By this time of the year, traditionally we’d be reporting on a treasure trove of rumors about new iPods, with Apple’s annual fall music event usually arriving in the month of September. That’s not the case now that the iPhone 5 is hogging the spotlight after being bumped from the WWDC lineup back in June -- but there are still some things we’d like to see Cupertino do with the decade-old media players.
10 years old in 2011, the iPod has been a robust offering for Apple, paving the way for big profits and setting the stage for the iPhone in 2007 -- and we all know how that has turned out for the company. As the glow around the iPod line wanes and the once-mighty media player becomes a second-class citizen languishing in the shadow of the iPhone, could Apple still have a few more surprises in store for the media player that revolutionized the music industry?
We’d like to think so, which is why you’re about to read 10 things we still hope to see from the iPod as “the little music player that could” prepares for its double-digit birthday this fall.
If you want an iPod that acts like a phone, you’re not alone -- rumors have been heating up in recent days that Apple may introduce a new iPod touch model that comes with prepaid 3G data, just like the iPad. But why would anyone want an always-connected iPod?
Aside from being able to download apps, check email and surf the web from anywhere, the iPod touch could be a true disruptive force in the wireless market, especially for those who use VoIP services like Skype instead of traditional landline or cellular calls. Many of us rarely use an iPhone to actually make phone calls (ironic, we know) and dream of a contract-free, always-on device with cheap data. Here’s hoping Tim Cook and company agree with us.
That cute little iPod nano released last fall got a surge of initial interest -- until potential buyers discovered it was only aping the appearance of an iOS device and didn’t actually run App Store apps. While it’s still a popular, inexpensive choice with the more exercise-prone among us, we can’t help but think there’s still a whole lot of untapped potential for an iPod touch with a smaller display and cheaper price -- or maybe for the iPod nano to finally put the iPod shuffle out of its misery at last.
We don’t exactly hate the iPod shuffle, but in the day and age of the touchscreen, does an iPod without a display still make any sense? Maybe as a way to hook users on a budget into the iTunes ecosystem, but we’d rather see the iPod shuffle kind of shuffle off into the sunset -- or hook up with the iPod nano and make some cute little touchscreen babies.
Truthfully, we’d just be happy to see Apple keep the iPod classic on life support this year, since it barely registered on last year’s radar. Call us nostalgic for the days of the original 5GB iPod 10 years ago, but a world without a maxi-sized, hard disk driven model just isn’t a world we want to live in.
Of course, our opinion on that could be swayed if Apple does indeed release a 64GB iPhone this year as widely rumored (or an even bigger iPod touch, see below). After all, we’ve got about 34GB of music in our iTunes library, so we’ve had to leave an awful lot of our favorite obscure Tahitian heavy metal music at home while we travel, and that’s just not right. (Don’t go bother searching for that genre in iTunes, ‘cause we just made it up -- but you get the point.)
Meanwhile, it appears Apple may have hit the storage ceiling on the iPod touch, which has remained at 64GB maximum for a couple of generations now. Truthfully, that should be more than enough for the average user, even with apps and video content thrown in for good measure.
However, one sure way to make us all forget about the iPod classic would be to introduce something that comes close to its 160GB worth of hard disk storage. Apple claims the iPod classic can handle 40,000 songs so a 64GB iPod touch is like what, a measly 15,000 or so if you only load it up with music? Pffft.
It was a cruel move on Apple’s part to introduce a camera two years ago and then snatch it away from us with last year’s model. Sure, it was a crappy video-only camera, but kids everywhere loved it (at least the ones whose parents couldn’t afford the iPod touch, anyway).
Assuming we can get Apple to bump off the iPod shuffle and move that square little iPod nano into its low-cost place, a new model could be introduced with a camera equivalent to the iPod touch -- although we’d just be happy with the 2009 camera, at the very least.
Let’s assume for a moment that Apple heeds our advice and allows the iPod nano to consume the iPod shuffle, possibly keeping the tiny square introduced last September and coming up with something new -- something between an iPod nano and an iPod touch, let’s say. (iPod touch mini, anyone?) We figure the company would be smart to include Wi-Fi across the board in that case -- even in the aging iPod classic, which could finally do away with the wheel and be driven by a slightly larger touchscreen display.
Before you poo-poo the idea as mere hogwash, it’s in Apple’s best interest to get Wi-Fi in the entire iPod line so those devices can become part of the forthcoming “PC-free” iTunes ecosystem -- even if they might not be capable of running all of the cool apps out there, there would be plenty that would make sense (games, at the very least).
Of course, once you put Wi-Fi inside the aging iPod line, that opens up a whole new world of possibilities, including AirPlay support for beaming photos and music to your HDTV wirelessly. No one likes to view photos on that thumbnail-sized iPod nano screen anyway, and Apple could really hype it up at the keynote: “Incredible! Beam photos right from your fingertip to a 50-inch HDTV with the new iPod nano,” we can hear Steve Jobs -- er, Tim Cook -- exclaim. (We’d also be happy to add video to that equation, should Apple want to bring playback to the iPod nano again.)
With automakers making Bluetooth audio streaming capabilities standard with many new cars and wireless Bluetooth headphones getting cheaper all the time, Apple should empower the lower-end iPods with the chip necessary to take advantage of it. After all, why should the iPod touch have all the fun? Just because it has a Retina Display and other fancy hardware, that doesn’t make it better than the rest of ‘em.
You weren’t the only one who thought last year’s iPod nano would make a pretty cool watch, with third parties soon filling the accessories void to do just that. Which begs the question: Why didn’t Apple just make one themselves? After all, the Dick Tracy watch has been a legendary concept among gadget lovers for decades, and yet nobody has quite gotten it right just yet. And hey, you know what? Everyone needs a watch, so… boom! We just blew your mind.
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Chill
September 16, 2011 at 6:17am
I would love to just see the Classic come with the much discussed larger HDD. I use a couple of these around the house and in the cars and with a music collection that now tops out at over 50000 tracks I'm always having to strip music off to make it fit!
