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The Future of the iPod
sebFlyte writes "Those of you waiting for a video iPod, an iPod with a radio in, an iPod with Bluetooth in...or in fact an iPod that does anything except play music and have a pretty-but-basic interface, you're likely to be disappointed. According to silicon.com, Steve Jobs and the Apple crew insist that the iPod will remain simple for the time being." From the article: "Whether people want to buy a device just to watch video is not clear - so far the answer's been no. Devices that do video... have not been successful yet. No-one's figured out the right formula."
Gizmodo found a hidden video button in iTunes 5 and Mac Rumors discovered iPod's trademark expanded to include video support.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Something tells me that the "right formula" for a video iPod involves pr0n.
You have no idea how tired I am of these crazy convergence devices that play mp3s, watch movies, take photos, check emails, play games, cellphone, organizer, calender, does GPS... but doesnt do any of them well!
iPods do one thing and do it very very well, and that's all i want it to do, play music.... oh, and view photos, and really that's even too much on the teeny screen.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Why is portable mini-video in demand at all? The iPod's greatest feature is how little attention it needs. I don't want it bogged down (bigger, worse battery life, more harassment from confused relatives) with more features.
The article notes that the market currently has decided video is unnecessary. I'm sure Apple has dozens of features ready to release IF their test markets rate those features as "amazing" not just "useful."
How about a device that 'does video' via tv-out, rather than on a tiny little lcd screen? It could even have tv-IN as well - a mobile tivo kinda thing. That'd be real useful.
:)
Now go ahead and post links to the already existing devices that do this, but that I am unaware of
I love the iPod, but won't buy one till they reach 100GB, the size of my music collection. I think iPod is going in the right direction right now, releasing too many new products at once seems to stun the market, and then you get those pople sitting around wiating for the latest and greatest. Subtle changes everys often is fine, but that would be a bit too major, just after the Nano replaced the mini.
ModLife.Net - If it ain't modded, what's the point?
Using my superior pattern recognition skills I've deduced that a iPod Pico will be forthcomming.
Syncing without plugging in cables would be appreciated. That's my prediction for the next incremental improvement in the full-sized iPod.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The question is, whatever Apple plans to do, why would they say anything else after this latest ipod (nano) launch?
You don't cannibalize your business with promises of imminent future products with more capabilities.
Why would you publish an article on the front page of Slashdot that essentially says "There is nothing happening with ipods right now"? Doesn't it make more sense to say something when there IS something going on?
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
http://downloads.oreilly.com/make/ipodlinux.mov
Watching a movie on a 3" screen simply won't cut it for anyone. Except, maybe, on a plane or bus ride. Not for very long though. Maybe that's just me.
Unfortunately, due to the paradigm surrounding portability, smaller device = smaller viewing area for video.
Now, what I would like to see is a portable video projection unit the size of an iPod, or similar device. It would cast the video onto a wall, or other surface. It's very important that the device be able to stand on its own (using a stand of course). I don't think I'm alone in not wanting to support it like that.
Secondly, it needs to be able to interface with many different types of formats. There's no way I'm going to buy separate viewing files so I can watch something I've already bought on my PVP.
Finally, the device MAY include a speaker, however, it MUST include an interface for headphones, or external speakers, along with the ability to disable the internal speaker.
Do all this, and, they'll sell wonderfully.
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Right now, the iPod does its "one thing" very well: play music.
Adding radio would be bad for it since that would detract from Apple's goal to have the iTunes store be the center of all Internet audio traffic - whether that be music, books, podcasts, etc. Right now, they may not *host* all of those files - but they are the gatekeeper, and can use it as a sort of Long Tail approach: if they are the way to all online audio, and the only way out is through iTunes or the iPod, then they control the audio future.
As for the video side, the biggest issue is "how to do it right" which Mr. Jobs is right to ask. Video would be good for a minority of iPod users. Would I like to see it? Sure - but again, I'm probably in the minority who, while traveling, don't mind looking at a little screen (right now, I rip my DVD's to my PSP for the 4 hour plane flight - when I'm not reading or playing my DS, or, even more likely, trying to sleep).
Video will take some time, I think. They're building some options into the iTunes store now (movie trailers, music videos, and the like), but distribution is still an issue, even over bandwidth lines.
My own video dream would be a Tivo like device, where I could order movies or TV episodes I've missed (say, $1 an episode or $15 for the whole season). A device in the living room would either do it all for me through a Tivo like system and either store the movies in my local computer system, let me download them to the movie device and upload to my computer later, or burn them to DVD's. (You know - like the Tivo should, if the damn guys would update their OS X software to support 10.4.)
Until then, Apple's got a good thing going, and they don't want to muck it up. I'm sure they could have a video iPod out within 60 days just with some changes in the chipsets (I remember an Ars Techana issue over the kind of chips they use now, and how the new genereration of the same chipset supports video with better power options. For all we know, they're used in the iPod Nanos now, so a firmware/software upgrade would add basic video support).
Perhaps in time the iPod could be used with a special cradle that plugs into the TV so you can take your iMovie made shows over to other people's houses to show off the videos.
But for now, leave the iPod as it is - it does 90% of what I want it to do now, and the other 10% is so specialized I can supply that need myself.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
radio may be dead if you live in the middle of nowhere and get one pop station
but i live in midtown manhattan, so i get unbelievable listening choices over radio... everything from classical to jazz to country to bbc to classic rock to one station that plays reggaeton nonstop all day, would that ever appeal to me
and for such a listener as me, i chose the iRiver IFP-180T simply because it has a radio tuner, and would never buy an iPod, because i can't believe apple wouldn't devote the 50 cents it would cost to put a radio tuner in there
seriously, apple: do cost-benefit analysis of a radio tuner... how much does the circuitry cost? what kind of new listening choices do you receive in return?
seems like a no-brainer to me!
and please, enough with the "radio is dead" refrain: just because you can't get a good station in east bohunk arkansas doesn't mean that those who live in a major city should be denied the 50 cents of added circuitry... besides, you couldn't imagine that even in a rural area a radio tuner might be useful during say, a crisis or disaster when electric is hit?
and it's not even like radio is peripheral to the function of an iPod: listening to music!
if sony could figure that out with the walkman in 1980, why can't apple in 2005?
i seriously do not understand why radio isn't included... and every "in my rural area the local pop station sucks" argument against its inclusion is steamrolled by how little it costs to add the dang thing
radio is NOT dead
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The coolest thing about the ipods with photo capabilities are that they have video out and let you do slideshows from your ipod to your TV. I have no interest in browsing photos on my ipod, but being able to show photos from a recent trip so easily is awesome.
...
Now you see iTunes with video podcast support. How far behind are movie/TV show sales?
The video ipod's draw won't be so much in watching videos on the tiny little screen, but in sending them out to your TV.
Hmmm, Quicktime now does HD decoding, ergo iTunes does HD decoding. How hard will it be to put those algos in a video ipod? How cheaply (and efficiently, size-wise) can Apple fit an HD video decoder into an ipod?
Kind of the idea that Mark Cuban was touting recently -- what's the distribution method of the future for movies? He says, hard drives. Well, Apple just so happens to sell lots of hard drives... with nice white interfaces wrapped around them. And they've got the most popular, legal media distribution store on the planet.
C'mon folks, 2+2 =
P.S. I had to post this through an anonymizing service, because Slashdot's fucked moderation system has deemed me a troll. This is based on a couple downmods received, versus how many +3, +4, +5 posts I've had in the past few weeks? Is there any logic to their system at all? I have Excellent karma and a huge track record of non-troll behavior. Another reason I've stopped subscribing to this place.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
I'll tell you why there will never be a video iPod:
No one wants to sit there and hold an iPod up so they can watch a video. Think about it, whenever we watch video, the source is something like a computer monitor or a TV screen -- stationary things.
Now imagine trying to hold up and be able to view it comfortably for any period longer than five minutes. It would just get tiring. Who wants to hold an iPod to their face for two hours?
-Eric Smith
802.11 protocols (11b, 11g, 11a) all consume too much power: you would suck the battery dry in no time. Of course, if you had the external power cable connected, then the battery wouldn't drain. But once you've connected the external power, you are probably using a powered USB2 or Firewire cable, in which case you're also connected to your computer.
ergo, wifi ain't practical at this point. The good news is that chip manufacturers such as Intel and Broadcom are making WIFI mac and phy chips smaller, cheaper, and more power-thrifty every calendar quarter. There might be something really cool next year.
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Why?
It's a tiny, tiny, tiny niche in regards to how many people know about it.
Sticking with MP3 as a buzzword and as the single format is easier for Apple.
Bring back the Newton, Steve!
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Video devices get used to watch prOn, and when that happens SIZE MATTERS!
just for the fun of it, i converted a full length feature into a 3GP file (just under 50mb) and uploaded it into my Motorola V635i.
I don't know if the battery would last the whole movie, and I'm not sure I'd watch a full length feature on such a small screen, but I gotta admit that video playback is a fun toy to play with.
I think Apple should add video capability to an iPod, just cuz they probably can and it wouldnt be complicated. Plus Quicktime plays 3GP as well.
Devices that do video... have not been successful yet. No-one's figured out the right formula.
There's a lot of good reasons why this hasn't taken off. While Apple might be able to get a nicer than average player, they will have a few snags:
1) The existence of MP3 players was preceeded by a number of people having collections of digital music and a need for a way to play them.
2) It's relatively trivial to rip a CD. It's not exactly legal to rip a DVD, and downloadable video is till in it's infancy and has all kinds of DRM issues.
3) In a person's average day, how often do they have an opportunity to watch video on a portable device where there's no better means to do it. That is, in most situations, I could play video on my TV, my desktop, or my laptop with superior quality and no noticeable sacrifice of convenience.
Have you ever tried to put a DVD on your computer. Beyond the fact, that you're violating the DMCA, it takes hours to pull the data off the DVD and then re-encode it in a compressed format. You'd better have a good reason to go through that hassle, and frankly most people don't.
Now if video was built into a device that you already had, it might make sense. But I just don't see any good reason to buy a portable video device for it's own sake.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Right formula = DRM the MPAA will accept?
If you're reading this, stop it.
What made the iPod so successful? 1) Integration, 2) Ease of use, 3) Design purity.
So let's apply that to the mythical video iPod.
1) Integration - Nearly there. A couple more generations of storage mediums and digital transfer interfaces will get us the required storage and speed.
2) Ease of use. Quite a bit is needed here. There isn't even a clear idea on how people want to enjoy movies. One at a time? Snipits? (unknown). What about enjoying them while doing something else, like background music? Is that possible? One thing I would hope for is special goggles that go with it that present a large videoscape in front of you and have the audio cues necessary for multichannel sound. Both of those are possible today. Not in enough resolution yet.
3 Design Purity. I am pretty confident that Apple could come up with a good hardware design that would appeal to large numbers of people.
See? Not that hard. Just need to wait a few years.
-FlynnMP3
Not true. There are plenty of explicit podcasts through iTunes. Soccer Girl Incorporated comes to mind. Even explicit video podcasts are there. Do a search for Insane Films in their podcast directory. Download the "Mommy Kills Best" video podcast and see who the prude is :)
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Man, GPS is something I wish Apple WOULD do, since no other vendors have a solution. Not one single vendor has a software that runs on OSX which will let you load maps into a consumer GPS device. I've e-mailed Magellan and Garmin and they both pretty much said "use windows." Ridiculous. I would really love to see a GPS with Apple quality integration...
:)
Digression aside, I do agree with you. I'm glad the iPod is a music device. That's all I want, music from my personal collection. No radio, no video. And that's what I have.
before Creative catches up
Has Creative shown any signs of "catching up"? I think they are probably the most misnamed company ever.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I run.... far.
:)
Music, no matter how much I can fit on it, gets repetitive. I want to be able to access local radio, AM and FM. Especially things like NPR and talk radio that is new every day. Long runs go by quick when you have something engaging to listen too.
I was dicussing why they dont do radio yet, and I guess they'd rather force you to podcast it than just allow it real time.
I'm not convinced this is bad, as i think the tivo is cool too... but i have a gallery of stations and programs I listen too now, and i dont want to wait to listen to them later (IF) they podcast.
For that reason ilook at other MP3 players right now.
For the time being, i use a am/fm radio. I'm so 1970's
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
But, shipping with Bluetooth would be really awesome for cellphone compatibility and wireless headphones. I don't mind plugging in my iPod to sync it, but I hate having to carry around a cable tying my arms up. Yes, I know logitech has a set of wireless headphones, but I'm not paying 150 dollars for them (they're ugly and clunky).
With Bluetooth, you could make a small program so that you can search for music on your iPod. You could make it so that when the phone rings the iPod's volume dims. Simple conviencences like this would be nice to have.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Even with Lossless codecs 100gb is a lot of music.
Compact Disc Digital Audio has been out for about 20 years, or roughly 1043 weeks. Buy one CD every three weeks (say through one of those music clubs) and you have 347 CDs. Given that each CD is about 0.3 GB when encoded using Shorten, FLAC, or similar codecs, you're up to 104 GB.
That said, you could transcode to 192 kbps AAC or something else that's totally transparent in a noisy (outdoor or motor-vehicle) playing environment when copying songs to your portable player.
Portable devices have tiny screens. I like to watch movies on big screens. So why would I buy a portable video player? There's nothing more horrible than spoiling a good movie by watching it on a tiny airliner screen embedded in the back of someone's seat. I don't see why a video iPod would be any better. Maybe a portable device that projects onto a big screen would be cool. Except it wouldn't be cool, if it generated enough lumens it'd be so hot it'd burn its way through the table.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
In just the same way that there were various 3rd party dock appliances for the dockable iPods (external speakers etc.) I'm going to suggested that keeping the iPod nano simple, and small, will enable other dockable hardware to be produced to add the functionality that people seem to be asking for.
eg. Video - Create a module which has a larger colour screen, but when combined with the IPod nano has a similar size of the original IPod.
Bluetooth expansion - can be used as a 'store' for photos captured by a camera or phone.
Face it only super nerdy linux geeks would ever use it so there is no point in putting it in, and its not like you cant not add support to iTunes.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
1. iTunes has a "hidden" component for handling video. 2. The Sony PSP can connect to and use a local network. 3. About a year ago, Jobs talked about Apple & Sony working together on the future of video. The Sony PSP as the "video iPod"? How big of a stretch would it be to load video from a computer running iTunes to a memory stick in a PSP if the capability was more obvious? My PSP will play content from QT 7 and AAC files, but I haven't moved anything to it wirelessly yet. Sony released a ceramic-white PSP in Japan about a week ago. It won't play UMD movies from Region 1, but if you need an idea about how a "video iPod" with a decent screen would look like, you could do worse. If it was an Apple-branded build with no UMD drive & replaced it with a 20G hard drive, I'd consider buying one. http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000997051360/ Just saying, is all...
Mine's got a standard S-video out. It plays regular DVDs, has a big enough hard drive to store a lot of video, and the screen is actually big enough to comfortably watch a movie or TV show, plus it supports HD resolutions. I can even set up the S-Video out as a secondary monitor and watch a movie or TV off of it while I work. As far as I'm concerned, it's the ideal portable video device, and that was a significant motivator for me buying it.
I don't see any need for it to be smaller. For any place that I actually want to watch video, a laptop will fit just fine.
I don't listen to either.
I have one way to get home. If traffic is bad, I sit longer.
As for weather, if I can't look outside the window, or if I don't already know there's a hurricane coming towards the town through normal news reports, then I'm fucked. I don't see radio giving me extra benefit.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
The Apple 2 was the only one of these which was fully documented - it came with full schematics and Apple encouraged development using the expansion slots (bus). Apple even provided a source code listing of the monitor ROM (BIOS). It was also the only one of the three which was easily upgradable in memory (just add/change memory chips) and the only one to support color and bit mapped graphics. It was the first to offer a reasonably priced floppy disk drive and to take advantage of a switching power supply. The very first "killer app," Visicalc, was introduced first for the Apple 2.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
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http://www.macgpspro.com/
http://www.gpsnavx.com/
http://www.gm4jjj.co.uk/z3801/z3801.htm
http://www.truenav.com/
http://www.gpsy.com/
People don't give the C64 line (Pet, Vic20, C64, C128) enough credit. I guess it's because Commodore isn't around anymore.
The Pet was useful out of the box - I'm not sure how the Apple II was any better in this regard. And it did hit the shelves months before the Apple II making it the first "real" personal computer available. It *did* support graphics, not just text. Some of the features of the Pet:
- a keyboard with a separate numeric pad (almost completely unheard of at the time, even as an option)
- a 9" integrated Blue and White monitor
- a main board with a powerful new 1Mhz MOS 6502 processor
- lots of room for an additional RAM or Processor board
- 4K of memory
- power supply
- real storage device (cassette tape)
- several expansion ports including an RS232 (serial) port
- ability to handle and create fantastic graphics
- upper and lower case text
- an operating system that was burned onto ROM and loaded on boot
Interestingly enough, the OS was Basic. And it was actually licensed from Microsoft in 1976.
The Pet was considerably cheaper then the Apple II - initially $499 and then $595 when demand outgrew production - versus the $1295 Apple II with 4k of memory. You could buy a Pet (which included the tape drive, etc) PLUS a floppy drive (when released, roughly the same time the floppy was released for the Apple) for less then an Apple II with *no* peripherals.
You could upgrade the Pet with memory chips in a similar fashion to the Apple II, but it was not as "user servicable" as the Apple. But the same process was involved - plop in more chips.
But you're right about one point - the Apple II had color which the Pet did not.
Commodore sold a lot of Pets but they sold an ass-load of Vic-20's and C64's - the C64 was wildly more popular then the Apple 2 ever was. They sold 30 million of them - more then any computer system ever and still. Commodore was the first computer company to do over 1bn in sales - largely due to the Vic20 and C64 sales.
People still use the 64 for a wide range of hobby activities. Demo coders still write for it for fun. Musicians use the unique SID chip for music - either in C64's or you can get a MIDI synth based on the SID from a few companies out there.
I realize that the Apple II was out for a few years before the most popular of the Commodore machines, the C64. But the C64 completely usurped the Apple II. Apple didn't have an answer to it for several years. Nobody did, really.
If Commodore had made better business decisions and gotten new product to market more efficiently, they could have been the "Apple of today." Or maybe even more, since the Amiga was arguably a better system then the Mac - it was technically superior and had a GUI system that was both functional and efficient.
Commodore brought a lot of unique computing ideas to the table.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I find the iPods really cool. However until they support Ogg Vorbis and FLAC I will not buy one. The majority of my music collection is in Vorbis. I'm sure I'm not alone in this situation.
>> While the Apple 2 was by no means a failure, it was hardly a huge cash cow either.
// was a HUGE cash cow! It allowed Apple to become the fastest growing company in history in terms of revenue back then, and for a long time it financed Mac development because Macs didn't sell in large numbers initially and was very expensive to develop and build.
The Apple
I wait for the day when an ipod can read cue files that are used in conjunctoin with an mp3 to get around the gapless problem.
Which is really the point. MP3 was different. It was universal. It was "associated" with content. And it was, legally or otherwise, readily available. Video - not so much. You've got 20-30 different formats; and while your average knowing asshole will spend half an hour trying to figure out how to decode the copy of "wedding crashers" they got off usenet - the same populous that found such grace in MP3 will not. Apple needs content. And trust me - they're working on it. But until they reach a comfortable level (as they did with i-tunes); your not going to see a vid-pod any time soon. And, to add ice water to the fire - they movie/tv industry is learning from record label mistakes. They KNOW downloadable music is a sad, unprofitable comprimise, and they are very unlikey to make the same mistake. Some of them twice. There's an interst. There's a HUGE interst. But there's no market. And the black eyes of the past are likely to insure that market does not arise for some time. And the attorneys are all smiles.
Claim: a keyboard with a separate numeric pad
Fact: The keyboard was by far the most reviled part of the PET. Commodore was a calculator manufacturer, and the PET keyboard used the same (poor) style key mechanisms as the cheap calculators Commodore produced (aka "chicklet keyboard"). It could include a numeric keypad because the key spacing on the rest of they keyboard was significantly smaller that the norm. Touch typing was extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Claim: lots of room for an additional RAM or Processor board
Fact: Well, there was physical room, but that was it - there was no internal access to the microprocessor bus (all expansion was intended to be external to the unit, so expansion was difficult). The principal means of I/O expansion, via a (non-standard) IEEE-488 bus, was difficult to work with, and resulted in expensive peripherals.
Claim: several expansion ports including an RS232 (serial) port
Fact: The original PET did NOT have an RS232, or even serial, port. At the time, I built quite a few pseudo-RS232 hardware interfaces which allowed one to "bit bang" the parallel "User Port" to talk to a modem.
Claim: ability to handle and create fantastic graphics
Fact: The PET used character graphics, and so was limited to what the ROM provided in this regard. It was better than the TRS-80, however. The best graphical program for the PET was probably "Toker II," and the amazing thing was not the graphics, per se, but just the fact that it could be done on a PET.
Claim: upper and lower case text
Fact: Only when not using graphics. One had a choice of uppercase and graphics, or upper and lower case text. (POKE 59468,14) AIR, something which was uppercase in graphics mode was lowercase in text mode.
Claim: The Pet was considerably cheaper then the Apple II - initially $499 and then $595
Fact: That was the pricing for the 4K model, but good luck finding one. Commodore only shipped a few. At the time, I worked for the largest Commodore retailer east of the Mississippi (NCE Compumart), and only ever saw a handful of 4K PETs. The vast majority of PETs were the $795 8K model.
Claim:You could upgrade the Pet with memory chips in a similar fashion to the Apple II, but it was not as "user servicable" as the Apple. But the same process was involved - plop in more chips.
Fact: Absolutely untrue. The original PET used non standard static RAMs (6550s) available only from MOS Technology (the chip manufacturer which Commodore owned). All RAM was soldered directly to the motherboard, not socketed. On the 4K PETs, Commodore even went so far as to drill through the PC board locations where the additional memory chips might have otherwise been installed in order to prevent user expansion. Apple used industry standard 4K and 16K Dynamic RAMs, which were not only readily available from multiple sources, but significantly less expensive than static RAM. Every Apple 2 could easily be expanded to 48K simply by installing the appropriate chips in the socketed motherboard.
Claim: You could buy a Pet PLUS a floppy drive for less then an Apple II with *no* peripherals.
Wrong. Commodore's first disk drive, the 2040, cost more than the computer itself, originally selling for $1195 - as much as a 16K Apple 2 (1979). It couldn't handle random access files and was unreliable. It was also significantly slower than the competition, including Apple, North Star, and Cromemco (the latter being two popular S-100 disk controllers). The Apple Disk sold for $595, a breakthrough price at the time. To be fair, the 2040 was a dual drive, but that was an extravagance at the time.
The C64 didn't ship until 1982 (5 years after the ones I mentioned!) was basically a toy and wasn't competitive for serious applications. Yes, it sold lots. It was cheap (not inexpensive
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Yep, and after Wozniak left, Jobs spent as much time as possible locking down all the hardware. Thanks Steve!
//gs was the last great Apple computer.
The Apple
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Actually, a couple of those allow you to load maps. I made sure of it before I posted. I don't recall which ones offhand, because I've never bothered acquiring a cable for my GPS, but there are ones that load maps.