Advanced iPod Dock?

[Flowbee]

Originally posted by melchior
Just because he's trying to make money means you are going to say he has NO sources. nada. zip. nothing?

No, not at all. Clearly the New York Times exists to make money through advertising. This does not mean that they make up news to attract readers (recent scandals notwithstanding). The reason I don't believe he has sources is because none of his breakthrough rumors are ever true. I believe he makes up rumors solely for the purpose of promoting himself and his "businesses." That is what I object to.

Remeber, Macwhispers is the site that reported that new iPods were going to be released months ago (with a firm date) and then disputed Thinksecret's story on the iPod re-design. It seems as though he's operating on imagination alone.

 

[bigjohn]

Advanced iPod Dock - Longer Narrower...

I dug back into the MacRumors archives and found this Page 2 article from March 11th on an enclosure (not coincidentally also from MacWhispers):

Enclosure


Anyways, it basically has info about a 5x7x1 inch enclosure. Other articles I saw talked about a new product that would further enhance the digital lifestyle motif.

That size box sounds impossible for a mobo, but for an iPod dock that could fit into a stereo rack - not a big stretch there.

The real question is, do I wait and try and get an iPod that includes the advanced dock?

 

[iSmell]

MacWhispers cred

Most of the rumors that have been posted on MacWhispers have neither confirmed, nor desicively proven wrong at this point. I consider the firewire/USB cable to be a +1 for that site, even if the actual cable didn't fit the prediction to the last detail, it seems to me that he had some real info on that one. He was wrong on the iPods, which is a definite -1, but at least he wasn't just going along with all the other sites on that one.
We still have to wait and see about the supposed 30" cinema display, which seems plausible to me, although it might still just be a prototype or something (maybe they made just one for Steve's desk), aluminum faced powermac, which also seems plausible, and the 15" powerbook revision (I forget exactly what predictions he made for those). These are all still open ended at this point, so I'm not ready to ignore MacWhispers completely.
I'll just ignore their advertisments.














I can't believe I haven't started studying yet...

 

[Snowy_River]

Re: Too early to judge MacWhispers either way

Originally posted by nagromme
MacWhispers is still an unknown. They did predict the USB/FW cable, which suggests real (and unique) sources. They have also misinterepreted some sources and placed trust in the wrong ones--which is all guesswork, trial and error, and experience, so what do you expect? When the site has been around longer, next year, we'll have a good idea whether MacWhispers has grown into a useful site or just a curiosity. Until then, I don't think it can simply be discounted.

I'd say MacRumors is the best rumors site, with the best track record. ThinkSecret has done well also. But that doesn't mean there's nothing useful to be found at sites without that record.

Other sites have speculated that the docking connector may be for more than we yet know.

Ah... a voice of reason... for the most part.

From what I've seen, ThinkSecret has the best track record of any of the rumor sites. MacRumors holds its own, but also spends a lot of time rebroadcasting rumors posted on other sites (like this one).

In general, if TS prints it, I have a high degree of faith. If I see it anywhere else, I'm much more sceptical.

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by jettredmont
Sorta, but not really.

They said that a cable with PCB leads on one end and a breakout to firewire/USB plugs on the other end was being produced, and that it was about 5 feet long. (see: http://www.envestco2.com/macwhispers/archives/000045.php and http://www.envestco2.com/macwhispers/archives/000047.php)

The actual device component has two separate cables (ending in firewire and USB, respectively) attached to a single PCB board (see: http://www.apple.com/ipod/accessories.html). The length appears to be about right (5') though.

Probably close enough, but I can't give them 100% of a credit on that one.

Okay, give me a break. If he was legitimately reporting on an actual product (and not just getting lucky with a guess - which seems unlikely in this case), he would have been reporting on a prototype, not the final product. Do you have any idea how many minor changes (like where the two connectors breaking out) are made from first concept to finished product? I think that this was easily close enough to warrant 100% credit.

 

[Sun Baked]

Re: Now that makes it ALL RIGHT

Originally posted by t^3
Not that I'm an advocate of MacWhispers, but didn't they predict the FireWire/USB 2.0 cable?

ROFLMA...

This is getting to be a rather ugly MacWhispers bash.

 

[marcsiry]

tablet=superdock

One of the voids in the mystery enclosure is supposedly just about the size of an iPod.

We all know that the iPod is practically a PDA, with storage for contacts and other info, and the potential for much more.

What it's missing is input. What if the alleged tablet is just a shell- or dock- for the iPod? Slide it in, carry it around, and you've got an iPod-powered tablet PC.

It certainly won't run OSX, but it should kick a Palm's butt, performance-wise. And all your MP3s, too!

I want one.

 

[MacWhispers]

Yes, I have been trying an entirely new approach to publishing behind the scenes Mac info this year, and it's taking me a while to get a real feel for which of the people I deal with in Taiwan and China are accurate and reliable. So, as I've admitted very openly on my site, I have made errors... almost exclusively, errors of making conclusions from less than known-accurate source material. That said...

1. I published the OEM source for the 20.1-inch Cinema Display well ahead of anyone else... and, I've been the only source for info on the continuing evolution of the budding Chi Mei - Apple partnership.

2. I published the existence of this totally inexplicable (at the time) FireWire/USB cable, though, yes, from descrambling pigeon English from the other end, I did mis-state that it was one single-sheathed cable, not a split-assembly as it has turned out to be.

3. I published the fact that Apple was continuing to use the stainless steel back on its new iPods... at a tiem when many people on the web were saying, "white plastic."

4. If anyone with a studious mind will sift slowly back through my reports since the site was started, you'll see that I've been doing a pretty good job of sorting out dozens of bits of OEM gossip each week, and converting it into useful intelligence from that end of the Apple pipeline.

Perfect record? Far from it. "Made up?" Not a bit of it.

Although there are a few idiots floating around who seem to get a cheap giggle out of perpetuating the myth of my somehow doing something illegal on my MacTable site last year, and making a hobby out of flinging mud my way whenever possible, I don't worry too much about those folks, as they are a tiny minority. Mainly, I care about staying with my OEM source approach, and continuing to refine my judgment and the accuracy of my reports, so that the majority of web-savvy Mac users can have a good place to go to get some fairly on-point advanced info about Apple hardware developments.

As my MacMice company moves more and more into electronics products later into the year, I'll have even more OEM contacts to develop, judge, and "pump" for Apple related info.

And, one more time: If any of you operated a high-traffic hobby site, and also owned a business, wouldn't you put one of your own ads on the site?

Of course you would.

 

[MacWhispers]

Originally posted by Flowbee
Remeber, Macwhispers is the site that reported that new iPods were going to be released months ago (with a firm date) and then disputed Thinksecret's story on the iPod re-design. It seems as though he's operating on imagination alone.

Actually, I published info from a fellow who is well placed, but who has turned out to be full of... well, non-accurate stories. I apologized to Think Secret, and have recalibrated my who-to-trust meter substantially.

Sorry, but really, I've only been doing this four months, and it takes time to figure out who to trust and who to laugh off.

 

[MacWhispers]

I can't help but reprint here my very first MacWhispers report. Anyone remember this?

January 16, 2003
Apple 22-inch Cinema Display Killed


Sources in the LG-Philips distribution channel confirm that the venerable 22-inch LCD panel used in Apple's first Cinema Display was EOL'd by LG in December, and that current stocks will be exhausted before the end of January, 2003.

Then, the next story was:

January 20, 2003
New Apple Cinema Display Coming


According to sources in Taiwan, Chi Mei Optoelectronics is producing a new 20.1-inch widescreen desktop LCD panel for Apple, which went into product around Christmas, and has been shipping to Apple's Taiwan assembly plant for about three weeks. The new display is said to have a resolution of 1600x1024 pixels, which is the same as the 22-inch Cinema Display it is replacing in Apple's line. The new display should be announced within 30-days.

I missed the precise screen resolution. Otherwise, this was two weeks before Apple surprised the rest of the Apple world.

Sorry, folks, but I don't pull this info from my imagination, as is being suggested here. If I did, I would have a pretty amazingly accurate imagination... I should go to 'Vegas, instead of building Mac products for a living.

 

[tribalogical]

funny no-one is mentioning 'loop rumours'... they've got some new bits on the 970 chips hitting the assembler in asia... nice, if it's true!

they've done ok so far in their predictions....

I think the little plastic "enclosure", too big to be a PDA, too small to be a tablet, is most likely a "super-dock" device...

Someone here mentioned the opening on the top was just right for an iPod, and they may be on to something... I did a little 'blueprint' based on dimensions (which have since been said to be off a bit), and an iPod would fit nicely into it...

I'm willing to guess (again) that at WWDC we'll see, or at least get the announcement for, the new Power Macs w/PPC970, a new "device" (super dock?), a 64-bit ready OS X (panther), and some new software announcements/releases...

And 6 months from now, I'll be ordering a dual 2Ghz(+!) 970-based Mac... mark my words!

tribalogical

 

[dbraschi]

iPOD Extreme

Hi I'm new to this forum and I was wandering about the next generation of iPOD.

iPOD Extreme
200,000 songs in your pocket

Hardware feature:
30-45-60 GB HD
Color LCD
Integrated Airport extreme
Integrated bluetooth
Mobile iTunes with music store access
Rendevouz enabled to stream to other iPOD

Imagine sittig at Starbuck drinking java with a WIFI access ready iPOD dowloading the last new song of your favorite rock band from the Apple music store!

 

[bennetsaysargh]

Re: iPOD Extreme

Originally posted by dbraschi
Hi I'm new to this forum and I was wandering about the next generation of iPOD.

iPOD Extreme
200,000 songs in your pocket

Hardware feature:
30-45-60 GB HD
Color LCD
Integrated Airport extreme
Integrated bluetooth
Mobile iTunes with music store access
Rendevouz enabled to stream to other iPOD

Imagine sittig at Starbuck drinking java with a WIFI access ready iPOD dowloading the last new song of your favorite rock band from the Apple music store!

that's a good idea, but it won't hppen soon. it just won't because they'll piss off the new iPod customers (like me) with even more features less than 2 months from when the first were available!

 

[terry29]

why not just use itrip?

am i the only one who doesnt quite understand why the itrip isnt the solution for this problem? i mean, that would make ipod the remote really. why would you shell out more money for an advanced dock when you can just buy the itrip for $25? is the quality bad or something?

also, would bluetooth do a better job?

 

[bennetsaysargh]

Re: why not just use itrip?

Originally posted by terry29
am i the only one who doesnt quite understand why the itrip isnt the solution for this problem? i mean, that would make ipod the remote really. why would you shell out more money for an advanced dock when you can just buy the itrip for $25? is the quality bad or something?

also, would bluetooth do a better job?

iTrip doesn't work with the new ones. that's the only thing. they are supposed to hav ones for the new ones soon. probably easier to do with the different pins on the bottom. power by fw pins on the bottom, and then the line out pins all in one place.

 

[iMook]

Re: iPOD Extreme

That iPod will also need an AC adaptor/fuel cell compartment. [AirPort] + [ColorLCD] + [Rendezvous mesh networking] + [extended HDD spinups due to desire to skip around to your new songs] = ubermassive power drain.

Nice things to think about, but unless you can get that jacks into your body a la Matrix, I don't think we'll be seeing anything like that for at least ten years, barring any great innovations in energy storage.

P.S. - While you're at it, how about 100GB solid-state memory?

 

[mim]

Originally posted by jettredmont
Sorta, but not really.

They said that a cable with PCB leads on one end and a breakout to firewire/USB plugs on the other end was being produced, and that it was about 5 feet long. (see: http://www.envestco2.com/macwhispers/archives/000045.php and http://www.envestco2.com/macwhispers/archives/000047.php)

The actual device component has two separate cables (ending in firewire and USB, respectively) attached to a single PCB board (see: http://www.apple.com/ipod/accessories.html). The length appears to be about right (5') though.

Probably close enough, but I can't give them 100% of a credit on that one.

Man, you sure are harsh! Imagine getting second hand information from somebody probably who hasn't actually >seen< the thing themselves (reading a description on a contract for instance) and then having this translated from cantonese or mandarin or in english from a non-english speaker?!

Well...I'm reasonably impressed. He's made a mistake or two...but I'm looking forward to seeing how MacWhispers does in the coming months.

Wacwhispers: if you're still reading this thread, was the info about the "small enclosure" from a souce you have now discredited? Any further info?

a.

 

[Snowy_River]

Re: iPOD Extreme

Originally posted by dbraschi
Hi I'm new to this forum and I was wandering about the next generation of iPOD.

iPOD Extreme
200,000 songs in your pocket

Hardware feature:
30-45-60 GB HD
...

Not to rain on your parade, but your math is off (unless you're also proposing some very impressive new compression algorithm - not talking about the former Vice Presidents music).

On average, one song takes up about 5MB. That's why the original iPod (5GB) was said to be '1000 songs in your pocket'. Now, to have

200,000 songs in your pocket

you'd end up needing a HD capacity of

(200,000 songs) x (5 MB/song) = 1 TB

That's one tera-byte of disk space. I wouldn't hold my breath for a 1TB iPod, if I were you.

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by MacWhispers

Sorry, folks, but I don't pull this info from my imagination, as is being suggested here. If I did, I would have a pretty amazingly accurate imagination... I should go to 'Vegas, instead of building Mac products for a living.

Hey, MW, I've never doubted that you had real sources. I have consistently thought that information from all such sources should be taken with a grain of salt, but I've never thought you were making anything up.

I look forward to seeing what you have in the future, as you get better aquainted with your sources, and determine how reliable they are. Perhaps, as you do, you could actually provide us with a reliability meter, based on your confidence in the source. Just a thought...

 

[melchior]

hey, we're a quarter of the way there with regular HD's. 280GB now all you need is a portable raid enclosure.

200,000 songs though, that is a lot. i mean... i get annoyed about the people saying "32,000 is impossible" while i only have about 13,000 32,000 is quite doable if you were for example a professional musician. but 200,000 songs. i stagger to think what artists would be missing... =)

 

[mim]

Re: Re: iPOD Extreme

Originally posted by Snowy_River
That's one tera-byte of disk space. I wouldn't hold my breath for a 1TB iPod, if I were you.

Snowy, this quy is quite right - we've been messing around in the sandpit..."ohhh, I hope it has a 40 gig hard drive, oohhh Creative have a 60 gig drive in their's...etc etc".

Let's just get with the program. 1T pods now, thank you Apple!

X-Raid, pocket edition

a.

 

[dbraschi]

Re: Re: iPOD Extreme

I mean that you can access 200.000 songs from your pocket, if you have an iPOD that can browse music from the Apple music store, you don't need a bigger internal HD, with WIFI connectivity you just select the song to download and voila'.

Originally posted by Snowy_River
Not to rain on your parade, but your math is off (unless you're also proposing some very impressive new compression algorithm - not talking about the former Vice Presidents music).

On average, one song takes up about 5MB. That's why the original iPod (5GB) was said to be '1000 songs in your pocket'. Now, to have



you'd end up needing a HD capacity of

(200,000 songs) x (5 MB/song) = 1 TB

That's one tera-byte of disk space. I wouldn't hold my breath for a 1TB iPod, if I were you.

 

[mim]

Re: Re: Re: iPOD Extreme

Originally posted by dbraschi
I mean that you can access 200.000 songs from your pocket, if you have an iPOD that can browse music from the Apple music store, you don't need a bigger internal HD, with WIFI connectivity you just select the song to download and voila'.

Or sit in a cafe with wifi and listen to a music station stream....hmmmm.

Imagine a technology like that. I should patent the idea and call it Free Music. FM for short. FM Radio. Nice one!

a.

 

[bennetsaysargh]

Re: Re: Re: Re: iPOD Extreme

Originally posted by mim
Or sit in a cafe with wifi and listen to a music station stream....hmmmm.

Imagine a technology like that. I should patent the idea and call it Free Music. FM for short. FM Radio. Nice one!

a.

not free because you have to p[ay for the batteries or the radio itself

 

[Panther]

sizing things up...

When I first read of the "wireless remote" thing, I envisioned the fabled open faced enclosure to some kind of uber remote control like the Philips Pronto (imagine a remote with Bluetooth/Rendezvous, and a color touch screen running something as purdy as OSX... yum)...

Then I compared the stated 5x7" size with the size of the iPod... It seems pretty big for a remote...

But at the same time, if this is the dock side of things, why would the whole face need to be open... If the enclosure were only a little larger than the iPod I could imagine it being something like the sleeve you can get for the iPaq PocketPC, but this is a lot bigger... That open face would swallow your iPod whole...

So it feels like it must be a tablet... possibly the uber-remote... Perhaps Panther will make Mail and so on Rendezvous-enabled, and this things is something like the "Mira" tablet that allows you to remotely access/control your PC...

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/mira_preview.asp