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Next Generation of iPods to have Wi-Fi?
Zephyr14z writes "A TMCnet article states that Apple has filed a patent for iPods that can purchase music wirelessly over the internet. This was an expected feature in the Zune, though it turns out not to be true. 'While this could be an effort to fight the software giant and its product directly, it should be noted that Zune's built-in Wi-Fi will be limited to the file sharing between devices with no direct Internet purchases from the handheld,' says Campbell."
Odd, first of all, that this article appears in YRO (because it involves a patent?); second, and odder still, is Susan Campbell's commentary:
O RLY? As far as I can tell, Susan seems to be a ressentissante Microsoft shill:
Suffice to say, even the slickest market campaign can't account alone for iPod's success; just look at the PS3 or Zune: you can't pull the wool over everyone's eyes all the time.
That said, if Apple does introduce Wi-Fi (or an iPod cell-phone, for that matter), it will be on its own time; and not because it's scared of Zune.
Wireless! More space than a Nomad! Awesome!
It's annoying that I can't play my ipoo when it's hooked up to the puter... oh, they sell base stations? How lovely...
How about Apple fixes those bugs before adding new shit?
It would also help if the battery meter were in ANY WAY accurate. It jumps from 100% to 60% to 80% and around all throughout a 10 minute session. It might as well not be present...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
It's a nice idea, but wireless is slow. Certainly slower than firewire anyway. And these havea lot of storage. Will people really want to spend several hours uploading their mp3 collection?
Apple has many patents, including this one. That does not mean that it immediately will be applied in any of Apple's products. Stop spreading rumours based on patents.
Seriously people, what's the big deal? When I listen to my mp3, I'm not using it to surf the net or give more money to some company for music.
But this is my opinion. If I want to get something off the internet, I would being using my laptop instead of some Apple iPod. What a load of crap.
You need to hook it up anyway to recharge. Just using Wifi to download music means they will have to cram a lot of iTunes/iStore functionality into the ipod. Byebye simple userinterface... How about security? Either they make you enter your credit card number with the clickwheel(????) or else it gets "linked" to your iPod on the Apple servers. Lose your iPod and the thief can shop around on your card... The whole point about the iPod is that all complexity is parked in iTunes.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
So iPods are successful, in part because they understood that what people need, above all else in a music player is simplicity. So you can't manage you music on the iPod, you manage them on your computer.
Now I can see that it is possible using the new search facility to access and select songs from the iTunes store (if the new iPods had wireless), but surely one of the great things about an iPod is that you can't.
Just because you can use a scroll wheel for text entry and pointing doesn't mean that you should.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
I'd say this is unlikely as you're likely to want to back up the song you bought on the ipod to a computer. Transfer of files that way is not really part of the current model (to prevent people DLing their songs onto another computer).
I could be wrong though.
CmdrTaco must feel important that they got round to listening to his ideas. ;)
I wonder if they will increase capacity as well
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
liqbase
This move is long overdue. Hopefully Apple will do a better job than Microsoft did. It is *so* 90's to have to dock your player just to get music into it. The technology exists today to make a very capable wireless media player, what is missing is someone (Apple?) to make it useful and functional. The possibilities are endless. Imagine "Mall Radio Stations", audio lectures or supplemental material distributed wirelessly to all the students in the classroom, having a playlist at a party that is a composite of all the wireless devices in the room/house. Let the next wave of portable music players begin!
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
I want my consultant fee for this. I think 10% of gross sales is a nice, round number. :)
Raging in an online forum won't do anything for the world around you. To see change, you must take action.
It's hard to imagine that MS missed the patent on this one since even people on SlashDot imagined this as a missing piece of obvious functionality. I haven't checked the timing, but could the Penny Arcade comic relating to Zune functionality be considered prior art?
The reason to be afraid of the Zune is simple: Microsoft has a ridiculous amount of money to spend:
o ft-home-entertainment.html
http://thingsguyslike.blogspot.com/2006/10/micros
$5bn in losses so far, and still no profits at the Home Entertainment division of Microsoft. If they wanted, they could give Zunes away for 10 years. It's hard to compete against that kind of financial muscle.
Soniqcast Aireo had wifi and you were able to get audible content wirelessly at hotspots with it. No it's technicaly not music but it's the same thing at it's core. I could access my audible library, download a book and then have it on my player if I forgot to grab it at home I could grab it at starbucks on my way to work.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...Taco will be happy. Wi-Fi. More space than a Nomad. Not Lame.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Seriously. How could they get a a patent on this? Is wireless the new "on the internet!" when it comes to patents?
c++;
Unless it has an external on/off switch, I would never own one of these. Imagine walking into a retailer, and you get an advertisement on your ipod for "the GAP does Christmas" CD they are blasting on the stores over-engineerd sound system. Better yet, it would be a hackers dream to have people walking around a crowded public place with these things turned on.
--Always, I mean never..., No I mean always check your references.--
On the other hand, perhaps Apple will wait until the software giant registers a 0.5% market share before considering it as an opponent. I'd say the software giant is doing a good job of fighting itself as it is.
that MS didn't already file this patent. I bet they did, and the author of the article missed it. I'd check but I don't have time to search through the mess, the swamp of MS patents for the next 3 weeks...
They beet apple to the WiFi punch, and I'm sure they thought of this feature and just didn't have time to build the infrastructure.
If you run linux or some other *nix like I do (I'm assuming so since you say you dont have itunes), just type "eject $PATH_TO_IPOD_DEVICE" for example "eject /dev/sda" Thatll do the trick.
Oh, and a quick check using df (if you have some form of automounting going on) or a check with dmesg when you plug it in should give you the path
Will they have batteries that last more than 12 months? If not, I'm not interested.
, 1783814,00.html
http://money.guardian.co.uk/consumernews/story/0,
This makes me wonder if the ability to enter text in the latest version of the video iPods (So that one could search for tracks by name/etc like one does in iTunes) was just introduced so that people could enter wifi network passwords for a future version of the iPod.
Yup...
What about streaming content.
I'd love to have my ipod receive Internet radio.
Get your tagline off my lawn.
There's tons of better sounding players out there. Try an iRiver or Cowon with some decent headphones. The sonic quality far outstrips that of Apple's iPod. These other players just aren't "hip," apparently.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
Most of our high tech gadgets have features that most owners never use. Ditto for most software. Who do you know who can use most of the features in Office for instance?
People prefer to carry an iPod as well as their cell phone because it is just easier and more convenient even if you have to carry two devices. On the other hand, people don't normally carry a camera and are willing to use the camera functionality of their cell phones rather than put up with the hassle of carrying a camera just in case they need it.
Being able to do away with a computer connection could be an improvement in convenience. You would still have to charge batteries but there are lots of ways to deal with that.
What it will boil down to is, as you note, user interface. If Apple comes up with a brilliant user interface that makes the user's life easier then people will buy the device.
http://www.mobiletrax.com/im/20050720.html
My own worry is that, once they have a wireless connection into your device, you lose control of it. Creative has removed the 'Record FM' function from their mp3 players. I use that function and would be very annoyed if they could remove that function from the device I already own by remote control.
I think when my ipod inevitably dies on me I'll give the Zune player a try. That song sharing function is no different than itunes sharing function. If anything itunes is worse than Zune. If you share your itunes playlist over a network, you can listen to the music on itunes as long as the other persons copy of itunes is running, when they shut it down you can't access thier list any more. You can't even load their songs onto your ipod when their playlist is available.
After the large amount of press last week Steve Jobs got from the Newsweek article last week where he said the Wi-Fi feature on the Zune was stupid because, I'm suprised to hear this. I know the article was about downloading music from iTunes via Wi-Fi, but can you imagine them not adding the functionality to send songs to other players? While I'm not a fan of eithe the iPod or the Zune, it must hurt to have one of the most 'inovative' companies in the world follow MS.
I've had iRivers, Creatives, Sansas, Sonys - no Cowan, so I'll have to give it a wash on that one. But all in all, I've had eight different manufacturer's digital audio player, and frankly, my iPod sounds the best by far. Side-by-side plug/unplug cycles convinced me and many others who happened to be around for a test. (Started at a party where a friend said his MDplayer smoked the iPod for audio quality... even he agreed that he was wrong after a direct plug-unplug audio test). None of them has had the functionality of my iPod, nor the sound quality. I don't care about 'hip' - in fact, it was that fact - that the iPod was 'hip' - that kept me from buying one until last year.
Thinking outside my Head
Imagine chatting with someone on the bus or airplane and sharing music with them or listening to the same thing. Imagine plugging in to a small local wireless network comprised of your train car and seeing what interesting music people had that you could add to your collection.
This sort of technology would create a cultural explosion not unlike the original birth of Napster. Suddenly music stops being something people see as existing in the nebulous internet, and starts being something that becomes a unique personal identifier (in the expression sense, not the tin foil hat sense) that is as noticable and almost as visible (thanks to people being connected to their iPods 24/7) as your clothing.
Just out of curiosity, is it illegal for a company to create a music player that just plays MP3s and allows this sort of transfer? If they don't actually sell songs like Apple, is there something in the DMCA or some such law that prevents them from adding this functionality?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
One thing that certain Apple admirers do is to make up excuses for Apple's 'low hurdle' market-control restrictions on their products, such as "you can't put songs on your iPod without iTunes because the iPod's CPU isn't powerful enough* to read the song files if they're not in Apple's special hashed directories". Or "the labels won't let Apple give you the ability to transfer songs back from your iPod to iTunes".
:)
A TMCnet article states that Apple has filed a patent for iPods that can purchase music wirelessly over the internet.
This explains why they added the ability to transfer songs from the iPod back to your PC after holding out for so long. But it does raise one question...
If they can do that then the iPod will need the ability to add items to the music library itself. If the iPod can add items to the music library by itself, then it should be able to import music you've put on the iPod yourself without using iTunes.
Hmmm... what was that about the CPU being too slow?
* A 70 MHz ARM is way faster than the 386/33 I was using back when we were all working on what became FreeBSD, or the 68040 in the NeXT, and they didn't seem to have a problem reading files.
I'd say it applies more to the iPhone for purchasing on the go, rather than the normal iPod.
...let the anecdote battles begin!
a wifiPod might serve as a remote for desktop->stereo music systems: a much anticipated alternative to squeezebox & sonos attempts to fill void apple has yet to populate w/ an Airpod.
As I stated in a previous post discussing the Zune, I think iTV is being developed specifically for use with an upcoming WiFi iPod (or is it the WiFiPod?).
---------------------------------------------
SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
People buy music and games on their cellphones all the time.
They'll connect their CC# to an iTunes account, to the iPod, and not think twice about it.
Losing their pod is a potential issue, but so is losing your phone.
People just don't seem too concerned. They should probably be a bit more concerned, but they're not.
Apple could even toss a 5 or 6 digit pin on there and an X retry lockout if they wanted, passing the 'security' on your ATM or CC itself, without a serious UI hassle.
And the click wheel is good enough to sort through thousands and thousands of songs as it is.
Adding a store with some category breakdowns isn't going to cause UI chaos.
Seriously - these are solved problems.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
i believe it has been possible for over 10 yrs to buy music wirelessly to a mobile phone. Patent industry is mad.
I think it's important to remember who is behind the Zune. Yes, Microsoft. But more specifically, the Home & Entertainment Division (the Xbox people). Who, by the way, posted a 70% revenue increase last quarter.
;) )
Keeping this in mind (that this is an MS product, and that it's the H&E people behind it), just because the Zune _software_ doesn't do something today (or at launch) doesn't mean it won't do it for ZuneOS "SP1"
After all, Xbox Live didn't come out for 1 year after Xbox was shipped, and X360 1080P support was issued as a software _patch_ on the 360 after Sony thought they could use it to make noise in the competitive space. Progessive Scan dashboard support was another software patch on the original Xbox. Those products _had_ to get out in the market place at the right time to be viable, the cut list must have been severe. Everyone knew the hardware was capable of more than what it launched with, and as the Xbox team got their feet under them, and heard the real-world feedback, and had a chance to breathe a bit, some of the more interesting features that didn't make the original bar started to show up.
I'm telling myself that the current idiotic 3/3 DRM model and the lack of wifi sync on the Zune are temporary things. They'll be corrected via a software update after the Zune launches (even if it means a Linux-based "software update"
This is what I am _telling_ myself (and as an MS employee, I hope it turns out to be accurate) but I don't think i'll actually put my money down until I see it happen.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
In slashdot patents are evil. Unless they are owned by Apple.
Especially if you run Linux in the first place.
.. doesn't seem like much of a stretch.
Mounted = Locked player interface
I'm still confused by his earbud method to pick up the chicks, though, because with girls that use the Zune, you can still use your Jedi Mind Trick skills on them (you know, because girls using a Microsoft product are usually weak minded.) There's no such luck using that on girls that choose Apple.
The potential damage from Zune is not they can or cannot buy music directly over wireless. The important feature of Zune is that students can share files (any files, ebook, note, paper, pic and yes music too) among themselves without needing a computer (Microsoft has to facilitate that if they want Zune to be successful) Another possible angle is that Zune/XBox 360 account link up. Imagine, when you are playing Dome, instead of the annoying background music ... you could share the sound track you have in the virtual environment ... after the game, the dude on the other side of the globe just drop a buck for the sound track played in game. Music could be meta labelled as rock, classic, ... or whatever. The game, instead of playing the old and tired music, it could play something from your favorite list that suit the situation, or mix and match.
Apple has no such link up, and if Microsoft does it correctly. Apple, be afraid.
Another thing, is Apple plan for music and ipod only? Cause, I was hopping Nintendo start selling games through Wifi, or even allow me to rent game over wifi. They already allows demo over wifi, that another natural steps for Nintendo. If Apple patent block that, I will hate Apple alot ... more than I hate Microsoft ... actually, I no longer hate it, cause I don't remember why I should.
Granted, it's been a slow day but God I hate how every story on Slashdot devolves around comment 20 to a battle of
"well now, that's not possibly true because my grandmother tried Linux after I showed her a solitaire suite she could program herself and she fell in love with the concept and has been making kernals for 3 years. Then the heart attack killed her."
And then the reply... "Gimme a break. I know a friend that had a heart attack and lived through it so don't try bullshitting me with how quote/unquote 'fatal' heart attacks are."
Followed by "I had a friend who used to say quote/unquote. He was a liar and a bitch and what would a liar and a bitch do? Make up a different name and post on Slashdot about why he hates heart attacks."
Before "Oh, so every person with a different name than your friend's must be your friend in disguise? That's insane, and I know insane because I was a clinical researcher at a pharmaceutical company that invented both Insaney-os AND their cure."
"BULL! I know a guy that worked at the company for REAL and he never mentioned knowing anyone named CmdrChalupa so you MUST be full of shit."
I wish slashdot had a little scrolling doo-dad that would display fallacies, inaccuracies and the like at the bottom of every comment box so we could look down and say "Oh wow, isolated anecdotes do not prove or disprove any assumption UNLESS the original assumption was erroneously over inclusive, often using terminology like 'every Windows user' or 'only the Canadians.' That means my wonderfully captivating story about a sexy 14 year old Japanese girl I met playing WoW might not be representative of all sexy/14 year old/Japanese/girls/WoW players."
In turn, I would hope this would encourage people to not post their anecdotes as fact.
NOTE: My belief that all Slashdot posts turn to anecdote wars is based entirely on anecdotal evidence of my own. Feel free to point at my hypocrisy and laugh. It'll do you some good.
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
I thought that was more to do with saving RAM - from my limited understanding, the iTunes DB is held in RAM when the iPod is running, including the filename of each track (along with artist/track name). So to avoid storing 40-60 character filenames, they've limited it to 12 (if memory serves = FXX/XXXX.mp3 etc). You're talking maybe a 100K or so of memory for the 1G iPods (10Gb model), but I expect in the first gen iPods, any memory saved was a good thing. Mind you, saving 100K on the new iPods is probably not to be sniffed at either. Except for the larger iPods that would be 800K of RAM saved instead.
That is, if there is a real technical excuse for it. I'm also receptive to the idea that it was just to make it harder to copy music from the iPod onto a computer.
Selling Ice Cream: before the time of patented ideas
Selling Ice Cream over the internet: possible patent time 2000
Selling Ice Cream over wireless internet: possible patent time 2006
I can understand a patent if people had always been using wires to carry data and then you figure out how to use packet radio to do this. You patent that. But then when you use the new wireless network to do what the old wired network did that should be covered under the patent for the general purpose wireless network. Wireless is like the bicycle. The bike is a __general purpose__ transportation device. You do can't pantent using a bicycle for each place you might ride it.
OK maybe you can Maybe I should file this: "A method for two wheeled human powered transportation between Joe's home at 123 AntyStreet and Bill's Barbar Shop on 34 Grand on Saturady afternoons when it is not raining." Let's see if the USPO will accept that. this is not much worse then filling a patent for sending a specifically formated block of data over an existing network when that same data has already been send over a different network
...I submitted this story (from a different source) to /. five days ago. But am I bitter? Noooooooo, of course not.... grrrrrrrrr....
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
... to sell songs directly among devices, without assistance from the online store, and giving users incentives to participate in the distribution chain (an improved business model IMHO). Check out this paper published at NOSSDAV 2006: http://research.microsoft.com/users/darkok/papers/ nossdav.pdf
Ever been on airplanes where they demand you don't turn on anything wireless, even if it DOES have an airplane mode? I was on a flight where, because a handheld PDA had wireless, they wouldn't allow it's use even in airplane mode. When iPods start coming out with wireless, those same airlines will demand that no iPods be in use, whether or not they have an airplane mode. This rather defeats the purpose for many to have an iPod.
Its amazing all the great ways the ipod can NOT connect to the collection of music i already own.
What a shame that we still dont have the technology to connect an mp3 player to a local file share.
As soon as apple stops intentionally crippling their ipods i will think about buying one. As long as theyre tied to itunes, theyre completely useless to me.
I think thats ridiculous that patents stop companies from incorporating obvious features, like the scroll wheel for instance. I do find it funny that Microsoft cant (cant?) implement it on the Zune, even with this letter search thing that it does, pushing ups and downs is gonna suck. Shouldn't a company be able to incorporate things like that, obvious things? Its not like Ford patented everything on their cars, and Honda etc cant have round wheels, or brakes made of metal etc
---
The first iPods were formatted in HFS. HFS has an "alias" mechanism that bypasses the file hierarchy and name already, and for a special purpose device the alias could simply be an index into the catalog. For FAT formatted ipods, the first extent of the file could be used. The actual file name could be kept in a non-memory-resident file indexed by this pointer that was only referenced if the pointer failed to find the file. This would save even more space.
iTunes could reliably maintain this database, which means that most people would still want to use iTunes, but if you didn't mind having your iPod spend a minute or so "indexing..." after you load files into it you could do that too.
If the next gen ipods have Wi-Fi capabilities then i would def buy one. That would be awsome.
GI
I've using a 3 year old PC, so it's running at USB 1.0 speeds (12Mbits/sec), while my wife has a dock running USB 2.0 (AKA Hi-Speed, or 480MBits/sec) or FireWire 1.0 (100-400MBits/sec). My wireless card gets 11-54MBits/sec when maxed out - and it would do nothing for recharging the battery in the iPod.
You want to impress us all, figure out how to broadcast power over WiFi ...
Hmmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.