Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Chairboy on January 08, 2007, 11:18:46 AM
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The interest about tomorrow's keynote speech by Steve Jobs seems to be at a really high level. It's two hours long instead of 1:30, Jobs has invited friends and family to attend, a first as far as I know. There was a bunch of extra A/V equipment delivered to Moscone where it's taking place, beefier looking than usual.
Apple has banners hanging up that are 16x9....
My guesses:
It'll be a 16x9 iPod along with a syncing media dock that's a PVR and has component out to the TV.
The iTV thing from a couple months ago will turn out to have been clever misdirection to draw attention away from any TV related Apple patents, and instead people will be able to get natively portable TV shows. Like TivoToGo, but easier and better, as is the Apple modus operandi. Since TivoToGo for Mac is being announced tomorrow, it'd be perfect 'legacy support' for people who already have a Tivo, but will also serve as a marketing tool to go to the 'native' one shot media dock that will keep their iPods synced up with current TV shows.
Oh, and a quick guess about:
1. Why it's 1/2 hour longer
2. Why there is extra A/V equipment
and
3. Why Jobs has invited friends, assuming it's not to announce retirement:
A: Live musical performance tied into a special branding version of the iPod, ala the U2 black one from a few years ago. This time, maybe the Beatles iPod, with Sir Paul McCartney and maybe Ringo performing onstage in concert with a Beatles edition iPod that's a 'member of the group'.
Imagine:
Dark stage, carefully placed spotlights on the two performers, each sitting on a stool with a microphone, and a third stool carrying the iPod, mounted to the newly announced media center and providing the a video montage of the dead Beatles on an overhead screen.
The iPod is also providing a studio remastered track of Lennon and Harrison singing that the two surviving Beatles are performing with. It will be one last performance, in a sense, a Beatles Reunion....
The crowd goes wild. The music fills the amphitheater, and around the world, news flashes.
Then the iPod suddenly says 'Do Not Disconnect' and stops playing music.
McCartney tries to reset it with a safety pin he carries. "It's all right folks, I do this all the time with my own iPod."
And somewhere, the technician who set up the Windows 98 box that blue screened on Bill Gates during CES looks up from scavenging through a dumpster, feeling a quick shiver of happiness before returning to the daily chore of finding something edible among the leftovers of a mid-town Seattle restaurant.
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Hopefully something about how iPod's are totally inferior to Creative Labs MP3 and MPEG4 players.
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That must be why they have 70+% of the market share, heh.
I don't have an iPod anymore, I got a Kanguru 512MB that works fine, but the user interface... jesus wept. It's terrible. The iPods may cost a premium (I think it's between 10 and 15%) but the UI is that elusive mix of simple and powerful.
To listen to music on my Kanguru, I turn it on. wait 5 seconds for the display to stop showing the little sailing ship, then I select MP3 from the features. Wait another 3 seconds for the first MP3 to show up (doesn't save the position I was last at inside the song, but sometimes saves the position in the playlist I'm in), then press play and wait a couple seconds for it to start. It takes forever to move through tracks too, not like the iPods.
My niece got an iPod for X-Mas and wanted help putting music on it. We really just had to use iTunes, without spending time monkeying around, that seemed to be the only practical way to do it, and I don't like iTunes. I wish it was more like my 1st gen iPod or my Kanguru in that I could just copy stuff onto it from Explorer, but... meh.
So, cons: Slightly higher price. Some features not implemented (like the iPod Shuffles that don't have FM radio even though the chipset supports it). Looks kinda like a suppository for an Elephant.
Pros: Easy to use, more accessories, iTunes Store (they really have the whole 'buying electronic music and video' thing done right, or at least as right as it can be in the current legal atmosphere). Did I mention easy to use?
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I've got a 40 gb RCA that into which, about once a month, I just dump my whole music folder into. I have taken the time to organize the folder so that it is easy to navigate and the RCA has a decent interface. I can access any song in a 35 gb folder within about fifteen seconds give or take. The iPod is very slim and pretty but I just can't get past the whole iTunes thing.
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Asides from them adding space and gettnig smaller...I havent seen much "innovation". Accessories are still really expensive, some things you'd think they'd include in that price.
We'll see.
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There are rumors of a 10" powerbook.
The only thing i truly hate about Norway is that Sony does not sell their computers here. I think we are the only country on the planet were you cant get them. I would really like one of those tiny 11" Vaios but a tiny powerbook can do the job just as well i suspect :)
The coolest thing would be if Apple could re-launch a very updated "Newton".
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Audio quality on par with the UI/ergos/aesthetics.
5 or more bands of EQ to replace those crap presets.
Better notes, if not proper ebook support.
A full widescreen, or even tactile widescreen across the whole front face would blow my socks off.
iTunes is no big deal when you consider how much the alternative programs reduce your dependency on it.
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Originally posted by Nilsen
The coolest thing would be if Apple could re-launch a very updated "Newton".
Absolutely... my MP-130 is getting long in the tooth
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Originally posted by Holden McGroin
Absolutely... my MP-130 is getting long in the tooth
You have one that works?
I never did get my hands on one, but one of my friends did and i drooled over it for a long time.
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I bought it new and used it ever since.
I get flak from IPaq and bluetooth users, but I still like the newton better. When I show them that I can actually write on the screen and the recognition puts it into text that amazes most of them.
Then they show me e-mail and color photos, and MP3, and .... well who needs that stuff anyway?
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Well Holden... not quite a new Newton, but still cool as heck
http://www.apple.com/iphone/