“Is Apple readying an iPod video player that could hit store shelves by next holiday season? Tech Web sites are buzzing with reasons to believe it’s so,” Richard Wilner reports for The New York Post. “There is plenty of circumstantial evidence pointing toward an iPod video product.”
Some of the circumstantial evidence Wilner points to includes:
• Apple’s iTunes Web site now offers videos with music downloads, and observers say Jobs wouldn’t be offering these videos with songs, playable only on iPods, if the hardware wasn’t going to change.
• Last month, Apple inked a deal with Alphamosaic, a British chip maker whose latest powerful chip handles music, image and video.
“So, is an iPod video coming down the pike? Apple isn’t talking. But Broadcom, which owns 57 percent of Alphamosaic, has seen its stock soar 20 percent in six weeks, to Friday’s close at $35.92. Evidently, a lot of people are betting that its business will pick up over the next 12 months,” Wilner reports.
Full article (free registration required) here.
“A British team of chip designers has won one of the most coveted of customers in the chip industry–Apple Computer. SiliconValleyWatcher has learned that Apple has contracted to use the powerful video, image, and music chips designed by Alphamosaic, in Cambridge, UK, in a future multimedia mobile device,” Tom Foremski reported in early April for SiliconValleyWatcher. “The branding for the Apple multimedia product is not yet known. Looking at the public specifications describing the Alphamosaic chips, it is clear that Apple could use it to build a family of mobile hand-held digital devices equipped with wireless communications that would be far more advanced than its current iPod family.”
“The Apple device could be ready in volume quantities by the end of 2005 or early January 2006 if Apple gets the ball rolling now. CEO Steve Jobs often debuts important new products at the MacWorld show in San Francisco in early January,” Foremski reported.
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple quietly makes video move, offers music videos via iTunes Music Store – May 19, 2005
Cringely: This week changed the world of high tech forever – May 13, 2005
Now with integrated video support, will Apple’s iTunes soon become iLiving Room? – May 10, 2005
Apple releases iTunes 4.8; now supports QuickTime video along with contact, calendar transfers – May 09, 2005
Cringely: Apple prepping Video iTunes, Video iPod, and setting stage for iPod clones – May 06, 2005
Apple picks chips for ‘vPod’ a ‘future multimedia mobile device?’ – April 06, 2005
Can Apple do for movies and video what they did for online digital music? – April 06, 2005
‘It’s the music, stupid’
-Steve Jobs
I’ll see it when I believe it….
don.t believe a damn word the Post prints….
sure would be cool though…
The changes in 4.8 are more involved than mentioned in the article above. It’s not just that we can now download videos in iTunes… Now, we can take all the mpeg movies on our HDD, even ones we created using iMovie, and add them to the iTunes music list, just like a song. We can then play them back in the little album-art window, and click that window as it plays to open it in a window, or click that full screen button…
My point, it’s like the changes that were made when the iPod photo came, in a way. We can now add movies to iTunes just like we can add songs, and work with them, arrange them, and play them in the same way.
To me this really does imply that a video capable iPod is on the way.
iCon said watching video on an iPod would be silly. I tend to agree. Although nothing would stop the iPod from playing to a tv (like iPod Photo).
What if Apple is planning on a new tablet thinga-majig (see patent article) for among other things plating video?
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Just remember the post is owned by the same guy who owns fox “news” – Take this with a huge helping of salt.
Why ? Why would you want to see a movie on a little iPod screen. PSP has 3 times the screen why would you want to view it on a PSP not to mention pay double the price for the media. However I am sure they would sell, but Apple will have a way of playing it on a TV like the photo iPod does.
“if the get the ball rolling now”
The funny thing that people don’t realize somehow: Apple always gets the ball rolling years ahead of time.
If any of this is true, we’re going to see it this summer.
Ever since I saw The Incredibles, I wondered if that video tablet used to send the top secret message to Mr. Incredible was actually an Apple concept that somone slipped in. What if that concept became prototype and that prototype became some type of tablet-style video thingamajig? That would just be all kinds of cool.
The New York Post Rocks!!!!
I think the video thing will happen, it just won’t be an iPod form as we know it today. I hink the iPod will still be a music player and this new video player will be something completely different but have an iPod feel. Just my guess.
if Apple doesn´t make one, the world is not ready for it.
when Steve says build, then the world is ready for it.
iTunes-like functionality doesn’t neccessarily have to be limited to a ipod like device.
How about the DVR device, that uses the mac mini basic design and can connect the internet to your HDTV? Now that H264 is out there is plenty of opportunity to be able to peddle video through iTunes-type format.
Apple will probably start slow, like selling music videos as they are doing now. Then start offering movie downloads that can be play directly or burnt to DVD.
Maybe they are also considering interoperability with the new Sony PSP or some similar Apple device.
The key is H264 – Apple are going to be experimenting with how to leverage this technology to see content and devices. It worked for the ipod – they have to find out what will work for video.
Shelly G
You must be a blond
One second Apple can do no wrong and everything they do is touched by the hand of god and the next minute it iis “stupid ” to want to see Apple advance the iPod to be a full fledged multi media device. Did I miss something? Is the iPod screen been restricted from growing? I have a PSP, the screen is 3 times bigger and crisper than the iPod. So? What’s your point? You know what the PSP is missing that would make it simply amazing? A hard drive. Ya know what the iPod is? A hard drive based player. Can you guys add 2 + 2 and get anywhere near 4.
How could you people follow Jobs so closely and still be surprised when he goes back on his “guarantees”? It “was” the music stupid. Now it is the marketshare. Now it is about staying on the egde. Now is about innovation. Now is about getting portable video right. No one, including Sony, is in a better position to get it right than Apple. Now they just have to act on it. Let the scales drop from your eyes so you don’t have to admit being an idiot for missing all the signs 8 months from now. It is sad to watch.
I think this just confirms what Cringely and AsSeenOnTV have been saying; video will be on Airport, not the iPod. The chips will be used in a portable device, but that portable device will be a wireless receiver that connects to the TV, not a portable video player. That keeps costs low (around $125 according to Cringely) and avoids the disadvantages of watching video on a portable screen. It also lets you manage your videos on your computer
You guys are too mmuch,
You make a valid point, that a iPod video with a bigger screen could work, but I think that having a video receiver would be more successful ; 100 bucks to watch HD video – any video, in fact (including all those divx files) on your TV. I can’t imagine anyone who would take a iPod video (which would be prohibitively expensive ) over the “Airvideo” (possible name). All speculation, but Cringely’s analysis is very persuasive
I don’t think the video features are for the iPod. They are for the next version of Airport Express HD, to stream the videos to your TV.
http://radar.oreilly.com/