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Excitement Building Over New Apple Products
by , 9:15 AM EST, December 28th, 2005
Interest is high in anticipation of new consumer electronic devices that will roll out though 2006, but the buzz isn't around Sony or Palm. This year, it's all about Apple. The Mac and iPod juggernaut has strong lead in the consumer electronics market, and that's not about to change, according to All Headline News.
Apple released success after success in 2005, starting with the iPod shuffle and Mac mini, leading on through to the iPod nano, video capable iPod, video downloads at the iTunes Music Store, and the Front Row iMac G5 with remote control.
Richard Doherty, The Envisioneering Group analyst, noted "In the consumer electronics world, there's always talk now about Apple, the way people used to talk about Sony."
Looking to 2006, rumors abound about iPods with wireless Internet connections and bigger screens, TiVo-like Mac mini home entertainment systems, wide-screen iBooks, and more.
Some new product announcements are likely to be made at January's Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Apple CEO Steve Jobs will take center stage on January 10 for the Expo's main keynote, where he may surprise us with a traditional "one more thing" announcement about something new.
Macworld Expo is one of the largest Apple, Mac, and iPod related expos in the world. It runs from January 9 through January 13, 2006, at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. More information about the expo and events is available at the Macworld Expo Web site.
Observer Comments
Wed Dec 28, 2005 11:27 pm Subject: Wireless iPod
Only a problem during the first load when an entire library is being moved onto the device. After that, the syncs are incremental and relatively small. Having both FW and USB iPods in my household I can tell you form personal experience that this is much ado about nothing (unless you don't have USB 2, in which case it may be time to upgrade your machine, but that is a discussion for another thread...which has been done already) Functionally, FW400 and USB 2.0 are comparable as to be imperceptably different.
Fri Dec 30, 2005 7:51 am Subject: Real data, for a change
QuoteGuest wrote:
I can't see the value of the iPod anymore (5G, video iPod, i'm looking in your direction), period. What's the point of trying to fill 30GB or 60GB if you're forced to do it over USB?
I'm glad I bought my 4G iPod when I did.
It would help if people knew what they were talking about. If you're talking about using USB 1.1 to sync an iPod, then, yes, it is very slow. However, USB 2 is just as fast as FireWire 400. Now, before someone stamps their feet, turns red in the face, and throws a temper tantrum, DO AN ACTUAL TEST. Yep. Be scientific. Sync exactly the same stuff with FireWire and USB 2. Have you done this? If you haven't, don't make such statements.
Oh, and, yes, I've done just such tests. I have a 20 GB 3G iPod, which syncs with FireWire 400, and a 30 GB 5G iPod, which uses USB 2. I did several tests by, first, syncing both iPods to the same library, then adding files to the iTunes library and re-syncing, using a 1.25 Ghz 22-inch G4 iMac with FireWire 400 and USB 2.0. There were no other applications running at the same time.
I used a George Carlin CD (i hour, 57.7 MB) for one test and two audiobooks (total 13:40:18, 94.2 MB) for another. I launched iTunes, turned on the iPod, then plugged it in at a time mark. Here are my results for the audiobook test, for example:
FireWire 3G USB 2 5G
iPod showed up on desktop 0:08 0:10
Update started 0:15 0:15
Update finished 0:29 0:28
within the accuracy of measurement, these are the same. The results for the Carlin CD were the same, as well.
Does anyone else have similar tests they could share?
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