The Apple 30GB Video iPod and a Look Beyond

As users of the latest electronic gadgets, consumers expect a level of usefulness, quality, reliability, and service. As a company who has met and exceeded those expectations, Apple has led a number of market trends in the overall development of computers and of hand-held media players. In some very real ways and not always appreciated, Apple has single-handedly created a number of cultural icons. The current edition of the iPod creates an “image” in more ways than one. Even as we are wowed at every announcement from the Cupertino, California, company, we don’t always realize the full implication of the fascinating products from Apple. As cool and compelling as the latest generation of iPods are, I believe most of us don’t fully realize what Apple is creating with the latest models of the iPod in terms of cultural behavior and direction.

Up close and clinically, the latest generation of iPods introduces video in a compact package. It’s that feature that has garnished the most attention from the mainstream press and by reviewers and critics alike. Hundreds of articles already written about Apple’s video media player concentrate on the physical aspects of the iPod and the better ones mention the superb integration with the iTunes software and on-line iTunes store. I too will speak to those. However, I am far more intrigued not by what the video iPod is but what it means and how in the near future it will affect people from casual users, to students, to business persons, to politics, to just about everyone in the way they will send and get information in times to come.

But first as promised, let us look at the iPod itself because there might be folks in the most inaccessible parts of planet Earth who don’t know what the iPod is. The 30 GB video iPod really doesn’t do anything technically innovative. Small video and audio players have been around for a generation. However, until now only Apple has been able to design and package such a player with the compelling features that make iPods the runaway market leader. Indeed, pundits believe that there is no competition and the so-called “iPod killer” products have come and gone with little fanfare and even less mourning.

Updated Features
The palmful of cool glossiness is sensually appealing for its monolithic design, practical size, and simple yet clever controls. It’s a now familiar look that won followers from the first iPod model. Gone, however, are the separate four buttons from earlier generation models that allowed users to move forward and backwards through their music. Those functions are now integral with the click wheel and are activated by pressing rather than by simply touching. Having been familiar with buttons from the earlier iPods, I’m in favor of the latest, if less high-tech, way of selecting a function. The mechanical buttons provide tactile feedback that is more reassuring to the user than the vague feeling one would get using the old, touch-sensitive buttons.

The click wheel is as functional and quick as with previous models as it should be. A neat feature is that the iPod charges through its USB connection when connected to a computer.

The 30GB video iPod is supplied with a dock connector that is USB capable. The iPod adaptor allows the unit to sit firmly in universal docks that are sold separately. The Apple ear buds, like the ones I’ve owned before, have already been given away. Those ear buds don’t stay in my ear. Apparently my ear structure is not Apple compatible and I prefer the use of earphones that clip on. The included CD contains iTunes and iPod setup software. It’s not needed if you have and keep current software updated on your computers that are “authorized” by Apple via the iTunes store.


User Experience
Established iPod users will find a few new menu items and simpler ways to download useful features such as contacts, calendar and notes. However, the general user interface experience will be familiar. The sound from the hard drive mechanism is better muted in this latest model when compared to previous generation iPods. So muted, in fact, I was worried that my unit was not working when I first turned it on.

Sound reproduction is as good as one can get from digital music players. I’m more critical than many when it comes to audio quality. I was weaned in the days of component stereo gear and $4000 speakers and when pop music was worth tuning into. I find most of my MP3 players, and I’ve had a few, do a pretty decent job of conveying high fidelity reproduction but all suffer from audible compression and other annoying artifacts. But not the iPod. Some nice features include a setting that links music tracks so there is no gap – as one were to hear in nicely produced radio show. Also, you can set the iPod so that it maintains a constant volume from track to track regardless of how the track was recorded – a thoughtful feature.

Video quality is nothing short of great considering the limited screen size. Brightness and contrast allows one to view the monitor in all but the brightest sunlight. Being sensitive to color accuracy, I’m pleased to see true-to-life hue and saturation with no perceptible color “bleeding”. Just as impressive is the high resolution and quick refresh rate. This provides a crisp image with no motion blurring.

Apple has done a super job in delivering an excellent user experience with the iPod.

As said so far, using the iPod is a wonderful experience – one that could be marred if its connection to the rest of the world was less than great. Without a doubt, at least half of the iPod success is due to its solid integration with iTunes software and the Apple iTunes store. Now at version 7+, the iTunes software not only manages music and other audio material but video as well. Its intuitive user interface makes it quick and easy for new and established users to acquire and manage audio and visual content. Its seamless integration with the iTunes Store (formerly known as iTunes Music Store) doesn’t overwhelm the user with connection hassles. It has been in this area that other iPod competitors have fallen short. Even as also-rans claimed superior hardware, greater capacity, and cheaper players, they failed to also provide easy and useful software interface to tie player to the outside. Indeed, iTunes has become not just the best and most recognized media management software, it also serves a little understood and even less appreciated function as a media system aggregator.

Among the fastest emerging Internet technologies are the ones that make podcasting possible. Podcasting, in case you might not know, is a fast and effective method of transporting and delivering audio and video content from a source to “subscribers” via a feed collected by an Internet-enabled device system aggregator. The technology behind all this and the phrases are not important nor does it require any more user effort than simply clicking on a subscription link. What is important to the user is that such devices, be it a PC, media player such as an iPod, cell phone, PDA, etc, can acquire wanted video and audio content passively through the Internet. Despite the name, nearly all podcasts are heard or seen on a PC. Users can select or “subscribe” to on-line entities from which they need immediate and latest information. They could be, for example, a news source, an employer, a vendor whose products are those on which you base your business, etc. Those sources send a video or audio-only announcement on an as-needed or periodic basis. The information is passed along from source to user via an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or similar feed. Again, the technology works invisibly and is transparent to the user. Neither sender nor receiver has to depend on phone calls, email, or searching Internet sites.

With podcasting now a quickly growing medium, users are no longer bound to television, radio, other media or even their computer to get information. Users can receive the only the information they want, audio or video, and listen or view it when they want. And they can do so on their own schedule. A traveling salesman can turn on his iPod while driving between clients and listen to his company’s marketing director discuss the company’s latest customer incentive program details. After a day in the field, a professional photographer can return to her hotel and watch an announcement from a photo gear supplier about an unexpected price drop on carbon fiber tripods she was considering buying. The benefits to both the source and users are limitless. Business, institutional, political, military, academic, and personal applications come to mind immediately.

As you can guess, podcasting gets its name from early podcasting pioneers as far back as 2003 (that’s ancient in Internet years) who saw the iPod and other media players as the primary player for listeners of their personal podcasts, which focused mainly on their hobbies and passions. With the advent of a high quality video player that is the iPod, general use of fast broadband Internet connection, the current state of video compression techniques and the increasing availability of high quality video cameras, video podcasting is becoming more common. Along with the introduction of the video iPod, there certainly will be similar products and future iPod models with even better features. What this means will be a significant change in the way all of us will send and receive critical, time-sensitive audio and video information.

Fearless Prognostications
In the fall of 2006 we are about to witness an exploding medium that is podcasting. And not only witness but also and more importantly, participate. More and more of us will demand information from a myriad of sources. It could be from our political representatives, from our boss, from our business vendors, from our social group leaders, and on and on. More and more information sources will depend on a fast, simple and affordable way to disseminate information. The daily routine of searching the dozens of Web sites we visit to search for updated information will be considered old fashioned. The capability of podcasting will allow our sources to reach us (and only us if needed) in the right way right now. Users will be able to see senders’ faces and listen to their voices. Credibility and immediacy can only be enhanced.

Furthermore, we will regard our iPods and portable media players, Web videophones, video Blackberries and such not so much as mere sources of entertainment and walkie-talkies but as a device that will receive and collect all our needed bits of information in the background and we’ll be able to listen to or watch it all when we want. No spam, no unwanted content, we will get only information to which we subscribed. Along with movie videos, we will be watching important training videos sent by our employers or, perhaps, we will hear an announcement on the latest hard disk drive offered by a critical vendor. On the home front, we might receive breaking news on the hurricane that is affecting our mother in Florida or we can see the weekly chat from our favorite presidential candidate.

The iPod itself will evolve. Next incantations of the iPod will have a much larger screen. We will see models with wireless capability, probably Bluetooth that will connect with our computers. Next, built-in, wireless capability and built-in system aggregation will allow the iPod to work completely autonomously, that is, without the need to talk to a computer. Synchronization would be done over the Internet if we wanted to but we wouldn’t have to wait to get to our computer to get our information. Lugging our laptops just to receive information will be a thing of the past. And much of this, if not all of this and more, will happen before Christmas of 2007.

Yes, as is, the iPod is fabulous. As it will be, the iPod and all that goes with it will only get better. I’m looking forward to the future.