It's apparent that Apple's push into the living room is directly tied to the iPod. It started out by being just a music device, and the best music device at that. in my opinion it eliminated all the bottlenecks that current technology was meant to do away with. I would nt be surprised if the idea for the iPod stemed from the frustration of waiting for developers such as SONY and Creative,etc to exploit the technologies available in the market (MP3s, laptop hard drives, tiny n powerful processors, quicktime, firewire).
At first i really wondered why the name 'iPod', why no 'iMusic', or something pretaining to music. I remember rumours of an Apple branded digital lifestyle device for video, etc...that would be Apple's competitor to the XBox/PS2's push into the living room.....the Apple device would be able to handle all your media needs the way those Windows media PCs claimed they would. I'm willing to put money on the fact that that rumoured device is the iPod..... Apple obviously wasnt going to give consumers, Music, Photos and Movies all in one shot that problem domain is immence, wha with licencing from the RIAA and MPAA. But now with the iPod photo, you connect that Apple device to a display and voila, share music and photographs, pretty soon Apple will come out with a software package and DRM policy for you to rip your DVDs to MP4s onto your iPod and be able to hook em upto a TV/projector/whatever.After all theyre YOUR movies, right ?i dont know how they will make the DRM take into account blockbuster rentals, etc, but it didnt seem to bother RIAA that you could borrow your friends' CDs and rip em, right ?
It's going to be pretty sweet when the iPod reaches that level of simplicity for your media.
Another thing that's been playing on my mind recently about the iPod is the basic assumption that makes an iPod an iPod....that is, it's a portable media PLAYER.
here's a pretty far out idea to consider:
Take the main menu of the iPod will contain, Audio, Photos, Movies. Audio takes you to your current iPod 'Music' menu, with a 'new recording' menu-item at the bottom. select it...hit the center button and start n stop recording.
For recording pictures & Movies, Apple could develop an addon ala iSight. turn the clickwheel clockwise to 'zoom in' or counterclockwise to 'zoom out', the center button being used to record/pause recoding audio/stills/video as chosen in the iPod's main menu. The colordisplay on the iPod obviously being used as a viewfinder for taking photographs or shooting video. Of course it would be awesome if Apple could just shorten the current iPod, add a lens and microphone at one end , give it a basic 3.2MP camera and use that to take photos and videos.
So all your recoding and sharing can be done with this device that fits in your pocket. i dont think it's too far off from what Apple plans for the iPod, but i think it will take at least 5 years before they get to the point where audio, photos and movies are treated just the same by an iPod. Obviously, they will now improve the photo aspects of the iPod, perfect that and then tackle video. I wouldnt be surprised if Apple is already negioating with the MPAA and publishing houses to develop a DRM for MP4s that can be played back on an iPod.
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