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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.'"
Wi-Fi / bluetooth support with built in file sharing.
PC Dude: Hey man, what you listening to...
Mac Dude: An old favourite, Assemblage 23
PC Dude: You mind if I listen...
Mac Dude: Sharing ear-buds is so last millenium, but watch this...
Mac Dude:
PC Dude:
PC Dude:
PC Dude: Cool !!!
RIAA Dude: You guys can't do that, thats, like, stealing, man.
RIAA Dude: Anyway, hows you all do that, I thought we had managed to ban all that stuff since the 60's like drugs, free love, sharing.
RIAA Dude: Don't you know we are at war those damned commies, err, I mean terrorists
Mac Dude: If I'm the Mac, and your the PC and Tux is there doing the filming thus is always out of the picture, what does that make him.
Tux: He must be Sid, the Digital Restrictions Monster in disguise who trys to destroy all the cool toys.
RIAA Dude: Mock me if you wish, but we will see who laughs last when I sue you for $150,000... per song...
Tux: If you strike me down now I will become more powerful than you can ever imagine...
Tux: Hey wait, didn't the last guy to use that line get killed shortly after...
RMS: Look you signed up to this. GPLv3, Section 7 says "Give me libery or give me death"
RMS: I know we tend to focus more on the liberty bit than the death bit, but hey thats where the intrest is...
RMS: But it would really help if you could submit a patch, once you have finished getting that death thing completed, that is...
RIAA Dude: Hey, I'm the RIAA and I demand to have the last word.
Tux: OK
After buying a Razr, I don't think I'd buy another Motorola phone. It's got a lot of hype, but not as durable as my old Nokia was by a long shot. It keeps overheating while I blow glass, going black after I leave it on for a few days, needing rebooting, and I can't load my own ringtones to it. All in all, I have to give it a bit of a thumbs down.
My little site.
I bought a Motorola SLVR and it's great. Even with just 100 songs, I no longer carry my iPod video. It is _extemely_ slow to sync--especially when transcoding higher bitrate songs (it won't play VBR or > 160kbps)--and iTunes practically locks up while it is syncing. The latter is more a problem with iTunes than the phone I think.
One warning to anyone thinking of buying a SLVR though: headset, charger, and USB hookup all go through the same mini din connector. It appears that these are prone to wearing out. Mine is becoming loose and caused my headset to stop working; no more music until I bought a new one! If the phone-side connection goes out then you're screwed and after just two months, it appears inevitable that I will need to buy a new phone within the year.
I would avoid any phone that uses the mini din for everything. The music functionality itself is good enough for me, and the camera is excellent compared to my last phone as well.