Apple going Mobile?

First of all, thanks for the coverage guys. We've got some decent conjecture going on there and we're glad you dropped by.

Some of your comments here basically mention some what we've hinted at in our analysis as well as the discussion that follows after our analysis. The bottom line is we see Apple taking all three major avenues for access and making them available to you: Bluetooth, WiFi and "EDVO" (or Cingular's version of it to be more accurate) and use all of them to their best effect.

Don't get stuck on "bluetooth is too slow" or "the power requirements are too big", before you really look at the specs that are out on bluetooth, wifi and EDVO-like transfers and what specifically we're thinking they'd be used for and why. I think if you start concentrating on "bluetooth isn't suitable for big file transfers" you're missing the point. It's about connectivity of any kind, or the best kind that's available to you. Users these days are smart and getting smarter all the time. Rather than providing direct network access via Bluetooth (and you will note plenty of Borders and Starbucks still offer that right now instead of Wifi anyway), just provide transfer of credits, or blocks of information that can be traded back for the real deal. This kind of concept's been talked about for a while. We just see it all coming together now. It's up to Apple to implement, and their acting now would mean another great leap ahead in the iPod product line. Wireless iPod's coming whatever we decide. It's only a matter of what kind of form it takes in the next two generations.

What about the battery life issues? Bluetooth and Wifi aren't known to be low power. Most people think the battery life in iPods could/should be longer. Adding all this high power consumption stuff is not going to help any.

Bluetooth headphones would be nice. I have had one ipod stolen off my person with the teltail white bud cords giving away the location of the ipod. It would also be nice to be able to have two or more people able to listen to one ipod without one person having the right bud and the other having the left bud or an ugly spliter . I don't know how many times on an airplain one of my frinds or my girlfrind has done this to me.

I enjoy all the speculation as much as the next person, however maybe we are not seeing the whole picture.

What if Apple built a phone that is capable of switching to a Wifi Airport Express network and use VOIP when in range of your home network or an "approved" network. This would be a boon for cities that have widespread wifi networks. The bluetooth could still be used with headsets or connect to various AppleScripts that would work in conjunction with the phone and Apple hardware line.

Not to mention, they (Apple and MVNO provider) could charge rediculous low rates for a phone who would work as a VOIP phone and a cell phone.

Anyway, from a personal standpoint, i think we get tunnel vision when looking at hardware. Apple sometimes looks outside the tunnel to see multiple connected devices throughout the home and external. There is that potential at least in my opinion.

or you could use the wifi as an airtunes remote to your airport express or perhaps the bluetooth for wireless earphones

What about WiFi? Apple could evolve the iPod and Podcasting into a social network (anyone remember EPIC 2015?) where you define your location in iTunes using a map, and then when you cross a wifi hotspot your iPod downloads all photos, audio and video sent by users in your area. Sounds far fetched but it wouldn't take that much apart from the servers used by Apple and a wider use of wifi hotspots.

I agree with Chris' comments. Bluetooth is too slow for song transfer (have you ever tried file sharing between powerbooks with bluetooth - good for small files, but that's about it). I think streaming audio is what this could be about. Either streaming audio (video someday?) to a base station from an iPod (to untether the iPod from docks), or from a computer to an iPod (there are times when I wish I could do this - live internet radio for instance).

Hmm, wireless iPod? Transfering songs via USB 1.1 was when I got my new 5G iPod (I didn't have USB 2.0 at the time) was just brutal. Over bluetooth? Nah, whats the point, BT is even slower than USB isn't it?

Maybe a BT enabled link with your phone so you can take calls easily? I don't know. Transfer of data with either BT or even Airport is just too slow IMHO.

Chris