Some guy called Steve Jobs (ever hear of him?) did something called a keynote speech for like the millionth time this year yesterday evening. Apparently he does these kind of things fairly often. Yesterday’s keynote speech was in relation to the next generation of iPods.
Apple have taken the iPhone, removed the Phone part and replaced it with the Pod. What you get is an iPhone which can’t make telephone calls but which does allow you to listen to music and connect wirelessly to iTunes, ohh and it has a a fancy touch screen too. It’s called the iPod Touch. Amazingly enough it only costs $100 less than an iPhone but has about 1/4 of the features, but I suppose you do get screwed with AT&T if you go down the iPhone route (comment based on American iPhone release).
It comes in a fairly paltry 8GB(€299) and 16GB(€399) and contains Safari (Web Browser), a WiFI connection and an interesting Starbucks feature…
If you’re in Starbucks drinking a Choco Mooke Banana Latte with sprinkles of extra Choco and you’re acting extra pretentious because you have your iPod Touch in hand and you know that everyone is looking at you but you’re trying to concentrate on looking cool without trying to put in too much effort to cool because you don’t want to look needy but in reality you are and you want to listen to some ‘tunes’ but you’re sick of listening to Jon Bon Jovi and Aerosmith and you want to listen to something less 90’s and more ‘hip’…..well now you can.
You can tune into Starbucks’ radio playlist via the iPod Touch’s inbuilt WiFI connection. This feature also allows you to download the currently playing track and lets you browse the last ten tracks played as well.
Some guy explains it in more detail in the below video (3minutes and 30seconds in)
Does this feature infringe on a Patent though?
When I was finishing my third year in college, May 2005, one of my lecturers spoke to myself and a few of my classmates about a project he was soon to be working on. It was a really adventurous venture and I personally could not see how it could be implemented.
So what was his idea?
You’re driving in a car or you’re in a shop and you hear a song on the radio. You find yourself humming along to the track and you wish you knew the name of the track so you could buy it on iTunes when you get home….You take a small device out of your pocket, it identifies the radio station’s frequency and subsequently manages to identify the track which is playing (I’m not quite sure how this is done). You then head on home and you connect the deceive to your PC. The device launches iTunes and brings you to the iTunes Store which presents the before-mentioned track for your download. Da-DAAAAHHHH! And you’re done. A satisfied customer.
I don’t know the Patent number so I can’t check what exactly they have patented but is it too similar to the technology which is going to be used in the Apple - Starbucks agreement?
Other posts about the iPod Touch
September 6th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
You can’t patent an idea, you patent the actual invention. So if you or your friends never actually did it then Apple is free.
Anyway. The idea has been implemented before, it isn’t new. Hash6/CatchFM in the TSSG building does pretty much what you describe. You hear a song on the radio, phone a number for that radio station and through their playlist system the song is identified and Hash6 sells you the song. Download to your mobile or desktop.
September 6th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Ah I was sure about the ins-and-outs of patents.
Hash6 are the company I was referring to in my post. Colm Dunphy first told me about it some time ago.
September 6th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I’d say even if Hash6 has a patent (I imagine they have filed some as they do have a working system) that it is different enough from iTunes Wi-Fi.
Ugh. Patents are boring and confusing and irrational. Done two now and the only reason I am ever given is “defensive strategy.”
September 7th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
I spoke to one of the guys from Hash6 and apparently their patent only covers tracks playing on the radio.
September 26th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Well I have been playing with mine and enjoying it!!! It is quickly turning into one of my favourite gadgets!! You will LOVE it!
November 19th, 2007 at 3:20 am
i was talken to the lecturer u mentioned and he informed me that he’s been contacted by Apple! can’t really say more than that for now, and i agree with katie, my itouch is definitely my fav gadget.
November 19th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Mm, that’s very interesting Jay. Which touch did you get? I’ll probably get one once the price drops and the HD size increases. 16GB is fairly crap but on the other side…you can hack it to bits at the moment and I wonder if Apple are going to get smart and prevent the Touch from getting hacked when they release their next client…
November 20th, 2007 at 1:07 am
i got the 16gb, Ellens brother in law picked it up for me in the states, cost me around 250 yo yo’s. i can’t hack mine at the mo, i updated the software to 1.1.2 and i that can’t be hacked unless i had run another program before updating, i’m tryin to figure out how to degrade the software. any ideas?
November 20th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Not a clue. Not even sure if that’s possible. You can try on some Apple Forums and see how that goes..
December 11th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
K i jst bought a new ipod touch but i wnna no how du i get the internet on it!is der a certain internet connention for it?
December 11th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
dunno may b sum1 can help???
December 11th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
You need why fy, boy!
December 13th, 2007 at 3:27 am
ur itouch will automatically search for any network within a certain range. So unless u’ve got a wifi network set up you’ll find it hard to get online with ur new iPod.