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iPod Jr. Rumors Become More Substantial
sdimbert writes "Rumors of a new, smaller, "iPodJr" have been floating around the Rumor Sites for a few weeks (as well a here at Slashdot). But now, the rumors have gained credibility and become more substantial. London's Evening Standard reports today (30 Dec 03) that "Apple has announced a cut-price mini version" of the iPod, "costing 65 [~115 USD], which will be able to store 800 songs." Despite the assertion that Apple "announced" the product, there is no mention of it at their official News Page or their product page for the iPod."
there is no mention of it at their official News Page or their product page for the iPod.
Yeah, probably because Macworld expo is on the 6th, I would expect and announcement then.
Dang.
I really want to know what sort of media they are using and how much!
Lets see, 800 songs, average of around 3 minutes a song, about 1MB per minute for average quality works out to be about 2400MB. Refactor figures for the obligatory "Best Case Scenario" marketing droid math that works out to be a 32MB Flash player containing short songs recorded at 32kbit/s!
In reality it sounds like a 1.5BG player using AAC to fit 800 songs on it. That's a definite buy at that price! BUt if it sounds to good to be true, chances are it is.
Or maybe it is a simple Flash player with a compact flash card? Inserting 2GB CF card would allow for the capacity for 800 songs yet still keep the initial price of the player low.
~Z
I just got an 10GB iPod for Christmas and I was curious how the iPod holds up on a treadmill or a jog around the track?
Im also curious about how iTunes works? If i download some songs on my laptop and can move/play them on my home computer as well?
Your question will probably be better answered here.
You can play Ogg files in iTunes with a plugin:
http://www.illadvised.com/~jordy/
It's not native but it works. I don't want to get into the debate about file formats but I will tell you the experience with an iPod is far superior to any other player I've tried--perhaps good enough to switch formats.
Of course we torture people, we need the information --Gen. Pinochet
Ok, I'll give you that, but (I don't exacty know what I am talking about here, so please feel free to enlighten me) isn't MP3 encoding done via the same algorighm/codec no matter who writes the wrapper?
Nope. The LAME encoder is different and far superior to other encoders. Different encoders use different psychoacoustic models to determin which parts to throw away. Quality varies greatly between encoders. There are terrible ones like Bladeenc and Xing, which have quality more on par with Real Audio, and superior encoders like LAME which have quality more on par with Ogg Vorbis.
LAME is the only good way to encode. Anything else will produce inferior MP3s.
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iPod's may be mountable as Firewire drives but you can't just dump music to it. The iPod has a database that keeps track of all of the songs and playlists currently on the player. If you don't update the db then it's as if the songs never got transfered. Luckily the format is either open or easily reversed because there are programs like ephpod that can rebuild it.
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