Jobs on Motorola iTunes, Video iPod, Bluetooth, And More

[mslinklater]

Hurry up with the video iPod

I don't take Jobs's line on there being no demand for a video iPod.

I've bought 3 iPods over the years (starting with a 1G) and I simply refuse to upgrade again until it plays video.

And guess what - my PSP is getting a *lot* of video usage on the train at the mo. And with the price of memory sticks coming down quickly, the much needed wow factor when the video iPod actually gets released is diminishing by the day. Give the PSP another year with no competition and it will be the defacto portable video device and Apple with be playing serious catchup.

 

[mangis]

iTunes phone blows

Let's see. . . I have 250 bucks in my pocket, I could buy an iTunes phone that holds 25 songs, or a Nano with 4 Gb os storage.

Hmmmm. . .

Got it, throw away my super cool cell phone that I 40 bucks for last year and waste $250 on the iTunes phone.

What were these people thinking?

For 50 bucks sure, for $250? I want my Nano.

My current cell phone plus a nano combined would still be small than that iTunes brick phone.

iTunes phone for 250 bucks is the stupidest money ever spent.

 

[Have.a.nice.Day]

" We have Podcasting, what do you need radio for? Podcasting is the new radio... wake up people..."

Really? So w/ podcasting I can get live NFL games on my ipod?

I can get LOCAL weather and traffic?

I can get local news?

I can get Phil Hendrie,Art Bell,Michael Savage and sports talk live?

podcasting is CANNED hours/days/weeks old content. When you want CNN you want it NOW and live...you dont download a 3 hour old CNN news update to watch do you? When your team is playing you dont wanna go online 3 hours AFTER the game is over and download it....you wanna flip a button and hear it NOW.

Sorry,but to even try and pass off podcasting as a replacement or even a decent option to live radio is a joke.

Podcasting is USELESS for time sensative local/regional content which is what you need radio for.

Yeah,I'm on a city bus and breaking news in my city...wait...my ipod doesnt have a radio....rush home and download the PODCAST!

Podcasting is only one componet of the entire entertainment/information package. It cant replace anything.

The ipod is AM-FM radio away from being a perfect device.

 

[Stella]

Art Bell

The two last Sundays of every month, unfortunately.

Oh, how I wish he was on every week day again.

 

[NicP]

" We have Podcasting, what do you need radio for? Podcasting is the new radio... wake up people..."

Really? So w/ podcasting I can get live NFL games on my ipod?

I can get LOCAL weather and traffic?

I can get local news?

I can get Phil Hendrie,Art Bell,Michael Savage and sports talk live?

podcasting is CANNED hours/days/weeks old content. When you want CNN you want it NOW and live...you dont download a 3 hour old CNN news update to watch do you? When your team is playing you dont wanna go online 3 hours AFTER the game is over and download it....you wanna flip a button and hear it NOW.

Sorry,but to even try and pass off podcasting as a replacement or even a decent option to live radio is a joke.

Podcasting is USELESS for time sensative local/regional content which is what you need radio for.

Yeah,I'm on a city bus and breaking news in my city...wait...my ipod doesnt have a radio....rush home and download the PODCAST!

Podcasting is only one componet of the entire entertainment/information package. It cant replace anything.

The ipod is AM-FM radio away from being a perfect device.

Well i guess that depends on what you use the ipod for, personally i hate listening to sports, in fact i hate watching most sports too. and as for news, well i read the free newspaper i pickup at uni.

For me an ipod would be used for music, i dont have one because its useless to me unless it can play my albums gapless (almost all my music is mixed cds or live)

If i ever wanted to listen to radio (radio here sucks), i would use my phone, after all my phone goes everywhere with me.

 

[nomad01]

iTunes UK offers unique Jamie Cullum deal

Anyone seen this?

Apple offering a "deluxe" version of Cullum's album with a live video.

"The deluxe version ships with a selection of extra digital items, including: a digital booklet; the video of the single “Get Your Way” and an exclusively filmed performance from Cullums recent six day stint at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London."

Does kind of make me wonder if there's going to be some kind of video capability in future iPods. For something like this that's only available in video form, you could always just have the option of listening to the audio.

 

[Proud Liberal]

I wouldn't assume that conclusion at all.

He said that no one has been successful with that yet. That could be Jobspeak for no one has done it right...yet.

You're exactly right. The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player on the market either, but it was the 1st to be successful with the masses. Bring on the iPod video!

 

[jakemikey]

If there's one thing I've learned about Steve Jobs, it's that if he says "Idea XYZ is stupid and it'll never happen..." what he really means is "we're working on it in our lab right now and it should be out within the next 6 months." He just doesn't want his competitors to have an idea of where Apple is headed, so he dismisses the very ideas they're working on as impractical and silly. Then when they release the product he says, "See what a feat we've accomplished!"

The sad thing is, some people still believe him when he does this. Anyone remember what he said about flash-based players? Remember when he said it was impossible to make a screen/interface on a tiny player that was effective? Remember what he said about the two-button mouse? Remember the PPC vs Intel benchmarks? He's got a pretty good track record of dismissing ideas out of hand, and then 6 months later releasing a product that completely contradicts what he said, just so they can catch the competition off-guard.

 

[dernhelm]

Actually, he's implying its a mistake, because you are meant to learn from those.

Or more likely he's implying that their in-house people are learing how to develop usable software for other people's hardware for small form-factor devices. Apple has always had the luxury of building the whole widget. The only people coding for other hardware are the Windows iTunes guys, and that is a considerably different thing.

I'm guessing that Apple is still investigating "convergence" devices (e.g. phone + mp3 player) and they are trying to decide how they can work with other companies to produce these devices. I doubt Apple wants to get into the cellular phone making business. But since most cell phones have mini-OS's on them, they could investigate making killer apps for those devices. Apps that make use of already existing Apple services (like iTunes, .Mac, etc).

This is my guess as to where the "learning" part comes in.

 

[barbee]

"- Regarding new features (such as radio), "We are very careful about what features we add because we can't take them away."​

Umm.. so that's why they took away the iPod mini and replaced it with something slicker, although smaller disk space? Not sure that I agree with Jobs there because they could - after all - release an iPod WITH a radio and one WITHOUT. The lack of radio is the only reason for me to look away, because that's something I just require. I enjoy listening to the news on radios and some channels do have GREAT mixes from time to time.

MP3 is great but it's rather static sometimes.

 

[ccrandall77]

Why wait for a video iPod?

A movie player for your iPod, coming soon!

http://www.nyko.com/nyko/products/?i=36

OK, not as elegant as a video iPod could be, but not a bad alternative for now. My biggest gripe, though, is that there doesn't appear to be A/V out on this thing. I also wonder what type of wear and tear viewing a movie on the iPod cause to the hard drive since it's not really designed for that. When the 40+GB flash drives come out, it might be a bit more practical.

I'd probably get one of these, if it was under $300, but I already bought a PSP that has an awesome screen that's larger. And EyeTV has an option to output PSP formatted video and PSPWare knows exactly where to put and name the file.

If Apple did come out with a vPod, I would hope it'd be similar to the PSP minus the game controls and UMD drive and with a nice sized HDD.

 

[Proud Liberal]

I hope Steve is just being pessimistic to luke warm on these issues because he doesn't want to tip his hand.

I think that's exactly the case. I would love to see/know what his comments were on MP3 players before about 6-12 months prior to the original iPod release in 2001...

 

[Piarco]

Anyone seen this?

Apple offering a "deluxe" version of Cullum's album with a live video.

"The deluxe version ships with a selection of extra digital items, including: a digital booklet; the video of the single “Get Your Way” and an exclusively filmed performance from Cullums recent six day stint at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London."

Does kind of make me wonder if there's going to be some kind of video capability in future iPods. For something like this that's only available in video form, you could always just have the option of listening to the audio.

They've been doing this for a while (well, a couple of months) with other artists - like the Black Eyed Peas for example. But it does make you wonder if its just iTunes evolving into a video store, or is it bringing video eventually to the iPod?

 

[balamw]

I think that's exactly the case. I would love to see/know what his comments were on MP3 players before about 6-12 months prior to the original iPod release in 2001...

Why would anyone have asked him? Apple was a computer company in 2001.

B

 

[Le Big Mac]

I wouldn't assume that conclusion at all.

He said that no one has been successful with that yet. That could be Jobspeak for no one has done it right...yet.

Agree. Or, ut slightly differently, "we aren't satisfied that our prototypes could be successful yet, but we're hopeful to make more killer features down the road."

It seems like every one of these things is doable, with the exception of the video ipod, at least as a player itself (as opposed to something dockable like the photo pod).

No media center? Please--there will be some kind of media appliance that works beautifully with Macs sometime before the end of 2006.

 

[Proud Liberal]

Why would anyone have asked him? Apple was a computer company in 2001.

B

And? All of a sudden out of the blue they released the iPod without anyone knowing anything about it? I find that hard to believe. I'm sure at some point SJ was asked about the digital music revolution and I'd find it hard to believe that his answer was "we're a computer company...who cares about digital music"...

 

[loco_macg6]

iPod Video...

iDont know if someone already say this, but, The iPod didnt exist when the iTunes came out, what apple where doing was making a huge library of music on everyones computers, iThink is gonna be the same on Video....videopodcast, Music videos, trailers, independent short films, is filling our computers, so soon we will need ´something´ to store and view that videos....so thats my opinion, thanks all...

And by the way, if you would like to download music videos, all yo have to do is copy the url of your video on the iTunes music store, and paste that link on this web page. see ya everyone!!!

http://www.moonsand.com/itunes/index.php

 

[Steamboatwillie]

I think blending together Computers and TV's is a bad idea (bleh, Windows Media Centre) but a streaming ability is good. i do likes that.

I have to disagree, I have MediaPortal running on an XP box in my bedroom with a StreamZap remote. I've ripped most of my DVD's to DivX and have my library on demand. I So love it. I totally wish it was all mac based and integrated into iLife.

no video Pods good. that would just cheapen Apple. i know a handful of people like to watch videos on the go but fundamentally its flawed.

I totally agree. 2 inch video sucks. I would never buy such a product.

bluetooth headphones; good idea but no. unless battery life is increased somewhat.

I like the concept. If the audio quality is first rate and the battery can be charged via induction (I think induction is the right term. Basically lay the headphones on a mat, no wire to plug in except the mat's power) then I would be all for it!

 

[digitalbiker]

Isn't this one of the most boring and worthless interviews you have ever heard about?

I mean, no video or recording devices allowed, only a small segment of the press was invited, and then Jobs basically says nothing new.

WooHoo, I'm glad I was able to find out about this!

 

[skellener]

No, it doesn't have to be a dedicated play back device, just let the existing iPods play movies.. on the display or on TV via RCB cables.

When say movies I mean those you've recorded yourself or Video Podcasts etc, and NOT feature films or TV programmes.

Absolutely! Screw Hollywood movies! I don't need to see those on an iPod! But for home movies and video podcasts it would be great! Plus...NO DRM TO DEAL WITH!!!

 

[finchna]

- Jobs discussed video on handheld devices - such as a Video iPod. He admits that you can download videos from iTunes as well as Video Podcasts, but is uncertain if people will buy a dedicated video playback device. "So far they haven't. No one has been successful with that yet."
- Jobs still insists that the convergence between TV and Computers is not going to happen.

I can see a vPod being a great tool--it's an iPod for walking around when you need your eyes--or for talk news like Sunday morning news shows and such, but think about all the times you sit or stand waiting for things like buying groceries, riding the bus or subway, doctor's office, etc. you've downloaded the TV news or a sitcom or travel show or whatever, well, you can just watch it. It's not a replacement for a home theater or movie theater--it's an extension of TV or other video as iPod is for your stereo (not a replacement for a home sound system or live concert--the fidelity isn't there).

I think Jobs is wrong on the TV/Computer convergence. It's already happening with things like Elgato's EYETV. Granted, it's not built in, but it's close and it's easier to use than TIVO for playing, editing, etc. and you can take that video and burn it on DVD for archiving, feed it around your house, etc.

 

[coolfactor]

OK. So we have:

- Jobs admits ROKR phone sucks
- Video iPod cannot be ruled out because Jobs has lied so many times before

I wouldn't exactly say that Jobs lied. For one, the Mighty Mouse is functionally still a one-button mouse, if people want it (good for kids). Jobs is brilliant in this respect. The multi-button mouse is actually a handicap when you find yourself crippled without it.

Jobs never said there'd be no flash-based iPod. He simply said that the current flash mp3 market was a mess, and look what happened... Apple "excellence" shows consumers how it should be done, and now we have immitators (Dell DJ Ditty, well almost an immitator).

The portable video market is also a mess. All these companies shoving products down consumers' throats, many of which have features that'll never be used or understood by the user. That is a problem that Apple can and will solve when the opportunity presents itself.

I think one of the most serious problems we face today are the myriad of remote controls for all of our devices. Even with universal remotes, we usually still need 2 or 3 different remotes to control our living rooms. An Apple-designed truly-universal remote with an click-wheel to scroll through channels is desperately needed. It's a big challenge to take on, but done right and the world will be changed for the better.

I'd like mine in glossy black please.

 

[drewpage]

Moto iTunes Cell Phone and Bluetooth

I have seen the ROKR cell phone in person and its not so bad. Is it ideal? No. But it does work as billed. I did notice the menus are a bit slow. The sound quality is as good as any iPod though. I'd consider the phone if I wanted a candy bar style phone. I already have Cingular service, but I have the RAZR V3, and you'd have to pry that from my cold dead hands.

As for Bluetooth, I'd have to sort of disagree with some of the opinions. I have the Logitech bluetooth wireless headphones for iPod and they work great. Now, I don't roam far away from my iPod with them, but with the iPod on the desk the headphones sound great. The battery life seems fine too. Definitely a worthwhile purchase to get rid of the wires. I do agree, its a pain to recharge the module and phones, but Logitech gives you 1 a/c adapter with two plugs on the end, so its not like you need to use 2 a/c adapters.

 

[Savage Henry]

They've been doing this for a while (well, a couple of months) with other artists - like the Black Eyed Peas for example. But it does make you wonder if its just iTunes evolving into a video store, or is it bringing video eventually to the iPod?

No, I dont buy it. The video-promo roll-out has been far too slow and sporadic. A video on an iPod will be the first nail in the iPod's coffin. I need it to show me videos as much as I need it to grill my waffles evenly or give me a shave as close as a conventional razor.

'Tis folly.

 

[Stella]

People really do use the word 'lied / lie' in the most ridiculous places and reasons.


Apple or SJ did not lie.

Do you really think Apple ( or any other company ) are going to reveal what products they are working on in secret? This is particularly true for Apple where is relies on surprise and innovation. If Apple revealed what they were working on other companies would quickly copy and Apple would have lost the initiative it would otherwise had.

My point is below:

>In fact, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer ruled out the Mac mini two months
> before it came out.

Do you really think Apple are going to acknowledge this before an official announcement? Of course not. There is the time and place, and for Apple and Peter Oppenheimer, that was definitely NOT the right time.

Before using the word 'Lie', please think about it first, logically.

People really shouldn't take what apple say as Gospel. Things can change, decisions are made that affects plans, company strategy, external influences etc.

OK. So we have:

- Jobs admits ROKR phone sucks
- Video iPod cannot be ruled out because Jobs has lied so many times before:
- No 2-button Mouse
- No Intel
- No Flash iPod
- No Sub-$500 Mac

In fact, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer ruled out the Mac mini two months
before it came out.

- TV/Computer Convergence not ever happening (see above)
- Bluetooth (see above, however i agree with him on headphones, though
car integration would be nice.