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Flash iPod at MacWorld Expo?
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as i recall apple kept knowledge of the ipod to a very small group of people (something absurd like 100). i imagine they would continue under that mode of operation still. i can think of three possibilities for the TS leak.
1) it's a fairly high level manager/exec. this doesn't seem to make much sense though. as pointed out the upside compared to the potential downside is far too great. a manager/exec at the level to know about hardware, software and ipod info is way up there. they wouldn't risk the salary and legal repercussions.
2) it's several low level apple employees. perhaps working as a team to not only gather multiple bits of information, but also to make it harder to track down the leak.
3) it's someone at their advertising agency or printer or some other similar third party. some design or production lackey, maybe just out of school, but young and quite giddy with the power/excitement of getting to see these new products and feels the need to tell someone. either doesn't realize or care about their job/legal ramifications. has no real ties to apple other than they're a client of the company they work for.
my money is on number 3.
1) it's a fairly high level manager/exec. this doesn't seem to make much sense though. as pointed out the upside compared to the potential downside is far too great. a manager/exec at the level to know about hardware, software and ipod info is way up there. they wouldn't risk the salary and legal repercussions.
2) it's several low level apple employees. perhaps working as a team to not only gather multiple bits of information, but also to make it harder to track down the leak.
3) it's someone at their advertising agency or printer or some other similar third party. some design or production lackey, maybe just out of school, but young and quite giddy with the power/excitement of getting to see these new products and feels the need to tell someone. either doesn't realize or care about their job/legal ramifications. has no real ties to apple other than they're a client of the company they work for.
my money is on number 3.
Yvan256 said:
I'm thinking that's going to be a theme at mac world. Steve will say "When you talk to people about Apple, what do you always hear? 'Oh, they're so expensive.'... Not anymore."
[Edit] On the other hand it might not be a good idea for Steve to actually come out and say all of Apple's other stuff is expensive. So I dont know... 😕
barnett25 said:
Indeed. And they could also tie that theme with something like this:
"... but THIS will surely keep them saying that - introducing: the PowerBook G5!". The crowd goes wild, the PowerBook gets too hot and starts a fire, hundreds die.
Oups, my mind drifted a bit there. I shouldn't post at 02:24. 😱
A flash based iPod that you could upgrade would be really cool!!!! Somehting like a normal iPod, but with a door on the back that you can open and have a flash module that you can change. having the flash module just be a standard flash card would be cool, but I could understand if Apple created a special flash module.
Then you could buy a 1G player and when you run out of room you just upgrade the flash module. Also, as flash gets bigger and cheaper your iPod could also grow.
I just saw that SanDisk has a 4G Compact Flash card. I remember when a 16MB card was big. For that matter I remember my Mom telling me when I got my new mac that her first computer didn't have a hard drive. After a while my dad got an 8MB hard drive.
Doug
Then you could buy a 1G player and when you run out of room you just upgrade the flash module. Also, as flash gets bigger and cheaper your iPod could also grow.
I just saw that SanDisk has a 4G Compact Flash card. I remember when a 16MB card was big. For that matter I remember my Mom telling me when I got my new mac that her first computer didn't have a hard drive. After a while my dad got an 8MB hard drive.
Doug
Yvan256 said:
Heat would be a big problem in a G5 iBook or PowerBook. Can you but a water cooled processor in a laptop?
I would have to run out and get one of those to show the PC techs at work who water at the mouth talking about building a water cooled desktop.
barnett25 said:
Well, it's easy to downplay that part:
Steve: "When you talk to people about Apple, what do you always hear? 'Oh, they're so expensive...' Well, it's true. Our middle and pro models may not be priced as low as the rest of the entry-level PCs, but here's what we're gonna do about it. Today. Introducing...."
Well, I still don't know the name, so I had to cut it short. 😀
Talk about a good sign...
I noticed that on the Apple discussion forums (which contains a discussion group for each major Apple product), they just changed the page.
The folders are a LOT smaller than they used to be, thereby creating extra room for more folders.
Gee. Wonder what they are making room on that page for? 😉
Well, of course, they added Xsan to the page, but I think we can expect to see a new folder or two there very soon.
I noticed that on the Apple discussion forums (which contains a discussion group for each major Apple product), they just changed the page.
The folders are a LOT smaller than they used to be, thereby creating extra room for more folders.
Gee. Wonder what they are making room on that page for? 😉
Well, of course, they added Xsan to the page, but I think we can expect to see a new folder or two there very soon.
I guess TS (or anyone else) would only get in trouble for posting comments from someone violating some sort of trust or NDA. If they publish simple speculation, analysis of public information, etc. then they should be OK. Maybe even dumpster diving at Chiat Day would be OK.
Sol
macrumors 68000
Who runs Apple these days?
Since Steve Jobs had his cancer operation it seems like all the ideas that he rejected in the past are becoming Apple products. The flat panel iMac with the computer in the back was once dismissed and then it became the G5 iMac's design. The MP3 player with flash memory was once considered too fiddly compared to one with a hard drive, yet now we are hearing about a Flash iPod. Then there are the iPhone, iWorks and the cheap Mac. What is next, the return of Newton and the introduction of the two-button mouse?!
Whoever is in charge of Apple today is undermining the Steve we used to know.
Since Steve Jobs had his cancer operation it seems like all the ideas that he rejected in the past are becoming Apple products. The flat panel iMac with the computer in the back was once dismissed and then it became the G5 iMac's design. The MP3 player with flash memory was once considered too fiddly compared to one with a hard drive, yet now we are hearing about a Flash iPod. Then there are the iPhone, iWorks and the cheap Mac. What is next, the return of Newton and the introduction of the two-button mouse?!
Whoever is in charge of Apple today is undermining the Steve we used to know.
puckhead193 said:
Hmm, what was everybody saying about the origional mini? 5 times the storage for another 50 bucks? hmmm.....
I was one of those highly, highly skeptical ones about the mini. This time, i'll play it safe, and bet success for the flash ipod, if only because I don't want to be so desperately wrong again. Not to mention, small and related to the ipod are about as good of characteristics as you can have right now, so...
Design and user interface will be, of course, stellar, so I'd bet it's a money maker.
deral
macrumors regular
iPod Flash? Very straight-foward name, but do you think consumers even care what type of memory (flash vs. harddrive) is in thier iPod. Well yeah, some will, but I dont know if the not-so-technologically-caring-as-long-as-it-works consumers even think about what's inside the iPod. How about iPod Express?
With the headless imac and the flash ipod, apple is going for the masses now.
I would prefer buying a flash ipod for lil sis than a mini, for size reasons and it is easier to replace...Im happy with my 40gig
I would prefer buying a flash ipod for lil sis than a mini, for size reasons and it is easier to replace...Im happy with my 40gig
maya
macrumors 68040
deral said:
Let see a flash card will only allow X amount of times to write to it a HDD will only have a life span of so many hours active.
flash has the battery life and non-skip while the HDD has shorter battery life for playback and can hold more data and can be boot-able. 🙂
I also have a feeling that the iPod flash based will have a mini USB port rather than a FireWire. 🙂
Just a quick note...
To those saying that $149 is "too much" and "it should be $100":
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.asp?imodule=CT1GBU2&cat=drives+storage
Crucial are selling 1GB usb thumb drives for $90. So you want to add an iPod to that for $10? I doubt that's even possible...
And another thing - one of the major appeal of the smaller flash players is that they use a usb interface and can plug directly into any machine that's so equipped. If this iPod flash needs a dock/connection cable, I reckon it's going to be a little frowned upon. Not so compact when you add all that crap in.
To be honest, that's swaying me away from buying this rumour. Given TS's current relationship with Apple, either (a) This is more leaked info and hence they're idiots, or (b) This is mere speculation. The other possibility is that this is actually deliberate *mis*information.
It's entirely possible (however unwise) that TS have decided to try and show Apple what *bad* publicity can do. TS could probably make anything it likes up right now (Newton-based iPhone, with flash iPod based player built in) and people will listen as they are now perceived as having an inside scoop. If this one gets picked up by CNN and turns out to be fake, it could be worse than the headless Mac not showing up, as the iPod currently has much greater brand recognition.
Bear in mind that TS's "success rate" at the moment is really based on everyone assuming they're right. We haven't SEEN a headless Mac at their configs and price points, we haven't SEEN iWork, we haven't SEEN Asteroid and we sure as heck haven't SEEN a flash-based iPod. All we've seen are some incredibly specific "rumours" and Apple's Lawyers.
Sorry if some think this is OT, but I reckon any rumour coming from TS right now should be treated incredibly cautiously. And if you think this is all just "clever marketing", I ask, what is Apple getting out of this? Exposure? If so, you'd better hope that the reality revealed next week either meets or surpasses the rumours.
The media is fickle and LOVES a backlash.
To those saying that $149 is "too much" and "it should be $100":
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.asp?imodule=CT1GBU2&cat=drives+storage
Crucial are selling 1GB usb thumb drives for $90. So you want to add an iPod to that for $10? I doubt that's even possible...
And another thing - one of the major appeal of the smaller flash players is that they use a usb interface and can plug directly into any machine that's so equipped. If this iPod flash needs a dock/connection cable, I reckon it's going to be a little frowned upon. Not so compact when you add all that crap in.
To be honest, that's swaying me away from buying this rumour. Given TS's current relationship with Apple, either (a) This is more leaked info and hence they're idiots, or (b) This is mere speculation. The other possibility is that this is actually deliberate *mis*information.
It's entirely possible (however unwise) that TS have decided to try and show Apple what *bad* publicity can do. TS could probably make anything it likes up right now (Newton-based iPhone, with flash iPod based player built in) and people will listen as they are now perceived as having an inside scoop. If this one gets picked up by CNN and turns out to be fake, it could be worse than the headless Mac not showing up, as the iPod currently has much greater brand recognition.
Bear in mind that TS's "success rate" at the moment is really based on everyone assuming they're right. We haven't SEEN a headless Mac at their configs and price points, we haven't SEEN iWork, we haven't SEEN Asteroid and we sure as heck haven't SEEN a flash-based iPod. All we've seen are some incredibly specific "rumours" and Apple's Lawyers.
Sorry if some think this is OT, but I reckon any rumour coming from TS right now should be treated incredibly cautiously. And if you think this is all just "clever marketing", I ask, what is Apple getting out of this? Exposure? If so, you'd better hope that the reality revealed next week either meets or surpasses the rumours.
The media is fickle and LOVES a backlash.
jamdr said:
Eh, the ipods are famous enough that people get them relatively well (although I just found out my sister's boyfriend is getting a dell thingy because he believes the ipod isn't PC compatible...and my girlfriend's sister returned a HP-ipod because she thought it wasn't mac compatible...). You've got the classic one, the multi colored tiny one, and the color screen one, plus this new tiny, tiny thing... people can get that, right? Then all they need to do is pick the larger or the smaller of the two, depending on needs? oh wait! that means we get a second size mini! (sry, somebody brought this up, and I wanted to quote them to elaborate, but I couldn't find it). It would make sense, in so many ways. Even out the ipod line, time for a mini update/price drop, make MWSF even more incredibly huge....
so, there's my prediction. 1 gig and 2 gig flash, 4 and 6 for mini's, 20 and 40 for ipod, and 40 and 60 for photo. Plus, the oddball of the u2 ipod...
In addition, we get amazingly cheap macs, sweet and hopefully uber-compatible office software, maybe cheap displays, and the loss of thinksecret. Then again, with all the headless imac and flash ipod plees fulfilled, I guess we won't really need a rumor mill, anyway? At least not until we can see a g5 pb.... 🙄
Sun Baked
macrumors G5
Ouch, that's too close for comfort on my SWAG when the Asustek thread was going on.Macrumors said:
Of course the possibility of these thing coming in right around the price point for 1GB and 2GB flash drives does strike right where Apple has been trying to hit -- along with eating up the supply of flash memory modules needed by the competition.
And people thought I was nuts for several pages, until they thought about it for awhile.
Edit: Still a little skeptical Apple will hit the $199 mark for the 2GB unit though, would be awsome to see them do it -- expect that one a bit higher.
SeaFox
macrumors 68030
Wow, wouldn't it just really suck if Steve came out on stage at the Expo and said...
"Well, there were some new things we were planning on showing you but somebody spoiled the surprise, so we're going to wait a few months..."
I don't know if people would be more angry at ThinkSecret or Steve.
The only good side of such an announcement is production ramp up so, less short supply and shipping times when the products DO come out.
"Well, there were some new things we were planning on showing you but somebody spoiled the surprise, so we're going to wait a few months..."
I don't know if people would be more angry at ThinkSecret or Steve.
The only good side of such an announcement is production ramp up so, less short supply and shipping times when the products DO come out.