No Satellite iPod...

[dh9012]

For anyone paying attention

OK For all you purists out there. Check out the specs on the Delphi XM MyFi personal radio.

You can transmit to any FM stereo without wires & receive over 130 digital channels. Listen to live sports. Enjoy comedy, drama, and pop culture. Stay current with talk, news, stock quotes and commentary. Listen to old favorites and discover new ones. Avoid heavy traffic and bad weather. Record up to five hours of your favorite programming.

Includes: Hand-held MYFi receiver, Rechargeable, integrated battery, Mounting Accessories, Complete home accessory kit, Complete vehicle accessory kit, First-ever built-in XM antenna, Headphones, Remote control, Belt clip/stand and a Carrying case.

Subscription includes: ACC PAC10 BIG10 Major League Baseball NASCAR

I just bought one of these for my dad for Christmas. The thing is awesome. Integrating this into an iPod makes perfect sense. Who wants to manage a handfull of music players? One for your iTunes, one for FM and one for satellite? Give me a break. One device is the way to go too. Forget the attachment idea! Its all audio all the time. One device. Plus some functionality that satellite brings. Stocks and weather. Apple would be smart to partner with Delphi on this one. I think it would be far easier to integrate mp3 capability into this thing than for Apple to launch a satellite. Sirus is struggling by the way. And that may be why this partnership didn't pan out. XM Radio is not. Get on board! And get smart.

 

[wPod]

glad to hear. i much prefer apple moving to more simplicity like the iPod Shuffle, rather than adding crap like an XM radio. I finally got to experience an XM radio while on a long car ride and realized it is absolute crap. it sounds likea 16kbps MP3 and it has a tendency to skip at times!?! and what shocks me the most is you have to PAY a monthly fee for this poor quality!! if it was free, id consider listening to it, i liked the lack of ads, but it is way to poor of quality to enjoy. good decision to avoid this apple!!!

 

[Gasu E.]

Why a Satellite iPod would be a good thing

OK For all you purists out there. Check out the specs on the Delphi XM MyFi personal radio.
... The thing is awesome. Integrating this into an iPod makes perfect sense. Who wants to manage a handfull of music players?

I agree. A Satellite iPod would be a good thing for the same reason a subscription music service (such as Napster) is not such a good thing.

The point advocates of the Napster model miss is that selecting and downloading tunes takes time and effort. It's fine for 10-20 songs, but scales poorly to 1000 songs or more. At some point, you would stop selecting and would need to start randomly grabbing. Morever, if you actually tried to grab 10,000 songs, you would spend far more time on the grabbing and downloading than the actual listening. I suppose there are some people who would do this, but for most of us this would not suffice as a leisure-time activity.

On the other hand, in the case of an iPod, it would be nice to be exposed to new music that is outside of the relatively small number of songs that you would want to select via iTunes. The problem with standard broadcast radio is that most stations play a hodge-podge of pre-programmed least-common-denominator music (yes, there are exceptions, but nowhere near enough). A better supplement to iTunes would be a large set of well-defined narrow-casting channels from which you could select in order to more closely match your tastes. In other words, the satellite radio model.

 

[shadowfax]

OK For all you purists out there. Check out the specs on the Delphi XM MyFi personal radio.

was that a paid advertisement?

 

[nagromme]

That thing's too big for me even WITHOUT adding a hard drive.

 

[tsaxer]

Well...

I can't say that it's a bad idea, but I figure that integrating a $350 device into a $250--$599 device might send the price tag into the stratosphere. It would be pretty cool but, ouch.
Also I wonder how much music I would purchase from Itms if I could just dial up 'traditional jazz' on the satellite radio and let it go...
I think Jobs probably made the right call for now. And as has been mentioned earlier, it doesn't mean 'never' just not now (re ipod shuffle).

 

[billystlyes]

Battery life alone is why this will not happen!

 

[rdowns]

OK For all you purists out there. Check out the specs on the Delphi XM MyFi personal radio.

You can transmit to any FM stereo without wires & receive over 130 digital channels. Listen to live sports. Enjoy comedy, drama, and pop culture. Stay current with talk, news, stock quotes and commentary. Listen to old favorites and discover new ones. Avoid heavy traffic and bad weather. Record up to five hours of your favorite programming.

Includes: Hand-held MYFi receiver, Rechargeable, integrated battery, Mounting Accessories, Complete home accessory kit, Complete vehicle accessory kit, First-ever built-in XM antenna, Headphones, Remote control, Belt clip/stand and a Carrying case.

Subscription includes: ACC PAC10 BIG10 Major League Baseball NASCAR

I just bought one of these for my dad for Christmas. The thing is awesome. Integrating this into an iPod makes perfect sense. Who wants to manage a handfull of music players? One for your iTunes, one for FM and one for satellite? Give me a break. One device is the way to go too. Forget the attachment idea! Its all audio all the time. One device. Plus some functionality that satellite brings. Stocks and weather. Apple would be smart to partner with Delphi on this one. I think it would be far easier to integrate mp3 capability into this thing than for Apple to launch a satellite. Sirus is struggling by the way. And that may be why this partnership didn't pan out. XM Radio is not. Get on board! And get smart.

Both are struggling. I think you are correct though, either Sirius or XM should build it, not Apple.


SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - XM Satellite Radio shares advanced modestly Thursday after the company reported a wider fourth-quarter loss on increased costs related to the acquisition of more subscribers than it had in the prior-year period.

During the company's quarterly conference call, XM Chief Executive Hugh Panero told analysts he has spoken to Apple Computer (AAPL: news, chart, profile) Chairman Steve Jobs about the possibility of an XM-enabled iPod, but Jobs wasn't interested.

The Financial Times reported earlier this month that Jobs had a similar conversation with Sirius Satellite Radio Chief Executive Mel Karmazin.

Panero added that he's sure that both XM and rival Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI: news, chart, profile) are talking to "some of the key players" among electronics manfacturers and others that might expand the reach of satellite radio.


The company reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $188 million, or 93 cents per share, up from a loss of $170.2 million, or $1.12 per share, in the year-ago period.

 

[Evangelion]

It's for the best. Who wants satellite music on their mp3 player? Seriously.

Who want's picture-capabilities on their mp3-player? Who wants calendar and games on their mp3-player?

Oh, wait....

 

[Evangelion]

The iPod is a music player! (Doesn't even like the photo edition...)

If it's a music-player, why does it have games? A calendar? Seriously: it seems to me that people are just doing their best to justify this decision. Why do I get the feeling that is Apple had added satellite-radio to iPod, those very same people would be shouting "whoa, this is awesome" Go Apple!"

 

[hayesk]

If it's a music-player, why does it have games? A calendar? Seriously: it seems to me that people are just doing their best to justify this decision. Why do I get the feeling that is Apple had added satellite-radio to iPod, those very same people would be shouting "whoa, this is awesome" Go Apple!"

Because those features are cheap, easy and don't distract from the main purpose of iPod. Satellite requires an entire interface for itself. But that's not the reason. The reason is:
- battery life
- cost
- size (does anyone expect them to fit a satellite receiver into an iPod without making it huge?)

 

[slo]

Obviously satellite radio with iPods make sense... a lot of sense....and knowing our friend Steve, I have worked out the following hypothesis:

I think that Steve is thinking of either using a different sattelite radio company or is considering actually starting or buying one themselves. Considering Apple's recent growth in music, it is a natural extension.

iSatellite might be coming... not soon.... but coming.

slo

 

[Minstrel]

OK For all you purists out there. Check out the specs on the Delphi XM MyFi personal radio.

...

I just bought one of these for my dad for Christmas. The thing is awesome. Integrating this into an iPod makes perfect sense. Who wants to manage a handfull of music players? One for your iTunes, one for FM and one for satellite? Give me a break. One device is the way to go too. Forget the attachment idea! Its all audio all the time. One device. Plus some functionality that satellite brings. Stocks and weather. Apple would be smart to partner with Delphi on this one. I think it would be far easier to integrate mp3 capability into this thing than for Apple to launch a satellite. Sirus is struggling by the way. And that may be why this partnership didn't pan out. XM Radio is not. Get on board! And get smart.

Great, nice picture. Now, tell us how you fit everything in that gadget into the iPod casing, without making it significantly bigger.

If you want a portable satellite radio, that's great, get one separately. Unless you have schematics for how it can be incorporated into an iPod without increasing size or price in any significant manner, it's bloatware.

Cheers,
Minstrel

 

[mea]

Your missing something

When i think of Sirius and iPod, i think of downloading tunes from the iTunes store from anywhere in the world. This could be a faster way to download tunes than via dial-up. If you live out in areas where dial-up is the only connection, this could be your ticket to tons of tunes. That is innovative!

 

[bigandy]

why why why why would apple release an ipod that had such a feature that only worked in north america?

screw that.

 

[Philsy]

When i think of Sirius and iPod, i think of downloading tunes from the iTunes store from anywhere in the world. This could be a faster way to download tunes than via dial-up. If you live out in areas where dial-up is the only connection, this could be your ticket to tons of tunes. That is innovative!

Far better to use 3G mobile phone technology to allow people to download from Music Store while on the move. This is the future and if Apple doesn't do it, someone else will. And it would be a global solution because I think even the US is adopting 3G

 

[minton]

3 cheers for Sony

Sony just released a handheld DAB player, the XDR-M1, w/ 40 presets and fm radio included. No real extra bulk to add an ipod mini to this in the same camera bag.

 

[Evangelion]

Because those features are cheap

And would satellite REALLY increase the cost of the iPod?

easy

How so?

and don't distract from the main purpose of iPod.

Of course games do not "distract from the main purpose of iPod" if you do not use them. But pray tell: how would satellite radio "distract from the main purpose of iPod" if you didn't use it? Satellite would simply be another feature, and you were not required to use it.

Seriously, I find it really funny that people think that "photo-capabilities, games, calendars and such do not distract from the main use of the iPod, but satellite radio would!". To me, that just sounds like a lame excuse which tries to explain Apple's decision. If Apple had decided to add satellite-radio. you would be telling here how great it is to have that feature on the iPod.

Satellite requires an entire interface for itself.

You are saying that Apple can't design such an interface? O....K....

- battery life

It doesn't eat batteries if you don't use it. If you care about battery-life, you wouldn't use it. And I fail to see why listening to radio would eat more batteries than listening to mp3's would.

- cost

would it REALLY cost that much?

- size (does anyone expect them to fit a satellite receiver into an iPod without making it huge?)

You are talking about a company that is busy fitting G5 in to a PowerBook. If anyone could do it, it would be Apple.