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Flash iPod Details?
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Stella said:
[Temp OT]
If you think PowerBook sales are going to tank then you are going to be right on the money...and disappointed.
Of course it'll be the iPod-something, it's Apple's strongest brand at the moment. (In fact it wouldn't surprise me if they came out with a subnotebook and called it the iPodMac.) They'll probably call this doodad the iPod micro. I hope it won't be the iPod Extreme or the iPod Express.
I find this rumor entirely plausible. The people that are really going to want this are those that jog and jump and bang into things. People that can't use a HDD-based player because of disk-access issues. The music that active people want to listen to while doing whatever active activity pleases them is all likely in the same genre.
When I got to the gym, I have an "on the go" playlist on my mini with a bunch of fast, high energy music that I listen to. If I'm not feeling a song, I just reach down and hit the next button without looking at the screen. I'm never running near death on the treadmill and decide to navigate my way through 1000 songs to the "perfect" one. Just leave it on random and hit next until something that motivates me comes on.
This concept of a no-screen flash iPod is exactly what my "gym" playlist is. It'd be just enough to hold a bunch of songs and have the absolute minimum of controls to adjust volume and jump to the next song.
Come to think of it, the biggest annoyance of my mini is that when i reach down to it clipped to my pants, I always accidentally crank the volume WAAAYY up when just trying to switch tracks. If that pic is true, this interface would avoid that problem and would allow one to reach in their pocket or to their clip and just click the previous or next key.
This device is meant for heavy activity, period. iPods are still being sold much faster than they can be built so the market for the current prices and capacities is nowhere near saturated. I don't think this is a cheap way to grab market share, I think it's another way of filling a very specific customer's product desire.
I say this device is perfect without a screen. If you queue up a playlist consisting of only a few hundred songs, chances are you're gonna like them all anyway, so who cares which one it pics. If you want a device for carrying hundreds of albums instead of songs, there are other iPods for that. Bring on MWSF!
-Drew
When I got to the gym, I have an "on the go" playlist on my mini with a bunch of fast, high energy music that I listen to. If I'm not feeling a song, I just reach down and hit the next button without looking at the screen. I'm never running near death on the treadmill and decide to navigate my way through 1000 songs to the "perfect" one. Just leave it on random and hit next until something that motivates me comes on.
This concept of a no-screen flash iPod is exactly what my "gym" playlist is. It'd be just enough to hold a bunch of songs and have the absolute minimum of controls to adjust volume and jump to the next song.
Come to think of it, the biggest annoyance of my mini is that when i reach down to it clipped to my pants, I always accidentally crank the volume WAAAYY up when just trying to switch tracks. If that pic is true, this interface would avoid that problem and would allow one to reach in their pocket or to their clip and just click the previous or next key.
This device is meant for heavy activity, period. iPods are still being sold much faster than they can be built so the market for the current prices and capacities is nowhere near saturated. I don't think this is a cheap way to grab market share, I think it's another way of filling a very specific customer's product desire.
I say this device is perfect without a screen. If you queue up a playlist consisting of only a few hundred songs, chances are you're gonna like them all anyway, so who cares which one it pics. If you want a device for carrying hundreds of albums instead of songs, there are other iPods for that. Bring on MWSF!
-Drew
dongmin said:
Yah it really is stupid. One of the worst rumors I've seen on Macrumors in a while. Pretty much as bad as the one rumor about an iPod that displays photos. I mean really?!?! *plugs in and charges his 60GB iPod* What company in their right mind would put out such a lame product?
SiliconAddict said:
Ha! That reminds me, when this newest flash-pod rumor hit slashdot, someone posted a link to the announcement of the original ipod in which people basically laughed at it and said how dumb it was and that it would never sell.
Not having a display doesn't just mean that it will be a pain to find a particular song -- it also means that you'd have no way to use playlists, or to organize your songs in any way other than some single fixed linear list. I don't know about other folks, but I use playlists in iTunes a ton, and I can't imagine not being able to do so with 250 songs on an iPod. Essentially, this device would only hold one playlist.
aswitcher said:
i never understood this idea about voice recognition... is it me or i hate speaking to inanimate objects? i don't want to be talking to my iPod. i don't want to be speaking the song i want to listen to. (what if i can't remember the name?)
the same for those stupid computerized service reps that use voice recognition. i don't want to be describing my problems to a phone. i don't want to say "yes" "no" blah, blah to a machine!
all this even if the thing worked perfectly... which it doesn't, right now.
is it just me?
DavidLeblond said:Ha! That reminds me, when this newest flash-pod rumor hit slashdot, someone posted a link to the announcement of the original ipod in which people basically laughed at it and said how dumb it was and that it would never sell.
except that jobs himself have dismissed flash-based mp3 players before as something that gets "thrown into a drawer and be forgotten"...
jxyama said:
"Darn! I threw my iPod micro in a drawer and now I can't find it. Oh well, guess I'll have to buy another one, or maybe I'll upgrade to a mini."
jxyama said:
Right, but this was at a time when flash-based players typically had a capacity of 64MB or less. Jobs needed a strawman to knock down because Apple was entering an existing market. He needed to point out the special feature the iPod offered - a whopping 5GB of space.
Today, with CF-cards reaching 4GB, this remark is history. If you disagree, please tell me what makes a harddisk better than a CF-card...
There's no way Apple is going to change the perfect design they have. It has to have a click-wheel and a screen. If anything it'll be an iPod Mini except thinner, because when the Mini debuted, Jobs said that's as small as they could get the click-wheel. iPod Mini Flash or something like that.
there's more than one way to skin a cat.
okay, i'm highy skeptical, too. HOWEVER, apple has been working on integrating voice features that are built into OSX software. what better place for vox than in itunes?
the player reads the playlists to you.
no screen would be needed.
plus, you wouldn't need to look down while jogging. plus, it would help to justify apple's high price for a tiny player (i still can't believe apple would make any ipod that holds less than 1 gb). plus, AACplus.
okay, i'm highy skeptical, too. HOWEVER, apple has been working on integrating voice features that are built into OSX software. what better place for vox than in itunes?
the player reads the playlists to you.
no screen would be needed.
plus, you wouldn't need to look down while jogging. plus, it would help to justify apple's high price for a tiny player (i still can't believe apple would make any ipod that holds less than 1 gb). plus, AACplus.
If it can hold 1gb of music it's not that bad a deal.. I already mostly let my ipod decide what I listen to.. And when using a remote I don't have a screen anyway.
How about if it had a screen on the back? would that make any sense? guess not because you would have the controls on the other side -> not too handy..
How about if it had a screen on the back? would that make any sense? guess not because you would have the controls on the other side -> not too handy..
eSnow said:
i'm with you! i've tried to say the same thing in other posts. people will be saying the same things before the video iPod comes out: "...but Steve said...."
the flash ipod will be better than what apple has out now. it will be smaller, lighter, cheaper; and it will be able to hold gigabytes of songs.
dongmin said:
That's why I see the first Apple flash player starting at 2 GB... but not YET. Not until economics make it work.
Re the name--iPod is too strong a brand to waste. Any music player from Apple would be called an iPod [something]. If it was very different in function, then the second part of the name would be made distinct. (Like Mini and Photo are.)
powermac666 said:
Being a relative newbie in the Mac world, did not Jobs say things that finally came true?
Windowlicker said:
That makes sense. Though I think that "double clickling" might be a way to go to different play lists. Also the 250 songs I mentioned were based on 1gb. I would think that at a $99 price point the Apple "Ultra Mini iPod (TM)" -
, would have 256mb to 512mb memory (meaning 60 to 125 songs)-and the need for a screen is reduced.
chameeeleon said:
I like it! Might even save me money as you will from buying an external HDD for my PB. The "Ultra Mini iPod (TM)" would be a perfect solution for me in that size/form factor.
Bring it on Steve!