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"Digital Radio" iPods said to be a lock
An unnamed industry source has tipped off vnunet.com's own Iain Thomson as to what the "one more thing" at tomorrow's Apple special event will be.
According to the mystery source, the company will roll out a new line of iPods equipped with what Thomson terms "Digital Radio" connectivity that will also allow users to wirelessly download songs from the iTunes store.
The possibilities are intruiging: listen to a digital radio feed on your iPod and, when you find a track that you like, purchase it from the iTunes store. When you get home, your iPod wirelessly synchs with your Mac and you sit down to listen to the new tunes while checking your e-mail. Perhaps your Mac then synchs up with your spouse's iPhone and the AppleTV in the living room as well...
This also brings up plenty of questions, however. Mainly, who is going to serve this? If you're going to have a service where users can wirelessly connect to a service, you will need some way to link the device to the service, be it a mobile phone protocol (such as 3G) or a wireless networking scheme, such as WiFi.
Will Apple be partnering with a satellite radio provider such as Sirius? Is this going to be a WiFi-based thing where users will need to have a hotspot to connect to? Is this going to be a premium service run through AT&T's EDGE network, and if so, will it also be offered for the iPhone?
Hopefully Mr. Thomson and his insider source are onto something and those questions will be answered tomorrow at San Francisco's Moscone Center.
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