iPod as a hard drive for a Treo

I'm not sure what you mean by "given the constraints placed on phones since they come under the realm of embedded devices". Please elaborate.
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Embedded devices are generally constrained by small amounts of ROM for the OS, slow(er) processors and low power requirements. In the context of the original quote, adding the capability to support firewire drives/USB 2.0 drives could well be beyond what many embedded devices are able to support. Many of the popular embedded OSes are very primitive, including Palm OS and symbian. This does not mean they couldn't release a version in the future that is huge and feature packed like Windows CE/Pocket PC.

In addition to the limitations of the OS, another constraint is battery life. Look at PocketPC devices and their battery life. Compare that with Palm OS devices. The added complexity costs a lot in terms of battery life. Adding complexity to the OS, especially on an embedded device will usually require more circuitry since every component has to justify it's existence. This will also bulk up the devices. Witness, Pocket PC devices are generally much larger than Palm devices.

However, I do concede that these are problems now but won't be in the very near future when components get shrunk. the conclusion is, and always has been that Apple has nothing to do here. They already have the iPod that doubles up as a hard drive. It is now up to the phone/PDA companies to come up with a device that supports these.
 
If you read the very first post of the thread, you'll see that there never even _was_ the question whether Apple should do something. That was a misunderstanding from those who thought this was another vPod thread in which they could spill "won't happen"...
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
Originally Posted by ElDiabloConCaca

This is something that the cell phone companies themselves would have to tackle, not Apple. The idea is there -- for Apple to start making adaptors for every single cell phone would be silly -- each cell phone company would have to make their own adaptor.
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Ceroc Addict said:
I agree that the major part of the work (adding the port, etc.) should be done by the phone companies. I don't think there should be multiple adaptors at all - I think phone companies should add a firewire or usb2.0 port.
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Right. I wasn't referring to what kind of interface they should use to connect to the iPod... I was referring to the hundreds of different connectors that connect to the phone itself. If you've ever owned more than two different brand cell phones, you'll know all too well that the adaptors that connect to the phone for different things are VERY different, even among similar models.

For example, I can't use any adaptors not specifically made for the 66xx line of Nokia phones, and even then, just because another phone is in the 66xx series doesn't mean the adaptor port on the bottom of the phone is the same.

There are hundreds of different ports on the bottom of phones. Having a way to connect an iPod is easy -- FireWire or USB 2.0. Having a way to connect the phone to the cable is different -- there would be literally hundreds of different "iPod connector" cables for the many, many, many different phones in existance -- sure, the cables would all have either a FireWire or USB 2.0 plug at one end, but what goes at the other end? Answer: any one of a hundred different plugs to be compatible with the hundreds of phones out there... that's too many cables, and that's why I said it should be left completely up to the phone company to manufacture and test that cable.-- each manufacturer should make their own cable.
 
Looking back at the original post I can say one thing.
The disk access speeds on the ipod itself are generally too slow for video performance. I tried to use one as a storage medium for digital VDO editing and cam unstuck due to this prime factor.
The battery life of an ipod is nothing to brag about, a faster HDD with video capabilities would only further drain battery time.
 
What kind of speeds do you get from the iPod? I was under the impression it was pretty much on par with other IDE hard drives.

I doubt you'll need very high transfer speeds either since these are gonna play movies on very tiny screens.
 
Oh, no way! The iPod's hard drive is on par with a low-end notebook hard drive. It is most definitely not suited for any kind of video editing capture or editing.

Most IDE hard drives spin at either 5400 or 7200 RPM, with a few reaching 10,000 RPM. Most notebook drives spin at 4200 or 5400 RPM. RPM speed is directly proportional to the access times of the hard drive. I would venture to say that the iPod hard drive spins at a maximum of 4200 RPM, and wouldn't be surprised it it were much lower than that -- remember, the iPod uses the new 1.8" hard drives -- not the 2.5" drives that notebooks use.
 
Video _playing_ abilities are not quite the same thing as editing/recording... The speed's certainly enough to send, for example, MPEG-4 movies through USB-2.
 
The end result is that the capability is there -- the iPod uses the standard IEEE1394 specification for transferring files to and from the hard drive, AFAIK. If you plug the iPod into a Linux box that supports FireWire hard drives, I'd be willing to bet it would show up as a regular hard drive. That means that companies are free to develop peripherals to the extent that IEEE1394 supports - read and write, which is all a cell phone user would need for movie-playing ability.

The only reason Apple would need to get involved is if a company wanted to make use of the UI or somehow modify the UI of the iPod to suit their peripheral, or tap into some of the extended software of the iPod. Apple doesn't market the iPod as a Jack-of-all-trades device, and as such, shouldn't be sanctioning companies left and right to make peripherals outside of music devices to extend the functionality of the iPod. I'd be willing to bet Belkin made their iPod card reader peripheral without help or intervention from Apple (sure, they probably got the go-ahead from Apple, but that's not helping). And as such, it's pretty much up to the 3rd party whether or not they include the ability to use the iPod as a hard drive with their peripherals. How could Apple help them? Point them to a document on the IEEE1394 standard, which they don't manage?
 
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