2008 iPod Models

It’s two months until iPod Season™ and speculation inspiration hit me today.

iPod Classic: Death or Rebirth?

I think that this year could see the end of the click-wheel Classic iPod. Here’s the reasoning: the price of the iPhone has dropped precipitously, making the price of the iPod Touch suddenly untenable. The Touch’s price has to tumble too. Where does that leave the antiquated-looking but capacious Classic?

Here’s my bombshell: I think it’s possible that the Classic could live on, but not as a click wheel. I propose that the Classic could evolve into what is essentially just the iPod menu of the iPhone. That means no Wi-Fi, no apps, nothing but what you see when you push the iPod button on your iPhone. Think about it: This would make it possible to price it below that of the Touch and maintain distinction between models, but at the same time allow it to leave its click-wheel interface behind. I’m projecting the same 80Gb and 160Gb drives as in the 2007 models. Flash is still too expensive in these frankly enormous capacities, so it may be a year or two before flash can catch up for a reasonable price.

So that gives you a new Classic–an iPod Touch Classic–in a similar form factor to the current, but with a big, beautiful, touch screen with all the benefits that brings, and the back-to-basics concept of carrying all your music in your pocket. I imagine that to keep costs down, the same screen as used on the iPhone and Touch would be used. The Touch is still far in front of the competition, so this brings this laggard into line and viable for another year at least, until at last hard drives can be abandoned for roomy new flash technology. Being heavily stripped of features and using common components and OS would make it very affordable. Think of the savings in OS design: Apple could build their iPhone OS, then throw out everything that’s inapplicable for this model instead of maintaining another codebase.

The Touch: Let’s Get Relevant

10 months ago, I bought the Touch. I’ve never been completely happy with it because it always felt like a substitute for the iPhone. Now that I have an iPhone I know exactly why the iPhone is better: when you walk out of your house or your office, it no longer becomes a network brick. All that aside, there is a definite need for the Touch because the iPhone is attached to that most necessary of evils: a mobile carrier. Not everyone can or wants that expense.

So, we need the Touch. But why does it have to feel so cheap and crippled compared to the iPhone? This year, I think it could start to feel its own way. It already has a killer feature that the iPhone doesn’t: 32Gb. Where to go from here? It’s time to fill in some of the missing features.

Let’s start with a camera. A number of applications can use photos and as it’s a mobile device, it makes sense to capture the photo then and there instead of hoping an applicable one is in the photo library. Applying photos to contacts, anyone?

Next, it’s only got Wi-Fi to locate itself. Let’s throw in the same GPS that the iPhone 3G has. Now location-based services can be useful.

I think these two features added to the Touch, along with its focus on capacity (perhaps even 64Gb could be viable this year) would help to define it as a relevant device, different to but not cannibalising its phone-based sibling.

Nano: Oh God Let it Be Lanyardable!

This one is the hardest to predict, but I feel good about 3 sizes: 4Gb, 8Gb and new 16Gb. I think it will retain the click wheel because in order to turn it into a touch screen it would have to get Mobile OS X, and I can’t see that you could run that OS for very long on the tiny batteries these models have. Perhaps next year.

My main concern is whether I will be able to use a lanyard with it, because there is only one way to carry a Nano, and that is around your neck. The third-gen from last year worryingly was not accompanied by a specific lanyard, but luckily the first-gen lanyard fitted properly.

Shuffle: Can it Still Keep Going?

Who knows? The Nano is far superior and the price of this year’s entry model would get so low that I imagine it would start to cannibalise Shuffle sales. I’d like to see it hang around for another year. I don’t think it needs to be changed, but a new wardrobe of colours would be a logical move.

Summary

It’s important to remember that iPods evolve slowly over the years, they don’t leap ahead, except when the first iPod was introduced, and the first Nano, of course. The iPhone innovated, and the advances made their way into the iPod space, but they didn’t begin there. The ideas I’ve presented here are feasible and fit in with the type of evolution that we have experienced from Apple.

Subtle Changes to iTunes 7.7

In my usual function of pointing out things that other, swifter sites may have missed, here is a 7.7 subtlety round-up.

Firstly, a bad one: With AAC files ripped under 7.7, Lostify is broken. It doesn’t recognise the files as valid MPEG 4 files, so you can’t edit the extended tags such as File Kind, Release Date and Copyright.

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Album art in iTunes is magnified to fill the screen, regardless of original resolution. All my 400 x 400s now look huge and blocky. I don’t know if I like this beyond it being a prompt to upgrade my artwork. If the art is oddly sized and low-res, like for this podcast, it’s a little unsightly at full screen. This is from a 1920 x 1200 monitor.

Artwork at maximum size used to go below the dock, but now it doesn’t, which is a nice enhancement for artwork enthusiasts.

You’ll hear a lot about Remote for iPhone/iPod Touch, but I just wanted to register that it is jaw-droppingly well done. No other company could produce a remote so tightly integrated with iTunes and the Apple TV. The response time between interacting with the screen and playback is instantaneous. If you’ve set up AirTunes with an Airport Express or Apple TV, you can select which speakers you want to use, just like you can in iTunes.

I was playing a video on Apple TV, then paused it, changed control to iTunes on the computer and started playing an audio track, with the output going to the Apple TV using the AirTunes feature. Instead of the Apple TV choking, it simply displayed the album art and track information in the lower-left of the screen, then changed to the audio Now Playing screen. This is very impressive.

So, apart from support for the major features of iPhone/iPod Touch, some small tweaks. I’m not expecting any more, but will post if I do.

Apple TV Update Coming Down the Pipe

The Remote application for iPhone/Touch got me to thinking: what if there were an Apple TV update? I just checked and I’m downloading it as I write. I’m anticipating support for Remote and possibly ratings icons for countries other than the US in the Movies and TV Shows menus.

Update: Yes, Remote support is included, as well as MobileMe photo support, replacing .Mac. It’s version 2.1.

What puzzles me is no Australian TV and movie rating icons. We’ve got TV shows now, so it doesn’t make sense.

So just a small update but the Remote is going to be cool.

Remote for iPhone/Touch: Most Likely a Killer App

I’d heard about this for a couple of weeks but I’ve just installed iTunes 7.7 and downloaded Apple’s Remote application from the Apps Store. I of course use Apple TV, so an iTunes remote is brilliant but not for me. I was flabbergasted to read on the app’s page that it can “Control the music on iTunes or Apple TV“. How unexpected and seriously cool is this? I’ll have to wait until I can upgrade my Touch, which I am guessing will be tomorrow, so that I can play with this.

I’m Speechless–I Am Without Speech!

Oh. My. God. People, I’m shaking. TV shows just came to the Australian iTunes Store! I feel a vast relief wash over me as I’ve been waiting for this for some time. There’s not a big selection, but that doesn’t matter. What is important is that we’ve arrived. The catalogue will burgeon. Movies will follow, then rentals. Apple TV is now in the game.

I’m pleased to see local content like Summer Heights High (which I will buy), Sleek Geeks and We Can Be Heroes, but possibly this had to happen because it was easier to license than foreign shows. Still, it’s appropriate that we get a largish ratio of local to foreign content.

I’m pleased with the pricing too. $2.99AUS for a single episode seems all right to me, and the collected seasons are priced a little below that of the DVD equivalent. Higher quality and extra content aside, buying these shows on iTunes for a little less than DVD and not having to rip and prepare the content looks inviting. I can’t wait to watch my new iTunes TV show!

It’s not the end of DVD-ripping for me, but iTunes will now be a part of my TV-show-purchasing regimen.

What a great day!

Ripping Video Tape

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This is a video tape. Great Southern Land by Icehouse, never released on DVD. What’s a collector to do? It wasn’t that hard to rip, as long as you’ve got the tools.

Firstly, a friend of mine (because his VHS deck was stereo, and mine is mono), ripped it for me by connecting the deck to his EyeTV. He then recorded in real time, producing an EyeTV file that was 720 x 576 (PAL). I then used EyeTV to rip to iPod (640 x 480, 1500kbps H.264/128kbps AAC). This gave me one long iPod file. I used QuickTime Player Pro to cut out the separate videos, tagged each with Lostify and dragged them into iTunes.

The result? Pretty crappy video on Apple TV and the computer. Looks okay on iPod. I’m not overly concerned about the quality because there’s nothing you can do about it. The good thing is that I can now enjoy this content again without endangering my tape through wear and tear.

This process took me back to the ’80s and the positively archaic video technology of the time. DVD truly is a quantum leap forward in quality and usability. Luckily, that’s the only tape I needed to rip. The only other VHS I own is the original Star Wars Special Edition widescreen set from 1997, and there’s no way I’ll ever play it again. It’s purely a collector’s item now.

Podcast Management for Podcastees

Up to about a year and a half ago, when my storage was somewhat limited, I chose to archive a number of episodes in order to free up space on my main drive and to reduce the number of records in the iTunes database, theoretically to improve iTunes performance. I have recently changed this approach.

I used to have a 10Gb monthly allowance from my ISP. Anything downloaded at the time was precious to me because I paid dearly for it. Thus I hoarded every episode that I downloaded. I filled the drive and archived onto DVD. That didn’t work because I felt compelled to modify some of the tags and before I knew it, I started to have differing versions. I scrapped the DVDs and used a small old external hard drive that was big enough to store the archives. This allowed me to modify the tags and overwrite the existing file. Multiple-version problem solved.

Ephemeral Podcasts

Now that I’m on a 30Gb monthly allowance, and even though I’ve got plenty of storage, I’ve decided that I am no longer going to keep everything. A number of podcasts, e.g. Geekbrief.tv, MacMost, The MacObserver’s Mac Geek Gab and Triple J’s Sunday Night Safran, are topical or ephemeral and I consider that they can be deleted after listening or watching. I think a copy of every episode should be retained, but the responsibility for this I leave up to the podcast producer. I certainly would hoard my own work if I were podcasting.

I’ve changed the podcast option to keep All unplayed episodes:

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Now every podcast episode with a play count of 0 will be retained, but anything with a higher play count will be deleted. The deletion occurs when the podcast is checked for updates.

Podcasts to Keep

There is another class of podcast which you will want to keep, due to sentimental, timeless or other characteristics. Examples of this for me are the first Ricky Gervais Show (this was produced shortly after podcast support came to iTunes and is significant to me because I really like him), Puffcast (unfortunately now defunct but awesome, timeless dub/reggae) and Scott Sigler’s first podcast novel Earthcore, which I not only enjoyed and would consider listening to again, but I could conceivably give to someone else so that they didn’t need to download it. All the episodes of a podcast can be protected from deletion by right-clicking the podcast title and selecting “Do Not Delete”:

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Note that you can selectively do this to individual episodes without affecting the other episodes of the same podcast.

The Problem

There is a caveat: while you can protect all the episodes of a podcast, this only applies to the episodes existing at the time you applied the command. Future episodes will not be protected and will be deleted if not individually protected before their play count reaches 1. This is a non-intuitive behaviour and should it offend you, you should complain to Apple about it.

My Workaround

Create a smart playlist called Podcasts to Keep. The criteria are as follows:

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You will fill in the album name for any podcasts that you want to keep. This keeps a running master collection of every episode you want to keep. You can add to this from time to time if you later subscribe to a new podcast that you want to keep.

Create a second smart playlist called Podcasts to Be Processed. The criteria are as follows:

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This playlist is the one you will work with. Every now and then (if you get new episodes daily like me, do this daily), click this playlist in the sidebar and see if there are any episodes in the righthand pane. If there are, select them all, right-click and select “Do Not Delete”. When an episode is played (i.e., reaches a play count of 1), it will disappear from the playlist but will remain in your Podcast library.

An Alternative Approach

There is another approach that works the other way around. The disadvantage is that you’ll be filling up disk space with played episodes you don’t want to keep unless you check it frequently.

Change the podcast option to keep All episodes:

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Instead of the Podcasts to Be Processed playlist, create a smart playlist called Podcasts to Be Deleted with the following criteria:

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Check this playlist from time to time. If you see any episodes, select them all and delete them.

Summary

Unless Apple solves the problem above, investment in podcasts can mean an investment in management, but I feel it is worth it. Use this as a guide to determine whether you are willing to make that investment.

Apple TV Upgrading Update

If you read my post regarding my woes with upgrading Apple TV, you may have been put off on doing so yourself. Well, I rang Apple (I bought AppleCare for this privilege) and it was good to find out that I was in the minority with regard to video choking, which was my biggest issue. The suggested remedy was to restore, then upgrade again. Apparently, 1.0 (or whatever shipped with the Apple TV) is stored in a partition and is not overwritten by later versions, so that’s why mine was restoring to 1.0.

I did this and it appears to have resolved the choking issue, plus a similar issue with audio choking when syncing was being done concurrently.

Podcasters: Beware of the Evil that is .mov

Podcasters may not be aware of why they should not be posting video podcasts in the .mov format. .mov is a software “wrapper” that contains a minimum of two components: video and audio. The components can be in different codecs. So even if you believe that you are doing the right thing by using H.264 and AAC (you are), there are implications in using the .mov wrapper that you should be aware of.

.mov cannot be tagged. Well, a number of tags can be assigned in iTunes (notable exception being album art) but this only writes the tags to the database, not the file. This means that as soon as the episode is moved out of iTunes, it loses all the tags. In the case of podcasts, this includes, most tragically, the podcast flag and the long description. The only “tag” remaining is the title name and the disc and track number (if set), and this is only stored in the form of the file name. When you bring those episodes back into iTunes, they appear in the Movies library as 01 Episode 1.mov, etc, with no other tags. All that hard work from your RSS feed is wasted and is not recoverable.

A podcastee may have archived past episodes and want to reconstitute them into iTunes, or, as I have done in the past, handed them on to others so that they don’t have to download the episodes themselves. This saves lots of bandwidth. In either case, the results will be disappointing.

The MPEG 4 file format (.m4v or .mp4) is a wonderland of tagging possibilities. Cali and Neal, of Geekbrief.tv, for example, have recently started using one of my favourite tools, Lostify, to tag their .m4v (H.264/AAC) files as TV Show so that, in addition to all the embedded podcast tagging that iTunes does when the file is downloaded, they can be found in both the Podcasts and TV Shows libraries. Copyright, explicit, short description, etc. can also be tagged.

So my appeal to podcasters is to be aware of this and not to use .mov. The software you are using to create your files might be able to generate .m4v files. iMovie 08 will do it. Personally, I use QuickTime Player Pro to export MPEG 4 video (MPEG 4 or H.264) from .mov to MPEG 4 with the Passthrough option for both video and audio. This preserves the full quality of both components but regenerates them as a .mp4 file, the name of which is simply changed to .m4v prior to tagging (if H.264).

Don’t Underestimate the Mac Mini

Last year I upgraded my G5 to improve iTunes performance. As noted in that post, I achieved only moderate performance gains. The G5 was always pretty good at encoding with Handbrake, but now that I have added a number of tweaks to get better quality output, it was taking a very long time to encode video (about 18 hours for a 22-minute TV episode). That’s a little non-viable.

I was impressed that my MacBook Air was ripping video slightly faster than the G5. It’s Apple’s slowest machine, at 1.6GHz. I started to think that a Mac Mini would give me modest improvements on that, and because I appeared to have some hardware issues on the G5 with USB ports going offline, system lock-ups, etc., I decided to replace it now with a Mac Mini rather than wait for the next update to the line.

Given that I have plenty of external storage and an external DVD drive, I decided to save a little money and bought the entry-level 1.83GHz model, with 80Gb hard drive and combo optical. This is the slowest desktop Apple currently produces, so I wasn’t expecting it to be much better than the G5. It turns out that with most operations (opening windows, navigating through iTunes, etc.) it isn’t much different. I was starting to get a little buyer’s remorse when I ripped a TV episode to test it.

I had to check very carefully that it had produced a playable file of the entire episode because it ripped it about 5 times as fast as the G5! I was astonished at the difference, so impressed in fact that I considered buying another one just to rip video. It turns out that the MacBook Air was turning off one of its cores under the load of ripping, thus accounting for the lacklustre performance compared to the only slightly faster Mini.

Of course it comes five years of development time after the G5, so that dampens the surprise a little, but I think this proves that the Mac Mini is a pretty good performer despite its position in the product hierarchy, and you should consider it.