole' 8-track? Bah. It doesn't even say Hi-Fi anywhere on it. (Hi-Fi is a technical term for High Fidelity.)

Re:lots of wires and junk

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, your 8 track will never cheat on you.

Re:lots of wires and junk

[Rand Race]

Yea, but your 8-Track probably doesn't say Solid State on it anywhere like my reel to reel does.

Re:lots of wires and junk

[fohat]

It doesn't even say Hi-Fi anywhere on it. (Hi-Fi is a technical term for High Fidelity.)

Probably because mp3 is ~ 1/12th the quality; it really should say Lo-Fi ;)

-fohat

Re:lots of wires and junk

[vrmlknight]

Actually if you look on the apple website for it it does say that the head phones are High Fidelity speakers founr here http://www.apple.com/ipod/

Re:lots of wires and junk

[Mononoke]

Yea, but your 8-Track probably doesn't say Solid State on it anywhere like my reel to reel does.

And I'll bet your portable radio doesn't tell you how many transistors are used in it, either.

Re:lots of wires and junk

[Anonymous Coward]

1/12th the size, dick splash. What the hell does 1/12th the quality mean? "This recording sucks! I would say it's only about 1/12th as good as the original!"

Re:lots of wires and junk

[Anonymous Coward]

My television has television written on it. Same with my broom.

Re:lots of wires and junk

[Anonymous Coward]

Your broom has 'television' written on it? Weird.

Re:lots of wires and junk

[Anonymous Coward]

what, your radio has transistors in it? Mine doesn't even have those and it makes the house hotter than all hell after it gets warmed up. You know you are l33t when you have a stareo made from only componants that have tubes in them instead of transistors.

Re:lots of wires and junk

[Anonymous Coward]

solid state? I still use a hand crack to spin records.

Re:Yeah but. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

When digital music is outlawed, only outlaws will have digital music!

Re:PortalPlayer

[SaturnTim]

Yea, because people are FORCED to upgrade everytime a patch is allowed.

And I'm sure apple will be very sad if you crush the mp3 player that YOU PAYED FOR.

--T

Y100 piece

[sulli]

It's a bit larger than a US nickel, smaller than a quarter - and worth about 82 cents.

Re:PortalPlayer

[Reckless Visionary]

Ok, but don't blame it on insecurity. ;-)

Re:PortalPlayer

[O2n]

[...]I will smash it into tiny little pieces and send it back by U.S. Mail

Err... not *too* tiny, I hope. I mean, keep clear from sending dust...

that's a hundred-yen coin

[jpellino]

japanese, not chinese - it's the coin that all those little SLR camera battery screw-caps were made to fit. 2.26 cm diameter

Re:PortalPlayer

[sulli]

My concern was mostly about the auto-upgrades that Microsoft et al. sometimes force in Media Player. I actually don't think that Apple will actually be stupid enough to reduce the functionality of existing iPods in the market, but they might have the ability to do so via the sync function.

this is why....

[Anonymous Coward]

....they make us take biology and disect frogs in highschool. So we can learn how to disect more important things. Wonder if they will ever make the squirmish (sp?) people disect Ipods while everyone else disects frogs.

As an Apple fan

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd much rather see what the insides of Steve Jobs look like.

Re:As an Apple fan

[Pope]

He drinks 8 bottles of water a day, so I assume his insides are pretty clean.

iPod Copying Limitations

[HalimCMe]

The iPod copying limitations are not really restrictions, but rather just hiding the actual MP3 files. The MP3's can be accessed thru the command line in OS X or thru a number of graphical third party utilities, a process outlined in this Mac Observer article.

Some more interesting (?) discussion about the iPod's internals and copy protection is over at a similar article on MacSlash.

I'm getting an iPod myself, but not till January when hopefully they'll drop in price a bit when Apple announces their next line of products.

Re:iPod Copying Limitations

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Linux?

Re:iPod Copying Limitations

[Anonymous Coward]

shut up you.
this is not about linux.
nothing prefixed with a little "i" runs on linux.
Steve said so.

Re:iPod Copying Limitations

[stripes]

The iPod copying limitations are not really restrictions, but rather just hiding the actual MP3 files.

Just in case anyone is too lazy to follow the links...the hidden files are unhidable by using ls in the terminal window, or by setting the "show hidden files in finder" thing in TinkerTool.

My theory is they did it just so iTunes' sync function can't accidentally delete user files just because they end in ".mp3".

Re:iPod Copying Limitations

[stripes]

What about Linux?

One would assume that if you can write a HFS+ filesystem onto a FireWire hard disk that you can get your music into the iPod no matter what OS you are using.

At least I assume it is an HFS+ filesystem, it could be FAT32, I mean it is a 3rd party OS in the iPod, the big limit is it will have to be something that both OS9 and OSX support writing, and a "little" OS can support reading.

Re:iPod Copying Limitations

[HalimCMe]

I was also assuming it was HFS+. The only thing that would stop it from working on Linux is lack of Firewire disk drivers and HFS+ support. Last I checked, Firewire support was still in early development and not considered stable in Linux, and HFS+ was also getting close to working, but still had the tendancy to trash filesystems. There may have been progress though, it has been months since I've looked into these things.

Re:iPod Copying Limitations

[enqueue]

nothing prefixed with a little "i" runs on linux.

But Linux runs on iSeries. :-)

Re:iPod Copying Limitations

[FyreFiend]

if you can write a HFS+ filesystem

There's the problem. AFAIK, only MacOS can handle HFS+. Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD (probably others) can handle the old HFS filesystem but not HFS+.

Now if iPod gets popular that might change. I'd love to be able to read my HFS+ drives under Linux

Re:iPod Copying Limitations

[stripes]

Firewire support was still in early development and not considered stable in Linux, and HFS+ was also getting close to working, but still had the tendancy to trash filesystems.

Well, the good news is if you use it to "sync" music like Apple does trashing the filesystem isn't a big deal since all the data is still on the Linux box. Flakey FireWire could be a bigger deal though since that may make the system lock up (depending on how it flakes). Since I have a OSX box, Linux, and FreeBSD, I figure I'm covered on iPod use :-)

I still havn't decided if I want one. I did look at the demo unit the Tyson's VA Apple store has, and it was cool. I just don't know if I'm away from my normal sources of music enough to want to bother with this.

P.S. the headphones they include are pretty nice. Not as nice as the Etymotic Research ones, but a lot better then what most CD players include! They are also removable so one could use quality headphines, or try to drive a line-in if you want.

Re:iPod Copying Limitations

[HalimCMe]

I've got an old G4 400 tower and a TiBook 500 both with OS X, so I'm covered too. I used to run NetBSD on an old Centris system till OS X 10.0 came out, and I've run LinuxPPC in the past.

Like I said in my original post, its tempting to get one now cuz they're neat, but I'm most likely waiting until at least January, in hopes of a price decrease. My college's digital media lab ordered one to play around with, so I'll have to see how I like it.

I was expecting to remove the headphones and use a cassette adaptor for on-the-road listening. It would be useless to me without that ability. I use my portable CD player's tape adaptor with my TiBook in the car sometimes... Makes a nice 48GB older cousin for an iPod ;) Definately rather big for an MP3 player though. I'm on the road a lot (several hours per day, so it would beat the mindless RIAA-slave radio stations and burning CD-RW's every other day for my CD player).

First Airport, now this...

[2nd Post!]

I'm *glad* Apple doesn't restrict itself to only in-house designs. They *can* and *do* use products designed elsewhere if it can offer them a competitive advantage...

Lucent 802.11b cards, AMD based base stations, and not Portal designed mp3 player and UI by Pixo.

Now if they can only work together with AMD and NVIDIA to introduce a new low cost entry level Mac ($500 range) and use DAISY type runtime optimzation and recompilation in the OS to make it hardware agnostic...

Re:First Airport, now this...

[mblase]

I'm *glad* Apple doesn't restrict itself to only in-house designs.

True, but it's a little weird to see that the OS for this device isn't actually Apple's, but a third party's. Seems like the only thing Apple really contributed to it was the design and, of course, the iTunes 2 integration.

But hey, it looks like a Mac product and works like a Mac product. Who really cares who actually designed the guts?

Now if only they'd open-source the OS so that we could build our own....

Re:First Airport, now this...

[The Finn]

According to my anonymous source at PortalPlayer, it's based on Lineo's RXTC microkernel. Of course, the ``application'' side has been hacked on quite a bit and has had significant additions to the database and filesystem added, but it's still RXTC based.

Re:First Airport, now this...

[mcspock]

You'd be surprised at how few decent MP3 players are made in house. Outsourcing this kind of thing is actually pretty common now, since companies that have the money to manufacture dont have the interest in dirtying their hands with software guys to make the player. Also, portal player has a custom chip, that's no small achievement.

Besides design and desktop integration, Apple has a lot of cash. They have the ability to buy in bulk, like purchasing 50,000 toshiba hard drives all at once, which drives the cost down significantly. Other MP3 device manufacturers have to buy smaller quantities, and end up paying higher prices as a result. Lucky for you, these costs get factored into the final price. The fact that the iPod costs $400 is really amazing - it means the toshiba hard drives (which street for $400 themselves) probably cost apple $100 or less.

In terms of open-source on embedded devices, that's a tricky subject. Do you allow people to write plug ins? Do you have kernel/user mode seperation even? Most of these devices (except for rio/dell receiver and rio car) dont have any sort of userland protection on them, so you can do things like erase the flash parts from any executable code. So it introduces the subject of security, how do you stop a virus, do you have to implement certificates or keys on the device, etc. very messy subject.

Re:First Airport, now this...

[Anonymous Coward]

... hardware agnostic ...

From Webster's
agnostic: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable;

I hate it when people use the terms "hardware agnostic" or "platform agnostic" or "OS agnostic". It implies that a product should have doubts that certain hardware/platforms/OS exist. Bleah.

And yes, I know what is implied when the term is used in this case, but it is still as annoying as those flashing banner ads.

"Our product is platform agnostic. It sits there like a block of wood until the sophisticated AI can prove or disprove the existance of the OS you're trying to connect to."

Re:First Airport, now this...

[greygent]

Erm, I have an NVidia video card in my Mac already, thanks.

They don't need to team with AMD, their PPC platform is nice enough now. I went to the Mac world to ESCAPE the x86 crapform (not to mention a few other crap things (Hi MS)

Re:First Airport, now this...

[mrtrumbe]

agnostic \Ag*nos"tic\, a. [Gr. 'a priv. + ? knowing, ? to know.] Professing ignorance; involving no dogmatic; pertaining to or involving agnosticism. -- Ag*nos"tic*al*ly, adv.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

agnostic adj : uncertain of all claims to knowledge [syn: agnostical] [ant: gnostic] n : a person who doubts truth of religion [syn: doubter]

Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University

'Agnostic' is completely acceptable in this context--though it doesn't follow the ORIGINAL definition of the word, the definition has become more general over time. This happens with many words in the English laguage. As time goes by, words are used to describe things in new settings and contexts. In short, agnostic no longer applies only to one denying the existance of a higher power.

"Professing ignorance". If a piece of software were ignorant of the platform or hardware it ran on. It would be agnostic.

Re:First Airport, now this...

[Spruitje]

Now if they can only work together with AMD and NVIDIA to introduce a new low cost entry level Mac ($500 range) and use DAISY type runtime optimzation and recompilation in the OS to make it hardware agnostic...


Or use instead of an expensive AMD a cheaper G3 processor.
The problem is, that most G3 processors are cheaper than those from AMD and use 10 to 20 times less power.
One of the advantages of the PPC family that it uses less power for more computing power.
The PPC8500 will use something like 15 watts peak on 1,6 Ghz and will be two times faster than the P4 running at 2 Ghz..
So, with 60 watts you get 8 times the computing power of a P4 at 2 Ghz..
O yeah, you can get a G4 with Nvidea Geforce 3.
No problem at all.

Re:First Airport, now this...

[stripes]

UI by Pixo

The OS is Pixo's, we don't know if the UI is Pixo's or Apple's.

Re:First Airport, now this...

[t]

it's a little weird to see that the OS for this device isn't actually Apple's

Why is this weird? I thought it was quite common knowledge that apple doesn't/didn't have the know-how to do operating systems. Hence the purchase of next, people who did.

t.

Re:First Airport, now this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Newton.

Re:First Airport, now this...

[kaimiike1970]

That was mean. Anymore talk like that and you might make Steve cry.

Re:First Airport, now this...

[Lars T.]

Steve was the founder of Next. Yeah, he's gonna be be so sad when he reads your drivel.

Re:First Airport, now this...

[Lars T.]

It's from Apple. Read this Interview with Steve Jobs and the "attachment" (linked from the article) on Fortune.

Re:First Airport, now this...

[stripes]

I didn't see anything that mentioned Pixo at all, or who did the UI (or even OS) in there.

Re:First Airport, now this...

[Lars T.]

Odd, it was either in another interview, or they edited it. Anyway, Jobs talked about "Apple did what Apple does best, the user interface".

Re:First Airport, now this...

[stripes]

Anyway, Jobs talked about "Apple did what Apple does best, the user interface".

Well I kind of assumed Apple at least designed the UI, and probbably coded it up, but I'm not sure Jobs saying that would be proof since he may well be refering to things Apple payed others to do as "Apple".

Of corse before someone said Pixo did the OS I had assumed Apple had done that as well since there isn't that much to an embeded OS. Apparently someone decided that on a eight month timeframe buying an OS was a good idea (and it probbably was). I would have tryed Cygness' little embeded OS, but that's just me.

D'ohhh!

[BoarderPhreak]

No warranty for you! :-O

Re:D'ohhh!

[jayhawk88]

Not that screwing up electronics by taking them apart keeps people from trying to get warranty service mind you. I've had customers tell me that their computer "just fell apart".

Re:Dimensions?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Why are you interested in the dimensions of Chinese currency? The Japanese 100 Yen coin has a diameter of 22.6 mm.

Re:Dimensions?

[czardonic]

Anybody know the dimensions of chinese currency?

That's Japanese currency, genius.

Apple IPod page

[Kozz]

Apple's IPod Page for those unfamiliar. And here is the public specs and features page.

Karma-whoring since 1999.

Re:Apple IPod page

[Unknown Bovine Group]

CmdrTaco is a dick, (+5, Informative) [slashdot.org]

The truly hilarious thing about your sig is that it is dynamic, so the post you're referring to now has a self-referencing sig.

In order to understand recursive sigs, you must first understand recursive sigs. ;)

Re:Apple IPod page

[Anonymous Coward]

And the unofficial iPod comparison page....

See for yourself how it stacks up against three other HD based MP3 players for Mac owners.

http://iPod.KenTidwell.com

Yeah but...

[arfo]

What does this mean for Joe Sixpack?

Re:PortalPlayer

[mcspock]

By auto-upgrade i assume you are referring to the dialog box that says "There is a new version of media player available. Would you like to upgrade?" and has a "yes" and a "no" button.

I get that once a week or so and hit "no", just because i'm usually watching...a video, and can't be bothered to upgrade software.

iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[Olentangy]

I followed the link to Toshiba site. They will sell me the 5 GB little hard drive for $399 retail. Apple will sell me a complete iPod for $399.

If anyone wants the Toshiba drive, they should buy an iPod and rip it apart. This gives them the drive, PLUS you get a battery, various ICs, an LCD display, and some decent earbuds :-)

Guess Apple's price for the iPod isn't really a rip off.

-- Olentangy

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[mcspock]

Yeah, the trick about drives is that drive manufacturers are holding the prices high, unless you place bulk orders and embed the drives in some product. IBM has the same system going on with the microdrive, you could make an MP3 player with a 1GB microdrive for less than it costs to buy a 1GB microdrive on the street.

The iPod components probably aren't worth much without the hard drive :)

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, maybe the 'street' price of the drives are so high because Apple bought almost entire production run, so supply is very short. (someone else guessed that Apple was paying $100 a drive)

Same goes for 'pricewatch' and Intel/AMD -- it might be what you pay, but it has nothing to do with what Dell and Compaq's prices look like.

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[O]

Um, dude, look on pricewatch at the prices for 2.5" IDE drives. Like $150 for a 30gb.

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[igrek]

...minus warranty

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[MinusOne]

> Um, dude, look on pricewatch at the prices for 2.5" IDE drives. Like $150 for a 30gb.

Yeah, too bad this is a 1.8" drive - much smaller. 5GB is currently the highest capacity Toshiba makes.

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[tulmad]

Umm, dude, look on the Toshiba page and realize that this is a 1.8" drive. Thank you, have a nice day.

Tim

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, dude, how about 1.8" drives like the one in the iPod?

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[t]

Oh yes, lets say it enough times until it becomes fact.

I heard apple is paying $100 per drive. It must be true, I heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy on /. who heard it from his nephew who heard it from his classmate who heard it from his little brothers baby sitter who heard it from her hair dresser who heard it from a woman whose husband works at apple.

Thank you for the useless and factless speculation.

t.

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a reply, but I looked at your posting history and decided that you are just a retard.

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[crayz]

Anyone with a = 4 digit UID is OK in my book...

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[Anonymous Coward]

stupid slashdot stripped my triangle bracket.

=

how about that?

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[BJH]

Yeah, just 'cause you sold out and got an ID before those of us who held out for the old system....

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[King Babar]

I followed the link to Toshiba site. They will sell me the 5 GB little hard drive for $399 retail. Apple will sell me a complete iPod for $399.

[snip]

Guess Apple's price for the iPod isn't really a rip off.

Must...control...fist...of death.

Oh, certainly; every OEM in the world buys these drives by going to the Toshiba website and putting in an order for 10,000 of them @ $399 each...

Use your heads, people. I have seen so many smug comments about how Apple is not making any money on this produt, with the premise being that the drive alone costs them $399.

It doesn't, of course. Now, the drive probably isn't cheap, but you can be *sure* they have got as sweet a deal as is humanly possible on these drives (which are now no doubt getting great press). The high price at the website probably partly reflects the fact that a good, big, chunk of Toshiba's entire production is going to a certain hardware vendor in Cupertino, with an option for them to buy even more drives, so they don't now have much incentive to lower prices for anybody else until they've got their production process ramped up a bit more.

If Apple is making less than a 20% margin on the iPod, I'd be completely stunned. Not that this is a rip-off (many people will pay it), but let's not get all silly here...

Re:iPod price vs. Toshiba drive price

[Lars T.]

Well, I looked up your posting history, and you have none. You are just an anonymous coward. Good that I don't need your posting history to know you're a retard, one post suffices.

ARM

[PRickard]

Too bad Apple sold its shares in ARM... They purchased them when the Newton used ARM chips and then sold most of the investment about a year ago. I thought it was a mistake at the time - but Apple could probably purchase the entire company now for what it made selling the shares last year.

Re:ARM

[Anonymous Coward]

Why's that interesting? ARM sold out to Intel long ago.

Re:ARM

[trash eighty]

i thought they still owned 45% of ARM

Re:ARM

[Tromso]

trash eighty wrote: i thought they still owned 45% of ARM No way does Apple own 45% of ARM, though they were one of the original investors. From Hemscott, the largest shareholder owns 4.74%. If they still own any it seems less than 3% as they don't appear to have to declare it. http://www.hemscott.com/equities/company/cd03606.h tm Major Shareholders: ( 1 Nov 01) 1011.84m 0.05p Ords - Capital Group Co's 4.74%, Fidelity Investments 3.06%, Barclays PLC 3.01%, R K Saxby 2.61%, Other Dirs 0.53 The market capitalisation of ARM is currently 3.6 billion pounds.

Re:ARM

[trash eighty]

ah sorry, my acorn-fanatic friend assured me they did, he should update his info ;)

Re:ARM

[Lars T.]

Actually, they were one of the founders of ARM.

The real question is...

[HalimCMe]

were they able to put it back together after tearing it apart? and did it work after that?

Toshiba drive price

[Srsen]

Note the MSRP of a PCMCIA version of the Toshiba HD is $399 just by itself. Apple's pricing of the iPod doesn't seem so outrageous now.

Re:Beowolf

[flash23]

Anonymous post courtesy of DN15.

Translated Version

[damiam]

Those who can't read Japanese might want to look at this, translated by Babelfish.

Re:Translated Version

[konan]

Look. Another /google-cache/babelfish/article copypaste/ karma whore.

Re:Translated Version

[damiam]

Just because it's karma-whoring doesn't mean it's not useful. Posts like that one are modded up because they are useful, and whether or not they're karma whores is irrelevent.

Re:Translated Version

[jerrytcow]

In addition, as for opening the case, as for the child which is good being it is outside manufacturer guarantee you do not imitate the sea urchin it will do.

Thanks, the babelfish version is much more understandable.

Re:Translated Version

[lord_ashaman]

When you connect to the Mac in trouble state, it is lovely and others
The forcing Sad iPod was indicated. One time to try seeing you want
It will do also the air, but the one which is not seen happy is

I love you babelfish!

Re:Translated Version

[t]

Altavista, the babel in babelfish.

t.

Re:PortalPlayer

[mcspock]

SDMI is pretty much a joke at this point. I dont think anybody has implemented anything more than SDMI phase 1 compliance, which just required some sort of unique identifier on the device/media. So when they say SDMI compliant, it's almost certainly just a unique ID on the processor, which is nothing special in and of itself.

Doesn't seems like a bad deal after all

[kawaichan]

You gotta admit, it's pretty nice. too bad it won't work on other platforms though. Why won't they release iTUNE for other platforms when they are giving Quicktime away for free? Apple make no money off Quicktime (client) but they can actually get some nice profit from this device. I know they want people to buy macs, but who would buy a mac solely for iPOD?

Re:Doesn't seems like a bad deal after all

[j-beda]

Well, now some Windows users can "feel the pain" just like Mac and Linux people have been feeling for years when support for some nifty thing is not offered. Maybe it is some sort of "justice" :-)

Anyhow, it seems likely that the supply of the components might be a little tight for a while, so it makes sense to set the price high and sell it to the faithfull for a little while, before dropping the price and making it more widely available. It does Apple no good to make it available for Windows or at a low price but then not be able to meet the demand. Much better to hold off and make it available to Windows and/or drop the price later when the supplies grow.

Then again, they already sell a number of very nice things such as their LCD monitors that will not (easily) work on anything other than a modern Mac. Why should this be any different? If you want one I suppose you can hack your own support into your system of choice, eh?

Re:Doesn't seems like a bad deal after all

[PMan88]

quicktime is not free, it's $30

Re:Doesn't seems like a bad deal after all

[marmoset]

Because Apple's close hardware/software integration (via tools like iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, etc.) is one of the central focuses of their marketing now. It's not that they expect that people will buy Macs solely for the iPod, but rather that buyers will see the iPod alongside iTunes & iMovie and all the rest and decide that it's worth paying a premium to stay with the platform where they can expect integrated engineering.

Re:Doesn't seems like a bad deal after all

[Knobby]

For the last time, the client (without any editing features) is free! If you want to CREATE or EDIT any movies (for example assemble a collection of images into a sorensen 3 encoded movie) then you need to pay $30.. I imagine that's probably because the encoding portion of many codec are liscensed for a fee, while the decoding portion is generally liscensed for free. So, in summary, Apple is charging for the editting features to cover the costs that they incur in liscensing fees..

Re:Doesn't seems like a bad deal after all

[Mononoke]

quicktime is not free, it's $30

No, Quicktime is free. Quicktime Pro (more features, some editing capability, no nagging screens) is $30.

Re:Doesn't seems like a bad deal after all

[Anonymous Coward]

itunes includes a (very nice) mp3 encoder. this means apple pays for us to have itunes. apple can do this economicaly because we pay apple for hardware.

actualy, i find this arrangement to be quite pleasing. as a side note, i am posting this from my brand new g4 running os x.1, from ie 5, with mozilla downloading. apple even gives us free music. (sorry, unix+mac makes me deliriously happy, and positive for the first time in months. i think i will lick my new comuter now.)

Re:Doesn't seems like a bad deal after all

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are they called scholarships when we give them to athletes?

That's why they're called athletic scholarships.

wow they put...

[Count]

100yen in each iPod!

Why no USB then?

[afidel]

The arm core they use has an USB controller built into it, why didnt they include the usb connector then? I know it would have taken a little more room, but judging from the pics there is enough room to spare for USB, and it would have made it more universally compatible, across the whole mac line and across to PC's. I plan on getting an Ipod as soon as they release windows drivers. Since my SB Audigy already has a 1394 port I'll be good to go but I am in the minority.

Re:Why no USB then?

[amuro98]

The power from the USB connection might not be
enough to power the drive - then again, it's a
microdrive, so this may not be true.

Also, my understanding of the iPod is that it's
simply a small firewire drive with an MP3 player
glued on top of it. You don't need any special
drivers so long as your computer can use firewire devices. Just plug it in, and your computer should just recognize the iPod as an removable hard drive. You also don't have to use the iTunes software package either. Just drag/drop MP3s and folders to the iPod.

In short - it is PC compatible, so long as your PC can use firewire devices.

Re:Why no USB then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is smart. USB is for peripherals like mice and keyboards.

Firewire is for high-bandwidth things like iPods, Digital Video feeds, etc.

Since they have both, it makes sense to not castrate it by making it USB (for PC hackers, too).

Re:Why no USB then?

[mcspock]

USB can put out 500mA to power a device. A microdrive draws 300mA during a constant read, and i believe peaks at 500mA during spinup. So it would be fine to power it off USB.

Re:Why no USB then?

[2nd Post!]

If you read http://www.macobserver.com/article/2001/10/29.4.sh tml you will see that the music folder is just a hidden folder. To write a PC tool to use the iPod means:
Firewire hard disk ability
HFS+ (I think) capability

I suspect Linux people may get this first, if only because Darwin and Linux have HFS+ support and Windows doesn't (yet).

Re:Why no USB then?

[Izmunuti]

Perhaps it has something to do with Firewire being at least 30 times faster than USB? How long would it take to transfer several gigabytes of MP3s over USB?

Re:Why no USB then?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would guess that the FireWire does not power the drive, it charges the battery of the IPOD.
Why does the IPod not use USB? I can answer that.
FireWire is faster and can charge the IPod with one connection.
Heck they might even sell a few more macs

Re:Why no USB then?

[morcheeba]

83 minutes, at 8 Mbit/sec. It's the equivalent speed of a 64x CD burner.

So don't gripe, unless you have > 64x cd rewriter and you've never had your computer on for over an hour and half at a time.

Re:Why no USB then?

[Incongruity]

Perhaps it has something to do with Firewire being at least 30 times faster than USB? How long would it take to transfer several gigabytes of MP3s over USB?

My first thought was "ask a Nomad owner"... I own a USB RIO (500) and I gotta say, the speed of the USB connection is a pain even for filling the 64MB of that little machine's memory. I can't imagine what it'd be like to use USB to load a 20GB Nomad!

That having been said though, if the ARM processor that runs the iPod has a USB controller built in (I don't know much about such things), then why not inculde a USB connection for all the machines out there that do not have firewire ports but do have USB ports? Now, it really wasn't that long ago that there were shipping Macs that didn't have firewire (many of the iMacs in use out there do not and they're probably in the homes of the target market for the iPod...and then there are a whole bunch of Powerbooks and iBooks...again the owners of which are Apple's target market.) Beyond all those machines, there are a lot of PC's out there that do not have firewire but do have USB ports...

That brings me to a point that many others have said before me, so at risk of being moded-down for being redundant, it seems that apple could really sell a lot of these little units if they were PC/Windows/Linux friendly. The iPod is so close to perfect in so many ways that it makes some of the flaws it does have stand out more than they might otherwise.

But those are just my thoughts...
-t

Re:Why no USB then?

[Midnight Thunder]

Apple is also trying to get the Firewire market moving. if enough people are interested in the advantages of IEEE1394 then we should see more PC manufacturers including the necessary connectors on their motherboards. Having two connectors would a) take more room and b) not encourage people to take advantage of Firewire.

Apple is basically trying to do for MP3 players what the iMac did for computers - make them appealing to the non-techie.

Re:Why no USB then?

[zulux]

Great idea, but someone beat you to it ;)

Apricorn has a USB drive thats powered exclusivly by the USB cable - it's has a battery for a bit of a boost during spinup. http://www.apricorn.com/ezstorage.html

Re:Why no USB then?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you might want to read up on the difference between bits and bytes.

Re:Why no USB then?

[Anonymous Coward]

After plunking down $400 for an MP4 player,why is it so hard for people to spend an extra $20 for a firewire card that is clearly better? Odd.

Re:Why no USB then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it takes over 4 hours to fully load via USB!

http://iPod.KenTidwell.com

Re:Why no USB then?

[JKR]

Some ARM cores have a USB "controller" (actually the SIE part, as one of the serial ports - you still need the PHY interface electronics) However, there have been problems with it - on the StrongARM SA1100 the USB port is broken for chip revisions earlier than 'G' - see the Intel website.

Yes, Intel fab StrongARM.

Re:Why no USB then?

[Incongruity]

After plunking down $400 for an MP4 player,why is it so hard for people to spend an extra $20 for a firewire card that is clearly better? Odd.

well, in the case of the earlier iMacs, there is no way to add firewire if it didn't come standard with the machine...ergo a USB option would allow those machines to use the iPod.

Re:Why no USB then?

[morcheeba]

Nah, I'm pretty sure I got them right... I'll explain my math:

USB is 12 Mbit/sec. I guessed that since it's polled, that we wouldn't get peak efficiency and that maybe only 8 Mbit/sec was realizable. I'm also assuming the MP3 being transfered is encoded at 128kbit/sec. Thus, the transfer rate 'x' factor is 8192/128 = 64x. Transfering an MP3 file effectively increases the 'x' factor - to get the same number of seconds recorded on an uncompressed CD requires more data, which requires more time.

Now, the point's moot if you're burning CDs of MP3s, but even for normal CDs I would still find 64x to be worthwhile.

In the immortal words...

[swordboy]

Does anyone remember that Saturday Night Live episode with Tom Hanks posing as one of those "flea market electronics hustlers"?

Sony Guts!

Out of Apple's court :)

[2nd Post!]

The OS and UI are dependent on Portal Player and Pixo, so if you want to mess around with the OS/UI, go to them.

Still, it makes me wonder how hard it would be to hack it make it so uploaded mp3s via FireWire are playble, and thus make it PC compatible :)

Article on geek.com

[rsimmons]

Here is a good article about the iPod on geek.com.

More info on the battery?

[4mn0t1337]

the battery is made by sony-fukushima, and only is 3mm thick. voltage is 4.15V.

Anyone have any more info on the battery? Part Numbers? Availability? Cost? Ect?

Re:More info on the battery?

[kawaichan]

It's Lithium-Polymier (SP) battery, the cool thing about this kind of battery when you compare with other types out in the market is that you can shape it into ANY size so you you can make it really really thin. I don't think it offers better performance than lithium ion though. Following devices that I know of are using this type of battery iPAQ, m505, CLIE, HP's New PocketPC and probably other handheld devices.

Re:More info on the battery?

[4mn0t1337]

Thanks for the info on the devices. Didn't know so many products were using this already as it seems the production plant only started up about a year ago.

But I would like more specific info if people have it. Things like part numbers and specs and prices.

I searched the Sony-fukushima website and didn't find much.

Re:More info on the battery?

[Lars T.]

I found this http://www.sony.co.jp/en/Products/BAT/ION/Catalog- e.pdf PDF at the Sony site. It's the catalog for their LiIon batteries. No price given.

22 years and no progress.

[jukal]

Here is the state of the art in this business - Sone Walkman WM-1 from 1979.

Re:Why no USB then (Apple PC required)?

[swordboy]

Apple is subsidizing the cost of this player in order to promote the Apple Computer. From Apple's iPod spec page:

Requirements
- Apple computer with built-in FireWire port
- Mac OS 9.2.1 (or later) or Mac OS X v10.1 (or later)
- iTunes 2 software (included)

So basically, you wind up paying less than what Apple is putting into the product for the sheer promotion of Apple's other products. However, I'm sure that some l337 h4x0r will figure out how to make this work with real PCs and Apple will cancel the whole program.

Re:PortalPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

Since SCSI is commonly pronounced as "scuzzy," I propose that SDMI be prounounced as "sodomy." That way, it'll be possible to walk in to Fry's and loudly inquire about "scuzzy sodomy devices."

Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[FooBarney]

I have to laugh every time i hear someone in Slashdot forums or the media talk about how Apple's killing themselves by making the iPod Mac-only. True, they ARE limiting their market to less than 5% of computer owners, but there's one thing no one seems to get:

Apple didn't create the iPod to sell iPods. They created it to sell Macs.

Interface used to be a compelling reason to pick a Mac over a Wintel box--the Mac OS was just THAT much better. Say what you want about Windows ... for the average user, that's just not true any more. The Windows 98/ME/2000/XP experience ain't so bad. So Apple needs a new compelling reason to make users buy their products.

In short, they need to offer things that you can ONLY do on a Mac. They've already done a few of these things ... Mac OS X's UNIX roots offer some unique features, and tight integration with iTools is great. Apple's future strategy is to make a Mac a "digital hub" ... to sell lots of little electronic gadgets for home users with a Mac at their center. Apple's key technologies (early 802.11 adoption, FireWire) are uniquely suited to tying together digital devices.

In short, every columnist and reviewer who criticizes Apple for making iPod Mac-only is just doing their work for them. That kind of criticism is EXACTLY what Apple needs right now ... it just amounts to more people shouting out "here's something you can only do on a Mac."

Plus, the iPod is all shiny. I like shiny.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[belg4mit]

Underrated +1

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[kawaichan]

I know what you are getting at but Wintel boxes are so cheap now, Apple cannot possibly beat the price. OS X looks really slick now and I am actually thinking about getting a el cheapo iMac just to play with OS X, but then again, it will run like garbage on a 233mhz CPU. It is hard for average Joe NOT to attract by the low price tag, HIGH mhz number for an iPOD (which cost around same as a El-Cheapo PC). I say bring the price of the Apple boxes down and I will certainly get a mac box for fun.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[ashsmith]

it just amounts to more people shouting out "here's something you can only do on a Mac."

This would hold so much more wieght if essentially the same product wasn't available from the wintel crowd... I've had one of these for a year now. Granted, it lacks firewire, but the size is about the same and the capacity is quite a bit more. Current versions are 20g. Did I mention it costs roughly half as much?

Honestly, I'm not sure what the big event is here...

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[tswinzig]

In short, every columnist and reviewer who criticizes Apple for making iPod Mac-only is just doing their work for them. That kind of criticism is EXACTLY what Apple needs right now ... it just amounts to more people shouting out "here's something you can only do on a Mac."

If by 'something' you mean 'use the iPod', then you are correct.

However, if by 'something' you mean 'use a cool MP3 player', you are dead wrong.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[mcspock]

I posted this on another thread, but i'll explain more here.

Apple created iPod to make a profit on iPod. They did not create iPods to break even on iPod and proliferate the mac platform, nor did they create iPod to take a loss on iPod and proliferate the mac platform.

At the very worst, Apple is avoiding additional software costs on the iPod project by leaving it as Mac only and not worrying about other platforms. But the truth here is that Apple did not make a $400 MP3 player so they could sell more $800 desktop computers. That would be the most ludicrous marketing campaign ever, since any company could come out with a $500 MP3 player next month with superior features, support all platforms, and invalidate any need to purchase both a mac and a computer.

I really dont understand why people think this is unique to a Mac. If you look at what's really going on here, Apple outsourced a lot of the work on the iPod. Chances are, the companies that did this work retained some rights to the work they did. So, if any other company wants to make an MP3 player, they could easily come in with a similar offering to the iPod, at a similar price, with whatever customizations they want, by simply contacting the companies Apple outsourced the work to.

Really, honestly, wake up and smell the maple nut crunch.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[2nd Post!]

The 'costs half as much' versions are also twice as heavy and half as much battery time for the same size drive, isn't it?

The website says it's $249, hardly half the price :)

The Archos was nice until the iPod came out; now here's something faster by 30x and lighter by half and smaller by half and more batter life to boot.

So the big event is how smaller, lighter, faster, and longer the iPod is than, say, the Archos. You just have to pay for that luxury.

Evidently you don't value those strengths, so the iPod doesn't mean anything to you.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[vorpal22]

The word from the tech support team at Apple is that they'll barely be breaking even on iPod sales; in fact, a single tech support call would put them at a loss for the unit (which is why they will be offering web tech support ONLY for iPod).

Clearly, in light of this, they haven't designed iPod to fatten their wallets. There's more than meets the eye here.

The hard drive alone, when bought by the end-consumer, retails for $399.

Personally, I've already ordered my iPod and I can't wait to get it!

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[vorpal22]

Mac OS X 10.0.4 would have run like a dog with three broken legs on a G3 233 MHz CPU; however, trust me... Mac OS X 10.1 will certainly not be slow if you beef up the RAM. I have a G3 300 MHz iBook with 160 MB of RAM, and OS X 10.1 runs beautifully on it.

If you want to play around with OS X (it's definitely worth your time - I'm a Linux to Mac convert because of OS X), shop around on eBay for a ~ 300 MHz iMac. More than likely you won't be disappointed. I bought an iMac 233 to play around with OS X Public Beta and loved it so much that I bought a new iMac 600 the day the OS X 10.0 was released.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[swgs]

Outsourced most of the work? how so? like they used other people's chipsets and hardware? go look at a Power Mac G4 logic board, its got Texas Instrument chip sets, motorola, IBM, and a few other smaller comapnies. apple really doesnt make many chipsets of their own, there was a time when they did more of that, but it was dumb and costly.

so yes they used outside hardware, as they do 90% of the time. so what did apple do themselves? well how about the design? how about putting it all together to work so perfectly? how about the easiest MP3 player interface ever to be released today!

ive heard many people talking about the archaos MP3 player, have you ever navigated through over 1000 songs on there, looking for one paticulair song? its a nightmare! apple knows interfaces, they are one of the best at it, its so easy with the ipod.

before i let ya go, id like to address your BOLD statement. "Apple did not make a $400 MP3 player so they could sell more $800 desktop computers". you are very right my friend, they did not do it to sell 800 dollar boxes, cause apple wishes they didnt even have to sell an 800 dollar box. they want this to increase the sale of iBooks and Power Books and Power Macs and top of the line iMacs. of course they are making some money off the iPod, but its all about selling macs, thats all its EVER about with Apple. i gurantee you that.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[ashsmith]

It's typically considered bad form to put quotes around something and edit the content to suit your needs. 'costs half as much' should read 'costs roughly half as much'.

I'm sorry that you're used to dealing with a closed shop and a one price fits all mentality. A two second web search should net you a cost of around $219, contrasted to Apple's price of $399. I would, indeed, call that 'roughly half as much'. Feel free to nitpick.

Of course, I'd dispute your math on battery life which computes the 8hr battery of the Archos to be half as much as the 10hr life of the IPod, so we can all nitpick. Spot on with the weight, though - no answer there.

As to speed, it's an MP3 player - you'll find they play songs at roughly the same speed. The transfer speed is not an issue to me, I'll admit - my compliation of songs grows slowly, and I'll rarely do the large transfer that would require a fast inteface.

So, yes, I don't value those strengths to feel that the iPod is anything more than a trivial upgrade to existing technology.

But, hey, you're right. It's shiny.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad life of a Linux freak.

Thanks for sharing!

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[MasterVidBoi]

I think there is another factor here, just as important as the iPod being mac only.

Sure, Nomads are going to keep selling, just because they're 20 gigs vs. 5 gigs, but do you think people are going to continue to put up with USB transfer after they've seen what FireWire can do?

Apple gets a royalty from every firewire port sold... Six months from now, will you even consider a mp3 player that has USB over one that has firewire, once all the other companies get FW into their products? Of course not, 10 minutes vs a day to transfer all your music is pretty significant.

The iPod is going to have an incredible effect on FireWire's consumer adoption, even more for PC users than mac users. USB2 may have just had yet another stake driven into it's heart.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[2nd Post!]

You're right, it's bad form to misquote if I'm going to quote...

8 hours is indeed not half the battery time, not even close.

It's not the closed shop mentality, so much as using retailers I'm familiar and comfortable with. In this case, the manufacturer of said device, or Amazon, or Buy. Amazon lists the 6gb Archos jukebox at $239, which isn't much cheaper than Archos's list price.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The PC issue is hardly a big deal, Apple IPOD is going to start supporting the PC in late november, supposedly with MusicMatch as the required PC side app.

Evidently the software that PortalPlayer provides with its product is too lame for Apple to use.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[anfloga]

Bingo! MacOS X.1, PPC, and (the one that clinched the deal), the iPod. $860 later and I am now a proud Mac owner and user.

Or, since it sounds more geeky (and therefore more slashdot) I am now a proud BSD user. Plus a shiny GUI. I like shiny too :)

Erik

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[Catbeller]

I believe that Apple originally licensed the Firewire tech at one US dollar per port.

They have since reduced that price, and basically give it away.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[mcspock]

They outsorced the software development work, that was discussed earlier. So basically apple can take credit for picking the components, industrial design, and maybe the UI. When i say maybe the UI, there are industrial design firms that will do physical casings in addition to screen specs for products etc.

Someone else posted that supposedly Apple is barely cutting a profit with this, i can believe it. If they have a $250 bill of materials, factor in $10 profit, add 40-50% for retail channel costs, and you're right at $400. I would expect them to do a cost reduction on their design sometime in the next 6 months, or to introduce a new design with additional features, it's fairly standard.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[namespan]

I am actually thinking about getting a el cheapo iMac just to play with OS X, but then again, it will run like garbage on a 233mhz CPU

You could probably find a 300-400 Mhz model for fairly cheap as well... perhaps as cheaply, as some people are holding onto their original 233's as collectors items.

Then, when you get it, dump 512 MB-1 GB of ram in it (since RAM prices are cheap these days). You're set. I'm typing this on a Powerbook G3/333 Mhz with 320 MB of RAM, running 10.0.4, and performance is acceptable.

Just thought I'd let you know.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[Mr_Silver]

Apple didn't create the iPod to sell iPods. They created it to sell Macs.

Maybe so, but the majority of people who will want one of these things will already have a perfectly good computer with their favourite operating system installed.

However nice the iPod is, Apple are severly delluding themselves if they thing that people are going to purchase an iMac because of the iPod.

Some people might, but I cannot see droves of people throwing away their P3's in favour of an iMac.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[Lars T.]

Oh yes, let us praise the free market, and dig up the cheapest prices on something via the powerfull web search - and then compare them to the Apple store price, ignoring that street prices are also lower for Apple products.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[FooBarney]

A couple of the replies seemed to miss my point about Apple's strategy:

First of all, the iPod is a little more than an MP3 player ... it's a REALLY GOOD MP3 player. It's got a great interface, lightning-fast transfer, gorgeous industrial design, huge capacity, and it fits in a shirt pocket. Nothing else out there can do that. The Archos Jukebox comes close, but it's a lot bulkier and slower.

Second, the iPod itself isn't supposed to be a compelling reason to buy a Mac. It's just the first in a series of home electronics that talk to a "digital hub" ... a MacOS computer. The more of these devices Apple ships, the more "you can only do this with a Mac" press it'll get.

As for the "it's ridiculous to sell a $400 device as a strategy for selling an $800 PC" argument ... well, Apple needs to build market share any way it can. Sure, the low-end iMacs are low-profit machines, but higher-end equipment certainly isn't, and research shows that once a user buys his first Mac, he keeps buying Apple's hardware. If Apple wants to grow, it has to drive its 5% market share up an order of magnitude ... even if it means selling low-profit or even loss-leader equipment now.

Re:Mac-only ..... nobody seems to get it.

[ashsmith]

Really? Please educate me on this. I found six places online that sold it for $399. My two local mac dealers also offer it for $399.

At this date, I can now found one that sells it for $394 which is not much of a significant deviation. Honestly, can you provide other numbers?

Re:Why no USB then (Apple PC required)?

[Srsen]

Reply from Apple:
Thank you for your interest in the iPod. We appreciate the input of users such as yourself. Unfortunately, we have no plans to support your platform at this time. We would like to direct you to our online Apple Store and our selection of the popular iBook laptops.
- Department of Irony

Re:Why no USB then (Apple PC required)?

[mcspock]

No, Apple is not subsidizing the cost of this player. That would be the most futile business plan ever, since people aren't going to buy a $700 macintosh so they can use a $400 MP3 player.

In terms of the components, the bill of materials on that player is probably $200, maybe $250 if they couldn't get a good price on the drives, but i doubt it.

It's also not a conspiracy. I've read quite a few things that indicate the iPod can show up as a standard firewire hard drive, which simplify the problem to just needing to support the macintosh filesystem (is it HFS? i dont use mac sorry) on other platforms.

Will the iPod last?

[ioman1]

I think this could be Apple's attempt to promote their personal computers through a device that requires an Apple. Intel has been trying to do this with their consumer electronics line for the past 2 years. They failed miserably. Hopefully Apple does it right this time.

Re:Will the iPod last?

[nuetrino]

This is probably because Intel doesn't make computers or software, they sell chipsets. The only reason Intel has such visibility is that they have spend millions of dollars on branding to convince consumers that there is some glamour associated with using thier chipset. This glamour is hard to transfer to a device that looks just like every other device but costs more.

Apple has done quite well selling Apple only peripherals. There is in general a real difference, if only superficial, between an Apple product and a competitor. Just take a look at thier flat screen monitors and the pre-USB printers.

From extension..

[2nd Post!]

Hardware agnostic means the device holds the view that the ultimate hardware platform is unknown and probably unknowable.

If the design is good, then the OS and drivers and everything above the OS does not know and does not have the means to know what the hardware is.

That seems to be a good enough description for agnostic, doesn't it? It's an analogy, and not a 100% fit.

Re:PortalPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

Obiously, this little player is very hackable. If someone with some skill gets ahold of one, it might be just a great thing to "upgrade" it to support ogg files. SMDI and MP3 be damned.

Re:Yeah but. . .

[Spruitje]

. .this will be useless when digital music is outlawed entirely.


inside the US.
So the rest of the world will laught at the US and still uses it.

solid-state memory....

[vrmlknight]

This is not meant as a troll but it is a smart-ass question that I would like to know the answer to... in the article it says "The cache is made up of solid-state memory, meaning that it has no mechanical or moving parts" is their cache that has moving parts? Or is this just more of a ... 'hey this is in our product isn't it cool....' To impress the average Joe???

Re:solid-state memory....

[Taloon]

I think they are just defining what solid-state memory is for the average Joe.

Re:solid-state memory....

[stripes]

is their cache that has moving parts?

Yes, many multi-level filesystems use them. Recently accessed files tend to live in RAM and a hard drive. Not so recently ones on a hard drive. Really not so recently used ones are off on mag tape (or WORM media) in a jukebox.

AFS also use to use local disk to cache files from the network, I think CODA can do the same.

Oh, and many web browsers cache files on local disk (or at least in the filesystem, which is normally local disk, but could be solid state, or across the network...). Netscape, and MSIE for example :-)

Re:solid-state memory....

[t]

This is required information if you are going to later explain how it is unskippable even though it reads its data off of a spinning hard drive.

t.

Re:Yeah but. . .

[czardonic]

So, you think that what is the law in the US tomorrow won't be the law in your country the day after, eh?

How quaint.

A few thoughts on the matter

[The Infamous Grimace]

When the iPod first came out, it was decried as yet another soon-to-be-discontinued Apple experiment. It was called over-priced and under-valued. Many were the posts that blasted it as too niche for even Apples niche market. Now, suddenly, we hear people asking for a Windows version of iTunes, and can it run Linux (or BSD). We hear that the drive it uses retails for the same as the iPod itself. The iPod may in fact be the breakthrough that Jobs claims it is (ok, maybe not, but closer than people thought it was a week ago). Here's why -

Anyone who may have been considering purchasing a Toshiba MK5002MAL will now give MUCH greater consideration to buying an iPod instead. I know it's not as easy to switch out as a 'true' PCMCIA device, but even if you don't have a Mac, you can still use it as a FW drive. This will drive sales up considerably - there is a market for it outside the Mac world even without iTunes and its MP3 capabilities. And how long before someone hacks it, makes it work with other OSes.

Know what I think? I think Apple SHOULD release a Windows version of iTunes, and CHARGE FOR IT! How long have Mac users had to pay extra to play with Windows? VPC, SoftWindows, Orange Micro PCI adapter cards, MacLink, the list goes on. Well, you know what, Windows users? If you want the ease, the function, and yes, the glitz and shiny baubles, then BUY APPLE! Or else commence hacking...

In addition, one easter egg has already been discovered - the game Breakout! is hidden within. MacAddict reports on it, as does MacityNet. Who knows what other goodies lurk within, or that Apple will release for it. I, for one, do not believe that an MP3 player is all that Apple has planned for it. We've had a few pleasant surprises since it's previewing, who knows what will happen once it's released to the general public. I, for one, want one VERY much.

Santa? I've been a REAL good boy this year, I swear...

(tig)

Re:A few thoughts on the matter

[krazyninja]

Apple can never survive in the low priced, low performance market. It must know this anyway, having targeted the high end market for quite a long time. Competing with other HD based devices which offer better features at a better price is tough. What I feel is that Apple wants to popularise its Firewire interface through this product, than anything else....

Re:PortalPlayer

[Pope]

Here's a better idea: wait for others to upgrade their firmware and report to the usual Mac news sites (Mac Fixit, manintouch, XLR8yourmac, etc.) what the changes are. Remember when the G4 firmware upgrade reduced the tolerance for crappy PC100 RAM and folks who cheaped out on their DIMMs got all pissed off? I didn't use that updater even though that issue doesn't affect me.

Hell, they aren't even shipping the iPod yet, and people have figured out that the "copy protection" amounts to storing the files in invisible folders! Easily subverted.

Re:PortalPlayer

[freq]

this is the first sane suggestion i've heard all day.

did you just make that up?

Re:Yeah but. . .

[Spruitje]

So, you think that what is the law in the US tomorrow won't be the law in your country the day after, eh?


Well, we still don't have something like the DMCA here in Europe.
And if I want to buy a regioncode free DVD-player I can buy one almost anywhere.
There is no law which makes this illegal.
Second, don't forget that most European country's don't have the best government money can buy (-; .
If you want to be free then don't move to the USA.

amazing, in only 30 minutes...

[duran.goodyear]

... the site is completly slashdotted...

you guys broke the macNN message boards.

thats amazing.

The English summary:

[Pope]

We're closing down our forums for about 30 minutes due to extremely high traffic. Our higher-capacity server is ready, and we will move to it in the next few days, which should prevent problems like this.

Thanks for your patience.

Please use your browser's back button to return.

That's the MacNN forum link. Nice going, guys! :)

I own a PowerBook G4!

[2nd Post!]

So the question is, why is an entry level 600MHz iMac *so* expensive if the screen, hard drive, memory, video, etc, are all commodity parts?

If the CPU is cheaper than AMD's, why is an entry level Mac 50% more expensive than an entry AMD or Intel?

Okay, so maybe I don't know enough to judge, but somewhere some component is raising the cost... and if the hard drive, memory, video, and CPU aren't it... maybe it's the chipset and drivers, in which case using the NForce and NVIDIA drivers may drive the cost down of the system by $100? Who knows except Apple?

Re:I own a PowerBook G4!

[shandrew]

The case isn't cheap. The engineering and design involved in putting it all together isn't cheap. Quality components are not cheap. The OS development isn't cheap. Also, selling price is set mostly by market forces rather than by costs.

PC-clone makers don't need to do any of this. They just buy commodity parts, assemble them, and the most expensive component they have is Windows. For consumer machines, their goal is to have the biggest MHz number and CD/DVD speed rating.

Re:I own a PowerBook G4!

[2nd Post!]

Ah, quite right, quite right. I'm paying for form and style, right? ;)

Still, then, it's a question of economies of scale, isn't it? Cases are slightly more expensive, CPUs are slightly more expensive, mobos are slightly more expensive, engineers to write drivers, etc, because there's no volume involved...

Re:I own a PowerBook G4!

[stripes]

So the question is, why is an entry level 600MHz iMac *so* expensive if the screen, hard drive, memory, video, etc, are all commodity parts?

Part could be they tend to use high quality parts (e.g. the monitor on the iMac may be small but it has far less edge distortion then the small monitors I see at CompUSA, and better color then most of them). They could get away from that by making a "craptastic" Mac, but would it help them to convince people that Mac's are better by selling them something bad? (Note: many people already think this about the iMac, or about leaving SCSI for IDE, or...still one has to admit that many parts of the iMacs are not the cheap parts that the "value" PCs use)

Part of it may be they have to spread the design costs over a smaller number of sales. It costs X dollars to make a new motherboard chipset. If you take Apple's claim of 5% market share as fact, then a PC part has the potential of having 20 times as many people to spread the design costs and other NREs over then a Mac part. So the "northbridge" is going to have a lot more cost charged to each buyer then one from SiS. They can combat that a little by only having a few different parts there (say one for the whole iMac line, maybe shared with the iBook, one for the 1st gen TiBook, one for the 2nd gen TiBook and the G4's...), the PC market's five or so chip makers still have more people to spread the NREs over... There are also NREs for each machine. Again Apple can make that hurt a little less by only having four lines of machine and only 2, 3, or 4 in each line vs. the N bizzilian PCs, it still hurts a bit.

Apple also has to pay more for quality control. They make a fairly wide array of products, and they all have to work together because they can't point their fingers at as many other people. If you buy an HP PC and it sucks, when you call they can point their finger at the maker of the app (most bundled Apps on a PC are not made by the PC maker, Apple tends to ship largely their own software, or software branded as theirs), failing that they can point their finger at Microsoft (or wash their hands of you if you have Linux), Apple can only blame themselves for the OS...

Apple also seems to do more research then most places, and that costs. It also pays though.

Lastly, Apple has higher profit margins then PC makers (except in the server market). It makes sense to me for them to trim those to the bone on the low end iMac, but who knows if they do.

Re:I own a PowerBook G4!

[jchristopher]

So the question is, why is an entry level 600MHz iMac *so* expensive if the screen, hard drive, memory, video, etc, are all commodity parts?

Congratulations, you've discovered that Apple hardware is overpriced! Welcome to the club.

In all seriousness, you raise an important point. Apple would love nothing more than for you to believe that the iMac somehow uses premium components, when in reality they are composed of ALL commodity parts, save the motherboard.

Trying to justify the high priced hardware is impossible. Just think of it this way - it's the price of using MacOS. If paying the extra couple hundred bucks isn't worth it to get macos for you, don't. If it is, do.

Re:I own a PowerBook G4!

[mallie_mcg]

So the question is, why is an entry level 600MHz iMac *so* expensive if the screen, hard drive, memory, video, etc, are all commodity parts?
If the CPU is cheaper than AMD's, why is an entry level Mac 50% more expensive than an entry AMD or Intel?

Margains. Apple make larger margains that other PC companies. And as someone else said the very non standard case design (and thermal reqs for companants) would have to add to the cost of the chassis. The iMac is something that I reccomend to people who have no clue, and especially those who THINK they have a clue and need to ring me all the time with their Win32 hassles.
It also depends on your definition of entry level PC. Dont forget with a Mac they support them for one year over the phone, as well as all the hardware. I am yet to see an iMac whose monitor has degraded to the point of being virtually black, as compared to the ViewSonic 15"'s that my uni bought 2 years ago.

Re:PortalPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

That is just brilliant. SDMI is dead of course but it's still brilliant.

Dont forget about the TK-421 modification

[Filter]

I have this very unit at home,but of course I got it modified with the TK-421, which cheeks it up another 3 or 4 quads per channel, but thats technical talk.

Re:Oops...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably that southern-hemisphere byte order thing. Yeah.

Re:PortalPlayer

[Zeinfeld]

Yea, because people are FORCED to upgrade everytime a patch is allowed.

I was in an SDMI meeting when that is precisely what was proposed. The drop dead codes would be encoded into CDs. The first time that the MP3 player saw the drop dead code it would set a switch so that it would only accept SDMI encoded MP3 files.

That was the first and last meeting with those loonies that I attended. The basic idea that they had was that I would spend several million dollars building security technology for them and they would pay me $0.10 per player until the royalties reached a certain point when they would buy my interest out completely for about $100K.

from the ipod faq

[protein folder]

right here, it says that "Upgradeable firmware enables support for future audio formats." Maybe if you write them and ask them nicely they'll do that for you. But I have no idea.

Re:Dimensions?

[mocm]

A 100 yen coin is about the same size as a German Mark coin and maybe a little smaller than an
American quater.

Annnny chance anyone made a mirror?

[MrSeb]

Yes, yes?

You bastards already slashdotted it... gah!

Us slow European types would like to have a go at it too...

Old news

[Ghoser777]

The macnn forums are down every other week. Hmmm... I wonder if they run linux or OS X server?

F-bacher

Re:Old news

[Espen]

According to netcraft:
The site www.macnn.com is running Apache/1.3.19 (Unix) PHP/4.0.4pl1 on Linux

Is this the answer you were looking for?

Drivers possibilities for Linux

[mbrubeck]

For users wanting to play with the iPod on their Linux box, you'll need hfsplusutils, since there's no fully-working HFS+ driver in the kernel.

First, of course, you need mount the thing. The documented way to enable Firewire disk mode is through the configuration UI in iTunes, but this TIL article has instructions on how to set Firewire mode manually. Finally you'll need to get it to work with the Linux IEEE1394 drivers. Most Firewire hard drives are already supported, so it may work out of the box. Go to the Linux1394 pages for more information.

Re:Drivers possibilities for Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just buy a fucking Mac.

Then you can upgrade from your current toy Unix to a real workstation Unix.

Isn't this more beautiful?

[RottenApple]

This is made by Cowon, which makes the Jet Audio.
128MB of RAM is just adequate.

http://www.cowon.com/product/d_audio/hardware/ia ud io/cw100s/img/cw100s_img.gif

or.. how about imations' Rip!go drive?
It uses cheap 80mm CD. It can be used with Mac
and PC. Wouldn't it be better than the iPod?

Re:Isn't this more beautiful?

[reddeno]

No. No it would not.

Re:Isn't this more beautiful?

[2nd Post!]

Well, it looks nice and it seems to have the capacity to be an excellent mp3 player, but it has no other storage capabilities; which is what the iPod offers. iPod *matches* all those features, plus offers 4.9gb more storage, 30x faster transfer speed, recharging through the Firewire port, the ability to boot off the device, as well as use it as a firewire disk.

Otherwise, the iAudio is much better as a small portable mp3 player; 10 hours of playback with 2 hours of music? Just a little unbalanced.

Re:Isn't this more beautiful?

[RottenApple]

:) Well.. yes.. the iPod has a 5GB HDD.
But.. you should worry about "scratching" when you go out with it, because it uses an HDD.
And it's an MP3 player. I think that MP3 players should be very cheap because the sound quality is not good. ( I'm a big fan of LP. )

However the imation's Rip!Go drive looks good, because it uses 80mm CD, so you can copy CD track to it, store MP3 files, store your MP3 files on the CD and you don't need to "download" your previous favourite files again. :)

Re:Isn't this more beautiful?

[yomegaman]

Why don't you just redeem that pile of empty Busch Light cans in the corner and buy a Mac? You know you want to join us. :-)

Re:Isn't this more beautiful?

[krazyninja]

My own feeling is that Apple just wants to popularise its FireWire interface, because this device doesnot smack of the legendary Apple design legacy.

Re:Isn't this more beautiful?

[2nd Post!]

Rip!Go looks like an excellent mp3 player device, maybe even better than the RioVolt.

It isn't an iPod. Sure you can store 185mb of data on a mCDR, but it's not like this thing can actually *burn* on the fly with it's USB port or something.

The whole hype about the iPod is that it's a portable stylish Firewire hard drive with an mp3 player integrated into it.

The Rip!Go is a CD player with an integrated mp3 player. The iAudio is an mp3 player, only.

I will tell you why.

[yunfat]

USB is unecessary and a step backwards... all new macs have firewire, and Apple doesn't care about pc's, because they too are a step backwards.

Re:I will tell you why.

[Patrick Cable II]

I've heard that in january apple will consider giving out PC drivers.

The underlying theme

[AllieA]

One of the underlying themes that runs through the thread anytime Apple is brought up seems to be "converting Wintel users to Mac". Does this really happen? I mean, I've periodically had to use Macs since 1984 and I don't like the interface. Never have, still don't. Sure, there are always going to be arguments going back about which one is faster, which one is easier, which one is a better bang for the buck. But I find it pointless.

Does anyone actually see people going from the Wintel environment to Mac? How about the other way around? It seems to me that Mac's market share has been pretty stagnant for awhile, and I just don't see anything changing it as this point.

This seems to be Apple trying to solidify their own market, and push out into a currently unexplored market. But even if a few Wintel users drop the $400 for the device, I seriously doubt that many are going to buy a Mac to go with it. I still see both machines at targeted at different markets, different consumers.

Face it, both Apple and Wintel are good at what they do. I sometimes think that the perception that there is a market for "converting" people between these two platforms is ludicrous. I don't think Apple thinks they can convert people to Mac with this device because I don't think that market really exists in any significant number.

Especially when you see the bitterness between the two camps.

Re:The underlying theme

[Anonymous Coward]

What a moron. 25% of iMac sales when it came out were people abandoning Wintel machines.

Get a fucking clue, then open your mouth next time.

The Mac market is stagnant? Really? And your source for this assertion is? Is? Come on...

Sitting at a computer making idiotic statements is not what the Internet was designed for. Get with the program dumbass.

Re:The underlying theme

[silly window]

I switched from Wintel to Mac and am very happy with the switch. Mac OS 9's interface was a little difficult for me to like and the hardware is a little pricey, but everything else about the computer is great. It is nice to have a computer that is easy to set up and is stable. My Apple computer is my bitch! It does what I tell it to do without giving me any lip! I still used my old PC to run Linux, but since installing OS X, my Linux box has been collecting dust. Apple is counting on more people like me to switch. That's why there are Apple Stores popping up all over the country.

Re:The underlying theme

[jpellino]

sooooo... between 1984 (mac) and 1990 (win 3) when there was essentially nothing else to compare to, you didn't like the mac interface? soooo... what was availabe that was better?

Re:The underlying theme

[iso]

They got me to switch. I didn't really like OS 9 (it seemed to limiting and a lot of the features seemed "tacked on"), but OS X is phenomenal. Sure the Mac was more expensive than another x86 box, but I don't regret the purchase one bit. I was skeptical, but I know honestly believe this is one of those time that you get what you pay for.

OS X has been making some really impressive inroads in to the Windows camp. Many tech columnists who have been anti-Mac forever have actually been saying that OS X trumps Windows XP. That's really impressive.

The iPod, of course, is only the first step. It's quite obvious from this story that the iPod has more capabilities than Apple is enabling at this point. I predict that they're eventually going to roll out a lot more "digital devices" in the future. Sure similar things will on the PC side, but the ease and integration of the future "iPods" will be the real draw.

Apple has a good solid business plan, healthy gross margins and a strategy. I really think that OSX, the future iPods, the retail stores and the attention to detail and integration are going to bring some very impressive returns for Apple in the near future. They'll never have 95% market share, but if one in every ten home computers is a Macintosh, that will all the critical mass they'll need.

But I digress. Apple has screwed up a lot in the past, but this is not the same Apple they used to be. If they can convert an old time Mac-hater like me, I have a lot of faith in their future.

- j

Re:The underlying theme

[krmt]

I think part of the incentive is not just to bring people over from wintel, but to keep those who are alredy in the Mac arena there more permanently. One of the things Mac people get trashed for is lack of software, which isn't really true unless you're talking about games (how many major pieces of software do you know that don't run on mac or don't have a suitable mac alternative.)

This gives Mac people something to feel good about, something else to point to and say "Look, isn't this cool? Don't you wish you had one?" Me, I'm glad I left Mac for Intel and Linux, but the iPod does make me pretty jealous. It's something to make those who stayed feel like whatever sacrifices they've made are worthwhile.

Re:The underlying theme

[Anonymous Coward]

I switched over to OS X. I would never consider switching to OS 9 but with OS X I can run basically all of my Linux apps plus stuff like Office X (which looks to be the best version of Microsoft Office ever made for any platform), IE (important for testing), Quicken Deluxe 2002, Diablo II, Neverwinter Knights, Shadowbane, Photoshop, Adobe eBook Reader, Age of Empires II, Baldur's Gate II, and so on. I kind of view my OS X box as "Linux+". Also, the other reason that made me go OS X is by buying OS X games instead of buying Windows games I am indirectly supporting Linux. All OS X games use at least OpenGL and most likely OpenAL, OpenPlay, possibly SDL, and so on. No Direct-anything. This means that more games get written to standard APIs and this can only help out Linux in the long run. Personally I think Linux and OS X have a lot of synergy.

Re:The underlying theme

[gig]

I switched from Windows to Mac a couple of years ago, and it was the best tech decision I ever made. We put in a $299 AirPort Base Station almost two years ago, and it made getting on the Internet transparent. I just bought a PowerBook last week, took it out of the box, turned it on, and it was already on the Internet, before I had so much as plugged a power cable into it. For years, adding more storage has meant just getting a FireWire drive and plugging it in and going. I am way more productive, and working with rich media is a joy because the whole system is oriented towards that. QuickTime has been there as a rosetta stone for media files since 1991 or something, so even the most popular text editor for the Mac (BBEdit) can display audio and video and picture files you drop on it. The audio subsystem in Mac OS X is unprecedented, like having Cubase built-in for other apps to build on top of.

Since I switched, most of my friends and family have switched to Macs and we are all happier than ever before. I don't get calls about "Windows won't print!" and "there's no sound!" and "Windows is mysteriously crashing!" etc etc anymore. My 56 year-old aunt tried to record her music for two years on a high-end desktop PC and never got it to work right, and then she recorded a song and made an iMovie around it on her first day with a PowerBook. She put the movie on the Web in streaming video, just working with the built-in tools that came with the box, and she had never put anything on the Web before. Even the Web space and streaming server space was included with the price of the box. Once people start iMovie, they just "get it" right away. It's amazing to watch them work with no help required and turn out cool stuff.

I still have one close friend who calls me with Windows problems. Recently, she had one of those Outlook viruses that sends out your personal files to your address book, and she basically stopped using her computer for a long while because she was so frustrated by the privacy violation that it represented. She already uses a Mac at work, and when she found out that Mac users just rolled merrily through Y2K, Melissa, I Love You, Code Red, Nimda, etc she decided to get a Mac, too, and is shopping for one right now. An educated consumer is Microsoft's worst problem, because they have been lying to people for years. My friend realized she had enough computer-savvy to trust her own decision to pick the best computer for her needs, and it was a Mac. A few years ago she would just get the "safe" choice.

> Face it, both Apple and Wintel are good
> at what they do

Sure, but a lot of people are out there trying to make Windows PC's do the things that Macs are good at, like working with audio, video, graphics, or easy plug and play reliable operation for the home user. Some of them are even doing that professionally because their IT guys are all MSCE's who want to "standardize" on MS in order to "cut costs". Ha ha ha ha ha. So stupid. Like it fucking matters to make IT guys happy! Think about the users and their productivity and your core business why don't you? Too many people are being shoe-horned into the Windows platform just for interoperability, when (ironically) a cross-platform industry is the only thing that will ever guarantee interoperability. You can now run the same software on Linux, Solaris, Irix, and Mac OS X with very little trouble at all, while on the other hand, MSN (the ISP) starting trying to block non-Microsoft browsers the other day. I mean, think about it.

This article is about how iPod is not as expensive as it first appeared, once you see how much better it is at what it does than its competition. The same is true for all Apple products ... there is lots of hidden value because you get a lot of stuff included, and then the whole is more than the sum of its parts because everything works together so well (burning data DVD's from the Finder like they were floppies is a good example) and the interface is so good. Look a little more deeply into a Mac and you'll find out that it has tons of VALUE. Massive bang for the buck. It's worth checking out if you haven't already. Make sure that it's not for you, so that you don't find out later that it is for you and regret missing these exciting years on the platform.

As a Linux user I'm really trying to hate the iPod

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooooh! I'm so mad!

It costs too much!
(nope)

My (insert shitty kmart mp3 usb crapola device) costs half as much and is just as good!(nope)

Steve Jobs is worse than Bill Gates!
(whatever)

Gotta love the Linux user tantrums over this thing!

Re:PortalPlayer

[mr100percent]

Apple will not upgrade thier players to do that.
First, mp3 is built into their iTunes encoder, along with AIFF. It's a good format to them.

Second, Steve Jobs said he does not believe technology will prevent piracy. "It's a behavorial issue, not a technology issue." On every iPod box, there is a label inside saying "Don't Steal Music."

I would be VERY suprised if they put in some form of circumvention. Maybe if the guard changes in 10 years...

Software guts

[mr100percent]

Better yet, how about software Guts?

If Windows could read HFS+ hard drives with firewire without the 3rd party software, you could just plug it in and upload whatever you wanted.

All the music files are in an invisible folder at the root level of the drive. Very easy to copy. I don't know about adding files that way, there may be a playlist that needs to be updated as well...

Question about the battery.

[jcr]

Do lithium polymer cells have any nasty "memory" characteristics like Nickel-Cadmium cells do?

-jcr

Re:Question about the battery.

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have that problem. Have you seen the "new" duracell ultra batteries? same thing.

Re:Question about the battery.

[Mac Nazgul]

The "nasty" memory effect you are refering to, in a warm and fuzzy explanation, basically means that if the units battery is run down (but not drained) and recharged to full repeatedly, the unit will "forget" its zero point and you get less and less battery time (i.e. 100% becomes 80% of actual battery life).

Keeping the unit under consistant trickle charge (ie maintained at full) will aviod this until you use it. When in use, allow the battery to fully discharge before charging in order to maintain battery effeciency. It's annoying because I think that the all chargers should come with a "discharge" option.

Re:Question about the battery.

[nukebuddy]

Mac Nazgul wrote:
The...memory effect...means that if the units battery is run down (but not drained) and recharged to full repeatedly, the unit will "forget" its zero point and you get less and less battery time (i.e. 100% becomes 80% of actual battery life).
No battery chemistry is capable of forgetting its zero point. The memory effect is caused by a very slight voltage depression in the discharge curve of NiCad cells that appears after a few uses. The capacity of the cell remains the same, however. In devices designed primarily designed to use battery chemistries other than NiCad, it will appear that the battery has forgotten how much energy it has in it, since now much of the discharge curve has "dipped underwater" IOW dipped below the minimal voltage level required by the device to function at all. If a NiCad is used in a device designed to use a NiCad, or a NiCad battery is designed for the purpose of porviding a suitable voltage for standard devices, no memory effcts will be observed.

Keeping the unit under consistant trickle charge (ie maintained at full) will aviod this until you use it.
No comment.

When in use, allow the battery to fully discharge before charging in order to maintain battery effeciency.
This will prematurely age your battery and won't add to the performance of it at all.

It's annoying because I think that the all chargers should come with a "discharge" option.
Just match your cells and your application. You'll be a lot happier.

-nb

English Breakdown link text:

[DraKKon]

FYI
We're closing down our forums for about 30 minutes due to extremely high traffic. Our higher-capacity server is ready, and we will move to it in the next few days, which should prevent problems like this.
Thanks for your patience.

Third-party OS.

[jcr]

True, but it's a little weird to see that the OS for this device isn't actually Apple's, but a third party's.

I hear that the company providing that OS was founded by Paul Mercer, who used to be the tech lead of the Finder team, back around the Mac OS 7.x days.

-jcr

Re:Yeah but. . .

[czardonic]

Well, we still don't have something like the DMCA here in Europe.

Ha! Cracking CSS can get you arrested in Europe. Still think you are safe from our corporate sponsored legal system?

As with most things (not all, but most), Europe is on the same track as the US, just a few years behind. Sit tight friend, we will bring opression to you!

Re:D'ohhh! - 90 day

[victim]

Yep, lost that 90 day warranty. I suspect anything that survives shipping lasts 90 days.

It worries me a bit that they put such a short warantee on it. Apple knows how to set warantees. The early Airport base stations had a huge failure rate after just over one year. (Bad capacitors. Thank goodness a google search and a trip to radio shack will get you back in business.)

Re:PortalPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

Having GUIDs on each device is the first step. All of the DRM based solutions use the machine ID to secure and encrypt media; this is very often the key for unlocking the media. You can't play it on your friends system 'cause he has a different GUID/machine ID. This are designed hard to change, but I'm sure it can be done with ample hacking. But again, it's harder than your average consumer would feel upto trying. On the cases of free media (or some subscription based systems), this GUID will sometimes unlock the license file that has the key to decrypt the media. Look at microsofts solution - this is what they are doing.

The scary part is how your privacy is invaded. Once they know that person X (with this GUID), shared music with person Y's player, they can see trading trends, social patterns, and other privacy-invading things. Beware!

Re:Anthrax at NASA? I Hear You...

[dbCooper0]

If you are *not* a scaremonger, then thanks from me for reporting. I metamodded the knee-jerk moderators that put you down. See the results here.

If you *are* a scaremonger, then shame on you, because I wasted karma to make a point on your behalf (/. tradition. I guess). I await your reply.

BTW, the mods keep coming in - maybe they'll cancel each other out.....although I posted it into the two most recent threads....owell.

Ex-Windows user (and an X windows user as well...)

[The Infamous Grimace]

I ran a BBS back in the late 80's off of a Franklin Ace 1000 (a IIe clone). For some reason I left the illuminating and enlightened world of geek-dom (price of new machines at the time played no small part. got a girlfriend, and laid, as well... :-P). Over 10 years later, I was forced to purchase a used 486 with Win95 and Excel for a job I was doing (stand exams in the Elliot State Forest in Oregons coast range); some of the data needed to be submitted as an Excel file. Around the same time, my wife (same woman who turned me away from computers oh so long ago. Damned temptress) was returning to school, and we needed a reliable computer. Needless to say, the 486 was NOT it. We were looking at other Wintel machines, when, much to my surprise and amazement, she told me that we could get an iMac if I wanted. I jumped at the chance. The one stipulation - I CANNOT open it up. Except to add memory.
I still have a PC. Got Win98SE, and SuSE 6.2. I've got VPC on our iMac. Just bought a used Wallstreet 300 PowerBook. I also have a IIe, two Mac Pluses (only one keyboard, though), and a TRS-80 floating around here somewhere. Got a few older game systems, too. Think I accidentally threw out the Intellivision, though. I've come to believe that one can't have too many obsolete electronics. The point is, I did use Windows, and was prepared to stick with it. It has a 90%+ marketshare, and that is very hard to ignore. Both my wife and I have returned to school (she full time, me part), and most classes require Word (we're distance students; she goes to Washington State, and I'm still in CC.). But since going Mac, we have not looked back.

(tig)

Re:As a *real* Apple fan

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon. I'd rather see what the insides of Bill Gates look like.

Lend me a scalpel -- I'll help.

Just don't ask me to put him back together again.

Re:D'ohhh! - 90 day

[BoarderPhreak]

I agree - I think 90 days is just long enough for the gremlins to creep up or for your friend to sit on it in the car or close your car door on it when it's in your pocket... It's so small, and something you would handle a LOT and it does after all, cost $400!

Let's just hope there is no "burning powerbook adapter" issue with this thing... ;)

Fuck You, Moderator.

[dbCooper0]

I have a valid point, whereas you have moderator points. Wasting them on a post with a value of "1" just shows how STUPID you are. Asshole. Go browse GOATSE or something...

Someone else, please?

[jcr]

I know what the memory effect is, and how to minimize it with NiCads. I was asking whether Lithium Polymer batteries have the problem.

-jcr

Re:Someone else, please?

[nukebuddy]

Neither Ni-Cad nor Li-Pol cells suffer from memory effects.

-nb

Re:Someone else, please?

[crayz]

I think you mean NIMH or Li batteries. clearly NiCd ones do...

Re:Someone else, please?

[jcr]

I beg to differ. Speaking as one who has used them in model airplanes, I can tell you that Ni-Cads suck when they're shallow-cycled. Most modellers I know consider them a consumable item.

-jcr

Unofficial non-Mac support

[Midnight Thunder]

It will work on other platforms, but you won't get any help from Apple. What you need is some utility that supports the HFS+ format, a Firewire card and the drivers to go with it. Now all you have to do is mount the drive and copy the files using the expected directory layout.

Re:Unofficial non-Mac support

[4444444]

Now all you have to do is mount the drive and copy the files using the expected directory layout

sorry but you will also have to update the database file in the ipod somehow so it knows the new mp3's are there I don't know what that invovles but it's a bit more then just copying the files over

Re:Yeah but. . .

[ryanr]

Well, we still don't have something like the DMCA here in Europe.

Depends on what part of Europe. Unfortunately, if your country is a signatory to the convention regarding intellectual property (I wanted to say berne Convention, but I'm not sure that's correct), then your government may be obliged to pass a law equivalent to whatever idiot legislation we pass here to "protect" copyright owners.

Re:Dimensions?

[jaoswald]

A 100 yen piece is exactly the right size to open the battery compartment on a Japanese camera.

Re:Anthrax at NASA?

[Anonymous Coward]

huh, that's funny retard. i'm sitting about 1/2 mile from JSC right now. haven't heard a thing. 20 people sick. all going to the same hospital. would that be st. lukes's or clear lake regional?

btw, since jsc only has one mail distribution center, which "one of the post offices here at NASA" would that be?

Re:Yeah but. . .

[SubtleNuance]

If your Canadian, there is info about the effort to bring DMCA-style fascism to Canada, read here:http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/167203.html

and .gc.ca info here

[ot] Bloody moderators

[purplemonkeydan]

TROLL?

This perfectly legitimate question was marked as a TROLL?

What the hell has /. come to?

Macintosh Jr commercial

[CeramicNuts]

what about Macintosh Jr. -- "The power to crush the other kids."

got vmware?

[davidesh]

I really don't understand all the commotion...

a friend of mine once showed me how he was running Mac OS on top of Windows 2000 with VMWare (eww windows, haha don't worry it's for linux too)

Mac OS isn't 'supported' by vmware.. but i've seen it work...

So why would this not work with the ipod?

www.vmware.com

Re:got vmware?

[Maniac]

Erm... I don't ever see this working... VMWare is a 'x86' virtualizer/emulator. A mac uses a completely different cpu, it'll never work.
There are however emulators which do emulate the entire mac system (G4/PowerPC chip etc)

Never in VMWare....

Re:got vmware?

[fishbowl]

>a friend of mine once showed me how he was
>running Mac OS on top of Windows 2000 with
>VMWare (eww windows, haha don't worry it's for
>linux too)

This isn't really a credible claim.
There may be a MacOS emulator that
can run on Windows 2000, but it is
not VMWare.

Gameboy l/ Apple PDA

[pagercam2]

Speaking of the Gameboy this could be a terrific Gamebody emulator. Surely you could store every gameboy game ever made in 5GB, and have backlighting which the True GB always lacked. If they upgraded to a colour screen and offered low cost downloads, this could be the ultimate portable gaming machine of all time, the screen is a little small, but you could also emulate the Palm on a device like this. People have been waiting ages to get a Apple PDA, probably not the best time to introduce another consumer device, but all that storage to sync home and work machines plus PDA functions like calendar and address/phonebook would be a killer product.

Count me in

[SuperKendall]

I've been using Wintel (and Lintel) machines from about the P90 on (Atari ST's and Timex Sinclairs before that). I just ordered a Powerbook. I've never had a Mac before but look forward to the switch, both the form factor and features of the Powerbook and OSX itself have convinced me to switch.

I'm tired of all the crap I put up with when working on PC's (and I've worked on lots of different PC's, having to work on not only my own machines but also machines at work and friends machines). Also, the Mach core of OSX really appeals to me and I love the ability to have a well put together Unix environment (I'm especially fond of the OSX packaging structure).

I'll still keep my old Wintel machines and use them as Linux servers, but I look forward to using OSX as a primary development environment.

Disk Drive Physics.

[jcr]

Streaming audio data from a disk really doesn't demand much in the way of bandwidth or low seek times. I would expect that a user wouldn't even notice a half-second seek time when loading up an MP3 to play.

Is there a benefit to be had from running the disk in a "minimal performance" mode? Hopefully, someone perusing this discussion will have some answers to the following:

1) Does the rotational speed of the disk have any significant effect on its power draw?

2) If so, is it feasible for a disk to be operated at a lower RPM when it's on battery power than when it's plugged into a power supply?

3) If so, how slow can a disk spin, and still be reliably read by the pickup head?

4) I've heard of disks that use the kinetic energy of the spinning platter to supply the power to park the heads. Would it be reasonable to dump any excess energy into a capacitor, and use that charge to start the platters rotating when you want to access the disk again?

-jcr

Re:Disk Drive Physics.

[gig]

iPod loads up its 32MB of RAM with the tunes it needs and sleeps the hard drive while it plays those tunes, to save power. 32MB is like 20 minutes or so at 160kbs, which is the bit-rate Apple prefers and uses when it talks MP3 (the "1000 songs" feature is based on 1000 160kbs MP3's). Apparently, they have been more successful with the power consumption and battery life than even they hoped. In the iPod intro video, you can see where Jon Rubenstein (Apple's hardware tech boss) says "eight hour battery" and they dubbed over "ten hour battery" later, and now reviewers are saying their demo units are getting 12 hours of playback on a single charge.

So, given that the hard drive is sleeping much of the time, I would guess that they just use the standard Toshiba drive in the way that Toshiba recommends, without complicating things.

Re:Disk Drive Physics.

[jcr]

Yeah, I'm aware of how iPod works *currently*, I was asking whether there were things that could be done to save even more power by operating the disk in a "minimal-performance" mode.

-jcr

Re:It's great to have sites like this (OT)

[Giant Robot]

Why the fuck is this moderated down as Troll?!!

Sabra Price is Right

[erotus]

That episode is called "Sabra Price is Right." You can find it on http://snl.jt.org

cheers

Re:Yeah but. . .

[RuleBritannia]

Arrogant Yank!

While you're busy being protectionist and introverted, the rest of the world is existing beyond your sphere of vision.

I would of thought that the extremist bombing of the WTC would have taught some of you that you can't go on with this attitude.

Re:PortalPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

AIFF *is* a good format, its the same thing as WAV
they are both 16bit PCM files, just with a slightly different header

Re:ARM Intel

[Tromso]

Anonymous Coward wrote: Why's that interesting? ARM sold out to Intel long ago.

I find ARM interesting. It is well on its way to be the worlds leading processor architecture. It is already used in 70-80% of mobile phones. Recently Microsoft stopped supporting Hitachi, MIPS chips for Pocket PC2002 and only supports ARM chips now. Palm already announced they would be using ARM in future.

ARM is an intellectual property company that licences it's processor architecture to semiconductor manufacturers. Intel pay an initial licence fee for the ARM architecture and pay royalties to ARM. Intel, Motorola and Texas Instruments (for Digital Signal Processors) are unique in having architecture licences from ARM which allow them to add their own value through modifications to the basic ARM architecture, whilst other manufacturers can only produce the original ARM designs.

Intel originally purchased StrongARM from Digital, which had the first architecture licence from ARM, but Intel has been buying new architecture licences as well as normal licences from ARM. Intel's new ARM architecture is called Xscale which which will replace StrongARM.

hfs on windows...

[Cinematique]

windows can read hfs+ with the use of macdrive.

now someone run along and get macdrive and an ipod, and see if the two play nice with each other.

Whats so special about them opening the iPOD

[butch812]

If anyone ever watches thescreensavers, they showed the iPod the first day it was announced, including what it looks like inside

Re:It's great to have sites like this (OT)

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he had the nerve to say you weren't interested in trying to install a different ( *NIX ) OS on the system.

Nifty

[2nd Post!]

You *can* burn on the fly with this thing!

However,at USB speeds, it's pretty slow. If it were Firewire, was cdrw, and less than $300, I'd be *all* over it.

As it is, I'm gonna have to look into it now :)

Overall Strategy

[overunderunderdone]

Why won't they release iTUNE for other platforms when they are giving Quicktime away for free?... but who would buy a mac solely for iPOD?

The answers to the last question is nobody, BUT (and this will answer the first question) The iPod is not only a product designed to sell and earn the company profits but ALSO one part of a larger strategy to drive sales of Mac's. You may not buy a Mac just for iPod but you might for the whole package of hardware and sofware that integrate seamlessly with each other (iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, Mac, iPod, Cinema Display etc.)

Apple lost out on the advantages of licensing their OS, a business plan transition that is too late to make now and they may not have survived even in the early days when MacOS was vastly superior to DOS Apple's revenues have ALWAYS come from hardware. But building the whole widget has some advantages too and Apple is (finally) trying to exploit those advantages for all they are worth making hardware, software and peripherals that "just work" and "work together" and do so easily and intuitively in a way that would be very hard for a Wintel setup representing dozens of vendors (often working at cross purposes) to emulate.

Re:Yeah but. . .

[czardonic]

While you're busy being protectionist and introverted. . .

Those are big words. You must have learned them from your parents, because they haven't been relevant to US policy in over 50 years.

Anyone curious about the hard drive like I am?

[alexburke]

If you're a hardware geek like myself, these should whet your whistle!

The drive has a normal 44-pin notebook IDE connector, but pins 41 and 42, instead of being 5V for logic and motor, are 3.3V.

• 1.8" sized drive
• 1 Platter
• 5.007 Gigabytes
• 5mm High
• 15ms Average Seek Time
• ATA (1 - 5) Interface
• Ultra66 Supported [they seem to contradict themselves here!]
• 1024KB Buffer
• Rotational speed of 4,200rpm
• MTTF 300,000 Hours

Beautiful little unit...

Alternative MP3 playback....

[Pfhor]

I realize this may sound kind of trivial, but how hard would it be to control the playback of the iPod from iTunes. As in iTunes just provides the interface on your computer, but the decoding of the mp3s takes place on the dedicated hardware. It would be a nice way to reduce CPU load, (yeah, i know, it may be trivial, but it would be a cool hack).

Re:PortalPlayer

[gig]

Steve Jobs said in a recent keynote that Apple prefers MP3 for digital music because it's open and interoperable and it's what people are already using. The players are out there, the software is out there.

No windows development costs

[biftek]

Surely _someone_ out there is going to develop a windows (and linux, and *bsd etc) interface for the iPod, so in this way, Apple can avoid the hassles of making (and supporting) software for the other OSes.

As well as promoting their computer hardware, and churning out damn cool products.

iPod for wintel? From macnn.com

[alfredo]

If you look inside the iTunes 2.0 package, you'll see in the Resources folder a file named "iTunes-wma.icns." Could this indicate upcoming support for Microsoft's Windows Media format for iTunes? Maybe Apple is planning on supporting WMA on Mac OS X and doing a flash upgrade to the iPod's firmware in preparation for Windows support with iPod (and possibly iTunes).

Re:Yeah but. . .

[RuleBritannia]

I suggest to you that US Policy looks very different to Americans than to Europeans

iPod talking to Linux

[jasono]

My iPod is an expensive paperweight/mirror until I can get it talking to a Linux box and add some songs, ample motivation to hack around with it. So far it's proven to be a frustrating, non-trivial exercise, but I've made some progress.

Details at: http://neuron.com/~jason/ipod.html.