“PortalPlayer Inc. shares jumped in trading on Thursday after an analyst upgraded the stock, and speculated that the company may be involved in the release of wireless iPods in 2006.
Shares of the San Jose, Calif.-based company, which makes system-on-chip semiconductors used in portable media-playing devices, were up $1.55, or 6.1 percent, to $27.10 in midday trading on Nasdaq, after Citigroup analyst upgraded the stock to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold,” The Associated Press reports. “Analyst Glen Yeung raised his price target on PortalPlayer to $36 from $29, and predicted the company could see customer growth rise in the second half of 2006, driven by the popularity of Apple Computer Inc.’s iPods, which Yeung calculates accounted for 90 percent of PortalPlayer’s revenue in the third quarter of 2005. ‘We have raised our estimates for PortalPlayer based on an increased shipment assumption for iPods, and the expectation for a lower than normal seasonal decline in the first half of 2006,’ Yeung wrote.”
AP reports, “Further, Yeung added since PortalPlayer has said it wants to acquire a small private company with a wireless technology portfolio — he expects such an acquisition to cost between $1 million and $30 million — and because PortalPlayer has said it is dedicating 2006 to building out wireless capabilities, he believes Apple is considering adding wireless capabilities to its iPod in 2006.”
Full article here.
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good
am sick of cables.
Wow, with the new speed bump in wireless routers to jump up at the beginning of 2006, that would mean you could have an Airport Express with video streamed from your ipod!! No need for a remote, the iPod could be the remote and the content provider.
oh
first post, do i win a teeshirt or something?
So then people could just have earphones and listen wirelessl to my iPod?
Cool.
—–
that would be really cool
OK, I’ll join the crowd withe “MW” craze:
Pay-as in I’d pay more to have this technology
I posted awhile back that this feature would be useless until someone invented a way to charge the iPod wirelessly too because one connects an iPod to charge it more often than one updates it, but Apple changed that. Now that the battery life on an iPod is up to 20 hours I personally could go a week between recharges but I couldn’t wait that long to update my goodies. So I think it’s finally time that this feature gets released. I’m excited.
Another question? Video brings battery life down to 3 hours, meaning people who use the feature heavily are going to recharge their ipod much more often then ever before, possibly causing battery death much much more quickly. Do you think a massively increased rate of battery failue would reopen that lawsuit? Or possibly worse for Apple cause many ipods to die within the one year warrantee period? Speaking of which how did Apple solve the battery problem anyway. They are still using Li-ion meaning the will die, so does the little link saying it will die release them from liability or have they found way to make them last longer than previous generations?
Laws of physics are a beeyotch.
Nice… except the headline looked a little confusing…
“Wireless Apple iPods in 2006?”
Let’s see… they’re ipods. You’re supposed to be able to carry them around.
Sorry, but that was what struck me when I read the headline. “They already are portable!”
Peanut Butter Jelly w/ A Baseball Bat
I’m not suing my bluetooth mouse any more – too slow. And recharging the batteries in the bluetooth keyboard is a minor pain not worth the gain. With two cable channels running on 2.4GHz plus Airport Express, my cable tv pictures suffer from interference whenever my Mac goes on. I need wireless relief.
This article helped seal my decision not to buy an iPod just now. I’m waiting for wireless and Intel in 2006!!!
Wireless what?
Downloads? But doesn’t the USB cable of the current crop of iPods also server to recahrge the iPod battery?
Headphones? The you carry the weight of the headphones with their batteries on your head, instead of itty-bitty lightweight ear buds.
Did it ever occur to these overpaid ANALysts that Portal may be trying to diversify their business and not be so dependent on the Apple business. That would be a prudent move by their management.
Now wireless recharging – that’s something I would be interested in – especially for my PowerBook!
Wouldn’t it be great if iPods and Laptops could be entirely wireless, even to power??? Broadcast over the air power was something that Nikola Tesla invented a whole century ago, but it’s never been applied.
Jeez, they can’t even fit a firewire into the new pod what makes you think they have room for wireless chips, stop the insanity already.
Hangon there, Tesla fooled around with the tech, yes, but he never made it work as he wanted. Also, there are no guidelines on how the hell he succeeded with those experiments since he almost never put anything to paper. The few things he actually had noted disappeared from his hotelroom right after his death. With other words – someone has to invent it again…and that might take another 50-100 yrs. People like DaVinci, J.S.Bach or Tesla tend to be rather…umm…once every 300yrs-ish.
I don’t think Steve will go wireless just yet. It’s too power hungry. Didn’t anyone listen to Steve when he was asked why the iMac remote wasn’t BT? He said, people didn’t want to be recharging it all the time, since they don’t recharge their other remotes.
Also, in another interview, I believe Steve said the audio quality of BT headphones sucked, so there’s no point in doing that.
elva12: I’d have a far more optimistic view of the number of geniuses lying around. I believe, due to exponential population growth, that there are more people alive today than all of our predecessors combined. Thus, for every genius of history, there’s someone alive today being a genius now. In addition, we have a lower percentage of people living on the edge of survival than in all history, so more people have the opportunity to express their genius. The DaVincis and Bachs are all around us, and they are doing wonderful things!
KenC: Steve Jobs said wireless didn’t make sense?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> Sometimes he shares wise insights. Other times he is simply fooling us. A year ago in a Wall Street Journal interview he said video didn’t make any sense because the screens were too small. Maybe he changed his mind, or maybe he makes strategic statements to keep the competitors guessing.
Wireless recharging does exist. I’m too lazy (and drunk right now) to find a link to prove it but a company has been testing it and has refined it to the point of being usable. When an electronics company feels it is cheap and easy enough to be worth puttin into a product we will start to see them around. Right now I think it is too espensive and requires adding parts and size to your devices plus a bulky pad to your desk/wokspace.
I agree, wireless recharging technology is a ways off. Perhaps Apple is developing rooftop solar panels to charge the hardware. They could call it iCharge, Visa and Mastercard accepted
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“he expects such an acquisition to cost between $1 million and $30 million”
Good lord, that’s one hell of a spread!