Apple rings in potential iPod click wheel changes

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Tuesday, 31 October 2006

Page 1 of 2 ! With talk of virtual click wheels, full screen iPods and even iPod phones, speculation and debate has raged on how Apple might outdo its existing iconic design. A touch controlled bezel is one possibility Apple is publicly considering through a US patent application. And that iPod phone? It’s already here. Want to see it? News has raged all over the Internet about Apple potentially dumping the click wheel in favour of a touch screen bezel. If you haven’t seen the pictures, I’ve included some further below. Of course, the click wheel is but one of the elements that has set the iPod apart from any other music player on the market, even those such as the Sansa eSeries with a ‘scroll wheel’ of its own. Apple’s success has come from tight integration with iTunes, where even if you aren’t purchasing songs from the iTunes store, synchronising your iPod with your music collection has been simplicity itself, and iTunes 7 (ok, ok iTunes 7.0.1) has made it even easier. I remember setting up a very early PC based iPod with the MusicMatch music software in the days before Apple decided to release a Windows version of iTunes. Thank goodness they released iTunes and ditched MusicMatch – from memory, it was a pretty painful experience. Windows Media Player is still like that today. If you want a simple and enjoyable experience, being able to easily and reliably transfer music from your PC or Mac to your mp3 player, you want an iPod. So, for Apple to change one of their key points of differentiation, one of the things that makes the iPod so easy to use, they must have a design in mind that makes using the iPod even easier while giving you the ability to do even more. Anything else, and it wouldn’t be Apple. It’d be one of the clone makers trying to get cute, and maybe even releasing a product that would get attention for a while. But when the sales figures are compared, it’s still Apple selling iPods by the bucket load. It’s been noted that companies patent all kinds of things, and not all of these make it to market. Some of these things are even done to create a wrong impression, to throw everyone off the scent. The thing is that the patent is very detailed, and the accompanying images are likewise well thought out. It all seems very plausible, and it’s from Apple themselves, not a rumour thanks to some fuzzy pictures from an Apple rumour site. Just one of dozens of photos with the patent While much speculation has rested on Apple ditching the click wheel altogether, the last time the widescreen, touch screen iPod rumours came around a few months ago, the virtual click wheel along with a touch screen seemed to be the direction Apple was heading. Of course it’s quite possible that this is still going to be the case. A touch controlled bezel coupled with a virtual click wheel when you need it. We may just find out at MacWorld, unless Apple really has such a device ready to go ‘now’ and will launch it in stores sometime in the next four weeks. We all know that Apple is pretty good at keeping secrets! So... what about that iPod phone? Does it really exist or am I just pulling your leg? Read on, dear reader, read on... the answer’s on the next page. << First page <   1 2 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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