How is it possible Apple could improve on their wildly successful iPod? Short of making it a full blown portable video player, giving it the ability to store and display your digital photos is a great start. The new iPod Photo, based on the design of the current fourth generation, click wheel iPod, does the digital photo thing, the music thing and a little more.
With two hard drive models capable of storing up to 25,000 photos or 15,000 songs (40GB priced at $499 and 60GB priced at $599) available now, the iPod Photo on the outside looks like your regular iPod with its clean white design and small body (4.1” x 2.4” x 0.75” and a weight of 6.4 ounces). That, and its music playing ability, is where the similarities end.
Photo Capabilities:
The iPod Photo, equipped with its 2-inch 64k-color LCD (220 x 176 resolution) with LED backlight, looks to make it easy for owners to take digital photos of the JPEG, BMP,GIFF, TIFF and PNG formats with them. The photos, which are downloaded via FireWire or USB onto the iPod Photo through the iTunes application and updated automatically via Auto-Sync (just like your music files), can be stored at full resolution without the need for compression or cropping if you want to just carry them around.
One thing which is not clear at this point is how the iPod Photo will acutally display photos. Assuming the device does not have the processing power to adjust full resolution photos on the fly, early reports suggest the iTunes software will have to be used to scale them down first before transferring them over.
There are several digital display options for the iPod Photo. All are navigated using the click wheel. 25 full-color thumbnails are displayed per rotation of the wheel. When the right photo has been found, a selection and center click on that image brings it up for display (adjusted somewhat to fit the iPod's small screen). If a larger display for sharing with others is desired, Apple has provided the ability to use an included AV cable so you can hook up to a television or projector through either the iPod Photo or the docking cradle.
Another display option is a multimedia slideshow, where selected photos can be matched to a song and played together.
Organization of photos, including folder (also known as albums) creation, image enhancement and the like, is handled through iPhoto on Macintosh computers and Adobe Elements or Adobe Album on the PC. As changes are made on your computer, iTunes will automatically update the matching photos and folders on the iPod Photo.
Music and Other Capabilities:
On the music side, Apple continues with their intuitive interface, easy, automatic transfer and synchronization of music files and support of advanced playlists. Supported music files include AAC and MP3, with the iPod Photo also having the ability to play Audible audiobooks. When music is purchased from Apple’s iTunes store and downloaded to the iPod Photo, album art accompanies the file and can be displayed in color on the Now Playing screen on the LCD.
Those worried about short battery life or skipping hard drives will have something to smile about. The iPod Photo offers up 17 minutes of skip protection. Playback time on the rechargeable battery for music is approximately 15 hours, according to Apple, while multimedia slideshows can go for a maximum of five.
Other notable features of the iPod Photo (which are standard on the fourth generation iPod as well) include usage as a portable hard drive for non music or digital photos, games, alarm clock and sleep timer, contact and calendar manager and integration with a huge secondary market of iPod accessories.
Accessories included in the iPod Photo box are an iPod Photo synchronization and recharging dock, earbud headphones, carrying case, AC adaptor, Firewire cable, USB 2.0 cable and the aforementioned AV cable.
The iPod Photo is compatible with Mac OS x and Windows 2000/XP.
