Return of 'Home on iPod'?

[Alex Wrege]

iPod or FirewireHD?

I personally own an iPod but for the feature at hand I would probably opt for another solution. The Apple Stores have SmartDisk's FireLite 40GB FireWire Drive available for just about
230 bucks.
They are just about as small as the iPod, do not require an external power source, and have a better dollar/gigabyte ratio. I'd probably rather have a smaller iPod (well, actually I have a 15 GB one) and have firewire hd as a supplement. That way I also wouldn't have to worry about using up hd-space on "my preciousss" ... iPod, that is.

Smartdisk's website or check the Apple Online Store under "Storage"

Alex

 

[coumerelli]

Originally posted by Alex Wrege
iPod or FirewireHD?

I personally own an iPod but for the feature at hand I would probably opt for another solution. The Apple Stores have SmartDisk's FireLite 40GB FireWire Drive available for just about
230 bucks.
They are just about as small as the iPod, do not require an external power source, and have a better dollar/gigabyte ratio. I'd probably rather have a smaller iPod (well, actually I have a 15 GB one) and have firewire hd as a supplement. That way I also wouldn't have to worry about using up hd-space on "my preciousss" ... iPod, that is.

Smartdisk's website or check the Apple Online Store under "Storage"

Alex

Please read the 'entire' rumor that is posted. In it it explains that you can use an iPod OR any other firewire HD.

 

[AirUncleP]

Originally posted by macrumors12345
I MUST HAVE this feature. I am buying an old B&W G3 for the office just in anticipation of using this with my iPod (I'm sure the G3 will compare very favorably to my home computer...Dual G5).

Going from a Dual G5 at home to a B&W G3 at work......hhhmmmm.... kind of reminds me of Hugh Grant. Going from Elizabeth Hurley at home to Devine Brown in some Hollywood park restroom.

 

[MacandCheese]

Cash Money Bling Bling

This iPod is becoming so versatile by the moment. Now I have no excuse not to be productive while at school. God bless america, beer and steve jobs!

 

[gwuMACaddict]

this is a pretty bitchin' feature... i already use my Pod to swap large photoshop files between computers at home and work and school. this would be even better.

 

[doc]

Originally posted by AirUncleP
Going from a Dual G5 at home to a B&W G3 at work......hhhmmmm.... kind of reminds me of Hugh Grant. Going from Elizabeth Hurley at home to Devine Brown in some Hollywood park restroom.

Some may say it was Liz at work but...

There have been some interesting points raised in this thread. The most interesting being the fact that the feature would have to be cross platform. a lot of enlightened users have to go to an office and use the hardware they are supplied with.

the sych would have to work seemlessly between any platform and as such is quite a technological hurdle. perhaps this is the reason for the delay.

On a business level, it would be tantamount to a coup for apple to release a bit of hardware that interfaces dull beige boxes with whatever a user would prefer to use in the comfort of their own four walls.

Bring it on!

 

[kcmac]

Wasn't this talked about in the last keynote by Jobs as a feature for Panther? It just didn't make it but maybe it will soon.

 

[hokka]

Pal

Here's the Pal image posted around June:

 

[zim]

This feature has me extremely excited!!! How do you think it would work? would I connect and if on the log in section be able to actually log in to any computer as me? and if say I am already logged in, would it just show up as a hard drive... so many questions, can't wait to see this in action.

 

[~Shard~]

I thought this was an excellent feature when I initially read about it on MR, and was surprised and a little disappointed that it wasn't actually included in Panther. It would be great to see it in 10.3.3 or some upcoming release, and I can see how a lot of people will be making a lot of use out of it.

 

[daddy-mojo]

why cross platform

Originally posted by doc
Some may say it was Liz at work but...

There have been some interesting points raised in this thread. The most interesting being the fact that the feature would have to be cross platform. a lot of enlightened users have to go to an office and use the hardware they are supplied with.

the sych would have to work seemlessly between any platform and as such is quite a technological hurdle. perhaps this is the reason for the delay.

On a business level, it would be tantamount to a coup for apple to release a bit of hardware that interfaces dull beige boxes with whatever a user would prefer to use in the comfort of their own four walls.

Bring it on!

why cross platform? it is a panther feature after all, not win. bring it to the platform of choice. how would you & what would you sync with a completely different operating system. seems like it would be making a hell of a lot more work and potential for problems. luckily i'm fortunate enough to have macs at work and at home, so this feature would be fine with me just as it is, mac only (or at least at first).

 

[splashman]

iPod HD too slow for "serious" work

While I can certainly see that the "Home on iPod" feature will be a boon to some, it seems to me that the iPod's HD is too slow for any serious work (large files, lengthy work sessions). I have no idea what the specs on the Toshiba drive are, but it "feels" slow, and drives for portables are optimized for reduced power consumption (slower seek time and platter speed). I'm guessing even a PowerBook HD would smoke the iPod drive.

I can see the iPod being useful as a quick-and-dirty solution, and it definitely pegs the "cool" meter, but if I had frequent need of such a thing, I'd get a "real" FireWire HD and suffer the size/weight penalty.

If I were still a teenager, on the other hand . . .

 

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by hokka
What happens if you:

1]. don't have .Mac?
2]. have to work on a PC at work? I know, obviously syncing don't work but I just want to point out not everyone are fortunate enough to have both Macs at work AND home

That's why this is only useful to a small sector of Mac users

1) It doesn't say anything about .Mac
2) It would probably access, just be able to modify the files like any other drive can.

Originally posted by hokka
Remember "Pal" ?? -->

https://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/06/20030603132519.shtml

and the "light-bulb" images that appeared on the web in June, it's pretty much what we're speculating here, right Arn?

Corr...

Originally posted by hokka
Here's the Pal image posted around June:

ect!

We have a winner!



edit:

splashman-- The iPod has a 4200 RPM... the data is also here:
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2003/11_nov/news/cw_tosh_drives.htm

No its not a 'fast' drive, but its small... ah whever, you can use other firewire HD if you care...

 

[sethypoo]

Why was this feature taken away in the first place?

 

[Awimoway]

Ahahaha! This will be great for my new 30 GB iPod that arrived today even though I currently have only 9 GB of music.

Too bad I've left school and have no Macs at my workplace, but I am about to start working and I think/hope I will be in luck at my new place of employment.


Anyway, this is one more proof that most really good rumors are true, iWalk excepted. I remember all the Pal naysayers claiming Photoshop work. It makes a lot of sense that this would be Pal.

So the question is, what was the hold up and did it have anything to do with the leaked images earlier this year?

I just hope this will work better than FileVault.

 

[SeaFox]

Originally posted by sethypoo
Why was this feature taken away in the first place?

It wasn't ready for Panther's launch date.

Some of the underlying structure needed for it was found when people poked around in the dev. builds (may still be there). But the feature was never fully implemented and activated in the Gold Master.

 

[adamberti]

This sounds cool and all, but I think it has potential to be anti-productive too. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have enough distractions on my computer at home. If I was logged in at work as myself with all my files from home, I think I would suffer some productivity loss. It's got its uses, but I could see some sompanies saying No to employees using this feature.

Still, bring it on.

 

[leenoble]

Please cite precident

Can someone please cite a precident for a major new feature being added in a x.x.+1 upgrade.
I can't recall a single one, but then it is before 7am here and I'm not fully awake.
I don't see it happening until 10.4 now. As far as I can recall these minor updates have only ever brought bug fixes and never new features. The only exception being that of 10.1 which brought menulets and better popup menus to the dock application icons. But then although that upgrade was free it was a. x.+1 upgrade not an x.x.+1 one.
I'd like to be proven wrong though.

 

[Bengt77]

Re: Please cite precident

Originally posted by leenoble
Can someone please cite a precident for a major new feature being added in a x.x.+1 upgrade.

The only one I can think of is Mac OS 8.5.1. It brought stability.

(And that, considering 8.5, was indeed a major new feature.)

 

[Analog Kid]

The irony is that it probably won't support the single most obvious use: music. Right now the music on the iPod is sorta hidden to make it harder for folks to use the iPod to shuttle music from machine to machine.

(Yes, it can be defeated quite easily... I know)

Right now I have 3 copies of all my music-- my home computer, my work computer and my iPod. Seems rather wasteful. I'd love to have the music library in one place only and save myself 20+20GB.

Great feature over all, though. And one I'd certainly get a lot of use from (and one that would get me to upgrade my iPod to a larger size, and then probably again when yet larger ones come around).

As far as speed-- from the rumor text it looks like it's possible to sync changes to another drive, so you'd be able to run from a fast drive and cart the slower, more portable, iPod.

I'd hope the syncing was an option though. I could easily imagine using this to plug into co-workers machines but wouldn't want my home directory copied over...

Really looking forward to this one! And it would ensure my iPod batteries were always topped up!

 

[groovebuster]

I think this just shows one thing again:

Panther was rushed into a release because of political reasons (Launch of the G5). It was still far from being finished. That's why they have to fix features now that were obviously still beta and implement some of the promised features that were supposed to be in the RC by service updates. I am not impressed...

groovebuster

 

[Trimix]

this is an excellent feature, especially if a company has field offices with similar tech set-up.
it sure would be brilliant - no need to carry the laptop unless you MUST be seen working in an airport lounge to get your self-esteem up

 

[gola]

for those who can´t wait

Try out carbon copy cloner, which does just the same, except that it syncs the entire panther system (and thus requires a bit more room on the pod). Just plug in the firewire-disk and change the startupdisk and you are working in your own home-folder.

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

A great piece of software!

 

[Phobophobia]

Gola, the cool part about this new feature is that you don't have to install an operating system on your ipod, just your home folder and your files. Otherwise, you'd waste a whole lotta space on your iPod.

 

[ntg]

I can see a parallel here:-
First, we had Backup, which syncs docs to .Mac
Then, it was updated to sync with a local disk (iPod)

Now we have iSync which syncs between iPod and .mac

All we need next is the link with a local disk.......