Apple introduces updated video iPod - Page 2

I can't believe the folk that still believe every rumor...namely this one. The iPod is an icon, so it's overall look will not change for a while. Hell, every other player is trying to emulate it--cementing it's iconic presence. Think of the Walkman...did it's overall design ever change? Ever?

Next, I DON'T WANT TO WATCH VIDEO AT THAT SIZE! Photos in the field, maybe, but not video. It's just not practical. If I'm on a bus, train, or plane, then, the current iPod screen is just fine.

The natural progression was iTV(!?!?!), not a widescreen video iPod.

If the chips are different, they may not have the functionality in firmware to allow certain updates to work. It may seem simple, but it might not be on the programming level.

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I think a video iPod is a logical progression. But there are some MAJOR technical limitations to overcome.

1 Battery life is dismal in just about every video player, and the bigger and brighter the screen, the worse it is.
2 A screen the size of the entire unit requires removing the buttons. Touchscreen isn't a good option because of fingerprints, so Apple is supposedly working on something similar that senses finger gestures. If that's what's really in store, and not just some hoaxer's fantasy, I imagine that would be REALLY hard to get working perfectly.

Part of apple's iPod success comes from never making any real missteps. It's MUCH smarter for Apple to release something later with all the bugs worked out, than something that still has issues and gets bad press.

Even that doesn't mean that they changed the chips. The backlight might just be a brighter LED or more LEDs behind the same panel, battery capacity might simply be Apple using a different battery.

I suppose. I don't know enough about programming to even begin to know what I'm talking about. I just assumed that if they could get the games to work... the search would follow. Again, I don't know much about it, so I'll just wait and see.


True, that's why I said hardware instead of chipset. I'm really hoping it is just a brighter LED and better battery so the above response applied to the older 5G ipods. But again, I'm willing to wait and see.

I ordered a new video iPod almost immediately, just a few hours after the announcement.

I passed up the first generation of video iPod, being reasonably content with my 60 GB iPod photo. Even though I didn't (and still don't) think I'll use video playback much, the bigger display and the reduced thickness were tempting. I figured I might as well wait until the capacity went up to at least 80 GB.

Well, that increase happened. Then on top of that... GAPLESS PLAYBACK! I know most people don't give half a damn about that, but lack of gapless playback has been a pet peeve of mine for many years, so when I heard gapless playback, I was sold. A search function and better games and other incremental improvements are icing on the cake.

Full screen touchscreen video? Bah. Not my thing. I prefer real tactile buttons over virtual buttons, and music is what I mainly want an iPod for anyway.

Remember that Apple changes chip makers. Samsung is now making chips for them. Whether these new players are using those chips, or they will be waiting for the "newer" player not out yet, I don't know now. But very shortly some site will take one of these things apart, and then we will know.

Also, don't forget that Apple has been working on an expanded set of API's for games in the iPods for some time now. They may be in the older 5G's as well.

What I'm most interested in is whether these API's are being opened up to third party game developers as well.

I've said that the iPod is ideal for games ever since the better color screen first came out. Let's hope. They can give Nintendo some competition.

Yeah, Apple does do the "chipset manufacturer shuffle" alot don't they?

I forgot that they have been looking for games programmers for a while now so that API may very well be included. Good point.

As much as I'd like to see freeware come out... I'm concerned about the lack of quality control. There are many games I'd like to see use the click wheel, like Raiden (old coin-op plane shooter for you youngin's), but I don't want to see a flood of rubbish or IP conflicts.

Anyway, I'll be picking up Vortex and Mahjong to pass the time away... cheers.

Not just freeware, of course. I would imagine that the games developers on the Palm, Windows mobile, DS, and other platforms would be interested in producing games for such a popular platform. There will be quite a few million of these things floating around, and people would buy games if they were priced like games for those platforms. At about $5 to$20 apiece, those games are well priced. I've got a bunch for my older Samsung i330, and now for my Treo 700p.

The clickwheel is much better than the buttons used for these PDA phones, because each software company uses different buttons for the same actions, unlike a dedicated game system. Apple's clickwheel is simple enough that logic should prevail, esp. if Apple "hints' as to what each control function should be used for in the API's.

I just thought of another possible way this could be an advantage for Apple.

If you could listen to music while playing games, many people would be interested.

I believe that the move to a Samsung chipset was for the Nano only. The HDD iPods remain based on the Portal Player + Broadcom chipset to the best of my knowledge. The broadcom video decoder is programmable, so it's possible that they developed a more efficient H264 decoder to allow for higher resolution playback and to contribute towards the better battery life.

Hopefully take-apart pictures will be posted soon, so we'll find out for sure if Portal Player and Broadcom are still involved.

So you're imagining an Xbox Live Arcade type distribution? That's pretty brilliant. If they can keep these games at $5-$10, with a user base of over 1M... no company could turn that down!

/buys Apple stock

First a question. I noticed that brightness adjustment was added to the old iPods, along with the letter appearing while fast scrolling. I love those, the brightness especially, to get more battery life out of it. But I can't seem to find the search or even find out if that is on the old video iPod as well. Any know for sure?

And as for the "true" video iPod, I believe it is right around the corner. Reaons why would start with the movie store. They will probably want to try to get that going and make sure it sells well before they invest in a video iPod just to watch TV shows. No since in selling hardware if the software and content isn't there (I know they sell a lot of TV shows, but those don't need a big screen, just like a lot of TV's are small for a room). Another reason would be because of the price drops. I think they lowered the price just because what they offer is nothing special over other's, but the competition is now closer, so they lowered price points will help. I don't know if it's just me but it seems as though the education discount is no longer applied to iPods. Maybe that is because the lowered price points don't allow for much of a discount. But with such a small increment in iPod's hardware, I would expect a "true" video iPod to come out in Jan. at MacWorld. They are working on some issues I'm sure, like the battery not being as good as they want, or the touch wheel/screen issue. They probably want to have at least two whole movies to be played back to back on it. Also, there is a chance they don't release it, because not many people would actually watch movies on it, in my opinion. I have a video iPod now and I don't watch movies on it much. But I do think they will come out with it in Jan. of 07.

So they might be using chips that are capable of playing games like Pac Man...but not of displaying letters for a search?

Think about how ridiculous that sounds.

It's been around the corner since last January!

Excuses for not having the movie store was that the iPod wasn't ready for it.

The excuses for not having the new iPod was that the movie store wasn't ready for it.

Well, now we have the movie store, and no new iPod (these don't count for that).

Just maybe, there was never going to BE a "new" iPod for the movie store.

Perhaps Apple is working on something that won't be out for a while, if ever!

Perhaps it will be the iPhone instead.

Nothing is ridiculous. If they don't update the older units for this, it will either be because they don't want to, or they can't.

I'm not saying that they can't. I'm just saying that IF they don't, that's a possibility.

Do you know for CERTAIN that they can?

I'm on board with games on iPod. It's a good idea that's been noticeably lacking, considering most portable media devices and phones include these things.

It's very strange. Apple's playing catch-up more and more, and being less the innovator. WTF is going on up there?

That's what originally started my confusion. I'm glad someone else was confused by it. I think the lack of a search is less of a "Can't" than it's more of a "not enough time to do it." I'll give them a few weeks. It's not mission critical anyway now that we have that letter pop-up. We'll see.

The original iPod was playing catch-up. They just played much better than everyone else did.

After a time, though, Apple will simply run out of innovations for the device. It's bound to happen.

All the talk about these new innovations such as the full face screen, touch, and proximity sensing, etc, could be some time away. Apple could be having difficulties with the programming, new chips could be needed that are not being produced yet, prices on large screens may have to drop, or perhaps thay're waiting for an OLED. Battery life problems, etc.

I can't think of a single reason they couldn't put search in the original 5G. It can play the new higher resolution h.264 content from the iTS, play games, etc. If the search was based on a FILE system search, the old style, I might be inclined to cut them some slack. However, the search is searching a DATABASE, like listings in one or two files. So, like finding a letter or word in a word document, or on a web page, even a 16-year old 386 33Mhz could do it! I really don't think a hardware arguement can hold water on this issue. They simply didn't include it so the 5.5G looks more advanced. I love Apple products, but dammit they really dropped the ball on this one, IMO.

I thought they were that the studios didn't want to agree to Steve's terms? Which they still don't.


It is ridiculous. What technical limitation could exist that allows the ipod to do everything the other one can, including many functions that are WAY more advanced than searching for a name. I'd be willing to bet that when someone gets their hands on one and takes it apart, the brains of the new one are identical to the brains of the last revision.


I agree with the first part. But I'm not convinced that they left it out to help sell the new one. It's entirely possible that they were just crunched for time, and they didn't work out all the bugs in time. I still think there's a good chance it will show up in a later update, hopefully they'll add gapless playback for previous nanos and shuffles as well.

That's another, more recent reason. But the one's most stated over the past year were the ones I gave.


9quote[
It is ridiculous. What technical limitation could exist that allows the ipod to do everything the other one can, including many functions that are WAY more advanced than searching for a name. I'd be willing to bet that when someone gets their hands on one and takes it apart, the brains of the new one are identical to the brains of the last revision.[/quote]

Say what you will, with no knowledge about it whatsoever. But I'm not saying that it is a reason, I'm just saying that it could be a reason. Either Apple will include it for older machines, or they won't. If they will, then it's moot. If they won't, it's either because they simply don't want to, or because, for some reason, they can't, or it's too difficult to. If it proves to be the same chips, then they don't want to. If the chips are different, then we simply don't know, no matter what anyone here says.

It's easy to say that something should be simple to apply, but not always.

I'm not going to argue this anymore. It isn't important anyway.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps someone smarter than I could offer an explanation to this then:

The ipod uses an XML file to browse/organize music correct? Can't Apple simply write a program that searches that XML file? It's just food for thought; i'm not trying to start an argument. I figure if Apple doesn't do it, someone who hacks the 5G will.

"Simple to apply" has nothing to do with it. You were saying it's possible that the *hardware* may have limitations that make it impossible. That is ridiculous.

Just use Ockham's razor. It handles video the same. It handles photos the same. It plays the same games. Other than the sorting, there are NO differences in how the software works.

The simple explanation is that the hardware "brains" are probably very similar if not identical. After all, if they weren't going to make any major changes to functionality, why go to the trouble of changing it? And if it's only missing one software feature, it's probably because they haven't implemented it (for whatever reason).

To argue that it could be impossible to implement this one feature, while everything else works fine requires imagining a sort of technological conspiracy theory. "Oh crap, we forgot to put in the SEARCH chip!" It simply defies common sense. It would be like if Apple shipped a computer and left out the calculator app, and saying it might be a hardware limitation.


Not only CAN apple do it, they HAVE done it if it's working in the 5G+. Can anyone even imagine a technological limitation that would keep the one player from being able to do that (while doing ALL the other functionality present in both versions)?

Search, search, search... the second I saw that on the iPod, I thought "telephone address book for the iPhone". I think we're seeing the first line of payoff from their cell phone research.

?

Surely I can't be the only one to have suggested the feature to Apple via their feedback pages 2 - 3 years ago?

Yes, but now they have a good reason to develop and implement it.

On that note... I would think Apple WOULD include that feature on current 5Gs because of the number of them already out in the market in use. Think of usage statistics and quality feedback that could generate? I am still at a loss to think of a good reason search was left out.

... now possible not only for the newer 30/80GB units, but for
the old ones too. The version 1.2 firmware for my 60GB iPod
bears this out. I.e. running the QT Pro "export to iPod" on
large-format material now yields full-rez, non-transcoded 640x480 H.264
(for widescreen it's 640x360), not just for iTunes but for TV display as well.
Although my limited tests were with an RCA connector to an old analog TV,
the 480p appears to be preserved, so it seems we have a "silent" specs
upgrade to uncripple the Broadcom 2722 chip in the older iPods.

And there is indeed a limited form of search, too -- when you
quickly scroll through a large music list, an overlaid initial letter
is displayed, enabling subsequent hopping to adjacent letter titles.

Do the new 30/80GB iPod's do a full substring search?

Otherwise, it seems the new iPods are really just the same,
modulo disk drive size and a beefier battery.

You are chatting with Brenton, an Apple Expert
Hi, my name is Brenton. How may I help you today?

Brenton: Hi! How are you?

You: good evening. i just have a quick question. are the new iPods subject to my edu discount? i do not see the discounted price reflected on the website

Brenton: I'm happy to assist with that.

Brenton: There is not education discount for the iPods any longer, they all have the same price, which is even lower then the previous education discount.

You: oh wow. thank you. have a nice night :-)

--
Kenya

Yep. The letter thing is different than the search. And people with the original 5G are pretty pissed they don't have the feature.


Not true for the nanos.

Actually it is true. I just double cheked for myself and there are no discounts on any iPod. Nanos are $149- $249 with or without discount. Check for yourself. BTW, previous gen iPods (all models) can still be bought with the edu discount.

--
Kenya

No edu discount is true.

I meant that for the nano, "even lower then the previous education discount" is NOT true.

Well, when you calculate the fact that they all doubled in storage, yeah, they are cheaper.

According to the front page news, the hardware is the same (except a power consumtion tweak) so... how about that search function Apple??

I second that

Definitely. The search functon is a must.

If they can do it, then i seriously expect them to. One of the selling points of the iPod was that it was forwards thinking in that the Firmware could be updated as technology improved. An example of this was the addition of AAC compatibility to the orignal iPods.

Don't let us down apple. If you can do it, then do it.

However, if it is just a matter of time, then i can wait a bit - i'm still loving the gapless feature = )