6G iPod & Apple's Future

belsin_gordon writes "CNET rounds up what we're going to get from the next iPod and where Apple is heading as a company and as a business juggernaut. [They have the] 100GB widescreen video iPods, Wi-Fi-enabled iPods capable of on-the-fly movie downloads over the air, unlimited downloads from iTunes for a flat fee and the UK finally getting its content-hungry hands on movie downloads. Apple has dropped the 'Computer' from its company name, and is making significant advances into the media-distribution business. It's bringing video to everyone everywhere with iTunes movies and now Apple TV, and the rumours and speculation we've discussed promote the theory that Apple is setting itself up as a major player in the media-distribution industry."

Comments

Totally Random Comment #102903

[Moggyboy]

As a part-time musician and full-time IT professional, it took me all of 20 minutes playing around with Apple's GarageBand application before deciding to convert. This is an application that has made good on the promise that all these software companies have been promising for the last 15 years - to make creative and business pursuits easier.

End Random Comment.

Re:Why

[Optikschmoptik]

l33tn355. If iTunes had a verbose startup screen no one here would be complaining.

Verbose or not, iTunes takes way too long to start up. It's a little annoying to wait through three minutes of HD thrashing to update and sync a three-minute podcast episode.

There are 'l33t' solutions, like gtkpod, gpodder and floola that try to bring back the quick drag-and-drop functionality without requiring a great big library sync every time.

Also, it really doesn't seem necessary to make the iPod file system so opaque. For all Apple's touted simplicity on the surface, what's with the underlying maze of randomly-named and randomly-placed folders and and media files? How does that make anything easier?