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."

Comments

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Zune?

[P(0)(!P(k) P(k 1))]

Odd, first of all, that this article appears in YRO (because it involves a patent?); second, and odder still, is Susan Campbell's commentary:

Apple and its iPod didn't earn its throne in the portable music player industry because it had the easiest to use player that offered the best song selection. This success also didn't come because it offered the most competitive price. Apple has been able to dominate this market because of its marketing campaign, pure and simple.

O RLY? As far as I can tell, Susan seems to be a ressentissante Microsoft shill:

Apple did borrow a winning strategy from Microsoft in keeping its technology proprietary. [Emphasis mine]

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.

Re:Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Zune?

[SEMW]

>just look at the PS3 or Zune: you can't pull the wool over everyone's eyes all the time.

Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. Slashdot readers may have a good idea of the real issues behind the PS3 and Sony's tactics, especially, but Slashdot readers are not a significant proportion of Joe Public. To the average consumer, "Sony" still conjures up images of reasonably reliable shiny metal consumer electronics, not RIAA lawsuits, rootkit CDs, or the Blu-ray DRM debacle. Sorry to tell you, but it's the advertising and PR campaigns alone that will make or break the PS3; it's how well they can sell that their product is really worth $600. Same applied to the Zune. What Slashdot readers consider "the real issues" will factor into it little if at all.

Re:Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Zune?

[sydsavage]

Although the nature of the patent doesn't portend this, a WiFi enabled iPod would dovetail nicely with the forthcoming iTV. You would now be able to play music and videos stored on the iPod over your stereo (and TV) with no cables attached. You could keep it close by, and the iPod becomes the remote, as well as the storage medium.

need cable anyway?

[spectrokid]

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.

Finally

[LiquidCoooled]

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.

Re:What's the big deal with wireless?

[aplusjimages]

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.

Stop thinking about downloads

[dweebzilla]

What about streaming content.

I'd love to have my ipod receive Internet radio.

Re:Breaks the 'pod' model

[hcdejong]

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 lots more better out there

[RiffRafff]

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.

Re:There's lots more better out there

[BurningBridges]

They are also, IMO More expensive, and more difficult to use, as a rule. The general public doesn't notice the difference unless you show them, their friends all have one, and they are easy to use, so they get an iPod. Personally I am a big iRiver fan :)

Re:Be afraid of the Zune

[pubjames]

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.

Re:How about play in USB mode?

[shmlco]

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???

Not in my experience

[NixLuver]

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.

Re:Wireless

[sydsavage]

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.

Re:How about play in USB mode?

[sydsavage]

Part of the problem with the battery life is the amount of buffering the thing does. It tries to read entire songs into memory and shut off the HD, FOR EVERY SONG YOU PLAY. Which is wasteful if you skip from one song to the next to find the perfect one for the time being....

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.