Wifi/Video iPod?

[Lanbrown]

Wireless nice but not what I really want. I am sick of carrying around my iPod, phone, Palm, and camera. Even if they would combine two of these I would be happy and less heavy in my pockets.

For one, forget about the camera, unless all you want is crappy pictures. The camera function in phones are a joke. The focal length is short and you have plastic lenses, which means the optics are junk. Increasing the megapixels is not an answer is just makes a bigger file with the same lousy picture. Megapixels is not the end all. There are pro level cameras that have a lower pixel count then the consumer cameras, guess which ones take a better picture? The pro level, the optics are better, lower noise and most importantly, you can control the compression or just turn it off. If you want a quick picture, then a camera phone will work. If you want a great picture, use an actual camera.

Get a smart phone, they are available now and you combine the phone and PDA functionality.

 

[foniks2020]

Video is not Video

As may have been mentioned in previous posts.... Video doesn't mean Movies....

Just conjecture, but I'm thinking... WiFi plus video plus iChat equals cool IM device. Add in a microphone and a micro camera.. and you've got a nifty personal communicator for your home network... or office LAN, with iChat like video.

in any case I see many other uses for Video other than watching long movies, which again, nobody wants to watch on a small screen. However, things like music videos, movie trailers, video messages, etc. that are short and brief in content seem to fit purfectly within the range of a handheld device.

 

[Wonder Boy]

What about if you are at a friends house? Isn't it easier to hook the AirPort express up to the stereo, plug it into the wall and you're done?

i dont have any friends.

 

[foniks2020]

Gremlins

well, DUH. it waits until you're sleeping.

Actually it waits until you feed it after midnight! Then it runs and jumps in the toilet and MULTIPLIES... playing 50¢ and Madonna tunes all morning, partying and drinking all your alcohol....

beware the 4G iPod...

 

[puckhead193]

From what the job requirements are seems like if apple can find this person (s) the new ipod will be PHAT! imagine having to sync your ipod over bluetooth/wifi...wow how lazy are we going to get!!!! I hope they do make an ipod one day with a color screen and video capitilties. but i would perfer they just change the design to be smaller and have much higher HD.

 

[The Red Wolf]

Dual Hiring

The job listings are identical, except for the Job Requisition ID Numbers.

That simply means there are two jobs available. Dual, like G5 processors. One for each processor or both for a dual cor... Wait, soilent green is people!

 

[Vector]

I don't really care if i ever have video capabilities in an iPod. If i wanted to watch video on the go, i sure wouldn't do it on such a small screen. Being able to play video from the ipod through a tv wouldn't be bad, but video on the iPod is not useful to me. Apple would have to change alot of things for a video iPod to get good battery life.

I would love for my iPod to have bluetooth, but only if apple can find some way to keep the current battery life.

 

[inkswamp]

Why this probably doesn't matter even if true

I don't mean to rain on the parade, but remember that we know from its history that Apple does a lot of R&D into areas that never come to any fruition. Much of it seems to be done to hedge their bets against future trends (remember Marklar, the rumored attempts to make Mac OS run on x86? Remember the PDA? The tablet?) To me, this sounds like that kind of thing. It's probably under development to some degree but I doubt we'll ever see it.

 

[Lanbrown]

A lot of companies do R&D that never make it into a product, there are times that bits and pieces do. Take a look at the Nokia 7700, they decided not to sell it, but they are still showing it and allowing select companies to get their hands on it. It's more of a proof of concept and expect to see the technology make its ways into other devices.

 

[AoWolf]

This is all so interesting I doubt apple will make a video ipod because look at portable dvd players they never really took off the screen was too small. I think people want their music separate from their movies. Their are really 3 kinds of people who buy an iPod those who have allot of money to spend and like gadgets, people who love music, and people who do it to be cool or go along with the trend. I guess you could throw in people who buy anything apple. But the point is the music people don't want a video pod and neither do the style people. Apple would do better to make a wifi pda or smart phone the real question is would they be able to make money off of it.

 

[nacl99]

(remember Marklar, the rumored attempts to make Mac OS run on x86? Remember the PDA? The tablet?)

Was that really called Marklar, like "The Marklars call everything Marklar here on Marklar" -South park?

 

[Lanbrown]

This is all so interesting I doubt apple will make a video ipod because look at portable dvd players they never really took off the screen was too small. I think people want their music separate from their movies. Their are really 3 kinds of people who buy an iPod those who have allot of money to spend and like gadgets, people who love music, and people who do it to be cool or go along with the trend. I guess you could throw in people who buy anything apple. But the point is the music people don't want a video pod and neither do the style people. Apple would do better to make a wifi pda or smart phone the real question is would they be able to make money off of it.

I say the price was and still is too high. Even now, they are $300+ and what do you really get? Just a DVD player. You could spend more money and get a notebook, it will play DVD's with the right software and a DVD drive, which most come with anyway. The value for the money is low and the market is too small. A Video iPod would have other advantages. Being able to play a stored movie from that device and no need to lug the DVD around. Streaming video is another possibility, both sending a receiving.

 

[ccrandall77]

Why is video on an iPod such a bad thing?

Lots of people complain that video on an iPod would be a bad idea because the screen is too small. What makes anyone think that if they enabled video on the device that they'd stick with the same size screen? Perhaps a vPod would be slightly larger, like a standard PDA, whose screen would be fine for viewing videos (do it all the time on my Zaurus and Clie and it works just great).

Despite that, I believe the future for the iPod is with bluetooth and add-on devices (such as wifi-enabled docks, DVR/Video streaming docks, etc.). Even something as simple as an update to the iPod and Airport Express, plus a cable could easily give the iPod wifi-capability.

As I've said before in other threads, I hope Apple opens up the iPod platform to allow 3rd party developers to create cool iPod apps. With a slightly larger screen in color and bluetooth, it'd make for a pretty decent PDA... and with an additional blackberry keyboard plugged into the dock connector, you could enter data into the PIMs, compose SMS messages, play games, etc.

 

[PDubNYC]

just to be nice I think will make sens to quote the real source of info...
this news has been published on August 22nd here
http://www.hardmac.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2004-08-22#2713
not your fault I agree, rather unfair Appleinsider

try again, grasshopper. Believe it or not, MacSlash had it on the 19th.

http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/19/134215&mode=thread

 

[bryantm3]

wouldn't it be cool if you worked for apple, and then you got to keep all the prototypes you made, then you kept a video ipod, and people saw you using it and gasped and ****.

 

[JoePike]

late next week microsoft will go public with their music store, with MS Tunes or whatever they'll call Mediaplayer Ten.

Theyll also extend and extinguish music choice all over Europe with expanded stores.

Apple beware, you are about to get thrashed. Bill has a total strategy for music players, online services, and corporate partners. Rob Glaser is a moron, but make friends and pound your enemies now!

Yeah, we're in for a bunch of trouble here, aren't we Mac fans? All those brainless consumers out there who spend $350 on their garbage Winblows machines will be flooding the MS online music store to purchase MS garbage-encoded music online with their garbage dialup connections so they can play them on their garbage 128MB Rio MP3 players. Watch out!

I give it three days until some hacker figures out a way to spread a nasty chaos-enducing virus by exploiting some inevitable major security flaw in this Microsoft music store, undermining the entire thing and running it into the ground. Mark my words.

But at least we can all agree that Rob Glaser is a moron.

-Joe

 

[G4-power]

No, Nokia killed it. The date was nearing and no one even saw any pre-production models and then Nokia finally just killed it.
http://nokia-asia.com/nokia/0,,48180,00.html
Notice the "Not commercially available.
Used only for piloting of mobile media services with key industry partners."
On the Europe site:
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,6771,47550,00.html
"Not commercially available.
Used only for piloting of mobile media services with key industry partners."

When they first showed the phone off, people did say it was slow. It was either that they couldn't get the processor they wanted (not available yet) or the software just wasn't refined enough.

Even though the job requisite says GSM, they are probably referring to 3G services offered by the GSM companies. Streaming video would fall into the category and radio could be another one. Apple could have liked what Nokia showed off and think it would bode well with the future versions of the iPod or it's successor.

Oh well, the ones I saw on street must've been prototypes, and I never saw them on shelves then. The Finnish tech magazine Tekniikan Maailma (World of Tech) had an article about the 7700 last year, but they never did say when it was coming, so.

 

[G4-power]

For one, forget about the camera, unless all you want is crappy pictures. The camera function in phones are a joke. The focal length is short and you have plastic lenses, which means the optics are junk. Increasing the megapixels is not an answer is just makes a bigger file with the same lousy picture. Megapixels is not the end all. There are pro level cameras that have a lower pixel count then the consumer cameras, guess which ones take a better picture? The pro level, the optics are better, lower noise and most importantly, you can control the compression or just turn it off. If you want a quick picture, then a camera phone will work. If you want a great picture, use an actual camera.

Get a smart phone, they are available now and you combine the phone and PDA functionality.

The camera in phones is just a joke unless you use them as phone "desktops pics" or send them as MMS.

 

[Lanbrown]

Oh well, the ones I saw on street must've been prototypes, and I never saw them on shelves then. The Finnish tech magazine Tekniikan Maailma (World of Tech) had an article about the 7700 last year, but they never did say when it was coming, so.

Sure it wasn't the N-Gage, they both look like a taco and you use them the same way, on it's side. Nokia invented side-talking.

 

[Lanbrown]

The camera in phones is just a joke unless you use them as phone "desktops pics" or send them as MMS.

Isn't that what I said?

 

[G4-power]

Their are really 3 kinds of people who buy an iPod those who have allot of money to spend and like gadgets, people who love music, and people who do it to be cool or go along with the trend. I guess you could throw in people who buy anything apple.

I bought an iPod (yes, I bought it, just not yet shipped, darn it, delayed 3 times) because of:
1. I love music, but carrying a big case with 10 CDs and a 400 gram (iPod 158 grams) three-times-bigger-than-an-ipod CD player is nasty. (Plus, I don't like burning CDs, I have to transfer the files first to a computer that has a CD-RW drive, as in a bit newer iBook)
2. I'm a huge Mac fan. It's Apple, the iPod I mean. Wouldn't have thought of a digital music player if there wouldn't have been an iPod option.

 

[G4-power]

Isn't that what I said?

Well, actually yes. I agreed so much that I had to post. Sorry.

 

[G4-power]

Sure it wasn't the N-Gage, they both look like a taco and you use them the same way, on it's side. Nokia invented side-talking.

Well, could've been. But I know what a N-Gage looks like. Guess I remember wrong or I'm seeing hallucinations.

 

[Lepton]

Wi-Fi makes sense. Airport Express needs a remote, everyone said so, and Apple winked back a smiling "we know".

I predict an accessory. Small, Wi-Fi, half power (150ft), b only, battery operated, plugs into the iPod, makes it a dynamite remote for your computer. It is not meant for syncing to the computer or streaming out of the iPod, even though it might be possible to do. It is meant to send commands to your computer to run AppleScripts. Scripts will control iTunes, presentations and ALL sorts of things. Scripts reside on the computer but if they are missing a copy is on the iPod and sent to the computer.

Next gen iPods might have this built in.

As for Bluetooth, there is a new profile for it that can stream CD-quality audio to good stereo headphones. We can easily imagine this in an iPod to allow for wireless headphones. I'm up for that!

As for video, we should remember that Apple probably doesn't hire people for the very short term. Someday video will be in handheld Apple devices and the research of this will take a while.

I don't see a video product right away, though I'm dying for one. Apple's pattern is usually not to be first in such obvious products. Note the iPod was not first, it was best. Same with iSight and any number of products. So, let the other guys come out with the first gen of video devices, let them shake it out enough so Apple can see what people REALLY need in such a device and what people REALLY do and can do with it. Then, when the right hardware is available, a dyno-mite product will appear.

I see a video product coming out after the OLED screens are up to speed. Brighter, thinner, lighter, wider view, lower power. Main problem left is limited lifetime. Then, I see a device that is thin, Wi-Fi g, OLED with stylius, and optimized to run Apple Remote Access! In other words it's not as much a stand alone device as it is a remote screen for a real Mac. Now THERE'S a remote!

 

[Lanbrown]

I don't see the advantage in using "b." Lower power WiFi chips are here, a "b" only version would not be offered. Apple doesn’t sell enough iPods for a company to take that development cost on. Take a look:
http://focus.ti.com/docs/apps/catal...templatedata/cm/general/data/bband_80211_1250

http://focus.ti.com/docs/apps/catal...platedata/cm/general/data/wire_bluetooth_wlan

Having the iPod install anything on a computer is an exploit that one could use. Sorry, just can't see that happening. Having it wired in and syncing is one thing, but being able to install and run a script is an entirely different matter. The app would need to be aware and thus limit the actions would be limited to a specific app. The computer sees the iPod and thus it is allowed to control the app.