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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.
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
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
You can play your iPod while connected to the computer. Just click on the "eject" button in iTunes, and it will keep charging from the USB connection, but the interface will be "unlocked" so you can use it.
And the comment about the battery meter is just stupid.
...Taco will be happy. Wi-Fi. More space than a Nomad. Not Lame.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
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
Most /. users probably wouldn't use the feature that much, but luckily for Apple, theres a mass of suckers out there who can't stop downloading their songs by the pound. What better way to get some money is for those people to be able to download the songs, while away from their computer, like while at the mall after browsing through a music store.
Can I bum a sig?
What about streaming content.
I'd love to have my ipod receive Internet radio.
Get your tagline off my lawn.
As of iTunes 7, you can move authorized music from the iPod to the computer. This was announced as a way to sync the iTunes library on two computers, but it'd also be useful for music that was downloaded to the iPod via wireless.
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
If they wanted, they could give Zunes away for 10 years. It's hard to compete against that kind of financial muscle.
This is a common argument about Microsoft. However, it is only partly true. Microsoft has shareholders. Microsoft cannot just throw money away, it has to be something that will potentially bring big profits in the future.
It's designed to play music when you're away from your computer. If you're at your computer you could, like, you know, use your computer...
Linux boxes CAN play music, can't they???
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
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
Unless your laptop fits in a jacket pocket, I'm afraid I'll have to respectfully disagree. Being able to purchase music and video content from iTMS while unchained from any desktop or laptop would be a HUGE leap. This would also open the door to owning (and populating) an iPod without needing a computer in the first place.
This is mostly false. The iPod fills it's buffer with the next songs in the playlist, not one song at a time. Even if it's on shuffle play, it reads ahead the next songs it has cued up. Twenty minutes of buffering is usually five or six songs, depending on song length.
You are correct that choosing a new song or playlist that wasn't cued will force the harddrive to spin up again, but that's what playlists are for, specifically the on-the-go playlists. In actual usage, when I do skip around a bit, I haven't noticed a significant shortening of battery life, but I don't find myself switching around after every single song, either.