Arcus said:
It's a shame there's almost no way Verizon will carry an Apple branded phone. I just don't see it happening. Looks like I'll have to get an LG Chocolate for music on the go...
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Wireless iPods, Soon?
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It's a shame there's almost no way Verizon will carry an Apple branded phone. I just don't see it happening. Looks like I'll have to get an LG Chocolate for music on the go...
How so?
Couldn't the option to listen to Sirius be just another menu item?
Bookmarking a song could be as simple as hitting one of the buttons on the click wheel.
Satellite radio is just beginning. Why not partner up now and set the standard. Sirius subscribers would consider buying an ipod, current ipod owners like myself would want to upgrade...
Chris Bangle said:
Couldn't the option to listen to Sirius be just another menu item?
Bookmarking a song could be as simple as hitting one of the buttons on the click wheel.
Satellite radio is just beginning. Why not partner up now and set the standard. Sirius subscribers would consider buying an ipod, current ipod owners like myself would want to upgrade...
Howard Stern on iTunes
And why not offer clips from Sirius shows, namely Stern, as downloads from iTunes? Apple already allows explicit content (think every Hip Hop song), so there shouldn't be a problem.
Song paradies and other clips would sell like hotcakes for .99!
Stern isn't for everyone, but millions of fans would bring some serious attention and cash to Apple.
And why not offer clips from Sirius shows, namely Stern, as downloads from iTunes? Apple already allows explicit content (think every Hip Hop song), so there shouldn't be a problem.
Song paradies and other clips would sell like hotcakes for .99!
Stern isn't for everyone, but millions of fans would bring some serious attention and cash to Apple.
I don't know how credible this particular Digitimes story is, but I can't imagine that Apple isn't working on wireless iPod capability. It won't be all things to all people, but it's probably necessary because it'll open the door to more features, because more and more consumers expect gadgets to have wireless capabilities, and because Apple wants to stay well ahead of all competition.
carletonmusic said:
I hope they do... but in addition to 802.11b/g/n. If they ever provide better PIM applications or an SDK to develop your own applications, bluetooth would be use for for syncing the PIMs and connecting to a mobile phone.
I haven't seen any yet, but I would guess headphones using Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR would provide a better experience. Perhaps something like that'll be available by the time a bluetooth-enabled iPod would be released.
eenu said:
I guess so. edit: but the original story mentions wireless purchasing. That brings us back to my point(s) as to why this is not likely. end edit
But do you really think that being able to share with one iPod is worth the costs? I already argued that point. If that's the only unique new feature - no go. Even if this came from a more reputable source, I still say there's NO WAY this passes the smell test.
The only way this would do anything for anyone is to drive sales of "shared" songs one pod to the other. Your friend lets you listen, you go home and buy (or buy on your iPod wirelessly but that brings me back to my original point doesn't it?) Word of mouth works just as well if not better and doesn't take away sales from other products, add to the cost of the unit, drain my battery and make Apple look like it's playing catch up.
This whole iPhone thing is really annoying me I was about to start a contract and get an LG chocolate but these rumors are putting me off if its not announced at the next apple meeting it'll be the luscious LG chocolate,
In all honesty though I don't care for a iPhone I just want a true video iPod!!!
SHadoW
In all honesty though I don't care for a iPhone I just want a true video iPod!!!
SHadoW
thejadedmonkey said:
I'm not inclined to believe even half of the rumors. And the *next* ipod will probably just be a subtle tweak to the nano in the next six weeks. Video ipods or ones with wireless would be after that.
I don't think wireless will be practical for a while. It's a cool idea, but horrible for battery life.
playaj82 said:
What's your complaint about sound quality in the iPod? I think it sounds pretty good, especially if you encode music at higher bitrates.
apb3 said:
It wouldn't necessarily require ANY extra DRM, they'd just build it in to the update of the ipod and itunes software. Buy a song directly on the iPod, it only gets transferred to computers with your itunes shopping account. That's pretty much how it works already.
milo said:
Build what into the update?? more Digital rights management... And we go back to Apple's one-way iTunes to iPod transfer selling point to music labels. Once the floodgates to two-way transfer are opened officially, bye bye contracts with major lables and forget about movies.
Lollypop said:
Back in the day, the fact that we already know everything about an unreleased product was called marketing vaporware, and it was considered a bad thing ...
Until Zune is out, Apple is already "caught up" with it, and is in fact ahead (no technology available is always technologically inferior to any technology available, to paraphrase McNealy). Don't buy into Microsoft's hype machine. They always use it to buy themselves a year in the marketplace, at the cost of us consumers.
amols said:
I would rather have it the other way around a cheap 512 mb iPod with a screen that can use my music on my mac via wifi. that would be sweet. I have over 100gb of music and want to have access to all of it from everywhere in my house. now a 30 gb or so iPod with wifi would be sweet. load all your favorite music for car rides and stuff and still listen to the rest at home.
Ben
emotion said:
While it's nice to dream, when you are talking about a service (downloading music from your server to your device) that the vast majority of people are going to be using many hours in a day, I doubt you'll see that being "cheap" on the current setups any time soon. For one, there isn't that kind of capacity in the networks. For another, while it may be different in the UK, there are still many pockets of poor or nonexistent coverage. Finally, the cost of portable storage is decreasing significantly (by which I mean, several orders of magnitude) faster than the cost of network bandwidth.
Network capacity is where it all starts off. Why are ringtones so expensive? Well, for one, because people still buy them. But, offering $1 or $0.25 ringtones would yield a killing for both the record companies (getting $0.25 for 1/6th of a song? Seems about right relative to $1/song) and greatly expand the service in terms of total market size (ie, 1/3rd revenue per download, but much more than 3x increase in number of downloads). Why don't they do this? Because their networks, to a one, could not stand for this traffic to increase enough that the market would expand enough to make the change profitable. When you pay $3 for a ringtone download you are paying primarily to keep other people from doing the same. Sounds perverse, but that's the reality when you have a limited-availability resource, it is the foundation of supply vs demand.
Expanding on the second: I'd never, ever, buy something that I would want to use when driving, for instance, across the "boring states" of Nevada and south-eastern Oregon, that requires a constant connection to any type of service. Why? Because even cell phones are useless for about a three hour stretch of Highway 95 going up from Winnemucca. If cell phones aren't working now, how long will it be before some next-generation service comes in and "wires" the place up?
I might shoot myself without my iPod to listen to during that three hours of scrubgrass, migrating crickets, and mountains.
But, seriously, you guys are talking about a concept that would have garnered a lot of conversation fifteen years ago. The fact of the day is, though, that networking is not getting cheaper at a rate of doubling bandwidth per year, and small, portable hard drive storage (or non-hard drive Flash storage, even moreso) is. Wireless networking isn't winning on power consumption either (Flash storage wins there by a longshot as well).
Until people start having libraries that are infeasible to transport with them (which means, hard drive space can't keep up with library space, which certainly isn't the case today as library space isn't doubling per year either)and which can be trickle-downloaded to a low-profile wireless device in realtime, the idea here is dead. Sorry, that's just the facts.
jettredmont, in terms of the UK we have coverage pretty much everywhere non of the issues you guys have. But apart from that....points noted
Sirius + Apple = ?
Well what would this:
look like if Apple got together with Sirius?
More info on this unit here:
http://www.siriusbackstage.com/2006/08/14/stiletto-details-released-through-crutchfield/
I think a Apple +Sirius or XM deal makes a whole lot of sense. The satellite chipsets and power requirements are getting closer to what would work in an iPod. I don't think Sirius is quite there yet. XM I think so, but I don't think XM is actively looking into a partnership with Apple. Sirius has stated that there have been talks, but nothing of substance yet.
Well what would this:
look like if Apple got together with Sirius?
More info on this unit here:
http://www.siriusbackstage.com/2006/08/14/stiletto-details-released-through-crutchfield/
I think a Apple +Sirius or XM deal makes a whole lot of sense. The satellite chipsets and power requirements are getting closer to what would work in an iPod. I don't think Sirius is quite there yet. XM I think so, but I don't think XM is actively looking into a partnership with Apple. Sirius has stated that there have been talks, but nothing of substance yet.
spiffyfitz said:
If Apple does an "unlocked" phone (meaning, the kind of phone that used to be the rule, not the exception, which wasn't locked to a specific service provider) you'll be able to use it on Verizon (of course, assuming it supports Verizon's connection mechanism, which is different from Sprint or Cingular, but most of the phone manufacturers out there have no problem with this).
The downside, of course, is that you miss out on the 2-year financing offers from Verizon, and still have to pay for the 2-year financing (your rate isn't any cheaper if you don't take their "free" phone offer...). That having been said, the US phone companies offer crap for long-time customers ($100 off a phone for signing up for another 2-year contract? Puhlease!) and IMHO it makes more sense to just get the damned phone you want and throw that $100 "discount" aka high-interest loan away than confine yourself to Verizon's pathetic arsenal of hobbled (key features disabled, etc) phones.
ipodG8TR said:
I may be talking out of my ass here, but my understanding is that Sirius works via satellites in geosynchronous orbit, which means they are way way up there, "locked in" above a specific spot on the ground (they zip around the Earth once every 24 hours, which keeps them above the equatorial spot that is also zipping around a full rotation in 24 hours). It would be physically impossible for a receiver on the "other" side of the world to see a satellite above central America. Maybe Sirius has several satellites, but still if they only officially serve the US market I can't see these venturing any further East/West than the US Atlantic and Pacific coasts (maybe a little out into the Pacific to serve Hawaii better). I seriously doubt that they'd have a satellite where someone in, say, Bombay could hook in.
The other issue that comes up is angle of ascention. While it's a nice just-off-vertical and tilted south for the US customers, once you start moving east/west (or to the extreme north/south) you start making it a far more horizontal angle. Which means, living in an area without a clear horizon you will get poor results. Moreover, the smaller the angle of ascention, the more atmosphere the signal has to go through, causing connection issues.
I could be wrong. Maybe Sirius foolishly wastes its money providing satellite service to the other half of the world just for the small market of folks who are adventurous enough to open a US account just to sign on. Or, maybe they market world-wide service as a key feature for traveling businessmen (possible, but that makes me even less likely to subscribe!) Doesn't seem likely though.
jettredmont said:
Here is a map of the Sirius satellite orbits. You can get a signal pretty far south, at least as far as southern Mexico. But to conserve power, Sirius shuts the power down once the bird goes "below" the equator. XM does have a owership in WorldSpace which does broadcast around the globe through a network of various satellites.
emotion said:
what are the technological hurdles preventing apple from introducing an iPod/iPhone that could permit video iChats, in addition to its more conventional music player/phone functions? (the picture phone people have been waiting for since that distant World's Fair)
--apple has iChat software
-- " " tiny iChat cameras in MacBooks
--cellphone technology exists
somebody with more smarts than me run with this, or shoot it down.
thanks
terry
eenu said:
well, the iPod's a mobile product and charging wouldn't work with it in pockets or cases. Of course, we could put it on top of those little beanies the geeks wear.
Sirius
You know, I'd love a Sirius receiver on my iPod. I have the car and home hookup back home and love their line-up. Stern is just a bonus as I bought it before he came over.
The 1st Wave and AltNation channels are some of the biggest drivers for my iTunes purchases actually. "Oh, yeah! I remember that song back in college! [writes note on hand while swerving through traffic]"
Not much good to me where I am now (although I can verify that I can get the Sirius online stream cuz I have a US acct) but I wouldn't be able to buy a new one here anyway... Maybe trade some porn with donkeys for one "liberated" from Saudi or something with the locals, but that seems less than ethical and would get me in some trouble most likely.
You know, I'd love a Sirius receiver on my iPod. I have the car and home hookup back home and love their line-up. Stern is just a bonus as I bought it before he came over.
The 1st Wave and AltNation channels are some of the biggest drivers for my iTunes purchases actually. "Oh, yeah! I remember that song back in college! [writes note on hand while swerving through traffic]"
Not much good to me where I am now (although I can verify that I can get the Sirius online stream cuz I have a US acct) but I wouldn't be able to buy a new one here anyway... Maybe trade some porn with donkeys for one "liberated" from Saudi or something with the locals, but that seems less than ethical and would get me in some trouble most likely.
ipodG8TR said:
FORGET SIRIUS... Its not gonna happen. Why implement somthing that can ony be used in the USA. There are more countries in the world thaty buy ipods. If you want sirius buy a device with sirius, dont put this crap which only you people can use on ipods.
Chris Bangle said:
iPods were pretty popular and quite a money maker when only US customers could get them and, later, when only US customers could buy online if memory serves...