Wireless Internet iPods?

[manu chao]

This solution won't give me access to 99.9% of my music library, though.

Yeah, but it would be so Apple. Like focussing iWeb on .mac. It is called cross-promotion.

 

[nxent]

I am pretty drunk and I don't know if what I just posted is technologically feasible. I don't see why not though.

lol, i understand that. it's a good idea, but imagine several million people streaming music wirelessly... you wouldn't even need a big harddrive. but that's quite a bit of bandwidth and it just seems like there'd be problems suppying that amount of wireless bandwidth over a large enough area. i do like the idea of downloading music directly to your ipod.

 

[Yvan256]

Yeah, but it would be so Apple. Like focussing iWeb on .mac. It is called cross-promotion.

Well, iWeb does support "publishing as files" which you can then upload via FTP. Perhaps iWeb 2 will have built-in FTP support once .Mac has even more "must have" features.

lol, i understand that. it's a good idea, but imagine several million people streaming music wirelessly... you wouldn't even need a big harddrive. but that's quite a bit of bandwidth and it just seems like there'd be problems suppying that amount of wireless bandwidth over a large enough area. i do like the idea of downloading music directly to your ipod.

What if the next iPod had built-in Wi-Fi so users could access iTMS without a computer? (we'd need a touch-screen, widescreen, video-capable iPod, so an "iPod 2" of some sort). Throw in stronger PDA fonctions as an added bonus (notes, mail, IM, etc) and Apple would have a killer combo.

 

[ScubaDuc]

DO YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THIS?

Eventually you will have your iPod and be able to stream your iTunes library from your computer anywhere you want. You could have your iPod at the coffee shop down the street, and you would be streaming your music from your computer 3 miles away in your apartment. You could be on a roadtrip in California, 2,000 miles away, and streaming your iTunes library from your apartment onto your iPod.

Really? then my computer better start to learn to work...unplugged because I don't leave it on when I travel.... You are also supposing u will have internet access anywhere: What good would an HDless i-Pod where there is no reception, like on subways etc?

 

[Seasought]

So, another stunt to promote .Mac? That the only motive here?

 

[Gherkin]

Really? then my computer better start to learn to work...unplugged because I don't leave it on when I travel.... You are also supposing u will have internet access anywhere: What good would an HDless i-Pod where there is no reception, like on subways etc?

do wireless broadband networks really go out in subways?

well anyways, for the person who called my idea a "utopian Flash Gordan gadget," uhhh, let's think about things for a second here.

20 years ago we were all walking around with bulky little music players that played CASSETTES. No we walk around with slick little digital audio players that play our ENTIRE album collections. If you think what I posted was a utopian idea, you will be pissing your pants at what the tech companies come up with 20 years from now.

 

[Marky_Mark]

Ha! Jobs is not just Pixar's CEO. He simply OWNS Pixar. Why would he do that for? Money? Jobs, who is already filthy rich, more than time he has got to spend it? No way it is going to happen, unless there is more to this than is being told.

Maybe he just wants to get rid of a distraction that takes time away from Apple, and make a *****-load of cash into the bargain. There's a certain appeal linked to less work for (lots) more money, don't you think?

 

[JamesDPS]

New wireless iPod

I think it's that 6-pounder with a 10-inch screen that Steve let slip at MW... complete with voice recog control, wifi, bluetooth (for headphones, cellphone integration, interfacing with other iPods, etc.), GPS so that music is location specific (and can do directions, obviously), radar that can tell you if rain is coming, sonar so that if you're in a boat you can get water depth, a port for a game controller, and of course if it's in a backback it will give you a massage....


Which is to say, don't hold your breath on wifi iPods... bluetooth makes sense but it will be a PDA before it has wifi IMO.

 

[kadajawi]

20 years from now. But not now. I would say UMTS is as close as we get to well spread wireless broadband. But even with that I always have areas and seconds where there is no connection. And does you mobile phone works in tunnels?

 

[Marky_Mark]

DO YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THIS?

Eventually you will have your iPod and be able to stream your iTunes library from your computer anywhere you want. You could have your iPod at the coffee shop down the street, and you would be streaming your music from your computer 3 miles away in your apartment. You could be on a roadtrip in California, 2,000 miles away, and streaming your iTunes library from your apartment onto your iPod.

Verizon (and someone else I think?) already have wireless broadband networks. Forget about getting a iPod with a 200 GB harddrive. You won't need it. You will just stream your music and videos ANYWHERE to your iPod. The future of the iPod is without a hardddrive. All the iPod will be in the future is an antenna and a screen, receiving a hi-speed stream of all your music and media files.

Yeah...no. Why do I want to pay someone a connection charge for a bitstream when I can just get a ludicrously large hard-drive and take it with me on planes, the subway, along streets with tall buildings on either side, beaches, mountains and numerous other places beyond good-quality wireless range?

 

[Marx55]

The Ultimate Presentation Tool

This wireless iPod can become the ultimate presentation tool:

1 - Make the Keynote or PowerPoint presentation on a Mac or PC.

2 - Save it to the wireless iPod.

3 - Boot Mac OS X on the wireless iPod and use it as a remote control to make the presentation with a wireless videoprojector.

No computer involved. No cables involved. Just the wireless iPod and the wireless videoprojector.

That can sell dozens of millions of such wireless iPods to the corporate, education and home markets with a tremendous halo effect for Mac and Mac OS X marketshare!

Apple: go for it!!!

 

[themacman]

This wireless iPod can become the ultimate presentation tool:

1 - Make the Keynote or PowerPoint presentation on a Mac or PC.

2 - Save it to the wireless iPod.

3 - Boot Mac OS X on the wireless iPod and use it as a remote control to make the presentation with a wireless videoprojector.

No computer involved. No cables involved. Just the wireless iPod and the wireless videoprojector.

That can sell dozens of millions of such wireless iPods to the corporate, education and home markets with a tremendous halo effect for Mac and Mac OS X marketshare!

Apple: go for it!!!

i agree 100% but is that what Apple wants to market too? I personally wouldnt use my Ipod as a mini osx

 

[Yvan256]

i agree 100% but is that what Apple wants to market too? I personally wouldnt use my Ipod as a mini osx

If there would be a small iPod-like OS X computer, I'd sell my 12" PowerBook right away.

Beats lugging a 12" PowerBook around, beats a limited PalmOS PDA.

 

[BigHat]

I am pretty drunk and I don't know if what I just posted is technologically feasible. I don't see why not though.

I don't think we're close to this yet in practical terms. While there are parts of the country that might push the band-width you be unable to use it more than you could.

I don't know for sure but the data rates would also have to be huge and I'd think very expensive.

 

[matd]

iPhone

For me its a proof that it'll be the long expected iPhone. Streaming music is too complicated and the quality would be so bad (over terrestrial phone network). For good sound quality you almost need 96KBps I can't imagine people trying to download songs or even stream them over Edge! Even with 3G you have difficulties to set up a correct reception coz of net congestion etc... Imagine : young people going to the same school, they are taking the same bus between 7.30 AM and 8.00 hundred are going to download a stream at 96KBps / 128KBps on the same cells and the signal has to be good during the whole travel, otherwise you'll get a poor buffering message.... Hum I'm kinda spectical towards streaming iPod.

How could Apple just release a product that will only be working in the states ( i'm talking about satelite radio. In Europe we don't have this hype for satelite Radio...) so if Apple releases a "only avalaible in the states product", it will be a worldwide flop...

 

[jrhone]

Verizon and other companies have wireless broadband networks though. I'm not talking about a coffee shop hot spot. I'm talking you could be standing in a field in the middle of Kansas and you will still be streaming all the music from the iTunes Music Store and from your computer.

Yeah but I have no cell signal at my house in Newport Beach, Ca....there are dead spots all over the place.....if it has no HD, and you are in a dead spot, no music? This technology is not ready for prime time...I have a Blackberry and all over the place I lose the EDGE network. This may be good for Syncing the iPod, but streaming? nope....

 

[ahmadof]

Wifi could mean car usage

one idea that i haven't seen discussed yet is a wifi adapter for a car stereo so that you could stream to your car stereo. I think it might be a bit cumbersome at first, but i'm sure within a year head units would start coming with wifi built in.

 

[susannahyork]

yup! yup!

If the ipods had some sort of dedicated storage that temporarily saved the music you were streaming, say, if your streaming an album from your home computer or .Mac, the ipod could continue to play the rest of the album even if you lost the signal. From going through a tunnel or what not.

256 mb of flash should do the trick I would think.

 

[mlochm]

uhhh

I've posted about this before, and I think it is plausable-
What if the ipod were paired with a set of glasses that allowed you to view a full res screen in front of you (not the kind that was put on page one a while ago, something MUCH cooler...)- what's to stop apple from changing the scroll wheel to a track pad? very small portable computers... You can already use an Ipod as a boot drive no? Throw in the WiFi thing and, damn-


I don't think people would need to go to school anymore.

 

[funkychunkz]

DO YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THIS?

Eventually you will have your iPod and be able to stream your iTunes library from your computer anywhere you want. You could have your iPod at the coffee shop down the street, and you would be streaming your music from your computer 3 miles away in your apartment. You could be on a roadtrip in California, 2,000 miles away, and streaming your iTunes library from your apartment onto your iPod.

Verizon (and someone else I think?) already have wireless broadband networks. Forget about getting a iPod with a 200 GB harddrive. You won't need it. You will just stream your music and videos ANYWHERE to your iPod. The future of the iPod is without a hardddrive. All the iPod will be in the future is an antenna and a screen, receiving a hi-speed stream of all your music and media files.

Of course you would need a mac, so the streaming wouldn't crash.

 

[AidenShaw]

This makes a lot of sense

I noticed the other day that at Disneyland they have a DJ in the "club buzz" area who wears an ipod nano around his neck and he controls all the music from there.

This connects with the other story that Disney is buying Apple.

Somebody at Disney is a bit ahead of the game at reaping the benefits of their takeover, however. Normally you wait until after the acquisition to do things like this....

 

[azzurri000]

DO YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THIS?

Eventually you will have your iPod and be able to stream your iTunes library from your computer anywhere you want. You could have your iPod at the coffee shop down the street, and you would be streaming your music from your computer 3 miles away in your apartment. You could be on a roadtrip in California, 2,000 miles away, and streaming your iTunes library from your apartment onto your iPod.

Verizon (and someone else I think?) already have wireless broadband networks. Forget about getting a iPod with a 200 GB harddrive. You won't need it. You will just stream your music and videos ANYWHERE to your iPod. The future of the iPod is without a hardddrive. All the iPod will be in the future is an antenna and a screen, receiving a hi-speed stream of all your music and media files.

Let's say I can deal without the screen... does that mean that I will finally be able to buy an iPod FLEA?!

 

[sigamy]

DO YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THIS?

Eventually you will have your iPod and be able to stream your iTunes library from your computer anywhere you want. You could have your iPod at the coffee shop down the street, and you would be streaming your music from your computer 3 miles away in your apartment. You could be on a roadtrip in California, 2,000 miles away, and streaming your iTunes library from your apartment onto your iPod.

Verizon (and someone else I think?) already have wireless broadband networks. Forget about getting a iPod with a 200 GB harddrive. You won't need it. You will just stream your music and videos ANYWHERE to your iPod. The future of the iPod is without a hardddrive. All the iPod will be in the future is an antenna and a screen, receiving a hi-speed stream of all your music and media files.

Ah...no. The market for this is very small. The vast majority of people who would even consider buying an iPod have under 1,000 songs. That is the magic number. For this huge majority a flash-based player is ideal. That's why Apple was able to drop the iPod mini in favor of the nano. Apple realized back in 2003 that there are very few people who have large libraries of music and of those people even fewer want/need to have every song with them at all times.

You need to think beyond the folks who post here and think of the entire marketplace. Streaming music from your home computer to your "wireless iPod" is a geek fantasy but not a mass market product.

 

[sigamy]

Haven't read the whole thread so not sure if this has been mentioned...this "wireless iPod" won't really be an iPod. It will be an xPod. It will be the first handheld device to run OS X. It will have an Intel Core processor, and wireless networking. Instead of running the iPod interface you'll actually run iTunes and be able to purchase songs from anywhere.

 

[AidenShaw]

Ie.nfw

Haven't read the whole thread so not sure if this has been mentioned...this "wireless iPod" won't really be an iPod. It will be an xPod. It will be the first handheld device to run OS X.

"Mobile OSX" would be interesting.

But not now.

"OSX Mobile" will not be a surprise - The Steve will take the stage at WWDC and announce that "OSX Mobile" is coming, and that any vendor who doesn't immediately port their entire application suite to "OSX Mobile" will burn in hell.

Oops - got carried away thinking about a Stevenote...

Actually, they'll be told that "OSX Mobile" is a port of a subset of Carbon and Cocoa on top of Monta Vista Linux. Theyll also be told that Xcode supports it today (select "target=Newton" in the preferences tab).

It will have an Intel Core processor, and wireless networking.

No, it won't. It'll have an Intel Xscale (ARM) CPU if released soon. You won't put a 30watt CPU in a PDA - nobody wants battery life that's measured in seconds.

Intel has announced plans for future x86 CPUs in the under 1 watt category - maybe Apple will wait for those.