New iPods and Pro Machines?

[tekmoe]

Well lookie lookie...

Amazon now has a $200 rebate on all new PowerBooks (and iBooks) through Oct. 18th... which just happens to be a Tuesday.

amazon states the exact model numbers in which the rebate is good for. this means apple could definitely release new powerbooks before the rebate ends.

the ipod mini offer thru apple however was different. you could buy ANY powerbook and still get the $179 rebate...you were only restricted as to which ipod you could get which is why they put the model numbers in the rebate form.

coincidence?

speaking of that ipod mini rebate...i am still waiting for my check. what gives?! it's been 8 weeks now!

 

[singersongwrite]

pretty please!

Now do you believe me?

From my earlier posts:

Intro: Approx. Oct 7

Will be thinner than the iPod photo, but not as thin as the Nano.

Click wheel is a bit smaller, allowing for a larger display.

At least one (or all) iPod Video units will have WiFi. Airport and Airport Express will have a video out for your TV.

I am still not sure of the capacity but with news of the new 80G drive... hmm.

Price has not been confirmed but the source says "not far off" when I suggest $400 to $449 including the WiFi.

Of course, more if I hear anything. But we are close to Oct 7!

podfuture is it really true? my birthday is thursday the 6th and i already have a nano....i'm there for a vidpod! thanks for any more news!

 

[NicP]

podfuture is it really true? my birthday is thursday the 6th and i already have a nano....i'm there for a vidpod! thanks for any more news!

I'm turning 21 on the 6th

I wish for new powerbooks and gapless ipods

 

[Lynxpro]

Motorola 68000 (or m68k). 68000, 68020, 68030, 68040, and the ever-impressive 68080 that got dumped when Apple moved to PPC, NeXT moved to software-only, and Amiga and Atari stopped moving.
Edit: Damn you, Notjustjay ;-)

Don't you mean the 68060?

Looking back, I'm surprised Atari and Amiga didn't move up to the 68010 instead of starting out their machines (the ST and the Amiga) with the 68000 since the 010 was available in 1985. Maybe the 68000 was in such a large production at the time (for the Mac, telecom equipment, and the Tomahawk Cruise Missile) that it just wasn't cost effective to move to the 68010. Amiga did ship a machine based on the 68020, but I remember Atari skipped it (apparently due to weak pre-emptive multitasking or some other reason...mmu wise) and went to the 030 instead, which delayed the TT for a year or two...or maybe it just seemed like that long at the time.

 

[p0intblank]

For everybody wondering how they could implement a video iPod to be usable by lefties and righties, as well as be usable in a widescreen mode to view movies, let me suggest this possibility for the people making mock-ups:

suppose you decide to watch a movie on your videopod instead of using its music capabilities. Upon selecting your movie through the traditional UI, ipod held vertically, you would turn the ipod horizontally to control the click wheel and its play/pause/ff/rew functions. However, these buttons are labeled not by have pre-printed characters directly on the plastic, but LEDs behind the clickwheel display the characters. If you can imagine, basically the 4 control buttons would shift clockwise 90 degrees as soon as a video is selected(implementation for lefties by shifting counterclockwise and flipping the video?)

eh, just an idea- i don't even expect a video iPod, but i was thinking this could be a solution to some of the problems people have suggested.

LCD buttons is what I am thinking of too. Oh man that would be so sweet! But to be honest, I don't expect an iPod video this soon... just changes in form and function.

 

[bankshot]

People were listening to music while doing other things since the invention of radio. What the ipod did is make a pocket sized jukebox that could carry thier entire collection and that had the ability to be personalized.

Right. The iPod took something that people were already doing - carrying around with them and listening doing other things - and allowed them to do it better. People used to carry a few CDs in the car. Or cassette tapes. Or even 8-tracks long, long ago. People were carrying their own music with them for a couple of decades before the iPod came out. All it did was allow them to carry all their music instead of just some of it.

And it's true, my three year old likes to watch videos over and over again, he just likes to watch 30 dvd's worth! An ipod video will allow at least me, the ability to store and play my sons movies, my home videos, and yes, my porn in a compact device without the need of a dvd player or dvd's and change them on the fly. This will be great with all the traveling we do to grandmas.

I could be very wrong, but my gut feeling is that you're quite the minority here. Who currently carries DVDs around with them on a daily basis? It sounds like you do, but who else does? I'm willing to bet that the percentage of people who do is vastly smaller than the percentage of people who carried CDs around before MP3 players came out. Car DVD players may be changing that for families with kids, but I think the demand is nowhere close to what it was for music when the iPod came out. For this reason, I'll believe Steve Jobs' comments last month on video playing (there's not a market for it yet) before I'll believe a rumor that Apple is doing it. It doesn't make sense.

Then you've also got to contend with a number of other obstacles.

• Movie files are still huge. Even with good codecs (H.264), larger hard drives, and broadband, transferring and storing a movie takes a lot more resources than a music album. An online movie store won't be viable until average broadband speeds increase, as well as typical hard drive capacities.
• Apple used the slogan "Rip, Mix, Burn" for iTunes because CDs have no copy protection, and this falls under fair use. The situation is vastly different for DVDs, which include CSS protection and therefore right or wrong, fall under the DMCA. I imagine they'd get themselves in a bit of trouble if they went around encouraging customers to rip DVDs and break the CSS protection.
• Barring the above, they need a solution for ripping a DVD which preserves some form of DRM. Perhaps they could augment Fairplay to do this, but somehow I think the paranoid movie industry would be worse than the music industry in supporting it. I don't see them coming on board when they'd rather have you buy a new copy made specially for your iPod.
• Movies transferred to iPod would most likely need to be compressed below DVD quality to reduce disk space usage. To maintain picture quality, this most likely means re-encoding with H.264. Which takes foooorrrreeeevvvvveeerrrrrr. It takes a moderate machine maybe 10 minutes to rip a whole music CD. Who wants to wait 10 or 20 hours to rip one DVD?
• If ripping is out of the question, we're back to bullet point one, online distribution. Besides the problems mentioned there, who wants to pay for yet another copy of a movie they already own?

In short, I'll be very surprised if a video iPod comes out soon. Even moreso if video capabilities extend beyond just the gimmick of music videos. The time is not now. Maybe in a few years...

 

[Lynxpro]

Not officially.
The Amiga 4000 topped out at a 68040-25Mhz although you could buy addon boards that included 68060-50Mhz. For a while it was actually quicker to run Mac software under emulation with 'Shapeshifter' on an Amiga than an actuall Mac. I did that for a year or so.

Reminds me how the very first Apple Mac laptop was the Atari STacy laptop equipped with a MagicSac (or was it a Spectre128?) cart with MacOS ROMs. Ran faster too, thanks to the 8Mhz 68000 in the ST line at the time.

 

[Lynxpro]

In the late 80s and early 90s nothing came even close to Amigas in terms of performance for the price(fast processors coupled with audio/video coprocessors) and OS (I didnt find the UI to be too difficult to navigate-remember we are comparing things that were available at the exact same time and Mac OS and Windows were no where close) and thats a fact (maybe except Atari ST), Jurassic Park was done on Amigas and Disney still uses Amigas to these day...

The Star Tours computer screens C3PO stands next to was originally powered by Atari STs.

 

[csimon2]

Could you post a link. I went to Amazon and the only rebate showing is the typical 100 dollar rebate...

Here is the link: http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/00/10/00/13/46/14/100013461453.pdf

Note, that all of the pro machines' rebates expire that day, so this either says a lot, or says nothing at all. I don't think you see the $200 rebate listed on the website because the model that accompanies it is out of stock.

 

[Lynxpro]

They can also make a rotating orientation like the Newton.
Sushi

Or the Atari Lynx.

 

[Lynxpro]

All this talk about Apple IIs, GEOS and Amigas is making me nostalgic.

I was an Atari ST owner. However, I really was impressed with the sound capabilities of the Apple IIGS at the time. Great stuff. But too bad that computer was at an evolutionary dead-end since the Mac was the future of Apple and just about everyone outside of the K-12 educational system understood that.

My true regret over the whole situation is that Atari and Commodore both could not see the necessity in unifying their 16/32 bit systems. Had both companies created a single platform, I think we'd all be in a better situation computer wise in terms of ease of use. The Atari/Commodore standard would've eventually brought Apple's prices in line for the Macs and kicked their engineering team into overdrive and made competitive products, plus it would've put a damper on Windows computers in the homes since nobody would've bought a Packard Bell at the time.

Of course, such a vibrant platform would've tied up all the developers in Europe and thus Linux would not be where its at today because of it. However, I think in response, OS X's audio and video capabilities would be even better than they are today.

 

[Lynxpro]

And the Atari ST? It might have been good for people who needed MIDI, but it's sound-capabilities were abysmal, as was it's grapics-capabilities. (ST could do 4 colors at 640x200, while A500 could do 16).

Bite your tongue. The A1000 shipped with weak 256k of memory while the first Atari ST, the 520ST shipped STANDARD with 512k. And the 1040ST was the world's first personal computer with 1 megabyte of memory STANDARD and cost $1000.

And in those times, the ST blazed away at 8Mhz versus the Amiga at 7.16Mhz on the same processor.

In those days, most people ran their resolutions at 320x200 in color. The ST could do 16 colors and the Amiga could do 32. But the ST demolished the Amiga (at the time) for DTP because the monochrome 640x400 was better than the Amiga, and people bought STs for DTP who didn't want to spend an arm and a leg for a Mac Plus. People also bought STs to emulate Macs who also did not want to pay the massive Apple tax at the time for that platform.

It wasn't until the Amiga500 came out that Amiga started reversing its weak sales in Europe and eventually overtook the ST until both platforms died unceremoniously when WindowsPCs plummeted in price.

As for MIDI, thanks to it, the ST spawned the first networked FPS game...called MIDI Maze. 16 players blasting each other with each machine chained through the MIDI ports. Now that was revolutionary.

 

[ErikGrim]

One word....MP4 player, or is that two words?

It's two words, and the iPod has been able to play AAC since generation 2 (I believe gen 1 through a software update as well). AAC=MPEG4

On a side note I cancelled my order of a 60GB iPod to wait for G5 My 20GB G2 still works beautifully (although with slightly reduced battery capacity which is to be expected of a three and a half year old player), and the wheel is physically better (real buttons for real tactile feedback).

Here's hoping for video and wifi though

 

[barneygumble]

I just want to be able to insert a DVD and hit the import button, then play through TV (wipes drool of mouth)

 

[EricNau]

With this iPod Movie idea...
How many movies (in good quality) could fit on an 80 GB HardDrive?
and
How would you get the movie onto the iPod? If it is as easy as putting the DVD in the Computers Combo/Super drive and pressing import, nobody would ever have to buy a DVD again! Can anybody say "Netflix"?

 

[ajwitte]

On a side note I cancelled my order of a 60GB iPod to wait for G5 My 20GB G2 still works beautifully (although with slightly reduced battery capacity which is to be expected of a three and a half year old player), and the wheel is physically better (real buttons for real tactile feedback).

The click wheel buttons are real buttons. The wheel deflects ~1mm when you click it. Perhaps you were thinking of the 3G 'Pod?

 

[271]

As for MIDI, thanks to it, the ST spawned the first networked FPS game...called MIDI Maze. 16 players blasting each other with each machine chained through the MIDI ports. Now that was revolutionary.

for a long long time atari's had the best midi timing of any computer. many people still sequence with them (norman cook = fatboyslim) and many many well known records owe their creation to the atari.

side note.. logic on atari was called notator or was it creator back then???

oh and the sid chip i the commodore is still alive and well:

http://www.hardsid.com/

http://www.sidstation.com/

 

[KindredMAC]

Has there been any word of Apple discounting the Cinema Displays further with the next G5 PM release?

$799 is still a bit too much when you look at the competition out there that uses the same screen. I don't buy the statement that Steve keeps saying that Apple's competition buys the ones that Apple rejects. If that were true there would not be any returns or unhappy customers.... Both of which I have witnessed at multiple Apple Stores throughout the years.

How about this Apple, bring back the 17" screen to bundle with Mac minis at a cost of $499 w/o a mini purchase or $349 with a mini purchase. I think those things would move and move fast. While you are at it, bundle the keyboard/mouse too. It's time for that.... It's time to take on Dell at their own game.

 

[gugy]

sorry my friend, Apple is not Dell and never will be.
I doubt that Apple has any desire or intention to compete with Dell. Apple products are better made and "tends" to use better parts. So I don't expect it to happen anytime.
I do agree that would be nice to have some sort of promotion if you buy a new PM or PB and have price drops on the Cinema Displays.

 

[bloogersnigen]

i would have tipped the powermacs and powerbooks as going intel first. after all they have always had the new chips before everything else in the line and apple have already established that intel chips will be able to give better performance than the g5.

as soon as the intel chips start coming out it would seem like a stupid move to me not to update the high end machines first.

I would think that because pro users wouldn't want to rely on rosetta as much as consumers they would start with the consumer models until every software maker has made their software native to intel o they improve rosetta.

 

[Shattering Fast]

I'm turning 21 on the 6th

I wish for new powerbooks and gapless ipods

Hey, I'm turning 17 on the 6th. How nifty.

Me want smaller 20gb iPods.

 

[nagromme]

How much Money do You really think Apple is going to invest in new Powermacs? Not to long we will be on Intels.

Not a lot--unless they HAVE to. Which may be the case.

And if a lot of the investment was ALREADY made earlier, then may as well make use of it.

 

[powerbook911]

Well lookie lookie...

Amazon now has a $200 rebate on all new PowerBooks (and iBooks) through Oct. 18th... which just happens to be a Tuesday.

Amazon always has Powerbook rebates. They renew them, when each one expires. They usually put rebates on new models only 1-2 weeks, after they come out.

Furthermore, the rebates are not all $200.

It would have to be some extraordinary $500 rebate to mean anything because the rebates right now at Amazon are the ones they've had, for months.

 

[Shattering Fast]

Everyone seems to be forgetting this... http://www.apple.com/movies

They're quite clearly planning something movie related.

 

[powerbook911]

Everyone seems to be forgetting this... http://www.apple.com/movies

They're quite clearly planning something movie related.

Thanks for reminding me. You make an excellent point. If only we could see!