Re: [NTLK] OT: ipod pda?

From: Christian Matzerath (matze_at_uumail.de)
Date: Mon Feb 04 2002 - 09:19:44 EST


On February 04 2002, <good-dog_at_northshore.net> wrote:

>
>Of interest?
>
>Mac fans get organised as ProVue tweaks the iPod
>
> By Charles Arthur
>
> 04 February 2002
>
> One thing Steve Jobs, head of Apple Computer, insists on is that the
> company is not going to make a PDA (personal digital assistant) to =
compete
> with Palm or PocketPC. He says it's a crowded market where profit margins
> are already vanishing, and that's not where he wants to be.
>
> Even so, many Apple users really want the company to introduce a PDA to
> follow its Newton (killed by Jobs on his return to Apple in 1997). When =
Apple
> said in October it was going to introduce a "breakthrough digital =
device",
> many expected a PDA. It turned out to be the iPod MP3 player.
>
> But software is malleable and programmers are ingen-ious. At the MacWorld
> Expo last month in San Francisco, people were using their iPods as PDAs,
> with contact names and numbers in place of music titles. How? By fooling
> the iPod into thinking the contacts were details of very small MP3 files.
>
> The company that achieved this is ProVue Development, which makes a
> database called Panorama. James Rea, its president, had a brainstorm =
after
> the iPod's release; he realised that the "tags" containing =
meta-information
> about MP3 files (artist's name, album, music genre =96 there are eight in =
all)
> could hold contact details. Hence the Panorama iPod Organizer. Since
> announcing the idea in December, the company has had a blizzard of
> requests from would-be buyers, Rea says. "It seems we've hit a nerve."

Why not treating the tags as fields of a database? Then you can almost have =
as many different databases as you like with you favourite whines, books, =
restaurants in LA, a to do list and so forth.

Only bad thing is: you can't enter the data directly into the iPod and have =
to use the Mac instead.

my 2 pence, Matze

> No tinkering with the iPod is required, he says. Even smarter is that,
>as no
> music need be attached to the contact details, a huge number of contacts
> take up a trivial amount of the 5Gb hard disk; ProVue reckons that =
storing
> 1,000 contacts will use less than 0.1 per cent of an iPod's hard-drive =
space.
> At 5Mb, that sounds a lot, but it's about five minutes of music on a =
machine
> can store 80 hours' worth.
>
> It can only be a matter of time before someone puts a calendar on in the
> same way. Which would make everyone happy: Apple fans will have a PDA
> without Steve Jobs having to build one.
>Mac fans get organised as ProVue tweaks the iPod
>
> By Charles Arthur
>
> 04 February 2002
>
> One thing Steve Jobs, head of Apple Computer, insists on is that the
> company is not going to make a PDA (personal digital assistant) to =
compete
> with Palm or PocketPC. He says it's a crowded market where profit margins
> are already vanishing, and that's not where he wants to be.
>
> Even so, many Apple users really want the company to introduce a PDA to
> follow its Newton (killed by Jobs on his return to Apple in 1997). When =
Apple
> said in October it was going to introduce a "breakthrough digital =
device",
> many expected a PDA. It turned out to be the iPod MP3 player.
>
> But software is malleable and programmers are ingen-ious. At the MacWorld
> Expo last month in San Francisco, people were using their iPods as PDAs,
> with contact names and numbers in place of music titles. How? By fooling
> the iPod into thinking the contacts were details of very small MP3 files.
>
> The company that achieved this is ProVue Development, which makes a
> database called Panorama. James Rea, its president, had a brainstorm =
after
> the iPod's release; he realised that the "tags" containing =
meta-information
> about MP3 files (artist's name, album, music genre =96 there are eight in =
all)
> could hold contact details. Hence the Panorama iPod Organizer. Since
> announcing the idea in December, the company has had a blizzard of
> requests from would-be buyers, Rea says. "It seems we've hit a nerve."
>
> No tinkering with the iPod is required, he says. Even smarter is that,
>as no
> music need be attached to the contact details, a huge number of contacts
> take up a trivial amount of the 5Gb hard disk; ProVue reckons that =
storing
> 1,000 contacts will use less than 0.1 per cent of an iPod's hard-drive =
space.
> At 5Mb, that sounds a lot, but it's about five minutes of music on a =
machine
> can store 80 hours' worth.
>
> It can only be a matter of time before someone puts a calendar on in the
> same way. Which would make everyone happy: Apple fans will have a PDA
> without Steve Jobs having to build one.
>
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