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Media (Apple) Businesses Media Apple

New iPods on the Horizon 367

Posted by CmdrTaco from the still-waiting-for-video dept.
RemovableBait writes "Apple Computer plans to introduce more iPods before the end of the year", a company executive said Tuesday. From the article: Executive Vice President Tim Cook didn't say whether the new iPods will come at a press event Apple has scheduled for Wednesday morning. But during a conference call with analysts, he suggested that the iPod Nano won't be the last new iPod of the year."
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New iPods on the Horizon More

New iPods on the Horizon

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  • Plans..? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Avyakata ( 825132 )
    Actually, I've heard there's plan for an iPod with integrted e-mail functions...but, it's just a rumor, I'm sure *shifty eyes*

  • Forget slim... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hittite Creosote ( 535397 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:14AM (#13772519)
    I want a near indestructible one. Make it bulkier if you have to, just don't let it break.

    • How 'bout both? (Score:5, Informative)

      by epohs ( 775630 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:30AM (#13772633) Homepage
      Maybe not indestructible, but they're already pretty damn tough http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/nano.ars/3 [arstechnica.com]
      • I'd rather use an MP3 player that can survive being placed in a pocket [google.com] than one that looks like it was run over by a car repeatedly.

      • Re:How 'bout both? (Score:5, Informative)

        by danamania ( 540950 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @10:00AM (#13772833)
        I'm finding mine pretty tough. It has no case, sits in pockets and goes walking with me, sits on my messy desk, has been slept on most nights since I bought it, driven with, packed in my camera bag, it's been lost temporarily between cushions on the sofa, dropped in a mug of hot tea (oops) and been slammed in the car door of a 1960s Falcon (oops 2), which dented the back a little. It still works, the screen is crystal clear and I have to look really hard to see the two identifiable marks on the front - one an indentation on the side of the plastic, and the other is similar, but just above the click wheel - both really need looking at closely in the right kind of light to find. I've dropped it a couple of times on the desk or coffee table, I think those marks came from that.

        If it's a fragile scratch-prone thing then I must have a magical nano, cos I'm seeing none of that.

        photos at http://www.danamania.com/temp/nano2.jpg [danamania.com] counting upwards. The first image is at one week old, others taken on the days since then - it's almost 3 weeks old now.

        • Re:How 'bout both? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @11:39AM (#13773783)
          You've owned the thing for less than 3 weeks and you've already managed to sleep on it, lose it between sofa cushions, drop it in hot tea, and slam it in a car door? You sir, are an idiot.

    • Ding ding ding (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tgd ( 2822 )
      Having had my first 40 gig iPod die under warranty, only to have its replacement have a bad dock connector they wouldn't warranty... and having had my 18 month old G4 iBook die a couple days ago with a faulty logic board... Apple needs to seriously get their act in gear where product reliability is concerned. I've had a 25% success rate of their products lasting longer than 18 months.

      I'm fed up enough with the quality problems that I'm actually debating buying a PC laptop to replace the iBook. And that real

    • Re:Forget slim... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CrazyTalk ( 662055 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @10:16AM (#13772955)
      I agree. Maybe they can take the strategy employed in the 80s/90s, where if you painted a radio or tape player yellow that made it a "Sport" model and the perception was that it magically became waterproof, shockproof, etc.

    • Re:Forget slim... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Phat_Tony ( 661117 )
      A Shuffle in an iVault [griffintechnology.com] is probably about as close to indestructible as any portable electronics appliance ever made, excepting submersion.

  • Video? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SultanCemil ( 722533 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:15AM (#13772532)
    I know this may look like a really dumb comment in about 4 hrs but I don't see video being THAT useful. You can store a ton of low-res video on the ipod if you just want to watch it there, but the real advantage would be to take it with you to friends' houses for viewing on their TVs. Well, in that case, you want hi-res video, video that will take up quite a bit of room. Hmmm.... Wonder how those geniuses will solve THAT little problem...

    • Re:Video? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tibor the Hun ( 143056 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:27AM (#13772615)
      It's not about the resolution, it's about the compression.
      With h.264 even HD files can be compressed to a manageable size. With iPod's large storage capacity one could easily carry half a dozen movies on it.
      With a video out, all you'd need is a TV to plug it in.

      The problems are, and I have no idea if they have been solved:
      -the battery life for outputting a movie
      -is the iPod beefy enough for h.264 decoding? (Possibly, through a dedicated hardware chip)

      Here's a good real-world explanation of h.264 and what it can do for HD. [shapeofdays.com]

      • Re:Video? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by LordLucless ( 582312 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:33AM (#13772654)
        Forget decoding, how about encoding? How many people are going to sit there and wait while their computer spends half a day encoding a DVD into h.264?
        • Duh, thats what the iVideo store will be for.

        • Re:Video? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by iainl ( 136759 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:43AM (#13772710)
          One acronym: iTMS.

          I don't think they do plan on us spending half a day encoding a DVD to h.264. I think they plan on letting us download a pre-encoded TV programme, and charging us for the privelege.

          Sure, it's entirely possible that Apple will let us make our own. But I don't think they plan on passing up the opportunity to flog us stuff that saves us the bother.

        • Re:Video? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by dduck ( 10970 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @10:28AM (#13773073) Homepage
          How about being able to walk down to the Blockbuster and charge the vPod with a dozen movies at one buck a pop? Now THAT would rock!

      • Re:Video? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by rad_chad ( 611206 )
        well, if you are watching the video from the iPod on a tv are you really worried about battery life? The tv itself has a source of power right? Just plug the iPod into that.

    • Re:Video? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Blapto ( 839626 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:31AM (#13772640)
      What sort of length are we talking about? You can get 4 hours of video onto a DVD of 4.7GB (of a quality that you couldn't get better than on your typical household TV. If you have a fantastic plasma screen you may notice an improvement at 3 hours/DVD). So a 60GB iPod would hold about 2000 songs and 40 hours of DVD quality video. I'm sure they will be releasing larger hard drives at some point, this isn't going to require a fundamental overhaul.

      • Re:Video? (Score:3, Informative)

        by OzRoy ( 602691 )
        The compression that DVDs use is pretty old and crappy.

        A 600M xvid file will give you a movie at DVD quality.

        I'm sure there are lots of other formats out there that will give you just as good, and probably better quality.
        • Carnivale S1E4 (Black Blizzard), for instance, is unwatchable with *any* compression. *Any* movement in any film is painful if you compress a 2 hr film down to 600MB. Maybe this kind of compression is watchable on a 2" screen, but your statement "A 600M xvid file will give you a movie at DVD quality" as it is is simply not true.

        • Re:Video? (Score:5, Informative)

          by badasscat ( 563442 ) <basscadet75@@@yahoo...com> on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @10:43AM (#13773264)
          The compression that DVDs use is pretty old and crappy.

          It's the same compression used in our HDTV standard. It's intended for use at high bit rates, like HDTV or DVD. You're not going to get any better quality at those bit rates using another encoding scheme.

          A 600M xvid file will give you a movie at DVD quality.

          No, it won't. It may look similar, and maybe you have to take your eyes off the foreground action to see what xvid is doing to your movies, but I have never, ever seen any xvid rip that comes close to the original DVD.

          xvid and other mpeg-4 standards do well at what they're intended for - creating good-looking video at low bit rates. One of the intents of mpeg-4 (including h.264, which is mpeg-4 part 10) is delivery of high-quality movies over the internet. At that, xvid does a good job, but that doesn't mean an xvid movie encoded at 1mbps is going to look anywhere near as good as a DVD encoded at 9mbps. It never will. It's not possible. It will look "good enough" for some people, but not for those who are really interested in quality.

          mpeg-2 does not do well at low bit rates required for things like web delivery. This is one big reason why mpeg-4 was created. But if you're talking about encoding a movie such that it looks basically indistinguishable from the original, both mpeg-2 and mpeg-4 are going to require similarly high bit rates. (And yes, I've downloaded Apple's h.264 videos, before anyone brings that up - they are very large, if you've noticed. Some of them hit a couple hundred megabytes for 2-3 minutes of video.)

          People get this mixed up; they think because mpeg-4 is newer that it is more advanced than mpeg-2 in every way. It's not. It's better at low bit rates, but even comparing directly at similarly low bit rates, "better" does not mean "perfect". At high bit rates and otherwise identical settings, you can't tell the difference between the two standards.

          I encode video both as part of my job and also for laughs at home (and I've tried pretty much everything, including h.264 using Nero Digital, xvid, divx, QuickTime, WM9 and mpeg-2), so I have some level of practical experience with this. At home, I still actually just use mpeg-2 more often than not, because h.264 support is so spotty right now and the quality at the bit rates I use is the same between the two formats. For stuff I want people to download over the web, I've actually gotten better results with WM9 than I have with h.264 yet (probably mainly because playback support of h.264 is so spotty right now).
      • DVD uses MPEG-2, which is almost as dated as video compression mechanism as MP3 is for audio coding. The H.264 movie trailers on Apple's site (which look very nice on a Cinema HD) are around 3Mbps for 1080p. At this encoding rate, you could get around 45 hours of HD video on a 60GB iPod. If you don't care about HD, H.264 is designed to scale down to mobile 'phones, so I would imagine on DVD-quality you get a fairly good bit rate - better than MPEG-4, probably somewhere around 400MB for a movie, maybe 200

    • Re:Video? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by iainl ( 136759 )
      Video on an iPod gets a lot of criticism as an idea (I've made a fair bit myself, apart from anything), but part of the problem is that people hear "Video iPod", but they're just thinking "iPod that can play films".

      The VidPod makes sense, but only if you think beyond there. Right now, the iPod range has around 15 hours of battery when it's just playing music - you're going to get substantially less if you're decoding and displaying video. So 2 hour movies on a tiny screen when the battery is going to cave a
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Or, you could just take your DVD over to your friend's house. I seriously fail to see the allure of a "Video iPod". It takes a lot more. . .well effort, if you will to watch videos than it does to listen to music. You can't excercise, you can't work, hell you can't even walk down the street while watching a movie on something like that. How would you use such a device? I hope that if Apple does add video capability, that it makes it simply an additional feature of the basic iPod, rather than making an

  • iPod Video (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TedTodorov ( 121485 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:16AM (#13772541)
    It would have to be. Initially content will be Video Podcasts (like NerdTV), music videos, and hopefully TV shows. Also Apple needs to release software that will transcode non-encrypted DVDs or VIDEO_TS forlders, and let "third parties" do the rest.

    We will know more later today.

    • Re:iPod Video (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nine-times ( 778537 )
      Also Apple needs to release software that will transcode non-encrypted DVDs or VIDEO_TS forlders, and let "third parties" do the rest.

      Apple has all the software it needs to rip DVDs and encode them in h.264 (good) in house already. All the pieces are already in the operating system (though some right now require a bit of freeware or an upgrade to quicktime pro). They'd just need to slap together an upgrade to iTunes, or else an iTunes-like application, that made it an easy process.

      The real issue, though

  • Wow.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nahorniak ( 748466 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:17AM (#13772542) Homepage
    Do we really need 5 posts regarding this subject? The question will be answered today. This article's basically saying "Apple will release...something... soon. Mark our words."

  • Market Saturation... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by GiorgioG ( 225675 )
    It sounds like Apple's simply trying to cash-in quickly before their 'bubble' bursts. Don't get me wrong, the iPod is a great little device, but at some point the buzz + demand / supply will stabilize and the rest of the non-innovative companies will play copy & catch-up.
    • I'm guessing that you're not basing this comment on reality since they just had record sales.

    • Re:Market Saturation... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MrMickS ( 568778 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:39AM (#13772690) Homepage Journal
      sounds like Apple's simply trying to cash-in quickly before their 'bubble' bursts. Don't get me wrong, the iPod is a great little device, but at some point the buzz + demand / supply will stabilize and the rest of the non-innovative companies will play copy & catch-up ...

      You forgot to add "and this will be the death of Apple". All companies try to captialise "buzz". The iPod has had a great deal of "buzz" for the past couple of years and Apple have done well to keeping pushing the device so as to differentiate the iPod from the competition. Its not as though other companies, even ones with good brands (Sony Walkman), haven't been trying to steal Apple's thunder over this period. So far Apple have succeeded at beating them off.

      What a lot of people ignore when comparing the iPod with the other music players out there is the interface. Not the one the users use but the one that allows it to connect. This is the killer app that the iPod has, something that makes it more than just a portable music player. Look at the number of manufacturers that are offering iPod connectivity in their cars. The iPod will continue to grow, it may lose its buzz but, until someone comes along with something that can take its place, it will still provide a solid revenue stream for Apple.

    • I think if the US can support three cars per four people [nationmaster.com] then saturation of the iPod market won't happen until we get 3 iPods per 4 people; with almost 300 million people, that means over 200 million iPods sold; since Apple is sold 6.5 million in the 4th quarter, and something like 6 million the quarter before, that means we have another 8 years at this rate, less if the sale rate increases.

      Of course someone else might catch up; Sony has a good chance, and so does Creative. That still doesn't diminish Apple
      • I think if the US can support three cars per four people then saturation of the iPod market won't happen until we get 3 iPods per 4 people; with almost 300 million people, that means over 200 million iPods sold; since Apple is sold 6.5 million in the 4th quarter, and something like 6 million the quarter before, that means we have another 8 years at this rate, less if the sale rate increases.

        Of course, within two years, 3 of those 6 million will be buying new iPods to replace the ones that are lost/broken,

      • "I think if the US can support three cars per four people..."

        What is your point on this? If you work or do anything for a living here, you pretty much need a car to get back and forth. You almost sounded as if this was a 'luxury' thing in comparison to the iPod, but, living here, I can tell you, it is not.

        And no...you just can't take public transportation...is isn't practical. One for instance, I'm down here in NOLA, hearing them pitching to build a light, fast train system between NOLA and Baton Rouge.

  • Once all of these features are incorporated into one device with larger than 100GB of storage, I will buy one. For now, I will suffer as being not part of the iPod masses.
  • Will the influx of new Ipods bring the price of the current models to levels where I may decide to buy one? The main thing that has kept me from getting an Ipod is the battery. I spend alot of time working outdoors and a replaceable battery is something that works very well for me. If the battery dies I just put in a new AA (iriver 300 series). Even if it a proprietary battery if it replaceable I want the ability to poop in a fully charged battery. If I wasn't so flighty I could be sure to charge the d

  • I know! I know! (Score:4, Funny)

    by batlock666 ( 839087 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:21AM (#13772575)

    iPod Suppo.

  • Apple's Special Event (Score:5, Informative)

    by mattyohe ( 517995 ) <matt DOT yohe AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:24AM (#13772604)
    If you want to catch the latest products about to be released today, check out the rumor sites at 10am PDT, I'm sure one of them will be following it. They currently think the Video iPod will debut today.

    thinksecret [thinksecret.com]
    appleinsider [appleinsider.com]

    Or just checkout apple's website later today!

  • One more thing... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by going_the_2Rpi_way ( 818355 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:30AM (#13772628) Homepage
    Just another example of "one more thing" marketing as discussed, say, here: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,69172,00 .html?tw=rss.TOP [wired.com].

    I wonder -- is preaching to the converted really sustainable though?

  • Gaps between tracks? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by emm-tee ( 23371 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:51AM (#13772768)
    Do the current models still insert a couple of seconds of silence between every track?

    I'd love one, but if they still have this problem, then no way. Nobody would buy a CD player that had the same issue.

    • Re:Gaps between tracks? (Score:4, Informative)

      by iainl ( 136759 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @10:30AM (#13773098)
      Not a couple of seconds, but a small fraction of a second (yet still noticeable that its there)? Yes, they do.

      However, iTunes includes the ability to turn your multiple tracks into one big file in order to cut the gap out, if it really bothers you. It seems to be some sort of problem with the way mp3 files decode, as Winamp does it too if you don't use an additional plugin that crossfades on the fly.

  • Apple (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ogiller ( 3107 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:55AM (#13772790)
    You all know what Apple is missing in its line up. A Apple DVR. There is Tivo, MythTV, and Microsoft Multimedia Center. Apple needs to enter the arena.

    They have the QuickTime technology.
    They have the UI skills to make a better DVR.
    They have the Hardware experience.
    Wait and see.

    Think about it. Why would you buy a iPod Video? Because, you have episodes of Star Track Enterprise, and Lost on your Apple DVR. You want to take them on the road. You need a Apple iPod Video that allows you to quickly download those programs over firewire right to a little hand held video player.

    By Apple introducing a DVR they create instant content for the iPod Video. They are struggling to get the Movie Studios on board. So they need another way to create content for the iPod Video.

    With out the Apple DVR where is the added value of a iPod Video?

  • From TFA:

    Executive Vice President Tim Cook didn't say whether the new iPods will come at a press event Apple has scheduled for Wednesday morning. But during a conference call with analysts, he suggested that the iPod Nano won't be the last new iPod of the year.

    "Over a year ago, we set out to create revolutionary updates to our core iPod lineup," Cook said. "Last quarter was the final quarter for the older products. We think we did rather well with the prior lineup and believe that we will do even better wi

    • He was discussing the "core iPod lineup", and comparing it to a "new lineup" "including the iPod Nano", that will be ready by "the holiday season".

      The lineup sounds like he's talking about the iPod lineup, but it isn't definite. I think the way he says it implies that there is at least one new iPod, and at least one very new product (a video iPod would fill both categories, but I don't think that's it).

      Also, the schedule "by the holiday season" works out to an announcement in the next 2-3 weeks, and a re

  • Linux!? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by photon317 ( 208409 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @10:13AM (#13772924)

    How about announcing an iTunes client for Linux? Or at the very least, allowing third parties to release iTunes Linux clients and not constantly thwarting their attempts to bring new customers to the platform? I don't run anything but Linux, at work and at home. I haven't bought an iPod yet because I cannot get reliable iTMS services.
    • And no, running it under Windows emulation software doesn't count.

    • Re:Linux!? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PureCreditor ( 300490 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @10:46AM (#13773292)
      Linux is primarily for servers, and the desktop market share is what? less than a couple percentage points?

      not trying to be a troll here, but if you put yourself in Apple's shoes, is the R&D budget giving a good ROI by creating an iTunes Linux client?

      On top of that, many Linux folks have their entire collection of OGG, which Apple won't bothering supporting either, so an iTunes for Linux that plays MP3 and AAC is simply not value-adding.
  • Then I'd finally be able to get a first post.
  • This company is completely tearing up the rest of the DAP industry, but we all know this already. I think Apple is going to keep on going and end up taking over the whole electronics market. Apple products have style, power and useability. We've already seen Apple grow from just computing to DAPs to DAPs that have can display photos. Now we have one of these buggers that is only a tiny bit larger than a stick of gum. How long until they make this into a phone, like somebody else mentioned?

    They seem to love

  • Free song of the week (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just so someone actually comes out and says what I imagine many have noticed: this week's free track of the week has yet to be released at the iTunes store. If I was releasing an ipod video, I would make sure the free track was a music video that week so there is instant content to promote.

  • Please release a new one today, please! (Score:3, Funny)

    by ChePibe ( 882378 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @10:34AM (#13773163)
    My iPod just died for good last night (my own fault, really... shouldn't bang around a device like that as much as I did), and now my wife just feels really sorry for me. If they release a new one today, I can capitalize on her sympathy and talk her into letting me get one!

    Apple, please take note! If you don't release one today, my accountant... er... wife will never let me purchase one of your shiny white products! Her sympathy won't last forever, act today!
  • Im am personally waiting for the video ipod. I guess as with most computer technologies they created a great ipod, took away all the features, large hard drive, color screen, durability, and are just adding one feature at a time to each new release in order to maximize profits. The final version will be a video ipod with full 32 bit color, Radio Tuner, TV Tuner, some sort of wireless to swap songs and interact with people nearby. And a nice 100GB drive to boot. Not to mention the new accessories that w
  • Any coincidence that iTunes music store (at least in the US and Japan) did not have a "New Music Tuesday" this week? No email notice and nothing but last week's offering on iTunes for now.

  • This statement makes no sense: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by spyrral ( 162842 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @10:55AM (#13773387) Journal
    "If you're talking about a video iPod, what would drive the demand? Music videos? You have a whole generation of people already conditioned to getting those for free," said GartnerG2 research analyst Mike McGuire. Uh, hello? Apple makes money on the iPods! If there a big suppy of free music videos for people to watch online (and there is) so much the better! I could be a research analyst, if that's the kind of insight they bring to the table.

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