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iPod NoteReader Notes
An anonymous reader writes, "Apple has released a document on how to use the new iPod NoteReader." The highlights: you can link to other notes, or to tracks on the iPod, or to dynamically generated playlists. It handles 1,000 notes, up to 4K each, and caches up to 64K of notes in memory so the hard drive doesn't spin up. The notes are stored as text files in directories and can be organized by directory.
I wanted to point out a nifty piece of software- VoodooPad ( http://flyingmeat.com/voodoopad.html ) which will export it's wiki contents to the iPod notes folder (in the latest version, 1.1 alpha).
It turns your ipod into a Wiki on the go... Here's a great writeup of the software from
Oreilly entitled "Wiki meet iPod"- http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3164
Disclaimer- I wrote the software.
-gus
One should note that this functionality will only be available on new (red backlit buttons) iPods.
Meaning that's this is just an extra feature, surely not a selling point.
Carrying around a Palm (or any notebook PC) for me would be a waste, I'm not that organized (nor do I want to be). My iPod is first and foremost an MP3 player and secondly a FireWire drive to haul large files to and from work. Once in a blue moon I might actually need an address or write down an appointment, and it's a nice thing to have. Being able to put notes with links in them really doesn't affect me much, but it's just one more side ability the iPod has.
That being said I hope Apple doesn't expand the PDA abilities of the iPod too much. Trying to cram a bunch of PDA-like functionality in there (add-on keyboards and touch screens) would detract from what it does well- play music. If it ain't broke...
I just tried this out, and it works pretty much as described in the docs. One thing though: it takes a while for it to do the pattern matching. Generating a playlist of all the "indie" genre'd stuff in my library took like 5-6 seconds before "Now Playing" came up. Hopefully they'll speed this up a bit and also work out the couple of annoying bugs in the firmware :)
All around the new revs are great, though I've already manged to scratch the face and back in a few places. I wish they'd put some sort of scratch resistant coating on these things ala eyeglasses.
One application for the iPod notes feature would be in self-guided museum tours.
A note you can read on the iPod screen that will link to an audio file or to another note? A self-guided tour unit that will sync changes automatically and charge via the same cable? A system that only requires one base computer to synchronize changes (connecting multiple iPod docks via a firewire hub or perhaps some third party will come out with a multi-iPod dock)?
I don't know how much museums pay for each self-guided unit they use currently, but the 10Gb model is $300.
Surely there must be other applications?