60 GB Color Screen Photo-Capable iPod?

[Jonm]

Suppose it'll be useful for some people — but I just want my iPod to play music. Sounds like another case of Apple doing it because they can. Still, if it sells what the heck?
I just hope we're not going to see ALL iPods boast the photo feature as they upgrade the range.

 

[BornAgainMac]

40 GB iPod under $299

I bet within 6 to 8 months, a 40 GB iPod will sell for around $299 as drive prices go down. New products need to be made to keep the excitment up. A flash version of the iPod and an iPod that has additional features to take advantage of the disk space as noted in this rumor.

 

[mactarkus]

How does iPod = Music?

I don't see anything in the name "iPod" that implies music. While that has been the primary focus, I believe the "Pod" is a portable version of the the digital "Hub", which the iMac has become. It's about time, Apple had some real features beyond MP3 playing to make it a real "iPod" and not just an "iMusic" with a few seldom used add-ons (calendar/addresses/notes/etc).

So if the iPod is about the music, since this one is about more than the music, could this carry the title of something more than "iPod". Especially since it is in it's own division of Apple, I would not be surprised to see some other products added to the line besides the "iPod."

-superdrive

 

[Stella]

What do you expect?

Apple *have* to compete with the video players. They'll give you an option - if you don't want the video iPod you can still get the regular iPod.

Anyway.. *that* is my next iPod. I hope its not just a rumour. iPhoto integration would be excellent and a natural progression with the iLive apps.

 

[beerman]

Pull Your Head Out!

Let's see some photos! No, really, this poses two problems: no market to PC users unless the begin porting iPhoto or use another PC app, and power. Interesting concept though.
–Chase

See some photos?! Pull your head out, man! Read the story....AGAIN! IT LOOKS JUST LIKE THE CURRENT iPOD! There's nothing to see that you can't see at apple.com!

It's laughable some of the comments people make when they don't use common sense.

 

[James_C]

Ultimately Apple will put in what the consumers demand. (Satellite Navigation for Runners à la Garmin, Heart Rate Monitor (Pulsar) - whatever -

Sorry I can't agree with you on that, if Apple does what consumers want we would have a two button, scroll wheel mouse, and a cheap headless Mac.

 

[MarcelV]

Keynote support

Wouldn't it be great to be able to run Keynote presentations on this thing? Video-out would make it possible. And we have next and previous buttons....

 

[mactarkus]

No Shrek on iPod

While I actually enjoyed Shrek and for once it didn't fall on the heals of a similar Pixar movie looking to capitalize on its popularity (e.g. Pixar's Bug's Life then DW's Antz and Pixar's Nemo then DW's Shark Tale), I doubt very seriously that Steve would ever show Shrek on the screen of a video capable iPod.


How about this instead?

Dude I like that!

 

[maresboys]

music, photos, video, tv and more

does anyone have any knowledge of the ARCHOS AV400?
looks like they have it all covered!......not sure when its available but if it's as good as it looks I won't be upgrading my 20G with another ipod.

http://www.archos.com/products/overview/av400_series.html

 

[DWKlink]

Small Color Screen is Useful

To all those who think that a 2" Color LCD is useless - how many of you own digital cameras? Take pictures with that screen. Check pictures on that screen. Show pictures to others on that screen.

Sure its not as nice as seeing them on a 20" monitor. But it is big enough to be useful - and its bigger than a lot of cameras that only have 1.8" screens.

A friend of mine got one of the new iRiver HD players, and the first thing i noticed was the display. It was a higher resolution than the iPods and had much nicer icons and layout. I think that you all are underestimating the power that a nice crisp color display can have on the overall impact of the iPod.

Apple has to keep evolving this product if it wants to remain on top. And as long as it doesn't eat into battery life (and hopefully with a higher capacity - slightly thicker battery maybe they can keep it over the 10 hour mark) I think this is a great step in the evolution.

 

[jeffbistrong]

i like this

I am really liking this new revision, all these new and useful features . . . the color screen being able to display picutures . . . totally draining the battery right. . . isnt the battery not that good as it is?

 

[zelmo]

This is the next logical step in the evolution of the iPod product line, as well as the next piece in the digital hub puzzle. Sure, it won't do everything that everyone wants (record TV, play video), and does some things that other people don't care about (store photo's, connect to a TV). Get over it.

If Apple had announced a 4G 60GB iPod at $499 back when they announced the other two 4G models, everyone would have cheered. Now here it comes, but with additional features (a color screen, iPhoto capability, and video out) with no additional price bump, and people are complaining? Great! Don't buy one, it'll make it easier for me to get mine.

 

[Porchland]

I have often thought that the iPod would eventualy include iPhoto integration, but what about Windows users? Will this mean the porting of the iLife apps to Windows? How can they add a feature like this an exclude the majority of iPod users? If they want to sell them then they will have to offer Windows support. And of course if they port iLife why not everything else? They will make a killing on the software sales alone.

That's an interesting connundrum for Apple. They want to sell iPods, but they also want to promote Macs. They want to make features available on the iPod across platforms, but they don't want to canibalize iLife by making it work on Windows.

I wouldn't be surprised to see iPhoto become available for Windows, but I don't think the full iLife suite will anytime soon. iTunes is basically a loss-leader for the iPod, and I think Apple would treat iPhoto the same way. If Apple made the full suite available for Windows, it would have to be to profit from the sale of iLife and (partly) at the expense of future Mac sales. Choosing Windows software over Mac hardware doesn't seem practical.

 

[tariqali666]

The rumour says that the device will be marketed as holding 20,000 songs.

That to me seems wrong. Didn't apple kick up a fuss a while back with sony cos they advertised high sound-track holding capability, but didn't mention a dirty low bit-rate? For 60 gigs to hold 20,000 , the bit-rate needs to be about 96 kbps.

My opinion on this? Whatever. Want 60 gigs, but not fussed about the whole photo malarky.

 

[Diatribe]

This is the next logical step in the evolution of the iPod product line, as well as the next piece in the digital hub puzzle. Sure, it won't do everything that everyone wants (record TV, play video), and does some things that other people don't care about (store photo's, connect to a TV). Get over it.

If Apple had announced a 4G 60GB iPod at $499 back when they announced the other two 4G models, everyone would have cheered. Now here it comes, but with additional features (a color screen, iPhoto capability, and video out) with no additional price bump, and people are complaining? Great! Don't buy one, it'll make it easier for me to get mine.

Exactly. Somebody had to say it. 😀

 

[Wonder Boy]

i dont take enough (if any) digital pics that i would need to load, store, and show them from my ipod. 60 gigs sounds good, but i only have 900 songs on my 30 giger, so this is of little interest.

now if the ipod had radio built it, well, they might sway me.

 

[Porchland]

Suppose it'll be useful for some people — but I just want my iPod to play music. Sounds like another case of Apple doing it because they can. Still, if it sells what the heck?
I just hope we're not going to see ALL iPods boast the photo feature as they upgrade the range.

Why would you care if your iPod had the new feature or not if you're not going to use it and the price is the same? You would at least get the benefit of the color screen.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the iPod mini become the "music" iPod and the white iPod continue to move into multimedia.

 

[AoWolf]

When I first read this I was thinking, Oh MY Goodness! the realists have lost control over macrumors! But seriously think secret does have some credibility. I wonder though if this would look more like a PDA/tablet.

 

[jcshas]

The Amazing Race...

I give up, I can't play the iPod upgrade game any more! I started with a 2 gen 10 gig and then soon upgraded to the 20 gig. Filled that up in no time at all, and so I upgraded to a 3rd gen 30 gig. 30 gig wasnt enough so I upgraded to a 3rd gen 40 gig. Apple relased the click-wheel iPod, and so I sold my 3rd gen 40 gig for a 4th gen 40 gig click wheel. (pause) Are they taking pre-orders yet? 🙂

 

[Porchland]

WHEN?!?! I've held off getting an iPod for 6 months now because I want a 60GB hard drive so I can fit all my tracks onto it. I’m going on another road trip in late November. Come on Apple. Get your dang butt in gear with these iPods!!

Are you going to Tibet -- by foot? Bigger drives will certainly hold bigger music collections, but I definitely see Apple targeting bigger drives at other types of media. I would say the average iTunes music collection -- even excluding the 100-tracks-or-less crowd -- is no more than 10 GB. There are certainly larger collections out there, but Apple is reaching a point where a bigger drive isn't as important to music.

Photos and video, though, are certainly going to require more capacity.

I would really like to see the new scalable codec used to promote multiple versions of videos. This way iTunes (iMedia?) would know the difference between sending a feed to an iPod (small bandwidth) and sending a feed to an HDTV (large bandwidth). One day Apple will be in the video download business, and some sort of tool for managing multiple versions would allow Apple to scale for small and large devices.

Given unlimited storage capacity, though, there's no need for scaling. Everything fits. So as portable drives get larger, the need for versions gets smaller.

 

[Stewie]

but what about video? That would really be killer if you could play your .avi's or .mov's!

Exactly. I can't imagine going somewhere whipping out my iPod and cable to plug into someone's TV to show pictures of my vaction. How annoying would that be. "Hey did I show you the 25,000 pictures I took when I went to last weeks 'insert local annoying event of your choice'

I doubt I would get invited back if I tried that.

 

[zelmo]

Exactly. I can't imagine going somewhere whipping out my iPod and cable to plug into someone's TV to show pictures of my vaction. How annoying would that be. "Hey did I show you the 25,000 pictures I took when I went to last weeks 'insert local annoying event of your choice'

I doubt I would get invited back if I tried that.

True, that would be pretty annoying. OTOH, I'd love to visit my mom and let her see all the latest pictures of her grandson without printing them out or lugging around the laptop all the time. This would be cool.

Of course, being able to play video to a TV would be cooler. Don't worry, we'll get there. Baby steps.

 

[zim]

While I actually enjoyed Shrek and for once it didn't fall on the heals of a similar Pixar movie looking to capitalize on its popularity (e.g. Pixar's Bug's Life then DW's Antz and Pixar's Nemo then DW's Shark Tale), I doubt very seriously that Steve would ever show Shrek on the screen of a video capable iPod.


How about this instead?

Have you ever thought that Shrek was Dreamworks answer to Monsters? I also hate how they seem to run out and buy up all the big name actors for voice overs, as if that is going to make the experience somehow better.

I like this idea, photo iPod but, I keep thinking that this is a prototype and I am sure Apple has all sorts of prototypes floating around. Currently I use the Blekin reader and although it works and is an amazing thing to have, it could be better so I am happy to hear of this development.

If Apple came out with the 60GB iPod with a color screen tomorrow, I think I would still upgrade my 3G to the 20GB 4G only because I would want them to find a way to reduce the size and weight. When palm first came out with their color devices, I remember them also being heavier and a bit bulkier then the normal ones.

iPhoto on the iPod, it's a good thing 😉

 

[Mr. Anderson]

If you can hook one of these up to a digital camera it would be a great way to download the images in the field or on a trip without having to bring your computer.

This is the sort of thing I've been waiting for actually. Especially with an 8 MP camera - it will be a huge deal.

I'm wondering if they'll use OLED displays instead of LCD?

D

 

[denm316]

My 15gb is almost full and have been waiting for a wothwhile feature to upgrade to a new one. This would cause me to upgrade. I would have also liked to have buetooth wireless earphones added too.