Interesting. Rumor sites were reporting this last week. Now "analysts" are touting it.

Is that how analysts work these days? See what the rumor sites are saying and then hawking it as the next trend?

For the longest time, I have been telling people that I want a device that will allow me to get online in wifi areas, and serve as my iPod. The iPhone is close, but is Apple going to make me 'hack' the system to get the device I want? I just don't see paying $60 a month for something that I can get for free over wifi.

You guys don't think that they are going to enable the safari browser in the upcoming iPods? I sure wish that they would. That would be my dream pocket device.

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Intruder wrote:
Interesting. Rumor sites were reporting this last week. Now "analysts" are touting it.

Is that how analysts work these days? See what the rumor sites are saying and then hawking it as the next trend?

Right, because this is such an audacious prediction that he could only have copied it from the rumours sites. It's not like it's obvious and that everybody already thought the same thing.

Intruder, that's all analysts have ever done. Traders often don't have time to troll the rumor sites, so they rely on over paid people who are essentially news agregators.

First guest post: Not sure why I didn't think of this before, but you got me thinking about the end goal of OS X on iPods. What's the point that they are shooting for? You're talking about a more advanced standalone device with Wifi. Sounds an aweful lot like a PDA. And we all know what happened to those once PDA's with integrated phones came out. I'm starting to wonder if the end result is the eventual demise of the standalone iPod once storage capacities are in line. At least the higher end models. I could still see a market for the shuffle for sure.

The iPod is one of the 4 pillars of Apple that Steve Jobs made in his employee speech. And there are no plans to do away with it. Not everyone wants to be locked into a phone plan. More likely AT&T will allow a version of the iPhone to giver users the ability to not select a data plan. WiFi will still work of course.

The equivalent of the current iPod video will have Internet capabilities over WiFi and it will have iChat. Why? Because Apple will be unrestricted in comparison to the carrier hold on the iPhone (which is why there is no iChat). Carriers make money via SMS. If iChat was on the phone, AT&T would lose some significant revenue. Coming out with iChat on the iPod will put pressure on carriers to allow that feature added to the iPhone.

By not including Internet, Apple could alienate a large number of customers.

I understand that you want such a device and I'm sure such a thing might come to pass initially while Apple develops their long term goal. I understand that you don't want to be tried down to a cellular contract and therefor you think many others feel the same way. But how do you explain the disappearance of PDAs?

People will have forgotten the 4 pillar speech long before this all comes to pass. There are many unknowns that Apple will have to discover along the way. You're talking about the here and now and I'm just pondering the long term.

The next ipod should have web and email abilities like the phone. They should not hold the technology back. Just my .02.

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Biff wrote:
Sounds an aweful lot like a PDA. And we all know what happened to those once PDA's with integrated phones came out.

Do we? I'd instantly buy an iPod with Wi-Fi and OS X. My main complaints with Palm's offerings were their crippled apps and outrageously klunky sync system.

A PDA running OS X would *seamlessly* integrate with a Macintosh. Just walk into your house and sync automatically. As it is, I find iPod's contacts and calendar "apps" to be too awkward to navigate to (let alone primitive) for them to be useful to me. But with a dock at the bottom of the screen, I'd get in line for one.

-Matt

but, I hate my cellphone. I carry it out of necessity because I travel for work. Since the iPhone has been announced I told my wife I would buy one of those if it did everything but the phone part.

Maybe that is where the iPod will go.

I agree with Guest above - I carry a cellphone because it makes having a phone useful (I can use it when/where it is needed). However, I really dislike talking on the phone in general. I keep my calls short and to the point; real conversation should be face-to-face.

I would love an Apple device that gave me the web and music. The "Phone" in iPhone is for me the least compelling part.

OK, I will answer my own question. Of course it will. You just run Parallels then install Linux in a virtual machine. Sweet!

Why the hell would the iPod ever need to run OS X or browse the internet? The sole function of any iPod is, by definition, playing music. Anything that detracts from that is inefficient and shouldn't be bothered with. What's next, an iPod that mows the lawn? Changes your baby's diaper?

I'd buy an iPod if it'd change the baby's diapers and mowed the lawn.

(1) the ipod has a distinct value as a storage device - the nexgen disk-based ipods will easily hold 120GB, with room for one more upgrade cycle after that to 160GB (most of the manufacturers of 1.8" products have their cancelled plans for any further increases).

it will be several years yet before the price of flash is economical for large capacities compared to 1.8" HDD.

* apple charges a $100 increment on the iphone just to move from 4GB->8GB (the BOM for the difference is $20 ... or $5/GB).

* the retail cost of the new, dedicated 64GB SDD from korea is nearly $500 (apx $7/GB) - and that is just for a memory device with no display, radio, gpu etc.

* the BOM for an 80GB HDD is apx $100 (which represents 61% of the ipod's price; obviously storage is largest single component in an ipod) ... which is basically in the range of $1/GB.

In other words, a 100GB+ SDD would have a input costs of > $500 just for memory - before including the costs of other componets and for apple's ample margin ... ie a large storage device would have a selling price of at $1000! (not to mention the impact on form-factor: at present korean 64GB sdd are only available as a 2.5" part).

Assuming that moore's law applies to equally to (flash) memory as it does to (logic) processors, then it will take at least another 36 months for Flash sdd prices to reach parity with the prices of 1.8" hdd (and perhaps other 2 years to reach parity with 2.5" hdd). Moreover, during this interval the price of 1.8" hdd will continue to fall as the manufacturers recoup their fixed costs out of what will be the last production cycle for 1.8" technology; on the other hand, as Flash capacity continues to ramp up, sdd will also benefit from falling prices - so the two effects are probably a wash.

Net net, it's still probably a 24-36 month timeframe before 180GB Flash has an oem BOM less than $100.

And bear in mind that as SDD capacities start achieving a practical size, the demand for Flash will skyrocket in laptops - so there might even be supply constraint issues during first couple of years of widescale SDD (of course apple is in the unique position of having alot of leverage with long-term Flash contracts that probably lock in both supply & price on favourable terms -- which is one of the soft entry barriers that its competitors face).

Bottom line: the (video) ipod - ie a HDD storage device - still has release 2 cycles left in it before the iphone could even possibly begin to "compete" with it as a large scale storage device (and yes, i am totally ignoring the appletv paradigm that network bandwidth makes raw physical local storage much less important for media devices).

(2) the ipod has a distinct value as a potential mobile game platform.

recent news suggests that apple has licensed a nexgen gpu from a well-known uk oem (apple already uses its predecessor gpu in the current iphone). one wonders why apple purchased an advanced gpu start-up comapny a few years ago -- i guess this was the plan.

if the ipod uses a hybrid of 1GB sdd and 120-160GB hdd, the impact of gaming on the battery will not be excessive (certainly the iphone is already being positioned distinctly as the superior power management experience for smartphones; hence the delay for 3G).

with a full osx/openGL programming environment available, it is very easily to contemplate the segmentation of the iphone as a hybrid platform;but the ipod/igame/isim/iplay platform as a media-centric platform ... the ipod adds better graphics & the iphone adds better radios, etc.

(3) the ipod has a distinct value as a tighter fit with appltetv - for delivery of HD.

NOTE: the iphone dock does NOT have any video-out (dvi or hdmi).

it is easy to contemplate an enhanced video ipod mid-range model (120GB) that supports processing of output to 720p and a high-end model (160GB) that supports 1080p (assuming the entry-level model at 40GB supports full 480p) -- note: output refers to external large screens not the built-in (albeit much higher res) handheld display.

existing hi-res displays already have higher resolution than the iphone does, so these could be a differentiator for the ipod as a distinctly media device ... we could expect near 300dpi during the remaining 2 product cycles (ie before the transition is finished from two distinct product line - hdd & sdd - into one unified super hybrid product 3 years out).


Conclusion: as long as apple adds core osx features to the ipod -- large display, bluetooth, wifi & infra-red (hello remcon with a touch interface!) -- then there is still heaps of room to differentiate ... many iphone buyers will still want to have an ipod, and vice versa; while there will also be many who only want one of the other - which is OK too.

The distinct aspect of the ipod - storage - can not be challenged by the iphone for at least 2 or 3 years; even then, it is till possible to imagine different aspects being bundled into different product groups (based on the bias or concentration of of their BOM's).

ps: it is a crying shame that apple doesnt seem t recognize the lost opportunity for both iphone & ipod as CBT platforms! .... especially for language teaching! ....

if these platforms had TTS and vox reco (especially for asian languages), apple could make inroads with these embeded versions of osx that it would not (so easily) be able to make if having to sell conventional laptop/desktop version of osx! China & India (and to a lesser degree korea & japan) need to have a clear, compelling value-add for selecting $300 ipods & $500 iphones (given the number of apple design clones already in those markets & their greater committment to wireless).

The teaching/learning function of ipod & iphone is the most under-exploited, multi-billion dollar opportunity - much greater than even niches like nike!

There is no way the iPhone could replace the iPod. Sure the iPhone in itself is a great product, but not everyone needs a cell phone, and not everyone wants to switch over to AT&T to use the iPhone. Also, AT&T is not available in every area of the US, so using the iPhone solely as an iPod will not work for Apple.

I'm one of those rare Palm PDA holdouts: I own a Palm TX that I love, which is Palm's equivalent of the iPod device many of these posts seem to be longing for -- a combination PDA and wide-screen media player for both music and video, with a WiFi-enabled web browser and email program. It also runs thousands of 3rd party applications, utlities, games, etc. It does everything the iPhone does without the phone part. I prefer to have my cell phones be tiny and separate from my PDA. I replace my phones every year or two, but expect to keep my PDA's for much longer than that. Of course the Palm OS is no where near as elegant or user-friendly as the Apple OS.

If a new iPod came out with everything the iPhone has, but without the phone part, I'd be first in line to buy one. I do agree that it should include WiFi Web access and Email capablilites to be the "perfect" media device. I just don't want to be forced to pay a monthly fee to have those capabilities.

Besides chat capablilties, another wish-list item would be the ability to purchase music and videos directly from the iTunes website to the iPod, without requiring a computer to sync with. Wouldn't THAT be nice!

Oh, I totally agree about the T|X. What a sweet little device. By keeping it separate from the phone, it allows you to take your phone to the beach or the gym where you might not want your $300 or $600 device.

Palm also has its Foleo coming out this summer. That guy's gonna be a category changer.

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Bosco wrote:
Oh, I totally agree about the T|X. What a sweet little device. By keeping it separate from the phone, it allows you to take your phone to the beach or the gym where you might not want your $300 or $600 device.

Palm also has its Foleo coming out this summer. That guy's gonna be a category changer.

The Foleo already came out last month, and has been universally panned. It's a strange machine that runs the Linux OS (not Palm or Window), has no hard drive, does NOT play mulitmedia (movie) files, and costs as much as a laptop ($500) but with only a fraction of a laptop's capablilities. It was actually designed to be a companion to a Treo smart phone with a larger keyboard and screen, mainly to be used to write or edit documents, emails, etc. It's size is unique -- halfway between a PDA and a laptop -- but it has a VERY limited market. It was a real disappointment from Palm. Their 2-year-old TX was their latest and greatest PDA. The company is now mostly known for their popular Treo smartphones, which are looking more and more outdated now in the face of the iPhone and other sleeker smartphones on the market. Palm really needs to come out with something more useful and sexy to avoid a further loss of marketshare. So sad for a company that was once the king of the handheld market.

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Bosco wrote:
Oh, I totally agree about the T|X. What a sweet little device. By keeping it separate from the phone, it allows you to take your phone to the beach or the gym where you might not want your $300 or $600 device.

Palm also has its Foleo coming out this summer. That guy's gonna be a category changer.

The Foleo already came out last month, and has been universally panned. It's a strange machine that runs the Linux OS (not Palm or Window), has no hard drive, does NOT play mulitmedia (movie) files, and costs as much as a laptop ($500) but with only a fraction of a laptop's capablilities. It was actually designed to be a companion to a Treo smart phone with a larger keyboard and screen, mainly to be used to write or edit documents, emails, etc. It's size is unique -- halfway between a PDA and a laptop -- but it has a VERY limited market. It was a real disappointment from Palm. Their 2-year-old TX was their latest and greatest PDA. The company is now mostly known for their popular Treo smartphones, which are looking more and more outdated now in the face of the iPhone and other sleeker smartphones on the market. Palm really needs to come out with something more useful and sexy to avoid a further loss of marketshare. So sad for a company that was once the king of the handheld market.