The scoop on the next iPod
By Peter Rojas 
posted January 22nd 2005 5:36PM
posted January 22nd 2005 5:36PM
Lawsuit or no lawsuit, Think Secret keeps dishing out the dirt on Apple, this time with some news about the fifth-generation iPod. It won't be out until around the middle of the year, but this one is supposed to have an 80GB drive (which makes sense since Toshiba makes one of those now), and will be more of a break from the earlier versions and sport a "more silver enclosure" to match what you'll find on the current line-up of Macs. They're also confirming something we more or less already knew, which was that the iPod mini is getting a bump up to 5GB very soon and will probably come in a bunch of new colors.
LAME! What's the point if it doesn't support video?
WOW! I can fit 3907430947234509734214907 songs on my iPod, but what's the point? I can look at pictures, too! But I've got audio, and pictures, NO VIDEO? That pisses me off.
I wish they'd go back to the mini and 20GB versions (maybe even bring back the 10 and the 15) and colorize their screens.
That way Apple could cash in on the guys like me who dont want a huge HD but want some color in their ipod's screen.
Cause who the hell is gonna buy an 80GB ipod? I'm sure no one has 80GB's worth of music and photos. Apple better implement movie playback on this new 80GB one or it'll never sell
hopefully they'll put FM radio in the new 80gig one.
;)
An 80GB iPod is extremely useful. Store all your photos and music, and backup your entire hard drive. Keep everything you own in your pocket! I'd be very tempted to buy an 80GB iPod.
80GB is so overkill for most people. Yikes.
Most people's hard drives are probably less than 80GB.
I expect, or at least want, the next-gen Vanilla iPods to have a physical 'Shuffle' switch (it could be located next to the 'Hold' switch and take on the same form factor).
i have *considerably* more than 80GB of music. but there is *no way* i would want to carry literally all my music around. i have a 15GB now... and that is just about perfect... my 10GB was just small enough that there was always one more album i wanted on it. 15GB is just about right... because it's enough but not too much to where i end up forgetting stuff that is on it. 40GB and 60GB make no sense to me.
and it's not like i would use it for storage either. and definately wouldn't want to boot off of it. those drives weren't made for high access use like that.
i'm thinking i might even buy a mini once it goes to 5GB and rethink my ipod-filling scheme.
I say 85% of people who buys 80GB iPods need to have their head examined. Seems like those people would buy a hummmer and drive it around the city, overkill...
YES YES YES!!!!
I've been actively promoting the "shuffle" switch among everyone I know who cares about iPods (which is a surprisingly small group). This form factor mentioned above would be ideal-- but I sincerely doubt that Apple has any plans of instituting it.
first off, there's nothing wrong with wanting an 80GB iPod if you have 80GB of music and want a convenient way to keep it with you. why is 80GB crazy but not 40GB or 20GB? It's all just a matter of what works for you. If it doesn't work for you, don't buy it, but let's not be derogatory towards someone else's purchase. It's silly to condemn anyone for buying an 80GB iPod if it would prove to be useful for them.
Plus there's at least one other reason why I could see someone getting an 80GB iPod (or 80GB MP3 player of any kind for that matter): it provides plenty of space to store lossless WAV files rather than compressed MP3s.
You people are dense. I'm on iPod #2. First was a 4G 40GB - filled it up in about 10 months. Now I have the 60GB iPod Photo. I'm at 45GB and adding more music all the time. Plus I use it to transfer my digital photos and as a portable hard drive for files. (I am a lawyer and it's nice to be able to put tons of documents from a particular case on my iPod and have them all at my disposal wherever I am.) I'll buy the 80GB as soon as it comes out and sell the 60GB on Ebay the exact same way I did my 40GB. I saw the new Mac mini at our local Apple store earlier today. They had it hooked up to one of those brushed metal monitors and it's amazing how small the mini is. I played around with the 1.42ghz model and it was very quick and responsive. That's my next purchase. Read Robert X. Cringely's column on his theories about what Apple plans for the mini: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/
and i hope to god they *don't* put an FM radio on it. i don't know what you peoples fascination is with *FM radio*... but no thanks. there is nothing i ever want to hear on FM. the quality is ass-sack. whats the point of having an 80GB ipod able to play a month straight of non-repeating music... just to tune into FM and hear the same contrived overly compressed radio-edited 30-song playlist ad infinum repeating every 90 minutes full of commercials and inane dj chatter? people who 'rip' from FM are even more moronic.
i'd much rather have AM if anything. but then i remembered... 'oh wait? thats right! i can buy an crappy AM/FM radio the size of a pack of gum for like $4. why the hell would i want one uglying up my $399 ipod?'
terrestrial analog radio is going to be dead soon enough anyway.
want to hear radio on your ipod? record some on your computer and put in on your ipod. same thing people waiting to hear shellac 10"s or wax cylinders or wire recordings or reel-to-reel on their ipod have to do.
FM radio is handy for the gym, where they broadcast the sound for the TV sets over short range FM band.
Also, it's nice to be able to pick up news, weather, congressional hearings, the game, and other things that are happening in real time. Perhaps an FM radio ipod could even record from the radio?
FM radio is just a little worse than mp3 in terms of quality.
Actually, quality is a good reason to get an 80GB ipod. You could have your whole music library in a lossless format! Now THAT might be worth it. MP3 sound is usually ok but seems to cut out when it counts.
actually my HD is 150 GB's so an 80 GB HD isn't overkill for me, heh.
I'm not sold until I see this supposedly new design though, more metal is a fine with me but it better not have a mesh grill design....
I know they keep denying it, but maybe the 80GB iPod is the first step towards a video device...
Besides lossless music, another great reason to get an 80gb harddrive would be for video. People are now buying music without the wasteful plastic discs and packaging and video is the next step.
An 80gb IPod would be a great device to store video files for you to watch on the small color screen when you're on a flight or trip... Or how cool would it be to just hook up your IPod to your TV/Cable box/DVD player to watch your favorite movies, tv shows...
Yes, it makes perfect sense and the IPod hard drive will get larger and larger to handle this new functionality.
The real sales pitch here is not the fact that it has 80GB of memory... its the fact that itll have a redesigned enclosure than the earlier generations. Apple consumers are loyal because of the trendy industrial design, not because of the "avant garde" technology. Im sure any new design Apple puts out for the iPod will create a buzz.
What a lot of tech geeks dont understand is that Apple has created reputation as a technological fashion statement. The people that purchase their products are as concerned with style as they are with features/technology/and compatibility. So to be honest I dont think all those ebay links for that dirt cheap no-name-brand portable 80GB color screen multimedia am/fm ham radio is going to win the hearts of Apple consumers. Unless its white..... jp.
80gb is definetly not an overkill. 2 years ago people thought that 10gb was an overkill. Me my self I have about 12gb of music but 80gb would give me the possibility of storing my music in formats like apple lossless and AAC in high bitrates. On top of that many power users also use there ipods as external harddrives so 80gb might after all not be that much of an overkill.
Enoguh of that I can't wait for the 5th generation Ipod:D Have even sold my mini becasue it had too litle storage space. I figure the 5th generation ipod will be like an enlarged gray ipod mini with an aluminium shell.
80GB might be too much now, but wait and you'll see that the iPod will eventually shift to an iPod/PDA with wireless web access, and the ability to wirelessly download music, files, video, etc. while sitting in Star Bucks sipping on your coffee and listening to the latest hits. Once that happens then 80GB's will be enough.
#8 & #5 - a shuffle switch would be ideal if and only IF Apple could make it look sexy, unlike the 2nd Gens that had those "covers". That just looked like a bunch of... dung. I might argue that there isn't enough room on the top for another switch, maybe a button that had a light shine through when pressed. And if there's going to be a light on that (hopefully that blue light from those Griffin Powermates), there should be a light on the hold switch and the click wheel, shining through the text. I miss those from the 3G...
Oh, and definately standard color screens, but keeping the price at $299. If they can sell cameras with crisp color screens for less than $199, why not on an iPod?
Why does everyone want the iPod to be a video device? Once you start playing video on any device your cutting your battery life down to 2 maybe 3 hours tops. In order to have something decent to look at, you have to expand the screen to at least 5-6". And what you end up with is a big, bulky device that lets you watch one, maybe two movies before you need to recharge it. Not to mention that right now, getting video on one of these devices is not freindly at all (either go through the hassle of ripping tv or movies yourself or deal with the DRM nightmare of downloading movies or your TiVo shows onto the device). If I REALLY wanted a portable video device, a portable DVD player would make alot more sense than these 'portable media center' devices that are out right now. And in the meantime, I hope Apple doesn't force 'color screens' and bulkier devices on those of us that just want to listen to music on a simple device.
"don't steal music"
but, but.. 80 gigs of music is like $20,000...
Well,it's important to have a radio band at times...Emergency broadcast for one.Talk radio for two,for when you get sick of just music(every feature I can get works well for me at work). But what I really which some company would do is add a TV Band,then you really would have total portable entertainment on the go(Are you listening iriver,ipod,ect.)
Sure 80gb ain't for everyone, but I have around 1200 CDs (yes, i actually own all my music) and so with 80gb i could probably get truly everything on it. I'm glad that Apple will be giving me that option. Unnecessary perhaps, but nice - esp. once the car adapters become common. At that point, i'll probably consider buying an 80gb, putting everything on it, and just leaving it in the car permanently.
I don't know why Apple has to be dragging behind technology, at least with respect to the iPod mini. There are many 5GB small mp3 players out now, and it was just recently announced that a 6GB microdrive will be released soon, so why would they make the mini go from 4 to 5GB? I think it would make MUCH more sense if they gave it a 50% increase in space with a 6GB hard drive. Creative has also already announced the Zen micro with a 6GB in it.
I can get 80 gigs of music easily. There's certainly that much in the entire discographies of every artist I listen to. That wouldn't be legal, but meh.
It's called BitTorrent, people.
The way I see it, in regards to a video iPod, when a DMCA-friendly procedure of converting a DVD movie into MPEG-4 or some other video format exists, then Apple would look into a video iPod. Last I checked, circumventing the CSS protection on DVDs is illegal (even though lots of people do it anyway to the point that such thing in the DMCA is no longer relevant).
As with FM radio, I don't see a whole lot of point in regards to music. I mean, the idea of the iPod or any MP3 player for that matter is to listen to a huge stash of music that would not normally fit in one or two CDs. Just make a playlist of your favourite tracks and hit play. However, I do see a need for FM or AM radio when it comes to talk shows, news, weather, and radio-broadcasted sports games. That's pretty much it.
80 GB seems to be a lot for the regular Joe though. I would see the 80 GB used by the music-hardcore, geek, or some other niche market that could use 80 GB in a portable media device.
As with me, I currently own a 20 GB 3G iPod but I might consider getting an iPod mini since I don't listen to a whole lot of music on the road. However, it would be really cool if Apple made colour LCDs a standard for all of their traditional and mini iPods. I guess it all depends on the demand for an iPod mini with a colour LCD.
"Cause who the hell is gonna buy an 80GB ipod? I'm sure no one has 80GB's worth of music and photos."
I have 115GB of mp3's currently. Some of us just have a passion for music. If they redesign the casing I will buy this ipod on day one.
Other than 'cool' factor, what practical use is a color lcd on a music player. How many people find themselves out about town thinking 'man i wish i could look at a picture of my dog right now'.
Turning the IPod into a TV/Movie Device will kill the simple, sexy, design of it. Not only that, but it would destroy battery life. The 80gb IPod probably isn't for me. I am happy with just a shuffle, because I use it primarily for working out.
However, I do like to think of an IPod turning into a PDA from Apple. This could be SO useful. It isn't something in the near future, but you can bet it is coming.
#5 - Sure, it would be great to back up *all* of our files on to our iPods... until someone steals it, along with your data; That or until you drop it.
So if this thing is going to be 80GB, how much would that cost? $400? Bah! Too much >_<
Jeeze, one of you guys must have been the guy responsible for the "nobody will ever need more than 640k of memory" quote that always gets (wrongly) attributed to Bill Gates...
I have a total of 320GB of storage in my apartment, soon to get a bump of 180GB more as I add another hard drive. Is all of that filled with mp3's? No, but then neither is an iPod simply an mp3 player - it's a portable hard drive. I easily have a couple dozen gigs worth of data I'd want to carry around with me at any given time, for work or pleasure (I'm a web producer, so I've got large graphic and video files that I need to transfer back and forth to various places).
Now, I could have a small iPod *and* either burn a whole bunch of CD's all the time or *also* buy a separate portable hard drive. Doesn't it make a little more sense to just buy an 80GB iPod, though? It's just an 80GB portable drive that also happens to be a really good mp3 player.
(Honestly, I doubt I'll buy an 80GB drive, but hopefully it'll drive down the price of the 40GB model and that is the one I really want. I've got 21GB worth of music and I *do* want to have all that with me all the time - if for no other reason than for backup purposes - plus I also want some extra room for data. Unfortunately, right now the 40GB model is about $100 more than I want to spend.)
The desire to have all the music you own stored on one handy portable device is not that far removed from the desire to have a cellphone you only have to charge once a month.
There are some of us who are passionate about music and have large collections - I have 150Gb of lossless audio and 230Gb of lossy audio (yeah, that's "MP3s" for the uncouth) currently stored on my PC. And I have owned an 80Gb portable audio player / brick for well over a year already...
#29: No it's not. I think Apple learned something from the Newton.
Besides, that's a crowded market with no room for new PDAs. HD players were wide open when Apple showed up.
Not saying I would purchase an 80GB iPod. I might if I had the money, but that's another story. But 80GB is not too much imo.
I don't know about everyone else, but I listen to a lot of live DJ mixes that are freely distributed. These mixes have been known to run 200MB easily, because of the bitrate and length. I have one that is 600MB in size. When you put that in perspective, that could average only 200 separate mixes on an 80GB.
I don't have that many, but you get the idea. To each his own though. Some like to have their whole music collection and more with them, whereas others just want what's "popular" for them at the moment. But you cannot have too much space. I have to agree with another comment that wrote about the 640k. I've got 250GB at home and about 90% is full.
I have numerous songs that i can't fit on a CD because they are too large as mp3's even... And i like loseless compression as opposed to mp3. This makes things a *lot* bigger.
An 80Gb ipod isn't too much because i would also use it as an external HD (i don't care about blistering speed :P) unfortunately i don't actually like ipods. Everyone seems to think the interface is great but i just don't see whats so impressive about it. The fact that they didn't put video support on the ipods makes sense in a way because i'm sure apple would rather do video support well than do it poorly, which i'm guessing would happen with the current specs of the ipod... Then there is the battery issue people have raise.
I would like to see people move towards things like the io2 heliodisplay (which can project an image into thin air) so that having a tiny lense on a little HD would allow you to have a scaleable picture... One you could resize or turn so that it was/wasn't visable to people around you and was the appropriate size for the moment. Anyway, i don't think something like that will happen for a couple of years yet but i can't wait for the day when i can walk around with my favourite band around me playing in 3D. :D... Dammitt... We need things like silver polymer batteries!!
-I'm just gonna respond to everything I've read so far-
I don't really care about viewing videos *on* the ipod, so much as putting all my divx videos on it, connecting it to a tv at my friend's place and watching em that way.
I'm not terribly excited about 80gb, but having 40gb on a single platter is pretty cool. it would do a lot for the form factor.
the hold switch pisses me off. Its soo small and hard to switch over. colour screens look nice to the eyes too.
I don't care about viewing photos on a tiny screen, except on a digicam, where it's useful.
The ipod interface and menu system is awesome, but annoying at times. I really liked the iriver interfaces and menu system. I hate that when I go to select a specific song, it only playes the songs in that folder, and that the playlists only have the song name and not the artist in them. I wish that the star system would directly affect how often the song was played in random mode. and I would like to see some added functionality, like double clicking on select would turn random on and off, or only play that folder after selecting a song or skip to another random song on the ipod.
#33: "...yeah, that's "MP3s" for the uncouth..."
gross, dude. get over yourself.
Off from the current direction this thread is taking, but it would have been nice if they had designed the iPod shuffle and the next iPod around each other so that I could slide the iPod shuffle into the iPod... transfer over a new playlist... slide the iPod shuffle out and go on my merry way jogging.
80GB is a pretty resonable ammount of music not to get bored with.
Plus, you might want to back up some important files, thus the 80 gigs will not stay empty.
#38: but if you haven't left for your jog, then you're at home, so why wouldn't you just use your dektop or laptop to transfer the playlist?
radios, color lcds, video, voice recording, and now star trek Shuffle-Craft docking station iPods? these devices don't need to be more complex. this is the very reason Apple chose to make such a ridiculously simple player like the Shuffle (and this simplicity is being mocked as being outdated tech).
personally i'd only want a color LCD so that Solitaire and Brick would be in color. that's about it.
Most of you are idiots. "You don't need 80GB! I don't have 80GB, so that means no one else needs 80GB, and if you do, you're a loser!" Hey, STFU.
so after realizing the extra profits on fashion lemmings, Apple shoud start implementing real music player functions into the iPods, like gapless playback, real equalizer, etc.
...hrm.
80 gigabyte iPods for some, tiny American* flags for all!!
*or nation-specific.
If and when the new iPod is revealed to a world of cooing revellers, there are a few more important considerations than sheer disk size. Namely battery life and PC interface. The damn thing is so slow to go through it's whole update thing, and the iPod updater is one of the most unstable pieces of software I've ever used. And if Sony can make a 20GB player last 30hrs on one charge, why can't Apple???
Also, Mr Ive (general design guru), how about moving the hold switch along a bit so it ain't as close to the damn headphone plug!!!!
Ooh, and brushed alloy would be nice........
Just as a side note...
$800 will get you 80Gig of music from allofmp3.com (although a lot of that would have to be made up of bad 90s rock I'm sure).
Besides I'd rather fill up the HD of an iPod than the HD of my PC, that being one main reasons why I don't buy even more music.
QUOTE>>>
but, but.. 80 gigs of music is like $20,000...
<<<
yes using, iTunes...
Check www.napster.com?
Only 15$/month and I can transfer even 80gb for free.
napster rocks!
yea until you pay the 15$/month! stop and your hard disk is empty, retard!
The only reason they will come out with an 80GB version is that stupid people download even more stupid music and pay .99c for each song. Apple smells the $$ over any invention.
if u no how 2 delete music off the sony NW-HD1 plz can u email me how 2. My email add is tinytitch1990@hotmail.com
thanx