iPod Development Models...

[MacRumors]

According to one source, during the development of the Apple iPod, at least three concurrent models were developed prior to launch.

One model allowed both Flash or Hard Drive modules to be plugged in and swapped by the user.
The second model represents the current retail iPod and uses a built-in hard drive.
And the third model -- for which we have no details.

[snofseth]

Weird but isnt the third one just another one they didn't choose

[macMaestro]

Interesting...

How long do you think it will take before someone comes along to this thread and shouts, "THE THIRD MODEL MUST HAVE BEEN A VIDEO iPOD!!!" :rolleyes:

Hot-swapable drives in an iPod. That seems to just make the iPod more complicated and goes against the Apple ease of use thing. "Which drive did I put my Beatles album on?"

[rainman::|:|]

Originally posted by snofseth
Weird but isnt the third one just another one they didn't choose

yes but if it has some features that apple likes particularly, those features may be incorporated as the ipod evolves...

i would be very interested to know the 3rd model...

pnw

[the_mole1314]

Also look at the development...

flash/hard drive goes to
just hard drive goes to
???????

It goes from an early style to the current one, to a more advanced one, and since they couldn't say what the 3rd one is, it proabably means Steve dosn't want the third type leaked, while he dosn't care about the first one since the flash player market will be dead soon.

[JtheLemur]

OMIGOD D00DS THE THIRD MODEL MUST HAVE BEEN A VIDEO iPOD!!! DO U KNOW WHAT THIS MEENS????!!!


=P

[mikeyredk]

Originally posted by JtheLemur
OMIGOD D00DS THE THIRD MODEL MUST HAVE BEEN A VIDEO iPOD!!! DO U KNOW WHAT THIS MEENS????!!!


=P

yep return of the newton

[x86isslow]

Originally posted by the_mole1314
Also look at the development...

flash/hard drive goes to
just hard drive goes to
???????

It goes from an early style to the current one, to a more advanced one, and since they couldn't say what the 3rd one is, it proabably means Steve dosn't want the third type leaked, while he dosn't care about the first one since the flash player market will be dead soon.


mebbe its a solid-state drive.. due out 2008- 1 TB solid-state ipod:eek:

[SiliconAddict]

Originally posted by Macrumors

And the third model -- for which we have no details.

It was a prototype model that uses isolinear optical chips which store 2.15 kiloquads of data per chip. WOOT!

[mac15]

flash would have sucked hard, as some may know I'm a Techie for iRiver who make mp3 players with these flash drives in them and the compacity would have to be 4GB. I'm testing a 2GB model now, while its small, I wouldn't recommend it anyone. I'd say get an iPod :)

[Xenex]

At risk of being a bore, perhaps this rumoured third model was simply the old layout (buttons around the wheel) with the new style of touch-sensitive buttons...

[Makosuke]

I'm glad they went all-in-one HD--seems like the right choice to make for what the iPod is, and obviously it is a winning combination for users, or else the thing wouldn't be the most popular portable player.

As for the 3rd model, there's nothing to say that it wouldn'tve been just another design adjustment. Not necessarily just a different button layout, but it might've used a larger (physically) hard drive, or been oriented horizontally, or something like that.

Just to note, I disagree that the market for flash-based portables is dead--I personally see a market for really cheap, really small players without a whole lot of storage (along the lines of the RCA Lyra/Kazoo or Samsung mini Yepp). Despite my jones for an iPod, and even if I had one, I might buy a mini-player for a few specific uses--something cheap, tiny (watch-sized would be ideal), durable, and that I won't panic if I drop it or loose it, with a few tunes on it.

Prices are still a little high, but for $30-$50 for a 64MB player, I'd get one, and I think others might too.

[snofseth]

I doubt that it is video or color screen, I used to want a color screen but now I don't see any advantage besides the 5 min cool factor movies on that would suck, but what would be cool is if you could use it as a tivo or with tivo to put the video on the mac and play it on the mac or see it on the ipod, but i bet most people would use the viewing on the ipod very rarely, but it would be cool. An easy way to fill up the hard drive put some dvd movies on it that would be cool and Itunes for movies where you can store movies and view on your computer easily

[jimbo2]

Two words... Eight Track.

[hobbes3113]

Originally posted by jimbo2
Two words... Eight Track.


Yea, eight track...

That would be so cool, maybe all you could put on it was disco, and maybe it would come with its own lava lamp-dock...

[mrsebastian]

if this isn't a rumor/speculation starter, then i don't know what is! i mean come on, that doesn't tell us anything. it's pretty bad even for page 2.

i got one for you: i heard from a friend's girlfriend, who's dad works at apple that they've been working on what he described as a cube/imac hybrid. they've developed three concepts. the 1st incorporated the cpu parts into a cinema display and was scrapped as the original prototype, the 2nd design was used for the current imac, while the 3rd was kept strictly under wraps, but was rumored to be based more on the cube.

[Bob Knob]

Four years ago a relative of mine demoed some Solid State drives to a company in Taiwan that was building stuff for Apple. They build stuff for other companies too so who knows what it could have gone into. Nothing came of it, but my guess would be an all solid state drive version.

[jcook793]

According to some very reliable sources I have, the third one was a combo video iPod and Newton, running OS X on Intel. It could double as an Apple-branded cell phone. They were ready to roll it out but then Apple went bankrupt.

[ITR 81]

A video iPod like device will come about because Tech Tv has mentioned it more then once and Sony just released their's so I can see Apple wanting to compete. The Sony Video player won't be in the US until sometime next yr. Japan gets it around the end of Nov.

[alamar]

If it was simple enough....a swappable drive would be good to bring the price down....assuming you could easily plug the HD to a new body that costs much less than a whole unit. The fit would have to be pretty snug and sleek...This would keep your play list... but allow you to upgrade the OS and use the new hard ware features (better monitor, optical output...whatever). Then later you could a new HD when we reach 700 gigs.

But is all just a beautiful dream. (For now...)

[SeaFox]

Originally posted by mikeyredk
yep return of the newton

No! It means dual-G5 Powerbooks!

[vwcruisn]

Originally posted by SeaFox
No! It means dual-G5 Powerbooks!


really???? im going to go tell everyone! are they for sale??? how much! ;)

[stingerman]

three prototypes Apple chooses the one we saw initially released. Now we are on its third generation and waiting for the fourth along with iTunes 5 this January at Macworld SF.

If Apple does an iPod AV it will not be for downloading movies, that takes too long and is not practical for the general consumer market yet. The AV will be for an 802.11g iChat AV handset, that will include the ability to take AV mail, ie, someone can leave you an audio or video mail message if you don't answer. The other thing it should be able to have is a micro-optical RW drive, like the 3" DVD discs that work with all current DVD players. Finally, Apple was waiting for a good quality TFT display that can hold enough of a picture to make it worthwhile: The palm T3 has such a display, its beautiful.

It would have to be pretty versatile system and incorporate a higher level of integration. If you look at the iPod and expand it to fit the new 320x480 screen, add a camera eye to the top of the bezel, and sliding touch controls to the bottom, that when fully extended can fold out to reveal a full qwerty two-thumb keyboard. The only iffy thing in the mix is the 3" DVD, since it might take the bulk over the edge, it would probably be better as a add-on. A head set would provide stereo earphones and a microphone, with the iPod AV containing a speakerphone on the back of the pod.

One more thing, you can add an iSight attachment to the top so it can act as a Digital camera and DVCamcrder.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

[the_mole1314]

From what I've heard, we won't be watching moves ON the iPod anytime soon....

[damax452]

Why would you want to watch a movie on a 2" screen. I dont care if the screen is HD even, you couldnt see anything. Thats worse than watching on a crappy old b&w tv. Portable video devices are retarded. Someone back me up on this.

[1macker1]

I'd want to watch it. Long breaks between classes, lunch breaks, road trips...

[noel4r]

Originally posted by macMaestro
Interesting...

How long do you think it will take before someone comes along to this thread and shouts, "THE THIRD MODEL MUST HAVE BEEN A VIDEO iPOD!!!" :rolleyes:



THE THIRD MODEL MUST HAVE BEEN A VIDEO iPOD!!!

[sahnert]

Originally posted by damax452
Why would you want to watch a movie on a 2" screen. I dont care if the screen is HD even, you couldnt see anything. Thats worse than watching on a crappy old b&w tv. Portable video devices are retarded. Someone back me up on this.

I totally agree. My 12" PB is perfect for portable movie-watching. The iPod is not.
I'm all for advancing technology but lets be practical. The only option would be to make the iPod bigger to incorporate a movie screen, but that would suck too. I wouldn't mind having my same iPod functionality and one handed user interface in a smaller, lighter, or more powerful package. But movies are a bit overkill.

[ahe]

If they went for a color screen either for enhanced usability like games, and stuff... or for video playback, I think they should use OLED (which means Organic LED) technology, which provides an amazing picture quality, faaar better than TFT, and with an amazinlgy low power consumption.

Currently there are a few mobile phones with that type of screens, and if a few years we'll see OLED HD TVs. I just can't wait!

As for the iPod, I would LOVE it to play videos, even in a small screen. you could always use the presumed video jack to hook it to any TV and watch your movies. That'd render those portable DVD players laughable.

[the_dalex]

Before we see an iPod AV, we're going to have to see some changes in the entertainment industry. The motion picture industry will be getting involved soon, in a similar fashion as the RIAA. The RIAA went into crisis mode, the MPAA can wait longer since movie files are not perfect quality and are huge downloads, so average computer users aren't swapping them the way they swapped 4MB CD-quality audio files.

Right now, consumers are using an obsolete format with DVD. Mpeg-2 is not modern compression, and Sony may just have something with their 1.8GB PSP optical disc, and their use of Mpeg-4 will allow them to fit a ton of video in that space. Sony is way ahead of the pack in the mobile video area because Apple has focused almost exclusively on the music biz (they made the right choice, the market was soooo ripe and they took full advantage).

So, Apple may eventually make an iPod AV, but then they need to find a legal, DRM-capable way to get movies onto the iPod, and isn't it illegal to use software that decrypts DVDs? How would they distribute? Even broadband doesn't handle 1GB files very well, and consumers don't want to deal with space-hogging movies. Other questions come up too: if the movie only exists in digital format, you are going to need to keep it somewhere because a full collection (I have over a hundred DVDs) would fill up any hard drive. If the device is 40GB, which is generous, that space will be full of music, maybe games, etc. so managing space would be difficult. Disclaimer: yes, I know some people would be happy with low-res, small movies, but most consumers would want to plug into a big TV and replace their DVD player (like the iPod dock replaces your CD player).

Recording video from an external source is something I'm not sure how/if Sony will address. That would add to the bulk of the device significantly, so I'm thinking there may be a recordable model and a play-only model. Good video encoding is processor and hard-drive intensive, so it's really something that needs to be plugged in to an outlet.

I hate to say it, but with current technology, Sony is going to dominate the portable video player market. Movies are going to require removable disks at this point (if you want full-quality so you can plug the device into a TV). Apple honestly doesn't have the capability to move in that direction at this time, because they can't introduce a new media format and expect it to gain any acceptance in the movie industry. Sony can, due to their mindshare. If Apple could partner with Sony or license their disc technology, we may have something...

[pianojoe]

Two words... Eight Track.

That's four words.

[AppleManEric]

four words hahahah thats awesome


What about playing music videos? Then the iPod would remain a music player, just with some sweet features

[arnette]

just increase the frickin' battery life, and lower the price. maybe change the backing so it doesn't suck up every oil droplet from my skin.

[AppleManEric]

better battery would be nice, definatly. I don't know what you are talking about sucking up the oils off your skin, but w/e, I'm happy with the backing lol

[SeaFox]

Originally posted by arnette
just increase the frickin' battery life, and lower the price. maybe change the backing so it doesn't suck up every oil droplet from my skin.

I agree 100%

Battery Life and Price are the reasons I don't get an iPod.

The 10 gigger wouldn't be big enough for my music collection. What would help is if Apple would add a feature to iTunes so we can specify songs NOT be synced. I have songs in my music collection I don't see myself wanting to take me everywhere. If there were just a check box in the info panel to say "Don't Sync with iPod" many people could get by with a smaller capacity iPod with sacrificing ease of use.

Also, I want line-in recording built in. To MP3 and/or AAC.

[Macco]

Originally posted by SeaFox
I agree 100%

Battery Life and Price are the reasons I don't get an iPod.

The 10 gigger wouldn't be big enough for my music collection. What would help is if Apple would add a feature to iTunes so we can specify songs NOT be synced.

This is already possible in the current iTunes version. When you plug the iPod in, you can choose to either only update songs with a check in that little check box next to their name, or you can choose to update only certain playlists.

[AppleManEric]

or you could unclick the preference that automatically syncs altogether and just drag in whatever playlists or song you prefer

[york2600]

it's nice to see that Apple is playing around with new ideas even if (in my opinion) some of it might be insane ideas like a video player (2in screen is not a great way to watch movies). They still have to let their engineers go wild and come up with wackie ideas. I think the iPod sounded like a pretty insane idea in the first place, but look where it went. Just as long as they don't release the silly stuff I'll be fine.

[theevilmonkey]

Plain and simple, the 3rd design was some kind of nuclear bomb or something- they just decided that mankind wasn't ready for that kind of responsiblity. Silly Apple and their nuclear weapons program!

[jonnybleu]

I think it's interesting how much "no video ipod" there is around. Yeah, maybe the market in the US isn't that big but you see other markets around the world and it's huge. I mean, look at the minidisk, it died in the US. But it's huge in europe and asia. It's a lifestyle thing. I just graduated from college and spend like 3 and a half years traveling all over the world doing studies. A video iPod like device would have been great for the airplane, or the subway, or the metro, or whatever transport you have. I was looking at the specs for the upcoming Sony PSP, the portable playstation deal. Plays proprietary 1.8gig discs yeah but you and do a dvd into mpeg4 and fit it onto one, fit a good load of mp3s on there and play games. I'd be pretty happy with that on any trip.
Video ipod for the US market? I dunno... for an overseas market, might be a heck of a lot more popular. I'd use one. It'd be great if they had a quicktime movie site, or even somewhere where you could get news or whatever, daily video news on your video ipod in the metro and i'd be happy as anybody

[frankzeg]

I would personally LOVE to have my iPod be capable of directly absorbing uncompressed video off of my GL-1 via firewire. Logging tapes is the biggest chore of making videos. With the iPod disc providing rapid, random access memory this could be made a LOT easier. I cannot see any real market for watching movies on that itty bitty screen BUT being able to store 40 DVD's worth of movies on the IPod would be a real boon when traveling with my PB. Who wants to carry all those discs? As storage capacity grows towards 100GB these concepts don't seem out of reach. As for the DVD licensing I would think that using the PB for actual playback would provide a place for embedding some sort of anti-piracy provisions and also supply the tool for decoding the DVD and moving the data to the iPod in the first place.
I wish that Apple would team with Bose to create a set of ultra-compact speakers that were a match for the iPod. That way I could plug 'em into my solar charger ( which BTW is perfect for extending iPod battery life indefinitely) and listen to music sans headphones while on a wilderness beach somewhere.

[sahnert]

I do love my ipod, but I think I'd rather listen to a wilderness beach on a wilderness beach somewhere.

[frankzeg]

Your point is WELL taken- see I've been sitting in front of this (and other) computers tooooooooo long - hence an upcoming four week kayak paddle along Costa Rica's coast- after a couple of weeks diving in Ecuador. Maybe then I will forget about all these electronic aspirations...but then again there are those DIVE computers to wrestle with. See! You can't escape any more!! (in fact it is apalling the amount of hitech electronic crap gets hauled on these wilderness trips these days)

[iMook]

video iPod. I don't know, people.

First off, it'd hafta be BIG. Even WITH no-need-for-a-backlight ultra-thin OLED screens. I believe on www.ipodlounge.com, there's a 3G iPod dissection. Ever wonder WHY the iPod's battery life got cut by so much? Look at its innards. Notice the size of the battery.

If you want a video iPod, you'd need to AT LEAST add the thickness of an extended battery to the current iPod's specs.

On the DVD decryption issue, Archos, with their AV3x0 series HDD-based personal video players, has announced that it plans to release a patch/hardware attachment module which will allow dubbing of DVD-quality movies. There goes the DVD decryption problem. (Of course, Archos has no stake in the success of the movie/music industries) Of course, for any sizable movie collection, you'd need DivX and XviD support, things I suspect Apple isn't eager to endorse.


Admittedly, I'd jump at the chance to buy a well-implemented iPod-esque PVP. :-D