New iPod Details

[puckhead193]

that's kool, better battery life is good, i'm not a big fan of the click wheel, i like the red LED's on mine. The college offer thing is still good until sept. right... and they say there coming out in a week... looks like i'm gonna wait to buy my powerbook, now i just have to decide 20 or 40.

 

[SiliconAddict]

As long as Apple makes the best digital player, they won't end up a has been.

You mean like how Apple is leading sales in PC's right? 🙄

You don't have to make crap hardware to lose a market.

 

[notmenotyou]

this is why I have my computers networked and connected to my receiver. At home, I don't play my music from my iPod. I play it straight from one of my computers. Personally, I would get far more use out of a built-in transmitter, even if the quality is not as good. I have an iTrip and an iRock, and strangely enough (based on other's opinions that I have read) I hate, and don't use the iTrip, and much prefer the iRock. Maybe living in NYC somehow interferes with the iTrip too much for my taste. But I use the iRock ALL the time when visiting other people's homes for the weekend, or in the rental car on the way there. With a decent receiver, I have had it work from 50-60 feet away, even through walls and floors. So I guess a built-in FM transmitter would be my one selfish wish.

Seems as though I am in the minority, so I am not counting on seeing this feature any time soon. :-D

i think you have better luck then i do, cos i throw out both iRock and iTrip long long time ago because of the lousy sound quality, at the end, i bought a car stereo with line input and a mini jack to mini jack cable, and now i am a very happy iPod ower!!! 😀

btw, i am also live in NYC

 

[jeffgarden]

No they can't. It charges, but I won't mount or play through the line out. The inMotion made different, and that does work fine with both.

wow then i must be really special then. because i have 1 dock hooked up to my emac and i use it to sync/charge my mini and 3rd gen ipods. and i also have the Altec Lansing speaker/dock thing and both work fine on that

 

[PDubNYC]

i think you have better luck then i do, cos i throw out both iRock and iTrip long long time ago because of the lousy sound quality, at the end, i bought a car stereo with line input and a mini jack to mini jack cable, and now i am a very happy iPod ower!!! 😀

btw, i am also live in NYC

line-in is definitely the way to go, if you own a car. You lucky f*cker! :-D I had to sell mine when I moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan, just not worth the trouble or expense for the amount of use I got out of it.

But I love it when my friends and I have had a few cocktails, and jump in a cab and I have the driver tune the radio so I can play my tunes, even if my drunken favorite is the Ghetto Boys, "My Mind is Playing Tricks on Me" haha. take care

 

[winmacguy]

umm...they did re-invent the wheel, sort of

Well they did with the 1st Gen iPod but with the 4th Gen iPod they have just tweaked an already great design 😉

 

[JFreak]

FM/AM Tuner. As weird as it seems, some of us like to listen to the radio.

radio is currently analog technology, and the ipod may not have analog-to-digital comverter inside. implementing radio apple should put in extra parts (perhaps the converter, plus certainly the tuner), which doesn't fit into the "we want smaller" woes and certainly doesn't fit into the all-digital-lifestyle that the ipod stands for.

ipod will stay all-digital, there will not be a radio and there will not be a mic input.

 

[sethypoo]

This certainly is a new and different way for Apple to introduce a new product. I think integrating the new click wheel idea is a good one; I haven't yet held an iPod mini, but I hear they're the bomb. Go Apple!

 

[sethypoo]

ipod will stay all-digital, there will not be a radio and there will not be a mic input.

I think that there will eventually be a mic input. It makes sense, look at the Belkin Voice Recorder, or the Belkin iPod microphone adapter. Wouldn't a mic-in port be digital, since what one would record would be digitally encoded on to the iPod hard drive? I think Apple, or one of their many engineers, could come up with a way to get a analog to digital converter in there.

 

[dgdosen]

I think Apple needs to release these right away - they're more appealing visually, they've got more disk space, better battery life - and cheaper. No one will buy a 3G compared to a 4G. The cat's out of the bag, and now they need to be at the store.

I can't see the stores not having these things tomorrow. Otherwise, sales of the existing models will dry up - completely.

 

[dguisinger]

radio is currently analog technology, and the ipod may not have analog-to-digital comverter inside. implementing radio apple should put in extra parts (perhaps the converter, plus certainly the tuner), which doesn't fit into the "we want smaller" woes and certainly doesn't fit into the all-digital-lifestyle that the ipod stands for.

ipod will stay all-digital, there will not be a radio and there will not be a mic input.

Ummm, the Analog to Digital chip is already in the iPod. All they would need is a tuner, and they make those so small Timex has put them in a watch. If it wasn't for the AD converter you wouldn't have the Belkin mic adapter. And yes its in the iPod, because at one point it was leaked how to get to it in a previous generation, and if I'm not mistaken people were able to record by talking into the headphones (which if you were into electronics you know a speaker can work as a mic in reverse, although not as well as a mic does). Apple could easily make it switch signal sources when using a mic or using the radio, and use just a single D/A converter.

 

[red_wedge]

radio is currently analog technology, and the ipod may not have analog-to-digital comverter inside. implementing radio apple should put in extra parts (perhaps the converter, plus certainly the tuner), which doesn't fit into the "we want smaller" woes and certainly doesn't fit into the all-digital-lifestyle that the ipod stands for.

ipod will stay all-digital, there will not be a radio and there will not be a mic input.

My phone has a radio and a mic in it. It's smaller than an iPod. I really don't think this is an issue.

 

[JFreak]

You know, part of me is thinking that 3G will indeed be left out in the cold with new firmware. perhaps apple is just CALLING it 4G so that they won't have to support the 3G with the new firmware.

i think you think wrong. the whole "4G" is a pr thing, really, and it is technology inside which defines when the generation changes - not some marketing department...

if i remember correctly, the "1G/2G" ipods had v1.x firmware (first generation!) and the "3G" ipod and mini have a v2.x firmware (second generation!). i guess the new ipod will also have v2.x firmware, because nothing major has been said so far... and that's why i would find it very strange if apple somehow decided to put a v3.x firmware into the new ipod. it is much easier for apple to maintain one firmware generation at the time, and the mini ipods will not likely need a new firmware for a long time.

ipod firmware states the generation. if the new ipods will have a v2.x firmware, they too are second generation toys. remember the G4 cpu line? there are a gazillion of different G4 chip revisions out there, different speeds and different chip numbers. all G4:s though. and so are the ipods, too - the technology defines the generation, not marketing department.

(if i remember correctly, there was hardware changes in "3G" ipod which justified the new firmware. i think you cannot play apple lossless with firmware v1.x devices, and that's not a marketing department's decision. the first generation was just not capable enough.)

when we see a real third generation of ipods, apple will amaze us again. with something else than "a little smaller case, a little longer battery".

 

[Windowlicker]

No radio? Oh well. I guess I will just keep waiting until I fill my 15 giger. They should be up to the 5th or 6th generation by then.

what's up with all this crying after radio on iPod?! why would they put a radio receiver on them --- people would be listening to radio instead of buying the music from iTMS..

 

[JFreak]

I love the Chicago font! It's classic apple, i hope they never ditch it 🙂

i agree. chicago is very readable at small sizes, so it is just perfect for ipod and such. unless the display resolution dramatically increases, there's just not a better alternative.

 

[JFreak]

Just a little tip, in case you made the same mistake as some people: don't go and plug an iPod from the headphone jack to a stereo system. This is an *amplified headphones jack*, not a line-out jack. Of course, if you go from an amplified headphones output to a stereo line-in, the output will sound like crap (whatever your source/player).

you can get decent results when the headphone output levels are down.

 

[Windowlicker]

The one feature I would really like to see is an FM transmitter (sorry if that is illegal in the UK).

the problem here is that the UK isn't the only country where these transmitters are illegal. The whole Europe belongs to this area and I would think there are other countries that do as well.

No reason to make two products here.. especially when all these transmitters can be bought as addons. I still see the airport express could be integrated in future.

 

[JFreak]

Or that moron who said that "while Apple Lossless sounds a lot better than MP3 or AAC, the real CD still sounds better". 🙄

that in fact is possible. and the other way, too.

if the apple lossless file would have been made out of original master files, then apple lossless would be a perfect copy. if the apple lossless file would have been made out of a cd (which is only a near-perfect copy due to possible errors during burning the production master cd) then the possible read errors of a near-perfect cd track would be transferred permanently into the apple lossless version.

now if we compare a cd track to the lossless file generated from master file, in theory, the lossless file would sound better, though it's debatable if the difference can be proved with a human hear. on the other hand, if we compare a cd track to the lossless file generated from the same cd, in theory, the lossless file would sound worse, though the same applies here as in previous case.

it's all about how the lossless file is made, in other words, closer to the source always sounds better.

BUT...

a lossless is a lossless is a lossless. is there a professional designer who says that TIFF image changes between multiple saves? take a JPEG (lossy) image and save it a thousand times, and you will see a difference. take a TIFF (lossless) image and do the same, and compare it to the original - bit by bit - and it has remained the same.

and the same goes to lossless audio. a lossless coding means lossless audio, in other words, even though the audio FILE becomes smaller, the audio WAVEFORM can be re-constructed 100% matching the original.

difference can be made happening, but it will not become from lossless coding, if the "apple lossless" is truly a lossless method. i have myself not yet proven this, so i have to trust that apple knows what it says.

 

[JFreak]

I think that there will eventually be a mic input. It makes sense, look at the Belkin Voice Recorder, or the Belkin iPod microphone adapter. Wouldn't a mic-in port be digital, since what one would record would be digitally encoded on to the iPod hard drive? I think Apple, or one of their many engineers, could come up with a way to get a analog to digital converter in there.

i hope not. it doesn't make sense for apple to kill 3rd party accessories.

and no, a mic-in would be analog. digital microphones exist, but they are very high-end and expensive, i guess for a long time too. a mic input would mean analog circuitry, an a-d conversion, and a digital encoding if the signal would not be stored in raw uncompressed format. is the ipod capable of encoding inside the thing? i would guess not. at least not yet. take a look how much aac encoding eats your computer's cpu and think about the ipod's processing power. i would guess the chip inside is a very specialized cpu (and not a general-purpose one like in computers) and that might only be able to decode files, which is by the way a lot easier cpu-cycle-wise.

i hope ipod will stay specialized device made for listening to music, and doing that one thing best in the market. i would hate it to become a microsoftish do-it-all-but-do-not-do-it-well kind of a device...

 

[JFreak]

people were able to record by talking into the headphones (which if you were into electronics you know a speaker can work as a mic in reverse, although not as well as a mic does). Apple could easily make it switch signal sources when using a mic or using the radio, and use just a single D/A converter.

yes, i know this, and believe me, have used my monitoring headphones as a talkback mic few times when my foh console was badly equipped 😉 i'd say i'm quite much into electronics, but have not ripped an ipod apart to see what's in it and what's not. i'm just guessing, sosumi 😉

 

[JFreak]

My phone has a radio and a mic in it. It's smaller than an iPod. I really don't think this is an issue.

your phone also has an antenna built into it, which the ipod lacks 😉 the real question here is "why would apple want to implement anything analog into the ipod which stands for all-digital lifestyle?"

 

[ethernet76]

i havent had time to get thru 12 pages but all the posts ive seen have been about the features but yall are forgetting one of the things that makes the ipod great. the thing is freakin ugly!! i mean look at it-the wheel is a different color, and not exactly a tasteful one. it looks like a colorware job. and are the buttons on a click wheel backlit? that's a real question, not rhetorical, cause i dont know. if theyre not then that's another bad thing. im all in favor of a click wheel, even tho i love my 3g 15gb (only 325 songs, but 5.33gb cause i use lossless) but not if it makes the thing so hideous. i know, i know, form follows function and such truck, but this thing's uglier than that philips ripoff! i could use the battery life, but im sure all the other changes will be in a firmware update. boycott the 4g ipod!!!!!!!!!!

What's the point in lossless? The digital to analog converter is decent at best thrown into a subpar headphone amp. And you probably have some 30 dollar pair of headphones attached to that.

Between my 192 files and the HD 497s I listen to, I'm probably getting better quality at one-tenth the storage.

As for the backlit buttons. My gen1 had no backlit buttons and i managed. You learn by feel. Hey, that's the left side, that's the track backwards button!

The clickwheel is far superior to the touch buttons because anyone who's had their hand and their ipod in the same jacket pocket knows just a slight touch sends the thing crazy. Besides, who wants their buttons at the top? This way you can just scroll, click. No moving your thumb between top and middle.

I've used both, and I think anyone will tell you they enjoy the feel of the gen 1, gen 2 more than the gen 3. Or maybe I'm the only one that misses the feel of the wheel actually moving under my thumb?

 

[zakee00]

that in fact is possible. and the other way, too.

if the apple lossless file would have been made out of original master files, then apple lossless would be a perfect copy. if the apple lossless file would have been made out of a cd (which is only a near-perfect copy due to possible errors during burning the production master cd) then the possible read errors of a near-perfect cd track would be transferred permanently into the apple lossless version.

now if we compare a cd track to the lossless file generated from master file, in theory, the lossless file would sound better, though it's debatable if the difference can be proved with a human hear. on the other hand, if we compare a cd track to the lossless file generated from the same cd, in theory, the lossless file would sound worse, though the same applies here as in previous case.

it's all about how the lossless file is made, in other words, closer to the source always sounds better.

BUT...

a lossless is a lossless is a lossless. is there a professional designer who says that TIFF image changes between multiple saves? take a JPEG (lossy) image and save it a thousand times, and you will see a difference. take a TIFF (lossless) image and do the same, and compare it to the original - bit by bit - and it has remained the same.

and the same goes to lossless audio. a lossless coding means lossless audio, in other words, even though the audio FILE becomes smaller, the audio WAVEFORM can be re-constructed 100% matching the original.

difference can be made happening, but it will not become from lossless coding, if the "apple lossless" is truly a lossless method. i have myself not yet proven this, so i have to trust that apple knows what it says.

thanks for that explanation, you are one of the smarter ones here....u from canada? 😉 jk
i am going to buy a new 20gb from bestbuy asap (i have gift cirtificates there), this is an upgrade to a 1g 5gb 🙂
they look pretty nice

 

[ethernet76]

your phone also has an antenna built into it, which the ipod lacks 😉 the real question here is "why would apple want to implement anything analog into the ipod which stands for all-digital lifestyle?"

I agree. The gameboy doesn't allow you to take pictures. Why don't you complain about that?

The iPod is for a specific purpose. Listening to music. If anyone buys an mp3 player based on whether it can do substandard recording, let them get the iRiver.

If it doesn't already have a microphone for some reason, adding one to record voice is stupid. Besides, who do you know that carries around a voice recorder. The only people I know are journalists.

 

[cb911]

cool. new iPods! 😀 and 1mm thinner!

well i just hope the next PowerBooks are 3mm thinner, back to the good 'ol 1" thin. 😎

also the new wheel looks good, much simpler, and good to hear of the more efficient menus, can't wait to have a play with one. 🙂