New iPod Design Pictures Leak

Brian Hoyt writes "Apple's new iPod design will be announced Monday. A cover picture depicting the new design from Newsweek has been discovered early. MacRumors broke the story - MacRumors and more specifically the cover itself - NewsWeek"

Comments

New Design:

[Oculus Habent]

It's not a big stretch from the iPod Mini to the design shown in the picture. I'm pleased with the new design... kind of back to it's roots.

My biggest problem with the previous design is the unapparent secondary button function. When the buttons are arranged around the wheel, the special combinations (Menu & Play/Pause to reset) make a fair sight more sense. Holding Menu for the backlight is especially obscure. I discovered this intuitively on my Original iPod - all of the buttons on the Original had an important Continuous Press function before the first several updates that gave us a new time search for the songs. My friend didn't know about the Menu Backlight - he used the automatic backlight - until I told him with his 30g. He's not stupid by any means, there just wasn't any reason that the second button over would also be a special Backlight control.

Re:New Design:

[Oculus Habent]

Link to the Newsweek article. The one at MacRumors isn't quite working.

Highlights:

• Click Wheel
• 12-hour playtime
• Multiple on-the-go Playlists
• Delete songs from OTG Playlists
• Audiobook tempo adjustment
• No more 15 gig model
• $100 Cheaper

Speculations:

• Uses the same processor as the iPod Mini.
• There will be a 60gig iPod to fill the top price slot later.

Re:New Design:

[CrackedButter]

Thats where you pull that odd shiny device back out of the box and connect it between the ipod and the headphones, the remote.

Re:New Design:

[Talez]

While I appreciate your concern and I've only used a mini at the store, there is no way you can press the click wheel accidentally.

You have to apply quite a bit of pressure. It's quite a stiff, tactile click.

Re:New Design:

[Pfhor]

Well, part of how the ipod is so fast is that itunes actually generates the file database on its end for the ipod. There is a specific file structure on the ipod that is meant to streamline the listening experience. Instead of having ot read file names with long extensions, possibly none english characters, all of that information is stored in a database and the song files are give just a number.

You can get yourself an Archos which you can just drop mp3s onto and play it back that way, but the battery life from my experience is shorter, its bulkier, and it still takes a while just to browse the disk for files. Also, the ipod has two processors, one for audio playback and one for the gui. So it makes sense that apple would make as simple streamlined file structure that the gui processor can feed to the audio playback (ie, user selects to play "Bob Marley - No Woman.mp3" and the gui system feeds /1234/456/32.mp3 to the audio processor).

Its ingeniously simple: why make processor on the ipod built for effeciency have to do all this directory / database management (althou the 3g ones do this now) when you can get a desktop computer to do it in a snap.

And i believe there are third party programs out there which you can mount on the ipods "data share" that will easily let you drag and drop files back and forth from the playable section of your ipod.

Re:New Design:

[Pirogoeth]

I agree. I've felt the same way about OpenOffice. I've got a dictionary sitting above my desk. Why should I have to load up a bunch of well-designed software to do what I want to get done? My computer should be able figure out what words I want and arrange them for me automatically.

Don't even get me started on the spreadsheet...

close up

[catwh0re]

i'm sure this is going to flood someone badly, but here is a close up http://www.spymac.com/upload/gallery/f_0/user_117/ medium/upload_200466.jpg

Re:close up

[btrapp]

Yeah, because all my mp3s sound really crappy in black and white...

Re:close up

[catwh0re]

The thickness and power requirements of a colour screen make it a poor choice for a device that is designed to play music. What use is colour? Perhaps some minimal labelling or to flitter visualisations at me here and there?
When you see people using their iPods, the behaviour is that the interface lets them choose music quickly, with little/or no need to look at the screen after this.

A colour screen would be nothing more than an eyecandy waste.
Reality is most of an iPod's life is to live in someone's pocket. Apple realise this, moving the buttons back to a previous arrangement where a user does not need to look at the iPod to press each button, which was a common UI issue with the former generation iPod.

Price drop?

[Flyboy Connor]

Hopefully the sale of a new iPod will make the price of the older versions drop considerably. I really want one, but I think they currently are ridiculously overpriced. Especially here in the Old World. Is a 15Gb iPod for 100 euros too much to ask?

Repeat of the iMac leak?

[Anonymous Coward]

When the last big rev of the iMac got released (flat screen), Time mag. leaked all the details something like 12 hours before Steve officially intro'd it. Obviously, Jobs had a cow over it -- they stole his thunder!

I wonder if Newsweek just pulled the same stunt by mistake?

Man, I just would not want to be anywhere near Steve Jobs right now...

Re:Repeat of the iMac leak?

[AndroidCat]

A reality distortion field strength of 1.0 Jobs can be hazardous to your health. However, experts disagree on the long-term effects or danger from background micro- or pico-Jobs fields.

Out of the ordinary

[Xemu]

Apple's marketing department is the best. Not many vendors can get their products announced to the target audience before they officially exist, but Apple keep making front page news on slashdot. Here most of the readership are in their teens and thus are a perfect match the products intended demographics. It's marked up as news and not as the ad it really is. This is a marketers wet dream.

Best of all, you don't even realize your strings are being pulled. You think you're outsmarting Apple and reading something they don't want you to read.

Re:Never going to buy one

[catwh0re]

To address some points you've made:

The sensible (and arguably the best) method of putting tracks on it is iTunes, even when music match for the PC was responsible for this, it too did a fine job. iTunes is available for Windows & Mac, linux programmers have also created similar music syncing software.

To address your format concerns, the iPod plays AIFF, WAV, MP3, Audiobooks and AAC. The first three of those are DRM free. Additionally the rights management on AAC is hardly limiting, the rights are static and unable to be changed by a 3rd party over time.

The price argument is negotiable, with 3Million sales, it couldn't be too limiting a price.

Re:Never going to buy one

[BasilBrush]

Yes, and I think Apple have lost sales to all the other unemployed, Linux using, Ogg Vorbis fans. That's 14 sales lost right there! ;-)

Re:Deathwish

[FosterKanig]

A lot of people will like the fact that it 100 dollars less. Some will like the 50% improvement in battery life. Others will dig the fact that you can have multiple on the go playlists. A couple will like the menu redesign. And a handful will like that you can speed up or slow down audio books, with no pitch distortion.

A call for perspective

[Jack Auf]

In the scope of all things, is it of any real importance that Apple has yet again changed the buttons on the iPod? I own several Macs and an iPod 3G and I couldn't care less.

What does that say about our society when a fairly simple re-design of a product garners such attention? Is it really important? Does it make your life better somehow?

Just get over yourselves.

iBeard

[jamesl]

Steve needs to get a new iBlade for his iRazor.

Re:Steve's glasses

[nicwolff]

Those are Kazuo Kawasaki frames - they are great, but mine cost about $600 with prescription lenses.

Re:iPod purchase = vote for DRM

[guet]

If you were talking about the iTunes music store, you might have a point. As it is your post doesn't make any sense.

The iPod does NOT require DRM, I don't know where you got that idea. You can play your music in multiple formats, the most widely used being MP3. It also plays DRMed music from the music store, if you choose to use that.

If you want to get the music off it again, there are several apple scripts floating around to do it. The files are only hidden after all.

Re:has anyone actually handled one of these?

[Chucker23N]

Have you actually *tried* dropping them? iBooks look like they would break if you dropped them one inch, but mine never fussed a single time when I dropped it from my desk (about 5 feet) or my bed (about 3 feet).

Re:Steve's glasses

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

Those are. by far. the coolest glasses I've seen.

Before you get some cool glasses, how about getting some commas? Here's a bunch for you, for free. Cut and paste as needed.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Re:Still no radio?!?

[Nexx]

There's no radio because Apple wants to sell the same box internationally.

Personally, I don't listen to radio, so it's not a big loss to me.