Beyond AirTunes?

[MacRumors]

With the release of Apple's newest device, AirPort Express, alongside AirTunes wireless audio broadcasting capabilities, MacWorld Editor Jason Snell (http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/archives/000214.php) speculates about potential directions Apple and other developers could take this technology.

Where does Apple go from here? The sky's the limit. And I'm sure that numerous developers are already scrambling to fill the needs that Apple doesn't address. A remote control for pausing, skipping tracks, and the like is a must. A display that shows what's currently playing and what's up next would be awfully nice.

Based on conversations with Greg Joswiak, Apple appears to be aware of the logical steps beyond this basic framework... but wants to first establish this product.

[MentalFabric]

I hold to my belief that the portable displays have some connections with AE.

[whfsdude]

it could be the next gen ipod..

Airport card in the ipod. Steaming to it, streaming from it. Control your airport express. :D

It would be silly to have another device. People don't want to carry a 100 things in their pocket

[jaison13]

also a remote would not be needed if the ipod was the device streaming youur music.

i'm getting one as soon as they are released.

[bertagert]

remote remote remote!!! and it would have to be able to display all the songs/albums/genres/playlists/etc just like the ipod. Or give the ipod a wifi card and i'll play my music from there (this would be my personal preference as it would also be sweet to have the same setup in the car). That's all I need to be happy so get to work Apple.

[ChrisH3677]

If you could do USB to a device to SVGA (or AV)... then you could broadcast video from your computer and play thru your TV.

[caveman_uk]

It shouldn't be too didficult to sort out a remote. Can't salling clicker control itunes with a bluetooth mobile phone?

[Grimace]

Wireless iPod would be fantastic. Toss in the *secret* 60GB HD from Toshiba too...oops. :p

[virividox]

i wonder how much battery life a wifi ipod could expect

[MacFan26]

That would be great with wireless iPods. Maybe they'll work in the ability to use the iTMS right on the iPod :D
It seems like they wouldn't make another major design update for these things, I think they are great just the way they are. Maybe wireless would be in place of a huge design makeover.

edit: wording

[craig-e]

How about this for the setup? The new Imac is launched, It has a detachable, tablet like display. You put all your music onto it, once you take your display off the machine, that becomes your remote, possibly with a dock to keep the battery topped up.

This would be the best way to sell more of the flagging Imac models.
:D

[peterjhill]

Lots of wishful thinking going on...

For a remote, how about a Keyspan Digital Media Remote (http://www.keyspan.com/products/usb/remote/) . It already works with iTunes. Can be purchased separately. Supports a company that makes cool products for macs. I am an Apple whore, but want a thriving third-party community for Mac products.

Then feel free to spend around $300 for a big led display, like this one... (http://www.grandwell.com/slc16h-ir_prod.htm) . You can write an applescript to update the sign. You would need to connect it via serial cable, but the good thing about rs-232 (once you have an adapter to usb) is that it works over fairly long distances (yards, not miles). I am sure a smaller display could be found.

Thinking about it, I see what many of you want, you want apple to make a slimp3 competitor, or a TV home media option competitor. That product already exists. They won't do printer sharing or WDS (wireless backbone networks), but they will play your music and display what is playing.

I am ordering at least two AEs. One to connect to my receiver, and one for another room to connect to powered speakers. I hope someone comes up with some hacks for the AE so that I can send the sound of other apps to an AE. I would love to play a game on my laptop and hear the sound out of my home AV setup (HK220).

[BeyondCloister]

There would have to be a non iPod remote option.

The system has to work without an iPod being involved.

I for one would still want to b able to remotely control the music playing from my iMac when my wife has the iPod in the car.

[PRØBE]

How about this for the setup? The new Imac is launched, It has a detachable, tablet like display. You put all your music onto it, once you take your display off the machine, that becomes your remote, possibly with a dock to keep the battery topped up.

This would be the best way to sell more of the flagging Imac models.
:D





That would be the most humungous remote control ever invented.
Guess you would never lose it down the back of the sofa though.

The best way to sell more of the "flagging Imac models" would be to simply kit them out with decent specs for those who like to game, use Ilife and dabble in photoshop etc.

[duklaprague]

is the powerbook now the most expensive remote control in the house. works for me! :D

the iPod is the way to go surely tho'. am using it as such already, but with an iTrip, but wi-fi would be the way to go....

but seeing as we'll have had airport express, new powermacs, and european ITMS already this month, you wonder what they're keeping back for wwdc?

Iain

[Analog Kid]

Build some intelligence into it.

If I'm at home (networked with the machine that feeds my iPod) don't waste the power spinning up my iPod hard drive, just send the request from the iPod to stream the music from my Mac.

If I'm at a friends, source the music off the iPod drive.

If I'm at a party, queue up requests from multiple iPods and let everyone contribute in an orderly way.

[BeyondCloister]

but seeing as we'll have had airport express, new powermacs, and european ITMS already this month, you wonder what they're keeping back for wwdc?


WWDC is a developer event so I would expect it would be stuff relevant to development.

[the silver fox]

I currently use Salling Clicker ($20 - Salling Software) on my Sony Ericsson P800 to control iTunes, DVD player etc. Its scriptable too. It also pauses your music if you go out of bluetooth range.
The only current limitation is that the bluetooth range is only 10m. Fine in my reasonably large apartment, but not for big houses. I am working on a hack with a bluetooth repeater, which should get round the problem.

:cool:

[Carlson-online]

Originally Posted by duklaprague


but seeing as we'll have had airport express, new powermacs, and european ITMS already this month, you wonder what they're keeping back for wwdc?



The Completely Awesome New Features Tiger will have. Oh, And iMac G5's of course :P

[mr_bam]

Will AirTunes or the technology that runs it let ALL system sound be played on our fancy HiFi speakers?

I see lots of applications for this in a GarageBand / Logic Pro studio situation. I don't mean put your song into iTunes 4.6 first. I mean while you're mixing your tracks and composing.

Will it work?? Does anybody know yet? That would be a great feature and I'd buy it if I knew it would work. But I don't want to just be able to use iTunes for sound. I'm happy attaching my iPod to decent speakers already for normal songs.

[Knox]

WWDC is a developer event so I would expect it would be stuff relevant to development.

This doesn't really apply to the keynote IMO. The keynote is just a general, mostly non-technical, overview and an opportunity to display/announce new products - any developer is going to be more interested in the in-depth seminars during the rest of the week.

A wireless iPod would be great as an addition but i would much rather have a simple (maybe wifi based) remote control, especially if it was also IR and could be programmed to control the TV, hifi etc. In the home it doesn't really make sense to use a device that needs frequent recharging when your mains-powered computer is going to be within range of the hifi.

[feeze]

Will AirTunes or the technology that runs it let ALL system sound be played on our fancy HiFi speakers?

I see lots of applications for this in a GarageBand / Logic Pro studio situation. I don't mean put your song into iTunes 4.6 first. I mean while you're mixing your tracks and composing.

Will it work?? Does anybody know yet? That would be a great feature and I'd buy it if I knew it would work. But I don't want to just be able to use iTunes for sound. I'm happy attaching my iPod to decent speakers already for normal songs.

As far as I know it will only work for iTunes currently, but I think Apple will wait and see how people respond to the product and then allow for other apps to stream through airtunes.

[pev]

A newton with an 802.11 pcmcia card would make an excellent remote for this :cool: !

~Pev

[feeze]

A wireless iPod would be great as an addition but i would much rather have a simple (maybe wifi based) remote control, especially if it was also IR and could be programmed to control the TV, hifi etc. In the home it doesn't really make sense to use a device that needs frequent recharging when your mains-powered computer is going to be within range of the hifi.

I agree a remote control that costs more than the product is just stupid.

[jtquick2001]

but seeing as we'll have had airport express, new powermacs, and european ITMS already this month, you wonder what they're keeping back for wwdc?

Iain[/QUOTE]

my thoughts exactly!

[Awimoway]

Sounds like dreaming of manned flight the same week the Wright brothers made history on a beach.

Announced the same day as AirTunes (and maybe that's Snell's excuse—he missed it in all the other news), I give you the Sonos (http://www.sonos.com/products/) system. It slices, it dices, and it does every single thing dream boy put on his wish list.

Where does Apple go from here? The sky's the limit. And I'm sure that numerous developers are already scrambling to fill the needs that Apple doesn't address. A remote control for pausing, skipping tracks, and the like is a must.

Check.


A display that shows what's currently playing and what's up next would be awfully nice.

Check.


Of course, when I really dug into the details of AirPort Express, the first thing I thought of was a handheld, iPod-like remote control that let you choose playlists,

Check,


browse albums,

check,


and the rest -- basically letting you do everything you could from iTunes,

check,


without having to walk over to a computer and pick up a mouse.

aaaaand check.


At which point I had to ask myself …

He really likes the sound of his own voice, doesn't he? I should mention, by the way, that the Sonos is Mac-compatible. No I don't work for the company, yes it is overpriced, and yes I hope Apple can make one with a Mac-esque interface on the remote. But there's just something funny about an article that dreams of someday inventing something that already exists.

[silvergunuk]

As mentioned earlier, a wifi ipod could be genius. You can have a mini itunes built into the little hand sized player and would be able to browse and buy tunes from itunes while on the move such as a music store in a city centre or wifi hotspots like in cafes or bars.

[kirs]

The first thing I thought about when I heard about the extreme was the possiblity of the WiPod. Where else can Apple go with it? They can do color and video, but wireless is such a killer app. Imagine being able to share your playlist with other iPod users as you can do now with iTunes. I think it will eventually come to that. I think the 4G iPod will at the least broadcast to the Airport Extreme.

[brianrubinton@m]

I still think they need to sell a $50 wifi adapter that goes on top of the iPod and it allows you to use it as a remote, as the media source for the speakers, and allows you to only simply browse through the iTMS and buy songs.

[nmk]

I agree with others that have posted in that Apple should make the iPod WiFi enabled. It seems to be the next logical step and I have a feeling they will do it in this revision. This will also lay the foundation for the video iPod. Steve Jobs has always said that it makes no sense to view video on such a small screen. However, I think it makes a lot of sense to include video capability in the iPod if it can stream video directly to your TV through an upgraded Airport Express. The iPod itself would not display any video, instead while streaming video it would act only as a remote. It could similarly be used to display your pictures on a TV.

Once these products are introduced, Apple could start bundling music videos automatically with your music downloads (only if you chose this option). You could then use the iPod to view the video while listening to the music. In the long run, of course, I would expect iTMS to evolve to become a movie store as well. The same name could even work, iTMS (iTunes Media Store).

I really do believe this is the future direction that Apple will take with the iPod. If they manage to get all the pieces in place, they will have truly delivered the worlds first complete online media distribution an playback system.

As far a what Apple is holding back for WWDC; anyone heard of TIGER. I think that a major operating system demo is worthy of an entire show. I don't know whay people seem to think they will be showing anything other than Tiger. Forget the G5 iMacs; Apple said as much yesterday.

[Lui-G]

(lond time reader - first posting)

I currently use Salling Clicker ($20 - Salling Software) on my Sony Ericsson P800 to control iTunes, DVD player etc. --/snip/-- The only current limitation is that the bluetooth range is only 10m.

I use a £30 ($45) Class 1 BlueTooth USB adaptor. It has a range of 100 meters! My Palm T3/sony-e T610 control iTunes (& more) from quite a distance. Salling clicker is really an amazing peice of software. I couldn't see much purpose for this range until airTunes.

What I want to see is the DVD player on the Mac playing, and a receiver by the TV receiving the video & 5.1 sound (and maybe even another receiver for the rear speakers, so you have virtually no wires! - Great for people with wooden floors!

I guess I should be content with my 2.5GHz Mac - whenever it arrives...

[aussiemac86]

It would be massively in apples interest to make a wifi ipod. Think about the enormous increase in iTMS sales if people can buy a song whenever they are in a wifi location, it makes it much more on demand and people would buy songs without thinking about it as much, so apple revenues go up, and people are happy, and it could also be a remote...
No losers :D

[clonenode]

Wait until we find out that the Airport Express has VIDEO OUT capability too. They just haven't told us about it yet because support for it in the Mac OS isn't coming until 10.4.

[MattG]

This could lead to so many great things...I envision someday being able to use a device like this to stream movies with sound. Imagine being able to plug one of these things into your wall, and plug a set of component cables from the device into your A/V system and watch DVDs or video clips! Something like that would be a godsend to me...being able to do that in a school environment would be incredible.

[James Craner]

This may be a complete red herring, but I noticed that Apple UK's refurb store which is only open on Wednesdays had all current versions of the iPod listed. The store normally sells out by the end of the day, but when I checked last night they still had iPods available, which may indicate they had a lot to shift. Perhaps they are clearing inventory. I remember the same thing happening a couple of weeks before they announced the new Powerbooks.

Also Apple looks like they are announcing the International iTunes stores next week, perhaps they also have some new hardware to go with it.

[michaelrjohnson]

I don't usually speculate on such uncertain circumstances, but I have no doubt in my mind that the "remote" people keep begging for will be the new iPod. It makes *perfect* sense. Think about it:

With your iPod that has wireless Firewire, you can sit down on your couch, sync your playlists. Then, from your iPod, you can stream music into AirportExpress with 802.11g (Because currently from your iPod, you can see all your music, play playlists, make playlists, etc), or control your stationary mac with the remote functionality.

Granted, that scenario wouldn't need a "home-base" mac to operate, but there is probably something i'm missing. And hey, let's say Wireless Firewire isn't in the next rev. That's still really awesome functionality.

[alywa]

I agree that the ipod is the logical controller. I too think the ipod will have wifi built in to the 4th generation. However, I think it's function will be two-fold.

1. For people with a mac / pc and airport express, the ipod can do two things. It can broadcast wifi audio straight to the express (skipping the pc entirely), at the expense of greatly decreased battery life.

2. Or... it can act as a remote for the Mac / pc, which would stream the info. That way, the ipod could greatly save on juice by only using wifi when accessing the itunes located on the computer.

To me, this is the perfect setup. It allows ipod users to be free of the computer, stream directly, and still have a reason to buy the airport express (ie for traveling, parties, etc). Or it allows the home user (ie most of us) to control the itunes they have stored in their computer in a manner that already has been syncd, with excellent display, artist info, etc...

Oh... for travel and home use, don't you think the airport express could likely serve as a power source / charger for the new ipods via its USB out? Think of it as a multipurpose dock... if they built this cabablility in.

Just add video streaming, and I think you've got a truly killer app that would be completely scalable, affordable, and open the doors for apple to really take control of this segment of the tech market.

Just my $.02

-alywa

[srobert]

Add all you want to the iPod, but please, don't make it bigger and/or more expensive. Let's not forget what it is: a Portable music player. ;)

[marcsiry]

The much maligned MacWhispers posted a report about a company making platic enclosures, 6"x9", with a slot in the back exactly the size of an iPod.

I think: Wireless tablet to control iTunes. If you don't have a computer with iTunes, slot in your iPod and stream from that. The tablet has the extra battery power to drive the Wifi and the display, so no 'magic wifi ipod' battery is necessary.

The battery only has to last an hour or less, as you will normally set the tablet down on its inductive dock charger by your sofa.

If they can run a browser off it, you get your 'Wireless Webpad' that works in the only place it would be useful- in your home, on your sofa, so all the 'real world' requirements of long battery life and optical drives etc. are meaningless.

[Gee4orce]

It won't be an iPod, unless the next gen ones are significantly more powerful. Why ?

Because AirTunes works by the Mac decompressing the MP3 or AAC or whatever file, and then re-compressing with Apple's Lossless Encoder and excrypting the stream on the fly. This is how they get around the problem of DRM protected AAC files being sent to the Express.

An iPod would not have the horsepower to do this kind of heavy lifting.

An iPod is total overkill as well. Think about it - if you are sat in the room with the AirportExpress connected to your HiFi with a cable, then what's the advantage of using wireless streaming technology when you could just plug the iPod into the HiFi instead ?!

I expect a simple screen with iPod-like controls and display. Possibly by a third party company like Belkin.

[Gee4orce]

Of course, when the new iPods are unveiled and they do not support WiFi (because there's absolutely no good reason to, and plenty of good reasons not to), and the folks here dreaming up how kool a WiFi iPod is will start bitching and whining.

Witness the PowerMac thread :rolleyes:

[CoreForce]

If you look at this:
- WiFi does not provide the bandwidth as FireWire
- permanent WiFi activity drains battery
- playlists of iPod and iTunes home base are typically in sync
- Bluetooth is there for remote control
- Bluetooth advances it's audio profile as well as performance

A WiFi iPod makes no sense. It's too slow for good sync experience. So have a battery draining transmitter for some geeks only to allow them to broadcast to AirPort Express directly? What relevance does this have for stationary home audio (speakers) and outdoor mobile audio. Nada.

The iPod, in first place, stands for it's own.
Then computer sync.
Then nothing.
Then anything else.

What can enhance the iPod the most? Bluetooth.
It will offer wire-free headphones, supercool.
It will offer phone/calendar/tasks/notes sync.
It will offer iTunes remote control with mini app like Salling does it.

All at limited battery life impact and by using established, cheep to implement technology.

With Bluetooth Class I you get much more practical features for home audio, embedded into the current
Apple product vision. Much more one could expect from WiFi in iPod.

Don't think tech geek.
Think about usability.
Think different.

Just my 2ct.

[Porchland]

the iPod is the way to go surely tho'. am using it as such already, but with an iTrip, but wi-fi would be the way to go....

Iain

I would trade iTrip for an installed car mount in a flash if Apple would brand one. iTrip is better than nothing, but the sound quality is third behind CD and FM.

I keep expecting any day now to read that the new model of some VW, Audi, etc., will come with an iPod mount.

[pkradd]

The iPod will always be first and foremost a music player. Believe it or not Apple understands the market and knows a "do everything"device is not needed or wanted (except by geeks who are a very small percentage of the target audience). A remote will eventually be available either from Apple or a third party by the end of the year.

What's left for WWDC? Plenty. A Preview of Tiger. A new line of redesigned iMacs and iBooks. A bunch of new Displays and a "one more thing" surprise. We'll see. :)

[Lepton]

Think about Sony's upcoming PSP. This hardware exists. Portable, wireless, 4" color video screen. All Apple (someone) has to do is make a cartridge (disc) for this thing and a driver in the Mac. It can be the remote control for iTunes, you can stream audio and video to it, maybe put Apple Desktop Remote on it..

[~Shard~]

This really does open things up and present lots of possibilities - I'm sure Apple will capitalize on it!

[Porchland]

What's left for WWDC? Plenty. A Preview of Tiger. A new line of redesigned iMacs and iBooks. A bunch of new Displays and a "one more thing" surprise. We'll see. :)

1. 42/50-inch plasma display?
2. A new iPod (color display, wireless, 60G)?

But, you know, the two on my list just don't sound like the sort of thing you'd introduce at a developer's conference. The other side of that coin is that this is Apple's showcase for everything that is Apple.

[reaper]

I think the biggest issue with implementing wifi on the ipod will be the battery life. If it is to be a dedicated streaming remote, then you are going to need one seriously large battery for it to work long at all. I currently use my ipod for my commute in, a little music listening at work and my commute home and it's drained by the end of the day. Imagine if you had to not only power the harddrive but the wifi signal too. I think Apple should just make a standalone remote or maybe an adapter for the ipod that would add in extra battery power and additional functionality while at home... but please leave the ipod the way it is - small, simple and great for listening to music.

- reaper

[7on]

Think about Sony's upcoming PSP. This hardware exists. Portable, wireless, 4" color video screen. All Apple (someone) has to do is make a cartridge (disc) for this thing and a driver in the Mac. It can be the remote control for iTunes, you can stream audio and video to it, maybe put Apple Desktop Remote on it..

That thing is expected to get 3hrs of battery life... at most.

[pjkelnhofer]

I think the most obvious thing would be a firmware upgrade of somekind to allow other uses for the USB port... (video?)

[joeboy_45101]

I was a bit disappointed about Airport Express, for a year now I've been telling people that a wireless dock for my iPod would be great. But no, people would tell me it's not possible.

[cr2sh]

It would be nice if someone developed wireless headphones (with batteries)... I could sit in my cube and listen to music without having a damn wire to tangle under my chair and always be in the way.. control it via iTunes and such...

I was a bit disappointed about Airport Express, for a year now I've been telling people that a wireless dock for my iPod would be great. But no, people would tell me it's not possible.

No offense... but a wireless dock? The dock is used to transfer yes.. but also charge the ipod. You may get rid of the wired transfer.. but there's no way you're getting rid of the power source. Why have a wireless transfer when you'll still be tethered to the wall for power?

Building 802.11g into the ipod makes a lot of sense.. but even then you'll still need a charger (but it'd be almost an after thought, like a cell phone charger).

[yahtzeen]

Couldn't wireless Firewire possibly handle some of these wishlist items?

[ifjake]

WifiPod is definitely a good idea. I understand the limitations, but there could be some ways around it.

Streaming music from the iPod would only works when it's in dock, which is now essentially just a charger, and could be placed in the living room or wherever the music system is. No battery Wifi issues. Sharing between iPods isn't going to happen. Too many copyright issues to mess with.

As a controller, the iTunes library database can be synced to the iPod wirelessly whenever in dock. The only wireless activity reliant upon battery power would be short bursts of "next song," "pause," "play," ie transport controls. The iPod would read the previously synced iTunes database to keep track of what song you're on and display information about it, and possibly an approximate onboard clock keeping track of how much time has passed. Browsing could be done via this local database with codes sent representing artist and album. Nothing large has to be streamed wirelessly when operating by battery, just short bursts.

But I don't know what it really takes for WiFi to operate. Maybe a steady stream of power is necessary to just keep it running. So there may be a better way to do it. And I don't have an iPod yet, I don't really know what people will expect it to be able to do. This may be all "duh" stuff.

Color screen and video I view as a bad idea. I've always been apprehensive about it. It's just going to absorb battery time, which I understand as being already poor.

[robotrenegade]

I was hoping for video streaming as well. I also think the next gen iPod will have these controls over the basestation express.

[neier]

It won't be an iPod, unless the next gen ones are significantly more powerful. Why ?

Because AirTunes works by the Mac decompressing the MP3 or AAC or whatever file, and then re-compressing with Apple's Lossless Encoder and excrypting the stream on the fly. This is how they get around the problem of DRM protected AAC files being sent to the Express.

An iPod would not have the horsepower to do this kind of heavy lifting.


Unless you already have the Apple Lossless songs on your iPod. With 60GB of storage for the lossless songs (around 60%, or 40MB/song as an extrememly conservative estimate), you would have room for more songs (1500) than the original 5GB iPod advertised (1000, or was it 1250?)

An iPod is total overkill as well. Think about it - if you are sat in the room with the AirportExpress connected to your HiFi with a cable, then what's the advantage of using wireless streaming technology when you could just plug the iPod into the HiFi instead ?!


No wires?? ;)

[DavidFDM]

It would be nice to control iTunes through 802.11 with your Palm. I would imagine that would be the most economical solution.

Has everyone seen the pricing Tivo is doing for their Series2 DVRs? I have been considering buying a new Tivo so I can have it do the work of AirTunes, plus all the DVR work. The USB printer sharing and 10 user router has little interest to me.

[Bad Beaver]

A newton with an 802.11 pcmcia card would make an excellent remote for this :cool: !


Well, one of mine will be, even before I get myself one or three AirPort Express stations...
http://home.comcast.net/~saweyer/newton/vnc.htm
... I know what I will play with this weekend :cool:

Keep The Green

[jsw]

It would be nice if someone developed wireless headphones (with batteries)... I could sit in my cube and listen to music without having a damn wire to tangle under my chair and always be in the way.. control it via iTunes and such...

Perhaps you were being sarcastic, but there are numerous wireless headphones, some which are pretty decent, already on the market. Plug the headphone base into the AirportExpress audio out jack, and you're good to go. These aren't WiFi phones, but why would they need to be?

[jsw]

Couldn't wireless Firewire possibly handle some of these wishlist items?

You'd never touch the bandwidth of wired Firewire. "Wireless Firewire" is a bit of an oxymoron, at least with today's wireless bandwidth. 802.11g at its best (54Mbps) has just an eighth of the bandwidth of the slower Firewire (400Mbps).

However, many Firewire devices don't truly need the Firewire capacity all the time, so a Firewire->Wireless and Wireless->Firewire adapter pair might be useful in many conditions.

[NAG]

You'd never touch the bandwidth of wired Firewire. "Wireless Firewire" is a bit of an oxymoron, at least with today's wireless bandwidth. 802.11g at its best (54Mbps) has just an eighth of the bandwidth of the slower Firewire (400Mbps).

However, many Firewire devices don't truly need the Firewire capacity all the time, so a Firewire->Wireless and Wireless->Firewire adapter pair might be useful in many conditions.

I think he was talking about the new standard, not 802.11b or g.

[jsw]

I think he was talking about the new standard, not 802.11b or g.

Doh! My apologies. I'm off to Starbucks to get some help getting my brain in gear.

<Edit>
I browsed a bit. Saw many links to the same article, and a few others. None of them mentioned a target bandwidth (the 400Mbps was quoted for the wired end). Anyone know the expected transfer rates?
</Edit>

[Tulse]

As cool at it might be, I can't see a WiFi iPod being technically practical because of the power constraints. I think it's more likely that Apple will produce a dedicated iTunes remote (perhaps using the iPod-mini form-factor and interface) that uses Bluetooth (which I believe requires far less power).

What I wonder is what else one could do with AirPort Express modules in terms of communicating/controlling the host Mac. Given that the modules have USB, I wonder if one could create other things that the host could control (perhaps again by a remote). I suppose it would be foolish to recreate X10 capabilities using much more expensive technology, but it seems to me that there are a world of possibilities.

[mikeyrogers]

I don't get it. Doesn't my PowerBook already double as a remote control? I mean when I have iTunes open, I can do exactly what that quote states. I can pause the song or even view what is currently playing, all through iTunes... :confused:

[sinisterdesign]

It won't be an iPod...

An iPod would not have the horsepower to do this kind of heavy lifting.

An iPod is total overkill as well. Think about it - if you are sat in the room with the AirportExpress connected to your HiFi with a cable, then what's the advantage of using wireless streaming technology when you could just plug the iPod into the HiFi instead ?!

I expect a simple screen with iPod-like controls and display. Possibly by a third party company like Belkin.

i have to agree. as much as i originally thought "ALL IN ONE! give me one device that does everything!", i'm not so sure now. i use the hell out of my iPod at work and in the car, but a wifi-remote-streaming-can opener of an iPod may be a bit much. i don't want to pull my iPod out of it's case every time i listen to music at home. i don't want to pitch a fit if i leave it in the sofa cushions b/c i don't have my music with me at work. and i do NOT want a huge $2k "tablet" remote.

that Sonos (http://www.sonos.com/products/) system is VERY sweet (wow, that scrollwheel looks familiar from somewhere), but is VERY pricey. but i already have remote envy. if they would rig that thing to be a universal remote to control the rest of your home theater setup, i would have to seriously consider it (how hard could it be? they already DID the hard part).

steve & johnathan, please tell us what we want. we're all confused... ;)

[titaniumducky]

Want AirTunes on your iPod:

1. Buy a 4G iPod

2. Update your 3G iPod to firmware version 3.0 and buy an iTrip like device from Griffin or Belkin.

[DGFan]

WWDC is a developer event so I would expect it would be stuff relevant to development.

wasn't iSight released at least year's WWDC?

[DGFan]

I agree a remote control that costs more than the product is just stupid.

It could be part of some multi-function device though.

Look at the Airport Express! It's not *just* for streaming music to your stereo. And if that's *all* that it were good for it wouldn't be a great product. But positioning it as also a great travel wireless base station and it's a winner!

[pjkelnhofer]

that Sonos (http://www.sonos.com/products/) system is VERY sweet (wow, that scrollwheel looks familiar from somewhere), but is VERY pricey. but i already have remote envy. if they would rig that thing to be a universal remote to control the rest of your home theater setup, i would have to seriously consider it (how hard could it be? they already DID the hard part).

steve & johnathan, please tell us what we want. we're all confused... ;)

Holy crap! That scroll wheel does look familiar. I thought Apple patented the technology involved in the "solid-state" scroll wheel. Interesting.

On another note, I know some one who has rigged pretty much everything in his house to his PDA (a Sony Clie I believe) outfitted with Bluetooth... and I mean everything (lights, appliances, stereo, etc.) He can also control everything from a secure webpage we has set-up (in case he wants to turn the AC on from work before heading home). He is currently working on be able to use his cell phone for some functions as well.

Of course, he has a Master's Degree in EE and one in CS, makes about $150/hour as a computer consultant and has no wife, children or other expenses and prefers writing his own software to buying anything out of box.

He is a very strange man, and just about the farthest you could get from the average consumer... but I have to admit the remote control program on his PDA is pretty freakin' cool.

[pjkelnhofer]

It could be part of some multi-function device though.

Look at the Airport Express! It's not *just* for streaming music to your stereo. And if that's *all* that it were good for it wouldn't be a great product. But positioning it as also a great travel wireless base station and it's a winner!

Very true, we are all focusing on AirTunes. That is not even the main feature of the AXP (let's try to get that abbreviation to stick). Most hotel rooms nowadays have an internet connection, but few of them have wireless access in the rooms. I am sure it would be nice for business travelers with WiFi notebooks to be able to connect to internet while sitting in bed with no wires plugged in rather than be tethered to wherever old man Marriot decided to put the RJ-45 port.

[Wonder Boy]

The first thing I thought about when I heard about the extreme was the possiblity of the WiPod. Where else can Apple go with it? They can do color and video, but wireless is such a killer app. Imagine being able to share your playlist with other iPod users as you can do now with iTunes. I think it will eventually come to that. I think the 4G iPod will at the least broadcast to the Airport Extreme.

i think that right now, people would gladly sacrifice colored ipod screens in favor of wifi. i got a 30giger last year so im all set with whatever 4g ipod comes out, but eventually (maybe) we could have both?

[soosy]

I'm actually happy with controlling AirTunes with a roving powerbook around my house. I find even the iPod scroll wheel a bit of a pain to use. Nothing beats typing in a word or two in iTunes to get the song you want to instantly appear. I guess I'm all for instant satisfaction. On the other hand, streaming from a roving powerbook does mean battery drain.

But I'm more disappointed that they didn't include a video out on the thing and that it won't stream sounds at the system level.

Still it's a start. Just get me a full fledged media center.

[jouster]

It would be nice to control iTunes through 802.11 with your Palm. I would imagine that would be the most economical solution.

Has everyone seen the pricing Tivo is doing for their Series2 DVRs? I have been considering buying a new Tivo so I can have it do the work of AirTunes, plus all the DVR work. The USB printer sharing and 10 user router has little interest to me.

I do it that way. So I already have a remote: the TiVo one. Some might say that this has a disadvantage, namely that you have to be in the same room to use it since the interface exists only on the TV.

But you can still skip songs by hitting the 'next' button, and you get to know what's on your playlists pretty quickly. Equally, I'm willing to bet that the majority of people are gonna be sitting listening in the same room as the TiVo anyway. I certainly do. The system works really well for me.

I also could care less about wireless printing. If I'm gonna be working at home, then I'm gonna be in the office anyway - right next to the printer.

TiVo is an excellent solution for this sort of thing, as well as having all the advantages of a PVR already. I love it.

[ifjake]

Want AirTunes on your iPod:

1. Buy a 4G iPod

2. Update your 3G iPod to firmware version 3.0 and buy an iTrip like device from Griffin or Belkin.

well yeah, i guess that would work.

[hybrid_x]

It would be nice to control iTunes through 802.11 with your Palm. I would imagine that would be the most economical solution.
You can already use your Palm to control iTunes through Bluetooth with Salling Clicker.

I expect Apple will come out with a slick little Bluetooth remote based on the functionality of Salling Clicker. Jonas Salling has already won a couple of Apple Design awards for his innovative application (and its use of AppleScript) and an Apple Bluetooth remote would be a next logical step in their "digital hub" strategy.

Now i wonder if you could write an AppleScript to get Mail to read your new email messages via text-to-speech and stream the audio to whatever room you're in... ;)

[webman2k]

How about this for the setup? The new Imac is launched, It has a detachable, tablet like display. You put all your music onto it, once you take your display off the machine, that becomes your remote, possibly with a dock to keep the battery topped up.

This would be the best way to sell more of the flagging Imac models.
:D

With at least a 17" screen, that's an enormous remote!

[TednDi]

Can the optical out on the Airport express be used to push digital video out?



If so can there be, using the new Airport Express, an 802.11g or another 802.xx protocol to push a compressed HD (new version of Quicktime?) stream into the rumored monitors where it could be decoded and Voila' audio video nirvana. This opens the field for downloadable Full length High Def Quicktime content and Samurai stroke to the Windoze media center. Positioning Apple via the airport express and Quicktime to not only take back the desk top but the whole house. Remember the airport express is both Apple and
P(iece of) C(***) users to use the Apple interface.

Give them a taste of the simplicity of the Apple OS and they might take the plunge to the hardware. It is already considered "cool" with ipod and ipod mini.

Or, am I already looking for products that don't exist for 10 more years??

thanks,

[T_ie]

All that is needed is the remote to be an ipod without the hard drive!
It has the exact same screen and scroll wheel, and has one of those mini 802.11g things instead of a hard drive. It is the perfect thing, exactly what everyone wants. No new stuff to be learnt-perfect companion for the airport express

[per4manz]

I posted this yesterday in another thread:

"My take...

It is somewhat disappointing that the 3's aren't out. Overall, I do not care, as I am more than happy with my MDD 867 and couldn't move to the G5 if I wanted to right now anyways. However, I do have some "speculations":

1. There will be a g5 imac announced at WWDC. Hopefully headless and a hell of a lot cheaper than the one I have upstairs.

2. Is it possible that the rumored XStation or whatever it was called could be announced as well - running dual 3s or quad 2.5s?

3. Perhaps the 3s will be released in new Xserves first. I know that Apple updated these not too long ago, but they also pissed off a lot of people with fulfillment problems. Maybe this is their way of making up for it.

4. Given the announcement of AirTunes, I do believe the fabled "tablet" will arrive - perhaps not in the manner it has been typically envisioned (like a notebook) - rather as I wireless access system to control iTunes as well as do basic browsing and email. Or even just an embedded and flash-able version of a system with a really redesigned Apple Remote Desktop. It's also possible that these functions will be added to the iPod along with WiFi streaming. We already know that a 60 gigger is eminent. The tablet would also pave way for something like AirPort Express Extreme with video as well as audio capabilities.

We shall see."

Please do not respond to items 1-3 as they are off topic. :rolleyes:

[sinisterdesign]

Has everyone seen the pricing Tivo is doing for their Series2 DVRs? I have been considering buying a new Tivo so I can have it do the work of AirTunes, plus all the DVR work. The USB printer sharing and 10 user router has little interest to me.

wow, that discount is NICE. take them up on it, it will be the best $129 you can spend. of course, if you want the Home Media Option, it's extra. i can't condone spending the $ on that CURRENTLY simply b/c i haven't had the chance to use those extras very much yet.

i TRIED hooking up my Tivo wirelessly last year, but i was using a little USB-->802.11 dongle & it just didn't have the bandwidth to stream music and i really hated having an ethernet cable strung across the living room (dog & i kept tripping on it). SO, my Tivo isn't currently on the network, so the Home Media Option hasn't been worth the extra cash so far.

however, i have my new AXp (i like the new acronym, btw) on order & i think that will kill 2 birds w/ one stone. i'll have my AirTunes streaming to the stereo AND i will have the Tivo on the network via the ethernet connection on the AXp.

also, let's not overlook future uses of that little AXp. AirTunes is cool, but let's not forget the ethernet AND USB connections on there. i don't know what all i'll be able to connect wirelessly, but that's for the engineer types to figure out, i'm just a designer...

[ccuilla]

WiFi + iPod display & scroll wheel - HD = Apple Wireless Remote

(sorry I missed the post above)

It appears that WiFi is getting much cheaper. The HD is the majority of the cost of the iPod. Perhaps this is doable for $49? Don't know. But here's what I think it is safe to say:

- WiFi + Rendevous are the backbone.
- Apple will do MUCH more with all of their technologies, combined in new, interesting and non-obvious (to us anyway) ways.

I could also imagine a AirPod which does streaming to AirportExpress devices too. But not everyone will want such a thing. And this will likely be the top line iPod, perhaps with the Apple Wireless Remote as an option for the rest of us.

[hybrid_x]

Isn't WiFi overkill for sending tiny little remote commands to a desktop running iTunes? I would have thought Bluetooth would be much more appropriate.

[Wash!!]

Are Apple's version of the MediaPC crap that M$ is pushing now..
But apple is doing it the right way

[JohnGalt]

it could be the next gen ipod..

Airport card in the ipod. Steaming to it, streaming from it. Control your airport express. :D

It would be silly to have another device. People don't want to carry a 100 things in their pocket


Yep, I suggested the iPOD as the remote a couple days ago here when the little bugger was announced. Makes sense not to do a new device when the iPOD mini is a perfect sized remote with a display...........

;)

[tritip]

I think that wireless video is in Airport Express' future.

My prediction: Apple is moving towards an iTunes Music Store model for video on demand. Here's why:

Netflix has announced its intention to start providing downloadable titles next year. There is no standardized platform for video on demand. Are people really going to watch movies on Windows Media player?

By the way, Apple already has a marketing relationship with Netflix.

Look at the recent news from TiVo: DirectTV has sold its equity stake in TiVo (in anticipation of...?) and TiVo is scrambling to retool as an "open system" with PC integration and wireless as major components.

The wireless display should be the next item we see from Apple. We'll also need to see the Airtunes upgraded to multichannel, high quality DVD-style audio.

[cr2sh]

Perhaps you were being sarcastic, but there are numerous wireless headphones, some which are pretty decent, already on the market. Plug the headphone base into the AirportExpress audio out jack, and you're good to go. These aren't WiFi phones, but why would they need to be?

Ugh.. no.

I want headphones with 802.11g built in that will connect to AirTunes. That way I don't have to buy wireless headphones AND and an airport extreme.

[ccuilla]

Isn't WiFi overkill for sending tiny little remote commands to a desktop running iTunes? I would have thought Bluetooth would be much more appropriate.

Possibly, but there would be a couple of other things going on...2-way...the remote knows what's playing from iTunes on your Mac as well as control. Secondly, it could be that doing WiFi is not terribly more complex, costly or power hungry than Bluetooth. So maybe use it instead. But BT would be fine. In the end I don't think I care. It is wireless (RF not IR)...it has a display and scroll wheel like the iPod. It costs about $50.

[DavidFDM]

You can already use your Palm to control iTunes through Bluetooth with Salling Clicker.


Bluetooth is great but the short range might cause difficulty for larger homes. Ideally, controlling via bluetooth, 802.11 or Wireless FireWire would be the best way. The conduit shouldn't be the driving factor. The device should use whatever is available.

- D

[nagromme]

Just add a modem please. Most laptop travelers don't have an ethernet jack everywhere you go! But they do have national dialup for people on the road.

I'd buy one in a second if that ethernet port was like the old PowerBooks, where you could plug an ethernet OR a smaller phone cable into the same port.

[ccuilla]

Just add a modem please. Most laptop travelers don't have an ethernet jack everywhere you go! But they do have national dialup for people on the road.

This was a surprise to me too (the lack of modem). I know network access is becoming more common in hotels these days. But not universal.

[petej]

Maybe I missed this in another thread but I haven't seen any discussion of the uses for the USB port on the airport express. Everyone seems to have just accepted Apple's explanation of this as a printer port. I just wanted to throw in the fact that despite USB's limited bandwidth, at 11Mbps it is actually capably of transporting broadcast quality MPEG2 program streams - just. Translate this to MPEG4 to give yourself a bit more room on the bandwidth, add a USB powered MPEG4 decoder cable and hey presto, you have an airport express with the potential to stream your video to TV.

[pjkelnhofer]

Maybe I missed this in another thread but I haven't seen any discussion of the uses for the USB port on the airport express. Everyone seems to have just accepted Apple's explanation of this as a printer port. I just wanted to throw in the fact that despite USB's limited bandwidth, at 11Mbps it is actually capably of transporting broadcast quality MPEG2 program streams - just. Translate this to MPEG4 to give yourself a bit more room on the bandwidth, add a USB powered MPEG4 decoder cable and hey presto, your airport express that can potentially stream your video to TV.

I assure you that this has been mentioned several times by several people. Right now the AXp is set up to work with serving as a print-server the only use for the USB port. There is no reason to think that future uses could be found for the port. Do we know if it is USB or USB 2.0?

[joeboy_45101]

It would be nice if someone developed wireless headphones (with batteries)... I could sit in my cube and listen to music without having a damn wire to tangle under my chair and always be in the way.. control it via iTunes and such...



No offense... but a wireless dock? The dock is used to transfer yes.. but also charge the ipod. You may get rid of the wired transfer.. but there's no way you're getting rid of the power source. Why have a wireless transfer when you'll still be tethered to the wall for power?

Building 802.11g into the ipod makes a lot of sense.. but even then you'll still need a charger (but it'd be almost an after thought, like a cell phone charger).

__

Um, they could just design it with a cord to plug it into the wall, I'm just talking about wireless syncing. An iPod with built in wireless would probably make it too bulky and use up too much of the battery. A wireless dock is more of a practical solution to wireless syncing.

[ingenious]

With the release of Apple's newest device, AirPort Express, alongside AirTunes wireless audio broadcasting capabilities, MacWorld Editor Jason Snell (http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/archives/000214.php) speculates about potential directions Apple and other developers could take this technology.



Based on conversations with Greg Joswiak, Apple appears to be aware of the logical steps beyond this basic framework... but wants to first establish this product.

I'm guessing a remote (iPod capability?!) for iTunes and also a Movie streaming capability, along with a Movie Store... i something..... iFilm? iFlick?
iShow? iTheatre?

[ingenious]

This was a surprise to me too (the lack of modem). I know network access is becoming more common in hotels these days. But not universal.


I agree. All of my hotels this summer have modem lines, not ethernet. I was thinking about how great the AEx would be for this, but then I realized that I couldn't use it for a Base Station to share the net there anyway, so.....


Also, if Apple won't add a modem, couldnt someone hack the Base Station and allow an External modem to be used? :confused:

On the Movie thing.... I hope that they include this feature, including streaming the audio to the stereo for the movie and the video for the movie to the TV.

[TednDi]

to sign Pixar for distribution. If Jobs CEO of Apple and Pixar can make a joint deal with say Warner Bros or another studio then imovie may be the next big blockbuster or netflix.

what a coup! do to online movies what itunes did/does for music. Add a little DRM and you have an intoxicating soup!

T

;)

[BruinJohn]

It shouldn't be too didficult to sort out a remote. Can't salling clicker control itunes with a bluetooth mobile phone?

I have been using clicker for a while now and I love it. I can control iTunes with my Sony Ericcson T68i and my T616 trough the bluetooth connecton. You can also control Keynote, Powerpoint, DVD player, and system. I think its customizable because it uses applescript. Although its limited to 30 fet or so. But if bluetooth were put on the iPod, it would be nice. Maybe Apple's scratched PDA project was a cell/PDA/MP3/bluetooth/AE enabled device all in the size of a Treo? That would be nice.

[Macswell]

This doesn't really apply to the keynote IMO. The keynote is just a general, mostly non-technical, overview and an opportunity to display/announce new products - any developer is going to be more interested in the in-depth seminars during the rest of the week.

A wireless iPod would be great as an addition but i would much rather have a simple (maybe wifi based) remote control, especially if it was also IR and could be programmed to control the TV, hifi etc. In the home it doesn't really make sense to use a device that needs frequent recharging when your mains-powered computer is going to be within range of the hifi.

I totally agree. The iPod may be the best solution, except for battery life, but I already have my iPods and I am sure somepeople have no plans to buy one. I don't intend to buy another just to control my iTunes on my mac. There must be a cheaper solution.

[Codemonkey]

I would trade iTrip for an installed car mount in a flash if Apple would brand one. iTrip is better than nothing, but the sound quality is third behind CD and FM.

I keep expecting any day now to read that the new model of some VW, Audi, etc., will come with an iPod mount.

How close is this:
http://www.vwvortex.com/artman/publish/industry_news/article_650.shtml

:-)

[pjkelnhofer]

I totally agree. The iPod may be the best solution, except for battery life, but I already have my iPods and I am sure somepeople have no plans to buy one. I don't intend to buy another just to control my iTunes on my mac. There must be a cheaper solution.

I don't see how the iPod would be a good solution as a wireless remote. It just seems like a total waste of the iPod's power. Who needs a remote control with a 40GB hard drive in it. It would make more sense to make a remote with an iPod style interface and a 1GB or so of flash memory that could sell for a fraction of the cost of the iPod.

[ingenious]

Couldn't wireless Firewire possibly handle some of these wishlist items?

No. It would give us all cancer.

[ingenious]

it could be the next gen ipod..

Airport card in the ipod. Steaming to it, streaming from it. Control your airport express. :D

It would be silly to have another device. People don't want to carry a 100 things in their pocket


That would be great. Just slip an AE card in the back and presto! And, the iPod would have wonderful battery management features so that the iPod was only on the network when it needed to be, like to update its status and such.

[a_iver]

Maybe I missed this in another thread but I haven't seen any discussion of the uses for the USB port on the airport express. Everyone seems to have just accepted Apple's explanation of this as a printer port. I just wanted to throw in the fact that despite USB's limited bandwidth, at 11Mbps it is actually capably of transporting broadcast quality MPEG2 program streams - just. Translate this to MPEG4 to give yourself a bit more room on the bandwidth, add a USB powered MPEG4 decoder cable and hey presto, you have an airport express with the potential to stream your video to TV.

Or even adding a USB hub. Could you do that?


You may get rid of the wired transfer.. but there's no way you're getting rid of the power source.

Wait.. I thought they had people working on wireless electricity transfers. I think the correct wording would be "there's nothing available right now for a wireless power transfer." That is unless Apple invents an Armitron-type iPod; the kind that mechanically add power as you walk. That would be cool.

[apexfork]

WWDC is a developer event so I would expect it would be stuff relevant to development.

You must be new here. ;)

[macnews]

I think, as some have mentioned, a WiFi iPod would be nice as a remote. I don't think this is just a geek item or wish. Think about design. Steve has said the computer isn't the center peice of the house, and while the flat panel imac is probably the best looking computer to date (IMHO) - most people still have a computer tucked away in a home office or back room. That is why the controlling of airport express via your mac or pc is not attractive - you wouldn't want it sitting next to your home system out in the living room (too ugly and not useful), but running back and forth between the back office and living room gets old unless maybe you live in a small apartment.

Now, think about the iPod with WiFi or bluetooth (maybe airport express will later support bluetooth) sitting in its dock next to your home system. Small, unobtrusive and functional. It charges and can broadcast from the dock, or you can pick it up, sit on the couch and control it. Battery life starts to drain? Put it back in the dock. Given the current 6-8 hour realistic life, using WiFi might last 3-4 hours (half). Lots of time and easy (i.e. short walk) to charge it. Plus, it mobile so you can walk all over your home controlling it. Oh yeah, it would also be a big fashion statement. People come in and see your iPod proudly displayed, then start playing songs on your home system.

Syncing would not take long. Syncing takes a while when you have tons of songs to download - like when you first get the ipod. Fine, use the firewire cord and sync is when you first get it. After that you might sync 1,2 - maybe 5 songs at a time, unless you delay.

If you also think about where you would need to plug in the airport express - close to your home speaker system. This means wires hidden, nice clean interface so to speak.

Plus, if the ipod can be a remote, perhaps you can tie it in to more things with the mac - like controlling the dvd player. The potential is there.

I guess I just don't see apple making a seperate remote control. I could be wrong but there are a few problems with that:
1. People already have a ton of remotes (tv, dvd, stereo, vcr, cable) now itunes?

2. People try to consolidate those remotes with all in ones. My guess is if apple made their own, it wouldn't be easy to integrate with all in ones, much like modern home stereos.

3. There just is not a lot of money to be made making a seperate hardware remote device. They might leave this up to a third party and work with them closely if they (apple) don't do it with the ipod.

That is my two cents.

[pjkelnhofer]

Wait.. I thought they had people working on wireless electricity transfers. I think the correct wording would be "there's nothing available right now for a wireless power transfer." That is unless Apple invents an Armitron-type iPod; the kind that mechanically add power as you walk. That would be cool.

People have been working on it for quite some time. In fact Nikola Tesla was trying to do just that over 100 years ago when he invented radio. The problem is how do you send "electricity" through the air without making everything in between into toast? Or, at the very least causing rather large tumors in it?

[wPod]

i will finally have a reason to upgrade from my 1st Gen iPod if they come out with an iPod with wifi. maybe with wifi you could even connect to iTMS and purchase music right from your iPod. . . wait, no theres not a keyboard to input your password. . . i wouldnt want my pals snatching my iPod and downloading britney spears or something. i cant wait to get airport express. . . then hopefully a wifi iPod in the future!

[LaMerVipere]

Well if Apple doesn't make the products people want, other companies will. But this is good news really, props to Apple for being on the cutting edge of the digital lifestyle in the home. But Windows Media Center Edition is something along the lines of what Apple should try to implement if they really want to catch up in the PC world.

[joeboy_45101]

Does anybody know if Apple streams the WWDC Keynote in the AppleStores. I'd like to stop in and see it if they do. :confused:

[pjkelnhofer]

Does anybody know if Apple streams the WWDC Keynote in the AppleStores. I'd like to stop in and see it if they do. :confused:

In general they do, if not it is streamed on the website, and if worst comes to worst you can enjoy up to the second coverage at Macrumors I am sure.

At least that has been the rule in the past.

[Anticipat3]

Now think about this --

You've got your WiFi iPod, right? Lots of other peope do too, these days...

iTunes already has music sharing capabilities. What if the same were added to iPods? When another iPod comes in WiFi range, or you're on a WiFi network with iTunes users, you can play the songs that they have shared on their iPod or their iTunes, and vice versa! How sweet would that be? Hop on the subway, see what libraries are around...

It's yet another step way ahead of anyone else in digital music. Go Apple!

[Jeff Harrell]

Announced the same day as AirTunes (and maybe that's Snell's excuse—he missed it in all the other news), I give you the Sonos (http://www.sonos.com/products/) system.

Requires a PC, doesn't see your iTunes library, and doesn't work with iTunes Music Store songs. Three strike and you're out, out, out.

[NeoMayhem]

Wireless power is possible, and it already in use today.

Ever heard of solar panels? They receive energy wirelessly.

[TednDi]

but the bulb just lit over my head. This site is APPLE's best consumer focus group. I wonder how many of these pages get printed out and distributed to R&D? leak a little from Apple and see what the world thinks.

Oh yea, in the beyond airtunes vein i want video

and I want a remote/ipod/unlocked gsm smartphone/mouse

and a tablet with a pen.

and HDTV wireless!

and voice over IP integrated with .mac

and ...

more thoughtful working software and hardware from Apple and its third party developers.

Thanks Steve!
since I was a little kid with an apple II, IIc, Mac MacIIci, powerbook 165c, and now!! Powerbook G4 17" 1.5ghz all fill(ed) me with the potential of home computing. All have been cool and have made me wish for more apple development. The windows hulks rusting in my basement only bring back memories of frustration and hours of stress trying to figure out what and where my data are.

now back to the topic....

T

[pjkelnhofer]

Announced the same day as AirTunes (and maybe that's Snell's excuse—he missed it in all the other news), I give you the Sonos system.

Hmmm, the "introductory system" is $1199. Not to mention the "Zoneplayer" cost $499 and does basically the same thing as the AXp (I know it has other features such as an amplifier).

I honestly don't really like the idea of a single WiFi remote for the system. I can't keep track of my TV remote half the time.

[rishio]

An ipod to me is not just a portable music system - but a replacement for the bigger audio systems you have at home. I think apple will be branching out the ipod. The ipodmini will be simple and small with the core purpose of replacing a walkman. and slightly bigger ipods with wifi capability to function as a replacement for stereo systems that you can take with you. The bigger iPod or wipod could have increased pda type functionality - while they could make small minipods cheaper and more focused. I want the slightly bigger, more versatile ipod for use with a car, my home speakers and the audio systems at my friends houses - so i can share my music during get togethers.

[matthewwithanm]

If the new Nintendo handheld can have wifi capabilities, there's no reason the next iPod can't.

[hiptobesquare]

I honestly don't really like the idea of a single WiFi remote for the system. I can't keep track of my TV remote half the time.

Have to agree there, but when your tv remote is not lost, there should be a way to have the TV in your home theater system show the itunes window from your computer, while the music comes from the speakers. with the music and video coming from AirTunes. all controlled with the remote your tv already has.

Just pipe dreams, I have a feeling... but that never hurt anyone!

[mainstreetmark]

Wireless power is possible, and it already in use today.

Ever heard of solar panels? They receive energy wirelessly.

Obviously we mean wirelessly transmit power. The only reasonable thing todate is those stupid keychains they used to have a Mobile stations where you walk up, and swipe it. In that time, the keychain charges up from the power in the carrier signal and broadcasts it's ID back to the gas pump, and poof, it's out of power. We're talking milliwatts and millimeters.

Tesla, as mentioned earlier, once had a pretty good plan to build a tower that created an ionized tunnel between the earth (ground) and some layer in the upper atmosphere, which, in theory, would allow a power company to 'charge up' and people all over to place a small antenna on their house, and another one stuck in the ground, and receive power, but that experiment ran out of money before the prototype could be completed. Then Tesla went nuts and started taking care of all the pigeons in NYC.


Also, I kind of think that something with the transmitting power and bandwitdh of 802.11g would consume quite a bit of juice from something like an iPod. With a PowerBook, it's not such a big deal, since there's plenty of high-capacity battery, but the iPod's just got that little guy in there, and it's already got to run the harddrive, and the iPod is already on the low end of battery life. Wifi may be an overkill. Bluetooth (purely due to range) may be an underkill. A separate RF receiver would work well, but would require a dongle plugged into the computer, which I would dislike. It's like when I bought my first wireless mouse and it came with a mouse-looking thing I still had to plug in to the USB port. (Then I got the MX900)

[a_iver]

Obviously we mean wirelessly transmit power.

Well give the guy credit at least for thinking outside the box a little. Why would you suck power from the outlets and add to your electricity bill when you can suck it from the air. Solar was the first thing I thought too, except the only problem is that our home, computer, and iPod are inside doors most of the time. My armitron idea now that I think of it would cause problems too I bet. Once people start losing power they're gonna want to shake it - which would probably cause hard drive problems, although I'm not aware of the specs for the amount of force they can take. Maybe solid state hard drives though.

[Wash!!]

Obviously we mean wirelessly transmit power. The only reasonable thing todate is those stupid keychains they used to have a Mobile stations where you walk up, and swipe it. In that time, the keychain charges up from the power in the carrier signal and broadcasts it's ID back to the gas pump, and poof, it's out of power. We're talking milliwatts and millimeters.

Tesla, as mentioned earlier, once had a pretty good plan to build a tower that created an ionized tunnel between the earth (ground) and some layer in the upper atmosphere, which, in theory, would allow a power company to 'charge up' and people all over to place a small antenna on their house, and another one stuck in the ground, and receive power, but that experiment ran out of money before the prototype could be completed. Then Tesla went nuts and started taking care of all the pigeons in NYC.


Also, I kind of think that something with the transmitting power and bandwitdh of 802.11g would consume quite a bit of juice from something like an iPod. With a PowerBook, it's not such a big deal, since there's plenty of high-capacity battery, but the iPod's just got that little guy in there, and it's already got to run the harddrive, and the iPod is already on the low end of battery life. Wifi may be an overkill. Bluetooth (purely due to range) may be an underkill. A separate RF receiver would work well, but would require a dongle plugged into the computer, which I would dislike. It's like when I bought my first wireless mouse and it came with a mouse-looking thing I still had to plug in to the USB port. (Then I got the MX900)


Tesla builded a prototype but it never got finish or fully tested, he manage to light up I think it was 100 homes over the air in Colorado back in the late 1800's early 1900's, but he ran out of money to finish the experiments, whe he die the government took all his research...

[nsb3000]

I hold to my belief that the portable displays have some connections with AE.
That would be cool.

[visor]

just one example of an remote control that also displays what is on...

[Analog Kid]

What can enhance the iPod the most? Bluetooth.
It will offer wire-free headphones, supercool.

Can't use Bluetooth for headphones without a decompression engine built in-- BT only has 768kbits bandwidth.
Stereo, 16bit gives you 24kHz. That's about 10kHz audio bandwidth if there's no protocol overhead...

[nsb3000]

Possibly, but there would be a couple of other things going on...2-way...the remote knows what's playing from iTunes on your Mac as well as control. Secondly, it could be that doing WiFi is not terribly more complex, costly or power hungry than Bluetooth. So maybe use it instead. But BT would be fine. In the end I don't think I care. It is wireless (RF not IR)...it has a display and scroll wheel like the iPod. It costs about $50.

The problem with Bluetooth is the range... It is only like 30 feet or soemthing. Compare that to WiFi 150 foot+ range.

[g4cubed]

If the new Nintendo handheld can have wifi capabilities, there's no reason the next iPod can't.


I thought that the ds handheld was bluetooth not wi-fi.

I just can't see this being wi-fi because of the power consumption problem. But bluetooth has the range problem.

[CoreForce]

Can't use Bluetooth for headphones without a decompression engine built in-- BT only has 768kbits bandwidth.
Stereo, 16bit gives you 24kHz. That's about 10kHz audio bandwidth if there's no protocol overhead...

Two newsarticles from the Bluetooth SIG:

Bluetooth® Wireless Technology Shipments Hit Two Million a Week (with refrence to Bluetooth EDR)
http://www.bluetooth.com/news/index.asp?A=2&PID=1292

TEN Technology Licenses Impulsesoft's Wireless Stereo Technology For iPod Adapter
http://www.bluetooth.com/news/index.asp?A=2&PID=1191

[CoreForce]

The problem with Bluetooth is the range... It is only like 30 feet or soemthing. Compare that to WiFi 150 foot+ range.

The range of Bluetooth class 1 is perfectly about the same as WiFi. You are talking about Class 2 that has limited range. Adapters for both ranges are on the market. Phones typically use Class 2, though.
Class 1 and 2 work perfectly together, it's more or less the range only that is different.

[CoreForce]

Now think about this --

What if the same were added to iPods? When another iPod comes in WiFi range, or you're on a WiFi network with iTunes users, you can play the songs that they have shared on their iPod or their iTunes, and vice versa! How sweet would that be?

Still you would need a wireless hub, right?
Will not happen on the street.
DRM is still inplace as well.
If you master all this, you would want to exchange a lot of files, meaning a lot of data, taking quite a long time over WiFi.

Which would quickly bring you back to FireWire cables.

[rikers_mailbox]

however, i have my new AXp (i like the new acronym, btw) on order & i think that will kill 2 birds w/ one stone. i'll have my AirTunes streaming to the stereo AND i will have the Tivo on the network via the ethernet connection on the AXp.

I hate to burst your bubble, but connecting an AXp to TiVO won't work like you want it to.
Here's (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=74692) a thread about it.

[rikers_mailbox]

and voice over IP integrated with .mac

Amen to that. Apple needs to sling some of the $5 Billion in the bank and buy up Vonage (http://www.vonage.com/). Some of the features they have are sick. .

[cr2sh]

Tesla builded a prototype but it never got finish or fully tested, he manage to light up I think it was 100 homes over the air in Colorado back in the late 1800's early 1900's, but he ran out of money to finish the experiments, whe he die the government took all his research...

Dude.. you seriously need to start proof reading.

It’s very exciting; I can't remember a time in the recent past when this many people were just rampantly speculating about future uses of technology.

Definitely has the juices flowing.

[sinisterdesign]

I don't see how the iPod would be a good solution as a wireless remote. It just seems like a total waste of the iPod's power. Who needs a remote control with a 40GB hard drive in it. It would make more sense to make a remote with an iPod style interface and a 1GB or so of flash memory that could sell for a fraction of the cost of the iPod.

couldn't agree more. iTunes is a free download. AXp is $129 addition. apart from a decent % of people that frequent this site, who is going to drop $500+ on a music player/remote??

also, (hypothetically, here. i don't actually have a wife), but i take my iPod to work. now my wife can't access iTunes in the bedroom b/c i just took the remote? i dunno. that's an awful lot of stuff to put on the shoulders of an iPod. don't get me wrong, i'm salivating waiting on whatEVER the next rev of iPod brings, but if it doesn't have everything and the kitchen sink, i lot of people on this site will whine...

[g4cubed]

(hypothetically, here. i don't actually have a wife), but i take my iPod to work. now my wife can't access iTunes in the bedroom b/c i just took the remote? i dunno.

WHAT your wife doesn't have her very own ipod :eek:

Only joking, I got rid of mine a while ago.
My wife :D not my ipod. I'm not that stupid.
Anyways I agree with you and alot of others it's just a waste at a cost.

[GregA]

I was a bit disappointed about Airport Express, for a year now I've been telling people that a wireless dock for my iPod would be great. But no, people would tell me it's not possible.You know that makes more sense.

Reasons against a wireless iPod -
As far as I see it, streaming audio from the iPod would use too much power the iPod couldn't compress the stream anyway.
Syncing the iPod to a Mac via Wireless, you still have to plug your iPod in to keep its battery charged

So a wireless iPod dock makes much more sense. You could charge your iPod anywhere, and sync your play lists. I doubt it could stream to your AExpress though still.

Still, how many people would actually use that?

ps. I'm for an iPod fully integrated into my car stereo. If it synced via wireless when it was parked in my garage, that might be interesting.

[ingenious]

You must be new here. ;)

:lol:

Hmmm, one newbie to another.... :lol: I was there once. :D

Apple's surely working on some type of remote idea for the iPod.

[Wash!!]

Dude.. you seriously need to start proof reading.

It’s very exciting; I can't remember a time in the recent past when this many people were just rampantly speculating about future uses of technology.

Definitely has the juices flowing.

I'm at work and I don't the time to proofread :D

[GregA]

Yep, I suggested the iPOD as the remote a couple days ago here when the little bugger was announced. Makes sense not to do a new device when the iPOD mini is a perfect sized remote with a display...........

;)Sure it's the perfect size remote AND with a display.
The only question is, what is the perfect COST for a remote?

Look at the recent news from TiVo: DirectTV has sold its equity stake in TiVo (in anticipation of...?) and TiVo is scrambling to retool as an "open system" with PC integration and wireless as major components.Well, DirecTV is now controlled by News Corp, so they'll be using their own DVR box same as in the UK I'd guess. Made by their subsidiary NDS.

I want headphones with 802.11g built in that will connect to AirTunes. That way I don't have to buy wireless headphones AND and an airport extreme.Why would you need to interface to AirTunes? You could just buy Wireless headphones, and plug the headphone jack end (before the transmitter) into the headphone socket of your PC.

A one way receiver of signals is better for your brain than a 2 way transmitter too :)

And on other uses for the USB port... Or even adding a USB hub. Could you do that?Ummm, that's kinda interesting. I wonder if you could plug a still camera into the USB port of the Airport Express to upload your photos? (much better if you could plug in the camera and automatically see a slideshow of your shots). What other things might you plug into a USB port?

Syncing would not take long. Syncing takes a while when you have tons of songs to download - like when you first get the ipod. Fine, use the firewire cord and sync is when you first get it. After that you might sync 1,2 - maybe 5 songs at a time, unless you delay.I know you were talking about wireless syncing - but I guess with a little bit of creativity, the iPod could sync via USB on the Airport Express too? Still, if you're plugging in an iPod next to your stereo, you may as well output from the iPod (or iPod dock) direct to the stereo.

Amen to that. Apple needs to sling some of the $5 Billion in the bank and buy up Vonage (http://www.vonage.com/). Some of the features they have are sick. .Interesting. Then Apple could release an AirportPhone. Cordless phone you walk around the house, and you make and receive regular calls (plus iChat integration of course).

[sinisterdesign]

Only joking, I got rid of mine a while ago.
My wife :D not my ipod. I'm not that stupid.

...good man...

at least you kept the one that goes silent when you want it to. ;)

[bertagert]

I think I'm going to have to take back my request for the ipod doing the syncing to the AE. After reading that the files would have to be encrypted (meaning more drain on battery) and the drain caused by the airport card, I guess it wouldn't be a good idea. So, I want to revert back to my original idea about a year ago. Make a remote that looks and acts just like a ipod but with out the hard drive. This could use wifi to connect to the computer (mac or PC) and itunes. All the files would be stored on the computer but the information would be on the remote. Then you could play your songs how you wanted to. With a little trickery, you could have different remotes for different rooms or select the rooms you wanted to play in from the remote. Alll I know is, I want a remote that has the interface of an ipod so I can play my sounds around the house in any room at anytime and all connected to my huge music collection.

Down side is, I still want wifi in the ipod for a in-car solution. I hate having a wire go from the ipod to my deck. Itrip isn't the answer for me because of sound quality and interference.

[dr.Zoidberg]

people have already mentioned that it makes sense for Axp to eventually stream video out, but could it stream video IN to our comps? and maybe Audio into our comps? that would be very nice.....

[thatwendigo]

How about this for the setup? The new Imac is launched, It has a detachable, tablet like display. You put all your music onto it, once you take your display off the machine, that becomes your remote, possibly with a dock to keep the battery topped up.

This would be the best way to sell more of the flagging Imac models.
:D

How often do I have to do this? Why won't you people do some research before you spout this, ad nauseum?

ViewSonic Airpanel 100 (http://www.viewsonic.com/products/mobilewireless/wirelessmonitors/airpanel100/index.htm)
Intel StrongARM 206mhz
Windows CE .NET
32MB Flash
128MB SDRAM
Media-Q MQ200 2MB VRAM
10" SVGA TFT touchscreen
800x600 max resolution when wireless
Type II PCMCIA
USB, microphone in, audio out, mini-VGA, dock port
802.11b or GPRS
13.81" x 8.0" x 0.5"
2.5lbs
Cost: $829-1,156 at Dealtime (http://www1.shopping.com/xPC-ViewSonic_Airpanel)

Philips DesXcape (http://www.consumer.philips.com/global/b2c/ce/catalog/product.jhtml;jsessionid=STLYS1QNVUUADJ0RMRCRX2NHKFSESHAW?divId=0&groupId=CONNECTION_GR&catId=PC_MONITORS_CA&subCatId=WIRELESS_MONITOR_SU&productId=150DM10P_74)
Intel Xscale 400mhz
Windows CE for Smart Displays
32MB Flash
64MB SDRAM
15" TFT LCD touchscreen
1024x768 max resolution, period
No expansion slots
Docking station with DVI connector
802.11b
14.7" x 12.1" x 1.1"
5.2lbs
Cost: $1,281-1,499 at Dealtime (http://www1.shopping.com/xFS?KW=desxcape&FN=Monitors&FD=9006)

However, it should be noted in screaming capitals: NEITHER OF THESE CAN DISPLAY VIDEO. This is purely for text work and light web browsing, which the manufacturers point out in their marketing materials, though they do it in polite marketingspeak. Wireless displays are not coming to the iMac, unless you want to pay more for one than you do for the G5 and hardly be able to do anything on them.

So, small and less functional screens cost a hell of a lot more than even Apple's LCDs... Right. We're going to see this soon. :rolleyes:

[duklaprague]

WWDC is a developer event so I would expect it would be stuff relevant to development.

ok - fair enough - i've only had the Macsince january, and the rumor sites do seem to focus pretty heavily on this wwdc - new iPod this, new PowerMac that.

still, ITMS at last so i'm happy.

as for airtunes - at the moment i've been digitising all my old vinyl - would something like this ever be able to work both ways, ie stereo > airport express > to powerbook?

Iain

[DrEasy]

(my 2nd post ever to this forum, please be nice!)

I think what is triggering the imagination of the forum is the fact that Airport Express is an unusual Lego brick with its WiFi, Audio out, USB, power... That's a lot of connectors! And with wireless as glue, imagination can run wilder, since there is less spatial limitation.

Below I have a list of crazy ideas, feel free to discuss and shoot them down:

- Here's an expensive one but bear with me: iSight + Airport Express = X10? Well, iSight doesn't use USB so it wouldn't exactly connect into Airport Express, but you get the idea... And why not an Airport Express II with Firewire in the near future?

- Or how about adding bluetooth on both Airport Express and iPod? If rendez-vous can be used as a protocol through bluetooth + WiFi, you could use the iPod as a remote to your iTunes station via Airport Express! No range limitation! No battery consumption problem!

- Speaking of Bluetooth, just read today that there are new specs coming with more bandwidth and less battery consumption... This will make things even more interesting... Imagine hacking an iPod with BTv2 to enable MP3 sharing... Hmm I guess that could be a DRM nightmare and therefore a showstopper for any sort of wireless iPod...

- Also think about wireless displays... You wouldn't need video out from Airport Express to connect to the display then...

- Is it possible to currently order music using TiVo? If not, wouldn't it be cool to do so through iTMS? Maybe Apple and TiVo should talk?

[duklaprague]

back on the wi-fi iPod - people here have said they think its a big no-no because of battery life. but surely if its in the house, the dock is right there for a permanent power supply?

at the moment the dock for my iPod lives on a bookshelf next to the sofa in the lounge, opposite the stereo/tv etc.

so the iPod could have this remote functionality - you pick up the iPod, select what you want to listen to, hit *play* and pop it back in the dock. job done.

ideally i guess there would have to be a cheaper alternative (perhaps a wi-fi plug in similar to the iTrip?) for those already with iPods, but why not include it as a feature in future revisions?

Iain

[jim_az]

(my 2nd post ever to this forum, please be nice!)

- Here's an expensive one but bear with me: iSight + Airport Express = X10? Well, iSight doesn't use USB so it wouldn't exactly connect into Airport Express, but you get the idea... And why not an Airport Express II with Firewire in the near future?


Excellent idea! Maybe there will be an iSight2 with USB2 soon?
I was requesting ideas for possible usage of the USB host on the AXp in one of the earlier threads - 0 responses... All I could come up with was a new iPod dock with IR/BT for a remote. There must be lots of other possibilities!

Az Jim

[iGen]

I think it would be cool if, in a later version, they allowed you to stream iTunes to every stereo in your house at the same time. It would work really well for parties.

Is there anything stopping this from happening?



Oh, and iPod reMote via Bluetooth sounds like the perfect solution for AirTunes.

[thatwendigo]

- Here's an expensive one but bear with me: iSight + Airport Express = X10? Well, iSight doesn't use USB so it wouldn't exactly connect into Airport Express, but you get the idea... And why not an Airport Express II with Firewire in the near future?

There's a good readon why you won't see FireWire on there, except perhaps as an additional charging station for an iPod or other device. The bandwidth for 802.11g is 54Mbit/s, and FireWire is 400 or 800Mbit/s, which you might notice is something on the order of 8 to 16 times the speed that can be transmitted with current wireless technology.

- Or how about adding bluetooth on both Airport Express and iPod? If rendez-vous can be used as a protocol through bluetooth + WiFi, you could use the iPod as a remote to your iTunes station via Airport Express! No range limitation! No battery consumption problem!

Bluetooth is incredibly limited in data transmission - a paltry 1Mbit/s - and thus it would only make sense in the kind of application that the Salling Clicker already does. However, your latter statements are plain false. There are always battery and range considerations, no matter what wireless technology you're using.

- Speaking of Bluetooth, just read today that there are new specs coming with more bandwidth and less battery consumption... This will make things even more interesting... Imagine hacking an iPod with BTv2 to enable MP3 sharing... Hmm I guess that could be a DRM nightmare and therefore a showstopper for any sort of wireless iPod...

I wouldn't want to fileshare on 802.11b, and that's less power consumptive than the 802.11g used in the Airport Express station. Battery life gets eaten up a lot quicker on laptops with far, far better batteries than the iPod has.

- Also think about wireless displays... You wouldn't need video out from Airport Express to connect to the display then...

See my post above.

[imgmkr]

Apple is pushing for a seamless integration for a make people enjoy the experience of listening to music and also purchasing music with AirPort Express, 'future'-iPod and AirTunes. Man, People couldn't resist the simple
and eye-pleasing interface and instant gratification of 'owning' a piece of music, right-on-dude!! ;)

Now, we all can guess that all we need now is a wifi-tablet with display big
enough to show iTune MusicStore on the screen, voice/hand-writing recognizing piece of hardware looks like an object of desire~~
and ANYBODY can use it to get enterained and shop music online!
salute to mr jobs!!!

yumyum :p

[TednDi]

from Wired news

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60268,00.html?tw=wn_story_related

now the battery limitation is solved or near solved.

[g4cubed]

...good man...

at least you kept the one that goes silent when you want it to. ;)

It was the only thing that worked :rolleyes:

[CoreForce]

I think it would be cool if, in a later version, they allowed you to stream iTunes to every stereo in your house at the same time. It would work really well for parties.

Is there anything stopping this from happening?


In practice this turns out to be horrible unusable
because of the interfering sounds and different deltas
in transmission time. Just imaging yourself stand in
the kitchen, listen your favorite song and an echo of it
from the living room.

2 ideas for a technical solution, however:
- many PC, have them listen to one source, each one broadcasts that stream to an AX
- one PC with some VirtualPC or similiar, do the same (not sure if all VMs can share the same Airport emitter for it).

Interesting question arising from it:
Could many senders potentially transmit to the same AX? I guess not, would sound funny...

[gadg]

iTunes already has music sharing capabilities. What if the same were added to iPods? When another iPod comes in WiFi range, or you're on a WiFi network with iTunes users, you can play the songs that they have shared on their iPod or their iTunes, and vice versa! How sweet would that be? Hop on the subway, see what libraries are around...

It's yet another step way ahead of anyone else in digital music. Go Apple!
It's also base for a lot of legal action. Should Apple do this, I think copyright protection agencies around the world would kick into gear. Here in the Netherlands, if you're broadcasting music on for instance a radio station, you have to pay those agencies money (they in turn pay the record companies). Internet stations have to do the same. Local radio stations too. So how is this any different?

And the one thing I don't like about Apple is that Steve Jobs is also heavy into media. Like Sony, there is a conflict of intrest here: protect your assets on one hand and limit the technical abilities on the other. Philips Electronics took a different route, they sold all media stuff (like Polygram) and focus on technology now. Which has resulted in DVD players able to play just about anything, in comparison to the Sony players that choke on burnt or mp3 cd's regularly. Also check out http://www.streamium.com to see Philips' productline based on media streaming via wifi.

(no, i dont work for philips. yes, i am getting airtunes.)

[gadg]

A couple of days ago I was researching AirTunes. And like many of you, I am sure you've seen the articles and subsequent threads on MacWorld. I just thought I'd copy my entry on the Editor's Notes forum here. When I read about AirTunes I was reminded of the Philips Streamium products, that use UPnP. Here is how I think UPnP would/could/(might even do today) on the Apple productline:

Your computer is a media server. The Airport Express is a media player. The remote is a controlling device. The remote makes sure it knows all players and servers. It connects to a server and lets me browse the library, select a song and hit play ... what the remote then does is tell the server "play song X using media player Y" and it tells the player "server Z is going to send you media". Sound familiar? Perhaps because this is the way the UPnP forum has standardized it's way of dealing with media. Check out more information at http://www.upnp.org/standardizeddcps/mediaserver.asp

Now, then how would iTunes work? Well, it would work exactly the same. The iTunes GUI is nothing but another controller device, like the remote control itself. Underneath, the actual music database is hosted by the "iTunes Media Server". Like you would use the remote control, the GUI would tell the iTunes Media Server (Z) "play track X using media player Y".

And how would the iPod hook into all this? Well, the iPod is a player, controller and server rolled all into one cute little device. Hook some wifi connectivity and you're flying. The controller built into the iPod could then be used to search the library of the server built into the iPod, or any other server (such as the server Z that I mentioned earlier). And it could play that track using the player built into the iPod or using media player Y (which is an Airport Express hooked up to your stereo). And ofcourse, you could send tracks from server to server, which means you can copy tracks (or 'sync') from your Powerbook to your iPod.

As I am a fairly new Apple user, I am uncertain how UPnP compares to Rendezvous, which seems to be a strong protocol in Apple world. UPnP can use any carrier network though. Anyone who can clear this up for me?

[per4manz]

Part of my post earlier in this thread regarding AirTunes and WWDC:

"4. Given the announcement of AirTunes, I do believe the fabled "tablet" will arrive - perhaps not in the manner it has been typically envisioned (like a notebook) - rather as I wireless access system to control iTunes as well as do basic browsing and email. Or even just an embedded and flash-able version of a system with a really redesigned Apple Remote Desktop. It's also possible that these functions will be added to the iPod along with WiFi streaming. We already know that a 60 gigger is eminent. The tablet would also pave way for something like AirPort Express Extreme with video as well as audio capabilities."

From Thinksecret today:

"June 11, 2004 - Apple Remote Desktop 2, a major upgrade to the company's desktop management and screen-sharing software, is nearing completion, Think Secret has learned.

According to new information, the Remote Desktop upgrade, code-named "Neo," is at or close to the final "gold master" stage. Apple plans to wrap up development this month, sources said, though the company's schedule could change based on the particular demands of the development process.

It's unclear when Apple plans to formally announce the upgrade, but one possible venue is the Worldwide Developers Conference, which will take place in San Francisco June 28 through July 2."

Odd coincidence huh? :D

[Doctor Q]

And how would the iPod hook into all this? Well, the iPod is a player, controller and server rolled all into one cute little device.If you want to categorize, I'd call your Mac the "master music server" and your iPod the "slave music server". Although "slave server" sounds contradictory (and politically incorrect), it's a term from conventional networking and the iPod is the type of device its meaning applies to: a server that provides local service as a substitute for a higher-level server.

[manthas]

it could be the next gen ipod..

Airport card in the ipod. Steaming to it, streaming from it. Control your airport express. :D

It would be silly to have another device. People don't want to carry a 100 things in their pocket

The other thing you could do with a WiFi enabled iPod is download music directly from the iTMS without using a computer at all! (Providing of course that Apple develops a mobile version of the iTMS). :eek:

[coney]

I think Elgato Sytems' EyeHome (http://www.elgato.com) meets many of the specifications for an "ideal system" that have been mentioned in this thread.

Just wondering what everyone thinks about it vs. AXP as a Mac-friendly media player (as opposed to a wi-fi access point).

It even has component cable output (albeit at less than HD resolution). And it seems priced pretty aggresively.

[SWC]

I agree that the ipod is the logical controller. I too think the ipod will have wifi built in to the 4th generation. However, I think it's function will be two-fold.

1. For people with a mac / pc and airport express, the ipod can do two things. It can broadcast wifi audio straight to the express (skipping the pc entirely), at the expense of greatly decreased battery life.

2. Or... it can act as a remote for the Mac / pc, which would stream the info. That way, the ipod could greatly save on juice by only using wifi when accessing the itunes located on the computer.


Having previously worked for apple doing applecare support for the iPod....this is a support nightmare. It was hard enough trying to teach the average person how to browse the ipod for music much less use it as a remote or streaming device. They would have to completely rework the entire interface for this to even be remotely feasble to be able to support the ipod. The less time we were on the phone with a customer the more money apple makes. so they aren't going to release something thats going to drive average call times to 30+ minutes.

[SWC]

On another note, I know some one who has rigged pretty much everything in his house to his PDA (a Sony Clie I believe) outfitted with Bluetooth... and I mean everything (lights, appliances, stereo, etc.) He can also control everything from a secure webpage we has set-up (in case he wants to turn the AC on from work before heading home). He is currently working on be able to use his cell phone for some functions as well.
.

This actually isn't too dificult now. You can buy an X-10 pc interface which allows you to control all your x-10 devices from your computer or even the internet if you know a bit of ASP. Then when your at home walking around you can use an IR or RF (depending on which interface you buy) remote to control the X-10 devices in your home. Only issue is currently its not to mac friendly for the firecracker interface as it uses serial and i beleive the driver is windows only.

[SWC]

wow, that discount is NICE. take them up on it, it will be the best $129 you can spend. of course, if you want the Home Media Option, it's extra. i can't condone spending the $ on that CURRENTLY simply b/c i haven't had the chance to use those extras very much yet.

Home media option is free as of yesterday.

[Porchland]

i wonder how much battery life a wifi ipod could expect

Particularly one that's not "always on."

[Porchland]

Having previously worked for apple doing applecare support for the iPod....this is a support nightmare. It was hard enough trying to teach the average person how to browse the ipod for music much less use it as a remote or streaming device. They would have to completely rework the entire interface for this to even be remotely feasble to be able to support the ipod. The less time we were on the phone with a customer the more money apple makes. so they aren't going to release something thats going to drive average call times to 30+ minutes.

Battery issues notwithstanding, this wouldn't be a huge support issue if the broadcast option worked just like playing the iPod, e.g., a switch or a snap-in like iTrip. The issue would then become how to make it target specific if you've got multiple places in your environment to broadcast.

[ryanw]

The other thing you could do with a WiFi enabled iPod is download music directly from the iTMS without using a computer at all! (Providing of course that Apple develops a mobile version of the iTMS). :eek:

This would be good for bands trying to make a living with music on the iTMS. Think about it, you're at a concert and you want to buy the album. You have your iPod there, somehow engage in the portable iTMS wirelessly, purchase the album with a push of a button..... Otherwise bands still have to have their CD's pressed, which is a big expense for a small band.

[bar italia]

This would be good for bands trying to make a living with music on the iTMS. Think about it, you're at a concert and you want to buy the album. You have your iPod there, somehow engage in the portable iTMS wirelessly, purchase the album with a push of a button.....

As opposed to waiting until you got home?


Otherwise bands still have to have their CD's pressed, which is a big expense for a small band.

It's an expense, but not a prohibitive one.

[Peyote]

Of course, when the new iPods are unveiled and they do not support WiFi (because there's absolutely no good reason to, and plenty of good reasons not to), and the folks here dreaming up how kool a WiFi iPod is will start bitching and whining.

Witness the PowerMac thread :rolleyes:

You're doing just as much bitching as anyone else here. Bitching about someone else's bitching is still bitching.

[thejazzman10]

Sounds like dreaming of manned flight the same week the Wright brothers made history on a beach.

Announced the same day as AirTunes (and maybe that's Snell's excuse—he missed it in all the other news), I give you the Sonos (http://www.sonos.com/products/) system. It slices, it dices, and it does every single thing dream boy put on his wish list.



Check.




Check.




Check,




check,




check,




aaaaand check.



.



iPod like scroll wheel on the remote
check and mate. jeez, i know its flattering, but can't we have some original ideas??

oh well

[Peyote]

Now think about this --

You've got your WiFi iPod, right? Lots of other peope do too, these days...

iTunes already has music sharing capabilities. What if the same were added to iPods? When another iPod comes in WiFi range, or you're on a WiFi network with iTunes users, you can play the songs that they have shared on their iPod or their iTunes, and vice versa! How sweet would that be? Hop on the subway, see what libraries are around...

It's yet another step way ahead of anyone else in digital music. Go Apple!


I was thinking along the same lines, and it's a great idea. You could create a "shared" playlist that others could view when you come into range. This could be useful in many scenarios

[manthas]

This would be good for bands trying to make a living with music on the iTMS. Think about it, you're at a concert and you want to buy the album. You have your iPod there, somehow engage in the portable iTMS wirelessly, purchase the album with a push of a button..... Otherwise bands still have to have their CD's pressed, which is a big expense for a small band.

Yes, and you'll be able to browse the store and buy music while sipping on your tall non-fat latté at Starbucks without having to haul your laptop around... The more I think about it, the more I think that this could provide a serious edge for Stevie over the competition!

[hayesk]

In practice this turns out to be horrible unusable
because of the interfering sounds and different deltas
in transmission time. Just imaging yourself stand in
the kitchen, listen your favorite song and an echo of it
from the living room.


Uhm... turn down your stereos then. The idea is if you are in one room but cannot hear the stereo in the other room. You wouldn't broadcast to two devices within earshot of one another.

[Doctor Q]

Yes, and you'll be able to browse the store and buy music while sipping on your tall non-fat latté at Starbucks without having to haul your laptop around... The more I think about it, the more I think that this could provide a serious edge for Stevie over the competition!I don't think Stevie wants to hear people say "without having to haul your laptop around". He gave us tiny PowerBooks so we'd have no excuse to leave them at home when we go to Starbucks.

[whenpaulsparks]

this would be neat.

Auto Airport Express for your car. wire it in, and leave it there. then with a wireless ipod play music to your car speakers, or from a wireless laptop inside the car. and support for WiMAX, so while driving through metropolitan areas, you could stream internet radio, and passengers could go online on laptops (using the AAE as a wireless repeater, just for 802.11). also, when you pull into your house, it would automagically sync your ipod (which i guess you could do with a wireless ipod anyways), or, and this would be stupid but fun, you could play music from your iMac in your office to your car speakers.

that has no realistic advantage, except for the playing music thing. but i'd buy one.

[mclosers]

check out this picture of the remote apple should and is going to make for Air Tunes
http://www.sonos.com/graphics/products/lg_ctrl_3.jpg

Sonos is gonna get sued because apple patented the scroll wheel on the ipod.
But i think Sonos got it right as that is the exact remote i described a few days ago.
Things I would change. Way smaller. make sure it uses wifi or RF. Maybe a B&W screen and smaller to make overall device smaller.

[rikers_mailbox]

Maybe I missed this in another thread but I haven't seen any discussion of the uses for the USB port on the airport express. Everyone seems to have just accepted Apple's explanation of this as a printer port. I just wanted to throw in the fact that despite USB's limited bandwidth, at 11Mbps it is actually capably of transporting broadcast quality MPEG2 program streams - just. Translate this to MPEG4 to give yourself a bit more room on the bandwidth, add a USB powered MPEG4 decoder cable and hey presto, you have an airport express with the potential to stream your video to TV.

What about VoIP phone handsets that use USB connectors?

[iLilana]

yet another thing that Canada has to wait for.

[CoreForce]

Uhm... turn down your stereos then. The idea is if you are in one room but cannot hear the stereo in the other room. You wouldn't broadcast to two devices within earshot of one another.

So the idea is you want your music everywhere but to get there you have to have spaces where you can't hear anything or what? Or teach people where they are not allowed to stay within their home?

Make a practical test: put two radio receivers in your flat, into different locations. Have them receive the same station.
You will notice that things become ugly, even if you turn down loadspeakers to a level it becomes uncomfortable to listen to it. An those radios are pretty much in sync! There are other things like different speaker characteristics coming into play as well that would contribute to this oddness.

Another point:
You assume anyone in an household does listen to the same music. How practical is that?
Look at the ordinary people. The buyers of iPod etc. Does multi-point streaming bring them any benefit?

Bottom line: Forget about it.

[CoreForce]

Sonos is gonna get sued because apple patented the scroll wheel on the ipod.

If they pay the royalties, why should they get sued?
Typically one pays that royalty per unit sold and this thing is pretty expensive. Therfore, I assume it is the case and anything is fine.

BTW: IMHO it's a bit too expensive considering it does not play songs purchased from ITMS.

[mclosers]

If they pay the royalties, why should they get sued?
Typically one pays that royalty per unit sold and this thing is pretty expensive. Therfore, I assume it is the case and anything is fine.

BTW: IMHO it's a bit too expensive considering it does not play songs purchased from ITMS.

I'm pretty sure they aren't playing roalties and i agree it is way to expensive and it doesn't play itunes songs....
My point was apple should make something simmilar to that remote just make it for arounf $100-150
How many of you would like that?
http://www.sonos.com/graphics/products/lg_ctrl_3.jpg
BTW that is a remote control not mp3 player

[Ja Di ksw]

check out this picture of the remote apple should and is going to make for Air Tunes
http://www.sonos.com/graphics/products/lg_ctrl_3.jpg

Sonos is gonna get sued because apple patented the scroll wheel on the ipod.
But i think Sonos got it right as that is the exact remote i described a few days ago.
Things I would change. Way smaller. make sure it uses wifi or RF. Maybe a B&W screen and smaller to make overall device smaller.

sheesh, how much can you copy? even that middle button looks like an inverse of the refresh button on safari. The scroll wheel looks the exact same. c'mon people, come up with your own ideas

[JGowan]

I agree with the few here that think the IPOD would be the perfect device. Not to stream the songs, but just act as a pointer ("voice", remote, etc.) for the songs to be played by the computer.

1) IPOD says to Computer: "Play 'We Will Rock You'".
2) Computer sends that song to the Base Station.
3) Base Station sends it to the stereo via the hardwire connection.
4) Consumer rocks out wirelessly.

The ipod would probably would hold a much longer charge just sending short commands of what to play rather than playing songs from it's harddrive and listened through headphones.

What about people who's computer music collection was bigger than their ipod? Well, what if there was a WiFi section of the ipod which job was simply showing what music was on the main computer? With Apple's ease-of-use, one could easily tell the music on their IPOD and music on the computer. They would only be able to hear music either that was on both devices, or music that existed soley on the computer, which was doing all of the heavy lifting.

When you think about it, it would be just like sharing music with two computers except instead of sending the music between computers, the music is just relayed on to the basestation from the computer. The IPOD is just the VOICE to command. It would also be able to tell the computer "hey, I'm going to the bedroom, so shift over to THAT AirportExpress device" and shut everything else down.

I agree that the IPOD should not stream its own music, but having another device other than the ipod acting as a remote makes NO SENSE.

[iGen]

Make a practical test: put two radio receivers in your flat, into different locations. Have them receive the same station.
You will notice that things become ugly, even if you turn down loadspeakers to a level it becomes uncomfortable to listen to it.

Could Apple make it so you could calibrate a delay in the signal of the stereo that is playing sooner? Probably too complicated for the consumer, but could it be automated?

[GregA]

Make a practical test: put two radio receivers in your flat, into different locations. Have them receive the same station.
You will notice that things become ugly, even if you turn down loadspeakers to a level it becomes uncomfortable to listen to it. An those radios are pretty much in sync! There are other things like different speaker characteristics coming into play as well that would contribute to this oddness.It certainly works better for radios in 2 ends of the house, more so because of the change in tone from quite a different system.

And yet, I've had multiple speaker systems before (indoors and outdoors) and as I walk out of the living room (internal speakers) to the deck (external) the sound was quite good. Great for parties. That is the kind of effect I'd like to find.

[Xgreed]

A couple of days ago I was researching AirTunes. And like many of you, I am sure you've seen the articles and subsequent threads on MacWorld. I just thought I'd copy my entry on the Editor's Notes forum here. When I read about AirTunes I was reminded of the Philips Streamium products, that use UPnP. Here is how I think UPnP would/could/(might even do today) on the Apple productline:

Your computer is a media server. The Airport Express is a media player. The remote is a controlling device. The remote makes sure it knows all players and servers. It connects to a server and lets me browse the library, select a song and hit play ... what the remote then does is tell the server "play song X using media player Y" and it tells the player "server Z is going to send you media". Sound familiar? Perhaps because this is the way the UPnP forum has standardized it's way of dealing with media. Check out more information at http://www.upnp.org/standardizeddcps/mediaserver.asp

Now, then how would iTunes work? Well, it would work exactly the same. The iTunes GUI is nothing but another controller device, like the remote control itself. Underneath, the actual music database is hosted by the "iTunes Media Server". Like you would use the remote control, the GUI would tell the iTunes Media Server (Z) "play track X using media player Y".

And how would the iPod hook into all this? Well, the iPod is a player, controller and server rolled all into one cute little device. Hook some wifi connectivity and you're flying. The controller built into the iPod could then be used to search the library of the server built into the iPod, or any other server (such as the server Z that I mentioned earlier). And it could play that track using the player built into the iPod or using media player Y (which is an Airport Express hooked up to your stereo). And ofcourse, you could send tracks from server to server, which means you can copy tracks (or 'sync') from your Powerbook to your iPod.

As I am a fairly new Apple user, I am uncertain how UPnP compares to Rendezvous, which seems to be a strong protocol in Apple world. UPnP can use any carrier network though. Anyone who can clear this up for me?

UPnP has stalled before it really started, the story is this:
MS created UPnP a few years ago and got several supporters for it. In the meantime web services technology matured and MS got a problem. With all their investments into web services (.net etc.) UPnP didn't fit into their technology roadmap anymore, so they stopped pushing it.
Now, they are trying to create a UPnP 2.0 successor which will be incompatible to 1.x and take another few years to take off.

I think, it becomes clear now that Apples Rendezvous technology is the better approach to ad-hoc networking. It concentrates to one task, i.e. discovering services, and leaves the definition of protocols to others - either established protocols or future emerging ones and is thus much more stable than too narrow solutions.

[whenpaulsparks]

isn't UPnP just a ripoff of Rendezvous, or maybe its the other way around?

[Tulse]

To be fair, Rendezvous is just Apple's name for Zeroconf (www.zeroconf.org/), a standard that already existed, much like AirPort (and FireWire, and USB, and even ADC).

[thatwendigo]

To be fair, Rendezvous is just Apple's name for Zeroconf (www.zeroconf.org/), a standard that already existed, much like AirPort (and FireWire, and USB, and even ADC).

Apple invented FireWire, or that's what's widely reported in a number of trade documents that I've see online. Mind pointing at your sources for claiming they didn't invent it or ADC? FireWire 400 is a streaming protocol that Apple implemented with a 6-pin powered connector, and which others have used with a 4-pin unpowered connector under the name iLink.

[MCCFR]

check out this picture of the remote apple should and is going to make for Air Tunes
http://www.sonos.com/graphics/products/lg_ctrl_3.jpg

Sonos is gonna get sued because apple patented the scroll wheel on the ipod.
But i think Sonos got it right as that is the exact remote i described a few days ago.
Things I would change. Way smaller. make sure it uses wifi or RF. Maybe a B&W screen and smaller to make overall device smaller.

As I mentioned on an earlier thread, the Sonos controller may well be based on the original iPod scroll wheel, but the original iPod wheel actually turns up in almost identical earlier incarnation as the control interface for a Bang & Olufsen DECT phone which existed from around 96-97, so prior art will be a problem.

The patented version is the version that appears on the iPod mini (and can be reasonably expected to appear on iPod 4G).

[Xgreed]

To be fair, Rendezvous is just Apple's name for Zeroconf (www.zeroconf.org/), a standard that already existed, much like AirPort (and FireWire, and USB, and even ADC).
To be even fairer, the interesting parts of Zeroconf - on which Rendezvous is based - i.e. Multicast DNS and DNS-Service Discovery have been authored by Apple engineers Stuart Cheshire and Marc Krochmal (c.f. http://files.dns-sd.org/draft-cheshire-dnsext-dns-sd.txt and http://files.multicastdns.org/draft-cheshire-dnsext-multicastdns.txt). So Rendezvous is actually the reference implementation of Zeroconf.

The chapter 16 of the latter document also mentiones a forthcomming extension called 'Sleep Proxy Servers' which will allow to wake up a host which is sleeping from any other node (e.g. your computer running and serving iTunes could be wakened up by AirportExpress or some other Rendezvous enabled node).

[iChan]

had there been a FW port on the APEXP, i would imagine that there would be many more future possiblities with the new device. however, the APEXP seems to be a fairly closed device.

i would have much preferred so see a firewire port in place of the USB port because compatibility with printers is limited at best and a beast to set up. (from my experiences with a HP PSC950 and Airport Extreme basestation anyway)

seeing as firewire can be powered, the port could have doubled as a charging socket for ipods.

my understanding of firewire is not all that great, however, i do know that firewire allows two devices to talk to each other without a computer and that is something that USB can't do. therefore, having firewire would lends itself to add-on peripherals like a small display.

If i have made any mistakes, please feel free to correct them.

[Sabenth]

What makes me laugh is the fact that everyone is dreaming of remotes... Some one pointed it out earlier the only remote you might want to use and its a huge one is a laptop.... as for all this networking stuff people invented it big companys bought it of them and hey presto stamp apple MS OR COMPAQ or who ever had the most dosh at the time on it lovely ..

Great idea by the way now will it make toast for me :)

[Tommy Wasabi]

i wonder how much battery life a wifi ipod could expect

Apple has figured out a way to charge your iPod wirelessly. A wireless power source.

Now THAT would be really cool.

[edgar_is_good]

I agree with the few here that think the IPOD would be the perfect device. Not to stream the songs, but just act as a pointer ("voice", remote, etc.) for the songs to be played by the computer.

1) IPOD says to Computer: "Play 'We Will Rock You'".
2) Computer sends that song to the Base Station.
3) Base Station sends it to the stereo via the hardwire connection.
4) Consumer rocks out wirelessly.

The ipod would probably would hold a much longer charge just sending short commands of what to play rather than playing songs from it's harddrive and listened through headphones.

What about people who's computer music collection was bigger than their ipod? Well, what if there was a WiFi section of the ipod which job was simply showing what music was on the main computer? With Apple's ease-of-use, one could easily tell the music on their IPOD and music on the computer. They would only be able to hear music either that was on both devices, or music that existed soley on the computer, which was doing all of the heavy lifting.

When you think about it, it would be just like sharing music with two computers except instead of sending the music between computers, the music is just relayed on to the basestation from the computer. The IPOD is just the VOICE to command. It would also be able to tell the computer "hey, I'm going to the bedroom, so shift over to THAT AirportExpress device" and shut everything else down.

I agree that the IPOD should not stream its own music, but having another device other than the ipod acting as a remote makes NO SENSE.

I think part of the problem is that not everyone wants an ipod. If all you want is a pointer, then just a remote with some flash memory and bluetooth/rf communications would be better (but with the same interface). This would be MUCH cheaper, and much lighter, and could use regular batteries instead of the Li ion. With rendezvous, discovering multiple computers would be simple. Apple has done well with the ipod by keeping it simple - I don't see a reason to change now.

[gogoplex]

1. Put up Airport Express.
2. Slam any Ipod that has a dock connector in the new "Ipod Express Dock"
3. Broadcast your music from the Ipod over AE.
4. Sync your Ipod with your Mac over AE.

How about it?
An Ipod with WiFi will eat batteries. But at the same time - the Ipod is the best "remote" for any Airtunes scheme. Enter the "Ipod Expresss Dock" for say 69 USD.

And instead of pissing of all those 3gen Ipod owners you just created an enormous market...

/morris

[Tulse]

Apple invented FireWire, or that's what's widely reported in a number of trade documents that I've see online. Mind pointing at your sources for claiming they didn't invent it or ADC?

I was indeed mistaken about FireWire, but ADC seems to be a version of a (little-used) VESA standard (www.theregister.co.uk/2000/09/27/what_the_hell_is_apples/).

[daven20]

http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_features.html

i've just set up slimserver on my computer and stream music to my palm over wifi. i can access over 160 gigs of music anywhere i can get online. i can plug the palm into my stereo or listen through headphones. i can also control everything through a web browser, including creating and editing playlists. once wifi is more widespread (wimax), this setup will be the ultimate ipod killer, there will be no need for a harddrive. apple needs to add wifi to the ipod which could access a subscription service through itunes. this would allow you unlimited access to hundreds of thousands of albums for less than the price of 3 blockbuster rentals a month.

any thoughts?

[JGowan]

If they pay the royalties, why should they get sued?
Typically one pays that royalty per unit sold and this thing is pretty expensive. Therfore, I assume it is the case and anything is fine.CoreForce, I think you're making a very big assumption that Apple would license that technolgy out. If you have other knowledge, please include a link and I'll step off.

We may be knocking of the 4th generation of this thing, but we are truly seeing the infancy of the IPOD. The "little device that could" isn't going anywhere and will be with Apple, in one form or another, from here on out. I don't think Apple would let anyone use the scrollwheel technology, no matter the amount offered.

[JGowan]

I think part of the problem is that not everyone wants an ipod. If all you want is a pointer, then just a remote with some flash memory and bluetooth/rf communications would be better (but with the same interface). This would be MUCH cheaper, and much lighter, and could use regular batteries instead of the Li ion. With rendezvous, discovering multiple computers would be simple. Apple has done well with the ipod by keeping it simple - I don't see a reason to change now.Edgar_is_Devil's_Advocate: I think you're thinking of this backwards. The way I see it, Apple is not counting on BRAND NEW customers who only own a computer+iTunes to sell the Airport Express and an additional remote. I think they want to sell Airport Express to the 3,000,000+ people who already OWN an iPod. If Airport Express is something an iPod can control, people will see that they are already considerably vested in having this technology in their home. What's another $129 when you've spent the bulk of the cash already?

Of course, there will be some who only have a computer and will need to buy not only Airport Express but an iPod as well, but I firmly see this as something that mostly existing iPod customers will gobble up. Apple will want to focus on these people who are already very happy with their iPod. These owners that have already proven that they are willing to spend the extra money to have the very best technology. Not just for the geek factor, but truly because it makes their lives better and a lot more fun. Honestly, while Airport Express will work with PCs too, I firmly see this as a way for more and more people to see the value in Apple and make the decision to switch. I can't tell you how many times PCers have said to me, "Man Apple has all the cool stuff".

Think about Apple laptops... all but the bottom 2 iBooks have AirportExtreme cards BUILT IN. Apple realizes that asking for people to buy both items might not get them 2 sales, but, by giving their customers 1 item, it ups their chance of making a basestation sale.

It's the same principle here. The customer already has 1 device,... that helps the success of another sale... this time: the $129 Airport Express.

------------------

Now, perhaps a THIRD party will jump in an put together a modestly-priced remote for those who don't want an ipod (although, everyone I've ever shown mine to was green with envy, especially in the MAC-ONLY days.) But I don't think it will be Apple who'll try and sell a $69 remote.

[fluidinclusion]

Perhaps the new Airport Express signals not only a neat new device that can network computers, and perhaps home stereos, perhaps a new iApp relating to video will be forthcoming. Something that would work with TIVO, a new piece of Apple software, etc. (maybe even iMovie for editing clips you can record - a lot of people do this for presentations), and other PVRs.

[fluidinclusion]

Too bad I just bought a wireless G router for my DSL hookup, or I would have bought one of these in July. I just got a new Powerbook last month (my first, I had a clamshell 300 MHz in 2000), so I upgraded my ethernet only router to a wireless one in my home.

I really would like the idea of the USB port on the hub to share the printer without having to have my G4 tower on to print from my laptop. Oh well, maybe I can find a friend that will use the wireless router or maybe eBay it.

[smorr]

remote remote remote!!! and it would have to be able to display all the songs/albums/genres/playlists/etc just like the ipod. Or give the ipod a wifi card and i'll play my music from there (this would be my personal preference as it would also be sweet to have the same setup in the car). That's all I need to be happy so get to work Apple.

What Apple really should do is license the technology to stereo component manufacturers (Toshiba, technica, Aiwa, Sony etc) so that they can cheaply add air express technology straight into their systems and make the protocol (with Fairplay) pervasive in Stereos in addition to iPods.

[daven20]

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;720359201;fp;2;fpid;2

has anyone heard of this product? i wonder if apple has anything similair in the works.

[bertagert]

I think you're thinking of this backwards. The way I see it, Apple is not counting on BRAND NEW customers who only own a computer+iTunes to sell the Airport Express and an additional remote. I think they want to sell Airport Express to the 2,000,000+ people who already OWN an iPod.
I think they are going for both customers. However, after looking at the sonos I think it's the answer to most peoples questions. Streaming audio to any system in the house, each with its own remote if you want, and the remote has all the information that is neccessary to browse your music library/playlist.

Down sides:
1. Can't play DRMed music (which is pretty lame).
2. The price needs to come way down (this will happen over time as all things do).
3. Looks like Apple is having a hissy over this system and might go to court over a few items.

You have to give it to sonos for designing such a nice looking piece of equipment and software package. I hope either Apple or sonos brings this to market at a reasonable price. I know I'd buy it. I did have an order for the roku but canceled it in hopes of Apple or sonos bringing their product out in the next few months.

All though I wanted to see the house get music through the ipod, I guess a system like this would be better incase you left your ipod at work. All I have to do now is remember to bring the laptop home as well. Decisions decisions.

[ftaok]

Has everyone seen the pricing Tivo is doing for their Series2 DVRs? I have been considering buying a new Tivo so I can have it do the work of AirTunes, plus all the DVR work. The USB printer sharing and 10 user router has little interest to me.The problem with Tivo is that Apple won't license Fairplay so even though the Tivo can access iTunes, it can't play songs bought from the iTMS.

This is the same thing that Roku's Soundbrige is running into. I little while ago, the guy from Roku posted that they have asked Apple to license Fairplay, but Apple wouldn't. Now we know why Apple is unwilling to license the DRM out to others. It's to prevent companies like Tivo and Roku from competing with the AExp.

EDIT - Oops, I just realized that I replied to a post from Page 3. I thought I was on the last page. If this point has been brought up, then I apologize.

[ftaok]

I didn't see this idea mentioned in this thread or any other thread.

The main limitation of the AExp for streaming music is if your Mac is in a room other than the one that it's streaming to. There's no way to see what's playing or what's next. Plus, you can't control stuff like fast forward, skip, etc.

So instead of adding wifi to the iPod for streaming into the AExp, maybe what Apple should design is a small iTunes controller. This controller would have a small black/white screen and a few buttons (maybe the same layout as the miniPod). The internals would have an integrated 11g card.

The controller would pick up information from either the AExp or the streaming Mac. So on the controller's screen, you'd see which playlist your on, what song's playing, what's coming up, etc. If you want to change the playlist, or skip the song, you'd press a couple of buttons and the controller would send a signal to the AExp and the AExp would tranmit that signal to the Mac. The Mac would then do what you wanted.

The beauty of this is that you'd only need one controller since you could access multiple AExp's if you have them. So when you walked into another room that is streaming music from a second Mac, you'd automatically pick up that information and it'd be displayed on the little screen.

Price the controller at $79 and Apple would sell a bunch of them.

[GregA]

Edgar_is_Devil's_Advocate: I think you're thinking of this backwards. The way I see it, Apple is not counting on BRAND NEW customers who only own a computer+iTunes to sell the Airport Express and an additional remote. I think they want to sell Airport Express to the 2,000,000+ people who already OWN an iPod. If Airport Express is something an iPod can control, people will see that they are already considerably vested in having this technology in their home. What's another $129 when you've spent the bulk of the cash already?<snip>I disagree. Already, my sister at my parents house will be able to play music from her PC straight to an Airport. She doesn't use iTunes, but she could convert her WMP files and she'd be pretty happy. She's a new user, so the only money Apple makes is on the Airport Express which my father wants. Of course...if my sister gets iTunes and later decides to buy a portable music player... which will she choose?

You know, we talk about this cheaper "dumb" tablet (a terminal) for walking around the house doing simple things like web browsing (or iTunes control) via a wireless connection to a Mac - Apple could do it just as well to a Windows machine really. I mean if it was a smart tablet it doesn't need a computer at all. If it's a dumb tablet then it has limited functions and Apple could serve those functions just as well from a PC. People could buy the tablet without having a Mac. (oh, I have ALWAYS preferred a company that sells a product that integrates with whatever you've got, so maybe I'm dreaming. Other things being equal a company like that will get my money - but Apple hasn't had a history of allowing interoperability, except when it has no choice. Pity!)

What Apple really should do is license the technology to stereo component manufacturers (Toshiba, technica, Aiwa, Sony etc) so that they can cheaply add air express technology straight into their systems and make the protocol (with Fairplay) pervasive in Stereos in addition to iPods.That's really interesting. Maybe Airport eXpress is the foot in the door, and what you say is the next plan. Those devices would need to have a play, pause, next button - a remote control would be necessary.

[supertex]

Well, the thing that is well more than clear is that Apple is creating a new market. APExpress is the teaser for whatever product will fill the glaring hole that we never knew existed until APExpress materialized. We're all sitting here asking ourselves how we're going to control it and patching together solutions via Salling Clicker or some other makeshift idea. Meanwhile Jobs and Joswiak already know how we're going to control it, and I doubt it's some new twist on the iPod or a questionably useful detachable tablet/monitor. I smell new product, they're clearly setting us up. My concern is that it will have pricing problems of...well... cubic proportions. It's gonna be good though, whatever it is.

[fritzintn]

One point, or rather hint, that video streaming may be in the near future is found in some of the new apple.com/trailers videos. Notably, 'the incredibles'.

The full screen trailer requires you to have Itunes 4.5 and actually launches the video directly from iTunes. Doesn't take a rocket scientiest to figure out what fun can be had from this...

[abc123]

i see (eventually) a single computer in a house and the ability to operate it from anywhere in range by use of one of these things. have a display, keyboard, speaker, dvd/cd drive and mouse set up in every room if you so desire but the computer on the other side of the house. that would be beautiful. rather than networking computers let the computer become the network.

[lefty111]

I will be sitting on my couch tapping away on my laptop, once my Airport Express untethers me from my cable modem, and control the stereo's music from iTunes on my laptop. A remote control would be useful, I imagine, for those who keep the computer at their desk. What's the use of a WiFi iPod when we already have docks and FM transmitter devices can already stream the music to a stereo from an iPod?

[UrbanRio]

I agree a remote control that costs more than the product is just stupid.

You're looking at it backwards, AirPort Express is an accessory to the iPod not the other way around.

[TednDi]

If the Airport Express can be used with an omnidirectional (bluetooth?) mic. to input voice commands to the network. Also, using text to speech you could control the tunes or music with your voice. no remote needed. "computer play next track" or "computer play PARTY playmix"

"Computer play X movie" ... "increase volume 25%" "Computer MUTE"

Computer Voice - "There is an incoming call from (555) 555-5555 Your Mother shall I transfer it to this room?"

Voice is the most useful of remotes.

again I am hoping in this OS for os XX

:)

[JGowan]

I disagree. Already, my sister at my parents house will be able to play music from her PC straight to an Airport. She doesn't use iTunes, but she could convert her WMP files and she'd be pretty happy. She's a new user, so the only money Apple makes is on the Airport Express which my father wants. Of course...if my sister gets iTunes and later decides to buy a portable music player... which will she choose?Obviously, there are going to be people (such as your sister) that legitimitely is interested but are at SQUARE ONE, having neither AEpress nor the IPOD. I even said that a 3rd party company will most likely swoop in to put together a modestly-priced remote for those not wanting to get an ipod, but wanting the functionality of control of music in conjunction of computer AEpress. But, I still maintain that only a stupid company would not try to sell this new base station to their huge install base of ipod users.

Time will tell. It's obvious that we will SOMEHOW be able to control MUSIC with AExpress in some fashion. Whether it's with another device you think Apple is going to make or built into the IPOD in some way, we'll see soon enough.

I still maintain that 4th Generation Ipods will have it built it, while 3rd Generation Ipods might have to buy a small adapter that fits on top of the ipod (in the spirit of Griffin's iTalk or iTrip) and have new firmware. I say it will NOT be an entirely OTHER REMOTE. And I can't wait to be proven right.

[Dehuti]

I believe, that what will be introduced with 10.4 is Terminal Services made 'the right way' by Apple. As an addition to that a new device will be introduced, called 'iTerminal', which in fact was predicted before; check this page (http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/12/30/wish_list.html?page=last&x-showcontent=text) !

iTerminal

Think of a traditional *nix terminal. Now bring it into the 21st century by replacing the monochrome-green CRT with a touch-sensitive flat-panel, and having it use Airport instead of an Ethernet cable to communicate with nearby Macs. Include Apple Remote Desktop to allow users to create sessions with their main workstations, or to use the iTerminal as a slideshow display for an iPhoto album stored elsewhere on the network.


It is obvious, mark this:
- 10.3 has some code related to virtual desktops. It will work in 10.4 as a possibility to run more than 1 desktop at the time, what's more - you can run yours AND other desktops (like Iterminal's!)
- until Itunes 4.6 you couldn't run more than one Itunes at the same time (for example on more logged user sessions), hey, now you can! Ring a bell?
- iTerminal will be remote 802.11g device. Why, you ask, not to put headset jack into it and skip all Airport Express-stuff? Simple; iTerminal supposed to be a remote device, your speakers are not.
- MacOSX is in fact Unix, terminals in Unix world are know better then alphabet to human kind. Microsoft has Terminal Services that works fine, with unit like wireless iTerminal Apple will kick some a......

If the remote we are discussing around here about will be in fact iTerminal keep in mind, that all iTerminal sessions are held on your Mac (which can be anywhere), so if iTerminal dies due to lack of power - your session remains and you can connect to it at any time, even using your Mac.

What's more - you could have up to 10 iTerminals with your 10.4 Pather all around the house (they will be cheep), so in fact your rooms will look like a interiors shown in Solaris movie.

[edgar_is_good]

I didn't see this idea mentioned in this thread or any other thread.

The main limitation of the AExp for streaming music is if your Mac is in a room other than the one that it's streaming to. There's no way to see what's playing or what's next. Plus, you can't control stuff like fast forward, skip, etc.

So instead of adding wifi to the iPod for streaming into the AExp, maybe what Apple should design is a small iTunes controller. This controller would have a small black/white screen and a few buttons (maybe the same layout as the miniPod). The internals would have an integrated 11g card.


Many people have been talking about this on various boards, but it's not clear why you'd use wifi. The need for that kind of bandwidth just isn't there (unless you're talking about streaming right off an ipod). If it's just a remote, you could probably do bluetooth and it would be smaller, lighter, and lower power.

Right now it seems there are two camps: adding wireless to ipod and an ipod-lookalike remote. I'm in the latter, pro bluetooth. Of course, there's probably a reason Steve has never asked my opinion, so take it for what it's worth.

[mclosers]

I think the fact that blue tooth has a smaller range.. (I believe)
Also the airport express is an 802.11 device and therefore it'd be logical to use that technology. I also think that if needed the air tunes remote could show album cover art or other info maybe...
I think bandwidth isn't the reason wifi would be used.. more of a distance and the fact that the base station uses it

[ingenious]

I believe, that what will be introduced with 10.4 is Terminal Services made 'the right way' by Apple. As an addition to that a new device will be introduced, called 'iTerminal', which in fact was predicted before; check this page (http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/12/30/wish_list.html?page=last&x-showcontent=text) !




It is obvious, mark this:
- 10.3 has some code related to virtual desktops. It will work in 10.4 as a possibility to run more than 1 desktop at the time, what's more - you can run yours AND other desktops (like Iterminal's!)
- until Itunes 4.6 you couldn't run more than one Itunes at the same time (for example on more logged user sessions), hey, now you can! Ring a bell?
- iTerminal will be remote 802.11g device. Why, you ask, not to put headset jack into it and skip all Airport Express-stuff? Simple; iTerminal supposed to be a remote device, your speakers are not.
- MacOSX is in fact Unix, terminals in Unix world are know better then alphabet to human kind. Microsoft has Terminal Services that works fine, with unit like wireless iTerminal Apple will kick some a......

If the remote we are discussing around here about will be in fact iTerminal keep in mind, that all iTerminal sessions are held on your Mac (which can be anywhere), so if iTerminal dies due to lack of power - your session remains and you can connect to it at any time, even using your Mac.

What's more - you could have up to 10 iTerminals with your 10.4 Pather all around the house (they will be cheep), so in fact your rooms will look like a interiors shown in Solaris movie.


Actually, iTunes 4.5 could run in multiple users.

[ingenious]

i see (eventually) a single computer in a house and the ability to operate it from anywhere in range by use of one of these things. have a display, keyboard, speaker, dvd/cd drive and mouse set up in every room if you so desire but the computer on the other side of the house. that would be beautiful. rather than networking computers let the computer become the network.

these computer ideas are like the big rooms full of computers with just 'terminals....'

[TednDi]

a handheld video RECORDER attached to the ipod4??

you could record in and playback in quicktime storing it on your 60gb harddrive?

then import to imovie, etc,....

not a pda not a camera

vpod?

for an example see

http://www.videodirect.com/panasonic/digitalmusicplayer/sv-as10s.html

[abc123]

these computer ideas are like the big rooms full of computers with just 'terminals....'
but more accessible and wireless

[Trowaman]

a handheld video RECORDER attached to the ipod4??

you could record in and playback in quicktime storing it on your 60gb harddrive?

then import to imovie, etc,....

not a pda not a camera

vpod?

for an example see

http://www.videodirect.com/panasonic/digitalmusicplayer/sv-as10s.html

HA! This is the beginning of what I've been saying, iSight + iPod equals camera. Go another step further and iChat AV to go (yes this needs develpment but still. . . )

[DrEasy]

Many people have been talking about this on various boards, but it's not clear why you'd use wifi. The need for that kind of bandwidth just isn't there (unless you're talking about streaming right off an ipod). If it's just a remote, you could probably do bluetooth and it would be smaller, lighter, and lower power.

Right now it seems there are two camps: adding wireless to ipod and an ipod-lookalike remote. I'm in the latter, pro bluetooth. Of course, there's probably a reason Steve has never asked my opinion, so take it for what it's worth.

How about this compromise:
1- plug an external bluetooth adapter in the USB port of AExpress. (might or might not be possible with current firmware)
2- plug a similar adapter on the iPod (or use a specific bluetooth remote control)
3- a bit of software magic (rendezvous? + software update for the iPod)...
4- point your device at AExpress and you can remote control your mac station via AExpress, as it will act as a relay between the remote and the mac!

This is useful when the mac is too far to be remote controlled directly via bluetooth (i.e. Mac in the office, AExpress in the living room), and would not require battery intensive WiFi on the iPod.

Is this feasible? Realistic? Practical?

[thatwendigo]

these computer ideas are like the big rooms full of computers with just 'terminals....'

What do you call xServe render farms with xSan load-balancing the entire group onto a single array of drives? I call it the future of consumer computing, as Apple sees it.

A while ago - to the tune of two or three months before the annnouncement of xSan - I posted some ideas that my dad and I had been kicking around for a while. Apple was looking into networked computing a while ago, talking with Oracle and others about netbooting and limited aspects of this technology. They already offer a VNC client that runs natively in OSX, thought it's currently too expensive for most home users ($299 for Apple Remote Desktop). They have experience in scalable processing and network storage, with the xServe and xServe RAID as proof of concept pieces, and the forthcoming xGrid as the glue to bind it all together.

Perhaps they won't go all the way into a terminal model. I'd rather they didn't, actually, and stuck with powerful machines in individual cases, but moved into an area that has been unexploited so far. Say that you've jumped onto the the digital video bandwagon and want to archive your family movies, or keep that growing collection of media you've bought online in a central location, or any of a hundred tasks we don't even know we're going to want to do until Apple shows us how easy it can be... How do you do it?

In my vision, they go with a proven model of computing - centralization of resources. Bear with me, here.

Say that you have three or four computers on a network at home, but not all of them are always in use. Now, you could turn the spare clock cycles of the idling ones into useable processing with the advent of ever-higher speed networking and good code (xGrid, just to name Apple's take on it). Add to this a community storage device, call it the iStore or something like that, and maybe a consumer-grade rackmount node. The iStore is a networked RAID chassis, probably in a rackmount style enclosure, which lets you add drives and share them with a more limited and user-friendly version of xSan. The computing nodes speed up things like DVD encoding and other processor intesive tasks, along with your daily use machines.

Why do it this way? Power management, among other things. Computers that aren't in use or supplementing others can power down into sleep and listen on the network for a signal that they're needed. The iStore means that computer form factors could be smaller without much sacrifice, and moving the bulk of your equipment off the desk means having more things available to do with the design of stationary machines. In fact, as wireless advances (802.15.3 is supposed to approach 200-400Mbit/s, or the current wired speed of IEEE1394a "FireWire"), this could be a way to make laptops all that much more viablle as a choice. You have your serious processing resources where they can be powered properly, and a powerful-as-possible platform you carry around with you.

As a footnote to my remark about bandwidth, the current high-speed consumer technology is 150MB/s Serial ATA. This is only 17% faster than gigabit ethernet (128MB/s), which Apple sells standard on many of their machines at this point, and 10GBE (or 10 gigabit Ethernet) is in the works. We're supposed to see SATA change sometime this year or early next year, as well, to 300MB/s, which would wouldn't come close to the 1,280MB/s bandwidth of a 10GBE connection. Even the next planned SATA revision, due in 2007, wouldn't seriously stress 10GBE, because it would only be 600MB/s. I'm no electrical engineer, but aside from latency issues, why would you want to stick with drives inside a chassis at that point? Your network is now twice as fast as your hard disk and there's no way it can keep up.

[ftaok]

Many people have been talking about this on various boards, but it's not clear why you'd use wifi. The need for that kind of bandwidth just isn't there (unless you're talking about streaming right off an ipod). If it's just a remote, you could probably do bluetooth and it would be smaller, lighter, and lower power.

Right now it seems there are two camps: adding wireless to ipod and an ipod-lookalike remote. I'm in the latter, pro bluetooth. Of course, there's probably a reason Steve has never asked my opinion, so take it for what it's worth.The main reason that I'm thinking wi-fi is range. True you would presumably have the remote in close proximity to the AExp unit, so that may not be an issue. The second reason is that I'm not sure that Bluetooth could handle the live updatiing of information from the Mac that I was describing. Maybe it can, I don't know.

Besides, wifi is pretty cheap these days. I don't think using wifi would be that much more expensive, if at all.

[Colman]

This is the key thing here: people do not really want a computer in their living room. Or their bedroom if they can help it. Even the cutest little Mac doesn't look all that good in either.

Jobs' money is on ancillary devices linked to the computer by wifi. The Airport Express shows this clearly. I don't think we're going to get anything that looks like a computer in the living room from Apple except for a laptop. So, a wifi iPod? Sure. Video out on AE Express 2? I'd be suprised if it didn't happen. Wi-fi tablet? Not a chance, except for maybe a very limited remote control device which would look more like one of the high-end programmable remotes than a tablet. At most capable of displaying album covers. Though even that is going to cost EUR200.00 or so, which is just too close to an iPod in price.

Jobs is betting that Microsoft are dead wrong, as is everyone trying to put a PC in the livingi room.

Colman

[Drinahn]

It shouldn't be too didficult to sort out a remote. Can't salling clicker control itunes with a bluetooth mobile phone?

Yep, and it rocks. My Sony Erricsson T610 with Salling Clicker rocks with my 17" AlBook... bluetooth is wonderful. Now I've ordered my Airport Express I'll be even happier. :-D

[GregA]

<snip>Apple was looking into networked computing a while ago, talking with Oracle and others about netbooting and limited aspects of this technology. They already offer a VNC client that runs natively in OSX, thought it's currently too expensive for most home users ($299 for Apple Remote Desktop). They have experience in scalable processing and network storage, with the xServe and xServe RAID as proof of concept pieces, and the forthcoming xGrid as the glue to bind it all together.

Perhaps they won't go all the way into a terminal model. I'd rather they didn't, actually, and stuck with powerful machines in individual cases, but moved into an area that has been unexploited so far.<snip>

Say that you have three or four computers on a network at home, but not all of them are always in use. Now, you could turn the spare clock cycles of the idling ones into useable processing with the advent of ever-higher speed networking and good code (xGrid, just to name Apple's take on it). Add to this a community storage device<snip>Nice ideas. Basically if I'm reading you right, you're saying have high power computers sharing each others processing power, and without hard disks (using a quality central storage RAID system). Interesting.

I've got 2 thoughts on your idea. You don't want to have a central high power computer with dumb terminals, so is there an advantage to having 2 machines with 1.8GHz processors instead of 1 machine with 2x1.8 GHz processors and 2 separate screens? If the network is as fast as you say, then whether the computing power is local or remote shouldn't matter right?

The other thought is more in support of your idea - one step further. Why have a central RAID disk at all? Why not have each computer take 5GB of its hard disk for itself, and then "give" the rest of its hard disk to the "LAN Disk". 5 computers might each provide 50GB - a total of 250GB. If the OS could make every computer's extra disk space look like one large virtual hard disk would that be useful? The OS could potentially make that redundant storage too - so you'd only get half the storage space, but the data is always stored in at least 2 places.

Who knows what Apple will do. One thing I've noticed is that they've got a lot of cool pieces that could go together in amazing ways, but they don't always use their pieces. I wish they would!

Personally while I like your idea (and my extension) from a technology viewpoint, I'd really like to see the terminal idea used. In particular I'd like to see some old computers becoming dumb terminals, so people who have a couple of old Macs (MacOS 9 etc?) can buy 1 new Mac and have 3 computers all running OS X. Give older supporters of Macs an added bonus to updating! Then again, you could do that for old PC owners too... convert a classroom of PCs into a classroom of Mac terminals just by adding a few high end power macs?

Ahh well... dreaming on... ;-)

[TednDi]

GSM phone (UNLOCKED and usable on any GSM network WORLDWIDE) with ical and address synch. Apple could add the keychain (very encrypted) and allow for any mac to be your mac. Small harddrive for some (1000) tunes and a remote for the control of imovie and itunes. Perhaps even the input device for spoken word interface (Tiger?). Remember apple 20 years ago taught us to use a mouse! Throw some QT7 high def video/photo recording into the mix and you have one hell of a consumer appliance for developers to develop.

[TednDi]

Perhaps tomorrow will be bigger than we thought??

Quicktime 7 with HD content DRM and itms integration will kick these fellas (see below) to the curb oh yea and all that PIXAR content.... and if you have noticed a little bit of cozing up with AOL in January remember what follows AOL ...TIME and a little company called WARNER BROTHERS!!!

Content is the KEY!!!

and if Apple computer licences QT7 to Time Warner Cable for it's set top HD PVR's then convergence is here!!!

Books
Movies
Music
AOL databases

One stroke and APPLE is in the lead again!!!

th th that's all folks!

from aoltimewarner.com

+++++++++++++++++++
Time Warner is the world's leading media and entertainment company, whose businesses include filmed entertainment, interactive services, television networks, cable systems, publishing and music.
Media & Communications Group

America Online
Time Warner Book Group
Time Inc.
Time Warner Cable

Entertainment & Networks

Home Box Office
New Line Cinema
Turner Broadcasting System
Warner Bros. Entertainment

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

from msnbc.com

++++++++++++++++
Real, Starz launch Internet movie service
Subscriptions to cost $12.95 a monthThe Associated Press
Updated: 5:28 a.m. ET June 14, 2004SEATTLE - RealNetworks Inc. and Starz Encore Group LLC are launching an Internet movie subscription service Monday, 18 months after the two companies first announced plans for the offering.

Seattle-based RealNetworks and Starz of Englewood, Colo., had planned to begin the service in the spring of 2003, after announcing it in December 2002. But RealNetworks vice president Karim Meghji said it was delayed because the companies didn't think the market was ready for the offering, which lets people download movies to watch on computers.

One big hurdle was broader adoption of high-speed broadband Internet connections, which Meghji said allows the movie files to be downloaded in 30 minutes or less.

The company wouldn't disclose its sales projections or say when it hoped the venture would be profitable.

But RealNetworks is hoping the service will eventually get to the point that families are subscribing and watching the movies from their regular television screens, mobile video players and other gadgets. That could take a while, however, as the technology is developed, becomes affordable and is widely adopted.

The service, called Starz! Ticket on Real Movies, will cost $12.95 a month and give viewers access to about 100 movies. The movies are available for viewing an unlimited number of times while they are part of Starz's current roster of films, but the movie is then deleted from the hard drive when the company no longer carries it.

Competitors include Movielink, which charges per movie download and is backed by several movie studios, and CinemaNow, which lets users buy subscriptions or pay per movie and is backed partly by Real rival Microsoft Corp.

The company also faces competition from Netflix, the mail-order video service.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[joeboy_45101]

Has anybody noticed that the symbol that Sony is Using for their Sony Connect service looks very much like the icon Apple uses for importing in iTunes? :confused:

[TednDi]

it looks like all of their logos lame.

McTunes! no nutritonal value, and you can't share it without express written permission from sony music.

LAME ATRAC is too little too late. Only japanese schoolgirls will use it.

Unless sony gives the players away in the happy meal.

Go IPOD!!

[DMann]

Bring on the remote control for the
Airport Express......

[fraggle]

Hi!

Has anyone seen this?

http://www.sonyericsson.com/mmv-100/index.html

It looks like at least picture "streaming" can already be done... This combined with a WiFi and BT enabled iPod and we have a really good remote control...

BTW: Streaming from the iPod should not be impossible. If Airport Express contains come memory (say 4MB) it would require new data only every 30 seconds or so. And the amount of data needed can be transferred in 2 seconds (appr.)...

[GregA]

Steve Jobs doesn't believe in the media centre PC. This is the key thing here: people do not really want a computer in their living room. Or their bedroom if they can help it. Even the cutest little Mac doesn't look all that good in either.

Jobs' money is on ancillary devices linked to the computer by wifi. The Airport Express shows this clearly. I don't think we're going to get anything that looks like a computer in the living room from Apple except for a laptop. So, a wifi iPod? Sure. Video out on AE Express 2? I'd be suprised if it didn't happen. Wi-fi tablet? Not a chance<snip>Actually, what you imply in your first line and what you later state don't appear to add up to me.

Steve said people don't want a computer on their TV. They are different markets. He also said that computer technologies will be added to things in the TV and stereo. My personal interpretation is that Steve doesn't believe in using Microsoft Word on your TV. Probably not reading a newspaper-style website either (you need to be close up - and you don't setup your TV for that).

Steve also said he didn't want someone watching TV to slow down someone using their computer, though he was referring to recording (avoid something like "damn, I can't do my work because my wife is recording Friends")

Steve's comments left many avenues WIDE open. What made you think that a tablet PC isn't possible?

And on an entirely different note:
Time will tell. It's obvious that we will SOMEHOW be able to control MUSIC with AExpress in some fashion. <snip> I still maintain that 4th Generation Ipods will have it built it <snip>. I say it will NOT be an entirely OTHER REMOTE. And I can't wait to be proven right.You may be right. Why would you want to be? Apple might grow much bigger by having some inexpensive options that bring in new users. So I hope you are wrong as I don't need a walkman - thus Apple's solution would be too expensive for my needs. Long live competition.

[thatwendigo]

Nice ideas. Basically if I'm reading you right, you're saying have high power computers sharing each others processing power, and without hard disks (using a quality central storage RAID system). Interesting.

You'd have a system disk and some limited storage in the consumer machines, saving high-speed disk access for the network storage unit or professional machines. Essentially, home and small business networks could be turned into a sort of completely linked setup that turns them into limited supercomputers.

Apple: Supercomputing for the Rest of Us.

It could happen.

I've got 2 thoughts on your idea. You don't want to have a central high power computer with dumb terminals, so is there an advantage to having 2 machines with 1.8GHz processors instead of 1 machine with 2x1.8 GHz processors and 2 separate screens? If the network is as fast as you say, then whether the computing power is local or remote shouldn't matter right?

Well, that really gets down to how the machines are designed and what your setup is going to be like. With enough badnwidth, anything is theoretically possible, but you're going to run into a couple of issues with any remote computing system - latency, dropped signal, and efficiency. The first and last are probably the most pertinent in this case, since distance increases access and transmission times (i.e. latency) that affect the overal speed of the system, and latency decreases the power of the system overall by reducing the efficiency below optimum levels.

However, this can be overcome with clever engineering and some good software, or else there would be no reason to cluster for anything at all. Apple is notorious for both, and their professional line is moving more and more into this model of doing things. The "advantage" to a single 1.8 G5 in two units, as compared to a dual 1.8 in a single unit is that you can manufacture the first more cheaply, and people can add into the cluster as necessary. You lose some benefit of shelling out for the dual, but it doesn't bar you from ever improving your system.

Imagine if you will, Joe Average. He doesn't want to get rid of his computer he paid for, but he needs more speed. With the Apple clustering solutions, he can buy a box and put it into a closet or on a rack, plug in three cables, and the network autodetects and assigns it to the virtual machine as additional resources.

Would Joe Average manage that easier than swapping a processor or changing a motherboard? I think so, especially if he can be shown that he gets to keep on using his machine and, most importantly, neither have to learn anything new nor move his information to a new machine.

The other thought is more in support of your idea - one step further. Why have a central RAID disk at all? Why not have each computer take 5GB of its hard disk for itself, and then "give" the rest of its hard disk to the "LAN Disk".

For one simple reason - centralization is good when you can manage it. A disk array that has to search your whole network first would probably be pretty slow. One that's in a single enclosure would be faster, and one that's in the machine would be fastest. So you compromise and move your serious storage to a hot-swappable or otherwise easily changed design so that Joe Average can replace his drive if one fails or he wants more, rather than digging around inside his case.

5 computers might each provide 50GB - a total of 250GB. If the OS could make every computer's extra disk space look like one large virtual hard disk would that be useful? The OS could potentially make that redundant storage too - so you'd only get half the storage space, but the data is always stored in at least 2 places.

What you're describing exists in Apple technology today. The load-balancing done by xSan allows all the disks in an xServe RAID to be RAID striped together in any way the user wants. A RAID 0+1 setup would speed the disk access times, while also mirroring data for redundancy, and keeping the drives in a single chassis would also increase speed while allowing all machines to access the 'server' box that holds them.

Incidentally, someone apparently likes my idea (though I'm not the first to espouse it). Linksys and Maxtor are bringing a wireless networked drive to market jointly. (http://news.com.com/Maxtor%2C+Linksys+to+debut+wireless+external+hard+drive/2100-1040_3-5233525.html?tag=st_lh) The system is said to include a file manager that will act as a server to PCs connecting to it.

[1macker1]

I'm really wanting to see what the remote looks like. I hope they don't overprice it, esp. after they did such a good job pricing the AirportExpress.
Bring on the remote control for the
Airport Express......

[pjkelnhofer]

Incidentally, someone apparently likes my idea (though I'm not the first to espouse it). Linksys and Maxtor are bringing a wireless networked drive to market jointly. (http://news.com.com/Maxtor%2C+Linksys+to+debut+wireless+external+hard+drive/2100-1040_3-5233525.html?tag=st_lh) The system is said to include a file manager that will act as a server to PCs connecting to it.

I like the idea of the wireless network drive, but right now, when you look at the speed of Firewire (or Gigabit Ethernet) compared to WiFi, it seems like it would be frustratingly slow when copying files to or from the shared drive.