HiFi Blog: digital audio goodness

ThinkSecret reports reports that Apple is working on a revamped iPod, dedicated to video for good this time.

The entire front face will be occupied by a 3.5’’ touch-sensitive display; touch it and a digital clickwheel appears. Some gorgeous mockups have appeared—you’re looking at one below:

Regarding features: no wireless connectivity, which makes sense—this device’s upgrade is its true video capabilities, why go the extra step now and not keep it for a future release? They’re aiming for your wallet after all. Capacity and release date are unknown, but April 1st—when Apple celebrates its 30th birthday, and the date Jobs said they’re going to have a major announcement—is a good candidate.

Before closing this: I’ve also read AppleInsider’s report, who’s quoting an analyst:

The other event that could signal the imminent arrival of the video iPod, according to Wolf, are reports coming out of Asia that Apple has materially reduced its orders of the iPod with video viewing capabilities that it introduced last October.

Now, this doesn’t make much sense in my head. Will this new iPod video (let’s call it vPod) replace the existing one? By April 1st the latter won’t have even reached 6 months of life (it was introduced on October 13). I was thinking that the new device would be added to the iPod lineup rather than replace an existing model, but maybe these complicates things a lot—we’ll see.

Side-stat: ThinkSecret says 3.9M iPods with video and 8M Nanos were sold during the recent holiday quarter.