By Jake Finkelstein
File this under “PSP/UMD killer.” Thinksecret.com is reporting that Apple has plans to release a true video iPod featuring a 3.5 inch diagonal display as early as April. Getting rid of the now classic click wheel for a touch screen with a disappearing/reappearing “digital” wheel, sources indicate that the 6G iPod will not feature wireless connectivity nor make your credit card debt any less severe.
Read all about it here.
Photo care of Peter Van Dijck
“Real” iPod Video rumours, but still no WiFi
Thinksecret.com is reporting that Apple has plans to release a true video iPod featuring a 3.5 inch diagonal display as early as April. Getting rid of the now classic click wheel for a touch screen with a disappearing/reappearing ?digital? wheel….
Hmm… there’s something about this picture, and some of the ones I’ve seen elsewhere that make me say “LifeDrive.” Look at the images of the device at Palm’s site. Now think about recent stories concerning Palm getting bought by Apple. Hmmm…
This wouldn’t be too far fetched from a business perspective. A lot of the expense in selling the iPod comes from marketing and sales. If Palm had the hardware and OS already developed, then buying Palm for the LifeDrive would be a move that would reduce risk.
I had been thinking of the Apple buys Palm argument only in terms of Apple’s rumored entry into the mobile phone space. But maybe Apple’s thinking about a Palm acquisition as being a way to acquire technology for the “Mobile Me” as well as the “5th Generation iPod.”
At the time I’m writing this, PALM has a market cap of just shy of $1,900 Million (or $1.9 Billion as the Yanks would say.) AAPL’s market cap of $57,120 Million (or $57.12 Billion in US terms) provides them with more than enough “value” to make a cash and stock offer that would be, on the face of it, acceptable by both firms. Were I to speculate, I would think the deal would be $580 Million in cash plus 22,230,000 in AAPL shares.
For the Palm product line, this would be good. Their LifeDrive product, which would benefit greatly from Apple’s ability to purchase small-footprint, high-capacity hard drives, would be sold through Apple’s successful retail and wholesale channels. For AAPL it would also be good, they could free up their iPod engineers to focus on further mobile communicator products (maybe we could even rebrand the Treo, the Newton 2 😉 )
From a development perspective it’s not that daft an idea. Even if Apple had no plans of turning the LifeDrive into a full featured PalmOS (or WindowsCE.. or Linux..) based PDA, the ability to use “off the shelf” development tools should, in theory, help contain development costs.
Who wants to have a video player with touch screen controls (which will almost certainly be part of the main display)?
I mean, you’d have to wipe the damn screen after every volume adjustment or pause or resume or play or stop or…
6G video iPod, thats a typo right? Should it read 60G?
that scene is from “Gattaca” rite?……i could swear it is……..