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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.' "
and think secret is saying the exact opposite: no vIpod, it's powermac and powerbook updates.
in a week we'll all know!
Let's just hope this screen resists scratches much better than the nano. At least you do not have to look at the nano to enjoy listening to it...
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.
Music videos? Does MTV even play them anymore? Who watches videos?
My impression is that Apple is trying to make the market viable, yet the iPod's popularity rode on years of MP3 success from Napster-on. Who trades videos over P2P or buys video DVDs from Borders, Wal-Mart or Amazon?
Is it a workaround from the RIAA? Doubtful. Is it attempting to fill up the hole in a dwindling music video market? Unlikely. Is it a feature that will get a huge initial "ooh toy" interest that will never get used after the first few weeks?
I can't see why this is needed unless Apple foresees video Podcasts from independent video "bloggers" or DIY TV show sites, but even that is a stretch.
The iPod coasted on the coattails of a huge market without a user friendly portable player. Video iPod is trying to invent a market boom.
There's kind of a way to do that now...if you put a bunch of frames in and scroll...but, well...this would be a lot more convenient.
Yes, I'd have to eat "10% of the purchase price in restocking fees", but I just got a 60 GB iPod two weeks ago.
The video side on the iPod side doesn't interest me near as much as the outport system - I'd love to be able to hook it to my TV, archive all of my DVD's to the computer (something I was planning on doing anyway, as I have young children who, though they mean well, tend to dirty the DVD's a bit, and already ruined one copy of Toy Story). Then I can just transfer movie to iPod, put iPod in other room, and have every movie at my fingertips, and my DVD's stay perfectly pristine.
Granted, this is still a rumor, and I'll take it with a grain of salt until I see product in the store - but if they do make the announcement, I'll still have another 11 days on the return policy (maybe I'll just have to "borrow" my wife's iPod Mini for a week or two - I think some groveling will be in order).
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
"Slashdot, Speculation For Nerds." I am going to get a copyright on that.
Would a larger screen on an iPod-sized device really make it any easier to watch video on it? No matter how you design things, it's a tiny tiny display.
Say you make it taller than it is wide and rotate it ninety degrees to view video. Then you're 2" tall, but still only about 2.7" wide, giving you a whopping 3.3" diagonal, up from 2.5" on the current iPod.
Video out support is good, but you're pushing that tiny hard drive pretty hard whether you're driving the iPod's screen or not. Apple would have to do some very impressive tricks with the battery life to make a video iPod practical.
From everything I've been reading, video support on the current iPod is just a firmware upgrade away. But I'm not convinced it's something users are going to be able to use well, even if it is just restricted to music videos.
Hopefully AppleInsider's barking up the wrong tree.
All I can say is if this is true, it better play more video container and codec combinations then Quicktime Player does otherwise it will be terribly limited. Unlike a Mac running OS X, users would not be able to trivially add codecs or install programs like VLC or MPlayer on an iPod as they are forced to do on a Mac in order to watch most "modern" commonly used codecs and container formats.
I can see it now: "Is that porn in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I watched 2 movies on my iPaq on a flight from LA to Paris. It was actually very nice. I have only 1 GB of storage, but that fits 2 divx movies perfectly.
I doubt that Apple will support divx, using H.264 instead. My question, who has compared these formats in a 500 MB size limit? Will Apple give you a utility to convert your DVDs? (probably not). Also, the question of battery life is important. An SD card doesn't spin inside. That hard drive on the iPod is going to burn a lot of battery power, and get hot to the touch.
The video iPod is inevitable. My questions are mainly to how we will fill them without an Apple Movie Store. I would expect the release of this iPod to coincide with the release of a movie store.
... okay, it's just speculation on what will be announced, but hey, Cringe agrees with it!
http://vodkapundit.com/archives/008158.php
Quote: "Most observers are predicting a "video iPod" that will play back video on a hand-sized device. Not me. I'm predicting not a video iPod, but rather an "iFlicks" service (they may or may not use that name) enabled by a new Airport-Express-on-steroids wireless widget with a video out, as well as a snazzy Apple remote control (perhaps looking something like this) for iTunes and iFlicks.
All this will enable Mac G5 owners to download high-resolution (but not HD, not yet) movies from Apple to their hard drives and play them back on televisions in another part of the house..."
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'
if this doesn't have video out, I don't see the point. I don't want to watch any show or clip of a show on my ipod. I am sure there are a lot of other people who are the same.
but,
if it did have vdeo out of some sort, it would be really attractive. I would buy a show through apple (h264 would be awsome), load it onto an ipod and play it on a tv at my convience, hd output of some sort would be a plus.
It's been on the table for a while, and according to the company supplying the screens, are set to unroll sometime in early 2006.
Quote:
No PowerBook revision?
Sources are also reporting that the pending Power Mac revision will be the last Mac upgrade of the calendar year. Contrary to other reports, Apple's PowerBook line, last revised in February with only incremental upgrades, will likely not see an upgrade before Macworld Expo San Francisco in January 2006, at the earliest.
Apple lawsuit over the leaked information in 5... 4... 3...
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
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.
Call me a Luddite, but if Flipbook support is not there, I'm not opening my wallet.
except to watch my credit cards flip back and forth...flipflipflipflipflipflipflipflipflip.....
I like microcars
What, with no native programs to run on it?
Totally - give me my netflix on my iPod, with the ability to plug it in to any tv or computer monitor, and I would buy one in a heartbeat.
Apple will release a viPod shuffle which will support automagic shuffling of your videos and, to make smaller it easier to use, no screen.
No words yet on the release date of emacsPod.
What does As Seen On TV think about this? :)
English is easier said than done.
I wrote yesterday that processor upgrades are also very likely for this event for two reasons:
The future is in beta
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
This has really got to be it. vPod is of limited use and probably doesn't warrant an unveiling at it's own event. The Airport Express is a great little unit and I have two, one for travel and one for home wifi hooked up to the stereo. But it is a clunky solution: I have to run upstairs to change my music, or buy one of those remote controls to plug into it.
What i have really been hankering for is a mac mini that is more suited to DVR and music playback (without having to buy all the usb hubs and elgato and digital audio out pieces). Honestly, I'd settle for just the music playback piece right now and hook it up to my plasma as the display. I've been looking at those Sonos devices which seem pretty sweet, but I figured their price is high enough that I'd give apple to the end of the year to get their product finished up. Video is the next logical leap, but I fear that will be a long road to reach the idealistic visions of all movies and shows immediately available, both for technical reason and because the movie studios are probably even more paranoid now that they've seen the music businesses travails.
TIVO's stock price has continued to slide, maybe it's time for apple to make a purchase! Or strategic investment...
On a side note, it's funny to see how this year's box office receipts in the US are down from last year and there's all this handwringing about how the movies pretty much just sucked, not because of pirating/downloaders. Seems like both the movie and music industries are going through a bit of a creative slump and their revenues are seeing a hit because of it. The RIAA targets illegal downloads (which is probably a small but actual part of the decline) while not addressing the more structural problems in the industry. The MPAA on the other hand is just at the beginning of getting their arms around digital distribution and all the issues of DRM that inevitably follow. Hopefully they'll be a bit more proactive on providing customers with an alternative!
... because they count the *free* distirbution of Spiderman 2 with nearly every PSP at launch as a "sale" (technically, it is a sale, but come on, it is not the same thing).
Add to that the number of people who will buy only one UMD ever for the "try it out" factor, and you will see that the numbers are not as good as it looks.
Portable video players have a bright future I think, but not based on a closed priorietary format that costs more than a DVD (who wants to buy a movie twice?).
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
It has always bugged the hell out of me why you can only listen to their proprietary format with the IPod.
What format would that be? What they call "AAC" is just mpeg-4...
Oh, you mean proprietary encryption format! Who the hell cares what encryption format they use? Only very trusting people keep their music in a DRM-hobbled format.
There are tons of other media players out there that accept open standards (at least more open).
As far as I can tell, pretty much no media players accept more than a couple of open formats. Most of them actually discourage you from using open formats, forcing you to use Microsoft's or Sony's proprietary formats if you want decent compression and quality... I hope you're not referring to WMA or something like that as "open", are you?
"....and possibly we'll see a new high-end Nano (6 or 8G?), with some price adjustments across the board."
No way. Apple would not release a higher capacity Nano only weeks after releasing the existing versions. It would piss everyone with a 2 or 4 gig version off so bad they'd be ripping the metal off the front of their local Apple Stores demanding free upgrades!
Apple is doing the quarterly report on Tuesday October 11th, the day before the media event. macminute.com had that in their news today. i am guessing that is why the release was not on the usual tuesday? the earnings reports are always done after the market closes, so at 1600 or 1700 eastern time. makes sense, if the quarter was good. if apple announces anything tuesday morning, then earnings tuesday evening, one would be lost in the shuffle. this implies the earnings are at least ok, if not pretty good. AAPL stock is at an all time high these days, so i assume things are financially solid.
It has always bugged the hell out of me why you can only listen to their proprietary format with the IPod.
You're misinformed. It also plays Mpeg1-audio3 (mp3), FLAAC, WAV, mpeg4-audio1 (mp4), etc. as well as DRMed mp4.
Also, you are tied to ITunes as well....correct?
Nope. It is just a hard drive that indexes content oddly (with some advantages). Plenty of other software supports it.
In addition, the consumer is not forced to use a particular retailer.
The only way the ipod restricts your choice of retailer is in that it does not support .wmv or .ogg (and a few other oddballs). So long as you buy from a retailer that offers a format it supports it treats the music as a first class citizen. Also, before being available for Windows, I had Windows using friends come over and borrow my mac and iTunes to rip their CD collections since doing it on their PCs was too hard. Most music played on iPods I'd guess is from ripped CDs (I might mention iTunes does not add DRM to your rips by default like WMP does).
Please someone explain this apparent cult mentality.
This is not quite right, it is not a cult thing, more of a social status thing. A lot of geeks like iPods because they work really well. Go down to an electronics retailer and try playing with some of their demo models. Try simulating real use by operating them one handed while not looking at the screen. The iPod is way easier to use. As for non-geeks, iPods are "cool" and if you don't have one you'll never be part of the popular crowd, or something. Also they are really easy to learn to use, have easy to use software that comes with them and beats most other music jukebox software by a mile, and has an easy to use built in store. For geeks, again, the DRM music from that store has easy, legal ways to remove it and a pretty good selection compared to other stores. There is no mystery, the combination of the iPod, iTunes, and the iTMS is something a lot of different people like and enjoy using one or more components of.
the posters who complain about the usefulness of such devices don't have children. i recently traveled with children to SF. i had ripped some kids videos (They Might Be Giant's "Here come the giants") to my treo 650. now you can argue about how illegal that is, but it kept my kids occupied. now, would you like a screaming 2 year old sitting behind your plane seat, or one watching video? there is definitely a place for this device.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
"...you don't know Apple too well. They will always come out with an update of your product less than a month after you purchased it"
Isn't invention great. And you fail to mention the real reason it makes so many people feeling a little jealous... it's the fact that Apple has been doing this for many years. They will upgrade their line when they feel it's right, while keeping the price of the relative product the same. They've been doing this on the computer side for a very long time.
Seeing an upgrade to your product (upgrades are good, trust me, my original 5 GB iPod wouldn't cut it today, sorry) that is exactly the same price as the one you just bought a month ago is what get's ya. But, Apple knows the balance tips towards keeping the prices constantly in certain ranges while not being afraid of investigating upgrades due to new technology. We as consumers tend to like that much more than don't like the jealousy thing... you picked the time to buy, and the purchase should have been an accepted agreement. Meaning, it was worth it to you to pay what you did for that device at that time, so go with that, or you will never own an xxxxxx.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
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.
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!
That's only because there are NO games for it. People are buying UMD to justy their retarded buy. Where are the games for my portable GAME machine?
There is, however, a conversion when loading mp3 to an iPod?
Nope, not really. iPods play mp3 files with the built in hardware, but the filesystem on the iPod gives it a weird hash for a name and organizes it in a weird file structure. Perhaps you were recalling something about the Sony music players that spent several hours converting mp3's to their proprietary format when it loaded them onto the player.
It concerned me that their end game is to tie you to their retail service much the same way that MS has done by slightly altering their implementations of standards.
My opinion given the prices/profits they have posted for the iTMS is that their goal is twofold, first they sell music as an incentive for people to buy their devices. Second, they sell music to prevent MS from dominating the space with their proprietary format and making macs second class citizens for music, which would hurt their core market.
Thanks for the reply.
You're quite welcome.
User (and possible Apple Insider) "As Seen On TV" commented on this months ago.
FLAAC is not a codec. it is an application that converts FLAC (not supported on the iPod) to AAC (the iPod's proprietary format)
Understated styling, minimal reliance on soon to be obsolete removable solid state media, compact physical size, stable future proof OS, slowly evolving price / performance ratio equals the perfect home media hub, and we all know that people simply do not and cannot watch movies on a portable device, except for news and sports clips - something that can be done on the latest 3G phones. Chances are, Apple are prepping or will soon release an iApp that not only provides a media centre interface for all ones own and broadcast content, but integrated with an iTunes type service for home movie downloading and viewing. The movie making apps like Final Cut and iMovie will of course allow movies to be created on the power hardware (such as Powerbooks and G5 Powermac systems) and in a fantastic piece of irony for Apple, viewed on their Mac Mini based media hub - or iBooks and Powerbooks too, which are FAR MORE PRACTICAL for viewing movies! Any future iPod is far more likely to morph into an 'only Apple can do it this way' smart phone / remote control device for ones life and the Mac Mini. Remember you read it here first!
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
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.
Finally, a mobile device for the true geek. Play music, view photos and edit your .conf files on the run.
Windows Tweaks
use a Crown Royal bag to put your Nano in?
I can imagine a time in the not-to-distant future when I will be walking down the street without any kind of entertainment or communication devices in tow and these kids will be pointing and staring at me for not having a "rich multimedia experience" or whatever. The idea of not having multiple electronic devices attached to my every orifice and appendage will be inconceivable to them. One of them might just concur that I was using my time thinking of stuff like people did in the "old days". Yeah, I can do long division with a pencil and paper too! Just what *is* this perceived need for entertainment and communication every moment of your waking life? Whatever happened to solitude and reflection and pondering over things? No time for that now!