Handicapping the 6th Generation iPod

An anonymous reader writes "It's that time of the year again, when Apple rumors bloom with the fall foliage and the press is inundated with hype and wishful thinking. MP3 Newswire has a reasonably sober article addressing 17 of those rumors, even giving odds on the validity of each. From the article: 'It is the peripheral manufacturers that now have a heavy sway on what features the iPod will add to its 6th generation. The peripheral market has done more to cement Apple's proprietary technology as a standard than Apple itself, adding to the iPod's dominance. Mr. Jobs will not upset that balance without good reason and Apple's recent deal with Creative to make iPod peripherals shows he wants to feed it further. But the iPod needs something new to keep it fresh and ahead of the competition.'"

Comments

Well, the article suggests that

[SmallFurryCreature]

They are going with a metal screen. So no more scratches because the plate of metal keeps your lcd screen protected and safe from scratching. What do you mean you can't see through metal, geez you non-kryptonites always got something to whine about don't you.

Maybe they should use a glass display. What do you mean you don't fancy having a fragile piece of glass in your pocket.

Then again apple could have easily solved that. For that matter any maker of device with a screen. Supply a bundle of that stick on plastic so people can just put it on and tear it off when it gets too dirty. Works great but exactly why do I have to buy them from a 3rd party. Oh wait, yeah I should have know by the piece of rag, sorry, case you get with an iPod. A penny saved is a penny earned and apple earns a lot of pennies. Overcharging, underpaying and not giving a shit about the enviroment. Remind me again why they are considerd the good IT company?

Here's What I Want

[LearnToSpell]

I think most people here would agree that often you need to own one of something to learn what kind of features are really important to you, and which don't matter so much. I've never had an iPod, but I got a Vaio portable in a moment of insanity, used it for three days, unloaded it on eBay (goddamn I hate iDiot cAsE), and bought a Zen Xtra, which has been very good to me.

Here's my list of killer features. Some are obvious, and some a lot of people won't agree with, but this is what I'm looking for:

• As small as possible. I didn't think this one mattered too much, but the Zen is slightly larger than what I'd like. The screen does not matter to me. I don't need colour. I don't need video playback. I don't need to have 2 1/2" pictures of my loved ones to tote around. Just the facts, ma'am: Artist, album, title. Time's ok too. (Which leads me to another question that /. may know: how small can a HD-based player get, if a company were only interested in that? What's out there that's TINY?)
• As large as possible. I have a 60G, and it's full. 3,500 CDs, lame --preset extreme... you do the math. (I would, but it's 9 in the morning. :-P) Anyway, that'll come with time.
• Replaceable battery. This is a huge must. There are plenty of places I go without power, and it's great to have 3 spares ($12 on eBay) that take about 10 seconds to swap into the Zen. That's the deal-breaker on an iPod for me. Of course, if you make the battery life 30 hours, that would work too. Sony got that one right, although that thing was huge.
• Decent software. Just stay out of the way, please. The Vaio software (required) was the most insanely annoying crap I've ever had to work with in my life. If it shows up as an external drive, and I can drag and drop, I'd dance a happy jig. To Finntroll. \m/ o_O \m/ KZenExplorer works fine in Linux, and I think the iPod stuff is ok (?). I must must must be able to pull stuff FROM the player TO my computer of choice. Fuck your DRM. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars on music. If I can't play it where I want, when I want, you get nothing.
• Gapless playback. If you ever play live stuff, you know about this one.
• Full tag support. Vaio was retarded here as well. I spend many hours getting my tags right - use them!
• USB charging. Not critical, but this is my dream player, so it's in there. :-)
• Line-out. Again, not critical, but it's great to have a wire hanging out of my stereo waiting for an instant collection to show up.

And I want tail fins... And bubble domes... And shag carpeting! And a horn here, here, and here. You can never find a horn when you're mad.

That's about it, I think. The only real complaint I have about the Zen is its physical size. *sigh* One day...

Re:It is already DRMed. Was:Only one thing

[mjpaci]

Just proof your gf is an idiot.