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Anandtech Dissects The New iPod
oDDmON oUT writes "Anandtech dissects the new version of Apple's iPod in this review. Everything is given a thorough going over, complete with photos. While not revelatory, consider this the must-have addition to the manual."
Just got mine, and I'm delighted with it.
;) only get MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, and WAV.
Re sound formats, a quick check of Apple's site would have told you that on a Mac it does support AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF, and WAV. Windows users (poor saps
Mark
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It's worth noting that the firewire cable plugs into the dock, and then the iPod sits in the dock.
:)
If you prefer, you can forget the dock, and just plug the cable right into the bottom of the iPod - the connector's the same. The only addition in the dock is a line-out port.
Plus you get a power adaptor which simply turns the local power plug into a firewire socket... so you can power the dock or the iPod while you're away from your Mac, whichever you prefer. I might get a spare dock for work, even though I can't plug it into my PC, just to let my iPod stand on the desk rather than lying there all forlorn...
All in all, it's a very sensible design - I know a lot of companies that'd have the power adaptor built into the dock & require a firewire and power connection to use it, and three different cable connectors
Mark
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For more photos, see
http://www.ipoding.com/
and look under the new ipod section. They have also taken apart the dock, and figured out where the line in and out are, as well as the USB 2.0, and Firewire leads in then plug.
Also thier photos are labled and show case details that are not covered in this review.
Gil
-- Where ever you go, don't complain, you went there!
Quicktime. That and iTunes.
iTunes is built around Quicktime, so when they released AAC coding in Quicktime, iTunes could immediately do it. The iPod will play anything you can throw at it - I'm sure if you can get Audible tracks or AAC audio into MusicMatch, and then onto the iPod, it'll be happy - but good luck!
Mark
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There is no difference as far as the iPod is concerned, except that the only Apple supported way of getting music onto the iPod (MusicMatch) only supports MP3 and WAV. If you use some other way f putting the files onto the iPod you could use all the same formats as on the Mac.
Which is fine, but they say 'you can't sync Contacts, Calendars or Notes automatically' without commenting that you can using OS X.
:)
iSync'll take care of the first two (and very well). You can do notes manually, or there's a lot of OS X apps which'll do it for you - Pod2Go is a good one, which scrapes news, weather etc off the web and slaps it into notes. There are others, but there's also a new Interactive Fiction thing under development, so the opportunities are endless.
I'm quite sure some enterprising PC developer will code up something similar, if they haven't already, but for once it's nice to be ahead of the crowd as a Mac User
Mark
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BTW, there was a version of it on the Apple ][ as well.
ThinkSecret keeps predicting an iPod firmware update but apparently it keeps getting pushed back. Perhaps Apple is having a lot of problems with this one. When it does finally come out, hopefully it'll not only add the USB 2.0 support, but fix most of these issues.
Say hello to zMac.
> Don't you mean Job's Breakout?
No, unless I miss your joke.
Wozniak reportedly took Atari's Breakout to the Apple ][. See:
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/WOZNIAK.HTM
"Wozniak said that a lot of reasons that made the Apple II standout where due to a game, Breakout, which he had designed in hardware form for Atari. He had wanted to program Breakout in software. Since Wozniak had written the Basic interpreter, a program that translates the instruction to machine language, he was easily able to. When he got the first stage of Breakout working he had a ball bouncing around on the screen he then decided to add sound so he added speakers. From there he needed paddles so he invented a minimum- chip paddle circuit. Wozniak and Randy Wigginton made a very simple disk operating system that would only load files from fixed locations off the disk in response to one-letter commands. Their rudimentary control program would not be flexible enough for efficient and simple use of the disk drive. Designing a disk operating system, DOS, was a lot of effort because on one side is the RAM memory in the Apple II, waiting patiently for a useful program to be loaded and executed and on the other side of an electronic bridge (interface card and connecting cable) are the floppy disk and disk drive hardware itself. The control program that Woz wrote could be compared to a narrow rope bridgecrossing a chasm; it works, but you can't carry much with you, and it is easy to lose data. Woz's "rope bridge" was a foundation, but after much work Apple came out with DOS 3.1 which completed the ground work (Wyehrich). The Apple II had built in circuitry allowing it to interface directly to a color video monitor or a television set through add-ons. With all this technology built into the Apple II the only thing left to do was to introduce it and see what the world thought."