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PookJP · Oct 23, 2001, 03:36 PM

... the iPod were 100% PC compatable and had USB ports. It would essentially eliminate the need for a CD-R/ZIP in terms of portable data storage. iPod is small enough to carry around in a computer bag, is capacious enough to hold ample music, and is cheap enough if one takes into account the price of portable CD-RW drives and disks. Imagine working on your iBook, putting your files onto the iPod, then transferring them to your friend's PC. Let's hope the Rev B comes out damn soon, or this tiny whale is going to be belly up in no time flat.

- Pook

PookJP · Oct 23, 2001, 08:08 PM

Seriously.

Oct 24, 2001, 02:14 PM

Great point, man. I'm with you 100%.

Immortal K-Mart Employee · Oct 24, 2001, 02:15 PM

It is been out for a year, it is called the LaCie pocket Drive.

PookJP · Oct 24, 2001, 05:35 PM

K-Mart should be out of business by now.

Jerommeke · Oct 24, 2001, 05:50 PM

usb is tooooooooo sloooo-o-o-o-o-oooooowww

[/LIST]

Oct 24, 2001, 06:01 PM

Originally posted by Jerommeke:
<STRONG>usb is tooooooooo sloooo-o-o-o-o-oooooowww

[/LIST]</STRONG>

It's plenty fast enough for its intended purpose, which is as a universal serial bus for low-bandwidth peripherals such as printers, keyboards, mice, scanners, PDAs, and so on and so forth. It was meant to replace the aging serial port, PS2 ports, joystick port, printer port, and Mac equivalents of these ports.

Unfortunately, it has also been used as a port to communicate with external storage devices, webcams, and other bandwidth-intensive devices, which USB was never intended to support in the first place. For such devices, standards such as IDE, SCSI, Firewire or USB 2.0 are far more appropriate.

I consider an mp3 player a low-bandwidth device. Nobody loads up 1000 new songs every time they go out, and picking 20-30 songs for a specific trip takes more time than uploading those songs through USB.

Nebagakid · Oct 24, 2001, 06:18 PM

word

jguidroz · Oct 24, 2001, 08:14 PM

Of course iPod isn't just for mp3s, it's also for data. So say you need to go somewhere and only add a few mp3s to your list, but need to put 1gb of data also on your iPod. This is where firewire comes in.

vvedge · Oct 25, 2001, 12:08 AM

You want a USB mp3 player that big...
http://www.mp3shopping.com/english/nomad_jukebox.htm

enjoy... enjoy waiting for hours trying to even get anything onto it...

While iPod owners are out and about with their 5 gig speed demons...

USB... you've gotta be kidding...

PookJP · Oct 25, 2001, 09:54 AM

vvedge,

I'm not quite sure what the confusion is for you. iPod could have both! This would allow older Mac users to connect to iPod, and if/when the PC port comes along, more PC users access. It's not like USB is an uncommon technology today, Apple could add it at very little cost.

Let me make this more clear to you: I have a USB-only iBook 366 and am quite interested in iPod. I can not use it, so I will not buy it. I'm not alone, either.

Keep Firewire for those who have it, and add USB for the rest of us.

- Pook

PookJP · Oct 25, 2001, 09:56 AM

One more thing-

It's not as is there aren't portable USB harddrives out there. What do you think? Companies are making these products and no one is buying them? That's obviously not the case, so there is definitely a market for small, portable, USB-only harddrives.

-Pook

Oct 25, 2001, 01:58 PM

Originally posted by jguidroz:
<STRONG>but need to put 1gb of data also on your iPod. This is where firewire comes in.</STRONG>

They make CDRW drives for that purpose.

A CD-based mp3 player + 24x CDRW drive + one year's worth of CDRs and CDRWs = STILL costs less than an iPod.

What was Apple smoking?

Jerommeke · Oct 25, 2001, 05:53 PM

I guess it would be likely too if the iPod had the ability to handle smoke signals