Slashdot Mirror
The iPod Gets WiFi, Sort Of
thecounterfeit writes "Engadget has a story on Pocketster Pro, a new application that lets you add WiFi to the iPod. The catch? You have to connect it to a Pocket PC with both USB Host capability and WiFi first, but once it's up and running you can wirelessly swap tunes with any other similarly equipped iPods."
In a related story, an iPod can carry 490 passengers from New York to Sydney, Australia. The catch? You have to put it inside a Boeing 747 ....
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
somebody ping the RIAA!
The thing only works with Pocket PCs? How ironic is that? Apple's latest brainchild, co-opted by Windows CE hackers, to do something so geeky that only Unix nerds would want to do it... my head is spinning. Part of me says "Wow, this is cool", but an equally large part says "EW, Windows!"... I'm so lost and confused.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
I've been a big fan of large size Mp3 Players, but I always wanted to be able to go up to my friend and zap him the latest albums I got, then also recieve all the albums he had...If a TI-83 can do it, then the next gen ipod should also!
For The Best Jazz/Hip-hop fusion > COlD DUCK
Let's see - my iPaq with wifi gets maybe 1.5-2 hours of playtime.
Add USB usage and that's gotta drop - at least a little.
Add processing for data transfer.
Add external battery.
Call this a novelty, I will.
You'll be clubbed to death by any Apple evangelist who sees you doing this...
people dont' start swapping the music equivalent of goatse...
And watch out for the RIAA on the subway!
Too bad the Apple Newton didn't come with WiFi... ;)
I've always wondered why iPod doesn't come with bluetooth? I don't see a reason.
SoniqCast's Aireo player already has 802.11b (11Mb) integrated already. Interesting option to download files to it while it's sitting in your car. Interesting quirk however, is that it doesn't take DRM-protected files. SoniqCast says they're working on it. Good think I still have all my P2P files...
I've got a 2nd gen iPod. Is there any way to talk to a firewire device from a PocketPC?
While the iPod can play copy-protected files, the protection that Apple uses currently allows protected files to play on an unlimited number of iPods.
The iPod can, however, also play unprotected MP3s and AAC files.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these wireless iPods piggybacking on a PocketPC!
Why don't we just connect iPod to a iBook, which conects to a AirPort? This will keep everything in the same franchise :)
Apple products working with Microsoft products? What vile heresy is this?
As far as I'm aware, there's no way to connect two iPods directly to each other. If you could use a small USB hub and a pocket PC to bridge the two, I could see that being a lot more useful than having two PocketPCs, each equipped with wifi adapters.
Just a thought.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
If wirelessly beaming songs between iPods is popular, wouldn't Apple develop something to fill the need rather quickly?
Do all these 'Get-Around-Something' companies just try to make a quick profit before the "Real Slim Shady" comes into play? Or do they actually have a bright future?
With either a Mac or Windows laptop, the iPod can be mounted as a drive and then shared... which is all that's really going on here anyway. That's just functionality of the OS, no extra software needed.
Of course, this is Slashdot where we like to do things the hard way...
An inevitable evolution of bluetooth phones is going to be P2P. Tell your phone what you're looking for, go for a walk on campus, or have coffee at starbucks, and it'll be there when you get back home. The phones eg. P800 can already be used for listening to MP3s, and they can be programmed in Java and C++, it's only a matter of month till we get fully integrated Bluetooth P2P.
This is not a signature.
The catch? You have to connect it to a Pocket PC with both USB Host capability and WiFi first, but once it's up and running you can wirelessly swap tunes with any other similarly equipped iPods.
What are the odds that 2 out of the 14 people who actually buy and use this device will be in range of each other.
Will we start seeing hotspots (intentional or otherwise) allowing iPod users to exchange files?
Imagine a pseudo-P2P service run by hotspots installed (or infected) with the P2P apps......
If you either A) use unprotected MP3s or B) use iTunes to rip CDs to AAC format, its all unprotected.
iTunes simply outputs standard old M4A files, not the copy protected ITMS ones.
"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."
Only music downloaded from the iTunes music store is protected - normal MP3s etc, which the iPod supports, are not.
Forget file-swapping, and give me an iPod that can stream music directly to airport-express... I really believe this is what the next-generation iPod will be. Battery life will be a bitch though. In 2 or 3 revisions we probably even have Airport-express-extreme which will do audio AND video, and the assorted iPod capable of streaming your photos, mpegs and mp3s to your home cinema. This will be the day I buy another iPod.
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
a full-fledged computer can barely do acceptable voice recognition after hours of training (or not, depending on your tolerance for error). It's going to be a while before you can "tell your phone what you're looking for."
Unless you meant typing it on the phone's chiclet-keyboard. Eww...
This could be a boon to the spiritualist medium industry.
...it's called, uh.. a radio. You guys should try it. It cost me like a tenth of what my iPod cost me, and already has some sort of integrated wifi. I've listened to like a million songs and didn't pay for ANY of them! I don't know how Kazaa is gonna survive in the face of this new technology. I just hope it stays underground, otherwise Microsoft or someone will buy it all up and ruin it.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
Similarly equipped? In the range of 11b, isn't that going to be all of...well, you?
;)
As if you weren't lonely enough
OK, I own an iPod and would actually like it to stay off of the contraband list. While I am in favour of a paradigm shift in the way music is distributed and artists are compensated (do we really need to make millionaires out of artists like 'Ms Spears' and the record execs who create those monsters?) pirating music is not going to get us there. I've seen a number of posts already that seem to indicate that copying of music (without payment or compensation) is just fine and dandy.
What's wrong with taking a long stroll through the city and having your 802.11/Bluetooth device capturing all files that are of broadcast interest? Right now, quite a bit. No matter how overpriced the current products are (even $0.99 / song @ iTunes is robbery, esp for 128 DRM'd MP4's) there are still laws that govern how we can obtain and use them - whether we agree with those laws or not (NOTE: I'm in the US, so YMMV). Using a device like Pocketster Pro to actually copy music without payment is no better than shoplifting at FYE or Best Buy.
Now, if Apple or someone else could make an adapter for the iPod to work with the new 802.11 multimedia extensions in devices like Apple's AirPort Express, then there is only the issue of potentially violating the rules about how large an audience or what the venue is when playing a song this way.
Heck, I'd settle for just a Bluetooth or FireWireless or Wireless USB rig on the iPod so I don't have have to connect it up (though one will have to charge it at some point) to put my songs on it.
But please don't give the RIAA any more ammo to declare my iPod a concealed audio weapon!
Mind the gap...
What about running uCLinux on it, and plugging in a USB WiFi stick?
--
make install -not war
If you've got a PocketPC and Wifi, just keep your music on your home computer, and run a streaming server, to stream the music to your PocketPC.
slashdot users who get gifts at holidays from non-techy family...
traded that evil h1910 (crashed 2x a day) in for a tungsten e (bliss)
One of the iPods must have iPodLinux installed, which should include firewire support, as well as SBP2 support. Compile this as a module, and then connect the two iPods together with the Sendstation Pocketdock if they are 3G, or just a regular 6pin to 6pin FW cable if they are 1st or 2nd generation. Put the other iPod into firewire disk mode, and the one running linux should be able to mount it and access the files. This is incredibly impractical, as typing on the iPod requires turning the scroll wheel until the right character appears (incredibly annoying), and also very slow. However, it just goes to show that it _is_ possible for iPods to share files with just minimal extra hardware.
Wow the RIAA must really be loosing sleep now. Just imagine how many people will be packing a IPod + PocketPC (Wifi enabled) ... wow the warez frenzy is going to get out of control, I be in metro New York theres a very very strong possiblity that 4 geeks will be doing this.
... as there just that geeky. Guess no piracy.
However, they'll all be listening to the blue man group
hehe, Mike
Gamblers Forum
I am irritated when people "taint" the iPod by doing such thngs, not only because it does very well at the job it was designed for, but that it bastardizes the thing... asside from that, it's just a ploy to steal music, which is not what the iPod culture is about. Anyone that disagrees is just a common thief.
So now can we just go to the next logical step and just stick the mini hd from the ipod into the pocketpc/pda? whats the point of having two devices? we seem to want to integrate stupid things like cameras and mp3 players so why not something useful like this?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
FYI the Toshiba e740 Pocket PC comes with a 802.11b adapter built in and has USB Host functionality (and VGA functionality) with a Toshiba expansion pack. I have one of these but I would not connect my iPod to it. The battery does not last very long (an hour) if you have WiFi enabled. They have a switch to turn it on and off. It would probably be worse when enabling USB host function. I have a 2 gig CF card with mp3s in it in the PDA. I also have additional storage on an SD/MMC slot that it is also built in. I use an iPod clone mp3 player on my PDA.
This is about as elegant as adding WiFi to your lawnmower... by running over a PocketPC with the lawnmower.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Thats like saying: you can talk to people but first they must have the same blood type, then they have to have a penny in their right pocket from 2000-2004, and who knows their penny's music might not be the music that you want to listen to. Yeah ok, maybe there might be a few people in dorms that think this is cool, but humm how many people do you think are going to have all of this available to them and how many people are going to keep it on long enough and be in the correct distance to keep a good strong connection going. They might as well make a ipod trading software online thats peer to peer, they would get so much more traffic.
redvsblue.com
::BANG!::
Sarge: Did you just shoot yourself in the foot?
Simmons: Yeah I do that sometimes now..
The main reason is speed...when I transfer stuff via Bluetooth from my phone to my PowerBook, I can get 30kb/s at most...this means that an average 5MB song takes something like, 3 minutes to transfer. This might not be bad at all, if all you want to transfer is a track or two that you've just downloaded (and you're bored enough to pull that cable out of your laptop bag...) and wanna listen in your car or in the train right after work. For many songs however, the iPod will propably drain itself before you even finish transfering...
What was the other thing M$ did right?
If any iPod can read protected AAC files, then what is stopping any good hacker from getting whatever universal key iPods have and put it in VLC, so that it can directly play any protected AAC file, too ?
Or is it really that syncing an iPod to a computer transmits the owner's iTMS key from the computer to the iPod, to be used for reading the protected files ? In that case, exchanging these files won't do any good unless the key can be attached to them in some way.
On the other hand, I think Palm's user experience knocks Pocket PC out of the water. I am very much a fan of their interface design. They built the Palm organizer from start to finish to simplify use on the go, and the fact that they broke into a market where Apple tried and utterly failed is enough to earn my respect.
May I recommend Piloting Palm, ISBN 0471089656? It's an excellent look into the planning that went into engineering the first Palm Pilot. It's written by two Palm executives, so there's probably some bias, but then again, I doubt you'd be able to find neutrality from Microsoft, either.
Remember, not everybody wants to carry a full-featured computer around in their pocket. My Tungsten C does everything I could possibly need to do away from a computer.
http://hymn-project.org/forums/ for iTMS m4p DRM removal to a plain m4a file. No transcode. Pure DRM removal, nothing else.
But e740 is two years old and not made anymore.
I can run my iPod as an external harddisk on a pocket PC giving the iPod all the capabilities of the PC .. (wow, really!?!)
.. It's not like the iPod suddenly gets WiFi, now is it?
...
Some would say that you have just added extra space to your pocket gizmo and that's that
There is no news here, move along
I want a mini-laptop/pda like the emate that is actually usable for basic text processing, web browsing, email, ssh, and simple database tasks (address, calendar, etc.) PDAs are great but I want a keyboard for on-the-go typing, for taking notes at lectures, for putting ideas into. I don't even want a color screen -- I prefer battery life, and lots of it. And I don't need the OS to do anything fancy or even look that great; I prefer that it boot fast and sleep stable so it is always instant-on whenever I pop the hood. I want the keys to be quiet enough that I could type in a synagogue without bothering the person sitting next to me. And I want it to weigh 2 lbs and be made out of plastic and sturdy like the emate, which looks like it could be knocked around pretty badly without trouble (I've already dropped it twice on concrete and no problems other than cosmetic). And I want it to be as much of a chick magnet as the emate is; this is a fine, under-appreciated example of Apple's superior design. I think this is a great idea for Apple to do right; but I would just as happily see some other company do it using the PDA linux that runs on the yopy and zaurus...
screw the ipod, I need sunglasses with a builtin MP3 player! 128 megs ought to get me through most of my bike rides...
I think alot of people will bad mouth this idea - but you should take a step back a look at the ideas that will be brought up with this idea. This is just a 1st step in the large uprise of the portable media empire. Small additions like this one will come and go fast but it will force manufactures to create a new Mp3 player with even more features.
I make music (c-hack.com), and giving it away for free is a great marketing tactic -- it gets more people to come to your shows. I want people to swap my music. Many professional artists (Jim's Big Ego, for instance) also like file sharing. I've just made your whole argument moot.
c-hack.com |
There's no reason why a similar hack couldn't be used to swap songs between two Rio Karmas. Remember, the Rio Karma comes with enough connectivity options to make a grown man weep (usb, ethernet, RCA). And with the Karma, you can do it out of the box without any 3rd party add-ons.
Why is this special?
I have to run off and trademark the phrase....Wi-pod!
Andonyx www.andonyx.com
"typing on the iPod requires turning the scroll wheel until the right character appears"
/dev/urandom until you what you wanted
only slightly better than filtering
- Disclaimer: Information in this post deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Since PalmOS is pretty much a rag, there arent many alternatives for a *useable* PDA, but WinCE..
---- Booth was a patriot ----