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How the iPod will change computing

Last week, I drove down to Cupertino to attend a press conference at Apple, although no one from the company would tell me why I was going or what I would see when I got there. All I had was a cryptic piece of paper telling me that Apple was launching some sort of product that wasn't a computer.

I have to admit, the air of mystery surrounding the announcement was both annoying and intriguing. I picked up my badge and walked into Apple's town hall meeting room a little late. A scruffy Steve Jobs was already talking about the device, which we now know as the iPod, a portable MP3 player with a 5GB hard drive (see our First Take preview).

The iPod was the first Apple product that I've ever covered, and I was looking forward to seeing whether the company's employees were really as loyal to Jobs as I had heard. Sure enough, when a fellow journalist asked when the device would work with Windows, I got my wish: an Apple employee snorted with derision, as if to say, "Why on earth would we want to lower ourselves to selling to just anyone when we could pick the elite 4 percent of people that are Mac users?" Jobs said that Apple would add Windows support at some point in the future but not before the holiday season.

I know that Mac-only compatibility is just one of the things that people will complain about in reference to this device. But the naysayers have it wrong, and I'll tell you why: The iPod is revolutionary in a number of ways, and its descendents will replace the PC.

First, the allegations
Here are the things that I've heard MP3 player users and reviewers complain about in the iPod. And here, also, is why I think those grievances are bogus.

Exclusive
First, there's the vexing issue of the iPod's lack of compatibility with any operating system other than Mac OS 9.2 and 10.1. This argument is the strongest of the three levied against the iPod. But I truly do believe Jobs about the player's eventual Windows (and hopefully Linux) support. One thing that none of these critics bring up is that most Windows PCs don't support FireWire, which the iPod requires. Also, even if Apple never gets its act together with the Windows version, the Internet will soon be full of various hacks to allow Windows and Linux compatibility (after installation of a FireWire card).

Pricey
The second problem that people have with the iPod is the price--$400. Critics have said that this is too much to charge when there are other perfectly good MP3 players hovering around the $100 mark. But I doubt that these faultfinders have actually held one of these devices in their hand. If you consider the iPod's design and features and the fact that other hard drive-based players are almost as expensive, $400 is a fair price.

Bare bones
Finally, people criticize the lack of bundled accessories (no carrying case, belt clip, car adapter, FM radio, voice recorder, or onboard equalization). I voiced that concern to Apple when I was in Cupertino, and representatives said that the company isn't worried about it since there are a slew of companies that make carrying cases for Apple products. As for the lack of extras such as an FM radio, I think that adding too many of those features would drive up the price and ruin the simple interface.

A subtle revolution
Some of what's revolutionary about the iPod is obvious: lightning-quick FireWire file transfers, small size, and a brilliant design, not to mention its 5GB storage capacity. But a few things make me wonder if the iPod is not the harbinger of a new type of device, unrelated to its function as an MP3 player. The following seemingly random iPod qualities and industry facts lead me to predict that this player is a sign of things to come:

  • The iPod can hold files of any type. It shows up on your desktop as another drive, so you can use it as a portable hard drive.

  • One of the most useful features of handhelds and certain cell phones is the way they automatically sync with your PC so that new data goes to the right device without your thinking about it. The iPod is the first MP3 player with this functionality. When you plug it into your Mac, it grabs every new MP3 and playlist from iTunes.

  • Mac heads report being able to boot up their computer from the iPod.

  • MP3s and movie files take up an increasingly vast portion of people's increasingly large hard drives. FireWire could be the best solution for shifting these files around.

  • The computer industry, especially Larry Ellison, has been chasing the concept of a slim network PC (without a hard drive) for quite some time.

  • A company called Terapin is about to release a product called the Mine (we're reviewing it soon), which is a portable hard drive that interfaces with MP3 players, digital cameras, and the Internet. A traveling repository for all sorts of data, it can change the files on your MP3 player or download images from your digital camera to free up space for more shots--all without a PC.

If you add all of these disparate facts together and look at the whole picture, you'll see where I'm going with this. The iPod (and the Terapin Mine, for that matter) is more than an MP3 player; it's a prototype of the data wallets that we'll all carry around within the decade. These devices will sync info between multiple machines and allow for music and video collections to be carried around everywhere. They won't have a complicated interface, but they will include a variety of ports for connection to keyboards, Webcams, monitors, networks, cell phones, PDAs, stereos, headphones, video goggles, GPS modules--whatever peripheral you can think of.

In addition, I predict that this trend might finally make Larry Ellison's dream of thin, cheap network PCs a reality. The iPod descendant will include the hard drive and possibly the processor and OS for running a network PC. There would be no security concerns because each user would be authenticated via possession of the hard drive (combined with passwords or biometrics). If a more secure identification technology were added, the device could even act as some sort of secure digital ID for activities such as boarding planes or filling prescriptions.

Gadget debate resolved at last
People used to argue whether the trend was toward an all-in-one gadget that does everything as opposed to a collection of specialized gadgets. If I'm right about the iPod, both sides of this argument are correct; people will use one comprehensive iPod-like storage and connectivity unit in combination with every specialized peripheral you can think of. As before, something designed for digital music will spread across other areas of technology. Descendants of the iPod MP3 player will replace the PC as the hub of your digital life.


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