How does downloading an entire CD's worth of songs in about 10 seconds, to your portable mp3 player, strike you? Apple claims its, recently announced, iPod can receive 1,000 songs, roughly the units 5Gb capacity, in only 10 minutes. How can this be done? Apple has decided to take advantage of its strongpoint (speed) and has introduced FireWire. Using FireWire, transfers become much faster than USB and the iPod can even recharge its internal battery through the FireWire connection. No need to hook up a separate power pack, the recharge is carried out as you download files to the unit.
There's more, the iPod's, lithium polymer battery, will keep it going for 10 hours non-stop. That is quite a leap from the, average, 4 hours provided by most mainstream portable mp3 players.
All these features are complimented by 32Mb of, anti - skip protection, memory.
The catch? You need to have access to a Mac running Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X, in order to use it. The iPod will carry Apple's latest digital music software, iTunes2.
A Windows version of the player should be with us soon.
The price of the unit, during the holiday season, will be $399.