Idea for Future Ipod, Not a guess on what the future will bring

[ben7337]

I was thinking about iPods one night and happened across this idea and was wondering what people think of it and if such a thing is well even possible for apple to do in the not so distant future.

Okay so here is my idea. Everyone see the iPod touch and it is cool and all but some people say it is big and just a neutered iPhone and that it will have to branch off from the iPhone or won't succeed too well, or people say other things. Anyway, what if you shrunk the form factor of the Touch to a 2.8" widescreen as opposed to 3.5" This would be a bit larger than the current iPod Classic screen, yet it would be smaller than the current classic and a bit bigger than the nano I imagine. However why stop there as that is hardly much of an idea. Lets take a note from a cell phone I saw and go dual sided on this baby. It could have like a 1.8" screen with touch wheel on one side and a full body touch screen on the back. There could be something similar to a hold switch that determines the screen that is used for using the iPod and thus the one side would be for music and power saving and the other for multimedia, pda, etc kind of things. Then just to try and make it special, lets add a 2 megapixel camera on the side with the click wheel near the bottom and have the other side with a nice 2.8" screen to be used to view the image you want to take a picture of, similar to those current cameras with large touch screens and there would obviously be a hold button to turn the camera button on and off. One last note is that this iPod would be like .3"-.5" thick depending on necessities for battery life, however OLED technology might help, and if it isn't obvious there would be flash memory in there, not a HDD.

In essence this tries to tie up many functions of the current iPods/iPhone into one and make an ultimate combined piece of technology. Aside from having like 3 different switches on the side to control features I don't really see this as all that complex.

So what do you guys think? do you like it? is such an idea even possible?

[Surf Monkey]

We've discussed all those ideas. Personally, I don't think they're very likely. It's more probable that iPod Touch will continue to be iPhone Jr. until the two devices virtually merge in terms of feature set and physical form. I don't see them moving away from each other in those areas.

But if there were to be such a change, the main thing I'd want to see is the 3.5 inch screen covering the entire front of the touch. Make the bezel the button and dump the blank space at the top and the space at the bottom where the home button currently is. That alone would make it very different from iPhone. Don't hold your breath though. iPod Touch has one purpose and one purpose alone: to make people want to buy iPhones.

[ben7337]

having looked at the dimensions of the classic I completely see your point. though if the idea of the touch becomes the general future with ipods as that is one of the ways to advance perhaps the nano could have something like a 2.5" or 2.8" screen. should I delete this pointless topic?

[Surf Monkey]

No, keep it open. I'm sure others will have stuff to say.

Personally, I like the idea of the clickwheel on the back of the unit, but I don't think that's going to happen. I'm also not expecting the Nano to get a bigger screen since it wouldn't be very "Nano" if it got any bigger than it is right now.

[XVI]

I could easily see an iPod Touch Nano in a year or two.

[hyroboarder]

Originally Posted by Surf Monkey

iPod Touch has one purpose and one purpose alone: to make people want to buy iPhones.

That's not true.

[XVI]

The iPhone is for people that don't want phones that want a touch screen, there are a lot of people like that.

[espanoliPod]

Originally Posted by XVI

The iPhone is for people that don't want phones that want a touch screen, there are a lot of people like that.

you mean the iPod touch is for people that don't want the phone that want a touch screen? and i agree with surf monkey, one of the purposes of the iPod touch is to get people to buy the iPhone, it's sort of a baby steps thing to it. i would love to see them get rid of the stupid stainless backs (aka scratch magnets) in the future. I thought they were gone for good after the 2g nanos did away with them. it would also be cool for some custom options to really make it your own, like a color library on the apple website that you could pick a color out of for the color of your iPod. if they put like 25 colors in, that would be awesome. an iTunes subscription thing (similar to Rhapsody or Napster to Go) would also be great, but the chances of that ever happening are close to zero.

[kylo4]

Originally Posted by Surf Monkey

iPod Touch has one purpose and one purpose alone: to make people want to buy iPhones.

I second that. Whether you want to believe it or not thats basically iPod Touch in a sentence. "To sell more iPhones".

[bobbit]

I third/forth it.

[splooshie]

touch control sucks. but i second the itunes subscription music.. who ******* cares if you "own" your music or not? and does steve jobs really think people are going to spend 40,000$$ to fill up their ipods????

[studogvetmed]

Originally Posted by splooshie

touch control sucks. but i second the itunes subscription music.. who ******* cares if you "own" your music or not? and does steve jobs really think people are going to spend 40,000$$ to fill up their ipods????

I care if I own my music. I want to continue to enjoy music without having to pay a monthly fee. Sure there are good things about subscription service and there are many people who digest music that is completely welcome to a subscription service, but I am not one of them. I do want to own my music.

Suggesting that it costs $40,000 to fill an iPod is simple FUD. There are many different ways to fill your iPod than .99/song. You can significantly start filling your iPod buying large box sets on sale, discount CDs with 14+ songs, or full CDs for 9.99. Then there is self encoded video, or other types of video. In addition my iPod has about 3GBs of FREE podcasts at anyone time on it. Also that being said people don't have to be obessesed with actually filling at 80GB iPod, Zune, or whatever. Sure if you average 3,000 cds at 9.99 you are still over 30,000 grand, but that is 30,000 grand of stuff you own at least, and no one is going to do that in a short period of time, they are going to do it over time. I had well over 100 CDs before I bought my first iPod.

You love your subscription service, more power to you. But think of a 20 year old who starts out with the subscription. Over their life time, if they want to keep that subscription alive until they day they die, they will spend near $11,000 dollars. Even more if they live past 80.

Now that being said do I think iTunes should offer a subscription service. Well, yes. I do. I think it would open a new market and area of competition and bring even more people to the iPod. But they should do it to open up their market more, not because people are smart enough to not fill their iPod at .99/song.

[splooshie]

Originally Posted by studogvetmed

I care if I own my music. I want to continue to enjoy music without having to pay a monthly fee. Sure there are good things about subscription service and there are many people who digest music that is completely welcome to a subscription service, but I am not one of them. I do want to own my music.

Suggesting that it costs $40,000 to fill an iPod is simple FUD. There are many different ways to fill your iPod than .99/song. You can significantly start filling your iPod buying large box sets on sale, discount CDs with 14+ songs, or full CDs for 9.99. Then there is self encoded video, or other types of video. In addition my iPod has about 3GBs of FREE podcasts at anyone time on it. Also that being said people don't have to be obessesed with actually filling at 80GB iPod, Zune, or whatever. Sure if you average 3,000 cds at 9.99 you are still over 30,000 grand, but that is 30,000 grand of stuff you own at least, and no one is going to do that in a short period of time, they are going to do it over time. I had well over 100 CDs before I bought my first iPod.

You love your subscription service, more power to you. But think of a 20 year old who starts out with the subscription. Over their life time, if they want to keep that subscription alive until they day they die, they will spend near $11,000 dollars. Even more if they live past 80.

Now that being said do I think iTunes should offer a subscription service. Well, yes. I do. I think it would open a new market and area of competition and bring even more people to the iPod. But they should do it to open up their market more, not because people are smart enough to not fill their iPod at .99/song.

you are right about the videos and stuff. i myself have filled 20GB of my zune without paying a cent (dont arrest me im one of millions) and my zen uses napster. me and many others find podcasts very boring, but hey, whatever floats your boat. unless if its a videocast, (thank you weekly update from boost mobile) then at least its somewhat interesting. the reason im complaining is that even though its very easy to use limewire, frostwire, shareaza etc. i still like having a subscription service that i can use to download hundreds of songs in a day at whole albums at a time without spending 100+ dollars, only 2. one less bottle of coke or can of monster a day or trip to woot.com gets you as many songs as you desire. you cannot argue with that, seriously. this is the one thing that is keeping me and millions of other people from buying ipods. if itunes was subscription, apple would infact be the best.

[studogvetmed]

Of course I can argue with it if I want to.

I have nothing against a subscription service, though. I only have something against the FUD about it costing $40,000 to fill up an iPod.

[paranoidxe]

I do have something against subscription services, you never own the music AND the subscription based services almost ALWAYS limit you to what you can get on their service.

New hot songs? probably not in your subscription.

Honestly my perfect iPod would be a form factor like the Zune with the thickness/battery power/capacity of the iPod.