Recordable Portable
Hey G4Scott, I share your same dream brother. Have you seen this?
http://www.nomadworld.com/products/Jukebox3
Background: I record a lot of live, stereo audio via my iBook/500 (in conjunction with a Roland UA-30, Peak LE (48 kHz) or Pro Tools Free (44.1 kHz), and a S/PDIF cable, usually receiving my digi stereo signal via a Tascam DA-P1). A typical recording session consists of about 2, 1.5 hour sets of music. This rig runs pretty well, but there are some real problem areas, namely battery life.
In OS 9.2.2, I can only get about 3 hours per battery. I have never once seen the bait-and-switch "5 hour battery life" claim from Apple's slickery marketing folks. Not even close (I can just barily watch a full length DVD). Regardless, I can safely get one set per battery, simply switching batteries at the set break. No biggie.
But in 10.2.2, I have yet to see even a 1.5 hour battery life (yes, these are processor intensive tasks, OS X runs hotter, asking the G3 chip to run X is asking for trouble, blah, blah, blah). This is very problematic when in the field (unable to run X in the field - bummer), and just not acceptable.
Ok, all of that was to set up: A live audio recording cohort uses a Jukebox 3 (see above link). He generally connects to the RCA OUT of my Roland UA-30, and records directly to uncompressed .wav files. Very sick. Very portable. Very cool. He then has the options of taking the recording back to his PC and either dumping it in and burning an audio disc, or converting the .wav file > mp3. He also has, out of the box, 11 hours of record time - with an extra slot for an additional 11 hour battery! Nuts!
While the Jukebox is larger than the iPod (a tad smaller than a portable CD player, which is still very portable), feature for feature it whips the iPod.
As an owner of the original 5G iPod (which I still enjoy daily), I have hoped Apple would release a record enabled iPod.
With Apple's acquisition of Logic, surely a 2 track recording iApp is on the way (iMix I'll call it), integrating seamlessly with iTunes and iMovie - with the eventual holy grail multi track audio app (Mix Master Pro I'll call it) that works in tandem with Final Cut Pro (whoa, if this were to become a reality, ANYTHING created for film or audio, on ANY level [pro/novice] would be done on Macs - woo hoo!).
Now with all of that said, surely iMix could be incorporated into the iPod, in addition to either an audio IN port (requiring a complete hardware redesign, which seems costly and unlikely), or some slick firewire dongle that would connect the iPod's firewire port to (ideally for maintaining a digi signal, and avoiding a software based A/D converter) a S/PDIF or optical connection, or even RCA or 1/8" connections (software based A/D converter required). Even at only 8 hour battery life, that's still better than 1.5 on my iBook.
I think this baby would be a hit, on many different levels, in many different applications, to many differnt people.
Big, fat, grin.
