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Top 5 iPod Ideas

36 Responses (Add) | Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 3:55am

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I love getting your emails with your Top 5 tips, tricks, ideas and suggestions… whether they are Technology related or not. Tonight, I wanted to share a community members’ recommendations for improving an iPod. Personally, I think most other Mp3 players could benefit from these, as well.

  • Scratch-free. iPods aren’t cheap devices and for the money we pay we should get something that doesn’t scratch just by touching it. Apple is going in the right direction with their new iPod line, metal front and glass screen, but the shiny back is still unprotected. I wish that apple would figure out a way to keep the shiny back, but make it scratch-resistant, maybe use some kind of coating? If Apple can’t figure out a way to do that, they should at least ship iPods with the plastic sticker-screens already on.
  • Flash drive based iPod classic. This holiday season, I want to upgrade to an iPod classic from a first generation iPod nano. I want the classic because it can play videos and it has a 2.5 inch screen, but I can’t give up the benefits of having a flash drive based player. If Apple would release an iPod classic with a flash drive, it would be lighter, faster, the battery life would be much better and it would be more durable than an iPod with a hard drive. A couple of days ago, I dropped my iPod nano on concrete with good force and nothing happened to it, if the same thing happened to a hard drive based iPod, it would probably break. 32 GB flash drives are out there, so why not make use of them, Apple?
  • Direct podcasts.

    • It would be great if Apple would make iPods capable of downloading podcasts without a computer. Apple should make a cable with Ethernet plug on one side, and 30 pin iPod connector on the opposite end, then you could connect your iPod to your router/modem in the evening and have a fresh batch of podcasts in the morning. This way large podcast downloads won’t slow your connection down when you surf the internet, and it is much more convenient. I want to add to this one: I don’t want to have to use anything on my desktop. Mp3 Players should be synching with BlueTooth, including Podcasts on demand.

  • Flash video support.

    • Flash videos are everywhere and the fact that you have to convert them in order to view them on your iPod sucks. I don’t think that there are any media players that support flash, but if iPods did, it would be a big feature. RealPlayer 11 has a feature where when you are watching any flash video, and you wish to download it, all you need to do is hover your mouse pointer over the video, a little button pops up saying “Download this video”, you click it and done. I wish that Apple would do something as simple with iTunes, then all you have to do is click the button and sync. This would be faster, easier and the video quality would be excellent as you are playing the original file.

  • Security authorization.

    • Apple should make iPods authorize an accessory before using it. If you are asking why, here it is; say your iPod gets stolen, the way it is now, the thief has full access to your iPod and it will work for him/her as long as it would for anyone else. But if you would have to authorize the charging dock and/or the syncing cable, your iPod would become a “vegetable” when the charge runs out. Apple should make the authorization a one-time-thing so after you authorize the accessory, you go about your business as usual. Also, the authorization should take place on the iPod so that if you are away and you want to charge your player, you would connect the charger, a little message on the screen would pop up “Enter your secret code to authorize this accessory” and then you charge. I think that authorization shouldn’t be an option, because if the stealing community knows that all iPods are protected this way, it would make less sense to steal them.

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36 Comments

Tyler S. Miller

November 21st, 2007
at 3:26am

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Celltunes

November 19th, 2007
at 2:50pm

iPod. Personally, I think most other Mp3 players could benefit from these, as well. Scratch-free. iPods aren’t cheap devices and for the money we pay we should get something that doesn’t scratch just by touching it. Apple is goin Original post byChris Pirilloand software by celltunes

Windows Vista Torrent

November 19th, 2007
at 1:26pm

Tech Interviews What is iPhone JailBreak? How to Change Your Mouse CursorTop 5 iPod IdeasBeauty and the Geek Video How to Find Old Software What Makes Ron Paul Different How to Make Games Website Language Settings Christmas Wallpaper Instant Messenger Virus

matthewserta

November 19th, 2007
at 2:39am

lol apparently not… Chris didnt. :p

HTMLXX

November 19th, 2007
at 4:48am

VLC supports flash
great media player

greensprat

November 19th, 2007
at 5:18am

He’s talking about portable players not desktop applications

WillThePlank

November 19th, 2007
at 8:36am

they could make a vlc portable

nickjuly004

November 19th, 2007
at 9:37am

iPod classic + Flash Drive = the new 3G iPod Nano with video

It’s already been made and I have one and it’s great.

Tedious

November 19th, 2007
at 10:23am

I agree with 4 out of 5.

I disagree with Flash. H.264 is a non-proprietary solution that is finally catching on outside of Cupertino.

It’s not as efficient as Flash, but the upside of being an open format outweighs the downside of it’s higher requirements.

Ditto MP3 -> MP4

AAC (MP4, M4a) is more efficient and has fewer licensing requirements. It’s so open that it makes MP3 look closed!

Eytan

November 19th, 2007
at 4:20pm

Apple is actually working on authorization tools for this exact scenario…

As for Flash video support, no way no how…. everyone, INCLUDING Adobe, are moving to H.264 – which the iPod supports. Maybe they could support the flash wrapper fro playback, but they have no need to support the prior Adobe CODEC (the one before the latest developer version of Flash 9). The XBox 360, Sony PS3, PSP, Zune – ALL support H.264
Google converted ALL their YouTube videos to H.264
DIvX purchased an H.264 company on Friday and announced they will integrate that CODEC into their other assets (DivX biggest asset is the interactive DivX stuff, allowing you to create DivX movies with menus, etc. – just swap out the DivX CODEC for H.264 and they have something good – DivX is based on the early MPEG-4 standard out of MSFT – looks like they are about to swicth to the latest, supported CODEC)

ocdpDrumz1

November 20th, 2007
at 2:00am

shiny back?????

its sexy back,omg dude you are a total nerd!

benjbben

November 20th, 2007
at 4:34am

i like it it is sad and it reminds me of my friend that saddly was killed last year because of reading chain letters and now that you have read this eshe will slowly kill you by everytime you hear a ring in your ear she will make your life shorter by a day post this on five different vidios to be saved sorry

lil0egy0kid

November 20th, 2007
at 6:27am

chris ur a total nred shiney back by justin timberlake rofl

pazks

November 20th, 2007
at 9:20am

What is the big deal about shiny backs?

wojtek19890

November 20th, 2007
at 12:42pm

Oh man, the guy who sent these ideas must be a genius! Great Stuff!

Casey

November 20th, 2007
at 12:19pm

Hey,
I have the perfect suggestion to problem #1. Although Apple should step up their quality a bit. I found an iPod case that is super amazing! Its got a top of the line screen protector and protects my ipod better than kind of case I have ever used before and it looks really cool too! You can get them in several colors for several different versions of iPods and the paint they use is scratch resistant so it will keep your iPod safe and looking for life! I stongly recommend them, they really make up for where apple is lacking…and thats durability and protection. Nobody wants scratched up and broken iPod. You can find out more about them at http://vibevault.com/

Chris Chadwick

November 20th, 2007
at 3:16pm

iPod’s are mostly (in the UK at least) a trendy fashion accessory. Having said that if you like a iPod an just wish to carry music around on the move go for it.

But there is another Player out there that dose a better job, longer battery life an better featured that tends to get looked over an that is the Archos http://www.archos.com with two of the versions you can surf the internet an download directly to the device it supports Flash an a dock is also available that allows you to directly record TV onto it for latter playback, an recently at a trade show i attended you can buy a cammera for it, admittedly the camera was invented for use in extreme sports but it could have many more uses.

Mason

November 20th, 2007
at 3:50pm

Might wanna look at the zune chris..most of your issues or wants are found in the zune..but i highly doubt you care

PlatonicKamel

November 21st, 2007
at 10:58am

The feature I’d most like to see is “Back to my Mac” style remote streaming (or like what Elgato have done in EyeTV 2.5). I could live with a nice little nano if I also had access to my 250GB library whenever I was near a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Elgato have already proved it can be done, so get to it!

Chris Savage

November 21st, 2007
at 5:20pm

I would put wireless syncing above all of these. The new Zunes have this feature and I’m jealous.

Augmen1

November 24th, 2007
at 5:25am

is it just me or was his left monitor acctually turned off?!!

Brandon

November 23rd, 2007
at 10:41pm

once again. cool blog.

sd2467

November 25th, 2007
at 4:08am

Ipods should have a built in radio like a zen

sou3789

December 4th, 2007
at 5:54am

the ipod is kind of a rip off..especially the shuffle…no screen, nothing..the creative zen gives you a screen, radio, voice recorder, EQ options ,…and cost a lot less for more memory…but i like my nano…the battery life sux though..

sou3789

December 4th, 2007
at 5:56am

the manual said up to 14 hours of music playback…it’s not lying..thogh its only if every option is turned off and volume is all the way down…if not..that 14 hours turns to about 4 hours

sora92120

December 15th, 2007
at 3:57am

the security idea really needs to be applied, ipods get stolen ALOT.

DavinTerrizzi

March 23rd, 2008
at 7:47pm

Yep, but it’s DAMN SMALL. That’s what it’s advertised as.

sou3789

March 24th, 2008
at 3:48am

the newer shuffel is small but the older one is not so small

DavinTerrizzi

March 24th, 2008
at 3:50am

Same size. If you mean the shuffle 1st generation, nobody uses it. thats OLD.

Tashi Sherpa

January 6th, 2009
at 8:32am

I would like to have an sd card slot (or even a microsd card slot). I’m sure apple could implement some software to go on sd cards for this to work (sd cards are really cheap now, so it wouldn’t matter if the card became locked with iTunes).
If that wouldn’t work, then Apple could always sell their own sd cards.
This would be very useful, but I’m guessing it doesn’t fit with Apple’s marketing model.

What Do You Think?