As is tradition in the Mac community, I will dedicate some time and bandwidth to MacWorld speculation. Since we all enjoy those juicy rumors and analysis of what PC users would consider pure insanity.
I should start off by noting that various other news sources have found out that no new Macs are scheduled for the Expo. There were reports of the last iMacs production day being scheduled [Link] but those rumors have yet to be backed up. Odds are at least one of the products will get a revamping before the summer. The iBook looks about ready for a makeover in the next Expo.
The rumors this year are of a video capable iPod [Link] A device the size of an iPod that can play video, and most likely mp3?s. This sounds surprisingly likely. Lets take a look at the facts.
It was announced not to long ago that Apple would be bringing video to the phones of many Japanese cell phone users [Link] So Apple has already been hard at work making QuickTime small and mobile. So the software is there.
Apple?s iPod has recently gotten larger hard drives, which would be needed for holding lots of video. One of the things people love about the iPod is how much it can store. It?s a major selling point. Video will be even more demanding. But it appears Apple has the hardware for that. The next question is the screen. Apple?s iPod doesn?t have a video capable screen. Apple has been working LCD?s into their devices for quite some time, and is considered to have the best LCD displays on the market. The iMac G4 is a beautiful implementation. Of course it wouldn?t be that big. I would conjecture it would need to be at least 4 inches for anywhere near comfortable viewing. I would also assume there will be some sort of port that a standard RCA cable could be hooked up to connect to a regular TV. So odds are it will be larger than the iPod, simply to get the screen size. Unless of course it doesn?t have a screen and is constantly used in with standard televisions.
The big question is what can you do with it? Could it be despite all the controversy in recent news that Apple will be making it capable of copying DVD?s to a digital device. That would open the door to lawsuits and piracy. The advantage would be better battery life than current products [Portable DVD Players]Of course you would easily be able to put your digital movies mastered with iMovie [Link], or if your lucky Final Cut Pro [Link], but that wouldn?t be worth the expense. So Apple, why would someone want one? What can we do with it?
Perhaps QuickTime.com [Link] will be come a hub of content which one can subscribe to for a monthly fee? Perhaps include it in .Mac? That would be quite an expensive product/service for a typical Mac user. At least $399 for the device, then a service, not to mention the need for a high speed connection to use this without going insane.
I?m sure a real nice feature would be to connect it directly to your digital camera and store video and pictures on it. That would be nice. Hook your camera up, download away. Then the pics are all stored on the iPod. A little screen could let you view them, just like a camera does. But there would be much more storage capacity.
In all, the idea is quite interesting. There is a lot of possibility, but a lot of unanswered questions. How can Apple market such a device. Odds are it won?t be cheap, but will it be useful? Will an average Mac user be able to justify the cost? In this simple analysis, I think not, but I can be sure Steve Jobs is chuckling reading all these rumors and speculations.
