Posted October 27th, 2004 @ 08:45am by Erik J. Barzeski
Question: Why the fuck would you use iTunes to synchronize photos to an iPod? And do you want one of the new iPod Photos?
My Answer: My answers: "Hell if I know" and "I'd rather buy a year-old iBook for six-hundred-freaking-dollars."
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Posted 26 Oct 2004 at 9:50pm #
If they used iPhoto for the entire process, they would either cut off users who don't have and don't want to buy iLife 04, or they would have to release iPhoto for free like with iTunes.
And I do *want* an iPod Photo, but it's just waaaaay too expensive, especially for a poor Canadian student.
Posted 26 Oct 2004 at 9:54pm #
Actually, come to think of it, they could package iPhoto 4 with the iPod Photo.
Posted 26 Oct 2004 at 10:03pm #
This says:
I wonder how that works as well… I'll look into it tomorrow, but if you know, post the answer!
Posted 26 Oct 2004 at 10:12pm #
Thank you! I was wondering the same thing. I'm glad I'm not the only one baffled by the iTunes photo syncing. I'd like to meet the guy who actually has a legitimate use for an iPod Photo.
Posted 26 Oct 2004 at 10:14pm #
I suspect that this is a sign of things to come... I hope so...
Posted 26 Oct 2004 at 10:28pm #
Ya know what WOULD be nice? iPod Presenter. Think about it. Right now you've got the capability to do a slide show to a projector from an iPod. If people could export Keynote to this, with a Bluetooth remote it would be the next big thing for the guys in tastle shoes. I'd think that you'd need a little bit of oomph for the transitions though.
Posted 26 Oct 2004 at 10:41pm #
Because there's not a version of iPhoto for Windows. And this way you don't have to have two applications launch when you plug in your iPod Photo. Note that it does sync the iPhoto library (or a subset of its albums).
Posted 26 Oct 2004 at 11:06pm #
Yeah, what is the deal with that? I mean, I probably shoulda held out for the U2 iPod, but hey, my iPod mini's grooving it. 5 hours of music and pictures? Is carrying one's PowerBook too heavy now?
Posted 26 Oct 2004 at 11:46pm #
Maybe it's just me, but isn't the iPod kind of... well... silly?
40 gigs of music in a portable? And that's all it does? For how many dollars?
I'm not saying that there isn't someone out there that has a real need for such a thing, but it amazes me that in many ways it's keeping Apple afloat. I mean, it's little more than a toy. A really, really expensive toy.
Posted 27 Oct 2004 at 12:06am #
Looking at a image in 220x176. :::cough:::
Posted 27 Oct 2004 at 6:13am #
I only just found out about the photo iPod about 30 minutes ago, so I haven't had time for Steve's Reality Distortion Field to dissipate.
But right now, if the U2-edition iPod came in the 60GB iPod Photo style, they'd already have my order.
Posted 27 Oct 2004 at 7:10am #
I agree that the iPod Photo is kind of silly. I would rather have longer batteries and no color screen. This would change though if there was a camera in the iPod. I see this as the natural next step. There are tons of camera-phones, the the capability is already in production.
If the iPod was _taking_ pictures, then syncing your photos makes perfect sense.
Posted 27 Oct 2004 at 7:49am #
For what it's worth, iPod Photo advertises a 15 hour battery life, which trumps the 4G iPods with three hours, and 3G iPods/iPod mini with 7 hours. I think that's going to be worth it for some guys alone. I know I'm considering one to replace my 3G iPod.
There's an accessory available to "dump" memory cards onto the iPod HD. If it works with the iPod Photo - ie. puts the photos in the right place - that would be another awesome application. With that you could unload your camera phone's photos as well (as long as they don't use Memory Stick as used in Sony Ericsson phones or XD cards as in some newer cameras).
Not really - the Macs and the software (most notably OS X, iLife and things like Keynote) keep Apple afloat. The iPod is just a very nice side business. The iTunes Music Store is a loss leader that have only very recently provided a small profit.
The reason to use iTunes for photo syncing is twofold: iTunes is the 'gateway' to the iPod according to Apple (except for iSync, which is a gateway to everything, and by everything they mean Palm Pilots, cell phones, .Mac and iPods). And they are probably not going to port iPhoto to Windows just to enable syncing. I'm not saying they are good reasons, but they are atleast logical reasons.
Posted 27 Oct 2004 at 9:11am #
If anybody wants a 4G 40GB iPod with white iSkin (glo) and iTrip, just contact me!
Mine's up for sale...
Posted 27 Oct 2004 at 10:46am #
I wouldn't mind one of these. I would rather lug a tiny iPod and dock to the inlaws to show them the pictures taken on our trip, then lug over my laptop. It's just for convenience. I have a mac and pc laptop and they can both be a pain at times to hook up to the tv, although the mac is much easier. With the photo ipod you just hook it up and turn it on, not wait for the laptop to boot, wait for your slideshow app to open, wait while selecting the photo album and music you want.. etc etc.
It's a bit pricy for right now, but like all apple tech.. the early adopters pave the way for me 🙂 In a year or so I assume that these will replace the regular iPods.
Hell it's worth it for the extended battery life alone.
Posted 27 Oct 2004 at 11:14am #
Photo display on an iPod is a bit frivolous, especially at that resolution, but everyone here seems to be overlooking the coolest part of it: if you put the album art into your tracks (granted they'll take up more space) it will display the album art when the track is playing. That's freakin' cool if you ask me.
Posted 27 Oct 2004 at 7:03pm #
I'd love to have one of these.. I'd use it all the time for showing photos at my grandma's house and stuff like that.
Why iTunes? Because they're not going to port iPhoto to Windows for this, so on Windows it has to be done in iTunes. So for consistency they need to have iTunes do it on Mac OS X as well.
Perhaps if this thing does well enough they might port iPhoto to Windows (the same way iTunes wasn't ported until there was enough demand) although I don't think they will want to (as iLife is supposed to be one of the things drawing people to Mac OS X)
It would be interesting to see them dust off the Windows version of Yellow Box and get it up to speed with Cocoa. (hmm. maybe another reason it hasn't happened .. that would be a lot of work, probably. iTunes was probably relatively easy, being based on the stripped-down version of Carbon included in QuickTimefor Windows)