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Ok, that's one of the better MDN takes I've read, and that's saying something. That one had edge. Why do I get the feeling it was behind a glass of wine (or two)?

I wonder what percentage of iPod users are kids, anyway? Kids may use a vidPod, but adults use their iPods while they are doing other things: working out, riding a bike, running, cutting the grass, doing housework, commuting. None of those are places that a vidPod would work well. Kids have a lot of time on their hands. I bet they would rather watch Nemo on a big screen TV in the living room than on a 5 inch screen in their hand.

The one thing about the iPod Microsoft definitely couldn't do is come up with the idea themselves.

That's why Billy Boy just never gets it.

What Bill meant to say. "I don't see anything there that we can't copy"

Kids do use mobile devices with tiny little screens such as the Gameboy. But those are sub-$100 gaming devices. How many kids can convince their parents to buy a $500 portable video device?

I don't recall a big market for the portable DVD player market and they were in the same general price range, but had 5" to 7" screens, as I recall. Part of the problem is that anyone can listen to a favorite song over and over. But few adults care to watch the same video over and over.

Back to the portable digital video device - the key issues are going to be the screen size, device size and weight, battery playing time and the method by which you transfer the movie into said device. Can you upload Finding Nemo from your DVD collection or does Bill expect you to buy it from M$ iVideo?

PMC (the vidPod as you call it) has a similar market to that of the Gameboy. As kids get older and into the teens they'll want an iPod. And they'll keep buying iPod's until they are deaf!

I'm 18, I'm proof.

Now, I don't have an iPod (yet), but will say, from everything I've heard it works flawlessly with iTunes and the Mac. Yet, Gates can't get anything to work in harmony on Windows. And he has the cajones to say iPod doesn't do anything they can't do. Bull crap.
What a jokester.

i still don't see how you can watch video while jogging, walking down the street, working, reading, trying not to get mugged on a late night train. it's a different experience. bill is such a dipstick if he thinks that it's a horizontal choice between video and audio.

VidPod - sorry, but watching TV is so out.
And watching it on a postage stamp size screen is so stupid.
Let´s see, it is so small to watch a movie you have to hold the thing in your hand for 2 hours.
Who wants to hold that thing for 2 bleeping hours?
Is it me or is vidPod going to ruin lots of people´s eyesight? Probably not since few will buy it.

Microsoft - we only make money if we have the monopoly.

Still it would be nice to be able to download say music videos or movie trailers from iTMS and play them on a viPod (video iPod). Just to show them to people who don't have viPods. Of course by the time that technology is practical everyone will have iPods.

By the way you can buy a Dick Tracy TV wristwatch for $200 at ThinkGeek.

The screen is so tiny it's a joke.

What Gates is doing is locking the online video and music formats in his hard core DRM format.

By the way Stevie found "Nemo" it was shoved way up Bill's ass.

Bill Gates can't think of anything about the iPod that Microsoft couldn't do?

Then why didn't they? And why are they so late to the party?

The guy's RDF makes Steve's look pretty lame.

Alright, let's face reality. Jobs is wrong on this one. The ADDED option of a video iPod would sell like crazy. Screen size is not an issue. Turn the current IPod sideways and you have enough space for a 4.5" screen. Put the controlls on the side or the back and you are in business. And file size is also not an issue. Use MPEG-4 and you can fit hours on a current model iPod. Then lastly the third party guys come in and bring us an iCam and we have an actually cheap video / still camera. Kids and adults alike will love it. "Yea, I interface this with iLife and I have it all!" Jobs seems to be using his Pixar head on this one not wanting kids to pirate "Finding Nemo".

In this case, yea, I still think Gates is a copy cat but if he motivates Steve to have to compte on the video end, maybe we can all get what we want.

Oh, and yea, who said you couldn't use your vidPod to just listent to music???

Yeah, I can just picture millions of 15 year old boys with these things downloading and watching porn in the back of school classrooms.

they haven't been able to copy mac os.. that's a pretty big one

Why does Gates always talk about how great things are gonna be with such and such Microsoft tech, yet never deliver on it?

What a tosser.

I had one of those portable casio TVs once - never used it, ended up seling it on eBay. Once the novelty wore off I accepted that the screen was just too small to be comfortably viewable. I think you would need at least a 10" screen for it to be usable on an ongoing basis - but given the price of these things you would be better of with an entry level iBook.

And that is my point - folks who want portable DVD use a laptop.

Putting video on an iPod would be silly - it would not be usable and it would just push the price up. Just watchh M$ loose money on their portable vid players.

Oh yes, almost forgot - M$ could never have come up with the iPod.

I hope that Microsoft will be ready for the lawsuits that follow from fatal accidents caused by a kid watching a video device instead of watching where he was going.

I have no desire to watch video on my iPod. When I want to watch something I want a bigger screen - not smaller. I bought the 17" PowerBook over the 15" for this reason. I watch plenty of TV when I am seated at home, the last thing I need is to be glued to a screen when I am out and about.

Y didn't microshaft do a music store 5 years ago? Y didn't microshaft decide to use the graphics card to animate the gui 4 years ago? it's pathetic how they chase after apple.

I own an iPod, it's great... and it is about the music. For-gods-sake why would someone spend ~400 for a 2.5 inch screen when I could buy a TV instead?

How many movies do I want to have "on the go" anyways. I can find enough time to watch a movie during the week let alone sneak 2hrs from my day to squint at one under my desk.

"Alright, let's face reality. Jobs is wrong on this one. The ADDED option of a video iPod would sell like crazy. Screen size is not an issue."

Sorry gearhead,
I disagree completely with you on this. The absolute beauty of the iPod is the simplicity of the interface and the focus on the core function i.e. it's not the most featureful music player available, but it's by far the best. Attempting to shoehorn video playback capability would be a catastrophic mistake in my opinion, especially given such a necessarily small display, even if, as you suggested, they increase the size so you can watch it by turning the iPod on the side. Then what would you do with the killer selling feature, the scroll wheel? Putting it on the side or the back is not an option; usability would suffer. The scroll wheel is what distinguishes the iPod from pretenders to its throne.

Your idea that the iPod could be used as a DV recorder in conjunction with an iSight is actually an intriguing one, and if they came up with some sort of plug-in or snap-on LCD viewfinder, they could be on to something. Watching movies on an iPod would then be like watching movies on the viewfinder of a DV cam. Sure you could do it, but why the hell would you want to? And what about acceptable battery life? And size?

Jobs is correct, people don't watch movies like they listen to music. The latter can be done as an adjunct to other activities; not so with video.

MacBeth, Will the 'Zen Portable Media Center' be any good for porno? For like when I’m at an airport or Greyhound.

Perhaps I'm just not innovative enough, but I just don't see any possible reason to have video on an iPod. I can't imagine watching a movie on a little screen. I have a 9 inch televison that I watch some regular tv on, and that's pushing too small to handle.
So if you don't watch a movie, what else is there? Are people really sitting on a bus thinking "You know what I wish I could do right now? Watch that AVP trailer I saw on iTunes." That makes no sense.

Oh yeah, Bill - video on a 3" screen - I can just imagine huddling 'round the old iPod to watch Lord Of The Rings with the missus'n'kids. What a great User Experience!

And while you're at it, as a designer, I'd just love to be able to run Photoshop and InDesign on my iPod as well. You know, retouch a few pix while while jogging, layout a 24 page catalogue too.

No really, I'm with Jobs on this one. Music is an aural experience that can be enjoyed while performing many other tasks, video requires a whole new set of parameters. As usual, poor old Bill has not one clue about what End Users really want. That's why his products are so User-Hostile.

Have you ever noticed that Bill jumps from topic to topic, more as a salesman than a true technologist? For example, he was bragging about Longhorn for so long and all the good things it would bring to security on Windows. BANG. Longhorn is probably dead for now and Windows users will simply get a much hyped Windows XP Service Pack 2 and it'll be called Longhorn.

Everyone else is calling it Shorthorn. It's what's for dinner for Mac OS X.

Bill's doing everything he can to keep attention off Microsoft's failure to deliver Longhorn, failure in Xbox, failure to handle the Linux competition, and failure to make Apple/Mac go out of business. Now, instead of telling the world how great MSN Music is (he can't because everyone's already voted), he defers to dissing Uncle Steve's new toys.

Yeeeesh.

ha ha i made out on a greyhound once. even that wasnt enough to make the trip fun. a movie wouldnt have helped much either.

i have no idea, apple master.

1 thing i do know, the click wheel, gee i don;t think bill gates can do that!

if it so easy gates, why have you not done it? personal video things exist, creative has one, if you want one buy it, watch nemo, and shut up. your company hasnt done a thing right since the 80s, youre still living off the ubiquity of windows. in the next 5 years that will not be the case. your company sucks, and you suck personally

Honestly I think you are looking at the vidPod the wrong way, but don't get me wrong I hate M$ & Gates. I think that Gates has not developed any new technologies, they tend to purchase companies that create it, i.e. Xbox. I also agree that Gates tends to jump from topic to topic so that he never has to answer why something does not work, or why it has not come out when promised. However, they have the money, people & resources to develop a vidPod that would work much like the current iPods, but instead of having a headphones jack there would be a connector for a remote screen. i have seen screens that can be worn much like glasses, they work by projecting the image onto the lenses of the glasses so that the user can see it, and the lenses can be transparent so that the user can still see where he/she is going. I can see some major drawbacks 1. the movie industry, 2. battery life, 3. piracy, and 4. quality of the image. I believe that the battery life issue would be easier to eradicate than the issue of the movie industry resisting & fighting the new technology. As far as the piracy issue, they could encrypt the file so that it would be difficult to crack, although it would just slow it down, not completely stop it, much like the encryption with the music downloads from the ITMS.

I think if they offered an iPod with a color screen almost no one would watch videos on it. HOWEVER, if they offered a vid pod with video out so you could hook it up to a TV or monitor and watch it as an option then I think it would sell. I know I would buy one. Then it will depend on more people getting broadband and the developments of better codecs to get the download time of a video to 30 minutes or so. iTunes Video Store anyone?

Sure seems to be a lot of iTunes Music Store ads on MDN this week.

I guess everyone needs to make a buck. Or two.

please see: and computerstoreguy - aureola is incorrect.

Nahh is a mac dood to the x, so don't be pig or 60 no more.

Says jimmy imature.

Jack A... that's more along the lines of what Apple will do soon.. with the 60GB iPod.. you can put avi files or mpeg w/ fairplay on there and plug them into an Apple Media Base Station, for example.. which is connected to the TV..

(then again.. you just have a triple pronged video out plug.. r/w/y)

found this at MU today

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15218

do you think that linda at the hun would like it?

maybe mac beth can ask. pleeSee:

A new 'peg'...

http://www.macdailynews.com/comments.php?id=P3396_0_1_0

Another 'peg'

http://www.macdailynews.com/comments.php?id=P3390_0_1_0



is this imature?

I personally don't see the benefit of a video iPod - it's a music jukebox - not a DVD or video player. My 5 year old son would probably watch movies on it - but he has a gameboy and by this spring I'll probably add a PSP to the mix for myself - and a few movies on UMD for the kiddies - but that's it. I say Apple should focus on making it smaller - more intiutive (not that it isn', but there's always room for improvement) - and extend the battery life. Let it evolve into the best portable music device money can buy - not the clunkiest music/video/mpg/avi player on the market. It's a basic design rule - if you add something and it doesn't add to the overall usefullness or effectiveness of the design then it doesn't belong. Adding video to the iPod would detract from it's ultimate usefullness as a music player. It's about simplicity and usability - this is the reason Apple still uses the one-button mouse.

If Bill G. wants his kids to watch a movie in the car while traveling why not just install a portable video system in the back of the front seats like alot of people are doing? SHEESH!!!!

Microsoft cannot develop Longhorn, cannot improve CP, and has declared Internet Explorer unsalvageable.

I suppose that Bill Gates has concluded that his next great act in technology is music.

" HOWEVER, if they offered a vid pod with video out so you could hook it up to a TV or monitor and watch it as an option then I think it would sell."

Jack A,

Keen observation, and I agree with you. I think attempting to watch video on a tiny display is a bad idea, and worse for Apple's brand, inelegant. Here's an idea; partner with manufacturers to produce DV cameras with a snap-in dock for a video iPod, similar to Altec Lansing's InMotion portable stereo. The cam would be basically just a frame with an LCD viewfinder and lens mount that would be powered by the 'Pod itself. Then just plug the iPod into your computer to edit with iMovie or Final Cut Pro, or plug into your TV to watch the unedited video.

MDN - Wow... what a great misrepresentation of a quote from a secondary source!


Article states:
>Gates also was quoted as saying that there
>is nothing that the iPod does that makes
>him stop to say, 'Oh, wow, I don't think we
>can do that.'"

MDN twists:
Bill Gates' sarcasm regarding Apple iPod: 'Oh, wow, I don't think we can do that'



-----

I'm curious... what are the credentials of MDN's newslinking quoters/owners/so-called editors?

Just browsed some of the posts above. Some people were just meant to be sheep.

I like my iPod, but dang... it's as if some of you wish it had a hole and was self-lubricating. Maybe if it did, you could better justify your iPod/Apple love affair rather than the dulling attacks on anything non-Apple.

It's an exercise in nerdity and/or a time filling hobby for those lacking in life. iLife?!?! Apple really does know it's customers well. Get an iLife! Nah... get a real life.

As if kids do not watch enough television as it is. Portable video is not The Next Big Thing that everyone with little imagination thinks it is. There is more money to be made from giving iPod users access to the internet so that they could browse, preview and purchase music from any location.

As for Finding Nemo, Mr. Gates' was only trying to push people's buttons. Disney is excited about Microsoft's online movies vision and Finding Nemo will propably be one of the first films offered this way. Steve Jobs may not be happy about that at first but consider this: online movie downloads will not make any money until Apple does something about it. Until then, good luck to Microsoft trying to sell Portable Media Centres.

Nobody seems to get it. Size isn't an issue for an audio source. Big or small, it's what's convenient. Video is a whole different thing. NOBODY wants to sit around watching an episode of CSI on a stinkin' 4" screen. The notion of more(video) is better is typical Microsoft -think, which really is no think at all.

Comments following up on the comments above:

Gearhead, I disagree. I watched a DVD (higher quality than any of the formats talked about here) on one of those portable DVD players on the way to Hawaii this summer. It sucked. I'm probably going to trash it or sell it. Too small. Who would want to watch an entire movie on a screen that small. And if you increase the screen size, unit size, control size, battery size, you have an unwieldy piece of crap that is too big to carry around when you just want songs.

Jack A, the problem with using this as a portable device that you can carry around with you is that you lose quality. If you either downloaded a movie onto your vidPod, or ripped it from the DVD, it's going to be lower quality than the DVD. You bring it to my house and we watch it on my jumbotron HD home theatre system, I'd ask why you didn't just bring the DVD and pop it into my DVD player so we could watch in Hi Def rather than MP4.

As for doing the same to a computer, anyone wanting to watch video on their computer probably will use a DVD player.

So someone peed in Mac and PC Guy's Wheaties tonight. He's pissed about Mac users. I don't understand why. We're talking about Bill Gates trying to trump the iPod. We're talking about why we don't think it'll fly. Nothing wrong with those conversations.

As for iLife, Apple put out a helluva great product suite to make people's lives more fun. It's an aspect of life, and I don't think they need to apologize to you for naming it as such. Do you begrudge them for making such a fun suite?

Your "get a life" comment was unnecessary. Many of us (probably most of us) have lives other than on our computers. We just happen to enjoy our computers as well as an "aspect" of our lives. Same with our iPods.

Don't go playing holier than thou, as though your life has some more meaning than any of ours. It's not our fault that you don't enjoy your computer. Then again, your name tells us that you use a PC at least part time. Maybe that's why.

Ooh ooh, one more comment I wish I had made earlier, but I just thought of it.

I got a kick out of MDN's comment comparing Bea Arthur to Heidi Klum. Maybe on the new Microsoft vidPod, the screen will be so small and the video will be so poor that you wont' be able to tell the difference. Bwahahahahahahahaha!

[I]"Oh, wow, I don't think we can do that."[/I]

Hahahaha, very funny Bill because we're still waiting for you to make an OS as stable and as secure as Mac OS X.

What's that? You say that you have one on the soon? Oh okay, sometime this century - and it's called [B]"Long-gone"[/B]?

Well, maybe Bill Gates can afford the $500 price tag for each of his kids to have one of these nifty devices. But, how many average parents are going to want to shell out this kind of cash for a device that really is only good for one person to watch? Then there is the price of content for each device. And what responsible parent is going to put a video on the go device in the hands of kids who are watching too much video as it is now?

Nope,adults aren't interested, kids can't afford it, and it's just all around a bad idea. Just heap this one on the pile of other M$ failures like Windows Media Edition, WebTV, MSN, Xbox, and Bob. All of which never made any money, or are still losing money.

The Riddler would be proud of the players, but not of the played.