Multimedia iPod(s) by end of 2005?
posted Apr 6th 2005 12:43PM
Apple has reportedly just contracted with Alphamosaic, a Cambridge, UK chip designer (and child of U.S. parent company Broadcom) specializing in video, image and audio chips. Alphamosaic is currently in the testing phase of the VC02 chip, touted as the world's most advanced mobile multimedia processor. The chip has been shown to handle 3D video display on 3.5-inch color LCDs as well as capturing 8 megapixel images. The Cupertino gang clearly seems to have some sort of multimedia mobile device in the offing, though the specifics are anyone's guess (analysts will eat this news for breakfast — get ready for a massive "What Would Steve Jobs Do?" game played out by folks who actually get paid to sit around and speculate on this stuff). It could be a single device with various multimedia goodies: digital camera, video recorder, gaming device, wireless device, and cell phone — although knowing Apple's penchant for maintaining simple interfaces, it's also likely we could see a whole lineup of multimedia devices catering to specific niches, complete with a common development platform for the fleet of Alphamosaic-based iPods. If Apple gets the gears turning on this, we could see these new devices roll out by the end of the year, or perhaps early in 2006 after the infamous Jobs keynote at Macworld in January — but on the other hand, all of this could be yet another round of that good ol' idle Apple speculation we all know and love.
iPod/Mini ****
iPod Photo **
iPod Shuffle -***
iPod Video?! ******
Bring it on Apple, hopefully before I build a UMD movie library.
What a sweat news. Although it is inevitable that the future ipod will be a multimedia device I think we will have to wait a few 1-2 years until we can get our hands on a ipod which plays video.
The current multimedia devices out there only plays video for about 3-4 hours which isn't so good in my eyes. Offcourse apple in the begining apple will release an multimedia device along with with an ordinary ipod which only plays music. Personllay I don't really see the need for an multimedia device in my life right now. On an ordinary day I don't have the time to watch a whole film when I'm in the bus or during breaks in school.
I think I'll stick to my ipod photo 30gb for a while.
P.S I have read that the ipod photo has two 80mhz processors which are capable of playing video. If Uncle jobs is kind he might realese a new firmwear which enables video playback on the ipod photo.
Man, I think that there has not been a single day without an apple posting. How about we go 24hrs. w/o any Apple postings? Please...
Salivating, I am. *drool*
Ed_NYC so engadget should start to regualte the amount of postings pertaining to a particular company...even when they are making news? Hmmm I have some advice for you...don't read the fucking article then.
Woot! Newton II! F*ck you, Palm and f*ck you too, Pocket PC.
;)
i'm pretty sure that apple has said that ipod photo could run video, but they will not enable it until there is a legal way to get movies and tv onto the ipod. so perhaps this means that apple will start an iTunes for movies type thing too.
How about crediting the source of this story? www.siliconvalleywatcher.com????
Woot! Newton II! F*ck you, Palm and f*ck you too, Pocket PC.
;)
Richard,
That's what the "Read" link is for, essentially.
there is no way that the ipod photo can view video, simply because there is no way that apple would spend extra on a color lcs that could display fast moving images at a high quality when the current devices don't have the ability to access that type of content. That means that even if the current photo microproccessors could process video (which I highly doubt), the screen would not be able to display it.
Who would want an iPod that plays video when you can get the awesome PSP.
I don't want a game player.
But I would like to have something that I can use to carry around some of my fav movies or tv shows and then hookup to a TV to watch at a friends house or at a hotel...
Wow. A really fast processor. Maybe then Apple will finally build in Ogg Vorbis support. And after that, maybe I'll consider buying one.
Until then, it's all Rio for me.
One thing at a time. Everything apple is doing is fueled by the success of the ipod. The next logical step is video. They came out with that ipod photo which is basically for people that are either obsessed with photos or don't know what to do with money, but everybody loves video and a whole lot of people have long commutes or just sitting around time everyday. There are Personal video players out there but none of them are selling the way that an apple PVP would sell. When people realized that they could have all there favorite tv shows with them everywhere it would sell. The only downside is that when apple starts thers iShows for video content it will mean that whoever is the RIAA for video will start suing the people who trade video over the internet too.
One thing at a time. Everything apple is doing is fueled by the success of the ipod. The next logical step is video. They came out with that ipod photo which is basically for people that are either obsessed with photos or don't know what to do with money, but everybody loves video and a whole lot of people have long commutes or just sitting around time everyday. There are Personal video players out there but none of them are selling the way that an apple PVP would sell. When people realized that they could have all there favorite tv shows with them everywhere it would sell. The only downside is that when apple starts thers iShows for video content it will mean that whoever is the RIAA for video will start suing the people who trade video over the internet too.
"Until then, it's all Rio for me."
Ah, but Apple doesn't care if you buy one. You're in a relatively small minority of people more interested in feature set rather than the total experience of owning an iPod (equal parts ease of use, fashion, etc.). They're more interested selling one to my mom than you.
Apple doesn't need to match the features of the Rio now or ever. If they did, they would have already.
Boo Hoo.. "can we go 24 hrs w/o an Apple story?"
The website is called Engadget.. Hate to break it to you, but Apple pretty much dictates how people interact with home-based technology... From the Mac, to the Newton, to the iPod, to the Powerbook..Apple has shown the way... It only makes sense that people are curious what the next 5 years is going to look like..
Note Alphamosaic is actually Broadcom -- it was acquired last September.