[DigDub]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yyoo Sorry...but...you owned a eMac??? What were you thinking??? I think the opposite is more likely. They're going in for the kill. The shuffle and new mini (and old minis to be priced at $200 if rumors are true) are all attempts to yank the rug out from under the low-cost competitors. There's going to be massive carnage over the next year or so. Only the fittest will survive.

i'm looking forward to the fight between apple, sony and creative. of the 3, i hope sony will win. call it old romance or something.

 

[NeoPoe]

Old romance indeed

Although Apple is very good at advertising, they can only go so far with innovation + iPod... I think that after the 5th gen, future adjustments to the iPod will be centered heavily on the change in the PC market.

Several points have already been made (and can be seen) with Apple's aggressive marketing campaigns. Not only have they swarmed the HD market, but they have reshaped the flash player market -- they've made everyone more aware of the situation and amassed unsuspecting customers to their side. Their brand is much more formidable and they are seeing the impact that iTunes itself has had on the computer market -- I think they're ready to make bigger strides.

Not that it's evil, it's just damn good business.

Technologically: OLED, color screens, and topological adjustments are inevitable. I'm a little suspicious of this silver/metal casing that's been rumored and can only think of PowerMac-esque aluminum brushing (if it is aluminum...) but I'm not sure if battery life will be something that's pushed as heavily. FM radios though... just try and imagine the marketing campaigns they'd use.

Ugh.

 

[dominator]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HD-5000 One other thing I'd like is for Apple to make an iPod that wasn't so prone to scratches. Is it so hard for them to make a scratch-proof iPod? Maybe it's all a consipiracy to help sell more iPod cases and bleed us of more and more money...

Yeah, really.

My iPod had scratches all over it about 5 minutes after I took it out of the box.

It's actually pretty rediculous how much it scratches. Just putting it down on the table scratched it like crazy.

 

[yyoo]

Now that the incremental upgrades are out and some rumors were busted and some were not, here are my predictions for the 5th gen iPods:

1. The 5th gen will be announced in the summer.

2. The monochrome 20 GB gets dropped, perhaps replaced by a color 20 GB version at the same pricepoint. The minis don't get color until next year though.

3. Bluetooth 2.0 for non-minis. BT 2.0 features 3 Mbps transfer rates so we're talking real-time CD-quality music streaming. We'll also get photo streaming and perhaps video streaming to and from cell phones and computers.

4. More integration with laptops and cell phones in general. Transfer of text and voice mail via Bluetooth, etc.

5. More and more interesting games for the full-sized iPods. Perhaps downloadable games.

6. Gapless or a real EQ? Probably not both, and maybe not either.

7. Smaller physical sizes.

8. Upped battery lives.

9. 80 GB iPod, but not highly likely as very few people need more than 60 gigs of music and/or photos (unfortunately, I'm one of them).

10. iPod shuffles will be able to synch directly from their bigger brethren. And lower prices for the shuffles.

11. Video playback is a remote possibility.

12. New colors for the big iPods.

What we will NOT get:

1. Digital line-out. But maybe we will get digital wireless out with Bluetooth.

2. FM receiver. But maybe satellite radio in the future.

3. Voice recorder. Except in the upcoming iPod phone.

 

[Cyclone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yyoo 3. Bluetooth 2.0 for non-minis. BT 2.0 features 3 Mbps transfer rates so we're talking real-time CD-quality music streaming.

Unfortunately for bluetooth you will never get cd quality music no matter how good of a source you have. the frequency that it's on runs into interference and the 3 mbps is a optimal/theoretical (sp?) speed, like i have cable thats rated at 1.5mbps. do i ever get 1.5 mbps?... no not unless connected to a completely open server with multiple connections at once IE: Steam updates. luckily for bluetooth though it is cheap and is becoming much more widely used, there are even a few players out there now that support bluetooth headphones. it will be interesting if apple does go with bluetooth or another new technology.

 

[yyoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyclone Unfortunately for bluetooth you will never get cd quality music no matter how good of a source you have. the frequency that it's on runs into interference and the 3 mbps is a optimal/theoretical (sp?) speed, like i have cable thats rated at 1.5mbps. do i ever get 1.5 mbps?... no not unless connected to a completely open server with multiple connections at once IE: Steam updates. luckily for bluetooth though it is cheap and is becoming much more widely used, there are even a few players out there now that support bluetooth headphones. it will be interesting if apple does go with bluetooth or another new technology.

You probably only need 500 Kbps to 1 Mbps to get CD-quality music streaming. You can send a compressed lossless file with error correction at that rate. An uncompressed WAV file represents, what, a little over 1 Mbps?

 

[yyoo]

A little off-topic, but today's really big news about Apple's future may have nothing to do with the upgraded iPods. Read on:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...f145056S27.DTL

Now we can think of ways that digital music and iPods could tie into this.

 

[IstariAsuka]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yyoo You probably only need 500 Kbps to 1 Mbps to get CD-quality music streaming. You can send a compressed lossless file with error correction at that rate. An uncompressed WAV file represents, what, a little over 1 Mbps?

Uncompressed wav is 1411 kbps. Even lossless have peak bitrates close to that oftentimes.

Sure, BT 2.0 may have a peak of 3000 kbps, but it's unlikely to ever get that full amount--you have significant overhead, interferance, etc.

Plus, isn't BT 2.0 really rather new? No BT 2.0 in current Apple computers means that it's unlike that 5G iPod will use it, even if you COULD stream music perfectly over it.

Wi-Fi, on the other hand, perhaps. You could transfer music to your iPod from iTunes wirelessly, eliminating need for dock or usb/firewire cables. That would be rather cool. Even better, you could use it as a remote control, such that the iPod displayed everything you have in iTunes. This would combine rather nicely with the Mac Mini (assuming wireless) for many people--just connect Mac Mini audio output to your stereo system (no need for a screen), and then use the iPod as the perfect remote control!

 

[Edwood]

With integrated wireless, they're going to have to increase battery capacity more. Yet another energy sucking option.

-Ed

 

[yyoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by IstariAsuka Plus, isn't BT 2.0 really rather new? No BT 2.0 in current Apple computers means that it's unlike that 5G iPod will use it, even if you COULD stream music perfectly over it.

The new Apple laptops have BT 2.0. They're the first computers as far as I know to offer BT 2.0 (yes, another first from Apple). Putting BT 2.0 into iPods might be a way to promote the new laptops and, I'm sure, upcoming desktop Macs that will have BT 2.0 built in.

As a practical matter, Wi-Fi consumes too much power today. BT is the way to go for battery-powered devices like the iPod.

 

[yyoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by IstariAsuka Sure, BT 2.0 may have a peak of 3000 kbps, but it's unlikely to ever get that full amount--you have significant overhead, interferance, etc.

As I mentioned, you don't need anywhere near the full 3 Mbps for CD quality digital streaming. A compressed lossless file in ALAC format might require one-fifth that bandwidth. Of course you'd need a Bluetooth-enabled DAC at the other end, but that's something else for Apple to sell (maybe an add-on for the existing Airport Express?).

 

[appar111]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyclone i'll buy an ipod when they add... 1. Removable battery 2. Longer battery life (at least 15 hours) 3. Radio (im not going to buy a radio accessory to get it) 4. Comes in more than one color 5. A EQ that doesnt distort the music (i know the mini does this, but im not sure about the 4g) of course there are more features that i and many other people would like to see like ogg support but i dont NEED them so i would still consider buying an ipod if they didnt add them.

I don't know why everyone keeps pining for a radio on all their portable devices.... the reception in them is usually not very good (at least not where I live, for radios included on MP3 players.... cd players w/ radios tend to fare better--- better radio included, perhaps?)

 

[Fenhalls]

1) Gapless
2) Scrolling of all long titles in "now playing" screen
3) Bookmarks
4) Improved battery life

 

[Shosta]

I don't expect this but...
what about a removable disk instead of removable battery.
We can't forget that disks inside of the iPod (here in Spain my friends and I talk of 'my ipod of Sony or my ipod of Philips') were used in pcmcia cards for laptops.

I need at least 1.000GBytes for all my cds in lossless compression so I could buy the ipod and then a lot of removable disks. (It could be better if they were USB compatible so I could use them in my computer too).

Sorry for my bad English.

 

[IstariAsuka]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yyoo As I mentioned, you don't need anywhere near the full 3 Mbps for CD quality digital streaming. A compressed lossless file in ALAC format might require one-fifth that bandwidth. Of course you'd need a Bluetooth-enabled DAC at the other end, but that's something else for Apple to sell (maybe an add-on for the existing Airport Express?).

Are you kidding? Lossless files usually are around 60% the size of the original. That's an *average* of 847kbps. Sure, some music is less, down even into the 600s for a lot of classical. But some is more, consistently over 1000. Your 1/5 of 3mbps is a mere 600 kbps, not even close, where are you pulling these figures from?

Furthermore, as I said, you can't determine how much bandwidth you need with lossless files merely based on the average bitrate, you have to consider peak bitrate, which is going to be considerably higher than whatever the average bitrate is. You really need to be able to get full, consistent 1411 kbps bandwidth to be able to effectively stream raw wave or lossless.