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Apple May Introduce New iPod on Wednesday
UnHolier than ever writes "Apple may be planning to announce a 'revamp' of the iPod on Wednesday. Reporters from across Europe have been asked to view a broadcast presentation by Steve Jobs at the BBC headquarters. Theorized features for this new iPod include a full or wide-screen with touch controls, ala the ever-popular iPhone. '[An analyst with Goldman Sachs] believes that a new line of iPods will boost demand for the gadget from Goldman's present forecast of about 19.8 million units for Apple's key first quarter - the reporting period that covers Christmas. However, that still suggests that demand for iPods will be flat, at best, compared with the same period last year, when Apple sold about 21 million devices.'"
Speculation for Nerds. News that may matter.
With 6 billion or so people on the planet, sooner or later the market will reach saturation, and ipod sale are going to become flat. I'm not really sure why flattening of iPod sales is big news.
That said, I have a 3rd gen iPod, and it's getting close to the time to replace it, I have hopes for a widescreen color iPod in the 100 gb range, So if it's avaiable soon, I may very well bee the 19 million and first sale this year.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
That's what this page is for.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Sounds to me like everyones business model except AT&T's wins here. I can live with that....
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Is this some kind of Zen riddle? If no one reads the article, does it matter that the article has no substance?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The contracts Apple signed in Europe give Apple 10% of the revenue the wireless provider gets from activating the phone.
If you unlock your iPhone and don't use it on the contracted provider, then Apple loses that money.
So yeah, the unlocking has likely hurt Apple's business model.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
perhaps.
what i do know is that 2 of our suppliers who normally don't sell apple stock were offering cheap ipods for the past 2-3 months here in ireland. they really seem to have been off loading ipod video and ipod nano stock. i also heard from friends who had companies they dealt with offering similar deals. now it might just be the lower end but it was still a significant departure for these companies to suddenly offer stock from a company they normally had no dealings with.
prices offered to us
* ipod nano 4gb 165
* ipod 30gb black 210
You made a good choice in posting as Anonymous Coward. Still, it's too bad for you that /. doesn't have the option of posting as Stupid Drooling Fucking Moron.
Once again, for the newbies:
- AAC (ADVANCED Audio Codec) has NOTHING to do with Apple, beyond being their compression scheme of choice. Posting the Wikipedia link would insult us both.
- The iTunes STORE sells tracks that only play on iPods; taking Steve Jobs at his word, this is only due to DRM required by the record companies.
- Most "mp3 players" will play AAC-encoded tracks. It's just a codec for mp4s, after all. If you really can't find one, go to your local community college and take a class on Google.
- If you're really that paranoid about AAC, set iTunes to encode in mp3 before your first rip. Then you will be able to survive in a world where only iPods can play tracks ripped in iTunes. Whatever world that is, because it ain't this one.
Now PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE shut the fuck up.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
The way I understand it, the "Kleer" thing is an extra. There is nothing to stop people from using earbuds as well or instead of this.
It would conceivably allow Apple to produce an iPod with wireless like capabilities for sharing tunes and "squirting the social" (a la Zune), but not necessarily introduce the complexity of wireless and browsers and skype and so on. With Kleer, each iPod would be a broadcasting station and multiple wireless listeners could listen to the same iPod simultaneously. This would also figure in with the rumoured iPod "kiosks" that are said to be going up at Starbucks for selling iTunes to patrons.
I find it kind of believable because the technology is bleeding edge (typical Apple), it would instantly turn iPods into the highest quality audio devices out there (also typical Apple), and make it possible to do all those social things that were the Zune's only real innovation ("the social"), without all the DRM and legal complications. It's such a perfect solution, that if Apple doesn't use this technology or something very similar, the next Zune could run rings around them just by implementing it.
This is all wild rumour at this point however.