iPod - how to make a good thing better

I was thinking about the new developments of iPod and how Steve Jobs has managed to almost capture every single market available and making collectors out of iPod fans.

There was the initial iPod, iPod with touch wheel and 4 buttons on top, iPod with click wheel, iPod mini, iPod Shuffle, iPod Photo, iPod Nano, the iPod Flea....what did I miss? From disk base to flash base....it's everywhere, own by so many people that it's such a faux pas to wear the original apple earphone. The ubiquitous iPod and the series spawned since no longer has that "alternative" appeal that once shrouded the owners of apple products. It is no wonder that hackers are getting into the act of creating virus for the Mac OS. Read Wil Shipley hubristic blog entry on Mac OS...especially the comments.

Anyhow.....I was thinking about my own Royal Gala II - an iPod Photo with 60gb capacity.

How do you make a good thing better? I have no doubt the people at apple are more than capable of turning out something cooler before X'mas but do they really want to? I doubt it. They would want to milk the iPod Nano cow first before launching an all new improved iPod...

Here's what I think it should be headed...personally...

1) iPod with mpeg playback
Imagine iPod with iTunes as well as Quicktime! We will not have to suffer with a paltry 13 square centimetre screen of brilliant resolution and colour. Of course the size of the iPod shouldn't grow else it would look ridiculously clumsy like Sony's PSP. Actually, some people don't mind the size of the PSP. Oh well...go figure.

I would like to see the screen bigger though...hard to maintain a cinematic 16:9 screen and the click wheel will surely have to be reduced.
Hence instead of the current configuration and look...

it might end up looking more like a PDA...(very lousy editing skills...I am using Powerpoint on a Mac okie)

I christened this creature the iPod WMD - Wonderous Multimedia Device. I'm being silly of course. Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive will never make something so ugly and Frankensteinesque. It wouldn't be called WMD for sensitive reasons. It'll probably have a cooler name like iPod Neh Neh or iPod - The One or someshitlikethat. Actually, bored people (but ingenious nonetheless) have already used the iPod Photo to watch movie clips. But it's more suited for really short clips that don't require sound, like porn or Mr Bean. I'm not the only person wishing this up. Check this out: iPod Movie


2) iPod with built-in recorder
The technology is already there. It's just that the people at apple don't want to have a begger-thy-neighbour business plan unlike Creative, iRiver, etc...So they get Griffin, Belkin and a host of affiliates to make these voice recording device for them....So what happens to iPod owners who want to record voice memos and whatever raunchy noises you fancy recording? They get things like the iTalk. Which although not unpleasant looking...still cost $$ and does stick out alot and spoil the look.

Notice how it sticks out. And with the iPod 60gb, the iTalk no longer flushes with the iPod because the iPod is a few millimetres thicker. Hmph! So really, a built-in recording function would be great. And please, give us a better quality recording...like 8KHz, 16 bit mono WAV files that goobles 1mb for every 1 minute is too limited. I don't mind recording them as WAV files as they are better for editing but these days, softwares for editing mp3s are really commonplace. So maybe that would work.


3) iPod with camera
There is already the very useful camera connector which I bought for my Spain trip earlier this year because I reckoned that instead of buying another expensive compact flash card, I can rely on my 256mb CF card with my camera's original Olympus 32mb xd card. So the xd card can be for those Kodak moments when my CF card is full otherwise I can leisurely upload the pics in the CF card into my iPod. Which was exactly what I had done in Spain.

So imagine having an external lens-like thing to take pictures with. This is already available for PDAs so why not iPods? Then you can view the pictures on the iPod On-The-Go with your travel-partner! Fun! And anytime you wanna snap a picture but forgot your camera because it is bulky and sitting at home, just whip out the iPod camera attachment (probably called something like iSnap - angry sounding or iPic or iClick) and wa la! A camera On-The-Go!


4) iPod with nicer remote
Admit it. The current remote control that apple has pales in the comparison to the iPod. It's gotta be slicker and more appealing to the eye. Notice that not many people actually use the remote? In fact, the remote has long not been bundled along with the iPod. And better earphones by the way. And don't be cheap, give us the dock connector! And why the cop out? Why switch to USB? I love the firewire!

5) iPod - Industrial Strength
Despite the look, an iPod can actually withstand tremendous punishment. Even the filmsy Nano can withstand getting run over by a car! Proven! But what would be really great would be a tougher iPod. One that is scratch-resistant, even for the screen and the chromed backplate. Industrial strength should include characteristics like a longer battery life of at least 24hrs and also, make changing batteries available to the whole world godamit!

There. I have finished my little wish list on how the iPod - currently an mp3 player, jpg files storer, .wav files recorded and cultural icon can be made into a better monster...

If not, why shouldn't everyone get a Creative Zen Vision instead?