iPod Accessories - Mic and Photo Storage are Here!

[bennetsaysargh]

Originally posted by plastree
I want a stereo line in for my iPod! I have a great stereo mic that I use for field recording, but I'm limited to the fidelity and usability that my minidisc recorder offers. The iPod would be so much better! This won't happen, but whoever releases a line in accessory with 24 bit converters will get my business and accolades.

the way it probably works is when it it plugged into the iPod (the microphone) it probably send a certain code to the iPod o get the mic thing turned on on the iPod. i think once someone finds that code, it's only a matter of time before it is put into product that don't have a built in mic, making it good for people who want to use their own mics. it is the same way with the remotes. they had to be backwards programmed for lack of a better term. they need to find the input code before, then they needed to make it able to send it to the iPod via the 4 pin remote jack.

Originally posted by boehncke
I really hope the reader will pull ALL the info off the memory card. This includes ALL photo formats (RAW, JPG, etc.) and all movie formats. Syncing with iPhoto is all fine but: it won´t work on windows (they don´t have iPhoto), and why build in a limitation at all?

foreshadowing perhaps?

Originally posted by whooley
What do people make of the Music Quiz iPod game? It made me realise just how poorly I know my music collection!

i love it! it gives me a chance to show my knowledge, and something to do one the bus

 

[h'biki]

Re: what a lame bummer event

Originally posted by visor


The iPod needs a $50 external microphone to do what actually the included headphones should - act as micrphone. Big deal - for belkin that is. I don't fancy buying a mic for fifty bucks. One can probably get a class A music studio mic for that price..

Hahha. Right. You could get a Shure SM58, the workhorse microphone, for around $100US but its not a 'Class A' studio mic. 'Class A' studio microphones are between $250-1000 for condensers. And they're going to be phantom powered too, which means you're going to need good pre-amps and good DA converters, which means you're looking at between anohter $500-5000 (depending on what you want - the Avalon's kick ass)

Makes $50 for a microphone attachment seem pretty reasonable?

A card reader for a hundred bucks - so you can transfer your photos to your ipod...
well, If I wanted to carry a big hunk card reader around, I might as well take a powerbook and transfer the potos right onto that via firewire. makes a better display, too.

I agree the card reader is large, but we'll see dedicated single-type card readers soon I'm sure. Ones which clip straight onto the dock connector. And I'd still pay $50-100 for it, cause its worth it. Slightly more expensive than a normal *FIREWIRE* card reader and it allows me to store to my iPod.

Just cause somethings not quite what you want and is more than you're willing to pay, doesn't mean its stupid or expensive.

 

[tizza]

That's it - I'm buying an iPod!!!!!

 

[MM2270]

Yes!

Originally posted by ZildjianKX
Anyone else bummed the Flash Card reader is so big and takes batteries? I was hoping for a tiny addon that is powered by the iPod...

Yes, I'm a little disappointed too. It's looks freakin' huge! It's typical because Apple didn't design it. Although Belkin makes useful products, they ain't no Apple when it comes to compact and appealing designing. I wish Apple had taken the time to design these 2 peripherals. I don't perosnally mind the mic, but I see that many people on this board don't care for it, to put it mildly. I was hoping to get the card reader thing, but I'll have to wait and see one in person before I can think about it. Based on the pics, I would not want to have to carry that thing around, and worry about THREE AAA batteries dying on me to boot!

Well, here's hoping that it's nicer in person than it is in the pictures.

 

[damax452]

Yuck

Apple needs to fire Belkin, they don't get it. Apple products are alway so sleek, Belkin just makes clunkers that cheapen the look of the iPod. I'm kinda dissapointed, as many of you seem to be, with todays updates.

Although the new features are neat, they are not too impressive, I would have been much happier with a software update that allowed me to use a regular mic in the 1/8" headphone jack. And $50 for a little mic? No thanks. I have no use for the card reader, but for some its probably a great thing.

 

[cubist]

OK iPod users, how much recording time are we likely to get before we need to recharge? I'd like to get 8 to 10 hours if possible. Mono is fine (lectures). Anyone know? What kind of life do you get playing music?

 

[fpnc]

Re: Camera<------>Firewire cable<----->iPod

Originally posted by sososowhat
I don't get why they didn't let us download photos directly from the camera using firewire. No box to carry/attach, just firmware to update.

Is it because FW-out cameras are high-end & Apple's just mass-market? I don't claim knowledge here...just a desire to do something simple!

The problem with your assumption (or request) is that all of these cameras would have to have their firmware updated in order to work with the iPod. What you seem to be overlooking is that both devices would need new firmware, it couldn't just be done on the iPod side.

As for USB, I don't think many cameras even support peripherals. Usually, when you connect a camera to a PC the camera is in a USB mass storage mode, this is just the opposite of what you'd need to connect the camera to an iPod. In that case, the iPod would need to run in mass storage mode and the camera would need to be a USB host (and I'd suspect that most cameras can't even do that).

 

[walkingmac]

again the issue of quality built in recording options. The line-in port as we all know by now is mono.... but as I recal the dock has a STEREO port on it that can be used.... that being said it should be posable to make an accessory that connects via the dock port on the 3G iPods that has a STEREO line in.

Still no word if the Sampling Frequency is up to 44.1 or not.... but I'm waiting for that bit of info!!!

 

[fpnc]

As for an audio recording device, what I'd like to see is something that might look like Griffin's iTrip. It would have a built-in microphone on one end, a small speaker in the middle, on on the other end a mic and stereo line-level input. It might even have its own battery (one AA) so that it could provide some active audio processing (gain control, pre-amp, etc.). Of course, it would also offer high-quality recording (assuming that the iPod could handle such input, same question on the stereo inputs). If someone could design a nice looking and reasonably compact device like this I would buy it in a heart beat. I was hoping that Apple would produce such a device, I'm not really that impressed with Belkin's offering (I guess the latter is okay for low-quality voice memos, but that's it).

 

[hulugu]

in the future...

The thing is, which no one has mentioned, the iPod has this capability to use and accept data from other devices—this strikes me as a huge extra in the iPod and means, I believe, that other vendors will be able to develop their own solutions. Look at the cases, headphone, and connectivity solutions available for the iPod. I think a media reader and line-in audio device could be developed other vendors: Griffin, Macally, etc. and Apple will accept these.
But, the card reader should be self-powered (the iPod probably can't sustain itself and another device for the 6-10 hours we ask) and the line-in device looks poor in the photos, but I'd like to see one before I pass judgment.
BTW, anyone have suggestions about cases for a 2nd G iPod? I managed to maim the one it came with.

 

[gogoman]

Come On Griffin

Fret not everyone. Griffin Tech is sure to bridge the design gap missed by Belkin.

 

[paulwesley]

piggyback headphone jack?

Anyone know if the new mic has a 2nd headphone jack, so you can have BOTH mic and headphones connected at one time?

If not, it should. How annoying if you had to unplug and replug the headphones/mic every time you switched from recording to listening to music...

Great to see this direction opening up, at any rate...

 

[fpnc]

Re: Come On Griffin

Originally posted by gogoman
Fret not everyone. Griffin Tech is sure to bridge the design gap missed by Belkin.

Griffin makes good products but they always seem late to market. It's not uncommon for them to pre-announce a product and an estimated ship date and it usually then slips, and slips, and slips (finally being released anywhere from 3 to 6 months after their original estimate). But I would tend to agree, Griffin could/should redo Belkin's efforts.

 

[fpnc]

Re: piggyback headphone jack?

Originally posted by paulwesley
Anyone know if the new mic has a 2nd headphone jack, so you can have BOTH mic and headphones connected at one time?

I'm pretty certain that it does not have a second jack, but it does have a small speaker so that you can at least preview or hear your recordings.

 

[fpnc]

Re: in the future...

Originally posted by hulugu
The thing is, which no one has mentioned, the iPod has this capability to use and accept data from other devices—this strikes me as a huge extra in the iPod...

I don't mean to be totally rude (said with a friendly grin), but I don't understand your comment about "...which no one has mentioned..." Because, well, isn't that what we're all talking about here?

In any case, one thing that I've mentioned before and something which no one else seems to take into account is that the current 3rd-generation iPod has no hard attachment points. This means that just about any peripheral that is attached to the iPod has to connected via a cable and this isn't very elegant or convenient for a mobile device that you might need to operate with one hand. Take the photo card reader. Imagine how much better this would work if you could firmly attach this device to the bottom of the iPod (with some type of clip device or even small thumb screw). Apple should have designed the iPod to accept an attachment point like this (IMO). The fact that they didn't include this leads me to believe that no one at Apple fully considered the iPod peripheral market. I have a small Sony mini-disc player/recorder that has a single screw-thread attachment point that works great to secure an extra battery pack to the player. A similar physical attachment point like this on the iPod could be very useful (it could have been integrated into the docking port).

 

[Telomar]

Originally posted by cubist
OK iPod users, how much recording time are we likely to get before we need to recharge? I'd like to get 8 to 10 hours if possible. Mono is fine (lectures). Anyone know? What kind of life do you get playing music?

You get 8 hours playing music at 128 - 160 kbps. The audio is recorded at around 160kbps so I'd expect something similar. Not really sure until it's tested how much the Mic might drain or how much writing to HD might drain.

 

[d1gg3r]

Re: Camera<------>Firewire cable<----->iPod

Originally posted by FlamDrag
The card reader is useful, but it seems that this functionality should be as simple as a cable directly from the camera to the iPod to eliminate the need for a memory stick (etc) all together.

Exactly, most cameras have USB connectors so what's the problem with just connecting directly? Does anybody know? This seems such a logical thing to do!

Originally posted by aswitcher
I sort of had in my mind they might allow USB links to pull digital stills off without a completly seperate device. Guess that was asking a bit much.

Why asking too much? Surely it's just a software upgrade for the iPod?

Originally posted by fpnc
As for USB, I don't think many cameras even support peripherals. Usually, when you connect a camera to a PC the camera is in a USB mass storage mode, this is just the opposite of what you'd need to connect the camera to an iPod. In that case, the iPod would need to run in mass storage mode and the camera would need to be a USB host (and I'd suspect that most cameras can't even do that).

Why can't the iPod play the host? The camera acts as a hard drive. So, it would only need firmware update to iPod. Can iPod play as a host? Zat is de qvestion!

Cheers Daniel

 

[iHack]

Originally posted by CrackedButter
I don't care how lame the voice recorder looks, i was about to spend £100 on a digital recorder from Olympus and now i don't have to.

snip

This is going to be great for lectures, a voice recorder AND a new 12" PB! Discounted as well!

Get the Olympus. WAV recording is terrible for anything longer than a short note. The files are huge. I have an Olympus and it stores up to 11 hours on a 32 MB smart media card. Sure it's compressed, but the compression is optimised for speech. The sound quality is actually very good. It features voice activation too, so you record hardly any silences.

M.

 

[whooleytoo]

Aaah! After installing the latest iPod software, my iPod battery indicator (or the iPod battery?!?) is broken. After a few hours plugged into the dock, it still shows almost empty charge. (I also noticed, the indicator has changed, before the battery had just 4 segments, now it has many more).

 

[Analog Kid]

Underwhelmed

I'm really underwhelmed by these peripherals...

Recording only appears to work with this one mic.

The mic is mono, and attached to the unit-- I'd like high quality separable stereo mics on a cable so I can keep the iPod on my hip and record ambient sound.

The mic might be good for recording lectures, or what-not, but if it's a student accessory or that quality it should be $20, not $50.

(The mic shouldn't be built in. The quality would be awful and would only serve as a tick box on a spec sheet. A dongle is fine, just make it reasonable.)

The card reader is just another box to carry around. I was looking forward to this for vacation photos, and possibly video off a "still" camera. I want to be portable. An iPod on my hip is fine, but the reader would stay in my hotel room where I may as well dump to the powerbook.

For $100, they could put a small LCD panel on there and make it close to useful. Heck, a Palm doesn't cost much more than $100...

Yes, it is stupid if I can't use it. There's only been a handful of posts that see this as really useful.

I do hope this is the start of a trend though. Having a hard drive on your hip can be really powerful if it's coupled with useful peripherals...

Let me plug in an iSight, for example... Put a really small LCD where the Apple logo is on the camera, and dump the data to the iPod.

 

[Analog Kid]

Re: Re: Camera<------>Firewire cable<----->iPod

Originally posted by fpnc
The problem with your assumption (or request) is that all of these cameras would have to have their firmware updated in order to work with the iPod. What you seem to be overlooking is that both devices would need new firmware, it couldn't just be done on the iPod side.

As for USB, I don't think many cameras even support peripherals. Usually, when you connect a camera to a PC the camera is in a USB mass storage mode, this is just the opposite of what you'd need to connect the camera to an iPod. In that case, the iPod would need to run in mass storage mode and the camera would need to be a USB host (and I'd suspect that most cameras can't even do that).

The iPod has a processor on board-- that's what makes it more than a hard drive. It could easily act as host to a device that meets the USB Mass Storage spec.

I have to believe if it can decode AAC, it can read from a USB port.

Heck, it can already control the hard drive it's attached too. Even if it just used the RAM as a bucket and pulled bits from the camera to RAM and then alternately dumped it to the hard drive.

 

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by fpnc
As for an audio recording device, what I'd like to see is something that might look like Griffin's iTrip. It would have a built-in microphone on one end, a small speaker in the middle, on on the other end a mic and stereo line-level input. It might even have its own battery (one AA) so that it could provide some active audio processing (gain control, pre-amp, etc.). Of course, it would also offer high-quality recording (assuming that the iPod could handle such input, same question on the stereo inputs). If someone could design a nice looking and reasonably compact device like this I would buy it in a heart beat. I was hoping that Apple would produce such a device, I'm not really that impressed with Belkin's offering (I guess the latter is okay for low-quality voice memos, but that's it).

Now this I like. Empty the iTrip tube and put the mic at one end to give it some directionality. That would be good for a student who wants to focus on the professor.

Still mono, but useful.

Forget the speaker, that's what the headphones are for.

 

[jcshas]

$99?

$99 to upload photo's to my iPod? You must be kidding. Say hello to the worlds most expensive memory card reader! Maybe I'll consider picking one up when the price drops to about $30-40, or when hell freezes over (oops, that already happened yesterday).

 

[applekid]

Looking again at Peripherals

I'm glad to see the new flash card dumper. It is something my dad and I always wanted ever since we saw the original iPod. My dad's company might consider buying a few of these things because they are usually out doing field testing and need to take lots of pictures. I would also like to applaud Apple's work on the new iPod update. It feels more responsive in the interface and games, the new battery meter just looks sleeker, and the better contrasted removed these faint grids I had all over my screen. And to add to that, I had this blob of dark liquid crystals on the edge of the left side of the screen, but now that has disappeared completely too!

When I think of computer peripherals, I'm thinking of everything that I can hook up to my computer that acts as input and output. I think the iPod will be part of a bigger scheme of things to come.

 

[luiss]

SD based camera is much more attractive now.

Check out this SD (as opposed to say, MiniDV) camcorder the Panasonic SV-AV100. With the Media reader for iPod, the 20 minute record time for a 512MB SD card is bearable, just keep offloading to the iPod. A 10X speed 1GB SD card costs about $500. For that amount you could by an 20GB iPod and a Media Reader.