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The iPod Gets WiFi, Sort Of

Posted by michael on from the wozniak-too-busy-speaking-at-conferences dept.

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."

14 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've always wondered why iPod doesn't come with bluetooth? I don't see a reason.

    1. Re:Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      One reason:
      Power consumption. The iPod was already pushing the outer envelope for it's power budget during design, and it was decided that putting any kind of wireless interface, including Bluetooth, would push the power utilization too far. If we could get a battery with 15% more power in the same volume and flexible form factor as the current lithium-ion-polymer unit, then it'd be possible. Until then, it'll have to be done in an external device with a separate power cell.

  2. Aireo 802.11 Interface Works Today by wyngarth · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

  3. An inevitable evolution of bluetooth phones by ehack · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  4. iPod Exchange Provider by powerpuffgirls · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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......

  5. Forget file-swapping by ElGanzoLoco · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!
    1. Re:Forget file-swapping by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      don't forget it! imagine a future where a lot of people own ipods. you're sitting on a bus and you get a "knock." another ipod user activated a "wireless knock" to check to see if anyone on the bus had an ipod, and it found you. you accept this "knock" which lets him browse your songs, and you can browse his as well. you swap a couple of songs and move along, perhaps w/o knowing who you just exchanged songs with. illegal? maybe, but fucking cool!

  6. Re:Let's just hope by DeltaSigma · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There are many audio equivalents to goatse. I might be into wireless music swapping were it not for the fact that I could count on all of my associates sending me the same crap I can hear on any clearchannel station.

    Wireless music swapping promises me nothing more than clearchannel without the ads (which isn't much better). The entire feature as envisioned by hundereds, if not thousands, of ecstatic individuals is entirely asinine to me.

  7. If you have a Pocket PC and Wifi, skip the iPod by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:If you have a Pocket PC and Wifi, skip the iPod by scribblez · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It'd be out of juice before long, though

      --
      "What seems to be the problem, osciffer?" (pronounced aus-if-fer.. bah forget it)
  8. Re:There is a way to connect two iPods by mrchaotica · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's too bad nobody has come out with a little box with a firewire controller, disk controller, and just enough logic to do a one-way sync. If you could make it cheap enough (and perhaps build in an uplink, so it could act like a firewire hub or something) I could see it selling (however, IANA Market Analyst)

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  9. PocketPC Interface by Baricom · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  10. Re:This is too fucked up. by iamacat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Plenty of people like the PocketPC because it has an interface superior to the Palm, and the OS is less buggy

    This could go either way. Why should programs I close on PPC just hang around in the background until I run out of memory and kill them through Start/Settings/System/Memory/Running Programs?

    But mostly both Palm and PPC suck, especially when it comes to developing software. Sun 3 with a 68K processor, 8MB of ram and 100MB hard drive was a usable development machine with a standard C++ compiler - exceptions and all, on-"device" debugger, an easy to use UI toolkit (XView) and lots more. For todays 400Mhz XScale PDAs with 256MB RAM, I would settle for an equivalent functionality from remote. But no, we get crippled compilers (CE), ridiculous heap sizes (Palm) and tedious UI programming (both, although .Net is making a dent).

  11. not ipod specific by rizzy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?