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Embedded iPod Apps and Upcoming Devices?

Recording with iPod

So what is the deal with recording on iPod? I read about 6sec recording capability months ago. If memory serves it was more like a hack than a feature. I was pretty sure at the time future models would feature at least uncompressed audio recording in mono and stereo. Compress it on your Mac, if you need to!

But noooo, Apple present iPod updates every other Thursday or so and add stupid usb2, rearrange the buttons and light them red, invent a docking station, throw in a couple of new games or minor, really minor syncing capabilities and basta. That would appear to be the exact problem: basta = it suffices. Because people just buy it anyway. They buy it like crazed.

By now they offer 40GB of hd space. Wouldn´t it just be marvellous if you could just plug in a mic or the line-out of any other music player or instrument and record away? Yeah, I know...COPYRIGHT! UUUUAAAAHHHH! Watch out, theft is all around!

Just recently I bought an MD-recorder and returned it the very next day, because it was just too much of a hassle and didn´t integrate well with my Mac. I wanna go wherever and record whatever in as good a quality as my microphone has to offer. DAT is way too expensive and mechanically intricate for my taste, and the linear nature of magnetized tape sucks anyway.

Record on iPod, transfer in notime, cut and play on the Mac. Apparently it will never happen. The same holds true vor video. I mean, come on! Every DV-cam has firewire. THINK! Make the connection!

I will never own an iPod. With what features it has to offer so far it seems to me a waste of resources.

Video playback via an early-iBook-TV-out-like cable would be another feature, I´d simply rush to the store for and buy one of these suckers, too.

Also I regard the remote control as an insult. Put another display in there! A tiny one, but a display!

Right now I use an Aiptek 128MB USB-Stick-Player I wear around my neck. It was just 88EUR and for me definitely the weapon of choice. Now, if only the damn resource-fork files the likes of _title.mp3 wouldn´t mess up random play!
 
The real question is...

What goes on in Apple's "Special Projects Group" ?

Is it like the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works or US SOCOM, some secret place where they have infinite funding and limitless capabilities ? Is the Video iPod already done. Do they have a 50,000$ working prototype of the freon-cooled PowerBook G5 ????

We must know !
 
The useful advantage of a video-enabled iPod is not so much to WATCH movies, but to preview DV files or MP4's etc.

Imagine this - you connect your FW equipped video camera to your iPod and record directly to your iPod. When you're all done, you can make simple iMovie type edits with your iPod. On the plane, in the car, etc so that you have some work done before you ever get your files to you Mac.

SO simple. use the scroll wheel to jog and the buttons to delete, trim etc. The res on the screen doesn't need to be great - just good enough so that you can get the idea of what you're seeing. There are already cameras that do this - why shouldn't the iPod?

The same goes for photos from you Digital Camera.

Also consider this - iPod :: Mac as GameBodyAdvanced :: GameCube. You could use your color screen to display a small map for Quake or other shooters. Maybe a rear-view mirror sort of option. Who knows?

iPod as TiVo is a good idea as well.

In short - the iPod is primed to be a great "Swiss Army Knife" for nearly every digital lifestyle use.

The possibilities are endless.
 
iPhoto

It would be nice to have your iPhoto library on the iPod.

Also the ability to display picture covers from your AAC & Mp3's.

And of course a color screen to see all these beautiful images.
 
for sale

I would sell my neighbor's children for an iPod Handheld with even palm/pocketpc functionality... wow... 1gig arm processor aughta do it.. get on it boys and girls and don't forget to make a handheld osx. Call it OSH or HHX.

Heck I might sell my own kids for that.

or tablet style laptop pleeeeze.
 
Re: iPod improvements??

Originally posted by bankshot
...As it currently stands, I can either have gapless playback by ripping an entire album to one track in iTunes or I can have the ability to skip around among individual tracks by ripping normally, but not both.
Click to expand...

I know what you mean. You CAN have gapless playback and separate tracks when you burn a CD. Although I think it reduces the volume at the end of each track. Not sure, though.


...I realize that most iPod users probably don't care enough about this and thus my feedback to Apple probably falls on deaf ears. But I can dream, right? 🙂 Honestly I think it would be fairly easy to do, but would require a slight change in the implementations of both iTunes and the iPod firmware. Simply allow iTunes to rip an album as a single gapless file, but also save an index of where all the tracks start, maybe as metadata within the file. Then either iTunes or the iPod can play the whole thing through as one continuous audio stream, but it can also show current track information and skip around within the file to different tracks.
Click to expand...

It seems odd that this feature is available when you burn a CD but not when you export to an iPod. I agree, it seems like it would be easy to accomplish and I think it would be nice.

Squire
 
I personally believe that Apple is working on some sort of mobile iChat capabilities that will be incorporated into an iPod-like device, if not the iPod itself.

Jay
 
Originally posted by mangoman
iPod as PDA....

*sigh*

Here we freakin' go again...
Click to expand...

Could someone please explain to me why it would be so bad to add PDA functionality to an iPod. I mean, you could just plug in a portable keyboard to the bottom of the iPod and type away. Doesn't seem like it would be too difficult, maybe just a firmware update.

Ooh I just got a great idea. How about a docking station with a bluetooth chip for the new wireless keyboard? Finally, one of those things might actually be useful.

<edit> Finally, I'm a member. A male member... hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

...dies laughing at his own really bad sense of humor...
 
never understood ipod users who'd like to see video on their ipod, screen is too small imho.

games is one area of the ipod which would be sweet to improve upon.

space invaders, chess, dig-dug, tetris, tempest(now that would be cool) etc etc

or at least apple give an option to dl extras
Click to expand...
I think ability to play movie on iPod would be cool. It could work like this. From iMovie, you could have an Export option for iPod, hook up iPod and Export the movie to iPod. Then you can show your movie to friends and etc.

The games on iPod can definitely improve. There are so many classic games that would be perfect for iPod platform.
 
I think it would be cool i the iPod could play movies not on the iPod but to an AV port. It would also be cool if iPod could read keynote and Power Point presentations. Then you could hulk it up to a TV and give a presentation from your iPod.
Just a thought
 
From someone who knows

Without a major hardware update, the iPod will never play mpeg2 video, encode mp3's on the fly, or anything like that. It simply is not possible in my opinion. Unlike most (if not all) of the posters here, I have source code on my hard drive that I have written that I can run on my ipod so I have a _VERY_ good idea of what can be done and what cannot.

Remember ipodlinux? we couldn't even get mp3 decoding real time with a linux kernel underneath. if you expect to get mp3 encoding or video decoding, on the current hardware, you are dreaming.

{post-Post note, I just read the video encoding, and if you think you're gonna be able to get video from a dv camera to an ipod, you're obviously dreaming. The firewire controller is a mass storage controller. It acts like a drive. It can be made to send and recieve custom messages using a connection between it and the processor, but that is nowhere near fast enough to stream dv video from the camera. As well, my g3-400 stalls when importing video from a dv camera, What do you expect a dual 88mhz arm processor with a 66mhz hard drive connection to do?}
 
Without a major hardware update, the iPod will never play mpeg2 video, encode mp3's on the fly, or anything like that. It simply is not possible in my opinion. Unlike most (if not all) of the posters here, I have source code on my hard drive that I have written that I can run on my ipod so I have a _VERY_ good idea of what can be done and what cannot.

Remember ipodlinux? we couldn't even get mp3 decoding real time with a linux kernel underneath. if you expect to get mp3 encoding or video decoding, on the current hardware, you are dreaming.
Click to expand...
Now now. I think you should give Apple little more credit than that. I'm sure they can come up with a solution if that's what they want to do. And current hardware might not be up to the task as you say, I just don't know enough about iPod's hardware as much as you do. But we are talking about future possibilities. I think iPod has great potential to be more than what it is now, a music player. Maybe some kind of personal interactive multi-media device. Apple failed with Newton. They might be taking a different route this time.
 
Re: From someone who knows

Originally posted by busonerd
Without a major hardware update, the iPod will never play mpeg2 video, encode mp3's on the fly, or anything like that. It simply is not possible in my opinion.

[snip]

{post-Post note, I just read the video encoding, and if you think you're gonna be able to get video from a dv camera to an ipod, you're obviously dreaming. The firewire controller is a mass storage controller. It acts like a drive. It can be made to send and recieve custom messages using a connection between it and the processor, but that is nowhere near fast enough to stream dv video from the camera. As well, my g3-400 stalls when importing video from a dv camera, What do you expect a dual 88mhz arm processor with a 66mhz hard drive connection to do?}
Click to expand...

Ah yes - without some sort of hardware upgrade. I guess I had expected that we were already talking about a hardware upgrade considering the tone of the thread already.

It seems feasible that you could buffer the data to tape and let the iPod catch up as it can. Possibly, you still need to record directly to tape, but it has some sort of raw capture system built in so that you can just plug in and capture.

It's also conceiveable that this functionality could be added as some sort of iPod accessory.

Since you seem to know - and I'm not saying that in a smart ass sort of way - how much of a problem would it be to incorporate some sort of RAW image decoder in there so that you could preview high-end digital SLR images on an iPod. Of course you can't do it now, but let's say they just added a color screen or something else "minor"?
 
Remember, it's dock-based!

I was thinking about how to extend the iPod the other day, and it's obvious!

The new iPods are dock-based. That means that Apple can create new docks with new capabilities.

For video, you can have a dock that has a firewire port and translates to the firewire disk in the iPod. It also might have video-out (AUX/RCA) as well as a firewire port (for the iSight, etc).

For importing pictures, you have a dock that is a 6-in-1 reader. It'd be excellent - no need to bring your laptop when you shoot, just offload everything to your iPod.

For recording, you have a line-in dock...or maybe a line-in/line-out dock?
 
While you have a point - it doesn't strike me as Apple's style (not that they couldn't change) to sell 5 different specialty docks. Which leads us back to the old rumor of the 'pro-dock' or 'super-dock" which never seemed like a bad idea. However, a dock doesn't strike me as mobile a solution as I would like. Mainly because it's difficult to carry around a dock w/o the iPod falling out. Again, this is with streaming video capture in mind, or possibly non-streaming but mobile.

Realistically, what I'm thinking of would probably come from a 3rd party vendor.

Sounda a bit too involved for Griffin though.
 
A relatively easy upgrade for the iPod, that would have great value is the capability to double as a portable storage device for digital photos. They could ship it with a multi-adapter of some sort, that plugs into the firewire port, and allows fast downloading of digital images. It would also need a color screen to preview images. The wheel would be great for scrolling around on images.

A key thing is that the new color screen needs to have high enough resolution so that images can be inspected closely for dust. With digital SLRs, dust can find it's way onto the sensor, and with most portable image storage devices, you can't see it until you get to a real computer. So, a high-res screen is key.
 
argh. again with the color screens.
iPods will not have color screens!
if they do, it wouldn't be the same kind of iPod we all now today. i do think that the digital camera thing is needed and can be done, but i think that a color screen is not necessary.
 
Won't work without the color screen. See my second paragraph. The whole idea is to be able to travel without a computer. But it is critical to be able to inspect for dust on your sensor periodically. A spec of dust on your sensor will be on every image thereafter and is a real PITA to Photoshop out of each frame.

Of course, it would work if you are using a low end digicam without interchangeable lenses.
 
Originally posted by ImageMaker
Of course, it would work if you are using a low end digicam without interchangeable lenses.
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like a lot of people who would use it are.
i would be happy enough if i could clear away the card, so that's what i would want it to do.
 
Video iPod, cool- but...

Hey Apple- Are you listening? Microsoft's coming out with a personal video player and you're just brushing it off? If you don't get a jump on the market, MS will shove you out of the way. People just don't understand the value of the mac until they've used OS X. I was a complete Windows all they way kind of guy until Jaguar. I saw the light.

Look into the video iPod (vPod?) It's cool, but bigger screen or tv in and out and imovie exporting please!



Caleb
 
Originally posted by crap freakboy

space invaders, chess, dig-dug, tetris, tempest(now that would be cool) etc etc

or at least apple give an option to dl extras
Click to expand...

Tetris on a color screened iPod would rule
 
More games would be a plus.
Also people want a way to view album cover art on the ipod.

One of the most requested features is actually a built in radio.
 
Originally posted by Squire
I don't see the point of a video iPod, either. However, as people have mentioned in past threads, being able to plug your digicam in and load up the iPod's HD with pictures... THAT would be useful- better than an IBM Microdrive.

I, too, would like to see more PDA-like features on an iPod. I think Apple missed out on the wave, though.

Squire
Click to expand...

I would like to see the Ipod or something like it take on PDA functionality too. Maybe Apple could get it to run a minature version of Panther.😀 No seriously.
 
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