New iPod Mini!!!
 

That's right, a new model of iPods has been released by Apple.

http://www.apple.com/ipodmini/



As you can see they are smaller and come in different colors. Early rumors said that this would be a cheaper iPod, but Apple disappoints and makes it $249....it also holds 4gb of music. Apple also got rid of the 10gb model and brought back the 15gb model for smallest size of the larger model.

I think it should be interesting to see how this smaller model does.



Added:
http://www.tombridge.com/photos/ipodmini/

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

Nice. Still too expensive and too small (size-wise). I'd want to be able to upgrade without having to drop another $500.

(Yes, I am coming close to 40GB of legally owned mp3s. I'm addicted to buying slightly-used CDs.)

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

The mini ipod is small and graceful... but for $250, it's a waste.

If considering getting a "low-end" iPod, just pay $50 more for +11gb space, and 2 more ounces in weight (wow, 5oz. so heavy! :P)... Plus there are cooler touchbuttons.

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

I would buy an iPod if I didn't have so many WMAs that I don't want to convert. If I'm not mistaken the iPod only plays MP3s and AAC or something like that. They probably want to avoid all things Microsoft though. I think it should also have a line-in feature for recording from an analog source realtime.

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

It does, sort of. There are accessories for microphones and a couple of cables that do plug into regular line ins.

Some open source developers are actually trying to build a WMA to ACC converter. However they were have trouble with it, and I haven't heard anything from it for a while.

Anyways, I believe Apple dropped the bomb on this. I was actually quite disappointed with this year's Macworld Expo. It was just Final Cut Express, new g5 x-servs and RAIDs, iLife, and those mini-ipods. Don't get me wrong, these are good products, but most people expect more from Apple these days with expos. Well maybe it will be better as WWDC.

Anyways I don't know what Apple was thinking about the mini-ipods. Everyone was hoping for a $100 to $150 model, but that didn't appear. The 15gig $300 iPod is a much better value than that mini-ipod

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

ipod is a waste, if it could be used as a good usb dump station i would love it, but considering the hard drive only writes at 80mbit's thats kinda sad :(

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

I always thought HDD read/write speeds were measured in MB/s (megabytes per second). I also thought that 80 MB/s was a fairly standard speed for HDD access. Maybe I was mistaken.

Anyway, I was considering getting an iPod for a while, but the main problem that I have with it is that it doesn't support Ogg Vorbis. Being as a vast majority of my (quite legal, may I say) music collection has been ripped to Ogg Vorbis, this was a huge concern of mine. However, to my pleasure, Rio recently released the Karma, which supports Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3, WAV, and WMA (ick, I feel dirty for even typing that one). It comes in 20GB and 40GB flavors, but 20GB is quite enough for me. I've had it for a few weeks, now, and I must say, I really love it. It's not too big, as some Apple-biased websites might have you think, and the interface is, from my fairly limited experience with a friend's iPod, at least as good as the iPod's, if not better. I can't find any reasons why not to suggest that any real audiophile (read: someone familiar with Ogg Vorbis and FLAC) not buy a Rio Karma, I sure as heck love mine.

Just my two cents.

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

80 mbit=10 megabytes Tests showed just under 10 (9.7 I believe) I would be using it to dump pictures off my camera, but maximum pc magazine did a review on it and showed that the media adapter is even slower. I will just have to invest in more flash memory. sigh

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

The firewire adaptor is quite fast. I have used it many a time for large file transfers. It's slower than an internal hard drive, but it's quite fast. Also, the media reader is slow, but rumor has it another company is comming out with one that is faster.

Personally, I'm disapointed. The iPod's price is awful, the HD size is minimal, and just the whole thing underwhelms me. If they just put a smaller capacity, bigger dimensional hard drive in the current shel, they could have sold more for cheap. Now they have another 20th Annaversary Mac & Cube on their hands.

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

apple definately didnt cut down the price enough to make it worth having 11 gigs less space. and they lost the scroll wheel? cmon. the trendy colours dont make up for that.

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

I spent one afternoon and converted 2gb of WMA files into MP3... tedious but well worth it - I'm able to use iTunes for Windows :) CDex is a good program and open-source.

Here's a story:

One of my friend's father used part of his grant money for a 40gb iPod, citing it as an "External Hard Drive". :) :) Too bootleg to express in words...

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

FYI

The new iPod has a 1-inch Hitachi Drive. These things retail for $400, so getting it into a $249 iPod isn't bad.

I personally think they should have stayed with the cheaper 1.8in drive or even cheaper laptop hard drives to cut the cost down to $100 to $150. The original ipod is small enough, it really doesn't need to be smaller.

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

I was watching TechTV yesterday, and they were talking about the new iPods. Something they mentioned that I thought was interesting is that they will keep the price @ $249 for the first 6-8 months (maybe less), so that the hardcore iPod people will buy one, or the people who just think they have to have it. Then they will drop the price.

Also they are trying to steal competition from people who are used to buying MP3 players such as the 256mb Rios or Samsung Yepps that are $200. They think that by making it $50 more people will be attracted to the design, 16 times the amount of songs, etc. I guess they are thinking they will overlook the bigger iPods.

"This iPod is targeted at the high end Flash market" - Steve Jobs

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

The drive maxes at 10 mb's a sec period... might be "fast" but we are all human and we want somthing faster and better, the media reader is slow, and writes at something like 2 mb a sec, which is the only reason I would buy it to begin with. Also, firewire is pointless when computers come stock with USB 2.0 now, so its time for the ipod to make the jump also.

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

...or when they come out with something bigger (yet, probably smaller) & better.

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

They may be making USB versions now, but iPod's are normally firewire. Having used one, they make excellent portable hard drives, and you can even boot mac s off them. IF you wanted a portable hard drive that was rugged enough to carry with you everywhere (unlike most external HD"s) the iPod would be perfect and considering the price of normal full size external firewire drives, the price isn't bad.

Re: New iPod Mini!!!
 

The new iPods are USB 2.0 also. I believe you have to use the iPod dock to be able to use this feature.