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Apple To Introduce Video iPod?
xombo writes "iPoding and Mac Rumors as well as eWeek newsletter and Reuters seem to think that Apple will be introducing either a video-capable iPod -or- even better a Tablet Mac which may run into direct competition with Microsoft's similar product.
"The one thing you can say for sure is that they do have a lot of product out there right now and they're going to be hesitant to draw too much attention away from their existing products" by introducing new ones now, said Roger Kay, an analyst at market research firm International Data Corp.
Instead, Apple may unveil the long-anticipated video-enabled iPod, which will likely work initially only on Macintosh computers, Enderle said.
Apple's existing inkwell and Newton technologies seem to make them in the perfect position to take on Microsoft in what could be the biggest battle for the most worthless market sector (Tablet PCs), however as a Newton owner I think that the some-what-larger-than-Palm device size that the Newton line sported is much more user friendly and usable.
Read the Reuters article at reuters.." It'd be nice, but I'm skeptical on it actually being that.
It doesn't need to, as long as it can communicate with Linux, then we should be fine!
I try to consider Apple a friend, not a foe...
The bottom line is that they are too expensive. Do not look for anyone except the rich kids in college to flaunt them. A great concept, converting your handwritten notes to say MS Word, but they are too expensive, except for the affluent. Hell..I still can't afford a laptop..
Solid!
Does anyone really need something like this? The iPod you can use in the car, while working out, or while sitting at your desk. Ripping or downloading songs is fast and the files are small. None of these things are true for an iVideoPod. The only place you could use such a thing would be on a bus or train or something, where most of the passengers tend to be older and poor (not exactly Apple's niche market, to put it nicely). If they want to continue to grab the rich college girl market, they'll need to come up with something more reasonable.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Apple is about giving a good experience. Watching movies on an iPod is not really a good experience - massive storage requirements, pressure to have a large display on a small device, the need for battery life. Why make a video device that you can only watch one video on? I would rather them foray into consumer electronics, selling a Tivo-like device that if you subscribe to .mac you get the channel listings, or something like that. Not a video iPod....
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
-E. W. Dijkstra
1. Next year theyll add a voice recording function 2. Then wireless connections will be available 3. Same people will call this kind of gadget mobile phone Any questions?
The USB2 is as fast as firewire; and it works without drivers on XP - comes up just like another hard drive. The big problem with the multimedia one they put out, there is an extra adaptor you have to get to use firewire or usb2. That was a major error in my eyes, since usb2 was built into the previous versions. Also, despite the repeated lies by steve jobs whores, the sound is better on the archos and most versions will record other sources to mp3. Of course the best sound comes from the Nomads, but those things are fatter than cowboi kneel.
At least one of those two things--tablet or enhanced ipod/handheld--are what I think are most likely tomorrow as well. Apple has recently improved all their products--superdrive in the tibook, quartzextreme in the ibook (and man does that make a difference), powermacs up to 1.25 GHz, and the 17" imac. Speed-bumping the xserve would be nice but it's not a show-making announcement.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
As was stated in the origginal article posting:
;) . Surely Apple could produce a kick-ass tablet... but why? There's no market for it right now.
"Apple's existing inkwell and Newton technologies seem to make them in the perfect position to take on Microsoft in what could be the biggest battle for the most worthless market sector (Tablet PCs)..."
I couldn't have put it better myself (so I copy and paste
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
(except that i probably misspelled it...)
The one thing you can say for sure is that they do have a lot of product out there right now and they're going to be hesitant to draw too much attention away from their existing products"
certainly you don't want to diminish sales of your own products, but if the sales would otherwise go to someone else (e.g., somebody with a color something-or-other, or a tablet something-or-other...
then maybe you do want to saturate the market with your own products?
I really can't see a video iPod being successfull. It would make it so expensive and for what? Who puts on the visualizations and stares at them? I unfortunatley don't have time to get stoned and look at my computer screen, let alone shell out $500 to stare at my screen while listening to Wilco on the train. I am also not going to shell out $500 to watch a DIVX movie on a screen the size of a matchbook. Do you forget that this kind of activity would kill the battery in far less than the 13 hours I get out of mine? I can see them opting for a color screen just for the hell of it and putting an FM tuner in the mix. But as for video, it would have to be a new device altogether to be any good.
Sound waves should be free!
The iPod has a year warranty.
Under certain ideal conditions.
Wow, like the iPod always has.
I don't think this will fly in the consumer market though - look at all of the hospital and other field-type application that PDAs get used for. The people don't think of them as PDAs, because they're just using a tool to do a specific job. I can see tablets in a similar position, where they are adapted for specific uses in specific environments, and they do great.
I, for one, don't have good enough handwriting for anything to recognize. Even graffiti didn't get it right more than about 80% of the time.
Ironically, the only people left with decent handwriting seem to be older folks who didn't use computers until much later in life; their handwriting clarity was important for communication. Us "kids" (i'm 34) who use a computer all day generally can't hand write for shite.
Hmm. What just about everybody here seems to be forgetting is the "do people want this" test. How many times have you been sitting on your train or in an airport or whatever and said to yourself, "Gee, I wish I could look at my own collection of photographs right now?" Zero.
If Apple releases a new product-- I don't imagine they will, myself-- it will not be a device that people look at and say, "Oh, neat." It will be a device that people will look at and say, "I want one now. Take my money, Apple. Gimme gimme gimme."
I write in my journal
Sheesh! How long till CNN starts posting breaking stories about Apple rumors?
Seeing as how sites like eweek.com and news.com already run Apple rumors articles on their front pages, I'd say not very long at all.
I write in my journal
Again, "do people want this?" The answer is still no.
Now, if you wanted to talk about a 12" or larger 10:16 tablet with a built-in AirPort antenna and a couple of GB of compact flash or similar solid-state memory, we'd be in business. Built on Rendezvous, when you get in range of the tablet's "base station," it becomes a thin client, letting you run any application on the desktop computer using the desktop's CPU's for processing and its own for displaying the UI. When you leave range of the AirPort LAN, the tablet's AirPort card automatically shuts down and becomes a very simple low-powered device with a built-in browser, email program, calendar, address book, notepad application, PDF viewer, and little else, the perfect cross between PDA and laptop. That'd be a hit.
But an iPhoto appliance? Nah. Waste of effort.
I write in my journal
Jobs himself has said on more than one occasion that Apple isn't planning on a PDA. I, for one, am glad. Their efforts should be focused more on things that integrate the Mac into someone's entertainment center. Imagine what Apple could do with the media center PC concept that Microsoft has. I just added a Keyspan Digital Media Remote to my iMac about a week ago, and I totally see now what I've been missing. Now I can control iTunes from the couch, blasting through the big stereo. In addition, if Apple added PVR functionality to OS X, they'd have a leg up on the competition.
What I'd like to see is a Firewire-based PVR with an 8" screen. Not only will it record TV, but you'll be able to watch it on the 8" screen (portably) and on the Mac and TV. It's like having a TiVo to go.
There's more that Apple can do - how about adding SPDIF and S-Video outputs to all Macs so that we can use them as our main DVD players? How about that remote control, a la MacTV?
There's so much that can be done to make a Mac truly the center of a digital lifestyle, and a PDA just isn't one of them. Apple should focus on entertainment, something they're good at, both with A/V and Photo products.
All the bits Apple's been putting into the OS would go wuite nicely into a tablet or PDA. I think a "sub-tablet" would be good.
.Mac - online storage/addresses/calendar for a web-enabled PDA/tablet with limited internal storage.
Bluetooth - sync Address Book, iCal, etc. or use your Bluetooth enabled cellphone to connect to the internet.
802.11 - Communicate with devices that have removable media and access the internet.
iSync - easily update your tablet/PDA to your mac.
Inkwell - why the hell else would they put handwriting recognition on desktops? So grpahic designers don't have to switch away from the tablet when they take down project details? Right.
Quartz Extreme - this makes desktops faster but also frees up processing power on portables, making them zippier.
Sherlock 3 - a simple interface for all sorts of web-based information is a great addition to the desktop, but think how convenient it is to have stocks, movies, flight info, phone numbers, eBay, a dictionary and translation services in a single application that requires very little typing
QuickTime 6 - support for MPEG-4; perfect for moderate-to-low bandwidth video applications.
Universal Access - All sorts of access functions for disabled individuals translate well to tablets... Modifier key lock is a great example.
All right, I'll stop. I'm not saying that we will see a tablet or PDA tomorrow, but the Magic 8-ball says: Outlook Promising.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
>it's using USB2 rather than Firewire
That would be wrong sir! Its only USB 1.1 (got time to wait?) with and option to add FIREWIRE or USB2 support. Didn't see the price.
From the specification:
Interface: USB 1.1 (PC & Mac). Optional interface : USB 2.0 (PC) or FireWire (PC & Mac)
MacWorld Expo starts tomorrow. Rather than speculate (odd are, incorrectly), just wait the 24 hours until Steve Jobs speaks.
Oh. And the award for stupidest speculation goes to ... An article in news.com makes a seemingly definitive statement about the specs of the new product. Then in the next paragraph says, "Then again, it could be something entirely different ..."
I don't think a video iPod would be a bad thing - personally, I'd like a Palm style PDA with the 5 to 20 G drive inside - that way, I can store all my ebooks (yes, 16 MB has now become too small - thanks, Tolkein and Rowling!), documents, etc.
I swear, the only reason the storage market hasn't died is because of the pack rat mentality. Do you really need all your ebooks in your pocket, or just the ones you're reading right now? I can just imagine a future where every device we own contains all the data we have in every other device because you never know when you might need it...
There is no techniocal reason why OS X can't run on TabletPC hardware --except Classic, of course. Imagine: Cocoa, Carbon, Darwin, not to mention QuickTime all runing on a TabletPC with Intel Inside.
If apple made a tablet pc, type of thing, it would use their PPC processor, not an intel one.
This is not only cool, it's a step towards a new-and-improved hardware-independent Apple.
Steve Jobs himself said that they would never put OSX/aqua on the x86 platform himself.
The only danger I see is that if it's released for TabletPC, it will be bootlegged and running on a standard wintel box in no time.
See first comment, by tabletpc, they mean their own design/their own platform.
They don't do such a good job of turning that want into sales, though.
Really? $143 million in sales in six months seems to indicate otherwise. (Apple's 10-K is always a fascinating read.)
I write in my journal