Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

rstevens · Sep 23, 2002, 12:10 PM

wouldn't it be a dream if there was a flashcard reader that connected to the ipod's firewire port and allowed one to download a card full of photos to the pod?

just thinkin'

spiky_dog · Sep 23, 2002, 03:19 PM

Well, flashcard readers do come in Firewire flavors (I have a fw cf reader, for instance), and fw devices can talk directly to each other, iirc, so that dream is not that unreasonable.

ponyfizz · Sep 24, 2002, 07:50 PM

I've been trawling many forums to see if this is possible without Apple updating the firmware. It seems that the only way this will happen is if Apple ALLOW it to happen.

I don't see why they won't do it. I have this large hard-drive on my iPod that I can't store my digital photos on!!!

Come on Apple give us some help here and make it a real DIGITAL HUB, not just a bunch of separate devices to connect to my Mac.

CatOne · Sep 24, 2002, 10:20 PM

Originally posted by ponyfizz:
I've been trawling many forums to see if this is possible without Apple updating the firmware. It seems that the only way this will happen is if Apple ALLOW it to happen.

I don't see why they won't do it. I have this large hard-drive on my iPod that I can't store my digital photos on!!!

Come on Apple give us some help here and make it a real DIGITAL HUB, not just a bunch of separate devices to connect to my Mac.

I don't want my iPod to be a digital hub. I don't want a slot for a CF reader that adds *anything* to the size. What good are the pictures on the iPod anyway? As storage when you fill your CF card but before you can get back to your PC?

I want a small, light, portable MP3 player with mad ass capacity and convenience playing songs.

If you want something massive, ugly, heavy, gnarly, there's that big brick MP3 player thingie (forget who makes it... Diamond?). Blecch.

-B

ponyfizz · Sep 24, 2002, 11:05 PM

Originally posted by CatOne:

I don't want my iPod to be a digital hub. I don't want a slot for a CF reader that adds *anything* to the size. What good are the pictures on the iPod anyway? As storage when you fill your CF card but before you can get back to your PC?

I want a small, light, portable MP3 player with mad ass capacity and convenience playing songs.

If you want something massive, ugly, heavy, gnarly, there's that big brick MP3 player thingie (forget who makes it... Diamond?). Blecch.

-B

Please read my post again.

The iPod would be EXACTLTY the same as you have it with all of the features you love. This would only be a software enhancement that you don't have to access if you don't want to.

All that I would be doing is plugging in a Firewire card reader to transfer digital photos. All that I want is for the iPod to recognise the device so I can transfer the photos to store them. I don't want to view them but just transfer them when I get back to my Mac.

While I could have a pocket-full of memory sticks when I am away from my Mac for a couple of weeks taking photos, why shouldn't I be able to store those photos on the giant hard-drive (iPod) in my other pocket?

This would enable me to take as many photos as I wish with my digital camera.

The "digital hub" I was referring to was Apple's current marketing campaign of using the Mac as a digital hub, not turning the iPod into some sort of hub. I agree that the iPod's look and current connections should be left as they are.

G4ME · Sep 25, 2002, 03:13 PM

doesn't their new marketing plan consits of wasted girls and chicks that dig golf

Hooooonk! Honk!

ygrec · Sep 29, 2002, 04:55 PM

Oh yeah.

I'm looking for a solution before December on this one. I'll be travelling without my ibook for 5 weeks and want to store many many many pictures without buying expensive ugly, heavy storage devices. Anyone have alternate suggestions on hardware solutions?

Thanks.

Originally posted by ponyfizz:

Please read my post again.

The iPod would be EXACTLTY the same as you have it with all of the features you love. This would only be a software enhancement that you don't have to access if you don't want to.

All that I would be doing is plugging in a Firewire card reader to transfer digital photos. All that I want is for the iPod to recognise the device so I can transfer the photos to store them. I don't want to view them but just transfer them when I get back to my Mac.

While I could have a pocket-full of memory sticks when I am away from my Mac for a couple of weeks taking photos, why shouldn't I be able to store those photos on the giant hard-drive (iPod) in my other pocket?

This would enable me to take as many photos as I wish with my digital camera.

The "digital hub" I was referring to was Apple's current marketing campaign of using the Mac as a digital hub, not turning the iPod into some sort of hub. I agree that the iPod's look and current connections should be left as they are.

m4rtin · Oct 1, 2002, 01:27 AM

I had the same thought too.
What an excellent way to store images whilst 'on the road'.

Please, please make this happen...

iMacBliss · Oct 1, 2002, 08:30 AM

Originally posted by m4rtin:
I had the same thought too.
What an excellent way to store images whilst 'on the road'.
Please, please make this happen...

The "store images" feature would be so natural for the iPod, so obvious... Why hasn't Apple implemented it since the beginning?

GORDYmac · Oct 1, 2002, 04:40 PM

Instead of posting here, give Apple some feedback. This is probably my most requested feature. I took over 600 photos on vacation a few months ago, and wasted time driving to the hotel to download pics over USB to my iBook. I wished my iPod had that capability, so I've given Apple that feedback every since then. Everyone has to let Apple know, not MacNN.

http://www.apple.com/contact/feedback.html

MickS · Oct 2, 2002, 08:59 AM

I'm not sure about this being that useful. You'd have to carry about a firewire card reader. Given that memory cards are getting larger and cheaper it would be simpler just to carry those around.

For example I have a 4 mega-pixel camera and shoot at the highest resolution, highest quality JPEG images. I get 120-130 images on a 256MB CF card. Two CF cards is sufficient to get me through the time I'm away from my laptop.

What would be better would be a camera with a firewire port so that you could transfer the images from the camera.

ponyfizz · Oct 2, 2002, 10:00 AM

Originally posted by MickS:
I'm not sure about this being that useful. You'd have to carry about a firewire card reader. Given that memory cards are getting larger and cheaper it would be simpler just to carry those around.

For example I have a 4 mega-pixel camera and shoot at the highest resolution, highest quality JPEG images. I get 120-130 images on a 256MB CF card. Two CF cards is sufficient to get me through the time I'm away from my laptop.

What would be better would be a camera with a firewire port so that you could transfer the images from the camera.

I'm will be away from my Mac for two weeks next month and I will definitely be taking more than a couple of hundred photos. It is probably not much use to you as you have a laptop but for me, knowing that I am limited in the number of photos I can take really takes away the benefit of digital photography. Yeah, I can stock up on Memory Sticks but why can't I just buy a Firewire card reader and be over with it.

While I don't use it, my camera has a TIFF image feature which takes up around 10Mb. This is a feature I'm sure some professionals would use and obviously they would fill a card pretty quickly.

Carrying around a firewire card reader is a small price to pay to be able to have the storage capacity of the iPod available.