True video iPod

True video iPod to sport 3.5-inch display, touch-screen click wheel

By Ryan Katz, Senior Editor

February 9, 2006 - Think Secret can confirm recent rumblings that Apple is
nearing completion of a completely revamped video iPod that will shed the
ubiquitous mechanical click wheel for a touch screen and will sport a
3.5-inch diagonal display.

This video iPod, which has been in development and on the table since before
Apple released the 5G iPod last year with video playback, will feature a
display that will occupy the entire front face of the device. Sources who
have seen the device report that it features a digital click wheel, one that
overlays the touch-sensitive display and appears when a finger touches it and
disappears when the finger is removed.

Apple has been working with at least two other companies to perfect the
digital click wheel display technology. While not all the engineering was
completed in-house by Apple, sources have said Apple could hold an exclusive
license on the technologies it borrowed from other developers for a period of
time, limiting the ability of competitors to copy Apple's design.

Additional details concerning the new iPod have yet to be confirmed,
including capacity and a release date, although all indications point to the
Spring, possibly as early as late March or early April. During the Macworld
Expo in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs alluded to a major announcement
on or around April 1, Apple's 30th anniversary as a company.

Like previous iPods, sources insist that this video iPod will lack any sort
of wireless connectivity, and will continue to connect to televisions using
the conventional cabling solution of current models.

While Apple no longer publicly releases the numbers for how many specific
iPod models it sells, Think Secret has learned exclusively that during
Apple's most recent December quarter, the company moved 3.9 million 5G iPods,
exceeding internal estimates and confirming that strong demand remains for
higher capacity, higher priced iPod models, especially with additional
functionality. By comparison, 8 million iPod nanos were sold during the same
period.

Readers will recall that during the brouhaha leading up to the October
release of the 5G iPod last year, Think Secret maintained that the video iPod
would not be released at the time and, following the roll-out of the 5G iPod,
that that iPod was ""not the video iPod"" but rather a souped up 4G iPod with
video capabilities. This forthcoming iPod revision is what sources have said
for some time will be the incarnation of a complete video iPod solution.

Reference:
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0602videoipod.html
http://chinese.engadget.com/2006/02/10/apple-still-at-work-on-true-video-ipod/

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碼的，又要敗家了