If each movie takes about 500 megs, you can fit roughly 16 movies on the 8GB Touch. 16GB Touch would hold about 32.
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iPod touch Released
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If each movie takes about 500 megs, you can fit roughly 16 movies on the 8GB Touch. 16GB Touch would hold about 32.
And they do care. They just released a brand-new iPods with 80 and 160 gigs of storage-space! And those are as big as you could practically get. Same thing with Touch: They couldn't give it more storage. HD would consume too much power and there are no bigger flash-chips to be put in the device.
lol, I like that "...but noooo..." I can imagine how people say it...
yes, My point is not that 160GB is a necessity, I guess what I was trying to convey is that apple doesn't have a product that "top of the line, fit all needs", which, isn't hard to do. just change flash to HDD.
I think 450MB is good enough for a movie, ~2hrs, 450kbps.
This is an assumption
I think this is an unwarranted assumption. We know that tiny hard drives use more juice than Flash but we do not know if the battery life was actually unacceptable if they had used a hard drive.
But people are saying this like they actually know something about what the actual real world tradeoffs were between the two engineering approaches. You do not. I will accept this from an Apple engineer who worked on the iTouch project, but not from some faceless whoozit on the internet. This is nothing more than pure speculation intended to silence Apple fans who were disappointed with the product Apple actually delivered.
Moreover, the claim that a hard drive "uses too much juice" presumes that the OS and screen in the Touch/iPhone are inherently much more wasteful than the same in the Classic design, making a hard drive practical in one but impractical in the other, despite the excellent energy saving features built into every Classic iPod ever made, presumably also used in the Touch. So are you guys claiming that an OS X-based iPod is a complete pig compared to the classic iPod OS? Remember the screen will spend most of its time in your pocket with backlighting OFF if listening to music or podcasts (Which is why you'd normally get two baseline power measurements: continuous music - in your pocket, continuous video -- screen on).
An alternative theory is that Flash was essential to the power management of a PHONE, which has its own set of expectations regarding normal use, and that Apple MARKETING essentially made the decision not to include a hard drive in the Touch, so as to drive sales through the iPhone as primary, and through Touch only to catch iPhone holdouts. Giving Apple consumers the Ultimate iPod (160Gig Touch) isn't really Apple's goal here, boys and girls: It is to sell iPhones firstmost, and the Touch secondarily. So, power consumption with a hard drive in the Touch MIGHT have been acceptable---no one here remotely knows!!!!!---but I am sure that the thought of the Ultimate Touch iPod cannabalizing iPhone sales with those juicy service contracts WASN'T acceptable to Apple. Building the ultimate iPod isn't in Apple's interests right now; your needs/wishes take a backseat to what Apple wants.
I think this is an unwarranted assumption. We know that tiny hard drives use more juice than Flash but we do not know if the battery life was actually unacceptable if they had used a hard drive.
But people are saying this like they actually know something about what the actual real world tradeoffs were between the two engineering approaches. You do not. I will accept this from an Apple engineer who worked on the iTouch project, but not from some faceless whoozit on the internet. This is nothing more than pure speculation intended to silence Apple fans who were disappointed with the product Apple actually delivered.
Moreover, the claim that a hard drive "uses too much juice" presumes that the OS and screen in the Touch/iPhone are inherently much more wasteful than the same in the Classic design, making a hard drive practical in one but impractical in the other, despite the excellent energy saving features built into every Classic iPod ever made, presumably also used in the Touch. So are you guys claiming that an OS X-based iPod is a complete pig compared to the classic iPod OS? Remember the screen will spend most of its time in your pocket with backlighting OFF if listening to music or podcasts (Which is why you'd normally get two baseline power measurements: continuous music - in your pocket, continuous video -- screen on).
An alternative theory is that Flash was essential to the power management of a PHONE, which has its own set of expectations regarding normal use, and that Apple MARKETING essentially made the decision not to include a hard drive in the Touch, so as to drive sales through the iPhone as primary, and through Touch only to catch iPhone holdouts. Giving Apple consumers the Ultimate iPod (160Gig Touch) isn't really Apple's goal here, boys and girls: It is to sell iPhones firstmost, and the Touch secondarily. So, power consumption with a hard drive in the Touch MIGHT have been acceptable---no one here remotely knows!!!!!---but I am sure that the thought of the Ultimate Touch iPod cannabalizing iPhone sales with those juicy service contracts WASN'T acceptable to Apple. Building the ultimate iPod isn't in Apple's interests right now; your needs/wishes take a backseat to what Apple wants.
lol, I like that "...but noooo..." I can imagine how people say it...
yes, My point is not that 160GB is a necessity, I guess what I was trying to convey is that apple doesn't have a product that "top of the line, fit all needs", which, isn't hard to do. just change flash to HDD.
I think 450MB is good enough for a movie, ~2hrs, 450kbps.
Well, I think its pretty much impossible to make a product that fits the needs of entire spectrum of consumers .. the wish-list would always be huge with every imaginable requirement.
To fit a HDD in the touch .. umm . I think it might be possible to do that, but the car battery attachment might just ruin the portable nature of iPod .. haha .. kiddin .. but as an answer to your question, the 16Gig might just be fitting for the needs of ... I don't know .. 50%+ iPod costumers? that makes it a majority .. if not .. then . .well wait and see .. I am sure we'll get one 160GB Touch .. but then the 16GB would get as thin as 4mm and the 160GB guys would want that .. we are just chasing our own tails ... *sigh*
by the way I have my south park episodes trimmed down to 35mb each ( I know) and they look not too shabby on iPod 5g .. so a full length movie @ 500mb wont be too bad
The touch can't have a hard drive.
The reason that the touch even exists at the price point it exists is because of the iPhone. Apple is reusing all the bits of the iPhone and leaving out the phone portion to make it cheap and stylish. HDDs are thick. The reason they fit into the "classic" is because the classic doesn't have a full screen touch sensitive display. Even then the smallest "classic" is still thicker than the touch. You guys act like they could make it a "little" thicker and add a HDD. It would either have to be significantly thicker, larger in one dimension or the other, or have a smaller display in order to shoehorn an HDD into the packaging. The result would have been so much different from the iPhone that they would probably lose many of the advantages they get by sharing between the product lines, not to mention unwieldy and ugly compared to the iPhone.
Maybe they should have added more flash, but they couldn't at the price point they needed to hit. $400 is already a lot of money for an iPod. If they had gone to $500 and offered 32GB, it would have been too expensive and still not big enough to hold video and entire music libraries.
There is another issue here is well - durability. I don't know about you guys, but I have had a HDD based iPod for 3 years and have had 3 disk drives fail in it. I really don't want another iPod with a disk drive in it. They simply are not robust enough.
The reason that the touch even exists at the price point it exists is because of the iPhone. Apple is reusing all the bits of the iPhone and leaving out the phone portion to make it cheap and stylish. HDDs are thick. The reason they fit into the "classic" is because the classic doesn't have a full screen touch sensitive display. Even then the smallest "classic" is still thicker than the touch. You guys act like they could make it a "little" thicker and add a HDD. It would either have to be significantly thicker, larger in one dimension or the other, or have a smaller display in order to shoehorn an HDD into the packaging. The result would have been so much different from the iPhone that they would probably lose many of the advantages they get by sharing between the product lines, not to mention unwieldy and ugly compared to the iPhone.
Maybe they should have added more flash, but they couldn't at the price point they needed to hit. $400 is already a lot of money for an iPod. If they had gone to $500 and offered 32GB, it would have been too expensive and still not big enough to hold video and entire music libraries.
There is another issue here is well - durability. I don't know about you guys, but I have had a HDD based iPod for 3 years and have had 3 disk drives fail in it. I really don't want another iPod with a disk drive in it. They simply are not robust enough.
Are you kidding
Are you kidding... your type of iTunes Library should go on a shuffle or nano! Dont tell it's good that there is small capacity.. as others said... they should have let the choice!
There is people here who have more than 100Gb of stuff in libraries... And i'm not part of them.. I have a small library (in my thought) and already uses 7.58Gb. soo happy for you if this iPod is good... but not for everyone!
Ha... and before you answer me that it would fit on the 16Gb... this is *JUST* music.. I haven't put any video still !
Are you kidding... your type of iTunes Library should go on a shuffle or nano! Dont tell it's good that there is small capacity.. as others said... they should have let the choice!
There is people here who have more than 100Gb of stuff in libraries... And i'm not part of them.. I have a small library (in my thought) and already uses 7.58Gb. soo happy for you if this iPod is good... but not for everyone!
Ha... and before you answer me that it would fit on the 16Gb... this is *JUST* music.. I haven't put any video still !
I have a couple of things to say, a little venting, but also offering maybe a bit of hope for some.
I want this to be a video ipod/internet surfing PDA so first off, I am pretty furious at Apple for not including Mail.app or some sort of word processor/notes program on the iPod touch. While yes, I can access webmail, and yes I am almost positive the brilliant hackers out there will port it almost immediately, it is a little annoying. And there is still a possibility it will never happen. Not likely, but a possibility.
For one, I am glad you can finally export video. While certainly it is not anywhere close to the "Portable DVD player with all my movies in the palm of my hand that I can Plug into any TV- device" that I was hoping, I like that at least it can be the "Portable DVD player holding a few of my movies that I can plug into any tv - device".
The 16GB was definitely disappointing to me. However, there MAY be a few reasons they went Flash that really ends up benefiting the user experience. As others have mentioned- no lag from the HDD. I think in a touch interface (with no tactile feedback) this is probably very important to the fluidity of the experience. Imagine touching it and getting no response because the the harddrive is spinning up, so you touch again.. and again.. each time sending new directions. With flash, it is almost instant, and thats a good thing.
Furthermore, the spinning hardrive MAY really effect the accelerometer in these things, hurting the ability for the iPod to detect when its supposed to switch screens (from vert to horiz and vice-versa). Furthermore, the iPod Touch and iPhone probably experiences a lot more rotating by the user than a traditional iPod. The user will be flipping it on its side to view movies, turning it back to scroll through music, flipping again to view a webpage... Thats a lot of movement for a spinning Hardrive to take, and may have performed poorly in stress tests. I dont know if this was the case at all, but when I think of these things, maybe I dont mind 16GB of flash so badly.
Finally, and I think here is the kicker for me, (assuming I can put the effin mail.app on it!), there are some really sweet software options already available for the iPhone that I'm sure will be iPod Touch ready in no time. Check this out. This allows you to stream any of your media in your iTunes library to any internet capable device. Essentially, as long as you have access to wi-fi, the amount of HD space hardly matters because your entire library is available to you. They already have an iPhone plugin which apparently works wonders!
Come on apple, allow us to throw mail and some note taking program, and maybe despite your lack of GBs I might jump on.
I want this to be a video ipod/internet surfing PDA so first off, I am pretty furious at Apple for not including Mail.app or some sort of word processor/notes program on the iPod touch. While yes, I can access webmail, and yes I am almost positive the brilliant hackers out there will port it almost immediately, it is a little annoying. And there is still a possibility it will never happen. Not likely, but a possibility.
For one, I am glad you can finally export video. While certainly it is not anywhere close to the "Portable DVD player with all my movies in the palm of my hand that I can Plug into any TV- device" that I was hoping, I like that at least it can be the "Portable DVD player holding a few of my movies that I can plug into any tv - device".
The 16GB was definitely disappointing to me. However, there MAY be a few reasons they went Flash that really ends up benefiting the user experience. As others have mentioned- no lag from the HDD. I think in a touch interface (with no tactile feedback) this is probably very important to the fluidity of the experience. Imagine touching it and getting no response because the the harddrive is spinning up, so you touch again.. and again.. each time sending new directions. With flash, it is almost instant, and thats a good thing.
Furthermore, the spinning hardrive MAY really effect the accelerometer in these things, hurting the ability for the iPod to detect when its supposed to switch screens (from vert to horiz and vice-versa). Furthermore, the iPod Touch and iPhone probably experiences a lot more rotating by the user than a traditional iPod. The user will be flipping it on its side to view movies, turning it back to scroll through music, flipping again to view a webpage... Thats a lot of movement for a spinning Hardrive to take, and may have performed poorly in stress tests. I dont know if this was the case at all, but when I think of these things, maybe I dont mind 16GB of flash so badly.
Finally, and I think here is the kicker for me, (assuming I can put the effin mail.app on it!), there are some really sweet software options already available for the iPhone that I'm sure will be iPod Touch ready in no time. Check this out. This allows you to stream any of your media in your iTunes library to any internet capable device. Essentially, as long as you have access to wi-fi, the amount of HD space hardly matters because your entire library is available to you. They already have an iPhone plugin which apparently works wonders!
Come on apple, allow us to throw mail and some note taking program, and maybe despite your lack of GBs I might jump on.
hi, i'm a newbie to posting in this forum, although have been following it passively for quite some time now. guess today's event made me feel like commenting.
i agree with some of the comments made earlier in this thread about apple's announcements of iPod products (like the touch being like an afterthought, and how apple's doing this to milk the market for all it's worth).
one must remember that apple's here not to satisfy whatever we want, but to make the most money out of its products. hence the products that were announced. no way they would have announced an iPod Touch with HDD - who would end up buying the iPod Classic? and it would be a *significant* competition to the Touch with flashdrive... (i mean, there would be some ppl who would get the current Touch, and part of that reason would be for the iPhone similarities. if you lived in Asia and could only get the iPhone in 2008, but can get the Touch this month, you might just decide to go for the touch and stick with your current handphone!)
so apple decides to release the Touch for those ppl with iPhone envy but for whatever reasons cannot (or do not) want to own one. and then makes the decision of getting a new iPod difficult by releasing the Classic with the actual storage capacity that full-sized iPods were classically meant to have. hoping that by splitting the market it would get more buyers without too much competition with its other product lines.
maybe they don't realise that there are some ppl (like me) who would rather hold out for the true widescreen iPod with a large HDD. or maybe they do, but just wanna make more money in the interim from the ppl who can't hold out.
anyway, it's interesting to see apple's tagline for the new iPod Classic:
Hold Everything. Decisions, decisions. Who needs em? (apparently we do, cos we gotta now decide between the Classic, Touch and iPhone haha) Why should you have to choose what to put on your iPod? With up to 160GB of storage, iPod classic lets you carry everything in your collection up to 40,000 songs or up to 200 hours of video everywhere you go.
now if they were marketing this on a Classic with a smaller video screen, why shouldn't the rationale be the same for a widescreen iPod which can truly be used for watching videos? that's the question i'd like to know (and let's not get distracted by questions like "but do you really need that kinda space?" because that same question can be fired at the new Classic...)
cheers
i agree with some of the comments made earlier in this thread about apple's announcements of iPod products (like the touch being like an afterthought, and how apple's doing this to milk the market for all it's worth).
one must remember that apple's here not to satisfy whatever we want, but to make the most money out of its products. hence the products that were announced. no way they would have announced an iPod Touch with HDD - who would end up buying the iPod Classic? and it would be a *significant* competition to the Touch with flashdrive... (i mean, there would be some ppl who would get the current Touch, and part of that reason would be for the iPhone similarities. if you lived in Asia and could only get the iPhone in 2008, but can get the Touch this month, you might just decide to go for the touch and stick with your current handphone!)
so apple decides to release the Touch for those ppl with iPhone envy but for whatever reasons cannot (or do not) want to own one. and then makes the decision of getting a new iPod difficult by releasing the Classic with the actual storage capacity that full-sized iPods were classically meant to have. hoping that by splitting the market it would get more buyers without too much competition with its other product lines.
maybe they don't realise that there are some ppl (like me) who would rather hold out for the true widescreen iPod with a large HDD. or maybe they do, but just wanna make more money in the interim from the ppl who can't hold out.
anyway, it's interesting to see apple's tagline for the new iPod Classic:
Hold Everything. Decisions, decisions. Who needs em? (apparently we do, cos we gotta now decide between the Classic, Touch and iPhone haha) Why should you have to choose what to put on your iPod? With up to 160GB of storage, iPod classic lets you carry everything in your collection up to 40,000 songs or up to 200 hours of video everywhere you go.
now if they were marketing this on a Classic with a smaller video screen, why shouldn't the rationale be the same for a widescreen iPod which can truly be used for watching videos? that's the question i'd like to know (and let's not get distracted by questions like "but do you really need that kinda space?" because that same question can be fired at the new Classic...)
cheers
I don't care about the storage, 16 GB is more than enough for me, and my music library is larger than 50 GB on my computer...
However, why didn't they just put the mail function on the thing. I don't want to have to access my email through safari. What a pain, and it would have been so easy to add.
However, why didn't they just put the mail function on the thing. I don't want to have to access my email through safari. What a pain, and it would have been so easy to add.
Carry all your music in your pocket
Why are people referring to this slogan with the iPod touch? If you want more storage, get the iPod Classic. Right?
The Shuffle and Nano aren't able to carry your entire library in your pocket. Each iPod has it's specific target.
The iPod Touch is for a different type of person. Someone who wants Wi-Fi, the latest and coolest little piece of technology and 16g is just the beginning with this. You know eventully the space will increase. It only makes sense that they built this version of the touch screen as flash. I don't ever seem them making this availabe as a HD.
I know the iPod Touch will display videos beautifully and who the hell needs to carry more than 2 movies? If you have kids, get one of those mini DVD players then. This iPod Touch is for the tech savy not for DJs and people with kids.
Why are people referring to this slogan with the iPod touch? If you want more storage, get the iPod Classic. Right?
The Shuffle and Nano aren't able to carry your entire library in your pocket. Each iPod has it's specific target.
The iPod Touch is for a different type of person. Someone who wants Wi-Fi, the latest and coolest little piece of technology and 16g is just the beginning with this. You know eventully the space will increase. It only makes sense that they built this version of the touch screen as flash. I don't ever seem them making this availabe as a HD.
I know the iPod Touch will display videos beautifully and who the hell needs to carry more than 2 movies? If you have kids, get one of those mini DVD players then. This iPod Touch is for the tech savy not for DJs and people with kids.
lol, I like that "...but noooo..." I can imagine how people say it...
yes, My point is not that 160GB is a necessity, I guess what I was trying to convey is that apple doesn't have a product that "top of the line, fit all needs", which, isn't hard to do. just change flash to HDD.
Actually, the point IS that it's hard to do. Changing flash to HDD is not trivial...not if you want to keep WiFi capabilitiies, enlarged display AND
reasonable battery life. People seem to keep forgetting the iPod classic does NOT have WiFi or the larger screen.
Given that the Touch screen is larger than the Classic screen, it's not that much of a presumption to make.
Wifi also consumes power.
How much more power is up to engineers who're familiar with specific components.
However, saying that these differences are trivial is just as ignorant, if not more so, than the people you're trying to criticize.
Nah
Not so sure it is "hard". When the Mini came out, you could swap out the hard drive for a Flash card or even put in a larger hard drive in less than an hour. It used a Compact Flash interface. I am sure this is soldered, but so what? Apple has soldering guns.
Not so sure it is "hard". When the Mini came out, you could swap out the hard drive for a Flash card or even put in a larger hard drive in less than an hour. It used a Compact Flash interface. I am sure this is soldered, but so what? Apple has soldering guns.
Yet you do understand that the best way to make money in the long run, is to satisfy your customers? And last I heard, Apple has been making a lot of money.
This part makes no sense at all. If they were sure the iPod Touch with HD would be so desired that it would negate sales of the Classic, they would've ditched the classic, and just came out the Touch with HD, and be done with it. There would have definitely been problems with battery life and UI responsiveness of a HD-based Touch (the extent of which we don't really know for sure, so it's really futile for anyone to conclude anything for sure.)
But one thing we do know for sure- Apple's flash based products signficantly outsell their HD-based ones. The Classic model however was released to address the needs of customers who need large storage space. The Touch is a TOTALLY NEW MODEL. And that being the case, they chose the storage format that their customers seem to prefer- flash.
I understand that many people want an HD-based Touch. But the Touch is not the 5.5G successor. It's a totally new model. So you have to evaluate the choice of storage technology from that perspective. Hopefully as the tech improves, Apple will release a HD-based model down the line.
Larger screen.
WiFi. (I repeat...WiFi)
More power needed (and that IS a fact; what we're arguing about is how much more).
I think we're talking about a rather large "what".
Wow, I thought I was the only one who really wanted that. They put dual digital analog out in the laptops, why not the iPod?
wait folks, wait.
I would say that the iPhone 2.0 might show up at MWSF. At least they will increase the storage to 16gig or who knows 32gig before xmas.
Patience is a virtue.
I like the iPod Touch, but the small storage is a downer and the price difference between the iPhone and Touch is very small. If having a cell contract and AT&T service are not an issue for you, I would buy an iPhone rather than the touch for sure.
Apple played smart, they made the Touch close to the iPhone but is not a better media player. That way it will not cannibalize iPhone sales that much.
For me the iPhone was the clear winner of the presentation yesterday.
I would say that the iPhone 2.0 might show up at MWSF. At least they will increase the storage to 16gig or who knows 32gig before xmas.
Patience is a virtue.
I like the iPod Touch, but the small storage is a downer and the price difference between the iPhone and Touch is very small. If having a cell contract and AT&T service are not an issue for you, I would buy an iPhone rather than the touch for sure.
Apple played smart, they made the Touch close to the iPhone but is not a better media player. That way it will not cannibalize iPhone sales that much.
For me the iPhone was the clear winner of the presentation yesterday.
I am also leaning heavily towards the Touch. I think it's safe to assume that the missing software apps can be brought over, whether or not Apple facilitates this or not. And plenty of new functionalities will be added to both.
So then its a matter of determining whether the extra storage for the price is worth more to you than bluetooth and the camera. I prefer the extra storage space.
The one software fix I have been waiting for until day one: Crossfading on your iPod JUST like when you playback in iTunes on your Mac. Why not? I just ordered the Classic 160GB so I have all of music with me, but the crossfade feature on the iPod is long overdie. Is there an tech reason why this can't happen?
These touch pods are cool but for people who want just the misuc and alot of storage....maybe next time.
These touch pods are cool but for people who want just the misuc and alot of storage....maybe next time.
Hey 40 hours on the HDD 160GB classic is pretty good. Don't need the fancy pants layout to listen to alot of great music. 160GB Classic for me now.
I would say maybe a year from now. 32gig still very expensive and 64gig I have not even heard about it yet. To keep the current price points of the Touch, Apple will have to wait flash drops in price.
The iPhone in the other hand might get the 32gig first because has a higher price point than the Touch. We'll see.