Rob Garrett - Blog » IPOD

Apple Video IPOD – A Money Spinner?

Rob Garrett — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 20:04:00 +0000

I had the pleasure of meeting up with my good friend, and business savvy
colleague this weekend – Anton. Over breakfast, we got chatting about
Apple’s plans for the video IPOD. Anton remarked that the
video IPOD currently does not offer a fast forward or rewind feature
when watching videos (insert shocked look on Rob’s face here). What is
with that?

I understand that Apple wants to make their IPOD interface as compact
as possible, but it surely not at the expense of typical functionality,
expected by the user? I understand the lack of DIVX video format
support, and that ripped DVDs will not play on the new IPOD, because of
copyright reasons. However, making the user watch movies from start to end
without being able to replay or skip parts of the video is a little
obnoxious, in my opinion. The following post on Engadget confirms our discussion:

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000150063278/

Anton believes that the lack of in-video navigation is part of a
bigger ploy by Apple to force users to watch advertisements in subsidized TV
shows, which are speculated to be available on video IPOD, via iTunes,
at a later date. Here’s how he put it:

1. Apple releases an IPOD with video support, but no fast forward or rewind feature.
2. Music videos are available on iTunes for a $1.99.
3. TV shows will soon be available (especially if S.Jobs makes his deal with ABC).
4. Advertisement for Apple products will creep into downloaded video content.
5. Users will become frustrated and drop their Apple IPOD for another product.

As I see it, this scenario can go one of two ways: Either Apple will prevail – users will
accept larger video downloads packed with ads, and Apple’s sales will
boost as a result. Or, users will become frustrated with the inability to rewind
missed content, and video IPOD sales will take a slump – forcing Apple
to rethink the money making scheme.

Personally, I think all those
users watching porn on the video IPOD
will quickly get tired of not
being able to skip to the juicy parts. I’ll not be buying a video
enabled IPOD any time soon – I am quite happy with just my music on the
move for now.

Smart Playlists – “Live Updating” on IPOD

Rob Garrett — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 23:21:00 +0000

So, In iTunes, I have created a few smart playlists – playlists that update on specific criteria – and set the live updating
flag so each playlist is updated as contained songs are played (my
playlists contain the least recently played 100 tracks). Only
problem is that the live updating feature doesn’t appear to work on my
IPOD.

A little Google searching found me a page on the Apple web site, where
Apple admits breaking this feature with the June ’05 software update.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301910

New IPOD (well nearly new)

Rob Garrett — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 07:38:00 +0000

I decide that it was time that I caught up with the rest of the western
world and buy myself an MP3 player. I have an extensive MP3
collection (and a large CD collection). At home and the office I
can take advantage of my MP3 collection, but up until now I could only
play CD’s in the car. That has all changed now with the
introduction of a new IPOD into my family of consumer electronics.

I would have liked an Archos
but the price tag of these are little beyond my price range, so I
plumped for the IPOD. I was looking for a device with plenty of
space to store most (if not all) of my music collection, and am not too
worried about pictures or movies on the go, so the IPOD was a good
fit. In the effort to save yet more more expense, I purchased my
40GB 4G b/w version on EBay for a nice price.

I’m in the process of copying over CD’s from my collection using
ITunes – not the best music manager in the world, but since it is the
only software that supports IPOD, I have little choice in the
matter. I’ve mostly used the player in the car, and after
fiddling with the sound settings on both IPOD and in-car-stereo, I have
managed to get the sound output just about right (well as right as one
can, using a cassette adapter – I’ll perhaps check out the ITrip later).

I am thrilled with my new player, but for those of you wondering – I am
not selling out Microsoft to join Apple. I’ll be sticking with
Windows until the oceans run dry ;)