Re: Previous Post
Originally posted by Tom800
To MrMacMan: Apologies for my 'spamming' thoutlessness; twas in the interests of the humor device. I do believe however that AAC would be a wonderful 'gratuity' from apple - if the rumors are to be believed it would allow, at best, 5GB iPods to become essentially 10GB ones, in terms of song space, etc. And if you don't need the space, use it to backup/transfer.
Also agree with the previous poster that with bluetooth, properly done the iPod could be a really cool 'remote' for DVDs, iTunes, Slideshows, etc.
Just out of interest, what do people do with PDAs that is not provided for already by Palm, or done better by a full size laptop/desktop? Surely the compromised nature of a PDA is enough to render it merely a cool toy? The one response I can think of to this was Woz a few years ago saying the Newton was something that really eased his 'thinking through of ideas' process - something like that. But not having ever had a Newton I can't imagine how.
Well, I have a Kyocera 6035 SmartPhone, so the main "killer app" on my Palm device is just making phonecalls. The other killer apps are things like using Mapquest, checking my Yahoo mail, etc. from my phone/PDA. I personally will never again consider having separate PDA and phone devices. I don't know if my next phone purchase will necessarily be a SmartPhone or Treo type device, but at minimum it has to sync with AddressBook and iCal on my iBook. I would miss being able to check Mapquest and online Yellow Pages when I'm looking for someplace in the streets of Manhattan, though...
So here's what I would want in the ultimate mobile device: add a phone keypad to the front of the iPod , a small camera and phone antenna to the top of it, and a microphone at the bottom. So it would still function as an MP3 player (controls would have to change, obviously), but the new "killer app" would be making phonecalls. You would be able to store PDA-type stuff on this new iPhonePod, but, as now, you could actually only do data entry from your computer. You *could* however, record a voice memo on your iPhonePod so you could type in the data on your computer later.
And let's not forget the camera. DoCoMo is using Quicktime and MPEG-4 in its 3G service in Japan. DoCoMo is committed to partnering with AT&T to roll out 3G to major U.S. markets by 2004. DoCoMo + Apple + AT&T = you guessed it, the first real videophone introduced in the american market. I think it will be just like mobile phones are now - once people get used to them they'll wonder what people did before they had them. And streaming video is just one capability. Until 3G rolls out, you can just send still shots for now. And you would also have the cabability to save and upload the still photos to iPhoto, and short movies to iMovie. The image quality wouldn't be top of the line, but being Apple, would be surprisingly good. And you would of course need a color screen to be able to preview and delete photos and movies.
Far fetched? Maybe. But if Apple came through with such a device, I predict that like the iPod it would become a success despite its high price (maybe $700?). The same way being able to carry a whole music collection on the iPod changed people's relationship to their music, I think being able to always have your camera/video camera with you (since you would definitely always have your phone with you) would change the way people use and think about their camera/video cameras.
