Taking the "docking an ipod with an imac" idea a logical step further, take a look at <a href="http://www.applele.com"; target="_blank">http://www.applele.com</A>; , the second page has a picture in the top right of a concept apple digi camcorder, very much in the ipod style. Click it for more views.
So the same theory follows, take the video on your apple iCam, plug-in to your imac "hard drive slot" to mount it on the desktop and run imovie. Simple.
Of course, this is pure concept, applele designs are for fun, they never purport to be showing future apple designs - although most of the concepts look easily more professional than some of the more common fakes out there. There's no reason (yet) to think that Apple will take on Sony/Matsushita head on in the digi camcorder market - although I'd be tempted by such a device if it was a fw drive and MP3 jukebox, like the ipod is.
But I digress.
As it is, I'm skeptical of the "docking hard drive", I might be missing something but the real world benefit of such a feature doesn't seem a huge leap from a much simpler idea: just add a usb and a firewire port to the front of the mac for your ipod/cam/portable drive.
<a href="http://www.yourdailymac.com"; target="_blank">www.yourdailymac.com</a> has been updated this morning. They have a pic of what they think is a prototype of the new iMac, whether if it is the final or not, you can clearly see the removable harddrive (it looks like a PDA) next to it and the slot in the front of the machine.
Doesn't this totally agree with what Dorsal and I said before?
<strong><a href="http://www.yourdailymac.com"; target="_blank">www.yourdailymac.com</a> has been updated this morning.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That pic is of a Compaq prototype. YourDailyMac stole the story (verbatim) from <a href="http://www.go2mac.com"; target="_blank">Go2Mac</a>. Stealing stories (which is what copying without crediting is) is very crappy reporting.
<strong><a href="http://www.yourdailymac.com"; target="_blank">www.yourdailymac.com</a> has been updated this morning. They have a pic of what they think is a prototype of the new iMac, whether if it is the final or not, you can clearly see the removable harddrive (it looks like a PDA) next to it and the slot in the front of the machine.
Doesn't this totally agree with what Dorsal and I said before?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, you all have vivid imaginations--I'll give you that. But you really need to work on your critical analysis skills. You're all as gullible as the folks at MOSR.
Has anyone bothered to check on the validity of the source of this thread?
I did some checking and Soulcrusher is clearly a teenager without any actual inside information at all.
This prototype has been kicking around on the net for over a year. I am not sure why it has had a resurgance in postings recently but this is not anything new.
Has anyone bothered to check on the validity of the source of this thread? I did some checking and Soulcrusher is clearly a teenager without any actual inside information at all.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sources, schmources...we don't need no stinking sources!
While I tend to agree with your assessment, I don't doubt that Apple is going to make a move (at some point) towards universally swappable drives, video/sound recording devices, etc. What people here are describing...the ability to take your work with you without having to rely on non-standard devices like Peerless, or having to lug your machine around with you...that's a cool idea.
Just go to your local cafe or bookstore or wherever, pop in your drive, make your changes / send your emails (whatever), pop the drive out, and be on your merry way. Final edits and work to be done at home (less work at that).
You guys beat me to it. I was going to paste in the C|Net URL.
[quote]<strong>Apple Computer may finally be poised to unfurl a long-rumored flat-panel iMac, according to a report Tuesday from Morgan Stanley.
Morgan Stanley analysts Gillian Munson and Stirling Levy said in the report that Apple has placed component orders for producing 100,000 15-inch flat-panel iMacs per month, starting in January.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Don't know about you guys but I tend to doubt the Morgan Stanley guys have much to invest in rumor-mongering. If they say the parts have been ordered, I believe it. Looks like the existing iMacs will be dirt cheap a month or so from now...good news considering I was going to get one for my Mom. Will definitely hold off now.
1 Some problems with current digital cameras: the storage is damn expensive, and it writes slowly. The 5GB HDD of the iPod would be absolutely perfect enclosed in a nice rugged but not too big digital still camera. 3-6MP images? RAW TIFFS? NO PROBLEM, you've got FIVE GB built-in to the unit. Don't even bother putting a compact flash slot on the thing, just give it a fast firewire connection to dump the contents of your camera to a computer really quickly and your ready to keep shooting. You could literally take a few hundred high res-low compression pictures before you had to download anything at all. BRILLIANT!
2 Some problems with digital video. Amidala nailed it. The tapes are short and they do degrade with repeated re-recording. Pain in the ass. Now a 4.7GB DVD holds about 2 hrs of broadcast 500+ line material, but it must be carefully encoded at a Variable bit rate to get it all in. Perhaps a system like the new MicroMV could record at a slightly higher bit rate directly to a small HDD? Benefits would be that it's already in a high quality MPEG-2 format, so that it takes less hardware muscle to deal with when editing -- it's already encoded so burning should be faster too. We probably need a bit more storage though. Perhaps in a year and a half or so when 10-20 GB are available, then we'll be in business. ALSO BRILLIANT.
Yes, most definitely HDD's in still and video cameras ought to be the way it's done.
[quote]1 Some problems with current digital cameras: the storage is damn expensive, and it writes slowly. The 5GB HDD of the iPod would be absolutely perfect enclosed in a nice rugged but not too big digital still camera. 3-6MP images? RAW TIFFS? NO PROBLEM, you've got FIVE GB built-in to the unit. Don't even bother putting a compact flash slot on the thing, just give it a fast firewire connection to dump the contents of your camera to a computer really quickly and your ready to keep shooting. You could literally take a few hundred high res-low compression pictures before you had to download anything at all. BRILLIANT!<hr></blockquote>
Close, but not quite. Methinks the iPod will connect to the iCam via firewire. It lowers the price of the iCam BIG-TIME, and makes all kinds of sense. Smaller, cheaper, lighter camera. Either some built in memory (64 megs or so), or compact flash slots to tide you over between offloading. I mean come on, it's called the iPod.
umm, maybe, but it doesn't seem to suit Apple's philosophy of closed, targeted-use devices. This whole docking thing seems rather specious to me, but not out of the question either, I just think Apple will go about it a little differently.
But I don't think we'll see cameras from Apple just yet, so lets look at the docking. If Apple makes a camera, it will be a sealed firewire only affair. The iPod won't slot into it -- if you want one you pay the full price for both items: it's the Apple way. However, using the firewire, it ought to be easy enough to make them smart dock in such a way that the camera automatically dumps new pictures to the iPod. A few seconds, and you go back to shooting, no problem, no removable media, no computer. Just you, your camera, and an iPod for back-up, or listening pleasure, as you desire.
Which brings us to the notion of docking in the computer itself. Is that neccessary, or cleaner than just plugging in to a bus powered port? If this is true at all (and it just might be), the insiders might have misconstrued the notion of 'dock' and/or 'port' that Apple intends. Amidala has a point about the usefulness of a robust removeable drive solution, but I think it'll plug in just like current firewire periphs do. I think it more likely that Apple will have made improvements to 1 the speed of the bus, 2 the facility for bus powered devices, and 3 drivers/protocol for just the scenario Amidala described earlier. Maybe not airport kiosks, but certainly classrooms, pre-press houses, and home to office or comp to remote comp functionality. All of it, just not with a dock, it's all going to be over a suitable enhanced firewire port.
________
EDIT: OOPS, re-reading my earlier post, I realize I made it sound like I wanted to enclose the whole pod with a camera. No. I think they'd just use the drive in a camera body. It'd be a whole seperate device (from the iPod) that just happens to use a 5GB HDD too. Sorry for the confusion.
The digital camera wouldn't even need the miniturized, removable flash RAM. Just give it some cheaper, non-removable flash RAM for internal storage. Load it up so it can take 30-25 pics at a time.
Then add a Firewire port to the camera, and dump the photos directly into the iPod. It's PERFECT. I'll be very surprised and dissapointed if Apple doesn't enable this sort of thing on the iPod. All they need to do is add a converter so USB cameras can use the iPod's firewire port (or just add a frickin' USB port!).
Even better, Apple could give the iPod a rudimentary OS that ran some compression software. So if one chooses, they could stuff the digital images "on the fly" as they are dumped into the iPod--allowing even more images to be stored on the iPod.
This iPod has so much potential....I just hope Apple develops it fully. It would be tragic if the iPod didn't sell and Apple had to cancel it before it even realized its full potential.
You know, the Toshiba drives aren't the only little things out there. I'll bet Apple has all the economy of scale they need with the iPod orders right now, so that's not the goal. If they moved up to say small laptop drives, it would be maybe the size of my Handspring at most, but could fit a WHOLE bunch more (like the guy was saying about 30GB) and be a lot cheaper. For a portable storage device that could carry DV, MPEG-2, etc it could be VERY useful. Maybe.
One size up, to a 2.5" drive, would definitely get up to the 20-30 GB range. I think the issue with the smaller drive is shock resistance (supposed to be very high on the toshiba) wieght and power consumption. However, slightly bigger drives would probably be OK for Video Cams (especially pro units).
Otherwise, I really think that gigawire will be just a substantially improved version of firewire.
Just a quick note... remember Steve Jobs' first OTHER company? NeXT? When the cube premiered, one of the revolutionary features was that it had no hard drive: all information was kept on a rewritable CD... the idea was you took your whole "world" with you: system, applications, data... any NeXT box you stuck your disk in, it was your machine again. It was SLOW, and a hard drive was added soon after, but the basic idea has a certain charm to it, wouldn't you say?
Comments
So the same theory follows, take the video on your apple iCam, plug-in to your imac "hard drive slot" to mount it on the desktop and run imovie. Simple.
Of course, this is pure concept, applele designs are for fun, they never purport to be showing future apple designs - although most of the concepts look easily more professional than some of the more common fakes out there. There's no reason (yet) to think that Apple will take on Sony/Matsushita head on in the digi camcorder market - although I'd be tempted by such a device if it was a fw drive and MP3 jukebox, like the ipod is.
But I digress.
As it is, I'm skeptical of the "docking hard drive", I might be missing something but the real world benefit of such a feature doesn't seem a huge leap from a much simpler idea: just add a usb and a firewire port to the front of the mac for your ipod/cam/portable drive.
Doesn't this totally agree with what Dorsal and I said before?
<strong><a href="http://www.yourdailymac.com"; target="_blank">www.yourdailymac.com</a> has been updated this morning.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That pic is of a Compaq prototype. YourDailyMac stole the story (verbatim) from <a href="http://www.go2mac.com"; target="_blank">Go2Mac</a>. Stealing stories (which is what copying without crediting is) is very crappy reporting.
Escher
<strong><a href="http://www.yourdailymac.com"; target="_blank">www.yourdailymac.com</a> has been updated this morning. They have a pic of what they think is a prototype of the new iMac, whether if it is the final or not, you can clearly see the removable harddrive (it looks like a PDA) next to it and the slot in the front of the machine.
Doesn't this totally agree with what Dorsal and I said before?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Have a look at the following website: <a href="http://www.compaq.com/newsroom/presspaq/052101/visioneering.html"; target="_blank">http://www.compaq.com/newsroom/presspaq/052101/visioneering.html</a>;
Has anyone bothered to check on the validity of the source of this thread?
I did some checking and Soulcrusher is clearly a teenager without any actual inside information at all.
<strong>
Have a look at the following website: <a href="http://www.compaq.com/newsroom/presspaq/052101/visioneering.html"; target="_blank">http://www.compaq.com/newsroom/presspaq/052101/visioneering.html</a>; </strong><hr></blockquote>
This prototype has been kicking around on the net for over a year. I am not sure why it has had a resurgance in postings recently but this is not anything new.
[ 12-04-2001: Message edited by: Mike D ]</p>
<a href="http://samsungelectronics.com/semiconductors/TFT_LCD/Monitors/LTM150PL/ltm150pl.htm"; target="_blank">http://samsungelectronics.com/semiconductors/TFT_LCD/Monitors/LTM150PL/ltm150pl.htm</a>;
this would be a perfect screen for the LCD iMac...PERFECT!!
then there's this..
<a href="http://samsungelectronics.com/semiconductors/TFT_LCD/Monitors/LTM190U1/ltm190u1.htm"; target="_blank">http://samsungelectronics.com/semiconductors/TFT_LCD/Monitors/LTM190U1/ltm190u1.htm</a>;
wow!
and then this ACD killer!
<a href="http://samsungelectronics.com/semiconductors/TFT_LCD/Monitors/LTM240W1/ltm240w1.htm"; target="_blank">http://samsungelectronics.com/semiconductors/TFT_LCD/Monitors/LTM240W1/ltm240w1.htm</a>;
[ 12-04-2001: Message edited by: JasonPP ]</p>
<strong>
Has anyone bothered to check on the validity of the source of this thread? I did some checking and Soulcrusher is clearly a teenager without any actual inside information at all.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sources, schmources...we don't need no stinking sources!
While I tend to agree with your assessment, I don't doubt that Apple is going to make a move (at some point) towards universally swappable drives, video/sound recording devices, etc. What people here are describing...the ability to take your work with you without having to rely on non-standard devices like Peerless, or having to lug your machine around with you...that's a cool idea.
Just go to your local cafe or bookstore or wherever, pop in your drive, make your changes / send your emails (whatever), pop the drive out, and be on your merry way. Final edits and work to be done at home (less work at that).
[ 12-04-2001: Message edited by: Moogs ? ]</p>
<a href="http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-8065180.html?tag=lthd"; target="_blank">http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-8065180.html?tag=lthd</a>;
another article about the upcoming iMac. Looks like Apple WILL release a new iMac and is aware of the need for a big change.
If they can repeat the homerun they did with the iBook, we're in for a treat!
<a href="http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?T=marketsquote99_news.ht&s=APA0VdBPsQXBw bGUg" target="_blank">http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?T=marketsquote99_news.ht&s=APA0VdBPsQXBw bGUg</a>
Escher
[quote]<strong>Apple Computer may finally be poised to unfurl a long-rumored flat-panel iMac, according to a report Tuesday from Morgan Stanley.
Morgan Stanley analysts Gillian Munson and Stirling Levy said in the report that Apple has placed component orders for producing 100,000 15-inch flat-panel iMacs per month, starting in January.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Don't know about you guys but I tend to doubt the Morgan Stanley guys have much to invest in rumor-mongering. If they say the parts have been ordered, I believe it. Looks like the existing iMacs will be dirt cheap a month or so from now...good news considering I was going to get one for my Mom. Will definitely hold off now.
2 Some problems with digital video. Amidala nailed it. The tapes are short and they do degrade with repeated re-recording. Pain in the ass. Now a 4.7GB DVD holds about 2 hrs of broadcast 500+ line material, but it must be carefully encoded at a Variable bit rate to get it all in. Perhaps a system like the new MicroMV could record at a slightly higher bit rate directly to a small HDD? Benefits would be that it's already in a high quality MPEG-2 format, so that it takes less hardware muscle to deal with when editing -- it's already encoded so burning should be faster too. We probably need a bit more storage though. Perhaps in a year and a half or so when 10-20 GB are available, then we'll be in business. ALSO BRILLIANT.
Yes, most definitely HDD's in still and video cameras ought to be the way it's done.
[ 12-04-2001: Message edited by: Matsu ]</p>
Close, but not quite. Methinks the iPod will connect to the iCam via firewire. It lowers the price of the iCam BIG-TIME, and makes all kinds of sense. Smaller, cheaper, lighter camera. Either some built in memory (64 megs or so), or compact flash slots to tide you over between offloading. I mean come on, it's called the iPod.
But I don't think we'll see cameras from Apple just yet, so lets look at the docking. If Apple makes a camera, it will be a sealed firewire only affair. The iPod won't slot into it -- if you want one you pay the full price for both items: it's the Apple way. However, using the firewire, it ought to be easy enough to make them smart dock in such a way that the camera automatically dumps new pictures to the iPod. A few seconds, and you go back to shooting, no problem, no removable media, no computer. Just you, your camera, and an iPod for back-up, or listening pleasure, as you desire.
Which brings us to the notion of docking in the computer itself. Is that neccessary, or cleaner than just plugging in to a bus powered port? If this is true at all (and it just might be), the insiders might have misconstrued the notion of 'dock' and/or 'port' that Apple intends. Amidala has a point about the usefulness of a robust removeable drive solution, but I think it'll plug in just like current firewire periphs do. I think it more likely that Apple will have made improvements to 1 the speed of the bus, 2 the facility for bus powered devices, and 3 drivers/protocol for just the scenario Amidala described earlier. Maybe not airport kiosks, but certainly classrooms, pre-press houses, and home to office or comp to remote comp functionality. All of it, just not with a dock, it's all going to be over a suitable enhanced firewire port.
________
EDIT: OOPS, re-reading my earlier post, I realize I made it sound like I wanted to enclose the whole pod with a camera. No. I think they'd just use the drive in a camera body. It'd be a whole seperate device (from the iPod) that just happens to use a 5GB HDD too. Sorry for the confusion.
[ 12-04-2001: Message edited by: Matsu ]</p>
The digital camera wouldn't even need the miniturized, removable flash RAM. Just give it some cheaper, non-removable flash RAM for internal storage. Load it up so it can take 30-25 pics at a time.
Then add a Firewire port to the camera, and dump the photos directly into the iPod. It's PERFECT. I'll be very surprised and dissapointed if Apple doesn't enable this sort of thing on the iPod. All they need to do is add a converter so USB cameras can use the iPod's firewire port (or just add a frickin' USB port!).
Even better, Apple could give the iPod a rudimentary OS that ran some compression software. So if one chooses, they could stuff the digital images "on the fly" as they are dumped into the iPod--allowing even more images to be stored on the iPod.
This iPod has so much potential....I just hope Apple develops it fully. It would be tragic if the iPod didn't sell and Apple had to cancel it before it even realized its full potential.
Shhhh. Don't tell anyone, please.
Otherwise, I really think that gigawire will be just a substantially improved version of firewire.
save ferris