Total revamp of iPod line coming in September?
There's no doubt that new iPods are coming in September — the line refreshes about every year, and we're due — but original Digger Kevin Rose seems awfully certain about the details of exactly what that refresh will entail.
According to Kevin, we can expect to see a revamp across the entire iPod Line, including significant price drops to compete with the $199 iPhone. The iPod Touch will get slight cosmetic changes, while the Nano will trade in its current squat form factor and roll itself back to a longer, more rounded case to accommodate a screen with the same proportions as the iPhone.
The notion that the Nano will be getting a screen with the same pixel ratio as the Touch or iPhone is interesting, mostly because a redesign of the iPod Classic to accomplish the same thing is not being mentioned in the same breath. Will September see the death of the Classic line?
That would be a shame: the sixth gen 160GB Classic is my MP3 player of choice, since it's the only one that can actually hold all the music and movies I own... for me, the very point of a portable media player. But there's no denying that hard drive MP3 players are looking increasingly inelegant as flash memory gets cheaper and more expansive: the rebranding of the stock iPod as the "Classic" in an of itself implied an imminent product death. If the Classic isn't killed off this year, it will be next year.
Rose also mentions the imminent release of iTunes 8.0, including "substantial new features." Let's hope one of those features is being able to tell iTunes to store videos on a different drive than the music... my biggest iTunes pet peeve.
All will be revealed in 2 to 3 weeks!
New iPods Coming Very Soon [Kevin Rose]
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I've taken to referring to it as the "hype-pod". Nice ideas, but it's become more a technology fashion statement than a practical device.
John:
My biggest need for the videos is the need to be able to store them on DVD-R's (not hard drives) - yet I'm not holding out hope for such a useful and intuitive feature.
The constant churn of iPods means that the only versions worth buying are the lowest-end or the highest-end models.
@3 or the earlier versions at a reduced price, if you don't feel you have the be the hippest hipster around.
I still think the 5.5G 80GB iPod was the best one made. I use it constantly for a portable movie player with my $2 composite cables. And when I want music, I get to use Rockbox, which is sooo much better that the original firmware.
the rebranding of the stock iPod as the "Classic" in an of itself implied an imminent product death.
not necessarily. "Coca-Cola Classic" is alive and kicking 20 years after "New Coke".
Stupid iTunes upgrade is trying to infect my pc with stupid safari and Bonjour. After I uninstalled safari Itunes stopped working but I just went back to my control panel and restored it. SUCK THAT APPLE.
Opening itunes is a game of "Durrrr, I don't see a drive; whats a drive? I don't see one durrr"
Also I'm mad that my sister has to use my computer for her new Nano because her eMac is 10.3
I was just mentioning to a friend how the Classics had pretty much hit a peak of design, ease of use and elegance. HD+Battery+good OS+easy controls.
But if you want to carry all your data with you, and have it be able to call people, you're out of luck. How come the Ipod touch gets up to 32gb but the iphone doesn't?
We're close, so close...
@Bardfin
That wouldn't really work would it? I mean do you really want your active library to be stored somewhere the application can't access it?
Just remove them from your library and burn the file on to a DVR.
I'm with Not a Doktor. Stop forcing us to download crappy programs no one wants everytime we download ANYTHING BY APPLE.
Hell I wouldn't have iTunes on my computer at all if any other piece of software managed my iPod at least half as well. (Yes I'm aware lots of other programs will do it, but they don't do it well).
oh and before I forget. Does anyone know a way to make iTunes recognise an mp3 as a Podcast without deleting it and re-downloading it through the damn iTunes store? Last time I switched computers the only way I could get my iPod to sync the podcasts was to do this. It really couldn't be that hard could it?
I hope the Classic doesn't get killed, if only because I'm in love with the click wheel/scroll wheel/whatever they're calling it these days. I like being able to put my iPod in my jeans pocket and use the controls anyway - even upside-down and through denim! It's a brilliant design, and you can't do that with a touch screen.
@ Dr Wally.
The reason the iPhone has only 16 GB and the iPod Touch has 32 GB is that the phone only has space for a single flash drive inside. Because the Touch doesn't have all those extra phone elements inside it has room to squeeze in two chips, both of which are 16 GB in size. You could put in a single 32 GB chip into an iPhone, or twin versions into the Touch for a whopping 64 GB of solid state storage, but right now the prices make that unrealistic. Prices will drop, drives will get bigger, and soon we will have even shinier toys.