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Media (Apple) Businesses Media Apple

Apple Creates new iPod and Macintosh Divisions 146

Posted by pudge from the shades-of-newton-except-successful dept.
KH2002 writes "According to a New York Times/Reuters report, Apple is creating a separate division for the iPod. Apple Senior VP Hardware Engineering, Jon Rubenstein, will head the iPod division, and Executive VP of Worldwide Sales and Operations Tim Cook will lead the Mac division. The report quotes a spokesman as saying, 'This organizational refinement will focus our talent and resources even more precisely on our industry-leading Macintosh computers and the wildly successful iPod.'"
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Apple Creates new iPod and Macintosh Divisions More

Apple Creates new iPod and Macintosh Divisions

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  • Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MacGod ( 320762 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @11:37AM (#9204444)

    It seems of late that Apple has been focusing more and more on the music side of their business (ITMS, iPod etc).

    Therefore, I can see this decision going one of two ways:

    1. Each division focuses more on their individual strengths. Each half becomes better suited to its product, and the company as a whole grows and becomes stronger.
    2. Apple decreases the emphasis on its Computer division to focus more and more effort on the Music side. The Mac as we know it disappears.

    I certainly hope that it's #1, and I have a hunch that it is, but it will be very interesting to see what developers over the next few years.

    • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pauljlucas ( 529435 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @11:49AM (#9204595) Homepage Journal
      Apple decreases the emphasis on its Computer division to focus more and more effort on the Music side. The Mac as we know it disappears.
      As nice as it is, the iPod is pretty much a one-trick pony. Do you really think Apple could sustain itself on the (relatively small) profit margins of the iPod alone? Additionally, iTunes and the iTMS are presumeably staying in the Mac division. The FireWire sync of one's entire music library fom iTunes is the killer feature of the iPod. The iPod division will still have to work closely with the Mac division.

      What I'm hoping will happen with the iPod division will be that they will start making their own iPod accessories. What I really want is a car head unit that has a slot that one just pops the iPod into. Current iPod adapter solutions are all crap and don't measure up to Apple design standards.

      • As nice as it is, the iPod is pretty much a one-trick pony.

        This is why I love my iPod so much and probably why it's so successful.

      • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Elwood P Dowd ( 16933 ) <judgmentalist@gmail.com> on Thursday May 20, 2004 @12:11PM (#9204921) Journal
        As nice as it is, the iPod is pretty much a one-trick pony. Do you really think Apple could sustain itself on the (relatively small) profit margins of the iPod alone? Additionally, iTunes and the iTMS are presumeably staying in the Mac division.

        Dunno why you'd presume that.

        Also, the new division may be responsible for other one-trick-pony devices, should Apple decide to market them.

        The thing that I find the most notable about this is that Jon Rubinstein (not going to check the spelling, sorry) is the guy that everyone lauds for the iMac, the tiBook & the alBook, the cheesegrater, and the iPod's excellent design. You'll note how four out of those five items are Macintoshes and not tiny consumer electronic devices.

        Was Jon a figurehead, will he still be involved in Mac hardware design, or does this mean that we'll be seeing lamer (maybe just different) design for the next generation of Mac enclosures?

        • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by pauljlucas ( 529435 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @12:22PM (#9205073) Homepage Journal
          Dunno why you'd presume that.
          1. Because the linked article made no mention of it: no data, assume no change.
          2. The software runs on a Mac, not an iPod.
          3. There are people (like me) who use iTunes and the iTMS who don't own iPods.
          • Dunno why you'd presume that iTunes and iTMS is in their hardware division and not in some software or web content division.
          • There are also people who use iTunes and iTMS and own iPods, but don't use a Mac. Like me. iTunes and iTMS are software products that work on Windows. The iPod works on Windows. I makes sense, logically, that the iPod division would be the one that would interface with Windows machines, and they are separating that from the Mac division so that there is no conflict of interest of any kind.

        • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:5, Informative)

          by MacGarnicle ( 629224 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:31PM (#9206038)
          The thing that I find the most notable about this is that Jon Rubinstein (not going to check the spelling, sorry) is the guy that everyone lauds for the iMac, the tiBook & the alBook, the cheesegrater, and the iPod's excellent design. You'll note how four out of those five items are Macintoshes and not tiny consumer electronic devices.

          Are you sure you're not confusing Jon Rubinstein with Jonathan Ive [bbc.co.uk]? Ive is usually credited for the design excellence you mentioned.

        • Wrong John (Score:4, Informative)

          by tyrione ( 134248 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @12:38AM (#9211884) Homepage

          Johnathan Ive which has already been mentioned, is the industrial design guru that should be rightly credited with the iPod, iMac, and the toaster Cube that flopped with consumers.

          Jon Rubenstein comes from NeXT and was the former Head of NeXT Hardware, developed the Apollo line of HP Workstations before joining NeXT. Upon the NeXT Hardware being shutdown Jon left and worked on the PowerPC Hardware for a subsidiary owned by Motorola.

          Jon currently is and rightly so credited for the XServe and XRaid product lines with all his experience and expertise. Having Jon add to his overseeing with the iPod tells me that Apple is getting ready to produce a Professional and Consumer Electronic Lineup that ties into its Professional and Consumer Software Application base that continues to grow.

          Think of digital devices that Final Cut Pro can take advantage of, to name just one obvious option. Think of video add-ons for iPod users that could attach a DVD made via DVD Studio Pro.

        • you are thinking of Jonathan Ives, the guy in the Apple design team that makes everything pretty.
      • It seems more logical to me to bring the iTMS and iTunes development to the iPod division than leaving them with the Mac. After all, iTunes is available for Windows, and plenty of Windows users are buying.

        I don't remember where I read this concern, but it's Johnathan Ive, not John Rubenstein, who's responsible for all the cool designs. I have to assume he stays with the Mac division, or perhaps his talents get split between the two. I can't see future Apple products without him, whether they be Macs or i
      • What I really want is a car head unit that has a slot that one just pops the iPod into.

        Many HU's have a jack in the back which you can buy an adapter for that can connect to an ipod. You can run the wire from that jack to whatever location you want to put the iPod in. My ipod sits in the door pocket where it is nicely out of the way and hidden from theives.
        • Alpine will be making an adaptor cable that allows an alpine head unit to control an iPod. That way you can stick the iPod in your glovebox and select songs to play from the Alpine's screen.
          • Alpine will be making an adaptor cable that allows an alpine head unit to control an iPod.
            That's better, but it still has an ugly wire hanging. I was a slot to pop the iPod into.
          • I would love to know more about this. I've been thinking about doing the same thing a little more genericly but I have not been able to find much information about the iPod dock connector and whatever protocol it might support.

            Is this head unit actually going to control the iPod (and most importantly) use the iPod's output, or is it just going to use the iPod's drive as a slave storage device and play the music itself?
            • It will be a single connector to the iPod, plugging into alpine's ainet on the head unit. It will basically use the iPod as a portable hard drive, allowing the head unit to play music files from the iPod's hard drive. It uses the same interface that Alpine uses for its cd changers and other components so it would operate as if you have a 1000 disk changer. Google "alpine ipod" and you can see the press releases.
              • That's pretty unfortunate. I was hoping Alpine had come up with something better than I did. It's too bad Apple doesn't publish some specs on that thing. It's so hackaliscious.
        • You can run the wire from that jack to whatever location you want to put the iPod in.
          I don't consider a wire hanging elegant. Like I said, it's not up to Apple's standards. If Apple does it, you can be it will be done right (iPod with Bluetooth?).

        • Many HU's have a jack in the back which you can buy an adapter for that can connect to an ipod.

          Wow.. so many people use iPods due to design alone.. so it's suprising that so many of them would recommend such an ugly ugly solution.

          A car stereo with a flip-down face and a slot for the ipod is a much better solution.

      • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by IntlHarvester ( 11985 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @03:10PM (#9207434) Journal
        Do you really think Apple could sustain itself on the (relatively small) profit margins of the iPod alone?

        iPods currently have a much larger profit margin than Macintoshes (which are barely above break-even).

        Do you think Apple could sustain itself making only unprofitible Macs forever? (As they aren't really doing anything to increase market share.)

        The long-term digital music/movies business is not a "one trick pony" -- in the future it's bound to be integrated into every cell phone, PDA, car stereo, home stereo, cable box, and television set. I guess the development of an 'iPod' division indicates that Apple is looking at the big picture and not just the trick pony.

        • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by pauljlucas ( 529435 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @03:25PM (#9207642) Homepage Journal
          The long-term digital music/movies business is not a "one trick pony" -- in the future it's bound to be integrated into every cell phone, PDA, car stereo, home stereo, cable box, and television set.
          The thing that companies haven't figured out yet is that nobody wants to watch movies on portable devices with tiny screens. It's an application looking for a market.
          I guess the development of an 'iPod' division indicates that Apple is looking at the big picture and not just the trick pony.
          If they really wanted to do that, they would have created a "consumer electronics" division.

          • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Maserati ( 8679 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @04:59PM (#9208862) Homepage Journal
            I have an Executive Producer upstairs who is Dead Set on getting a wireless device she can watch movies on - so she can see rough cuts while on location. And she'll authorize whatever the gadget will cost.

            Of course, in the consumer market the parent poster is probably right.
            • Take a look at Archos AV3x0 products.
              (www.archos.com)
              While not wireless, they can digitize audio and video in real time from NTSC or S-video.

              I have a AV 320 and like it a lot.
              • I was actually thinking of something more like a color Blackberry but those Archos things look interesting. We do a lot with Final Cut Pro, so MPEG-4 isn't an issue. Hmmm. She's gonna want one, god alone knows for what. I can see some applications for this at presentations.

                Sigh.

                I may regret this, but I'm going to forward that link to my work address. Maybe we can bill it to AV's overhead budget instead of "mine".

                Thanks. I think.

            • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:4, Interesting)

              by Feral Bueller ( 615138 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @02:32PM (#9218557) Homepage
              I have an Executive Producer upstairs who is Dead Set on getting a wireless device she can watch movies on - so she can see rough cuts while on location. And she'll authorize whatever the gadget will cost.

              Precisely. This is more than likely where the market pressure will be felt the most strongly.

              Our team has built an app that among other things, allows our producers to preview acquired video (we're talking way upstream of rough cuts, btw.)

              The biggest feature request is to be able to access the app from home, which is doable as long as you've got pipe and can VPN in.

              Your average Executive Producer isn't going to be doing that.

              A handheld video device can create some new challenges (especially from a security standpoint) but they are all solvable -- a device that required me to authenticate with my SecureID would be sweet...

              If you have an A/V out then you're outputting to a DLT projector and a 5:1 home theater system if you so choose... can you imagine a player that you could dock to your TiVo, transfer files, and carry around with you?

              Of course, in the consumer market the parent poster is probably right.

              ehh..... I dunno.

              I didn't really see the point in carrying around 5,000 mp3s with me until I bought my iPod. Now I'm looking at buying a second one just to make my home folder machine portable :-)

              An avPod would sell like crazy: especially to all of the Volvo/Audi driving soccer parents who are making movies every time their darling baby angel blinks and putting them up on their .Mac web pages.

              I'd go buy one today. I've got over 20 GB of music videos that I would love to be able to carry around in a small form factor and plug into my home theater as easily as I can with my iPod.

          • >The thing that companies haven't figured out yet is that nobody wants to watch movies on portable devices with tiny screens. It's an application looking for a market.

            yeah right, next thing you'll be telling me is that people dont want to play games and take pictures with their phones and would rather actually hear the people they are talking to! ;-)

            • next thing you'll be telling me is that people dont want to ... take pictures with their phones

              I've never seen anybody in public actually using a camera phone as a camera. It's a gimmick. Sure, a few people might use it as a camera, but I doubt it's regularly. Camera phones probably did well in test marketing because people thought they were novel/cool. But once the novelty wears off, the camera will probably see little use.

              Do you own/use a camera phone as a camera? Know anybody that does regularl

      • The FM transmitters to suck, its like listening to the music with ear plugs. The best thing to do know is get a head unit with an aux input and run RCA cables to the iPod. I did this with my Sony unit, ran an RCA to 1/8 mini cord to my Belkin Mobile Power Cord [belkin.com] and I get great sound from it. Also, which is quite nice, when you unplug it from the dock conector, it automaticly pauses. And since the mini plug is plugged in the charger, it's only one thing to connect. You could also try to make your own cent
        • The best thing to do know is get a head unit with an aux input and run RCA cables to the iPod.
          Again, I don't want any cables. Having cables loose and danling all over the console is not my idea of an elegant solution.

          Please stop suggesting things. (I never asked for suggestions.) I've already looked into all of them and they all suck.

          • I take back my suggestion, but I also posinted out the integrated console that some guy fabricated to make an elegant, integrated wireless soluction.

            However, for the people who don't want to wait for good wireless solution, read above...

            • I also posinted out the integrated console that some guy fabricated to make an elegant, integrated wireless soluction.
              That's a bit more effort than I, and I venture most people, are willing to make.
              • What's eating you up, bub? The world doesn't owe you a thing.
              • so you want apple... to design something specifically for you rneeds... because you're too lazy to do it yourself, but too damn picky about 'style' to accept an existing solution?

                • so you want apple... to design something specifically for you rneeds... because you're too lazy to do it yourself, but too damn picky about 'style' to accept an existing solution?

                  While I doubt that they're exclusively my needs (I really think such a product would sell much better than, say this [ipodlounge.com]), my answer is: yep, exactly. And I'm not going to compromise what I want and accept anything less. I'd rather do without than have a half-assed solution. Sorry your standards aren't as high.

      • "Additionally, iTunes and the iTMS are presumeably staying in the Mac division. The FireWire sync of one's entire music library fom iTunes is the killer feature of the iPod. The iPod division will still have to work closely with the Mac division."

        Just like they work closely with the Windows division for the same features...

      • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Bombcar ( 16057 ) <racbmob@@@bombcar...com> on Friday May 21, 2004 @02:47PM (#9218738) Homepage Journal
        What I really want is a car head unit that has a slot that one just pops the iPod into.

        It is coming...... [vwvortex.com]

        This will be the first, others will come after....

        Perhaps even an iPod changer for those who want more than 40 GB....

        • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by pauljlucas ( 529435 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @03:48PM (#9219403) Homepage Journal
          It is coming......
          I was aware of Alpine's plans, but this is the first I've seen a picture of it. I was afraid they'd do something like this: the wire is still there. Ugh. I want no wires. Remeber when cassette decks were standard in cars, then portable CD players came out, then those horrible adapters came out? You know, the ones with a fake cassette and wires all over your front seat? I hated those.

          The right solution is to make the iPod slip into a slot for it, preferably with the slot in the head unit itself behind the fold-down faceplate.

          I'm entitled to want what I want.

          This will be the first, others will come after....
          All I can do is hope that somebody gets it right.

    • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pope ( 17780 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @11:52AM (#9204652)
      Sales of PowerMacs have tapered off in anticipation of newer/faster models coming "real soon now." IBM has had troubles getting the faster chips out the door, so the G5 line remains stagnant, certainly not a good thing for Apple's image OR bottom-line.

      I know I've been holding off for a Rev B G5 mainly because I want a dual chip machine, and though the Dual 1.8 is the best price/perfomance ratio at the moment, it's still going on 6 or 7 months old. I have no urgent, pressing need for a G5, so holding off for the next speedbump makes sense to me.

      Creating a separate iPod/music division away from the Mac line is a fantastic idea, and will allow more concentration on their respecetive products.
      • Sales of PowerMacs have tapered off in anticipation of newer/faster models coming "real soon now."

        Quite a normal computer industry phenomenon, and nothing to worry about.

        I'm typing this on a dual 1.8 G5. Nice machine.

        • apart from the fact that apple usually keeps all upcomming upgrades to them selves leaving it up to their customers (and resellers) to secondguess when the next Gx is coming out.
          This coupled with their wonkey pricing-strategy pretty much scares both customers and resellers alike.

          If customers could walk in to a local store, feel and try the machine before they buy it, and then be pretty sure that it wouldn't be 2 weeks before apple decides to launch the next upgraded mac pushing all the others down one notc

        • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:1, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Well, Jobs "osborned" himself by standing in front of a big sign that said "3 Ghz in 12 Months". If people anticipated a more minor bump (2.5ghz), you wouldn't see as much tapering.
      • Just imagine the number of people holding off on their Powerbook purchases until the G5 comes out (I count myself among them). I don't need it urgently, so I'm ok with waiting on what's sure to be a damn impressive laptop.

        If I can get one even after they come out; I expect the demand to be far greater than the supply for quite a while.

    • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Llywelyn ( 531070 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @11:55AM (#9204681) Homepage
      Better than a hunch.

      Apple has filed for trademarks over three more cat names (Lynx, Cougar, and Leopard), which good through 2007 at their current OS release rate, *and* they have said that they are going to slow down their operating system release rate. I believe that their Mac hardware division is also profitable on most lines independent of their iPods.

      Taking these two things into account I find it *highly* unlikely that there is *any* plan to kill off the Mac.

    • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dhovis ( 303725 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @11:59AM (#9204756)

      There was one business mag that suggested that Apple should spin off the iPod and iTMS into a separate company and issue an IPO for it. It would net Apple lots of cash, and it could isolate Apple from the eventual decline of the iPod.

      This does make some sense, as it is hard to envision Apple keeping the iPod as a high profit margin device for more than 5 years or so. I don't know about you, but I kind of expect the functionality of my iPod, my Palm, and my cell phone to converge by then. I suspect that Apple hopes that by the time that happens, they will have a large share of the legal downloads market, and that sales for iTMS will be large enough to produce a good profit, even with the razor thin margins they have now.

      • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Trillan ( 597339 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @12:24PM (#9205098) Homepage Journal

        I don't know about you, but I kind of expect the functionality of my iPod, my Palm, and my cell phone to converge by then.

        Convergence is over-rated. Each of these devices serves a different purpose and requires a different form factor. Look at your current gadgets, they're probably more or less ideal in terms of form factor. How comfortable would it be to write on your cell phone's screen? How would you like to hold your Palm up to your ear for an extended period of time? And once you have a single device, how do you turn up your music player a bit while talking on the phone, and then quickly jot down a number?

        But integration between the devices would certainly be nice. A cell phone sending a signal to turn down an iPod might be nice. A Palm that can shunt little-used programs off to an iPod would be handy.

        • The single device would probably shut off the music playing during phone conversations, or at least reduce the volume.

          I hate the lumpy pockets and moments of confusion (was that the phone or my iPod?) inherent in dragging around multiple devices. There's also the greater risk of losing them when they drop out of your pocket, something that's happened to me with dismaying frequency.

          I presently use a T-Mobile Sidekick, which is a combination phone, PDA and web browsing device, and it works great except whe

          • mobiles and music (Score:2, Insightful)

            by grrrl ( 110084 )
            My old nokia 8310 had an FM radio that, when you got a call, would ring through the headphones and mute the radio when you answered the call, and then turn the radio back on when you hung up (answering via the wired remote on the headphones so no digging through my bag)

            I think integrating a phone into something like an ipod would be a great idea in some respects and just annoying in others.

            I'd love to stop getting weird looks in the street while im listening to my pod and my phone rings and i dont hear it

        • Re:Better focus or Mac to be axed? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by That's Unpossible! ( 722232 ) * on Thursday May 20, 2004 @04:07PM (#9208194)
          I agree. I don't think we'll see much more (successful) convergence until there is a paradigm shift in user interfaces.

          I'm thinking along the lines of having a 'convergent device' in my pocket (no, I'm not just happy to see you), with wireless technology feeding images to me through glasses or similar technology, with voice recognition, hand gesture recognition, etc (perhaps built into the glasses).

          "Search engine. How do I get to Target from here?"

          [Device looks up mapquest directions, map displays on HUD w/directions]

          "Phone. Call Dave Jones."

          [Phone dials, microphone and earphones are built into your glasses.]

          "Calendar. Remind me. December 7, 1941 12PM. A date that will live in something something..."

          [Calendar alarm is added to your schedule.]

          "Take a memo. Subject: Convergent devices. Here are some more ideas for convergent device user interfaces..."

          [New memo is created.]

          "Camera. Pic."

          [Camera built into glasses takes a picture.]

          "Music. Shuffle. Dave Matthews Band."

          [Device starts playing music, channeled to your earphones built into the glasses.]

          Only problem with this thing is everyone will be wearing glasses. It's either that or implants.
        • How comfortable would it be to write on your cell phone's screen?

          Uncomfortable, but still more comfortable than trying to fit another item in my pockets along with my my glasses, keys, wallet and phone. I would rather carry around one device with a subideal "form factor" than seven that are each individually well-designed.

          • Ah, but I doubt you'd be carrying around seven devices. There are, perhaps, two or three ideal form factors:

            Palm: Comfortable to hold flat in the hand and operate with a pen or finger. Large screen. Examples: PDA, GPS, a calculator. By all means, merge them all into one and have a super PDA.

            Ear: Comfortable to hold up to your ear for an extended period of time, which requires a smaller (or at least less wide) screen. The only thing I can really think of that fits into this category is a cell phone, whic

        • how do you turn up your music player a bit while talking on the phone

          {puzzled}

          Friend: Can you hear me now?
          You: Yeah, hang on a sec while I adjust my music volume.
          Friend: Can you hear me now?
          You: What?

          Not even teenagers are that mixed up.

          Also, if your iPod was your phone, I bet it would automatically pause the music while you were on a call.

          Seriously, that's a good point about multitasking issues. But bad example. {smile}

      • I think the iPod is on its way to being a PDA, phone, and media player.
      • ...I kind of expect the functionality of my iPod, my Palm, and my cell phone to converge by then.
        You never know, with iPod development now in its own department, and with Movie Trailers and Music Videos now at the iTMS, perhaps the Newton will make a comeback, this time as a video/music/iRadio player + PDA and cell abilities.
    • Jon Rubenstein is the old head of hardware at NeXT, is he not?

      What's he doing with the iPod, away from computer hardware?

      It's easy to read too much into this one, but superficially you can't make it sound good.

      If next we hear Avie's running customer support, then it's serious!
  • I've heard that it's largely politics that're responsible for iPods not having native OGG codec support, which is the one thing keeping me from getting an iPod tomorrow..

    • Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Llywelyn ( 531070 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @11:47AM (#9204568) Homepage
      Politics such as the irrelevancy of Ogg to 99% of the people who are in the iPod's target market?

    • Yes, if you view 'largely politics' as 'financially untenable'

      There's no incentive; Heck, iTunes just got WMA->ACC support. I'm sure with a little work Apple can just as easily support Ogg in the same way, by automatically converting Ogg->ACC in iTunes.

      I bet you wouldn't be happy though ^^

      • Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by cyb97 ( 520582 ) * <cyb97@noxtension.com> on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:51PM (#9206335) Homepage Journal
        converting from one lossy format to another is a horrible solutions, if a solution at all. It's a kludge, and a pretty bad one, too.

        It would be relatively trivial for apple to implement support for other codecs, given that their code doesn't look like dogshit. I'm pretty sure it's not a technical decision, but rather a purely political one.
        • Again, if you mean 'purely political' as 'financially responsible'.

          You mean supporting Ogg in iTunes + Quicktime + iPod will get them more sales over the cost of the initial outlay in development, testing, and integration testing?

        • Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Llywelyn ( 531070 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:58PM (#9207302) Homepage
          There are several very good reasons not to.

          First, the iPod only supports a limited number of formats, and iTunes should only natively support the same formats as the iPod. This is for a combination of ease of use, user perception, and technical reasons.

          Second, there is no reason for them to put any effort into supporting it. They have AAC, which for the bitrates most people use is equivalent to or superior to Ogg. The consumer doesn't care how "free" Ogg is when Apple is willing to cover things with AAC and mp3.

          They have the Apple Lossless instead of FLAC, and they support the most common format--mp3. Why on earth would they want to confuse things for newbies and people like my mother by adding another format and thus another choice?
          • surely it cant be that hard just to add ogg

            perhaps only a few use it, but perhaps again they would be more tempted to swtich to osx and/or ipod if they could still use what they wanted - and would tell their friends etc...

            i switched to os x and love it, but it does grate me ever so often when i just dont have the choice over *every little thing* like you do in linux, and even often windoze...
            • >surely it cant be that hard just to add ogg

              It would have to be added to the iPod as well as iTunes (for a variety of reasons) and it would need to be implemented, documented, and tested with a variety of different configurations.

              >perhaps only a few use it, but perhaps again they would be
              >more tempted to swtich to osx and/or ipod if they could still
              >use what they wanted - and would tell their friends etc...

              Basic economics here.

              Would they sell enough macs to make up the difference? Factoring

    • Re:Maybe now we'll get ogg support? (Score:5, Funny)

      by MacGod ( 320762 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:53PM (#9207219)
      [OGG support]is the one thing keeping me from getting an iPod tomorrow.

      See, for me it's support of Sun Audio (AU), IMA ADPCM and PSION sound formats (see details of these here [spies.com])

      How dare Apple mock my insistence on using these obscure^H^H^H^H^H^H^H highly reputable formats!

      • Those formats aren't inherently lossy so you might as well transcode them to a similar nonlossy format, one supported by the iPod, if you were prepared to use them.

        Users of Ogg often do so of space- and quality reasons, and I guess most of us don't want to use a lossless codec for our listening music for space reasons, and we don't want to transcode, for quality reasons.
      • See, for me it's support of Sun Audio (AU)

        Actually, there might be people at Apple familiar with that format, given that, as far as I know, it was invented by NeXT, not Sun, and adopted by Sun later.

    • I've got a fantastic idea (Score:5, Funny)

      by switcha ( 551514 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @06:17PM (#9209545)
      Why don't you start an online petition for everyone who is holding off on an iPod purchase until Apple supports ogg? Then, when all 27 of you have signed it, you can forward the list to Apple and see what they think about putting man-towards the endeavor.

    • For goodness sakes, it's not a troll.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Improv ( 2467 ) <pgunn01@gmail.com> on Friday May 21, 2004 @09:33AM (#9214276) Homepage Journal
      I've owned Apple hardware before (eMate, 1st-gen iBook), and have no beef with the iPod. I think it's actually pretty cool, which is why I've held off on buying another handheld music player. It's not a question of economics -- implementing OGG wouldn't cost much, nor would it be horribly confusing if their music players suddenly gained the ability to play another format. Quicktime player already plays a number of formats, as does Windows media player, and nobody complains that they're too complex. I really just want to have something as cool as the iPod with the compatibility I need to make it work well with my Linux systems. I don't see why this desire should mark me as a troll.
      • Think about this for a moment here, though.

        OGG Vorbis: supported natively in:
        - Linux
        - Maybe 5-10 obscure, inferior portable MP3 players.
        Supported with an easy add-on in:
        - Mac OS X
        - Windows

        MPEG-4 AAC: better sound quality than Vorbis; supported natively, right now, in:
        - Mac OS X
        - iPod
        - maybe 5-10 obscure and inferior portable MP3 players.
        Supported with an easy add-on in:
        - Windows (Winamp, iTunes, you name it)
        - Linux (VLC, and I'm assuming lots of other apps too).

        Since if you're on /., installing an easy a
        • I don't think it's that clear that AAC is so clearly superior to OGG.. then again, I've never heard an AAC-encoded audio. I'm not really a big slashdot person -- check my user page -- I don't tend to comment much (although I've been around for awhile). I commented on it in my BLOG long before I talked about it on slashdot. I think your 300 people is an understatement -- some people probably don't look at the iPod at all because of its chosen media formats.
          As for the patent issue, it might not matter so much
          • > As for the patent issue, it might not matter so much to you, but I actually do use Linux, I don't buy software, and so it's very convenient to me to rip my CDs and encode to OGG.

            It's also convenient to rip your CDs and encode to MP3 [google.com], if you don't like AAC. It's not anyone's fault but your own if you let your philosophy limit your choice in music players. MP3 may be slightly inferior to OGG, but RAR is better than ZIP too, and though I love RAR, I use ZIP when I want maximum compatibility. My music is
            • I know that it's, in a sense, a created need, but of course the need versus want distinction is pretty much entirely colloquial -- they're just degrees of importance to a person. For me, because I've encoded about half my music collection in OGG (the older half is stuff I encoded years ago before I decided OGG was a good thing), OGG support is something I need in a music player. It's not really feasable or desirable for me to reencode all my recent encodings for hardware compatibility. To demonstrate the ne

  • Thanks, but no thanks (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @11:42AM (#9204501)
    I love my iPod and all, but what I really want you to do, Apple, is to bring back the UI research team. Don't forget what made your users so devoted in the first place, Steve-o.

    moof.

  • Finally (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    this will separate Macintosh fans from Apple Computers Inc. fans.

  • Possible motive: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 20, 2004 @12:10PM (#9204912)
    Besides moolah. When I read this report I thought it may be a response to Apple Records pressure and a preemptive action to divorce the music selling business the content creation side of the equation.
  • So does this mean that Apple will become like Microsoft, with the different divisions blaming one another for the incompatibilities between their products?

  • If they spin of iPod and ITMS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dcocos ( 128532 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:08PM (#9205692)
    I wonder if they can avoid the Apple vs Apple law suit about Apple not being able to enter the music industry.
    • don't forget that the iPod and the iTM$ are tied to iTunes which is tied to iLife.

      I think it would be very bad for iTunes to become separated from Apple.

      I'm hoping instead that the iPod division will focus on more devices like a car stereo and a home theater system that builds on the iPod design and GUI.

  • How will this affect us? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by amichalo ( 132545 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @03:58PM (#9208073)
    How will this affect the consumer? Will this new iPod (read 'consumer electroincs') division not be concerned with the focus on the Mac and therefore we could see new products being released for Windows FIRST, followed by Linux, to include OS X? This is how many hardware/software dev companies work becuase the market is so slim it makes economic 'cents' to go after the larger market.

    And what affect, if any, will this change have on the concept of the iPod causing people to switch to Apple?
  • I mean, in the last year we had dozens of streams of articles about Apple that turned out to be false. Like the sub $200 iPods, the "Apple buys Universal" or "Disney buys Apple". And they all (well, most) quoted a single article and that it was confirmed by an Apple spokesperson.
  • OGG: Reading through the comments I see some mention of OGG format for iTunes and iPod. My take on this is that while OGG is a fine format to use, the large majority of consumers just don't, so it would not be something that, considering development costs would be financially responsible for Aplpe to implement at this time. Just as it would be simple enough for many video game makers to release Mac versions of their software, the development costs to write and then market to a market segment that is basica
  • Robert X. Cringely made his weekly column [pbs.org] about this. Read his insightful comment [pbs.org] titled "Divide and Conquer - Why Apple Has an iPod Division". (As usual, he starts a bit boring but gets more interesting on way).

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