Apple Creates new iPod and Macintosh Divisions

KH2002 writes "According to a New York Times/Reuters report, Apple is creating a separate division for the iPod. Apple Senior VP Hardware Engineering, Jon Rubenstein, will head the iPod division, and Executive VP of Worldwide Sales and Operations Tim Cook will lead the Mac division. The report quotes a spokesman as saying, 'This organizational refinement will focus our talent and resources even more precisely on our industry-leading Macintosh computers and the wildly successful iPod.'"

Comments

Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[MacGod]

It seems of late that Apple has been focusing more and more on the music side of their business (ITMS, iPod etc).

Therefore, I can see this decision going one of two ways:

1. Each division focuses more on their individual strengths. Each half becomes better suited to its product, and the company as a whole grows and becomes stronger.
2. Apple decreases the emphasis on its Computer division to focus more and more effort on the Music side. The Mac as we know it disappears.

I certainly hope that it's #1, and I have a hunch that it is, but it will be very interesting to see what developers over the next few years.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[pauljlucas]

Apple decreases the emphasis on its Computer division to focus more and more effort on the Music side. The Mac as we know it disappears.

As nice as it is, the iPod is pretty much a one-trick pony. Do you really think Apple could sustain itself on the (relatively small) profit margins of the iPod alone? Additionally, iTunes and the iTMS are presumeably staying in the Mac division. The FireWire sync of one's entire music library fom iTunes is the killer feature of the iPod. The iPod division will still have to work closely with the Mac division.

What I'm hoping will happen with the iPod division will be that they will start making their own iPod accessories. What I really want is a car head unit that has a slot that one just pops the iPod into. Current iPod adapter solutions are all crap and don't measure up to Apple design standards.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Pope]

Sales of PowerMacs have tapered off in anticipation of newer/faster models coming "real soon now." IBM has had troubles getting the faster chips out the door, so the G5 line remains stagnant, certainly not a good thing for Apple's image OR bottom-line.

I know I've been holding off for a Rev B G5 mainly because I want a dual chip machine, and though the Dual 1.8 is the best price/perfomance ratio at the moment, it's still going on 6 or 7 months old. I have no urgent, pressing need for a G5, so holding off for the next speedbump makes sense to me.

Creating a separate iPod/music division away from the Mac line is a fantastic idea, and will allow more concentration on their respecetive products.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Llywelyn]

Better than a hunch.

Apple has filed for trademarks over three more cat names (Lynx, Cougar, and Leopard), which good through 2007 at their current OS release rate, *and* they have said that they are going to slow down their operating system release rate. I believe that their Mac hardware division is also profitable on most lines independent of their iPods.

Taking these two things into account I find it *highly* unlikely that there is *any* plan to kill off the Mac.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[noewun]

Sales of PowerMacs have tapered off in anticipation of newer/faster models coming "real soon now."

Quite a normal computer industry phenomenon, and nothing to worry about.

I'm typing this on a dual 1.8 G5. Nice machine.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[dhovis]

There was one business mag that suggested that Apple should spin off the iPod and iTMS into a separate company and issue an IPO for it. It would net Apple lots of cash, and it could isolate Apple from the eventual decline of the iPod.

This does make some sense, as it is hard to envision Apple keeping the iPod as a high profit margin device for more than 5 years or so. I don't know about you, but I kind of expect the functionality of my iPod, my Palm, and my cell phone to converge by then. I suspect that Apple hopes that by the time that happens, they will have a large share of the legal downloads market, and that sales for iTMS will be large enough to produce a good profit, even with the razor thin margins they have now.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[reaper20]

As nice as it is, the iPod is pretty much a one-trick pony.

This is why I love my iPod so much and probably why it's so successful.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Elwood P Dowd]

As nice as it is, the iPod is pretty much a one-trick pony. Do you really think Apple could sustain itself on the (relatively small) profit margins of the iPod alone? Additionally, iTunes and the iTMS are presumeably staying in the Mac division.

Dunno why you'd presume that.

Also, the new division may be responsible for other one-trick-pony devices, should Apple decide to market them.

The thing that I find the most notable about this is that Jon Rubinstein (not going to check the spelling, sorry) is the guy that everyone lauds for the iMac, the tiBook & the alBook, the cheesegrater, and the iPod's excellent design. You'll note how four out of those five items are Macintoshes and not tiny consumer electronic devices.

Was Jon a figurehead, will he still be involved in Mac hardware design, or does this mean that we'll be seeing lamer (maybe just different) design for the next generation of Mac enclosures?

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[pauljlucas]

Dunno why you'd presume that.

1. Because the linked article made no mention of it: no data, assume no change.
2. The software runs on a Mac, not an iPod.
3. There are people (like me) who use iTunes and the iTMS who don't own iPods.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Trillan]

I don't know about you, but I kind of expect the functionality of my iPod, my Palm, and my cell phone to converge by then.

Convergence is over-rated. Each of these devices serves a different purpose and requires a different form factor. Look at your current gadgets, they're probably more or less ideal in terms of form factor. How comfortable would it be to write on your cell phone's screen? How would you like to hold your Palm up to your ear for an extended period of time? And once you have a single device, how do you turn up your music player a bit while talking on the phone, and then quickly jot down a number?

But integration between the devices would certainly be nice. A cell phone sending a signal to turn down an iPod might be nice. A Palm that can shunt little-used programs off to an iPod would be handy.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[daviddennis]

It seems more logical to me to bring the iTMS and iTunes development to the iPod division than leaving them with the Mac. After all, iTunes is available for Windows, and plenty of Windows users are buying.

I don't remember where I read this concern, but it's Johnathan Ive, not John Rubenstein, who's responsible for all the cool designs. I have to assume he stays with the Mac division, or perhaps his talents get split between the two. I can't see future Apple products without him, whether they be Macs or i-Devices.

D

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[daviddennis]

The single device would probably shut off the music playing during phone conversations, or at least reduce the volume.

I hate the lumpy pockets and moments of confusion (was that the phone or my iPod?) inherent in dragging around multiple devices. There's also the greater risk of losing them when they drop out of your pocket, something that's happened to me with dismaying frequency.

I presently use a T-Mobile Sidekick, which is a combination phone, PDA and web browsing device, and it works great except where reception is a problem (which turns out to be everywhere, but that's not the conceptual device's fault). I think it would be neat to combine that with a music player, but certainly the user interface would be a very tough challenge.

D

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Elwood P Dowd]

Dunno why you'd presume that iTunes and iTMS is in their hardware division and not in some software or web content division.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Unregistered]

I think the iPod is on its way to being a PDA, phone, and media player.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[MacGarnicle]

The thing that I find the most notable about this is that Jon Rubinstein (not going to check the spelling, sorry) is the guy that everyone lauds for the iMac, the tiBook & the alBook, the cheesegrater, and the iPod's excellent design. You'll note how four out of those five items are Macintoshes and not tiny consumer electronic devices.

Are you sure you're not confusing Jon Rubinstein with Jonathan Ive? Ive is usually credited for the design excellence you mentioned.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[cyb97]

apart from the fact that apple usually keeps all upcomming upgrades to them selves leaving it up to their customers (and resellers) to secondguess when the next Gx is coming out.
This coupled with their wonkey pricing-strategy pretty much scares both customers and resellers alike.

If customers could walk in to a local store, feel and try the machine before they buy it, and then be pretty sure that it wouldn't be 2 weeks before apple decides to launch the next upgraded mac pushing all the others down one notch on their pricing scheme leaving the customer feeling tricked.
I have several friends who've spent more than a monthly salary getting the biggest alu powerbook just to find out that 2 months later apple has released a better one for the same price sending the one they payed through the nose for down to the price of the (previously) second best pb.
Of course this happens in to all kinds of computerequipment, prices change rapidly. Everywhere else however, you usually get an advance warning and price don't change by thousands over night...

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing that I find the most notable about this is that Jon Rubinstein (not going to check the spelling, sorry) is the guy that everyone lauds for the iMac, the tiBook & the alBook, the cheesegrater, and the iPod's excellent design.

You're thinking of Jonathan Ive, who did the industrial design for these products. Jon Rubinstein is in hardware engineering (motherboards, etc.).

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I'm hoping will happen with the iPod division will be that they will start making their own iPod accessories. What I really want is a car head unit that has a slot that one just pops the iPod into. Current iPod adapter solutions are all crap and don't measure up to Apple design standards. If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.

And why, pray tell, exactly should iPod users be forced to buy Apple accessories? Why shouldn't I be able to get a third-party car kit, rather than have to get whatever Apple decides is right for me?

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[CuriHP]

Try actually reading his comment. No one suggested anyone should be forced to by Apple accessories. Nor did anyone suggest that third party development should stop. He merely expressed the opinion that current third party offerings are substandard and thinks that Apple could do better.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Unregistered]

What I really want is a car head unit that has a slot that one just pops the iPod into.

Many HU's have a jack in the back which you can buy an adapter for that can connect to an ipod. You can run the wire from that jack to whatever location you want to put the iPod in. My ipod sits in the door pocket where it is nicely out of the way and hidden from theives.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[dthree]

Alpine will be making an adaptor cable that allows an alpine head unit to control an iPod. That way you can stick the iPod in your glovebox and select songs to play from the Alpine's screen.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[pauljlucas]

You can run the wire from that jack to whatever location you want to put the iPod in.

I don't consider a wire hanging elegant. Like I said, it's not up to Apple's standards. If Apple does it, you can be it will be done right (iPod with Bluetooth?).

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[pauljlucas]

Alpine will be making an adaptor cable that allows an alpine head unit to control an iPod.

That's better, but it still has an ugly wire hanging. I was a slot to pop the iPod into.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[IntlHarvester]

Do you really think Apple could sustain itself on the (relatively small) profit margins of the iPod alone?

iPods currently have a much larger profit margin than Macintoshes (which are barely above break-even).

Do you think Apple could sustain itself making only unprofitible Macs forever? (As they aren't really doing anything to increase market share.)

The long-term digital music/movies business is not a "one trick pony" -- in the future it's bound to be integrated into every cell phone, PDA, car stereo, home stereo, cable box, and television set. I guess the development of an 'iPod' division indicates that Apple is looking at the big picture and not just the trick pony.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Jobs "osborned" himself by standing in front of a big sign that said "3 Ghz in 12 Months". If people anticipated a more minor bump (2.5ghz), you wouldn't see as much tapering.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[pauljlucas]

The long-term digital music/movies business is not a "one trick pony" -- in the future it's bound to be integrated into every cell phone, PDA, car stereo, home stereo, cable box, and television set.

The thing that companies haven't figured out yet is that nobody wants to watch movies on portable devices with tiny screens. It's an application looking for a market.

I guess the development of an 'iPod' division indicates that Apple is looking at the big picture and not just the trick pony.

If they really wanted to do that, they would have created a "consumer electronics" division.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[That's Unpossible!]

I agree. I don't think we'll see much more (successful) convergence until there is a paradigm shift in user interfaces.

I'm thinking along the lines of having a 'convergent device' in my pocket (no, I'm not just happy to see you), with wireless technology feeding images to me through glasses or similar technology, with voice recognition, hand gesture recognition, etc (perhaps built into the glasses).

"Search engine. How do I get to Target from here?"

[Device looks up mapquest directions, map displays on HUD w/directions]

"Phone. Call Dave Jones."

[Phone dials, microphone and earphones are built into your glasses.]

"Calendar. Remind me. December 7, 1941 12PM. A date that will live in something something..."

[Calendar alarm is added to your schedule.]

"Take a memo. Subject: Convergent devices. Here are some more ideas for convergent device user interfaces..."

[New memo is created.]

"Camera. Pic."

[Camera built into glasses takes a picture.]

"Music. Shuffle. Dave Matthews Band."

[Device starts playing music, channeled to your earphones built into the glasses.]

Only problem with this thing is everyone will be wearing glasses. It's either that or implants.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Frizzle Fry]

How comfortable would it be to write on your cell phone's screen?

Uncomfortable, but still more comfortable than trying to fit another item in my pockets along with my my glasses, keys, wallet and phone. I would rather carry around one device with a subideal "form factor" than seven that are each individually well-designed.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Maserati]

I have an Executive Producer upstairs who is Dead Set on getting a wireless device she can watch movies on - so she can see rough cuts while on location. And she'll authorize whatever the gadget will cost.

Of course, in the consumer market the parent poster is probably right.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[sean23007]

There are also people who use iTunes and iTMS and own iPods, but don't use a Mac. Like me. iTunes and iTMS are software products that work on Windows. The iPod works on Windows. I makes sense, logically, that the iPod division would be the one that would interface with Windows machines, and they are separating that from the Mac division so that there is no conflict of interest of any kind.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[elemental23]

Just imagine the number of people holding off on their Powerbook purchases until the G5 comes out (I count myself among them). I don't need it urgently, so I'm ok with waiting on what's sure to be a damn impressive laptop.

If I can get one even after they come out; I expect the demand to be far greater than the supply for quite a while.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[IntlHarvester]

If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.

Why don't you take your own advice, asswipe? I didn't say anything about about a 'VideoPod'. Either that or kill your penishead sig.

If they really wanted to do that, they would have created a "consumer electronics" division.

Can you prove they didn't?

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[djtripp]

The FM transmitters to suck, its like listening to the music with ear plugs. The best thing to do know is get a head unit with an aux input and run RCA cables to the iPod. I did this with my Sony unit, ran an RCA to 1/8 mini cord to my Belkin Mobile Power Cord and I get great sound from it. Also, which is quite nice, when you unplug it from the dock conector, it automaticly pauses. And since the mini plug is plugged in the charger, it's only one thing to connect. You could also try to make your own center console like this guy did.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Maelikai]

"Additionally, iTunes and the iTMS are presumeably staying in the Mac division. The FireWire sync of one's entire music library fom iTunes is the killer feature of the iPod. The iPod division will still have to work closely with the Mac division."

Just like they work closely with the Windows division for the same features...

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[pauljlucas]

The best thing to do know is get a head unit with an aux input and run RCA cables to the iPod.

Again, I don't want any cables. Having cables loose and danling all over the console is not my idea of an elegant solution.

Please stop suggesting things. (I never asked for suggestions.) I've already looked into all of them and they all suck.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[djtripp]

I take back my suggestion, but I also posinted out the integrated console that some guy fabricated to make an elegant, integrated wireless soluction.

However, for the people who don't want to wait for good wireless solution, read above...

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[pauljlucas]

I also posinted out the integrated console that some guy fabricated to make an elegant, integrated wireless soluction.

That's a bit more effort than I, and I venture most people, are willing to make.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[mjc_w]

Take a look at Archos AV3x0 products.
(www.archos.com)
While not wireless, they can digitize audio and video in real time from NTSC or S-video.

I have a AV 320 and like it a lot.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Trillan]

Ah, but I doubt you'd be carrying around seven devices. There are, perhaps, two or three ideal form factors:

Palm: Comfortable to hold flat in the hand and operate with a pen or finger. Large screen. Examples: PDA, GPS, a calculator. By all means, merge them all into one and have a super PDA.

Ear: Comfortable to hold up to your ear for an extended period of time, which requires a smaller (or at least less wide) screen. The only thing I can really think of that fits into this category is a cell phone, which is good, because a cell phone is the only device here that can really issue an "interrupt," and the only one that you need immediate access to without losing your place in one of the other devices.

Pocket: Small enough to put in a pocket, but doesn't need to fit in the hand. Over the long run, this could become the same thing as the Palm sized device, but it doesn't have the same constraints.

Once you have these, you've got pretty much the ideal. And the devices should communicate with each other, I just am not sure I really want one that does everything, especially one where I need to lose my place in a memo to place a phone call.

Obviously, the Palm-sized device will need a better interface than either Palm or PocketPC currently offer.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Hm. Lynx on eMacs...déjà vu anyone?

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Maserati]

I was actually thinking of something more like a color Blackberry but those Archos things look interesting. We do a lot with Final Cut Pro, so MPEG-4 isn't an issue. Hmmm. She's gonna want one, god alone knows for what. I can see some applications for this at presentations.

Sigh.

I may regret this, but I'm going to forward that link to my work address. Maybe we can bill it to AV's overhead budget instead of "mine".

Thanks. I think.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[LoboRojo]

"Osborned himself"
The best neologism I've ever read, probably...

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Gannoc]

Jon Rubinstein (not going to check the spelling, sorry)

Why the fuck not? Are you just exactly busy enough that you JUST have time to write a message on slashdot, and ONLY have type to type "(not going to check the spelling, sorry)"

Damn, you're lucky you got to the submit button in time.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[magefile]

It's very Unix-y - do one thing and do it well. It's also very un-Linux/BSD-ish - I can't afford one.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[magefile]

Only problem with this thing is everyone will be wearing glasses. It's either that or implants.

I'd be happy with seeing more implants around ... oh. Right

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[tverbeek]

how do you turn up your music player a bit while talking on the phone

{puzzled}

Friend: Can you hear me now?
You: Yeah, hang on a sec while I adjust my music volume.
Friend: Can you hear me now?
You: What?

Not even teenagers are that mixed up.

Also, if your iPod was your phone, I bet it would automatically pause the music while you were on a call.

Seriously, that's a good point about multitasking issues. But bad example. {smile}

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[cosmo7]

What's eating you up, bub? The world doesn't owe you a thing.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[crackshoe]

so you want apple... to design something specifically for you rneeds... because you're too lazy to do it yourself, but too damn picky about 'style' to accept an existing solution?

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[TVC15]

>The thing that companies haven't figured out yet is that nobody wants to watch movies on portable devices with tiny screens. It's an application looking for a market.

yeah right, next thing you'll be telling me is that people dont want to play games and take pictures with their phones and would rather actually hear the people they are talking to! ;-)

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[pauljlucas]

next thing you'll be telling me is that people dont want to ... take pictures with their phones

I've never seen anybody in public actually using a camera phone as a camera. It's a gimmick. Sure, a few people might use it as a camera, but I doubt it's regularly. Camera phones probably did well in test marketing because people thought they were novel/cool. But once the novelty wears off, the camera will probably see little use.

Do you own/use a camera phone as a camera? Know anybody that does regularly?

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[pauljlucas]

so you want apple... to design something specifically for you rneeds... because you're too lazy to do it yourself, but too damn picky about 'style' to accept an existing solution?

While I doubt that they're exclusively my needs (I really think such a product would sell much better than, say this), my answer is: yep, exactly. And I'm not going to compromise what I want and accept anything less. I'd rather do without than have a half-assed solution. Sorry your standards aren't as high.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Feral Bueller]

I have an Executive Producer upstairs who is Dead Set on getting a wireless device she can watch movies on - so she can see rough cuts while on location. And she'll authorize whatever the gadget will cost.

Precisely. This is more than likely where the market pressure will be felt the most strongly.

Our team has built an app that among other things, allows our producers to preview acquired video (we're talking way upstream of rough cuts, btw.)

The biggest feature request is to be able to access the app from home, which is doable as long as you've got pipe and can VPN in.

Your average Executive Producer isn't going to be doing that.

A handheld video device can create some new challenges (especially from a security standpoint) but they are all solvable -- a device that required me to authenticate with my SecureID would be sweet...

If you have an A/V out then you're outputting to a DLT projector and a 5:1 home theater system if you so choose... can you imagine a player that you could dock to your TiVo, transfer files, and carry around with you?

Of course, in the consumer market the parent poster is probably right.

ehh..... I dunno.

I didn't really see the point in carrying around 5,000 mp3s with me until I bought my iPod. Now I'm looking at buying a second one just to make my home folder machine portable :-)

An avPod would sell like crazy: especially to all of the Volvo/Audi driving soccer parents who are making movies every time their darling baby angel blinks and putting them up on their .Mac web pages.

I'd go buy one today. I've got over 20 GB of music videos that I would love to be able to carry around in a small form factor and plug into my home theater as easily as I can with my iPod.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Bombcar]

What I really want is a car head unit that has a slot that one just pops the iPod into.

It is coming......

This will be the first, others will come after....

Perhaps even an iPod changer for those who want more than 40 GB....

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[MrBlackBand]

Only problem with this thing is everyone will be wearing glasses. It's either that or implants.

Considering that women are 30% hotter with glasses than without I don't see this as a problem.
It would also cut down the number of fights. ("You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?")

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[pauljlucas]

It is coming......

I was aware of Alpine's plans, but this is the first I've seen a picture of it. I was afraid they'd do something like this: the wire is still there. Ugh. I want no wires. Remeber when cassette decks were standard in cars, then portable CD players came out, then those horrible adapters came out? You know, the ones with a fake cassette and wires all over your front seat? I hated those.

The right solution is to make the iPod slip into a slot for it, preferably with the slot in the head unit itself behind the fold-down faceplate.

I'm entitled to want what I want.

This will be the first, others will come after....

All I can do is hope that somebody gets it right.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Ageless]

I would love to know more about this. I've been thinking about doing the same thing a little more genericly but I have not been able to find much information about the iPod dock connector and whatever protocol it might support.

Is this head unit actually going to control the iPod (and most importantly) use the iPod's output, or is it just going to use the iPod's drive as a slave storage device and play the music itself?

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Krusty Da Klown]

I've been dreaming of exactly the same product. Put an extra set of controls and a disply on the head unit and you've got a sale!

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[dthree]

It will be a single connector to the iPod, plugging into alpine's ainet on the head unit. It will basically use the iPod as a portable hard drive, allowing the head unit to play music files from the iPod's hard drive. It uses the same interface that Alpine uses for its cd changers and other components so it would operate as if you have a 1000 disk changer. Google "alpine ipod" and you can see the press releases.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Ageless]

That's pretty unfortunate. I was hoping Alpine had come up with something better than I did. It's too bad Apple doesn't publish some specs on that thing. It's so hackaliscious.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[prockcore]

Many HU's have a jack in the back which you can buy an adapter for that can connect to an ipod.

Wow.. so many people use iPods due to design alone.. so it's suprising that so many of them would recommend such an ugly ugly solution.

A car stereo with a flip-down face and a slot for the ipod is a much better solution.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Trillan]

Ever been on hold for an hour? :)

But yeah, I could have picked a better example.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[dthree]

Unfortunate? Except for the "iPod slot" idea, I don't know what would be more convenient than what Alpine is producing. One plug into the iPod and it becomes an integral part of your audio system, controlled by the head unit.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey spelling nazi, go back to WW2 and get shot. Its not thathe didnt have time to check, its that he didn't care, like you shouldn't

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[rixstep]

Jon Rubenstein is the old head of hardware at NeXT, is he not?

What's he doing with the iPod, away from computer hardware?

It's easy to read too much into this one, but superficially you can't make it sound good.

If next we hear Avie's running customer support, then it's serious!

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Ageless]

It's unfortunate from a hacker's perspective. From a user's perspective it doesn't really matter. From mine though, I want to build devices that remote control the iPod but instead of a fairly simple device that speaks some protocol that says "Play song X" I need a fairly complex device that can mount a firewire drive, read Fat32 or HFS, decode MP3s and play sound. My iPod already does all those things so it would be nice if I could just send it a command like "Play artist, album, track"

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[dwightk]

Do you really think Apple could sustain itself on the (relatively small) profit margins of the iPod alone?

iPods currently have a much larger profit margin than Macintoshes (which are barely above break-even).

You don't even know what you are talking about... admit it

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Anonymous Coward]

So because third party suppliers are not capable of producing quality products, we should give Apple a monopoly? That's the kind of thinking I'd expect from Osama Bin Laden, not a supporter of consumer rights.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[IntlHarvester]

Feel free to look at the numbers. iPod margin is about 20%, with almost no R&D behind it. Mac margin is 27% with tons of R&D. Apple themseves credit their number to iPod sales.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[dwightk]

I would be very surprised to see an entire division devoted to a product with "almost no R&D"

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunno why you'd presume that iTunes and iTMS is going to be in the iPod division, which is just another hardware division.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[synergy3000]

Unprofitable macs? That is the dumbest thing I have heard ever. Apple has over 4 billion in the bank. That money did not come from the iPod. It came from the computers. Their margins on desktop computers are some of the highest in the industry. I don't know who modded you up, because your statements are pure BS. Go review prior Apple conference calls where they talk about margins on desktops.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[IntlHarvester]

Most of that $4B was stashed away in the 1980s when Macs had 50% margins. Look it up. Last quarter, Apple had only $46M income on $1.91B revenue, which is barely above break-even. They do have huge margins, but they also have huge R&D and marketing overhead.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[IntlHarvester]

Why? Companies create divisions for marketing reasons all the time. The sales channel for the ipod is very different than for the Mac.

I don't think Apple breaks out iPod R&D (maybe next quarter), but it's a pretty simple device when compared to Mac hardware + software.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[dwightk]

ok, maybe you are right... I'm still skeptical though ;-)

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[CuriHP]

No one ever said anything about a monopoly. You clearly lack the ability to comprehend the few short sentences of these comments.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the iPod division is a new consumer products division. Apple just wants to keep it quiet so they called it the iPod division. Check this out:
<http://allmac.blogspot.com>

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Unregistered]

i ran mine through the dash, into the door, and itnto the door pocket so there is no visible wiring. It on;y took about 1/2 hour to doo all the wiring.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you have a different look at digital convergence than Apple has. You are talking about melding functionalities and features to a single hardware. I think Apple views digital convergence at having multiple hardwares doing specific purpose with a few minor features all tied up to the Mac OS X platform. Mac is the center/hub of the digital convergence. iPod, digital camera, PVR, MIDI instruments, etc. are all tied up to the Mac and they might be connected to one another for some minor purposes (hence, Firewire is essential). It's Apple's way to sell Macs too.

I like this view better since it allows new hardware to be easily added to the convergence. It also allows the existing hardwares to be improved independently of others. And most of all, I can have hardware best suited for its purpose than one device doing everything but in mediocre ways.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Moofie]

Uh, get a laptop.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Moofie]

Seems to me like a Bluetooth headset (preferably with a stereo option) would make the form factor much less of a, well, factor.

Although I don't know if BT has sufficient bandwidth for high-fidelity audio...

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Moofie]

Yeah, because it's so easy to enter data on an iPod.

What the hell are you talking about?

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[Anonymous Coward]

And then you'll want them to update your fancy head unit when Apple changes the form factor every year for the next 10 years, or will you refuse to realize that Ipod's are many different sizes? (at least 6 by now)

The truth is that your solution sucks because for a company to come up with it, they'd need to come up with a bunch of different ones, or adapters, which won't pass your "elegance" quotient or whatever.

The only thing better than Alpine's solution that it actually workable is bluetooth, and that'll be out next year because it makes sense.

Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed?

[s.fontinalis]

Right now companies don't f'ing care if anyone actually uses the camera in a phone - camera phones are selling like hotcakes. Sales are after all what *matters* to a corporation. And just tell Thomas Pynchon people don't buy what they don't use.

Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[Improv]

I've heard that it's largely politics that're responsible for iPods not having native OGG codec support, which is the one thing keeping me from getting an iPod tomorrow..

Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[Llywelyn]

Politics such as the irrelevancy of Ogg to 99% of the people who are in the iPod's target market?

Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[2nd Post!]

Yes, if you view 'largely politics' as 'financially untenable'

There's no incentive; Heck, iTunes just got WMA->ACC support. I'm sure with a little work Apple can just as easily support Ogg in the same way, by automatically converting Ogg->ACC in iTunes.

I bet you wouldn't be happy though ^^

Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[cyb97]

converting from one lossy format to another is a horrible solutions, if a solution at all. It's a kludge, and a pretty bad one, too.

It would be relatively trivial for apple to implement support for other codecs, given that their code doesn't look like dogshit. I'm pretty sure it's not a technical decision, but rather a purely political one.

Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[2nd Post!]

Again, if you mean 'purely political' as 'financially responsible'.

You mean supporting Ogg in iTunes + Quicktime + iPod will get them more sales over the cost of the initial outlay in development, testing, and integration testing?

Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[MacGod]

[OGG support]is the one thing keeping me from getting an iPod tomorrow.

See, for me it's support of Sun Audio (AU), IMA ADPCM and PSION sound formats (see details of these here)

How dare Apple mock my insistence on using these obscure^H^H^H^H^H^H^H highly reputable formats!

Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[Llywelyn]

There are several very good reasons not to.

First, the iPod only supports a limited number of formats, and iTunes should only natively support the same formats as the iPod. This is for a combination of ease of use, user perception, and technical reasons.

Second, there is no reason for them to put any effort into supporting it. They have AAC, which for the bitrates most people use is equivalent to or superior to Ogg. The consumer doesn't care how "free" Ogg is when Apple is willing to cover things with AAC and mp3.

They have the Apple Lossless instead of FLAC, and they support the most common format--mp3. Why on earth would they want to confuse things for newbies and people like my mother by adding another format and thus another choice?

Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[grrrl]

surely it cant be that hard just to add ogg

perhaps only a few use it, but perhaps again they would be more tempted to swtich to osx and/or ipod if they could still use what they wanted - and would tell their friends etc...

i switched to os x and love it, but it does grate me ever so often when i just dont have the choice over *every little thing* like you do in linux, and even often windoze...

Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[Llywelyn]

>surely it cant be that hard just to add ogg

It would have to be added to the iPod as well as iTunes (for a variety of reasons) and it would need to be implemented, documented, and tested with a variety of different configurations.

>perhaps only a few use it, but perhaps again they would be
>more tempted to swtich to osx and/or ipod if they could still
>use what they wanted - and would tell their friends etc...

Basic economics here.

Would they sell enough macs to make up the difference? Factoring in the potential hit to perceived usability (and there would be one--people like choices like this to be made for them)?

I doubt it *very* seriously and I think if you ask yourself that honestly you'll find I'm right. There are a lot of linux geeks who would love to see iTunes support Ogg, the number of them where it is a deciding factor in whether they purchase an iPod or buy a Mac is a very, very small percentage of the people Apple wants to attract.

Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[kmo]

First, the iPod only supports a limited number of formats, and iTunes should only natively support the same formats as the iPod. This is for a combination of ease of use, user perception, and technical reasons.

Too late. iTunes already natively supports the Apple Lossless codec, but Apple does not support that codec on many iPods. My 10G iPod is only a year and a half old and doesn't support lossless -- even with the latest updates.

Ideally I'd like to losslessly rip my CDs and dynamically encode them in the lossy-codec-de-jour as they are downloaded to the ipod. Then I don't have to re-rip any of my CDs as better codecs are developed.

Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support?

[Guy Harris]

See, for me it's support of Sun Audio (AU)

Actually, there might be people at Apple familiar with that format, given that, as far as I know, it was invented by NeXT, not Sun, and adopted by Sun later.

Thanks, but no thanks

[Bastian]

I love my iPod and all, but what I really want you to do, Apple, is to bring back the UI research team. Don't forget what made your users so devoted in the first place, Steve-o.

moof.

Re:Industry Leading?

[Snowspinner]

Educational computing? (Have a look sometime at how many people at your local college have iBooks)

Multimedia work?

They're at the forefront of plenty of areas that they've been aggressively targetting for years. ~~~~

Re:Industry Leading?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't aware that specific uses of general computing constituted an industry. It's sorta like some large provider of japscat claiming to be an industry leader.

Re:Industry Leading?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you are lead to vehemently defend a non-existant share of the market does not make my comment a flame. This isn't even an opinion. It's a fact. Of course, I expected nothing less from the zealot world-view.

Re:Industry Leading?

[Llywelyn]

You have to subdivide any industry based on what exactly it is that they do and that they are interested in.

Civil engineers who work on fluid flow and pipes for city infrastructure use different tools than the ones who design skyscrapers.

Re:Industry Leading?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a japscat industry leader, you insensitive clod!

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

this will separate Macintosh fans from Apple Computers Inc. fans.

Possible motive:

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides moolah. When I read this report I thought it may be a response to Apple Records pressure and a preemptive action to divorce the music selling business the content creation side of the equation.

Re:Whatever shall they call the iPod division?

[Phillup]

Won't matter as long as they don't call it "Apple"... thus serving the real which is to deal with a lawsuit.

Divisions....Divisions

[Ramrodicus777]

So does this mean that Apple will become like Microsoft, with the different divisions blaming one another for the incompatibilities between their products?

Re:Divisions....Divisions

[zbrimhall]

No.

Re:Site is slow: article text

[daeley]

P.S. I have never owned a mac.

Boy, that's a surprise.

If they spin of iPod and ITMS

[dcocos]

I wonder if they can avoid the Apple vs Apple law suit about Apple not being able to enter the music industry.

Re:If they spin of iPod and ITMS

[Anonymous Coward]

who cares... it's clear to everyone that Apple are going to win that one... ;)

Re:Industry Leading?

[Anonymous Coward]

and if they both use the exact same computer to do this, have two different computer industries been used to fulfill this need?

Re:Industry Leading?

[Anonymous Coward]

The industry that follows, copies and borrows from it - and has for years. marketshare and leadership are not interchangable terms by any means. Dell is as much a leader as Microsoft - neither of them have a creative/innovative bone in their corporate bodies. They simply let everyone else lead the way, then commercialize whatever works. They may lead the industry in marketshare, but god forbid they try to lead the industry in innovation and technology with products like MS Bob....

Re:Industry Leading?

[Anonymous Coward]

But Xerox doesn't make Mac...

And your justification is pretty and nice, provided we live in some abstract world where those values really matter. Apple is as much an innovator as Sony - pretty, overpriced garbage backed by a lot of marketing. Not much innovation in creating pretty new computer cases for machines that are essentially second class in the marketplace.

Re:Industry Leading?

[Llywelyn]

They aren't using the exact same computer for that, hence why Apple can be dominant in some areas of computer use and not others.

difficult to seperate iTunes and Apple

[Johnny Mozzarella]

don't forget that the iPod and the iTM$ are tied to iTunes which is tied to iLife.

I think it would be very bad for iTunes to become separated from Apple.

I'm hoping instead that the iPod division will focus on more devices like a car stereo and a home theater system that builds on the iPod design and GUI.

Apple II and Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds similar........

Will Mr.Jobs do mistake again or not?
Let's see what will happen.

Have you seen the dashboards in Motion?

[Johnny Mozzarella]

Don't forget Bud Tribble is back.

Jeff Raskin can take a hike as far as I'm concerned.

Apple should still be listening to Tog he has some good ideas.

Re:Have you seen the dashboards in Motion?

[Gropo]

Jef Raskin.

Re:Have you seen the dashboards in Motion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. So fruity he can't even spell his name correctly.

Re:Have you seen the dashboards in Motion?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apple should still be listening to Tog [asktog.com] he has some good ideas."

I dunno. Being at Sun probably damaged his UI skilz.

How will this affect us?

[amichalo]

How will this affect the consumer? Will this new iPod (read 'consumer electroincs') division not be concerned with the focus on the Mac and therefore we could see new products being released for Windows FIRST, followed by Linux, to include OS X? This is how many hardware/software dev companies work becuase the market is so slim it makes economic 'cents' to go after the larger market.

And what affect, if any, will this change have on the concept of the iPod causing people to switch to Apple?

Re:How will this affect us?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the new iPod division is likely to treat Mac OSX user as it beta test base, pretty much like the iPod did.
They can bring out a first version of a new iDevice, test it in the field interfacing with known hardware, and build a following before having to deal the wide world of system configuration.

I've got a fantastic idea

[switcha]

Why don't you start an online petition for everyone who is holding off on an iPod purchase until Apple supports ogg? Then, when all 27 of you have signed it, you can forward the list to Apple and see what they think about putting man-towards the endeavor.

So where is the confirmation?

[Lars T.]

I mean, in the last year we had dozens of streams of articles about Apple that turned out to be false. Like the sub $200 iPods, the "Apple buys Universal" or "Disney buys Apple". And they all (well, most) quoted a single article and that it was confirmed by an Apple spokesperson.

Re:Industry Leading?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Well, at my local campus, Dell laptops seem to be pretty common. Though perhaps the shear ugliness of the typical Dell design just jogs my memory.

Re:Here.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/05/20/ipo ddivision/

mobiles and music

[grrrl]

My old nokia 8310 had an FM radio that, when you got a call, would ring through the headphones and mute the radio when you answered the call, and then turn the radio back on when you hung up (answering via the wired remote on the headphones so no digging through my bag)

I think integrating a phone into something like an ipod would be a great idea in some respects and just annoying in others.

I'd love to stop getting weird looks in the street while im listening to my pod and my phone rings and i dont hear it...

id love to have less stuff to carry around and less stuff to forget to charge up

however, the main use of my mobile is for sms, and id hate to sacrifice the ipod interface to enable text messaging... though maybe ~10 little buttons (or less) could be popped under the scroll wheel, with good predictive text this could work

also, i abuse my phone terribly - it gets dropped in clubs, used in the rain, attacked with greasy fingers and the like... and then i just change the cover and its all nice - id hate for my pod to get so dirty and abused!! sure, my old phone cost more than my pod! but the changable everything helped when it got scratched etc

size is also an issue - weenie phones fit great into little handbags, even the ipod mini wouldnt do that too well

Wrong John

[tyrione]

Johnathan Ive which has already been mentioned, is the industrial design guru that should be rightly credited with the iPod, iMac, and the toaster Cube that flopped with consumers.

Jon Rubenstein comes from NeXT and was the former Head of NeXT Hardware, developed the Apollo line of HP Workstations before joining NeXT. Upon the NeXT Hardware being shutdown Jon left and worked on the PowerPC Hardware for a subsidiary owned by Motorola.

Jon currently is and rightly so credited for the XServe and XRaid product lines with all his experience and expertise. Having Jon add to his overseeing with the iPod tells me that Apple is getting ready to produce a Professional and Consumer Electronic Lineup that ties into its Professional and Consumer Software Application base that continues to grow.

Think of digital devices that Final Cut Pro can take advantage of, to name just one obvious option. Think of video add-ons for iPod users that could attach a DVD made via DVD Studio Pro.

iPod, iStereo, OGG, and my $.02

[Raisputin]

OGG: Reading through the comments I see some mention of OGG format for iTunes and iPod. My take on this is that while OGG is a fine format to use, the large majority of consumers just don't, so it would not be something that, considering development costs would be financially responsible for Aplpe to implement at this time. Just as it would be simple enough for many video game makers to release Mac versions of their software, the development costs to write and then market to a market segment that is basically very small is not financially responsible, even though those that use the Mac platform would like to play the same games as their Windows using friends.

iPod, iStereo and other stuff: I don't know, nor do I particularly care why Apple is made an iPod division :), however I liked the idea presented for an indash iDevice that an iPod could just plug into. I think it would behoove Apple to partner with/make deals with some of the larger and popular car stereo mfr's to make this a reality. I would love to see a deck for my car that I could slide an iPod into, as long as I could also use regular CD's seeing as how I don't presently have an iPod, but that would in some twisted way justify my purchasing one :)..or alternately, i could buy an iPod and if the car deck existed, I could then make a justification to purchase that...heh heh heh

Other crap you may or may not be interested in: One of the things that I am extremely sick of reading here on slashdot is the constant Mac and Windows bashing comments. Sometimes they are humorous, but more often than not they are just annoying.

Presently my work consists of repairing customers Windows machines on a daily basis (hardware and software), repairing customers Macs occasionally, assisting our System Administrator in the administration of our Linux (RH and Slackware), netBSD, and FreeBSD servers, and a myriad of any other things that may present themselves as needing to be done at my job. I am seriously a I.T. Jack of all trades there...and they pay is in my area, pretty good, but abysmal compared to my last job..*sigh*

With that said, I can say that there are a lot of things that I despise about Windows machines, the consistant need to run Spyware removal tools (Spybot S&D, Spysweeper, Ad-Aware, etc.), manually editing registry entries, and all the typical Windows things that have to be dealt with. At the same time however, My windows box at work is fine for what I mostly use it for, email and word processing. It is acceptable (at best) for Photoshop.

My Mac on the other hand, is great for programming, testing perl, c and other things that I may be putting onto our webservers right out of the box with OS X (Panther) installed. It is outstanding for Photoshop, editing video, audio and other tasks that the Mac has traditionally been good at. I would never dream of playing games on it though, because that would require me to use VPC for the games I want to play and that would be too slow :)

Our un*x boxen are just that. Our production servers. They work, and until we replace them with the XServes we are hoping to get, I have no complaints about them. They just do their job, but I wouldn't want them as desktops to do my normal work on either.

Every machine I use has its purpose, and I aquired each one for the purpose I felt it was best suited to. In my personal collection of machines, the majority of them are Macs, I use them simply because they work, I don't come home and worry about things like the Sasser Worm and it's variants and all the associatedSpyware that I would likely encounter were I running Windows at home.

It is a personal choice, based on my needs. I know that I could run some

Re:iPod, iStereo, OGG, and my $.02

[parksgm]

I think that Apple would be reluctant to recommend putting iPods into any kind of car stereo deck, because of the HARSH environment that an automobile interior can be.

For example, I live in Texas, and the interior of my car becomes very hot during the summer when I leave it outside for even brief periods. Most LCD displays change contrast remarkable with a change in temperature, and if I leave my iPod in my car (say, plugged into a car stereo deck, for example), the iPod would be exposed to those extremely high temperatures.

Gregory

The Return of the Newton?

[Vandil X]

...I kind of expect the functionality of my iPod, my Palm, and my cell phone to converge by then.

You never know, with iPod development now in its own department, and with Movie Trailers and Music Videos now at the iTMS, perhaps the Newton will make a comeback, this time as a video/music/iRadio player + PDA and cell abilities.

For goodness sakes, it's not a troll..

[Improv]

I've owned Apple hardware before (eMate, 1st-gen iBook), and have no beef with the iPod. I think it's actually pretty cool, which is why I've held off on buying another handheld music player. It's not a question of economics -- implementing OGG wouldn't cost much, nor would it be horribly confusing if their music players suddenly gained the ability to play another format. Quicktime player already plays a number of formats, as does Windows media player, and nobody complains that they're too complex. I really just want to have something as cool as the iPod with the compatibility I need to make it work well with my Linux systems. I don't see why this desire should mark me as a troll.

Re:For goodness sakes, it's not a troll..

[danielsfca2]

Think about this for a moment here, though.

OGG Vorbis: supported natively in:
- Linux
- Maybe 5-10 obscure, inferior portable MP3 players.
Supported with an easy add-on in:
- Mac OS X
- Windows

MPEG-4 AAC: better sound quality than Vorbis; supported natively, right now, in:
- Mac OS X
- iPod
- maybe 5-10 obscure and inferior portable MP3 players.
Supported with an easy add-on in:
- Windows (Winamp, iTunes, you name it)
- Linux (VLC, and I'm assuming lots of other apps too).

Since if you're on /., installing an easy add-on can't possibly be out of reach. With AAC, you get everything you get with OGG, plus iPod compatibility. Oh, minus the self-righteous and completely empty assurance that no one has paid or taken a license fee for your encoders and decoders. Well you know what? Who freaking cares? Right now both you and I can download 50 programs that can encode an MP3 or AAC for free. Just because in some circumstances some company claims a license fee is owed them doesn't mean anyone actually has to pay it. We've survived with these horrible "patent-encumbered" formats this far and I haven't heard of anyone getting screwed, so how can you justify everyone going out of their way to support an inferior codec? THAT is what I call politics. The iPod not supporting OGG? That's just common sense. If about 300 geeks on /. (which is the max number of people for whom OGG is the make-or-break of buying an iPod) can get an rare, virtually unadopted (in the real world) codec onto the iPod, then what's next? 300 dentists want some kind of dental applet on iPods? 300 strippers want a case included with every iPod designed to clip securely to a G-string?

> implementing OGG wouldn't cost much
I'm curious whether you can prove that.

I'm sorry you chose to rip your audio library in the wrong format. I was going to say the Betamax of audio formats, but then I realized the key to understanding this whole affair is that Betamax actually was better than VHS. And I guess, sure OGG is better than MP3 (surely the VHS of audio formats) at most bitrates, but unlike the videocassette market, it's easy to add on a playback format in the digital world, so OGG is Betamax, MP3 is VHS, but now there are several formats that are even better. Just admit you jumped too soon on the OGG train, re-rip your music, buy whatever player you think is best, and quit whining. Nothing important will ever play OGG Vorbis. Ever.

Re:For goodness sakes, it's not a troll..

[JoshNorton]

Nothing important will ever play OGG Vorbis. Ever.

I wouldn't go that far. iRiver's begun to include .ogg support in their players, and I'd give the iRiver lines 'important' status in the player market right now.

But .ogg will always be an extra in players, not a basic draw. When people point out that it's not cost-effective to work on shoehorning it into a limited memory space, they're largely correct.

I do wish that we could see some MP3/CD players handle the Fairplay-AAC combination, but I have NO idea how that would work...

Re:For goodness sakes, it's not a troll..

[Anonymous Coward]

iRiver's begun to includes support. sure, but who the hell beyond Slashdot and trendy European geeks know about iRiver?

Seriously, iRiver has about as much US market penetration as Apple has market penetration in the Sahara Desert. They're not carried at major US electronics chains, they're not included in major magazine (e.g. not purely internet-based and with a subscription base large enough to actually be profitable) reviews - in short, nobody cares about iRiver over here.

In other words, nothing important plays OGG Vorbis now. Will it in the future? Who knows... and if you can predict the future, why the hell haven't you made a billions off the stock market?

Re:For goodness sakes, it's not a troll..

[JoshNorton]

Seriously, iRiver has about as much US market penetration as Apple has market penetration in the Sahara Desert.

I'd disagree with this - I have seen them in stores, including (IIRC) Best Buy. (I know I've seen them at Fry's and Micro Center, but I could see not allowing them as major chains when compared to the Best Buy juggernaut.

That said, I still agree with you overall - .ogg is still an afterthought. Companies might add it in, but only after they've done what they originally set out to do to make money. .ogg won't help on that count.

Re:For goodness sakes, it's not a troll..

[Improv]

I don't think it's that clear that AAC is so clearly superior to OGG.. then again, I've never heard an AAC-encoded audio. I'm not really a big slashdot person -- check my user page -- I don't tend to comment much (although I've been around for awhile). I commented on it in my BLOG long before I talked about it on slashdot. I think your 300 people is an understatement -- some people probably don't look at the iPod at all because of its chosen media formats.
As for the patent issue, it might not matter so much to you, but I actually do use Linux, I don't buy software, and so it's very convenient to me to rip my CDs and encode to OGG.

Please understand -- I'm not saying that Apple is brain-damaged for not supportng OGG -- I know it's not first on a list of priorities for music companies, and that makes sense. However, there's no harm in adding OGG support, and it's really not that hard. There are reference implementatons out there.

Finally, why do you feel the need to talk in such a flashy, grandstanding, condescending way? It just irritates people. I can understand if you think Apple's great -- I like them too, but it's silly to say that people who don't exactly follow the path they've paved to be 'wrong'.

wrong Jon

[johnpaul191]

you are thinking of Jonathan Ives, the guy in the Apple design team that makes everything pretty.

Sun Audio (AU), IMA ADPCM and PSION sound format

[Sunnan]

Those formats aren't inherently lossy so you might as well transcode them to a similar nonlossy format, one supported by the iPod, if you were prepared to use them.

Users of Ogg often do so of space- and quality reasons, and I guess most of us don't want to use a lossless codec for our listening music for space reasons, and we don't want to transcode, for quality reasons.

Cringley's insightful column

[rduke15]

Robert X. Cringely made his weekly column about this. Read his insightful comment titled "Divide and Conquer - Why Apple Has an iPod Division". (As usual, he starts a bit boring but gets more interesting on way).

Need or want?

[danielsfca2]

> As for the patent issue, it might not matter so much to you, but I actually do use Linux, I don't buy software, and so it's very convenient to me to rip my CDs and encode to OGG.

It's also convenient to rip your CDs and encode to MP3, if you don't like AAC. It's not anyone's fault but your own if you let your philosophy limit your choice in music players. MP3 may be slightly inferior to OGG, but RAR is better than ZIP too, and though I love RAR, I use ZIP when I want maximum compatibility. My music is also one of these areas where compatibility trumps codec efficiency. If using MP3, I would just use the next bitrate up. Say 192k MP3 instead of 160k OGG.

> Finally, why do you feel the need to talk in such a flashy, grandstanding, condescending way?

I didn't mean to. Sorry. I just got annoyed because of this:
> It's not a question of economics...
> I really just want to have something as cool as the iPod with the compatibility I need to make it work well with my Linux systems. ...and that didn't make any sense to me. It is a question of economics. It makes no economic sense to bother. It's like you said:
> I know it's not first on a list of priorities for music companies, and that makes sense. *
Additionally, format-wise (which seems to be the argument you were originally making), the iPod has all the Linux compatibility one needs. One does not need to rip your music in an obscure, undersupported format just to stick it to Fraunhofer for daring to patent their algorithm. That is a choice you make. You want to use OGG. Not need. And I was just irritated because I had to point out the difference.

*And actually, that was pretty much the only point I was trying to make.
Thanks for the response, and sorry for coming off as offensive. It wasn't based on Apple fandom, though. Just my personal high opinion of the iPod and the MPEG-4 AAC format.

Re:Need or want?

[Improv]

I know that it's, in a sense, a created need, but of course the need versus want distinction is pretty much entirely colloquial -- they're just degrees of importance to a person. For me, because I've encoded about half my music collection in OGG (the older half is stuff I encoded years ago before I decided OGG was a good thing), OGG support is something I need in a music player. It's not really feasable or desirable for me to reencode all my recent encodings for hardware compatibility. To demonstrate the need/want distinction's fragility, we could say that we don't really need anything but WAV support in a music player.. after all, playing music isn't life and death -- how can we say we really need anything in the sphere?

Anyhow, I know that the answer might just be that the iPod isn't for folks like me. OGG, to me, isn't an obscure format, but Apple plays in different circles than I do. I just really like what I've seen of the iPod, and if Apple decided to support the format I have much of my music in, I'd love to get an iPod. A combined alarm clock, music player, text reader, and with an add-on, voice recorder sounds exactly what I'd like to have. I'm not blaming Apple for not supporting
OGG, and I find it a bit confusing when you mention it "not being anyone's fault but your own.." -- all I'm saying is that OGG support is a prerequisite for any music player I buy, and I hope Apple adds it. No blame, no claims that Apple's being unholy or anything...

Re:Industry Leading?

[ScottGant]

I know this is flamebait...but I'll respond anyway in case anyone took him serious.

The Mac totally owns the multi billion dollar printing industry. Yes, there are some places that use windows...but they are VERY far and few between.

But the Mac totally and completly is the giant in the printing industry. And now is getting to the point where they are in the movie industry also...with Shake and Final Cut Pro which are used on many types of movies.