TomTom iPhone Dock, anyone? (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by Ted Todorov /forum/thread/288862/tomtom-iphone-dock-anyone/30#post_3622301
iPods still being sold -- Classics are still being sold because of the larger HD capacity. As soon as flash catches up -- say hits 256GB (if not just 128GB) -- the Classic is gone. Nano & Shuffle -- lower price and smaller form factor. Neither one of these apply in your GPS parallel as Google is both cheaper (free) and smaller than dedicated GPS units.

? I'm not talking smartphones. Every el cheapo phone now plays MP3s and has a headphone jack. They're cheaper (free with contract) and smaller (no extra device to carry) than even the Shuffle. But iPods sell because they're "better" enough.
As for free taking over... Just like no sane person would pay for bottled water when tap is free. And Linux has toppled Windows and Mac. Free only gets you so far.
Android GPS is the canary in the coalmine (to torment that metaphor). It makes clear the move of GPS software to phones and signals the greater market shift happening. But, in the tortured marketplace of cell carriers and phone makers and application developers, this shift could still be slow going. And as long as phone-GPS is tied to $30/mo data places, there will be a real market for standalone GPS devices.
A shift is happening. But I differ with the technorati who declare it a done deal. It could be quite slow.
.... Interesting and good news about the map-loading method. That mitigates my immediate concern.
So: this is good news for us Verizon customers. I hope Droid is every bit as good as it looks. I hope this GPS tool crushes my current Garmin GPS. I hope Verizon is finally offering a worthwhile smartphone with a solid "appstore". I want a great mobile-web phone and I want to remain a Verizon customer. Maybe this is the way?

 

[Sam Posten]

I can't comment on the dedicated gps space except to say I think they are universally dumb, clunky, slowand ugly, but I want to add that I continue to think that people who are buying classics just so they can have their entire collection with them at all times instead of using playlists, smart playlists and genius are either clueless Luddites or misguided boobs. present company excepted of course hehe

 

[Sam Posten]

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/28/garmin-tomtom

 

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by Sam Posten /forum/thread/288862/tomtom-iphone-dock-anyone/60#post_3622426
I can't comment on the dedicated gps space except to say I think they are universally dumb, clunky, slowand ugly, but I want to add that I continue to think that people who are buying classics just so they can have their entire collection with them at all times instead of using playlists, smart playlists and genius are either clueless Luddites or misguided boobs. present company excepted of course hehe

I assume anyone making that argument has a miniscule music library, doesn't actually listen to music, or is vastly smarter than me and everyone else.
I upgraded from a 4GB nano to a 16GB nano so I could carry my entire library with me. iTunes was not good at synching a library larger than the storage device. I frequently got errors and failed syncs. I had to fight iTunes to overcome its confusion about trying to put fresh content on before removing old content and then bombing. It's moot now, but I could have used your special sauce to somehow make all this go away.
The implicit argument is no one needs their entire library with them. That's the wrong argument. It's about ease of use. Syncing an entire library is easy. It requires no thought. Playlists are a way to improve the enjoyment of listening to music, not a tool in the war against iTunes syncing. And Apple is about nothing if not simplicity. People buying music players to hold their entire catalog is exactly in line with that.
Fortunately, this is becoming ever less of an issue with the increases in flash-memory capacities.

 

[Ted Todorov]

My entire library in Apple lossless in more than 500 GB, and I have hundreds of GBs in podcasts. Not counting any video. So -- hardly possible to carry it around.

I do have a 160GB Classic which I got in 2007 using my $100 iPhone rebate (my previous 20GB 2nd gen iPod did not support gapless playback). And clearly aside from being able to cary around a lot more music and podcasts than would fit on the 8GB iPhone, there is also the question of battery life -- on a long transatlantic flight plus layover and connecting flight and layover and ferry ride, I can listen to it non-stop -- battery life seems to be endless -- I've gone whole vacations without recharging, With the iPhone I also can't afford to run down the battery to nothing on a plane as I'll need it on the other side.

The Classic is also very practical as an external disk drive for quick file transfers and backups of vital docs. Using the iPhone as disk is a pain (and as far as I know, you have to have to use WiFi (no USB) and have to have a supporting 3rd party app installed on every computer you are using it with). An impractical pain.

 

[Sam Posten]

You guys do know I'm (mostly) busting your chops on that, right? I love how the iphone reformatted noobs to boobs tho =) First review: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/29/tomtom-car-kit-for-iphone-review/

 

[DaveF]

I figured you were serious, but not "serious" But your comment echoes one I've seen commonly, and it drives me crazy as it's so obviously wrong

What is interesting to me is that, with the pace of flash memory development, in two to three years most people could have their CD library ripped with lossless compression and completely stored on an iPod Touch. Ironically, music quality and size has decreased from CDs, so today's youth buying solely from iTunes are probably set through the next decade or two with even a 16GB nano.

 

[Sam Posten]

Cool cool, but... humor me Dave. Take 20 minutes, follow a genius tutorial or two, and then tell me you reallllly need 100x your battery power worth of storage with you as opposed to being a bit more selective...

Heck, the new iphone software allows you to select what you want to load just by pciking all songs by particular artists... I think most people could be very happy with a combination of the two and it really takes less than 15 minutes to set up.

I was in the same boat, for me it came down to laziness rather than real need. Once I became reasonable and did it Steve's way, all was right with the world. There's a reason why it's the i"Pod" after all, become a pod person to make it work! =)

 

[DaveF]

I don't know what "need" has to do with it; we're talking consumer / luxury goods. But I sure do want it.

WIth a a 4GB nano and 12 GB of music, sync did not work well. It chronically got confused by podcasts and would simply fail to sync, not updating the iPod. I'd have to fight with iTunes to get it to sync and remove old content and add new. Playlists weren't for listening pleasure, they were weapons in the war on sync.

But now, the 16 GB nano holds my entire library. Sync always works. Playlists are for listening pleasure. It's all very "Apple" now.

If a person enjoys predicting their music interests day to day, and likes fiddling to playlists to cull their library to a sync-able state, then they can save a few dollars on a smaller capacity iPod. I'm not that person.

 

[Ted Todorov]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam Posten /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Cool cool, but... humor me Dave. Take 20 minutes, follow a genius tutorial or two, and then tell me you reallllly need 100x your battery power worth of storage with you as opposed to being a bit more selective...
Heck, the new iphone software allows you to select what you want to load just by pciking all songs by particular artists... I think most people could be very happy with a combination of the two and it really takes less than 15 minutes to set up.
I was in the same boat, for me it came down to laziness rather than real need. Once I became reasonable and did it Steve's way, all was right with the world. There's a reason why it's the i"Pod" after all, become a pod person to make it work! =)

Your laziness is my desire not to waste valuable time managing music.
I am guilty of not having turned Genius on, and the reason I haven't is because there doesn't seem to be a way to tell it to work *only* based on a playlist rather than your entire library. My problem is that my music library contains two versions of most songs -- one Apple Lossless for listening on my home sound system, and one AAC for portable devices. I only want Genius to be operating on the basis of Apple Lossless at home, and I only want Genius to be operating on the basis of AAC for iPod/iPhone synch. Is that possible?
It certainly isn't with Apple's iPhone Remote which is very frustrating to me -- if I choose by Artist or Album it will bring up bot Lossless and AAC versions of the tracks. Very frustrating. If there only was a way to exclude a certain category of tracks (like AAC, but not Purchased AAC) from "Music" in iTunes -- the way Podcasts are (mostly) excluded now.

 

[DaveF]

You highlight a big problem with music management software: inability to handle different compression options for different devices. I want a tool that can taken in lossless compressed CD rips and dynamically sync lossy compressed versions for the iPod. But always see this as a single library.

 

[KeithAP]

I don't suppose anyone has a dock yet? After looking at the dock, it would appear that I would have to remove my iPhone from its case every time I want to place it in the dock. That is rather annoying to say the least and probably a deal breaker for me. I know for most people it would be minor, but I just don't feel like removing my phone from its case every time I want to use the dock.

Granted, building a dock that would accommodate most/all iPhone cases would be rather difficult. One option might have been to include a case with the dock that would be designed specifically to work with it.

Oh well, I might still pick up the software.

-Keith

 

[Sam Posten]

I don't have it yet. But my reasoning for needing one has gone down significantly in the last week. What I most want from the dock is charging during the daytime. Now that I have this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kadath/sets/72157622699681360/
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/02/sony-icf-cl75ip-alarm-clock-digital-frame-ipod-dock-a-surpri/

Charging isnt really an issue any more.

That's $150. With a beautiful 7" display. Explain to me again how $120 cable makes sense?

 

[DaveF]

Our only knock at this point is the minimal codec support -- MP3 and WMA for audio [...]

So the dock can't play music (AAC) from the iPod? Or it can't copy music off to play with the iPod is disconnected? (I don't quite get what this dock does.)

 

[Sam Posten]

It has a USB and a MEmory Stick slot for your own MP3s and WMAs. It will play whatever the iPods do natively streaming off that device.

 

[DaveF]

Ok. Every year, we ask "is there a better alarm clock to buy?" This type of solution could be of interest in the future. I'm assuming it can wake you up to an iPhone playlist, yes?

 

[Ted Todorov]

I was at a party recently where I used one of these iPhone dock speaker systems (brand X, don't remember) -- the thing worked, but did not charge the iPhone while in use!!

The Sony thing (IMO) looks terrible compared to the Apple HiFi. No wonder Sony is losing money hand over fist. At any rate what does this have to with the TomTom dock? AFAIK, it provides speakerphone and added GPS -- no relation to the Sony capabilities. I'm not arguing that the TomTom hardware is priced correctly, but it certainly is a unique device, which is why it isn't possible to do a real price comparison.

The ideal car dock would do what the TomTom does, plus connect you to the car's sound system.

 

[Sam Posten]

I'm just saying -my- need for a card dock has been obviates for the most part. That and the value proposition of the dock remains very questionable given that high quality Belkin alternatives are half of the tomtom pricc and those only lack the second gps chip.

 

[Darren Lewis]

Having just found out that my TomTom One XL won't bluetooth with my iPhone, this new dock looks like an interesting solution.

Does anyone know if the TomTom App supports services like live traffic and speed camera updates?

It would cost me £99 for the dock and a further £60 for the app. Even so, that would be cheaper than buying a new sat nav which is compatible with my iPhone. http://www.tomtom.com/phones/compatibility/phones.php?brandId=&phoneId=420

As we have two cars, the OneXL could go in the other car.

The killer for the iphone app will be the live traffic updates.

 

[Sam Posten]

Not sure on any of that, I'm still waiting to find out if it will Stereo A2DP music in addition to voice calls over Bluetooth...