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: 'Life is Random'?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
BornAgainMac said:
Yes. Yes it is. LOL. Esp when you are talking about a Windows install. I kid you not. No two installs are ever the same in Windows even on the same system.
SiliconAddict said:
Are you daft? The people who are going to be using something like this press play, listen to songs on random, then when they're done they turn it off. There is no navigating. I can only imagine the absolute horror you must have experienced using a cassette tape deck.
io_burn said:
I stopped using a cassette sometime in the early 90s. When I was using a cassette tape its a tad easier to navigate 20 songs on a tape then a potential 100+ songs on a iPod. We will see what happens in the long run but I can tell you this. I know of no one (In my personal life. Not some overall statement.) who would want an MP3 player without the ability to browse the tracks.
SiliconAddict said:
That's what I'm saying. A 2 line LED screen would be so cheap that there wouldn't even be an issue with price. The $10 games at Radio Shack have them, if not bigger.
aseh said:
First of all that would be an FM receiver. Secondly, if Apple calls it "iPod radio" and doesn't have an AM/FM receiver, I could see some people suing Apple for false advertising.
The name "iPod DJ" would convey the idea far better, IMO.
SiliconAddict said:
Do you know anyone who works out on a regular basis, or has a very active life for that matter? Ask them once they start jogging/biking/lifting/whatever how often they change songs. This is not a product for fat lazy nerds who need to listen to track 3 of Dark Side of the Moon, then a Greenday song, it's for active people, who are doing things in the real world which take most of their time and attention, but still want a small versitile and durable music player to listen to some of their favorite songs throughout the day.
Several people I know, including myself, fit that description.
actually, most of the time in iTunes i listen in Party Shuffle mode. i have two hotkeys from an iTunes global controller app called SizzlinKeys. F1 is pause/play and F2 is next song. there are other commands, but i like to keep it simple. so iTunes goes through my library at random and picks songs. if i don't feel like listening to the song it picked, i simply press next song. now there are times when i want to listen to a particular song, so i do so, but in a portable player that could in no way contain all my music, i could definitely see how just playing randomly would work. i simply make a playlist of all my most listened to songs and let it go. it's already very similar to how i listen to my tunes in iTunes. with the regular iPod and iPod mini where you get closer to containing the bulk if not all of your music library, some more specific navigation would probably be necessary. but when you only have 1 or 2 GB to work with, your choices are already limited as it is (unless you like listening at 64 kbps).
bdkennedy1 said:
I don't think that's the point... The flash iPod would then need to be 2 lines worth of LED screen bigger.
Yvan256 said:
Yeah, you know, the real reason Sega went belly-up on the Dreamcast was because so many people were suing them for false advertising when they released Jet Grind Radio.
kettle said:So the random is a reference to the fact that if something is going to be a digital hub for a digital lifestyle, it has to be able to integrate with potentially random surroundings.
Any old monitor, (even a tv?) plug it into the hifi, record tv at a set time, plug in your iPod or your Video camera or digi camera.
Exactly! Or that it's random in that Steve was going to release an iPod mini, but due to the unforeseen events of his pathological suing disorder, he's now cancelled it and thrown away all concepts of it.
Screenless = good low-end product
I could totally see Apple making an ultra cheap, RAM-based iPod that always ran in shuffle mode and lacked a display. People want tiny, skip-free, solid-state devices to listen to music while they exercise and whatnot-- if you're lifting weights or jogging, you need to pay attention to what you're doing, not scroll through some playlist on your iPod in search of a given song. Furthermore, the capacity of these devices ensures that people will only put the songs they really like on them, so why would they need to hunt through a playlist to find a song they like? They know and like everything on it!
In closing, I'd like to add that every Apple product is not designed to appeal to everyone-- indeed, that would be impossible to do. Don't pooh-pooh something just because YOU wouldn't use it, because there are probably plenty of people just waiting for that something to come into existence so they can buy it.
~Philly
I don't know how everyone else uses their iPod, but I've got 6700+ songs on mine. My usual playlist contains every song I've rated 4 or 5 stars, which is around 1200 or 1300 right now. When I use it in the car, that's the only playlist that plays, and it's always on 'shuffle.' If a song comes on I don't feel like listening to at that moment, I just hit the 'next track' button. For the most part, this is how I use it even at times when scrolling through the playlists wouldn't be a dangerous distraction.SiliconAddict said:
I could totally see Apple making an ultra cheap, RAM-based iPod that always ran in shuffle mode and lacked a display. People want tiny, skip-free, solid-state devices to listen to music while they exercise and whatnot-- if you're lifting weights or jogging, you need to pay attention to what you're doing, not scroll through some playlist on your iPod in search of a given song. Furthermore, the capacity of these devices ensures that people will only put the songs they really like on them, so why would they need to hunt through a playlist to find a song they like? They know and like everything on it!
In closing, I'd like to add that every Apple product is not designed to appeal to everyone-- indeed, that would be impossible to do. Don't pooh-pooh something just because YOU wouldn't use it, because there are probably plenty of people just waiting for that something to come into existence so they can buy it.
~Philly
Got it
Two mohths ago macmind.com posted a rumors with pictures of the flash iPod and apple legal took over them...
appearntely they were correct
full article:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000040022898/
Two mohths ago macmind.com posted a rumors with pictures of the flash iPod and apple legal took over them...
appearntely they were correct
full article:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000040022898/
brap said:
I concur. To a certain extent, life is random, but a lot of what humans do is to try to make life more predictable and hence, safer. Randomness (Tsunamis etc) tends to freak people out, no matter how 'edgy' and 'cool' they think they are. I don't see how this works on a marketing level. Think of all those iPod geeks out there thinking "Ah ha! I have all 10,000 of my songs under my control! All organized and sorted and I can get to them really fast. I am so in control its scary! uh...wait a second 'Life is Random'...Nooooooooo!!!!!!"
Actually we should be grateful, "Life is Random" barely beat out the runner up which was "S-it happens!"
Hi
I think the next iPod could have no screen ( in the LCD Way (the green ugly display with pixel) ), but it could be back lighted (like the Standby DEL of the iBook ). If you place a DEL behind, i'm sure you can get something written. Apple seems to master the touch click technology. So if you combine both backlighted + touch wheel, you might have a new "input device". I have made a little montage, to clarify my point of view.
Just a question : why do we need a display on the iPod ? Just to manage the song... But haven't we iTunes to set up the playlist ? And most of the time we have the iPod in our pokcet and we don't look on to the screen to know which song we are listening to...
A voice could read the title of the track instead..
I think the next iPod could have no screen ( in the LCD Way (the green ugly display with pixel) ), but it could be back lighted (like the Standby DEL of the iBook ). If you place a DEL behind, i'm sure you can get something written. Apple seems to master the touch click technology. So if you combine both backlighted + touch wheel, you might have a new "input device". I have made a little montage, to clarify my point of view.
Just a question : why do we need a display on the iPod ? Just to manage the song... But haven't we iTunes to set up the playlist ? And most of the time we have the iPod in our pokcet and we don't look on to the screen to know which song we are listening to...
A voice could read the title of the track instead..
Attachments
I know this.....if it has no screen, then it will have no sales....period.
The only few sales it will have is from tech heads who want to flaunt it and show everybody there worthless new toy. And as for the few post from people who have said....."a person who is active or working out just wants music.....or how often does a person jogging switch there songs anyways....." your an idiot. Sometime in the future you are going to play just one specific song and at that point, just that one time, you will regret the mistake of buying one. I would rather have a 3rd party flash player with a screen, then even a SUB 100 dollar flash ipod that is the coolest looking tech toy in history if I can not navigate the thing.
I have hope that apple will not shoot itself in the foot on this one. It really would make apple look like a bunch of fools.
The only few sales it will have is from tech heads who want to flaunt it and show everybody there worthless new toy. And as for the few post from people who have said....."a person who is active or working out just wants music.....or how often does a person jogging switch there songs anyways....." your an idiot. Sometime in the future you are going to play just one specific song and at that point, just that one time, you will regret the mistake of buying one. I would rather have a 3rd party flash player with a screen, then even a SUB 100 dollar flash ipod that is the coolest looking tech toy in history if I can not navigate the thing.
I have hope that apple will not shoot itself in the foot on this one. It really would make apple look like a bunch of fools.