MacMinute notes a report by The Register on open positions within the iPod team for wireless networking engineers. Tony Smith proceeds to pontificate over the possibilities of this, including the use of Wi-Fi to sync data and music with the iPod. Your reasoning for this, Tony, other than a certain coolness factor, would be?
The best wireless speeds right now are 54 Mbps, which is great for surfing the web and downloading your e-mail, but I would hesitate to use it to load ripped CDs on to my iPod. Even 100Base-T Ethernet would be faster. With iPod iFireWire connectivity at 400 Mbps, why bother with wireless syncing?
The wireless access does make sense for turning the iPod in to a remote control for iTunes and streaming music via Airport Express. However, Smith and The Register have a history for speculation that turns out to be incredibly wrong, so take this one with the usual grains of salt.
Obviously, from the Apple job postings, the iPod team is looking at Wi-Fi integration for some reason, but it’s too early to tell what that reason might be.
Tag: iPod
Apple’s trendy iPod digital music player, which has revitalized the company, is giving laptop sales a boost during back-to-school season.
Many students, after falling in love with the iPod, are packing for college with new Apple Macintosh computers.
Of course, the “journalists” at USA Today could head on over to Microsoft’s Mactopia and verify that Outlook is not part of Office for Macintosh, but I suppose that would be too much trouble. I guess it’s just one more rag I really need to stop reading…
Just in case you’ve ever wondered.
Engadget has the Newsweek cover with Steve and the new iPod. It’s still white, reportedly has an even slimmer case, and sports the iPod mini-style scroll wheel, which I really like over my 40 GB iPod’s multiple buttons. I’m curious to know if Espy Sans made the move from the mini as well. I am now depressed, as this appears to be the iPod I wish I could have had six months ago…
(Thanks to Gruber’s linked list for the link.)
You can now have your iPod fully integrated in your over-priced German automobile.
Apple product managers have an iChat AV video conference while one is at 35,000 feet over Canada.
(Danke, Lee.)
The Economist has a noteworthy article on how the iPod has changed and is changing the way we listen to music. Rumormongers of the video iPod should take note of the article’s conclusion:
Are video iPods next? Strikingly, none of these shifts in usage patterns applies to video. People do not watch movies while walking the dog, make playlists of their favourite movie scenes, or clamour to buy individual scenes online. Portable video-players, which are already starting to become available, undoubtedly have their uses, such as providing entertainment during long journeys. But they seem unlikely to be the kind of industry-changing products that the iPod and its imitators have unexpectedly proven to be.
(via The Iconfactory)
My favorite iPod carrying case is going color on May 15th. The Contour Showcase will be available in six different colors, as well as black and the original white. Personally, the only one that interests me is the black Showcase. Contour is doing a buy-two, get-one-free promo with the new Showcases, but I doubt I’ll be buying a new one when they’re $39.95 a pop.
Now if a couple of people want to go in with me and split the cost of two Showcases three ways, I wouldn’t mind…
Eric reviewed the Showcase for ATPM.
Lee linked to the Alpine iPod Ready in-dash receivers in a recent post. I must say I am very interested, though I will probably hold off on anything like this until we figure out my vehicle situation later this year.
I stopped by the Willow Bend Apple Store last week for two reasons. First, I needed to pick up a couple of extra FireWire-to-Dock cables for iPod use. Second, I wanted to see how the Genius Bar LCD retrofit turned out, since that has been my principal project at work for the past month.
While there, I also played around with the new iPod mini. If I didn’t already have the 40 GB iPod, and was still using the original 5 GB one, I would jump on the mini. I love how they’re using Espy Sans for the screen font; I hope that carries over to the next-gen full-size Pods.
Likewise, I hope to see the combination mechanical/capacitance-sensitive scroll wheel with the built-in buttons on the next-gen full-size Pod. It make navigation so much simpler.
Of course, with my 40 GB iPod, I use it 50-50 as a music player and as an external hard drive. Every day, I back up my Mailsmith and Entourage mail folders to it to shuffle to and from work. Between the two, I’ve got about 1.3 GB of stuff, not to mention anything I may have downloaded during the day that I want to take home. So from that usage standpoint, a mini is not in my future. Then again, by the time I’m ready to upgrade again, the mini may just have the storage capacity to suit my habits.