Apple to usher in era of Mac OS X-based iPods - Page 2

what kinda other hand held devices do u think apples workin on?

Well, I do not know. Maybe it is because Apple does not own the current OS in the iPods. It has to pay millions of dollars to the company that does own it for the privilege of using the OS. Apple is a business and probably would like to avoid doing that if it makes sense to do so. SInce, Apple has already developed a scaled down version of OSX for the iPhone and Apple TV, it seems like it would make sense to put it on the iPods. Yes, I suspect that could be one reason.

Oh, heres another. It will be easier for Apple to make all the various technology that it wants to tie together across devices if they are all running the same OS. For instance, Wi-Fi iPods could easily use iChat since iChat is a program already built to run on OSX.

It is interesting.

I tend to think of it as "what's got electricity in my home?" (or in my office).

* Home automation? Replace all my light switches with Apple light switches (ethernet over power), put an eLock on my doors, garage, heating & cooling - all of which are controllable from my Mac or my touch screen home automation station. (Home security too?)

* Home phones? Start by replacing simple home phones with simple VoIP phones. Or add video screen & video conferencing? Touch screen interface (which also controls my home automation?)

Just quick thoughts.

This is the correct answer.

Let's push that a little further. What if the new iPods were WiFi enabled. Then cross-compatible Dashboard widgets (and then apps) that work on Macs, iPhones and then iPods would be real handy.

Not to mention Yet-Another-Platform-to-Run-Safari-on (TM).

Not to mention the likely-but-not-quite-yet Mobile iTunes Store.

We don't know if any of this is true yet.

As far as I can tell, there wasn't any official Apple announcement.

A hybrid 8gig flash and 160gig HD full screen wifi web enabled with video camera on the face iPod. Now do ya think they might sell a ton of these. Does everything but make the phone call holds all your media and runs all day.

Apple will need to do something really cool to maintain a premium price point for an iPod sans phone going into the holiday sales and next year. I'm looking forward to some amazing new products.

I suspect what they mean is that Apple is working on new devices within their 'four legs' strategy. I seem to remember reports some time ago that Apple was recruiting sound engineers so maybe they are developing a new Apple HiFi. Maybe we will see an AppleTV Home Media Centre for those who want to download and store their music/movies away from their computer.

Personally I hope Apple focuses more resources on their software division. Apple has some great software products and I wish they would develop more. I would love to see Apple develop a competitor to Adobe's Creative Suite.

When you're building an Empire what is not to conquer? Who knows where all Apple is setting it's sites. Dealing with non-Apple electronics I'm always wondering why it could not have been made more intuitive and "Apple easy."

Where would I like to see Apple? In a general term: Home Automation. Which I guess is like saying everywhere around the house.

Amen, brother!

It just takes some imagination to see the endless benefits of having OSX on an iPod. Right now, you're limited to viewing very basic text files - with OSX you could easily imagine being able to display Word files, PDFs, etc.
Also, you could load up Powerpoint presentations, load up pictures and have the ability to zoom in on them, have a more functional day planner (ala iCal), have better video processing for movies, perhaps integrate a little camera into it...have a GPS type system built in for navigation... having a powerful OS opens up the floodgates to a whole new world of possibilities...

Lets not go overboard here!

First of all, we have to ask ourselves why Apple is doing this (if indeed, they are).

The iPhone has OS X, but, so far at least, Apple isn't using the power of the OS very much. It isn't allowing third party software, though that may become moot if some of the hacked projects mature.

The iPod is still an iPod first and last. I'm not so sure Apple wants to expand it too far beyond where it is now.

I'd like to see more development, but maybe that's not on Apple's agenda.

With the Meizu Nano knock-off, I think that we should expect full-screen iPods for the whole range...

Why not have 3 lines?

1. Full-size: iPhone without the phone + large 160GB HD.

2. Nano: full-screen, but about the same size as a nano + 16/32GB RAM. Can watch movies and iTunes shows. Instead of a full coverflow install, they could just have a virtual click wheel appear when the screen is being touched, or something similar.

3. Shuffle: Maybe finally add a small screen to show the current track? Or a hybrid of the 1st and 2nd gen with integrated USB, which is the one thing that sucks about the current gen.

They should add the Nike+ wireless stuff to all models, but at least the shuffle and the nano internally. This would also allow a tiny wireless remote for the nano which would be nice.

Agreed, too many features at once would choke the line.

Let's think iterative design not kitchen sink design.

The iPod was the iPod, then it was the iPod with a color screen (for photos only), then it was the iPod with video. To get from there to here was over 5 releases!

Looking at the history of the main iPod, moving to an iPhone UI & OS (and that's all, no camera, no WiFi) would still be a huge leap in design change.

But if Apple continues with this "exclusive" deals, as with at&t, it will continue to stifle broad acceptance of Apple products. Steve is making bigger mistakes by trying to play it too safe. Walt Disney, one of Steve's heroes, was well known to constantly "bet the company" on his innovations. Something Apple needs to constantly infuse into their product bloodstream.

I hear that a lot but what can you really do with it while not looking at it? Change volume, play/pause, skip tracks. So surely all you'd need are gestures that support this. When a song is playing, a vertical slide is volume up/down, a double-tap is play/stop, a slide left/right skips track.

Maybe that new product should be a truly amazing flat screen that integrates with all things Apple. Then the weakest link in the line - AppleTV - might become a major player, and the revolution over.
John

They wouldn't unless 007 asked them to, but I'm sure Q has that covered.

To clarify: Other than the name, "Nano" who said it will resemble today's product?

I would like to see a hard drive based ,OS X ran device for the car that would WiFi sync to my home and give me access to all my media. It would incorporate music, photos, games and video. The onboard computerized system could even monitor my car's electronics. Oh hell Apple should just build a really cool sports car for me. Something like the MAClaren for the rest of us.

COOL you read my mind? Include WiFi to "auto"-sync with my computer when I'm parked at home.

You can also fast-forward or rewind by holding the prev/next buttons. What would be the gesture for that?

I agree with shamino, and while I can see the full-size iPod becoming a touch-screen device, I think the nano will keep the scroll-wheel for the longest time.

Your gesture idea kinda look nice on paper, but in the real world could be a pain to use.

Let's say I want to raise the volume just a little by making to short vertical upward swipes... Oops, the music stops, it was interpreted as a double tap...

The double-tap gesture would have to be tolerant for small movements because otherwise it would be hard to pull-off. If it's too tolerant the volume gesture would become unresponsive, and it would be easy to make an unintended double-tap while reaching the iPod in your pocket.

The iPhone can differentiate between scroll and tap easily because the flick-to-scroll or drag-to-scroll gestures are much more exaggerated than minute volume adjustments done with the thumb while holding the device.

Even with fine-tuning, I can see these unintended gestures happening too frequently for a device that people mainly buy to play music.

People like tactile feedback. Remember the 3G iPod? There's a reason why Apple stopped using these touch buttons on iPods. A touch based solution makes sense on the iPhone since it benefits so much more from having a bigger screen and controls that can change depending on the application. But on a nano, having a full-face screen would not be that much of a plus. The screen would still be too small for serious video watching, and the majority of nano buyers get it to play music before anything.

Like the old saying goes, if it ain't broken...

An Apple Gun that you can point and shoot at PC users to get them to switch.

I'm with you on this but I do wish that music could play with crossfade on the iPod. And maybe just a little bit more control with managing my music directly on the iPod instead of having to do everything on the Mac through iTunes, i.e. the ability to flag songs, correct ID3 tags, delete songs, etc.

My iPod G3 finally gave up the ghost. Here's to pre-ordering a G6 with iPhone form factor!

Things I see using Mac OS X to run the iPod will give us are:

1. Internet support so we can browse the iTunes Store and purchase music that is downloaded to the iPod. When we connect the iPod to the computer it will then transfer the songs to it
2. The ability to squirt each other; songs that is.
3. Update the iPod wirelessly.
4. A remote to control the Apple TV. This is where multi-touch comes into play.
5. Browse other iTunes libraries that are using the AirPort Express with AirTunes and listen to music streamed from it.

I like this idea too. It could it be called an iWatch. Get it?
6, 2, and even, over and out!

That might be true. Still, despite being simpler, my iPods have locked up about as much as my Macs.



That's true. There was a time when I wished that the stock iPod didn't require a stupid expensive add-on to do recording when the stock OS can clearly do if it weren't programmed otherwise, the lock-out is more complex than just allowing recording. I had used iPod4Linux to do recording because my Griffin attachment added noise even through the mic pass-through, and I think it's impossible to get around that.


First, it's just a rumor. Second, even if it's true, the story didn't say for certain that all HDD iPods will go away, maybe the highest capacity model will still be HDD. Even if Apple does do away with the HDD, I think that by the time your current HDD iPod fails, Apple may have a SSD replacement available.

Those are all nice ideas, but OS X probably isn't absolutely necessary to make all that work. It might make the work easier though.

Do you remember this?
http://arstechnica.com/journals/appl...ipated-updates

Just my WAG for iPod possibilities:

Four iPods:
iPod shuffle, iPod nano, iPod, iPod video

The first three are flash-based while the last has a hard drive.

Screens:
None, 1.5", 2.5", 3.5"

iPod video:
Very iPhone-like, slightly different appearance. Same functionality except for cell.

iPod:
Smaller, thinner version of existing 5.5G iPod, same screen and clickwheel but with flash in place of HD. New OS and new GUI.

iPod nano:
Same form factor, different colors, different flash capacities. Possible updated OS and revised GUI.

iPod shuffle:
Minor update, maybe 2GB; color changes?

If the video has a hard drive, I think it'll be hybrid. I reckon Apple got a little stuck in limbo with the video iPod because of the battery required to run the hard disk.

iPod 4G (& 5G??) has 32MB of memory used for caching from the 30GB (or 80GB) disk, so if you're listening to a playlist it can load up 8 songs from the disk and turn it off for 30 mins to save battery. Then every 30 mins it turns on and loads up the next 8 songs, then turns off - giving you 8 or 9 hours of music listening time. Unfortunately, if you're watching a video it's so much larger than 32MB that it has to do that every 5 minutes, so you only get 1.5hrs of video time.

Whatever we see soon, Apple will be trying to allow it to cache 300MB of video somehow

I agree that having a hybrid flash/HDD would be ideal. Even just 1GB of flash would help a lot. Of course, 2GB would be best since the OS could be stored in .5GB, leaving 1.5GB to cache some video. It'd be nice to have 5 hours of video playing time per charge.

And also, don't forget, the iPhone runs everything as root, opening up potential for many security holes.

Why did they go and do that when they had the security model more or less right on the Mac?

+2

PLEASE BRING BACK FIREWIRE!

I know it's a bit off-topic, but I loved the reponse to the below MacRumors posting:

64 MB for the 60/80 GB 5G iPods apparently. Yay, more than one (ALAC encoded) song fits into the memory.

/Adrian

No it won't. iPod batteries are replaceable.

You have three choices:

1.) Send iPod back to Apple for battery replacement
2.) Send iPod to third party for battery replacement
3.) Buy battery from third party and replace battery yourself.

No new iPod required.

Go ahead and try to do that reliably with no tactile feedback. I dare you.

keyboard/pen gestures do not magically translate into a one-handed/not-looking interface.

When I'm driving, I can adjust the radio's volume without looking because there's a big knob. It's easy to locate and turn that knob without ever looking down. Convert that into a finger-slide across a uniformly flat surface (or even mechanical push-buttons) and it won't work anymore. That's the reason most car stereos still have knobs for the volume control.

The same principle applies to an iPod. The click-wheel is very distinctive. You don't need to look at anything - not even the device's orientation - in order to adjust the volume. It's also pretty easy to determine the left/right sides of the wheel, since you can feel the device's overall orientation. With an iPhone-like screen, that all goes out the window. You'll be able to tell up/down from left/right, but you won't be able to determine which is which, so the gesture that you think will quickly lower the volume may end up blasting your ears.

And I haven't even mentioned that issue of working a device that's in your pocket, where you may not have the freedom of motion necessary to unlock the UI and perform full-screen gestures.

Not necessarily.

I've some experience using "off the shelf" embedded operating systems. It's not like an installation of Windows or Linux, where everything's installed and ready to go. They don't give you a binary image to just install. You are given the source code, which you compile yourself (and often statically link with your application.) The distribution usually gives you the ability to selectively include/omit individual features. Turning features on and off is usually no more work than tweaking a configuration file, or adding a parameter to a bundled system-configuration script. When something is turned off, it is gone - the code isn't compiled and there is no trace of it left in the resulting OS.

Why would a vendor turn off features? Simple. Embedded devices have very limited memory. Every byte you use for an unnecessary feature is one that could be used for something else. Leaving out audio recording means there can be a bigger playback buffer, which extends battery life (especially for those iPods that have hard drives.) When coupled with the fact that there is no audio-recording hardware, the decision is a no-brainer.