iPod Jr. Rumors Become More Substantial 494
sdimbert writes "Rumors of a new, smaller, "iPodJr" have been floating around the Rumor Sites for a few weeks (as well a here at Slashdot). But now, the rumors have gained credibility and become more substantial. London's Evening Standard reports today (30 Dec 03) that "Apple has announced a cut-price mini version" of the iPod, "costing 65 [~115 USD], which will be able to store 800 songs." Despite the assertion that Apple "announced" the product, there is no mention of it at their official News Page or their product page for the iPod."
No announcement (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, probably because Macworld expo is on the 6th, I would expect and announcement then.
No mention of actual capacity or media... (Score:5, Informative)
I really want to know what sort of media they are using and how much!
Lets see, 800 songs, average of around 3 minutes a song, about 1MB per minute for average quality works out to be about 2400MB. Refactor figures for the obligatory "Best Case Scenario" marketing droid math that works out to be a 32MB Flash player containing short songs recorded at 32kbit/s!
In reality it sounds like a 1.5BG player using AAC to fit 800 songs on it. That's a definite buy at that price! BUt if it sounds to good to be true, chances are it is.
Or maybe it is a simple Flash player with a compact flash card? Inserting 2GB CF card would allow for the capacity for 800 songs yet still keep the initial price of the player low.
~Z
Re:No way (Score:3, Informative)
Re:iPod for exercise and iTunes rules? (Score:5, Informative)
Im also curious about how iTunes works? If i download some songs on my laptop and can move/play them on my home computer as well?
Your question will probably be better answered here [ipodlounge.com].
Will they remove bloatware requirement? (Score:1, Informative)
I really hope you will just be able to copy files to these new mini iPods with ordinary file management software (i.e. Explorer on Windows, cp and friends) and have them playable on the iPod. I don't want to use iTunes or MusicMatch bloatware, especially as you need Win2k or XP [apple.com] to use iTunes on Windows (and yes, even though Windows 98 has been 'retired' [slashdot.org], there are still a heck of a lot of people using it. Trust me).
Re:iPod for exercise and iTunes rules? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ogg Vorbis support (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.illadvised.com/~jordy/
It's not native but it works. I don't want to get into the debate about file formats but I will tell you the experience with an iPod is far superior to any other player I've tried--perhaps good enough to switch formats.
Daily Telegraph (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Mini Me? (Score:3, Informative)
Plus, Merry and Pippin kick ass.
Rio Has Beat Them To It (Score:2, Informative)
Here are some specs on the Nitrus:
Dimensions: 3" X 2.4" X 0.6"
Weight: 2.0oz
Battery: 16-hour continuous playback on internal Li Ion battery
I myself own a Rio Karma [digitalnetworksna.com] and have been loving it ever since Christmas day. There are worthy alternatives to the iPod and the iPod Jr. as well it seems.
link to story....Re:Daily Telegraph (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mini Me? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No mention of actual capacity or media... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:iPod for exercise and iTunes rules? (Score:3, Informative)
As for streaming, you still have to authorize the computer to play back your encrypted (purchased) content, but the files stay put, removing redundancy and, if you disable the Windows firewall (or open up whatever ports) it automagically plays nicely with any other iTunes installs running (on Windows OR Mac). Your ripped songs will stream without authorization. You only have to authorize a machine to play protected content. This has been EXTREMELY useful when on the Univ. of Oklahoma campus network...
By the way, if you're feeling like pushing your luck, you might go bug whoever gave you the iPod, and tell them "I got this shiny new device, but it's empty! I need an iTunes Allowance [google.com] to start filling it up and actually using it." Just an idea...
Re:iPod for exercise and iTunes rules? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Obligatory iRiver post... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Aiming at the low end (Score:3, Informative)
Smart playlists. When you have few thousands songs in your pocket, organization of this library becomes the main issue - or you have to dig the iPod out of your pocket (backpack etc.) any time you want to change the damned album, as if you'd still use some last-century walkman. It's like the Internet search engine: even if you know that a given information is somewhere on the Web, the main question is can you find it quickly and easily.
iPod has a solution for that: it is able to store and modify many interesting meta-data about the songs and albums. It "knows" that this particular song was last played Thursday on 13:34. As far as I know, no existing software can handle this metadata as good as iTunes. With iTunes, creation of a smart playlist like "the songs whose genre is rock, my rating is at least four star, and they were last played at least a month ago, in random order" is a matter of few clicks. You can't get it manually managing your songs and playlists.
In my case, my iPod is often hidden somewhere under my clothes (e.g. in the internal pocket of my jacket) or even in a special "walkman compartment" of my trunk&co backpack. Taking it out and manual selection of a song is a hassle - I use the remote control to play, skip or change volume, but the actual song seletion is done by a smart playlist created on iTunes, executed by the iPod.
Re:Aiming at the low end (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. The LAME encoder is different and far superior to other encoders. Different encoders use different psychoacoustic models to determin which parts to throw away. Quality varies greatly between encoders. There are terrible ones like Bladeenc and Xing, which have quality more on par with Real Audio, and superior encoders like LAME which have quality more on par with Ogg Vorbis.
LAME is the only good way to encode. Anything else will produce inferior MP3s.
Re:Aiming at the low end (Score:5, Informative)
iPod is already #1 #2 #3 on Amazon (Score:3, Informative)
Did the math... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Hence the shitty ipod batteries... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:iPod is already #1 #2 #3 on Amazon (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Aiming at the low end (Score:2, Informative)
Riiight. The only way its going to be cheaper is if you warez Premiere and After Effects, as together they are over a thousand dollars.
$800 eMac + free iMovie = $800
$600 Dell + Premiere + AE = $1700
Hell, you could buy an eMac with a DVD burner for what you'd pay for Adobe's software alone.
Also, the Apple equivalent of Premiere, Final Cut Pro, costs $250 dollars more than Premiere.
Three words: Final Cut Express. Price? $100. Basically most of power of FCP, but without some of the filters that drive up the cost. So for another $100 over the cost of Premiere and After Effects, you can get an eMac with a DVD burner and FCE.
If you are thinking about iMovie, is not what I'd call a professional video editing tool. It's great for amateurs. But it is totally and wholly beaten out by open source windows video editing programs such as Virtual Dub Mod.
As far as Virtual Dub goes, it is an excelent tool - if you're recompressing or croping a single video and audio stream. However, if you are trying to re-arrange clips to make a video, iMovie will stomp all over Vdub. Unless your time is completely worthless, Vdub is just not going to cut it for any kind of video project that needs chronological editing, unless its very small.
So, in summary: Apple stomps all over the PC in video editing, at the low end, the high end, *and* on price. And there's still no PC product that compares to iMovie for how much it costs and what it does.