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    Home Apple
    • Apple

    The iPod Is More Than Just a Music Box

    By
    Peter Coffee
    -
    April 22, 2002
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      Wouldnt it be ironic if the processor became a peripheral to the storage device, instead of the other way around? I asked that question at the end of this column eight months ago, and users of Apples iPod are busily turning that conjecture into fact.

      Refuting many critics, the iPod is turning out to be much more than an overpriced, overdesigned MP3 music player. With its fast IEEE 1394 bandwidth (FireWire to Apple loyalists), the iPods 5GB hard disk (now also offered in a 10GB edition) is more than theoretically usable as a portable boot device. As in days of yore, when PC users carried personal boot disks, an iPod owner can feel truly at home on any modern Macintosh.

      At $399, the smaller iPod makes any laptop computer look like an expensive way to carry a personal data repository with a customized digital desktop: In many environments, a handful of shared Macs could meet the needs of many users. (And since the debut of the 10GB iPod at $499, brand-new 5GB units are selling on eBay for an even-more-affordable $280.)

      Even when not plugged in to a “mother ship” Mac, the iPod does more than play music. With Apples latest software, it also takes on contact management duties. Third-party hackers are doing still more; PersonaPodX, a $25 shareware utility, combines contact management with alarm clock, notepad and multimedia preview capabilities. PodNews, a free download, pulls headlines from selected news sites; included source code lets you tailor your selections.

      Apple has often been on the trailing edge of aftermarket enhancements to its hardware. When GCC first improved the original Mac with an internal hard disk, an Apple engineer is supposed to have said, “Impossible. We made sure you couldnt do that.”

      In the same vein, Apple presumes to tell iPod users that they cant move music from their iPods back to their own (or anyone elses) Macintosh.

      Mac users whove discovered the Unix-style Terminal utility in OS X beg to differ; theyll do as they please with the bits on their disks.

      Send your plans for the open iPod to peter_coffee@ziffdavis.com.

      Peter Coffee
      Peter Coffee is Director of Platform Research at salesforce.com, where he serves as a liaison with the developer community to define the opportunity and clarify developers' technical requirements on the company's evolving Apex Platform. Peter previously spent 18 years with eWEEK (formerly PC Week), the national news magazine of enterprise technology practice, where he reviewed software development tools and methods and wrote regular columns on emerging technologies and professional community issues.Before he began writing full-time in 1989, Peter spent eleven years in technical and management positions at Exxon and The Aerospace Corporation, including management of the latter company's first desktop computing planning team and applied research in applications of artificial intelligence techniques. He holds an engineering degree from MIT and an MBA from Pepperdine University, he has held teaching appointments in computer science, business analytics and information systems management at Pepperdine, UCLA, and Chapman College.
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