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Apple Announces iPod Airplane Integration
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Right on! Apple is going to mitigate the media flurry around the Zune. "Brownie, you are doing a heck of a job..."
That does get to the heart of the matter doesn't it. The airlines and auto manufactures, and heck the audio industry is not going to want to support multiple interfaces... Will there be a standard? HA! Fat chance. Adapters - maybe. I need the zune to iPod dock port dongle... Wait, I won't need one - I'm a podder.
Definition:
Zune (zoon)
Now that I say that, Zune can never have the Airline compatability! All those bricks would add too much weight!😛
Zune (zoon)
See: Brick
Now that I say that, Zune can never have the Airline compatability! All those bricks would add too much weight!😛
I fly between Manchester and New Jersey (Newark) a Lot, like 7 or 8 times a year for personal reasons 🙂
Anyway, I fly a mixture of KLM / Northwest Airlines, Continental or British Airways, it would be pretty cool, though most of the time I use my ipod whilst sat in the lounge then when on board I watch their movies, they offer like 6 of them and some good comedy channels.
Then again if I loaded some movies onto my ipod I could probably watch them, its just deciding before you go what mood your in!
Anyway, I fly a mixture of KLM / Northwest Airlines, Continental or British Airways, it would be pretty cool, though most of the time I use my ipod whilst sat in the lounge then when on board I watch their movies, they offer like 6 of them and some good comedy channels.
Then again if I loaded some movies onto my ipod I could probably watch them, its just deciding before you go what mood your in!
I'm sure that a 3rd party adaptor will appear to connect an iPod dock connector to whatever kind of connector the Zune ends up using...
Still this will give the iPod one more feather in its cap. I'm certainly thrilled by this news, and I think it makes the idea of a video iPod much more appealing. In general, I've taken the stance that if I'm going to watch a video on a plane, I'd rather watch it on my PB's large screen. The iPod screen is just too small. But if I could watch it on the plane's screen, that would make the iPod a viable alternative.
This would also eliminate one of my pet-peeves about the in-flight entertainment. Ever since airlines (i.e. JetBlue) have started offering TV, there's been a slight problem. When the captain comes on, it mutes the sound of the TV, but doesn't pause it, or anything like that. The last flight I was on, I was watching a drama, and at a pivotal plot moment the captain came on with "Hello, ladies and gentleman, this is your captain.... if you look out the right side of the plane you can see...". He droned on for several minutes while I watched two people talking to each other, resolving a plot point. I had no idea what they were saying (not being a very good lip reader), and I was furious! It would have been one thing if he was coming on to give us some important information, but he was just simply giving one of those "up here at 35000 feet the air is really cold" speeches, and he could NOT have picked a worse time to do it, as far as the program I was watching. Now, if I had been watching something on an iPod, I could have paused while he was talking, or rewound after he was through. (I expect if it's going through the plane's system it would still mute out whatever I was watching in favor of the captain's voice.)
I would call this "pre-lobothomy"😱
What happened to old driving games and conversation?😱
That truly is the news ... it's not MP3 player integration ... it's iPod integration!
Really? That's too bad... it was a really neat feature. I knew when to expect altitude changes, when (and, more importantly, why) various turns were being made, and whether to expect turbulence up ahead. Hearing the hand-off between various centers also gave me a rough idea of where we were, and gave me an idea of our surroundings (I heard pilots and ATC commenting on what was likely smoke from a forest fire).
99 bottles of beer on the wall,
99 bottles of beer.
If one of those bottles should happen to fall,
98 bottles of beer on the wall.
98 bottles of beer on the wall...
😀
I like this announcement; it's not a direct vocal challenge to the Zune on launch day, but it does remind the wider world of what the standard is for mp3/portable video players, with a nice new feature to boot. Fanboys of MS can rip on the iPod for lacking things like wireless, but the seamless integration from home to car to flight is worth more to most consumers than a stupid sharing option. I mean really, if you want to advertise what you're listening to others, get a boombox to carry around on your shoulder (what happened to the 80s? 😉 ).
Advantage: Apple
Advantage: Apple
Not legally ... Apple owns the patent to the iPod dock connector. Any commercial or retail use is strictly against Apple patents. Developers pay a small percentage to Apple for every product sold that uses the iPod dock connector. While it has been hacked and many home brew adapter guides have been on the internet, these items are also not for sale. So, I doubt we WILL see such an adapter.
Perhaps premature
It sounds really nice, but... perhaps someone got out the press release too soon. The Dutch airline KLM, one of the partners mentioned in the article, are apparently not aware of the deal and respond in surprise to the news. They also say Air France, KLM's owner, nows nothing.
The article, in Dutch: http://www.nu.nl/news/885979/54/'iPod-aansluiting_in_vliegtuigen'.html
It sounds really nice, but... perhaps someone got out the press release too soon. The Dutch airline KLM, one of the partners mentioned in the article, are apparently not aware of the deal and respond in surprise to the news. They also say Air France, KLM's owner, nows nothing.
The article, in Dutch: http://www.nu.nl/news/885979/54/'iPod-aansluiting_in_vliegtuigen'.html
(Translation by me. I'm not quite sure if the spokesman means 'now', ie. since the announcement, or 'at the moment', ie someting went wrong at the talks.)
"Because he's a pervert, son. Stop staring at his screen and keep watching how the American hero slaughters evil terrorists with his machine gun on your TV screen."
Technically, people were able to watch porn on their notebooks during a flight, and so far this hasn't been an issue, has it?
This is a great idea of apple to do actually. It will help them expand alot more and if they put demo versions on plans it will advertise to another customer base.
However im still not sure if apple can pull it off..Sorry double post accidently so using this one instead of my edit
That's true, it will, and so I wonder what will be done about it when it does happen. Can airline staff confiscate your iPod till the end of the flight, will an air marshall urge you to choose something more appropriate ?
Sweet, I just booked a flight with them for an upcoming trip to Canada, it's good to know they were a good choice.
AVOD (Audio Video On Demand) is becoming increasingly popular on international airlines, however normally only in first and business as you point out.
Hopefully iPod integration will be incorporated throughout all the classes in the airlines which employ it, that way everyone will have their own AVOD for stuff they own. I see no reason to lock out more than half the passengers, when it could drive sales, touting it as a feature on that airline as oppose to another airline - without paying a premium for a higher class.
And most importantly for me, Cathay Pacific, who are partners with both of them... and I much prefer Cathay to Qantas.
Generally airlines offer movies showing in the cinema at the time, your getting a movie ticket, or a few, included as a bonus with your travel, sometimes that will beat out movies stored on your Ipod that you can see at any time.
I know it would for me.