Cameras, iPods need to talk to each other

Your portable music player and digital camera are about to get a lot more friendly with each other.

There are already plenty of MP3 players on the market, including Apple Computer's iPod Photo, that can show digital photos while playing music. But soon, we are likely to see music devices that can download and display pictures directly, without using a computer as a go-between.

That's what Gary Johnson, the CEO of PortalPlayer, says. His company makes the chip for the iPod and several other hard-drive-based music players. Johnson was careful not to say whether it will be Apple's player that does this, though. An Apple representative declined to comment.

News.context

What's new:
As they add color screens, MP3 players are going to be adding more photo capabilities, including the ability to connect directly with cameras and printers.

Bottom line:
Apple's not saying, but the company will probably want to be among the first to add new capabilities to keep the iPod atop the market.

More on music and photo devices

Johnson said PortalPlayer is also working to make it possible to connect music players to printers.

"It's no good to have a photo if you can't print it," Johnson said in an interview earlier this month.

The big question is how quickly the masses will want such features--and whether they'll pay more for a music player that has a photo side to it. The fact that people can connect an iPod to a digital camera and then connect the iPod to a printer doesn't necessarily mean that they'll want to.

"You have to consider how many people will be comfortable doing that," IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian said. "It certainly could be useful for some segment of customers."

Other companies are looking to bring the photo and MP3 player worlds together through music devices that can take their own pictures--players such as Olympus' M-robe 500i.

Media phones
Cell phones, too, are rapidly adding capabilities to take photos and play music, creating the potential for a single jack-of-all-trades device. While early music-playing phones were on the market some years ago, models with more features and music storage are on the way from the leading makers, including Motorola, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications and Nokia.

However, the larger market has been for gadgets that do one or two things well and then can communicate easily with other devices. Evidence of that lies in the relatively smaller sales of devices like the Treo and BlackBerry, compared to the success of slightly souped-up cell phones that can exchange data wirelessly with other devices.

Kevorkian said digital photo display capabilities are a natural

Uh, you can do this with iPod

The iPod can download pics direct from Compact Flash cards by using a Belkin adapter.

Sorry, didn't see Page 2

I didn't see that your story has a page 2 which discusses the Belkin connector. Apologies.

Four things...

1) I'm sure Apple's iPod will have the digital camera pictures direct to MP3 player capability. Their just not saying so to keep their competition in the dark.

2) Personally I would like to be able to put my pictures from my digital camera directly onto my MP3 player without using a PC. But why would I do that just to print the picture from my MP3 player when I can print directly from my digital camera? The printing part does not make sense to me. Why not just go from the digital camera to the printer instead of the camera to the MP3 player to the printer? The second way has an extra and unnecessary step involved.

3) Don't know about you, but I would prefer having a cell phone, camera, and MP3 player all in one rather than three separate devices. It's hard to believe this article states the opposite is prefered.

4) Bluetooth would rock! Sharing music with near by friend's devices... 2006 here I come!

iPods, Cameras, Cell Phones, Bluetooth, Oh My!
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://allwaysmusic.modblog.com/" target="_newWindow">http://allwaysmusic.modblog.com/</a>

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[larryennis18466]

iPod needs to talk to cameras.

Apple already made a deal with HP with the iPod, HP
should make a deal with Apple with HP's Cameras.If
HP can make a camera with Bluetooth.It should not
raise the price of the camera too much. And the
samething with Apple. It can add Bluethooth to the
iPod.But there is one hurdle, the color screen needs to
be bigger, and the cost of this display. Not only Apple is
on the brink of creating a device like the Argos and the
PSP. Apple made music and it's iPod big. They can do
the same thing like the iTunes Music Store and it can
be called Apple's Movie Store. There is a lot of big
things Apple can do with the iPod.

[jafalcont]

The Future Ideal Ipod

I Agree with the things the Ipod should have and I would add the following:

1) Built-in FM-Tuner capable of recording songs or programs to the ipod har disk.

2) Built-in microphone in order you can add voice notes.

3) Built-in Infrarred and Bluetooth ports in order to exchange songs with other ipods and the bluetooth to send pictures taken with cell phones directly to the ipod without going throug any other device.

4) On any Ipod including the Mini, the setting for putting a wallpaper in the main screen and this wall paper could be a photo or a image, as well as having some visualizations, some sort of the kind you can see in the itunes, or win amp, od real player or even the windows media player.

[davehm]

now i know

i read the article and thought "who would want this?" then i read the replies.

[rslc]

Nothing New? IRiver can already do that.

Thats USB OTG (on-the-go) for direct connection
to camera.

Iriver can already do that.
Nothing New.