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Video iPod Oct 12?
Petey_Alchemist writes "Apple Insider is reporting that Apple will release a video iPod on October 12th, possibly in conjunction with the announcement of Apple's fourth quarter results.
From the article 'Although details are scarce, sources who claim to have seen the new iPod describe it as being similar to Apple's 60GB iPod photo player, but several millimeters thinner.
The device reportedly sports a smaller click-wheel akin to that of the iPod nano's, making way for a larger, higher-resolution color display that extends further down the face of the device.' "
Video is not portable in any successful manner. Cell phone providers can't get people interested; portable mini-LCD DVD players spend more time on family room shelves than in-use.
I have a feeling this isn't about selling iPods. This is about proving that people will be interested in downloading video content through services like iTunes. What if it can hook up to your TV and act like a DVD player? What if iTunes starts having lots of good video content? This is just small part of a much bigger picture.
Bradley Holt
portable mini-LCD DVD players spend more time on family room shelves than in-use.
That might be true in the circles you are in, but business travellers and various other frequent-flyer types LOVE portable DVD players. Not only for passing time between flight connections, but for late evenings on the road when you don't feel like going out or trying to find something on the hotel TV.
Not to mention damn near every last grunt in Iraq. There's a lot of "down-time" involved in occupation efforts, and folks like us mailing DVD's out to them is one of their main sources of entertainment out there.
These groups of people would probably go bananas over a video iPod, if it was done right.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The rumours about a video-out enabled Airport base-station and video download capability in iTunes are more interesting - the ability to use the iTunes as a download centre for Video On Demand streamed to your TV strikes me as a potentially bigger market than for video on the go.
However, given that many of the movie studios are linked to the same record companies 'fighting' with Apple at the moment makes you wonder where the content would come from.
Think Secret are usually correct though.
Maybe they're finally launching 'Asteroid'
Obviously I'm not sure what Apple's going to announce but I don't think it's going to be a video iPod. Here's a thought. I think Apple (as I've said before in a previous post/story)is going to introduce a Tivo like devices that hooks into the network and allows you to rent/download movies. (something that you might envision if/when tivo and netflix get rolling together)
My suspicions are even stronger now that this "invite" has gone out. I think it's fairly obvious that a movie download service is a natural fit/extension for Apple given the success of ITMS. Yesterday or the day before I read a couple of articles where some big movie execs (or mpaa or somebody) were saying that they were going to enter the movie download market before the end of the year.
The invitation itself does leave a couple of clues (I think.) The first hint is "one more thing..." Steve's opening line before announcing his big plan. To me that means that Apple's going to announce something big. Not: We've said that video for the iPod is stupid, but "Oh yeah, one more thing... It's a video iPod! TAH DAH!!!! it's the greatest thing ever!" Of coarse, Steve Job's could invoke his RSF and make my claim a reality rather than a silly musing.
The next clue is the curtains in the invitation. To me those look like the old movie theater curtains they used to use (and maybe still use.) Dunno, but I can't imagine that they would be using theater curtains because somebody in the art department thought it would make a nifty background for "one more thing." But maybe.
Lastly, I don't believe that refreshed computers (desktops or laptops) would be enough of a reason to setup an invitation only press event. Well it could be G5 powerbooks, but I doubt that.
So my offical guess is a Apple branded DVR that hooks into a Apple movie service similar to ITMS.
Considering they are made of the same material, I'd imagine that it is just as scratch prone. The difference according to apple is people didn't complain about it with the larger iPod. I would guess, that in addition to only coming in white, the nano gets put into tighter quarters (jeans pockets and whatnot).
Maybe someday TDK will save us that trouble. Unless there is some horrible truth about their coating, it seems everything scratchable should come coated in the stuff.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
I was listening to my ipod at a coffee shop, and so were three other people, and I was thinking to myself, why can't my ipod show songs available from the coffeeshop. I hope they figure out how to stream to the ipod, with the songs showing up on the screen and everything.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
It's also very interesting to note the following:
Go to www.apple.com/movies. "You don't have permission to access /movies on this server"
Go to www.apple.com/umptysquat. "Trying to find something at Apple?"
As Bill said from _Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure_, "Ted ... something strange is afoot at the Circle K."
However, and this is only my two cents, I don't think the technology / battery life / screen size / processor speed is quite there yet to show H.264 on a portable system in a marketable, affordable package. Give it two more years.
"Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound
I think the studios would be more inclined to go with a tried and true distribution system, ala iTunes, than just dabbling with however many companies are trying to get into this. Apple got the record labels to sign on beforehand and thus had a load of available titles when iTunes was released. I can see him doing the same thing with the studios. Plus, having Pixar as a company and rubbing elbows with the industry can't hurt either. It just seems that the studios would feel much safer knowing Apple has a way to distribute and has such a large following already. Why risk having a myriad of formats, pricing, distribution sources, etc?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Actually, you are completely wrong. Releases of Apple products are NEVER preceeded by a massive marketing campaign. There are a always a few rumors, some of them more accurate than others, but Jobs loves to make the big surprise announcement. In fact, he said that it would have broken his heart if news of the nano got out before the big unveiling. With the Mac mini, there were rumors about a "headless" Mac, but the actual form was unveiled in a big announcement at MacWorld San Francisco.
The lawsuits by Apple against rumor sites are not a twisted propaganda strategy. Jobs hates the leaks because they spoil the surprise.
And has anyone noticed how .Mac account holders were pleasantly awarded with more storage space now? Hmmmm...I wonder why? Possibly to hold video files? Hmmm...
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
You probably buy your computer based on megahertz speeds, right?
"Utility" encompasses more than the amount of storage in a device. It can also, in the case of something like the nano, include the device's being small enough to carry with you more easily. Or it might include a color screen for pictures (or TEEENY videos).
My big brother's 1980 stereo could do a lot of stuff that my iPod can't. It had a turntable and a cassette deck, and would let me record from the radio, which it also had inside. It had RCA in jacks that I could use with a CD player. I'm pretty sure I can get a stereo of that vintage for well under the price of a nano at a garage sale. The difference is not pure vanity.
(Now, say the same thing about people buying full-sized SUVs instead of minivans, and I can give you a real good case on that one... There the difference appears to be pure shallow vanity for the vast majority of buyers.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I took the compusa 10 day rental on an Archos system and promptly returned it the next day. My intention was to rip my favorite shows from my TiVo to my computer. (Which I had already done for that season of Smallville and Farscape.) and play them on the Archos.
The problems are:
A) You have to down size all your movies to fit the resolution of the screen.
B) Archos does not provide the software to do this and the freeware stuff they had me download used a very lossy codec.
Until I can watch my shows without having to make special "small versions" this device is useless to me.
I would imagine that Apple has a September 30 fiscal year-end because once all the back to school shopping for computers is done in August and September, the rest of the calendar year is somewhat slower. In other words, their fiscal calendar matches their business cycle...lots of agriculture companies do the same thing due to harvest seasons. Hehe, and their name is Apple Computer :)
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
H.264 is totally different. It's MPEG-4 part 10. It's about as big a leap over MPEG-4 part 2 as MPEG-4 was over MPEG-2.
Considering mplayer and other open source apps support H.264, there is *no* reason for anyone to be using DivX or Xvid any more. You will get *better* quality *and* smaller file sizes by using H.264.
Free Hans!
A video iPod would be cool, but I don't know that I'd buy one. On the other hand, if Apple comes out with a photo iPod with a Keynote presentation player (not just a slide show, but effects and all) and VGA output for a projector, I'll definitely buy one, and so will every other academic, and probably a lot of business types as well.