# It's HERE: iPod



## ScottW (Oct 23, 2001)

Hmmm... no details yet, something about a MP3 player with a hard-drive... not impressed yet... but haven't seen it either.


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## ScottW (Oct 23, 2001)

Apple introduces iPod, a digital audio player (MP3, MP2) with a 5GB hard drive (1000 songs). 20 minute skip protection. FireWire-equipped, first such music player.

10 hour battery, lithium-polymar ("most advanced battery; more advanced than laptop batteries"), takes 1 hour to charge.

Size of a deck of cards: 2.4" wide, 4" tall, 3/4" thick.

Backlit LCD display, playlist support, ID3 tag support, very fast and easy to go through list of songs and playlist. Interfaces with iTunes. 

Backlit LCD display, playlist support, ID3 tag support, very fast and easy to go through list of songs and playlist. Interfaces with iTunes.


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## Jadey (Oct 23, 2001)

www.macminute.com seems to be the only one providing minute by minute coverage.


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## uoba (Oct 23, 2001)

And my girlfriend has just bought me an mp3 player which is bound to be cheaper!

Classic woman move there, should've seen it coming


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## Jadey (Oct 23, 2001)

Backlit LCD display, playlist support, ID3 tag support, very fast and easy to go through list of songs and playlist. Interfaces with iTunes.

(from www.macminute.com)


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## LordOphidian (Oct 23, 2001)

Now we wait for the price to see how bad it will dammage my bank account


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## FaRuvius (Oct 23, 2001)

How on earth is this a <b>"breakthrough digital device?"</b>

I certainly hope there is more to it than this.

FaRuvius


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## ScottW (Oct 23, 2001)

I think its a neat idea... not sure why Apple had to be the first with this... I think we can say that our expectations was not meant. Of course... I'm sure we will all want one needless to say. 

Now... if it had a broadcaster in it that I can turn it to a certain channel on my stereo (home or car) and it broadcasted through that, now that would be awesome.


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## Jadey (Oct 23, 2001)

I wanna see some pictures of it! Apple's site not yet updated...


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## ScottW (Oct 23, 2001)

I wonder if it ONLY has firewire... and not USB? If it doesn't support USB... then no "Windows" user is going to want it... unless they want to purchase a firewire card.


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## Rhino_G3 (Oct 23, 2001)

> _Originally posted by Admin _
> *I think its a neat idea... not sure why Apple had to be the first with this... I think we can say that our expectations was not meant. Of course... I'm sure we will all want one needless to say.
> 
> Now... if it had a broadcaster in it that I can turn it to a certain channel on my stereo (home or car) and it broadcasted through that, now that would be awesome.  *




I wonder if that's going to be one of job's signature ... "oh yea,  and one more thing" announcements.


 iTunes 2 announced. MP3 CD burning (doesn't convert to AIFF audio CD format), cross fading, equalizer are the three main new features. Free download, available in early November


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## uoba (Oct 23, 2001)

does it look like that nasty rendition thats been posted!


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## LordOphidian (Oct 23, 2001)

A brodcaster would be very cool.

I wonder though, since a 5 gig hd in a mp3 player isn't new, maybe the playlist support is bad ass, some sort of database based system that can sort based on the number of times you have played a song, etc.  I have seen it done before on linux but it would be cool in a hand held device.


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## uoba (Oct 23, 2001)

Niccccce.... free download in early November!

Equalisers and stuff


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## Jadey (Oct 23, 2001)

> iTunes 2 announced. MP3 CD burning (doesn't convert to AIFF audio CD format), cross fading, equalizer are the three main new features. Free download, available in early November



Wonder if this means you won't be able to burn CDs for regular playback in stereos, or if they've added the mp3 format in addition.. ?


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## ScottW (Oct 23, 2001)

> _Originally posted by Jadey _
> *
> 
> Wonder if this means you won't be able to burn CDs for regular playback in stereos, or if they've added the mp3 format in addition.. ? *



I wondered the same thing myself, I am sure they meant to say it has added support for it...


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## ScottW (Oct 23, 2001)

It's NOT CHEAP...

You can view it now at the Apple Store... very cool though!!


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## masternew (Oct 23, 2001)

its gonna be $399


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## yoyo123 (Oct 23, 2001)

iPod info

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APP...a605JOivaFa4Rr1/0.3.0.3.30.7.1.3.1.1.0?462,58


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## uoba (Oct 23, 2001)

on November 10th


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## ScottW (Oct 23, 2001)

Doubles as a Firewire Hard Disk....

That is cool... although....

$299 - 60GB Fireware Drive (external pocket size)

Well, it's good it has more than 1 use.


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## masternew (Oct 23, 2001)

check it out!


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## Rhino_G3 (Oct 23, 2001)

it does look cool though.  better than I expected when I saw that it was an MP3 player


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## Jadey (Oct 23, 2001)

on apple's site from the link provided by yoyo123 it says, "Transfer a whole CD in less than 10 seconds". Must be firewire only.


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## FaRuvius (Oct 23, 2001)

From the Apple Store:

<B>"Transfer an ENTIRE CD in less than 10 seconds"</b>

How is it possible to encode an entire CD in 10 seconds?  It takes 2 - 3 seconds just to spinup the damn thing.


$400?  too much to be really competitive.  The Creative Nomad stores 6 gb for $250.

FaRuvius


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## Red Phoenix (Oct 23, 2001)

They probably mean after encoding the mp3s, is my guess. Wow. How disappointing.


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## uoba (Oct 23, 2001)

the big screenshots of the screens...

doesn't it look like the return of the older systems (6 and 7) on an old classic black and white monitor!!!  Cooooollll


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## ScottW (Oct 23, 2001)

Just as I thought....

A MP3 junkie friend of mine, doesn't have a Mac... said he would buy one... if it supported USB... he said... "Another Apple product support only Macs".

Admin


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## themacko (Oct 23, 2001)

Yeah it's cool .. but hell no am I gonna drop 400 bones on this thing.  _Maybe_ $200 if I were in the market for one ...


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## Jadey (Oct 23, 2001)

Looks like the reaction is generally negative. Let's take a vote:

http://www.macosx.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8173


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## firewall (Oct 23, 2001)

doesn't it seem expensive $399.99 for a mp3 player...

Another mac product price out of the mainsteam..


I am a total mac addict since my first Mac Plus, I upgrade almost every year... and I feel that it is expensive... 

Hmmm unless reprice shortly it won't do much for apple

IMHO


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## fryke (Oct 23, 2001)

I guess you all have to rethink. 400$ might seem too much. But this is really the high end thing. It's all I ever wanted in a MP3 player. Handling the lists in iTunes is great. The display is great. The size of the device is *much* better than any of the harddrive based players Creative Labs has put out. The design is perfect. I love it. I'll buy one. Period.


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## zerologic (Oct 23, 2001)

There will be a market for this product. No other MP3 player does half of what this one does as far as integration with the Mac and certainly none of them are Firewire nor can they *act as a hard drive*.

The product has it's place. Just not in my pocket. $299 maybe. $199, I would have ordered it already.

If you can sell a complete iMac brand new for $499 (in NY/DC) you can sell this thing for $199. Of course you won't make as much per unit, but your unit sales go through the roof.


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## allengoodman (Oct 23, 2001)

Im not impressed at all, I was hoping for something breakthrough but we get an MP3 player that costs more money and less space then the Creative Nomad (closest equivalent I could find). 

Has Apple lost its touch?

. Allen Goodman


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## Red Phoenix (Oct 23, 2001)

I'm still disappointed, but in the end this is what Apple needs. I have no need for an MP3 player, so it's completely useless to me. But it does look like Apple's got simplicity itself with this thing, which is what is needed to boost PCs in general, but Macs in particular.

As for Apple limiting the connection to the FireWire, honestly, why are people upset about this? If you are here, you probably have MacOS X. If you have MacOS X, you have a relatively recent Mac. If you have a relatively recent Mac, you probably have FireWire (that's too many probably's for my liking, but I still think a majority of the people here have FireWire). The point is, most of the people here can use it. Maybe a PC couldn't, but if someone has a PC without FireWire, they're a lot less likely to go out and get a top of the line MP3 player, anyway.

To bad it's called "iPod", though. Wait a minute...does this mean there'll be a PowerPod?


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## allengoodman (Oct 23, 2001)

To my knowledge Apple was trying to accomplish a few goals with this whole digital hub idea . . .

First off they want products that anyone could use (both PC and Macintosh) but the device would be limited to PC users and Macintosh users would get the edge, this causing PC users to look more closely at switching over to the Macintosh platform.

My thoughts? Most PC users dont even have Firewire unless they are doing high-end work (video editing and so on) . . . So what market is there besides Macintosh fans and those few high-end PC users? 

And second they want products that will be breakthrough and will get consumers interested, I will agree that MP3 players were groundbreaking, but that was 3 years ago . . . I dont see an overpriced MP3 player is going to attract any consumer to look more closely at the Macintosh platform . . .

Eh, this is a silly rant, sorry.

. Allen Goodman


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## AdmiralAK (Oct 23, 2001)

I leave for a couple of hours to go to german class and this piece of shite comes out ?? 

This is a disgrace to apple... Boooooooo 


Admiral


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## Jadey (Oct 23, 2001)

From http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/oct/23itunes.html

"New performance enhancements in iTunes 2 allow users to burn audio CDs up to twice as fast as before, and iTunes 2 can now burn and recognize MP3 CDs."

So it can burn regular audio CDs as well as mp3 CDs. *phew*


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## ulrik (Oct 23, 2001)

Admiral, du kannst nicht immer Glück haben


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## allengoodman (Oct 23, 2001)

Ich bin nicht zu wütendem, weil ich mein Mädchen zu der Zeit küßte. . .

. Allen Goodman


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## ksv (Oct 23, 2001)

Oh man! 400$!
You americans shouldn't complain about this price, it's nothing compared to what it will cost here in Norway, including sales tax! OH shit, 4900 NOK + tax=6027 NOK!!! That's 692 $, folks!

I think I'll save that money and buy a G5 instead when it comes


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## Rhino_G3 (Oct 23, 2001)

> _Originally posted by allengoodman _
> *Ich bin nicht zu wütendem, weil ich mein Mädchen zu der Zeit küßte. . .
> 
> . Allen Goodman *




_I am not to furious, because I kissed my girl at the time. ?? _  

of course,  altavista's translater can't be right all the time!   What did you say?


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## beef (Oct 23, 2001)

I dunno what you guys were really expecting or hoping for... (iUFO or something?) but it's the marketing dept's job to hype things up...  they're not gonna say "our competitors make something like this already"

I bought a mp3 player that uses HD sometime ago.  It's Archos Jukebox with 6GB HD.  At the time, the alternatives were: Creative's Jukebox thing, and ThinkGeek's jukebox thing (mentioned in another thread).

I didn't buy the Creative's because
1) it's huge... bigger than most DiscMan... how 'portable' is this, really?
2) my bro works for Creative, and he's yet to say something positive about their products

I didn't buy the other one because
1) it's pretty big
150 x 80 x 26 mm, and Archos Jukebox is 115 x 82 x 34mm.  Yes, I can read numbers.  The one I have is actually a bit fatter an taller (there're 4 rubber like things at the corners, in case you dropped it)
2) the thing has 20GB HD, and it's $499 now, but when I started to look for a mp3 player, neither were out.  Archo's jukebox was projected to be around $300 (I heard the price went up a bit before the release, but the company honored the price for people who made preorders).  I can't quite recall how much this 20GB monster was at the time it came out, but I remember seeing one of the first few units on ebay, and people bidding over $1000 on it.  I believe it was projected to be over $800.  probably had alot to do with the price of 2.5" 20GB drive.  "easily tucked into any palm-sized space" (from their site) but I think they're talking about NBA player sized palms.

When it came time to make my decision I chose Archos because it probably was the smallest, and it was only just a bit more expensive than Creative's (and avoid conflict with my bro).

The Archos one was the smallest overall, but I'm still reluctant to take it out with me unless I have a bag or I'm wearing cargo pants or something with bigger pockets.  So the size of iPod is pretty attractive, at least to me. The others can double as HD also, but but they only have USB.  I do agree that a USB port on it will be nice, not just for data transfer but also as audio out, as more preamps are starting to have USB ports. (Sutherland's 12dAX7 is a tube preamp with USB that supposedly works with Macs, even with OSX).

The price might seem a little high, but it'll come down, just like anything else.  The first (and/or highend) units have to cover R&D ad well as production, I think...  still my recommendation is to wait for reviews by various sources (and maybe user-reviews... tend to be useless though...  it's either pride of ownership or nay-sayers).  I dunno how good the sound is... and it might need a firmware update or two to fix things like volume, bass management, etc...  Well, you can always blame the source, I guess (does it piss you off that some people can't even make decent mp3's?)  When you've replaced the $5 headphones, use your own mp3's and it still sounds like shit... and if fix doesn't come out fast, then I guess that's $400 down the drain...

or you can get Nagra Ares-P  or RCX220. RCX220 is competively priced at $2430... and Nagra is still in business (of course, these aren't just portable audio players... and Nagra makes other products as well...)


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## FaRuvius (Oct 23, 2001)

> _Originally posted by ksv _
> *OH shit, 4900 NOK + tax=6027 NOK!!! That's 692 $, folks!
> *



You guys pay 20% sales tax?   I guess that's the price for universal health care, eh

FaRuvius


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## ksv (Oct 23, 2001)

No, actually we pay 24% sales tax...
But only 12% on food.
But, yes, almost everything is covered by the state; health care, school, etc.


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## beef (Oct 23, 2001)

> _Originally posted by ksv _
> *only 12% on food.*



tax + only + double digit = something's wrong

what other taxes you guys paying?


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## Nachohat (Oct 23, 2001)

Damn, I though 14% was a lot for canadian compared to americans, but damn 24%!!!!!    

I won't complain about the tax anymore, now that I know that there is much worse.


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## aufreak (Oct 23, 2001)

I said it in some other thread, but I thought it may help here - those neodymium earphones don't look (by spec) cheap. beef's $5 estimate I think is probably under by a factor of 15 to 20!

But I want options! I want options! Take away those snazzy earphones and I'll buy the thing for drei hundert.


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## wdw_ (Oct 23, 2001)

Has anybody noticed that the iPod resembles the DVD player icon in Mac OS X upside-down.


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## beef (Oct 24, 2001)

> _Originally posted by aufreak _
> *I said it in some other thread, but I thought it may help here - those neodymium earphones don't look (by spec) cheap.*



from Apple's site
Earphones
Earbud-style headphones with 18-mm drivers using Neodymium transducer magnets
Frequency response: 20 to 20,000 Hz
Impedance: 32 ohms
Sensitivity: 104-dB sound pressure level at 1 mW

well...  I'm almost certain that the only difference you see between the ones Apple supply with iPod and these cheapo headphones that come with other sutffs is the color...  if you look around, everyone of them boast "20-20kHz"... and of course, they all rolloff way above 20Hz... they all have nothing below mid-bass, and harsh mid-high to high...  not that you really 'hear' 20Hz from your music...  about the only advantage these earphones have over quality headphones is the higher sensitivity...  if some company makes one of these small earphones that's as good as advertised (well, I can't really say it isn't, since they don't tell you everything), it would be huge news... really.

considering the retail price for one of the Sennheiser eaphones that has a bit higher sensitivity is $10(and hell, they boast 20Hz-20kHz as well), I'd stick with my guess of $5.

and, continueing with my b*tching on these headphones... they never fit my ears...  I have to push them in and by the time I'm done running or biking or whatever, my ears hurt like hell...  do these actually fit anyone's ears comfortably?

my recommendation is to get replacements if you buy an iPod...

for short hours, I'd recommend something like Sennheiser HD600

for long hours, you can pick up one of the small ones sony makes with soft silicone earbuds... or... since you've spent $400 on portable audio, why not spend another hundred on custom fit silicone ones...

in any case... if there's an Apple store near you (I don't, gah!  ...I kinda doubt CompUSA here will have it either...), you should bring your own headphone to see how iPod sounds...  hopefully, it's good enough and Apple doesn't need to be making firmware updates like Archos did...


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## gerbick (Oct 24, 2001)

bleh.  apple comes out with an mp3 player at the tail end of the mp3 codec life cycle - mp4's coming soon, my JVC DV-Cam already supports it - and they label it as revolutionary.

sad.

and to think... I was waiting to be impressed.
[rant]
guess it will be the same thing with the G5, and anything else in the foreseeable future... Apple really needs to do something revolutionary (like a computer with FireWire internals - hard drive AND SuperDrive!!) and DDR-RAM.  right now... they have a super OS with 10.1, but not the apps that make Apple who they are - where's Photoshop and Quark!? - and then they pair (and I have one) dually 800mhz, with slow PC133 RAM when DDR366 is coming out VERY soon.  They are CHOKING the processor with such a slow memory bus.  

and now this... revolutionary.  indeed.

if it was 2 years ago.

bleh.
[/rant]


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## Solaris (Oct 24, 2001)

What did everyone expect? Jobs to pull a rabbit out of a hat?

It's not a bad piece of kit. Though as I and many others have learned, I won't be buying one 6 months or so (when an updated version with extra bells and whistles is released).


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## symphonix (Oct 24, 2001)

Dammit, there goes this weeks salary. It is very cool, very clever. Only one cable (it recharges over firewire). There just aren't the products out there to compete with this, I don't care what anybody says! I have a Creative and it is a hunk of junk - there is more humm and hiss in the output than my cassette walkman! I will trade it in, for sure.

Most people out there will spend that extra 20-50% to get a REAL CD player as opposed to the plastic-korean-portables that you pick up at the big retail chains. They may not like spending that extra cash, but they'll be happier in the long run. I've had my Yamaha home system for five years now, and in the same time my mum has gone through five - yep, five - K-mart bought stereos.

If this performs as well as the Harmonn Kardonn gear that Apple back, it will be worth every cent.


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## foo (Oct 24, 2001)

/me waits for the breakthrough....


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## ksv (Oct 24, 2001)

> _Originally posted by beef _
> *
> 
> tax + only + double digit = something's wrong
> ...



There are taxes for everything here. On services and transport there are also 24 %. And of course there are 24 % tax on stuff we import too, that has a value over 200 NOK (23 US$). So when I buy stuff on ebay, I always try to keep the price under 22 $... 
There are also tax on salary, of course... About 35-42 $, I think...


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## Crawfish (Oct 24, 2001)

What "breakthrough" are you guys looking For??!!

A 100 gig wireless mp3 player that makes your breakfast for only eight bucks???!!!!!

If it's not buggy and does all that it says, this is the breakthrough!!


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## Dradts (Oct 24, 2001)

The fact is, iPod has some real cool features, it looks cool, and it is from Apple!  

The other side is, that it is waayy to expensive. But its not a piece of shit, like some people in here seem to be saying wit their postings...


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## Snyper M (Oct 24, 2001)

Just to throw in my 2-cents here...

I like many other were at first glance slightly dissapointed by this device.  I mean just seeing mp3 player and a price tag of $400 is a bit of a shock.  However after the dust settled and all the FAQs and tech specs were up...well this thing kicks ass.  Simply trying to buy the aforementioned Toshiba drive off the street would run you about the cost of one of these iPods. And then it's just a tiny HD.  At least here you get an mp3 player and a portable HD.  

What really makes this thing amazing is the Firewire port.  I'm not expert here obviously but reading aroudn a bit has impressed the hell out of me.  There is a plethora of uses for this coupled with the updateable firmware.  Hell, all DV camcorders, and many professional Digital cameras are  Firewire eqquipped.  The possibility of being able to link these devices to an iPod for 5gigs of storage in such a small space is amazing.  This would put the IBM microdrive to shame.  Of course there are many more venues to explore wih the Firewire port.  I think one of the first will be recording.  US microphones exist and Firewire is even better at I/O than USB ever will be.  

Couple this with the 10 hour battery life,  conveninet charging, extremely fast transfers (BTW the whole CD transfer thing..wouldn' that simply copy over the wavs already on the cd to accomplish the 10sec "rip"?) 

Anyway, the price of new players are always high, and they always come down.  Thgouh I myself can't afford one right now, although I may cave in, i'm sure holdin out a little while will result in perhpas a bigger HD or at least a lower price.  And of course, Apple will explore all the possibilities they've created with this device.


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## Zapchud (Oct 24, 2001)

Copying a whole CD in only 10 seconds;
copying the MP3's of the CD you have ripped, stored on the mac's harddrive!
100->megabytes!


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## Crawfish (Oct 24, 2001)

Apple is not out to rip us off. They are passing along the cost and adding a little profit just as they do with all of their products and like any good business would do. 

I paid $269 for my 6g Nomad Juke box and I love it. But, the upload/dwnload speeds are USB and kinda slow. It's also heavy and has a quirky user interface as well as a small and slow display. It came out on the market for $499 and now you can get the same one for 2 bills. After Christmas these things are gonna drop on the net at least a hundred bucks.


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## free&unmuzzled (Oct 24, 2001)

> _Originally posted by beef _
> *
> 
> tax + only + double digit = something's wrong
> ...



no. millions of citizens without basic healthcare = something's wrong.

you walked right into that one


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