CalfCanuck said:
As it stands, the Photo iPod has a completely illogical "work-flow", and one Apple has to solve if they want even "casual users" to buy into their system, let alone pro users.
Completely disagree. People are already used to downloading, organizing, and keeping their images in their computers. Problem is Joe Sixpack isn't sure what to do with them next, besides organizing and looking at them on their computer. My parents (in their 50s) finally figured out how to burn discs (actually lets WalMart burn them from their memory stick) that actually play in their DVD player, but now are complaining about all these CDs they have with only a couple dozen pictures each. They love my EyeHome and TiVo Home Media but as "casual users" they are certainly not ready to have a home network to free their media from their computers in this way.
The no-brainer plug-and-sync beauty of the iPod Photo takes the pictures as organized on the computer and puts them ALL in the palm of your hand. Now you can view them on the (tiny) screen wherever you go, or walk the iPod into the living room and plug in to the big screen TV. If the thing wasn't so expensive I'd buy one for my folks (probably I'll give them mine in a couple years when iPod Video comes out
🙂 )
Who in their right mind would download their pictures directly into their iPod and never at some point also download them into their computer? The "workflow" Apple has developed for this protects people from themselves and makes things less confusing. It implicitly necessitates that you have a backup of your photos on your computer (where you need to organize, rotate, delete, touchup anyhow).
Those tech-savvy enough to have the Belkin Photo adapter (which, for all we know WILL make photos immediately available for viewing like an on-the-go music playlist...we'll just have to wait and see) can probably make sure they still get their pics transferred from their cameras (or iPod...maybe the syncing is 2-way!) to their computers...but the average consumer? Is this new paradigm
so much more complicated than what people have been doing for generations?
Olden days:
Camera-->Film-->Photo Processing-->Organize-->Place in Photo Albums or Slide Trays-->View-->Stash away until next time
Modern Times:
Camera-->Computer-->Organize-->iPod-->View-->View Again!!
The iPod is just what its name implies...a small and portable microcosm of what your main computer does (at the risk of being completely geeky think of the shuttlepods relative to the Starship Enterprise). Once you have all your music and photos organized how you like on your computer, which is very well suited to the job, one click puts a duplicate in the palm of your hand "to go." How would
you suggest the "casual user" can more easily free all his digital photos from his hard drive for viewing any time, any place?
I envision a day when my 3 kids graduate high school that I hand each of them an iPod Video which holds all the pictures, home movies, and music that they grew up with. Sure wish I had something like that from my childhood!!
