Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Flash iPod at MacWorld Expo?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
This would be great if they released them before April! And have color choices, mini style... heck, if they took the mini design, shrunk the displace by a bit, changed the click wheel to something smaller (a clickable slider and 2 buttons?), made it a tad thinner and a tad lighter it'd be just right. I am also guessing that it won't be in the mini case, as I doubt that the aluminum case is cheap. I'm thinking it will be all plastic (no fragile HD to protect either), adn you will get similar colors choices to the mini, just won't be the anodized alum. colors, just 'plain' molded platic colors, maybe with a translucent color or two thrown in.
My wife has been begging for a Mini for a long time... she didn't get one for Xmas as I was holding out for either a flash player or an upgrade to the mini and her April bday... 1gb would be perfect for her, and if the battery life got edged up to 10 hours, it would be even better... she likes to work out, and I was SLIGHTLY worried about the wear and tear on a HD based mini...
If it has an expansion slot I'll probably get one too! Otherwise I'll hold out for the upgraded mini...
I'd do a mockup of the controls I'm thinking of (clickable slider), but (1) I have no PS skills, and (2) I'm using a 333 celeron w/ 128mb RAM running a LiveCD Linux distro right now... don't ask.
Basically think a touch sensitive bar that goes left to right across the face of the player, which does what the scroll wheel does now... volume and fast forward, and eash side of the bar is clickable for the skip forward/backwards action. Then add 2 buttons about the size of the 3g iPods right above it and below the screen for Play/Pause and Menu. Seems like it'd be usable and very small... about 1/2 the size of a mini's clickwheel...
Rob
My wife has been begging for a Mini for a long time... she didn't get one for Xmas as I was holding out for either a flash player or an upgrade to the mini and her April bday... 1gb would be perfect for her, and if the battery life got edged up to 10 hours, it would be even better... she likes to work out, and I was SLIGHTLY worried about the wear and tear on a HD based mini...
If it has an expansion slot I'll probably get one too! Otherwise I'll hold out for the upgraded mini...
I'd do a mockup of the controls I'm thinking of (clickable slider), but (1) I have no PS skills, and (2) I'm using a 333 celeron w/ 128mb RAM running a LiveCD Linux distro right now... don't ask.
Basically think a touch sensitive bar that goes left to right across the face of the player, which does what the scroll wheel does now... volume and fast forward, and eash side of the bar is clickable for the skip forward/backwards action. Then add 2 buttons about the size of the 3g iPods right above it and below the screen for Play/Pause and Menu. Seems like it'd be usable and very small... about 1/2 the size of a mini's clickwheel...Rob
gmanrique said:
That design wouldn't allow for a dock connector at the bottom, and destroys the well known rectangular shape of the iPod.
Granted, this model will probably never have a dock. But you still need to connect the cable! I don't see Apple putting the connector on the side of the thing.
lasuther said:
The Parent can charge the Retail division about anything it wants - it's a zero-sum game. The prices are set according to where the Parent wants to show profit, or to play with taxes, or whatever. They're not independent.
lasuther said:
Micron sells chips. Crucial sells DIMMs with Micron chips on them. To me that sounds like "making".
lasuther said:
In this case, "Apple" is buying from the manufacturer.
Are you suggesting that $45 of the cost of the Crucial USB drive is profit at Micron? Or that Micron's cost of a couple of bucks per chip is boosted to a few bucks per chip when it's passed on to Crucial? I'll believe the latter, not the former.
Apple will be buying raw chips in bulk - not buying manufactured USB drives or SD cards.... Apple won't want you to be able to upgrade the memory - it will be soldered in rather than being on a media card.
____________
BTW - another potential price consideration is that the FlashPod won't need the "anti-skip buffer" that the hard drive players need. If that buffer is a discrete component (rather than part of the main ASIC) this could shave costs as well.
I can't believe how serious all you people are taking this Think Secret announcement. I personally think they are going on nothing and it's a malicious attempt at hurting apple stock so everyone will be disappointed when it doesn't come out. Just my opinion.
I'd be very surprised if a 1 gig model was priced at $149. Take a look at bestbuy.com, and a lot of 256mb and 512mb players are priced in the $100-$150 price range. I think apple could do it, based on the volume of chips they would be buying, but apple products have always sold at a premium, and they have no reason to be cutting margins now. I'd bet on a 1 gig model at either $179 or $199, and probably no 2 gig model. Just my thoughts.
evansls said:
It seems obvious that Apple will need to move to video. I'm still not sure about a movie store yet, however, because of resolution and download issues. Given the market for TV show DVDs, I'm guessing that the first store will be a rerun store. This way Apple could negotiate with a relatively few licensing syndicates and even if the resolution is poor (i.e. TV quality) it is still compatible with iPod usage. This could set the stage for future high resolution movie downloads to, say, the headless Mac on your HDTV. I know my wife would pay a few bucks for each episode of Alias that she has missed (no TVio for us yet). I'm guessing that the intersection between Mac enthusiasts and Star Trek geeks is high enough to pay for the venture in and of itself.
zhenya said:I'd be very surprised if a 1 gig model was priced at $149. Take a look at bestbuy.com, and a lot of 256mb and 512mb players are priced in the $100-$150 price range. I think apple could do it, based on the volume of chips they would be buying, but apple products have always sold at a premium, and they have no reason to be cutting margins now. I'd bet on a 1 gig model at either $179 or $199, and probably no 2 gig model. Just my thoughts.
Yeah, I would be surprised if it really was 1GB/149$US and 2GB/199$US... My bet is also on 1GB/179$US (which would still kick ass).
rickvanr said:
I agree. A BMW is a better car than a ford escort but people still buy escorts. Yeah sure, you could spend more to get more but what if you don't want more or can't afford more?. There's always someone willing to spend less to get less. It's a fact. The original poster is not one of those people willing to spend less to get less. I know tons of people who would gladly spend less to get less.. ****, i can't even convince any of my friends to get a mac.. they'd rather get a sucky emachine cuase it's free if you get msn service or really cheap.
granex said:
Doesn't H.264 allow for a single file, multiple resolutions? The iPod video could play the files on its tiny screen (less power required to decode less data, instead of decoding the hi-resolution image and then rescale on top of that), but also play higher resolutions when hooked to a TV/AC using S-Video.
WannaWiki said:
Well, I have alot of music, but I go to the gym and I don't want to bring all my music, I just need something small and light to run with. So, I bought some Rio flash player this summer and I've been very happy w/ it, but its a little too small (128MB). This iPod Flash is something I might look into, because it has enough space to last me a week of work outs and its only $150~$200. I do realize that for only $100 more than the 2GB I can get a 20GB which is a much better deal, but I don't really see myself using an mp3 player anywhere but the gym....
Yvan256 said:That design wouldn't allow for a dock connector at the bottom, and destroys the well known rectangular shape of the iPod.
Granted, this model will probably never have a dock connector. But where do you connect the cable? I don't see Apple putting the connector on the side of the thing.
Apple should make it have no connector. Have the dock charge and sync through induction. Just place the iPodmicro/flash thingy on a a dock pad and it gets juice and syncing without plugging in. That would be hot!
video
That actually makes some sense to me... It seems that Apple selectively embraces new technologies in anticipation of future product releases. Take the Apple Lossless codec for iTunes. It seemed kinda random when they announced it, until a bit later when they released Airport Express that uses the codec for AirTunes transmissions. Just like Apple Lossless was a precurser to AirTunes, Apple's love affair with H.264 could be tied to plans for an iPod Video.
But then.... maybe not, too. Who knows besides ThinkSecret?
Yvan256 said:
That actually makes some sense to me... It seems that Apple selectively embraces new technologies in anticipation of future product releases. Take the Apple Lossless codec for iTunes. It seemed kinda random when they announced it, until a bit later when they released Airport Express that uses the codec for AirTunes transmissions. Just like Apple Lossless was a precurser to AirTunes, Apple's love affair with H.264 could be tied to plans for an iPod Video.
But then.... maybe not, too. Who knows besides ThinkSecret?
*Food for Thought*
Call the headless imac the, "iPod Media Center". Man i'm good (pats himself on the back)
Call the headless imac the, "iPod Media Center". Man i'm good (pats himself on the back)
ChrisH3677 said:
It should be noted that Apple is, unfortunately, in the business of selling you an iPod for as expensive as it can.