The only iPod-plus-cell-phone combo I could imagine Steve Jobs signing off on would be one whereby the entire iTunes Music Store is available from the device. I.e. you can buy anything from the iTunes catalog right from the device, and listen to it nearly instantly (er, well, this wouldn't work for videos yet...), and then listen to it on your computer later, too. Anything less than that would fail the integration+simplicity test. And think of the profits for the cell carriers from the added bandwidth usage - finally, a 4G phone app that would be insanely popular and profitable.
That, and a bluetooth port so you could discover other local iPod mobiles nearby and listen to what's on them and share your tunes with others, just like you can now with iTunes. How sexy would that be, to be able to listen to somebody else's music in a subway car, without swapping wires, semi-anonymously, so you're left to glance left-to-right yet again for who's wearin' those white 'phones? This was what Zeroconf was made for, baby.
Oh, and, that, and, the ability to walk into a friend's house and see what movies they have on their local machines by browsing them on your iPod. And vice versa - you bring your iPod into the room, and their iTV can see what's on your iPod, and show the vids right there on the TV.
See? Now we're talking. This is going to be fun...
It's bad enough
that my friends at work can see the embarrassing music that appears in my iTunes library. I certainly don't want them to see all the embarassing movies that I've got at home too!
/me unchecks djfiander from
/me unchecks djfiander from netflix "friends" list...
Fun, but not original
What this sounds like is a Zune taped to a Razr.
I used to think that an MP3 playing cellphone was a good idea, but I'm not so sure about that anymore. I think that the differences between the functionality means that one of the two is going to have a crappy interface.
I basically have 3 "mobile" needs (well, not needs, exactly):
I don't mind carrying around two devices to accomplish this goal if they work well, are small and have good interfaces (and since my iPod meets the last two, I'm set).
Maybe...
...but, yknow, with really cool tape. :)
Zeroconf for personal libraries
Neat. :-) On a tangent, your last para made me think how cool it would be to walk into someone's house and have my PDA or phone identify the books in their personal library. If everyone had a barcode scanner discretely built into their shelving, a quick scan of every new book would enable every visitor to get a catalogue on demand. You could scan 'em out to lend them.
Zeroconf for books could be a lot of fun. You could wardrive through a neighbourhood and see what's on the shelves of your neighbours. Okay, maybe discovering 30 copies of The Da Vinci Code might not be very illuminating, but that can't be helped. (Or, drive by the local library branch, and grab the current holdings list).
Real-estate agents could rate neighbourhoods by their reading-levels, to help you relocate to a more (or less) literate neighbourhood.
(OK, my compile is done now, back to work for me... :-)
Graham, you speak my
Graham, you speak my language! (er, but, what's this about *compiling*??) :P
Compiling
I'm updating one of our Sakai installations (an open-source learning management system, written in Java). My day has been several repetitions of: (a) Make a small change to the code, (b) recompile, (c) drink a coffee, (d) redeploy, (e) drink another coffee, and then (f) see if my small change was successful. (If I can still think straight, after all that coffee.) Round-trip time, about 35 minutes!
Oh the pain... It's hard to go back to this once you've been spoiled by better languages.
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