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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.
"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.
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.
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'
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.
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.
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.
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
"....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!
"...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!
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.
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.