iPod - page 24

Predicting the future of any technology is a risky proposition. Weird, unexpected things happen that no one can anticipate. Lest any of us forget, for a brief moment in 1998, many assumed that DVD-Audio would replace the CD before something called Napster totally changed the game.

But predictions of the future are fun (why else is speculation about Apple so fascinating?), and everyone gets in on the act at some point. The latest to try to imagine what comes after the iPod is Rick Rubin, the bearded producer who launched the career of the Beastie Boys and revived those of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Johnny Cash. He’s legitimately credited with helping to break hip hop worldwide, but I hardly think his abilities to accurately read the new sound 20 years ago has anything to do with his ability to guess how we’ll get our music.

“You’d pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you’d like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home.”

You want to know what I love about this quote? That it’s actually stating the complete obvious,  but it also anticipates a future where people treat music differently than they do now. First, yes, the iPod will be obsolete at some point in the future. And then Apple will release a new one, including one that works in speakers at home (Oh, wait, that’s been around for years). People are obsessed with the current solution instead of thinking about the needs that it meets.

The bigger question is why anyone thinks subscription music will suddenly take off, however, I can’t guess. Subscription music has never been big, dating to the Columbia Record Club. We’re probably only a year or two from a time when we can put our entire iTunes libraries into a cloud we can access from anywhere, but I want it to be my library, not every song ever. I want to have access to the whole library and choose a song to download, but I want to add things to my library, not have glorified radio going on.

But you heard it here first folks: Sometimes, technology gets obsoleted!

Via Epicenter.

The iPod will get three new features at Steve Jobs’ media extravaganza Sept. 5 according to the rumor mill: a touch-screen, Wi-Fi and digital radio. I think two of three are likely:

1. The touch-screen is a slam dunk. It’s the natural successor to the scroll wheel. Who’d buy a new, high-end iPod without it? Case closed.

2. Wi-Fi is unlikely. What’s it good for? Sharing tunes with other iPod users in public, ala the Zune? Maybe, but I think not. Copy protection and DRM is too problematic. How about using Wi-Fi to sync tunes with your computer? Maybe, but you’ll still need a cable to charge the device, so what’s the point? Maybe Wi-Fi could connect the iPod to a set of speakers via an Airport Express base station and AirTunes? Seems like a lot of trouble for a pretty minor feature. Wi-Fi is good for getting on the internet, so unless the iPod is also getting Safari and e-mail, I don’t see the point of adding it.

3. Digital radio is the real killer. It’s a feature that could spell real trouble for the satellite radio industry. With digital radio, the iPod could be a portable TiVo for music, automatically recording favorite shows, rewinding live broadcasts and purchasing songs over the air. Digital radio is so consumer-friendly, it’s completely transformed the UK radio market in a couple of years, and though U.S. broadcasters seem terrified of it, the success of satellite radio is spurring them into action. As Wired News reported in July:

“In the United Kingdom, more than 4.7 million digital radios have been sold since 1999. Listeners browse station listings in an electronic program guide, pause and rewind content as it’s broadcast, bookmark specific programs or songs, and record them using postage-stamp-size memory cards. And starting in May, they can buy songs as they hear them on the radio, downloading them to computers, digital receivers or cell phones.

… IBiquity says that the HD Digital Radio Alliance, a consortium of U.S. broadcasting chains, will commit nearly $250 million in air time to promote the format in 2007. And UBC Media’s Simon Cole says that satellite’s head start in the United States might actually be good news for HD Radio. “Satellite is softening up the market,” he says. “It’s waking U.S. consumers up to what digital can deliver.”

Next Wednesday’s Apple event will likely see the announcement of the next evolution of iPod, dubbed the iPod Touch. Which is a little bit weird, because the iPhone is obviously the next evolution, what with its revolutionary multitouch interface and the widescreen and the like. So this week, we’re all sort of praying for an iPod with a big hard drive, multitouch, and maybe iTunes purchasing via WiFi. A hard-working country mouse to iPhone’s city slicker.

But in really thinking about where Apple might go (and in the spirit of free-wheeling rumor-mongering), I must admit that a possibility I haven’t seen much of anywhere is that the new iPod would carry over the breakthrough Internet browsing device piece of the iPhone puzzle. As much as I would love an iPhone, its storage capacity is far too small for my iTunes library, and my phone is fine as a phone. I just want awesome multitouch web-browsing and e-mail. If Apple is going to the trouble of building WiFi into the next iPod, it would be a complete waste not to put in real Internet capabilities — even if it steals some iPhone thunder.

All of which leads me to think that the new iPods will remain free of wireless connectivity. Apple isn’t one to give away the farm, and the iPhone is clearly designed to one day completely replace the iPod line. They cannibalize up, not down.

What do you think the next iPod will be (let’s leave the hideous iPod nano phat out of the conversation for the time being)? Widescreen evolution or iPhone web browsing revolution without all those pesky phone calls?

Image via Gizmodo

Apple just sent out invites to a special media event at San Francisco’s Moscone West convention center on September 5 at 10AM — and music is clearly the theme.
There’s been lots of speculation that new iPods are on tap, including stubby, ugly iPod nanos and a touchscreen iPod Touch.

Photo by Stillframe

Many wireless companies will unlock cell phones after the initial one- or two-year contract has been fulfilled. But AT&T says the iPhone is “different” and won’t be unlocked at the end of the contract:

AT&T will unlock phones for customers once they have fulfilled their contracts, which typically run one to two years. One big exception: Apple’s iPhone, distributed exclusively in the USA by AT&T. “That’s different,” says AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel.

USA Today.

Nintendo owns the portable gaming market. They have since they created it with Game & Watch in the mid-’80s and then revolutionized it with Game Boy in 1989. Many challengers have risen and fallen over the 18 years since.

But as I predicted the day the iPhone was released, a reckoning is due between Apple and Nintendo in the coming years. As GigaOM reported today, Nintendo has filed a patent for a tilt-sensitive handheld console (a perfect companion to the motion-based Wii). Meanwhile, the New York Times claims Apple is stealthily adding game functions to the iPhone. There’s nothing stealthy about it. You create a portable device capable of gorgeous graphics, pristine audio and driven by a multitouch interface, you’re already there in the first place.

Let’s go back to the prediction from Jan. 9, shall we?

And multi-touch in iPhone is significantly more flexible — it’s made to interpret complex gestures with more than one point of input. There are a number of DS games that could easily be adapted, and it’s just made to host a new rhythm or music game that would require drumming two spots at once. It’s not a threat to the DS, because its price-point is so much higher. It is a threat to crappy games for cell phones, which often cost $6 and suck.

More interestingly, this could begin to threaten Nintendo down the road. The iPhone and its interface are extremely high-end today. By the end of the year, Apple could replace its traditional high-end iPod with one driven by the new iPhone interface and screen and offer it for the same price those iPods sell for today — and even boost the hard drive size, too. Suddenly, you have the world’s premiere media player and rising games star in a $250 package. That beats the PSP any day and hounds the DS tomorrow.

Sounds good. Anything else?

That’s my prediction of the day: As the iPhone seizes the high-end of Apple’s consumer electronics products, the iPod becomes the ultimate PSP-killer, with an interface the DS can’t quite match without the need for a stylus. Tell me you wouldn’t buy that. I dare you.

I’m sorry. Sometimes the smug just gets everywhere.

Chart: MarketWatch.

Apple’s Q3 was the company’s best ever. It raked in $5.41 billion in sales, posting a $818 million in profit. Gross margins — the amount of revenue that is profit — is up to a whopping 36 percent. This surely is the highest in the industry. By contrast, Dell reported Q2 2007 margins of just 4.3 percent, earning $605 million profit on revenues of $14.1 billion.
Apple also reported 10 million iPods sold — up 21 percent on the year before; and 1.76 million Macs, up 33 percent year-on-year.

Apple’s stock is rebounding on the news: it’s up 6 percent after taking a hammering yesterday on AT&T’s iPhone numbers.

This YouTube compilation was first posted to MacRumors as the interface we might see on a forthcoming OS X iPod. To be honest, the graphics look right, but something here isn’t right. Specifically, the aspect ratio. All of the clips are in 4:3, horizontally oriented, exactly like the existing video iPod. If Apple does roll out a new iPod with an iPhone-like interface, it should get a nice rectangular screen in place for widescreen movies. In fact, it should just look like an iPhone, but with some distinguishing design features.

I wouldn’t be shocked if this clip is legit. I also wouldn’t be stunned to learn it’s a fake.

Via DAPReview

San Francisco’s Chinatown provides a wealth of cheap goods. While shopping for ridiculous San Francisco mementos for a friend who’s moving away, I spotted this display of clearly fake MANNDigital Mp3 players that mimic exactly the look, size and even packaging of Apple’s clippable iPod shuffles.

I could easily see the casual shopper getting confused here, but a few distinctions stand out to me: 1) The volume and skip track buttons have switched places. 2) This device comes in a few colors Apple shuffles don’t, including black. 3) These have a dedicated mini-USB port, instead of Apple’s remarkable headphone/power/USB port.

All told, an excellent knock-off, and one worthy of a cease & desist letter. So get ’em while they’re hot.

Mastered the iPhone keyboard? Track your speed with a new website testing just that. Digg readers claim they’ve topped 40 words per minute, but then, I used my PowerBook keyboard and got 70, so take it with a grain of salt. If you’re actually an iPhone user, I’d love to know about your best score.

Via Digg.

According to Erica Sadun at TUAW, the iPhone can be used with an old SIM card. She activated her phone, then popped out the SIM card and put in an old one. The iPhone continued to function as an iPod, plus web and email via Wi-Fi.

However, I’m pretty sure this won’t work with an unactivated iPhone — and in the comments someone noted that it’ll likely get disabled when iTunes checks for a software update.

Picture from Pomcast

Steve Jobs is so stoked about the iPhone launch on Friday, he’s giving a rare company-wide pep talk at Apple HQ on Thursday. As far as I know, he’s not held one of these since the early days of returning to the company in 1997.

From: Steve Jobs
Date: June 27, 2007 1:47:55 PM PDT
To: XXXXXX
Subject: Town Hall Meeting Tomorrow

Team,

We’re launching the most revolutionary and exciting product in Apple’s history this Friday. And given Apple’s legacy of breakthrough products, that’s saying a lot.

I’d like to get together and share my thoughts about this amazing moment for our company. So please join me for a company-wide communications meeting tomorrow, Thursday, at 11:00AM in Town Hall.

This meeting will also be broadcast to other Apple campus locations. Please check XXXXXX for details.

See you there,

Steve

Via the iPhoneBlog

Image from Kottke

The iPod’s scroll wheel is doomed. Multitouch is such a compelling user experience, it must supplant the scroll wheel. Writes Newsweek’s Steven Levy in one of the first reviews of the iPhone:

Also, the new way of navigating–swiping down your song list or fast-browsing by skimming your finger on a vertically arranged alphabet on the right of the screen–is a superior interface.

I can’t see Apple selling another large-capacity iPod with the old scroll wheel interface. Everyone is going to want multitouch, and maybe soon Apple will have the economies of scale to put it on a sub-$400 device. I doubt the nano will go multitouch, but it’s the beginning of the end for the wheel.

Photo by AFP. Greg Packer, first in line for an iPhone at Apple’s 5th Ave. store.

iPhone waiters are coming out of the woodwork: there’s dozens now advertising on San Franciso’s Craigslist.

The competition is driving down prices. There’s several advertising for $100 or less.

There’s one guy who wants $500 — but says he’ll deliver.

There’s some new kinds of ads also.

There’s a couple of lonely weirdoes advertising for instant friends to hang out with during the long wait in line (one’s mentions his sexuality, but assures it’s platonic). An unspecified media company is looking for reporters to do man-on-the-street interviews.

And another company claiming to be Apple is looking for people to hand out flyers. But the ad has typos, which makes one suspect it’s actually the Musty Chiffon Strip Club.

We’re trying out a new “beta” redesign here at Cult of Mac by the genius graphic designer Rob Beschizza, who is also a Wired News contributo.

The site may be slow for a few days and there may be glitches. Please us know if there’s any problems in the comments below. Please also leave your general feedback.

– Graphics are not final; big files might make for longer download
times or poor performance on slow machines.

– Beware general oddness; there’s some rough, invalid markup, etc.

– Transparent PNGs will look messed up on IE6. Upgrade! But IE6
detection is coming.

Lots of iPods have bitten the big one over the last six years. But never before have I seen so many totally trashed “breakthrough digital devices” in one place as at the great Pile of Photos of Broken iPods. Head over. Grab some hankies. Mourn. Reboot.

Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: ipod, puppy

Fimoculous brought Microsoft’s iPod Amnesty Bin at the Zune Headquarters recently. Looks pretty empty to me — think team members are taking the discards home to use instead of their Zunes? Or is it a place for iPods to escape from Microsoft’s labs where they were getting dissected and copied?
iPod Amnesty Bin on Flickr
Via TUAW.

Technorati Tags: ipod, zune

I think we have a nominee for ugliest — or prettiest? — iPod ever, courtesy of a bizarre promotion that Procter & Gamble is running to benefit the people of New Orleans. If you buy an ugly Tide t-shirt for $10, you can win an iTunes gift certificate or a bright orange, Tide-branded iPod. A nano, from the looks of it. No word on whether they’ll also brand you forehead with Tide.
Vintage T-shirts from Tide.com
Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: ipod, tide

Image by Mina Ramzy

His Steveness was in prime form during last week’s Apple Shareholders meeting, and AppleInsider’s got the goods. The iCEO dissed Microsoft, acknowledged interest in 3rd-party iPhone apps and mocked the people of the developing world. He’s so predictable that way:

“I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check,” he said. “If that were the case, then Microsoft would have great products.”

…

When asked about the iPhone’s closed development platform and whether the company recognized the need of large institutions to build their own applications for the handset, Jobs replied that Apple was “wrestling” to balance the requirements for security and stability with the desire for custom application development.

…

During the shareholders meeting, Jobs also entertained the suggestion that Apple could mimic Microsoft’s strategy of offering developing nations Windows Starter Edition — a low cost version of Windows XP as an alternative to the much more expensive Windows Vista. “Do you think we should offer Mac OS 9?” Jobs quipped in response.

“I think Apple could sell the developing world Tiger while selling Leopard here,” the attendee replied. Jobs paused for a moment and said that could be an option.

Nice one, Steve! You just looked like a big ol’ jerk. We’re keenly aware that you’re not interested in being perceived as a major philanthropist, but you could at least pretend some times… There’s much more at the AI story.

Apple’s Jobs addresses critics, new product directions [AppleInsider]

Technorati Tags: iphone, OS 9, Steve Jobs

Apple: Get Your Defective Laptop Replaced By Sending Well-Written Emails To Steve Jobs – Consumerist

Steve Jobs on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Most of you have probably never heard of iLoad, a $300 device designed to rip CDs to iPod without the use of a computer. Granted, it is a high price, but I can see the market need, as many people can’t afford to buy a computer, but at $300, there’s no reason they couldn’t get a computer instead. It’s been pretty niche, but the product’s manufacturer has promoted it fairly aggressively.

As they are wont to do with all things iPod, the venerable iLounge reviewed the little box in a not-so favorable light, and then the fun began. Wingspan, the maker of iLoad, allegedly declared war on iLounge. And that’s when the fun began. Check out this hilarious YouTube video, then head over to iLounge for the full sordid story. It’s well worth your time.

Getting Rid of iLoad and Wingspan: The Full Story | iLounge

Technorati Tags: humor, ipod, iload

Great visual joke from TUAW. Link.

The BBC is asking bloggers and website publishers to post a button in support of Alan Johnston, a BBC journalist missing in Gaza, presumed kidnapped. Johnston was the last international journalist reporting from Gaza, and was highly respected, even by many Palestinians. Remember Jill Carroll, the Christian Science Monitor journalist kidnapped in Iraq who was released safely? International pressure does work.

Link:

BBC correspondent Alan Johnston disappeared on his way home from his Gaza City office on 12 March. He is feared kidnapped in the lawless territory, where he is thought to have been the only international correspondent still working. Intensive efforts have been made to secure his release.

Here’s instructions how to add the link to your blog.

Alexander Amosu, a London entrepreneur known as “King of the Ring” for making a bundle on urban ringtones, has introduced a line of gold-plated iPods. The 24 carat iPods cost $600 for a 30-Gbyte version and $800 for the 80-Gbyte model.
According to Amosu’s site, the ringtone millionaire is branching into gold- and diamond-encrusted phones and iPods for “the rich, famous and sophisticated.”

He wanted to be the first person to have a dedicated website for high end customised mobiles phones with gold, white gold and various colours of diamonds.

His words are “to have an exclusive phone that cost more than anyone else is like having a Bentley rather than Ford, the type of phone you have speaks allot (sic) about your lifestyle and ambition. That’s why celebrities, footballers, actors and millionaires get their phone from me”

I found this striking picture of a Mursi tribeswoman at iLounge’s “iPods Around the World” gallery, but there’s very little information about it.
The caption simply says: Female member of Mursi tribe in Southern Ethiopia. Unfortunately, there’s no other information, but a quick Google search reveals:

We’d been hearing for days about the Mursi tribe–the one where women split their lower lip and insert a round metal plate. As we were repeatedly told, the Mursi are neither fun nor friendly. And while they’ve kept their distance from the outside world–largely in part because their territory is a vast expanse of remote national park–they nevertheless have turned their small contact with foreigners into an art form of extortion. Pictures equal money. No exceptions. (from Gabriel Openshaw).