Apple readies Mac OS X-based iPods?

Apple's iPod line-up will be revamped next month, it has been claimed, and the biggest change of all will be the replacement of the players' operating system with a version of Mac OS X, as per the iPhone. The scheme - announced by company sources cited by AppleInsider - will see the original iPod OS, based on technology from …

[David Dever]

So where will that leave Creative?

If the user interface of the newer iPods changes substantially from the older ones, will this signal the end of the revenue stream to Creative Technologies?

Perhaps this will be the final nail in their coffin–what they have done to their musical instrument brands (E-mu and Ensoniq) is nearly criminal.

[Mo]

OS X

The iPhone runs (according to crash dumps and poking around on it) runs “OS X” not “Mac OS X”: “Mac OS X” is really supposed to be only for Macs, although the Apple TV does run a variant.

[marc]

Oh great....

Having been an iPod user since the very first, I bought a 5th gen a few months ago because I had a feeling apple might go and ruin things with a touch screen, no wheel and plenty of gimmicks.

Bring back the "real" scroll wheel it was so much more responsive!

As for adding OSX to the iPod... this must mean something like WiFi or a web browser will be included, so users can add widgets. I can't see why else. My 5.5g iPod does struggle to scroll down my list of about 3000 songs at speed, so maybe its for performance reasons - but it must be at the expense of battery life?

At the end of the day, people want an iPod to play music. Cover flow, touch screens and videos are just gimmicks that drain battery power. WiFi and the ability to sync iTunes is all I can think to add.

[Konstantinos]

hmmm

Will it Blend?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh great

A device whose functionality is I/O bound is being ported to an OS with crappy I/O and threading performance.

The most important thing to me in a player behind capacity is battery life. Goodbye, iPod.

[Mat]

Battery

Hmmm, audio playback on the current iPhone lasts for 24 hours, a greater length of time than the Video iPods reported audio playback time of 20 hours. So, not sure where the sudden knicker twisting on battery life is coming from, it surely will be even better if the next iPod is designed on a stripped down iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

and will it...

have a built in alarm clock, calculator, and maybe even a phone - or is that the iPhone?

If it wakes me up, makes me a cup of coffee and shows me the news on my bus to work, I'll be happy, as long as I can take pictures and look at them on the way home...