PriceSCAN Blog

So does this mean Steve Jobs has a loser on his hands? On the contrary: the new iPod is likely not only to be a hit this holiday season, but could be the innovation that will usher in the next phase of the democratization of media access that began with websites and evolved into blogs and podcasts. As the Internet has turned countless PCs into publishing houses and radio stations, the new iPod and its likely imitators will give rise to a new era of desktop television and movie studios. Interestingly, the iPod accommodates the open H.264 standard (Quicktime is more of a memory hog) which should facilitate content creation by third parties. With broadband as a catalyst, video podcasting is the next logical step, and you can count on many players to jump on this bandwagon, from the Matt Drudges of the world to the pornographers. Independent filmmakers may also find this a new channel for distribution, perhaps tailoring their work for diminutive screens. Media behemoths like Fox, Disney and Viacom are already tinkering with “mobisodes”, brief episodes and shorts that look good on the displays of mobile phones (e.g. Verizon's V-Cast) and presumably such fare will soon be seen on iPods. And of course the ability to play home movies on these devices will give an entire generation of flyers a new way of annoying the poor soul trapped in the neighboring seat.
To be sure, there are other reasons to want a 30 GB or 60 GB hard drive in your portable media player, as they can store far more music than their flash-based brethren. But the latter can still hold a thousand or more songs, and flash is cheap. Battery life is another challenge for the iPod, in that a full charge is good for about three hours of video playback, barely enough for a single film, if that. To reach its full potential, Apple may have to improve on this.