I can only assume you're targeting this at me since I was the one suggesting we move on from these wishes... but did I say or imply that those technologies were obsolete? No. Of course matte screens and firewire are useful. I use them. They're just not the direction Apple is going, and we prosumers need to find ways to circumvent Apple's over-eagerness to oversimplify all their products.
Instead of complaining about it and berating those who don't understand your need for technology that Apple has abandoned, try directing your efforts towards creating a solution. Whining doesn't help anybody...
-Clive
Sorry to dent your ego clive, but no, I did not have you in mind in particular. Post number 3 in the thread rekindled the idea and stoked the boilers.
Firewire and matt screens are back, hadn't you heard? Just wish I hadn't had to buy this POS MacBook I have, when I had to, but I digress.
Complaining IS the way to circumvent Apple's errors of judgment, as evidenced by the return of Firewire to the MacBooks and availability of matt screen options. The old adage - 'The squeaky wheel gets the oil' was ever apropos.
The only direction Apple goes is in a straight line towards the ? $ £ signs.
I was not whining, just making an astute general observation.
So if you are reading this Apple, I want a Touch with a HD please. I don't care how thick it is. Oh yes, and while I'm at it, the reflections, audio quality and headphone jack on the Macbook 13" Al suck. Pretty looks do not compensate for such things.
A similar "prosumer" on the picture taking side would be someone who habitually carries every picture they ever took, and also stores them in RAW format on a ginormous computer/viewer that they lug around with them.
No one would ever call that person smart or professional.
I have all my photos on my iPod, but not to look at on the iPod...as backup. I have iTunes set to copy the originals to the iPod (can't do that with a touch), not just the downsized iPod display version. It's the ultimate in convenience that every time I plug in my 5.5 gen iPod, my photo library is backed up automatically to a portable drive that travels with me 90% of the time and so is safe from fire, flood, or theft (unlike my Time Machine backup). Photos are the one truly irreplacable type of data on my computer. Everything else can be repurchased, reconstructed, or wouldn't be missed if it was lost.
You may not consider that professional, but I consider it smart!
So until the touch has: a) the capacity to hold my music, video, AND photos; and b) the capability to store original photos, not just the reduced scale/quality it uses for display, then it can not replace my hard drive based iPod. (Not to mention that I can download photos from my camera directly onto my iPod when travelling as backup or to clear space on my memory cards, no computer required. Try that with a touch!)
Edit: Oh, and I can listen to FM radio on my "obsolete" iPod, too!
. Of course matte screens and firewire are useful. I use them. They're just not the direction Apple is going, and we prosumers need to find ways to circumvent Apple's over-eagerness to oversimplify all their products.
-Clive
?? Hello? Apple has done an about face! I thought firewire and matte had returned- big time.
Next up- a 13" matte to complete the Pro line up- by year end. And then -the return of the matte iMac!
There is no technological reason why Apple can't drop in flash memory into the iPod classic. The problem is the price of the memory combined with the ongoing development and support costs for keeping around a dying platform. Apple likes to kill off legacy hardware pretty quickly.
I don't know about dying, it's more of a device with limited interest. In fact I could see Apple refactoring Classic into a very compelling product. That would be the Newton 2 that I dream about.
If there is one thing I'm confident in saying it is that the current 32GB limit on the Touch sucks and 64GB won't make it better. I'm not sure if Apple realizes they messed up with the classic with it last capacity roll back.
Quote:
It is unlikely that we will see a 128GB iPod touch this time around. The current high-end model is 32GB, so the next one should be 64GB. The cost of 128MB of flash memory is a little too much for Apple to retain its margins (or would make the device way too pricey).
I don't buy the idea that it is a pricing issue when USB based 32 & 64 GB dongles are dirt cheap. Well cheap enough to indicate cost is a non issue. Yeah I know it isn't the same flash as is used in the Touch but it does indicate capacity is not an issue.
As to Apples margins I'm sure many here would agree that that can be thinned out without damage to the company. In fact they need to keep an eye on exposure to competition. Who knows one day MS may have a competitive product. In any event Apple has been awfully agressive with pricing the latest hardware releases.
SSD's will be made in the 1.8" format for some time to come. Regardless of what size they come out with, I would suggest you buy a new Classic *this* year regardless of the storage and learn how to open it up and replace the hard drive yourself because next year it might be discontinued altogether. Either that or wait until end of life and pick up a second hand one on eBay.
Well yes and no. Yes 1.8" drives will be around a long time. No the interface may not remain compatible.
Quote:
If you are careful, you can keep upgrading the hard drive yourself with bigger and cheaper SSD drives in the 1.8 format for many years to come.
there is no promise from the manufactures to support legacy interfaces. In fact todays line up is extremely thin.
I can't see a camera on a nano either ? it's too small.
However, the iPod touch will transform in a great camera. Introducing different models: from high capacity touches with high end compact lenses to low capacity touches with low end compact lenses.
I agree. The camera is destined for the iPod touch, hopefully with some optics, not the nano or the classic. This is one of those gash rumours that comes out in the days before an announcement that Apple uses to find out who leaked.
The trouble is that new 1.8" single platter hard drives are only going to get *more* expensive and flash chips or SSD's are going to get *less* expensive. At that price point, Apple will more likely be able to put in an SSD drive of a larger capacity before they could find someone willing to manufacture a reliable 250 Gig platter drive of that size for the same price. At the same time, the amount of people who will deal with such a large portable, or need the storage capacity so much that they consider it, is dropping all the time.
I think you've hit the nail on the head there. HDD's that go into pocket sized devices are likely to start going up in price as manufacturing capacity gets reduced due to less iPods being sold with HDD's in. Flash is coming down in price, and as manufacturing of flash is about to transition down to another device node (3x nm) in semiconductor fabs, prices will drop again as they are able to cram more devices on each wafer.
I would guess that eventually Apple will see a tipping point at which the economics favour flash and that will be it for HDD in iPods. I do think they will keep a high capacity (>100Gb) option though, and expect that HDD will be needed to keep that for now.
The classic is a cool little device, if it costs them less the keep selling it than discontinue it, they should keep it around. Most people don't need that much storage for music and videos but some do. Myself I use my iphone for everything, I won a nano and a classic at different times through my work (lucky I guess) and when running use the nano with nike+, but if I upgraded to an iphone 3GS then I wouldn't have a use for it anymore. My classic I use as an external harddrive, it's crazy portable (obviously) and has a lot of storage.
If they disco anything it should be the current shuffle, that's one apple product I'd never want. And on top of that you have to use the apple headphones that constantly fall out of your ears? No way. My favourite shuffle is the still the original stick of gum one.
My classic I use as an external harddrive, it's crazy portable (obviously) and has a lot of storage.
If they disco anything it should be the current shuffle, that's one apple product I'd never want. And on top of that you have to use the apple headphones that constantly fall out of your ears? No way. My favourite shuffle is the still the original stick of gum one.
I like my original shuffle too even though it sometimes forgets which song to play next and I wind up hearing the same batch over and over again. I've heard, but it may not be true, that the audio quality of the original shuffle exceeds that of all other iPods.
My wife and I have a music collection of roughly 10,000 songs. Most of it is rock but a chunk is other genres like classical where movements lasting up to 20 minutes show up as a song. I rip and store it in Apple Lossless so I'm not sure how much space it would occupy in 256 AAC format, but probably in the 50-60 GB range. That means even a 64GB touch is going to be filled very quickly and not have much room for apps, pictures, podcasts or video.
Back when the highest capacity iPod was 60GB, I was in Apple sales and recall a number of customers complaining that there wasn't an iPod large enough to hold their libraries. I imagine the number of people needing more than 60GB has grown substantially in the last 5 years so it would be foolish for Apple to limit their top end to just 64GB.
When the new iPods are announced on 9/9, when will they actually go on sale in stores?
depends. we won't know until there is an announcement, whatever day that is. however, generally with the ipods the announcement is 'shipping today' (and arriving between 2-4 days from them to the stores) are these new things. Software like itunes is always available within like an hour from the end of the event. although it might take you all day to get connected to get it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mr O
? this is very unlikely! The classic is doomed.
i agree with this and with the unlikeliness of a camera on the classic. Frankly I don't see them doing anything to it until they kill it off.
that said, I think that that death won't be until the nano hits a solid 50-60gb (maybe even closer to 100gb) in memory so we have some time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by joelsalt
How about a video-out so that you can carry around your full iTunes library (at 720p) in a large capacity HDD?
video at 720p takes up too much memory so i can't see them going for that until they have better compression.
as for the video out, it's already there. they have and have had dock connector to component and composite cables for at least a solid year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clive At Five
And of all the hobbyist/prosumer things I've bitched and moaned about (no xMac, no headless iMac, no DVR funtionality in AppleTV, etc.) Apple has continued to not care.
to say that they don't care is over simplifying. Apple is a business and is out to make money. they are going to listen to the masses and based on whatever info they have it was their judgment that certain ideas are selling, certain are not, that certain items would etc.
many of the things that folks like yourself are demanding are things that would be of interest to only a small part of the market. so at this point there's not enough profit to support going that direction. as costs change, that stance will change as well and we'll see new directions and features.
I bet iPods will get larger flash memory which is very near to the Classic's hard disk capacity.
With the touch screen and app store, even the Touch without camera beats Classic (with camera) any day.
Classic is analogous to the White MacBook.
I concur with the others in this thread who think you are an idiot
Larger memory for more movies, larger memory for 5 years worth of photos on a camera enabled iPod Classic, larger memory for having your entire digital life in your pocket - not just 100 fart apps.
I can only assume you're targeting this at me since I was the one suggesting we move on from these wishes... but did I say or imply that those technologies were obsolete? No. Of course matte screens and firewire are useful. I use them. They're just not the direction Apple is going, and we prosumers need to find ways to circumvent Apple's over-eagerness to oversimplify all their products.
Instead of complaining about it and berating those who don't understand your need for technology that Apple has abandoned, try directing your efforts towards creating a solution. Whining doesn't help anybody...
-Clive
The best thing to do is buy another product from a different manufacturer. Hitting Apple where it hurts is the only way to get them to change. A lot of people on here would just buy the product anyway, and live with the compromises, simply because it's Apple. But all that does is give them the nod that what they're currently doing is A-OK.
I think you've hit the nail on the head there. HDD's that go into pocket sized devices are likely to start going up in price as manufacturing capacity gets reduced due to less iPods being sold with HDD's in. Flash is coming down in price, and as manufacturing of flash is about to transition down to another device node (3x nm) in semiconductor fabs, prices will drop again as they are able to cram more devices on each wafer.
I would guess that eventually Apple will see a tipping point at which the economics favour flash and that will be it for HDD in iPods. I do think they will keep a high capacity (>100Gb) option though, and expect that HDD will be needed to keep that for now.
About a month ago I read someplace that one of the 1.8" hard drive manufactures was having a hard time finding a buyer for it's little storage module. On the other hand 1.8" SSD modules seem to be used everywhere. September could very well see the end of HD based music players.
The question in my mind is how will Apple approach this transition. That is will they stick to the 1.8" format or go with a custom pc daughter board or single pc board. A module gives them the advantage of the manufactures wear leveling and also the possibility of multiple suppliers. Putting the storage on board, like Touch, lowers the cost at the expense of rolling your own flash management technology. However the custom pc board route is highly flexible.
In anyevent it does look like Classic has hit the end of the road. It will be very interesting to see what the replacement is. I just hope they end up with a disk emulation mode to allow management from a Mac.
Comments
I can only assume you're targeting this at me since I was the one suggesting we move on from these wishes... but did I say or imply that those technologies were obsolete? No. Of course matte screens and firewire are useful. I use them. They're just not the direction Apple is going, and we prosumers need to find ways to circumvent Apple's over-eagerness to oversimplify all their products.
Instead of complaining about it and berating those who don't understand your need for technology that Apple has abandoned, try directing your efforts towards creating a solution. Whining doesn't help anybody...
-Clive
Sorry to dent your ego clive, but no, I did not have you in mind in particular. Post number 3 in the thread rekindled the idea and stoked the boilers.
Firewire and matt screens are back, hadn't you heard? Just wish I hadn't had to buy this POS MacBook I have, when I had to, but I digress.
Complaining IS the way to circumvent Apple's errors of judgment, as evidenced by the return of Firewire to the MacBooks and availability of matt screen options. The old adage - 'The squeaky wheel gets the oil' was ever apropos.
The only direction Apple goes is in a straight line towards the ? $ £ signs.
I was not whining, just making an astute general observation.
So if you are reading this Apple, I want a Touch with a HD please. I don't care how thick it is. Oh yes, and while I'm at it, the reflections, audio quality and headphone jack on the Macbook 13" Al suck. Pretty looks do not compensate for such things.
A similar "prosumer" on the picture taking side would be someone who habitually carries every picture they ever took, and also stores them in RAW format on a ginormous computer/viewer that they lug around with them.
No one would ever call that person smart or professional.
I have all my photos on my iPod, but not to look at on the iPod...as backup. I have iTunes set to copy the originals to the iPod (can't do that with a touch), not just the downsized iPod display version. It's the ultimate in convenience that every time I plug in my 5.5 gen iPod, my photo library is backed up automatically to a portable drive that travels with me 90% of the time and so is safe from fire, flood, or theft (unlike my Time Machine backup). Photos are the one truly irreplacable type of data on my computer. Everything else can be repurchased, reconstructed, or wouldn't be missed if it was lost.
You may not consider that professional, but I consider it smart!
So until the touch has: a) the capacity to hold my music, video, AND photos; and b) the capability to store original photos, not just the reduced scale/quality it uses for display, then it can not replace my hard drive based iPod. (Not to mention that I can download photos from my camera directly onto my iPod when travelling as backup or to clear space on my memory cards, no computer required. Try that with a touch!)
Edit: Oh, and I can listen to FM radio on my "obsolete" iPod, too!
. Of course matte screens and firewire are useful. I use them. They're just not the direction Apple is going, and we prosumers need to find ways to circumvent Apple's over-eagerness to oversimplify all their products.
-Clive
?? Hello? Apple has done an about face! I thought firewire and matte had returned- big time.
Next up- a 13" matte to complete the Pro line up- by year end. And then -the return of the matte iMac!
There is no technological reason why Apple can't drop in flash memory into the iPod classic. The problem is the price of the memory combined with the ongoing development and support costs for keeping around a dying platform. Apple likes to kill off legacy hardware pretty quickly.
I don't know about dying, it's more of a device with limited interest. In fact I could see Apple refactoring Classic into a very compelling product. That would be the Newton 2 that I dream about.
If there is one thing I'm confident in saying it is that the current 32GB limit on the Touch sucks and 64GB won't make it better. I'm not sure if Apple realizes they messed up with the classic with it last capacity roll back.
It is unlikely that we will see a 128GB iPod touch this time around. The current high-end model is 32GB, so the next one should be 64GB. The cost of 128MB of flash memory is a little too much for Apple to retain its margins (or would make the device way too pricey).
I don't buy the idea that it is a pricing issue when USB based 32 & 64 GB dongles are dirt cheap. Well cheap enough to indicate cost is a non issue. Yeah I know it isn't the same flash as is used in the Touch but it does indicate capacity is not an issue.
As to Apples margins I'm sure many here would agree that that can be thinned out without damage to the company. In fact they need to keep an eye on exposure to competition. Who knows one day MS may have a competitive product. In any event Apple has been awfully agressive with pricing the latest hardware releases.
Dave
........
SSD's will be made in the 1.8" format for some time to come. Regardless of what size they come out with, I would suggest you buy a new Classic *this* year regardless of the storage and learn how to open it up and replace the hard drive yourself because next year it might be discontinued altogether. Either that or wait until end of life and pick up a second hand one on eBay.
Well yes and no. Yes 1.8" drives will be around a long time. No the interface may not remain compatible.
If you are careful, you can keep upgrading the hard drive yourself with bigger and cheaper SSD drives in the 1.8 format for many years to come.
there is no promise from the manufactures to support legacy interfaces. In fact todays line up is extremely thin.
Dave
? this is very unlikely! The classic is doomed.
I can't see a camera on a nano either ? it's too small.
However, the iPod touch will transform in a great camera. Introducing different models: from high capacity touches with high end compact lenses to low capacity touches with low end compact lenses.
I agree. The camera is destined for the iPod touch, hopefully with some optics, not the nano or the classic. This is one of those gash rumours that comes out in the days before an announcement that Apple uses to find out who leaked.
The trouble is that new 1.8" single platter hard drives are only going to get *more* expensive and flash chips or SSD's are going to get *less* expensive. At that price point, Apple will more likely be able to put in an SSD drive of a larger capacity before they could find someone willing to manufacture a reliable 250 Gig platter drive of that size for the same price. At the same time, the amount of people who will deal with such a large portable, or need the storage capacity so much that they consider it, is dropping all the time.
I think you've hit the nail on the head there. HDD's that go into pocket sized devices are likely to start going up in price as manufacturing capacity gets reduced due to less iPods being sold with HDD's in. Flash is coming down in price, and as manufacturing of flash is about to transition down to another device node (3x nm) in semiconductor fabs, prices will drop again as they are able to cram more devices on each wafer.
I would guess that eventually Apple will see a tipping point at which the economics favour flash and that will be it for HDD in iPods. I do think they will keep a high capacity (>100Gb) option though, and expect that HDD will be needed to keep that for now.
If they disco anything it should be the current shuffle, that's one apple product I'd never want. And on top of that you have to use the apple headphones that constantly fall out of your ears? No way. My favourite shuffle is the still the original stick of gum one.
My classic I use as an external harddrive, it's crazy portable (obviously) and has a lot of storage.
If they disco anything it should be the current shuffle, that's one apple product I'd never want. And on top of that you have to use the apple headphones that constantly fall out of your ears? No way. My favourite shuffle is the still the original stick of gum one.
I like my original shuffle too even though it sometimes forgets which song to play next and I wind up hearing the same batch over and over again. I've heard, but it may not be true, that the audio quality of the original shuffle exceeds that of all other iPods.
My wife and I have a music collection of roughly 10,000 songs. Most of it is rock but a chunk is other genres like classical where movements lasting up to 20 minutes show up as a song. I rip and store it in Apple Lossless so I'm not sure how much space it would occupy in 256 AAC format, but probably in the 50-60 GB range. That means even a 64GB touch is going to be filled very quickly and not have much room for apps, pictures, podcasts or video.
Back when the highest capacity iPod was 60GB, I was in Apple sales and recall a number of customers complaining that there wasn't an iPod large enough to hold their libraries. I imagine the number of people needing more than 60GB has grown substantially in the last 5 years so it would be foolish for Apple to limit their top end to just 64GB.
When the new iPods are announced on 9/9, when will they actually go on sale in stores?
depends. we won't know until there is an announcement, whatever day that is. however, generally with the ipods the announcement is 'shipping today' (and arriving between 2-4 days from them to the stores) are these new things. Software like itunes is always available within like an hour from the end of the event. although it might take you all day to get connected to get it.
? this is very unlikely! The classic is doomed.
i agree with this and with the unlikeliness of a camera on the classic. Frankly I don't see them doing anything to it until they kill it off.
that said, I think that that death won't be until the nano hits a solid 50-60gb (maybe even closer to 100gb) in memory so we have some time.
How about a video-out so that you can carry around your full iTunes library (at 720p) in a large capacity HDD?
video at 720p takes up too much memory so i can't see them going for that until they have better compression.
as for the video out, it's already there. they have and have had dock connector to component and composite cables for at least a solid year.
And of all the hobbyist/prosumer things I've bitched and moaned about (no xMac, no headless iMac, no DVR funtionality in AppleTV, etc.) Apple has continued to not care.
to say that they don't care is over simplifying. Apple is a business and is out to make money. they are going to listen to the masses and based on whatever info they have it was their judgment that certain ideas are selling, certain are not, that certain items would etc.
many of the things that folks like yourself are demanding are things that would be of interest to only a small part of the market. so at this point there's not enough profit to support going that direction. as costs change, that stance will change as well and we'll see new directions and features.
Now this is taken too far...
Why would anyone buy an ipod classic?
Just because it has a larger memory?
I bet iPods will get larger flash memory which is very near to the Classic's hard disk capacity.
With the touch screen and app store, even the Touch without camera beats Classic (with camera) any day.
Classic is analogous to the White MacBook.
I concur with the others in this thread who think you are an idiot
Larger memory for more movies, larger memory for 5 years worth of photos on a camera enabled iPod Classic, larger memory for having your entire digital life in your pocket - not just 100 fart apps.
.
I can only assume you're targeting this at me since I was the one suggesting we move on from these wishes... but did I say or imply that those technologies were obsolete? No. Of course matte screens and firewire are useful. I use them. They're just not the direction Apple is going, and we prosumers need to find ways to circumvent Apple's over-eagerness to oversimplify all their products.
Instead of complaining about it and berating those who don't understand your need for technology that Apple has abandoned, try directing your efforts towards creating a solution. Whining doesn't help anybody...
-Clive
The best thing to do is buy another product from a different manufacturer. Hitting Apple where it hurts is the only way to get them to change. A lot of people on here would just buy the product anyway, and live with the compromises, simply because it's Apple. But all that does is give them the nod that what they're currently doing is A-OK.
I think you've hit the nail on the head there. HDD's that go into pocket sized devices are likely to start going up in price as manufacturing capacity gets reduced due to less iPods being sold with HDD's in. Flash is coming down in price, and as manufacturing of flash is about to transition down to another device node (3x nm) in semiconductor fabs, prices will drop again as they are able to cram more devices on each wafer.
I would guess that eventually Apple will see a tipping point at which the economics favour flash and that will be it for HDD in iPods. I do think they will keep a high capacity (>100Gb) option though, and expect that HDD will be needed to keep that for now.
About a month ago I read someplace that one of the 1.8" hard drive manufactures was having a hard time finding a buyer for it's little storage module. On the other hand 1.8" SSD modules seem to be used everywhere. September could very well see the end of HD based music players.
The question in my mind is how will Apple approach this transition. That is will they stick to the 1.8" format or go with a custom pc daughter board or single pc board. A module gives them the advantage of the manufactures wear leveling and also the possibility of multiple suppliers. Putting the storage on board, like Touch, lowers the cost at the expense of rolling your own flash management technology. However the custom pc board route is highly flexible.
In anyevent it does look like Classic has hit the end of the road. It will be very interesting to see what the replacement is. I just hope they end up with a disk emulation mode to allow management from a Mac.
Dave