Next Wave Trend: Apple’s iPod-Pro 2006, a specialized computer

Posted by Dennis Sellers Jun 3, 2005 at 12:52am

Neo is Macsimum News’ international man of mystery. If we told you more, we’d have to kill you.

In October 2004 I presented a chapter of the Next Wave of the Internet series entitled “On the Road to iPod-Live! In 2005” that discussed a wireless iPod a full month ahead of the news of Apple’s wireless patent. Another central point of that chapter was to amplify the fact that the iPod was being dubbed a specialized computer. In this chapter, I’ll provide you with an overview of the potential of that specialized computer – which I’ll simply refer to as the iPod Pro.

But being so close to Steve Jobs keynote, I thought I’d first briefly touch base on what could be earmarked for the iPod over the next several quarters.

Broadcom’s VideoCore

In April of this year the SiliconValleyWatcher reported that Apple had signed a contract to use the powerful video, image, and music chips designed by Alphamosaic. In their opinion, Apple could likely use Alphamosaic chips as the common core of a family of iPod devices that could include camera, gaming and wireless connectivity products/features. You can’t take meaningful gaming seriously on an iPod, especially in light of the quality of games that VideoCore is associated with. Yet a built-in camera on the other hand, would be a natural fit to advance Apple’s iPod photo.

In fact, Kyocera Corporation unveiled their KYOCERA Finecam SL400R digital camera last July (04) as being the first digital camera to be bundled with Apple Computer, Inc.’s iTunes and QuickTime Pro. Kyocera’s camera was only sold in the Apple Store in Japan and was obviously a test-pilot program. This is what Kyocera’s Web page states about their bundled Software from Apple:

Apple’s QuickTime Pro software enables users to create and replay digital content using high-quality sound and images. It offers a variety of features, including the full-screen replay of movies, the ability to create slideshows with still images, and video image editing for mobile phone use. Apple’s iTunes software helps users to organize and replay their music for maximum enjoyment.

A review of that fine camera made an interesting reference to being able to use a voice memo feature that makes it possible to record a voice message with an image.

Alphamosaic’s VideoCore VC02 has the ability to display video on 3.5 inch color LCDs and capture 8 megapixel images, making it ideal for watching TV, making videos or taking studio-quality photos. The programmable nature of the VideoCore product family allows scaling to new video and audio standards such as H.264 and HE-AAC – which are currently found in Sony’s new PSP with amazing results. A final note of interest is Broadcom/Alphamosaic’s VideoCore webpage that references the Nucleus OS under related middleware. This OS is based on the uITRON specification, which was a subject covered in chapter 12 of this series. Of course once Apple’s iPod goes wireless or “live” – a real-time OS will be required.

Of all the features that Apple could launch with a wireless iPod, I’d like to see Apple launch their next generation of QuickTime TV – being that TV is a feature VideoCore supports. It’s understandable that the evolutionary process dictates that a camera will likely be the first new feature to rollout – and just in time for summer vacation photo taking. Yet being that the original Apple, Ericsson and Sun alliance was all about delivering a wireless content delivery solution to provide consumers with web services like “movie clips and instant news on demand,” why not introduce a few preset TV channels like MTV, CNBC and CNN for a wireless iPod. Yes, MTV would be a natural fit for the iPod, but other types of programming would appeal to business professionals. And small screen or not, Soap Opera fanatics would fall over themselves to be able to catch their favorite soaps on-demand. Hey, it’s a huge market – so why not. Who knows, maybe they’ll launch that feature as the fall TV line-up rolls out. That would certainly spice things up for the Christmas season.

The Podfather orders a new hit

The Don Steve Jobs, PodFather of the Cupertino Family, wants to muscle in on the mobile pro territory and make them an offer they can’t refuse. It appears that Ruthless Rubenstein has been assigned this contract hit – with the help of Killer Cassanova. Details are sketchy, but it sounds important enough to think this through and see what we could come up with.

Technology Business Research Analyst Tim Deal stated a year ago that he thought that Apple’s growth was dependent upon their exploiting beyond-the-box sources of revenue like software, services, and the iPod, which had accounted for 39 percent of the company’s total revenue for the April 2004 Quarter. That was stated in context with the news that Apple had just formally confirmed that their new iPod division would be headed up by Jon Rubenstein. It was in that same month that the iPod was dubbed a specialized computer. So how specialized could it get?

A new iPod architecture

As interesting as Alphamosaic’s VideoCore is as a co-processor, I think that Apple is now looking to a new architecture that could take the iPod to the next level and eventually address the mobile professional market. Although the notebook will always remain a popular tool for certain types of mobile professionals, the iPod may just have the right twists that will appeal to the vast majority of casual mobile professionals as the market shifts to a network-centric business model that is always-on.

For the sake of this basic overview, I’ve chosen to use the example of Motorola’s all new Mobile Extreme Convergence (MXC) Platform as the ideal candidate for Apple’s next generation of iPods. The following information was compiled from information that could be found on Motorola’s MXC extreme Convergence processor Web page.

The MXC overview: The MXC architecture comes to life in our wealth of connectivity solutions -from our 2G through 3G cellular and RF power amplifier and power management products to our ZigBee™ technology, DVB, GPS and Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technologies. It gives you unique access to a menu of options that are designed to work together to get your next hot consumer products to market fast. The MXC vision can enable wireless devices to go far beyond today’s smartphones as developers are freed to unleash their imaginations.

For OEMs and developers, the MXC vision offers variety without waste. It can help OEMs double or even triple the number and kind of devices they create to bring highly valued applications into the mass market. At the same time, it can help them reduce the cost and effort required to develop those new devices. This single platform targets multiple product designs, from entertainment to enterprise applications. This means OEMs can create multiple versions of a device, suited for multiple markets, without changing the basic core of the design.

Motorola’s new MXC extreme Convergence architecture provides a DSP and a RISC core on the same device with the two processors sharing external memory. While this looks like a cellular telephone baseband processor it has higher performance and uses a different software architecture. The MXC puts the entire baseband function into the DSP, freeing the RISC core for the user applications, including a GUI-based operating system. Where a cellular baseband processor might have a DSP offering 100 MIPS and a RISC offering 14 MIPS, the MXC puts the entire function into a DSP with 156 MIPS and increases the RISC performance to handle the new application demands. MXC uses an on-chip, dedicated application processor (ARM1136 @ 400 MHz with 128 Kbyte on-chip L2 cache) with ARM Jazelle technology for Java hardware acceleration.

The security features help protect high-value content and enable digital rights management, providing a framework for music downloads, mobile credit card transactions and other secure m-commerce transactions.

Adoption of features such as color display, cameras, and converged capabilities would not be possible without advances in semiconductor technology, micro-architectures, and embedded systems. It is for this reason, and to implement more advanced features such as 2D and 3D graphics, mobile multimedia, Mobile IP, and personal entertainment, that Motorola has created the Mobile Extreme Convergence architecture.

What if, instead of putting a camera in a phone, manufacturers could easily add cellular or wireless capability to digital cameras? In a world in which virtually any handheld consumer electronics device could add cellular capability while maintaining battery life, size and cost would significantly shift the way the “cellular” market is forecasted.

Samples of the first MXC silicon will ship to customers starting in the middle of 2004, Rader said, and products based on the MXC platform should begin shipping in the second quarter of 2005.

The timing that Motorola presented is interesting in and of itself, being that it was the middle of 2004 when Steve Jobs joined Ed Zander via satellite to announce their partnership that would bring Apple’s new iTunes mobile music player to Motorola phones in 2005. The second quarter of 2005 of course ends next month, just as Steve Jobs delivers his keynote and perhaps new hardware. Could there have been more to that partnering deal that didn’t get announced publicly in August 2004? I think so – and not just due to the timing of Motorola’s MXC, but because of what strengths and flexibility that the new MXC extreme Convergence processor could bring to Apple’s iPod product mix.

A new iPod GUI: say bye-bye Pixo

I think we could all agree that it’s time to say bye-bye to iPod’s Pixo UI and say hello to something exciting! A new architecture like Motorola’s MXC would allow Apple to launch a whole new UI – which of course opens the door to some interesting scenarios. I’m sure you have a few of your own ideas on that, which I hope you’ll share with us later, but for now I’m going to take a stab at a scenario of my own for your consideration.

Introducing an advanced 3D based UI to Apple’s iPod would really shake things up. One cool feature that I think could be applied here is really a twist on Apple’s own Fast User Switching feature that is narrowly applied today. One side of this cube could be used to provide users with a clear scrollable options menu. Then, with a simple click on a targeted application, the cube would turn to reveal a dedicated UI for such new mobile versions of apps such as iTunes, iPhoto, email, perhaps a Micro-Safari browser, iMovie or QuickTime TV screen and so forth.

For the Mobile Pro, we’re likely to see Apple introduce something like Toshiba’s Ubiquitous Viewer or a BitFlash Mobile Document Viewer with a slightly larger iPod window. Of course this would also apply to any thin client like a network-centric notebook based on web services.

Secondly, downloading Widgets like a clock and other conveniences will be an option. Being that a wireless iPod is connected to the network, these XML based web services would provide live updated information on the fly. I’m sure that you could think of a hundred ways you’ll be able to customize your iPod – and that’s going to be the fun of a wireless iPod with a cool live UI.

Remember Apple’s Multiple Persona patent that stated: the user causes the computer system to globally change the entire suite of parameter values so that subsequent transactions conducted with the computer system employ the parameter values of the current persona.

Well that patent wasn’t limited to a PDA, as the patent graphics didn’t illustrate a Tablet and yet patent point 0006 refers to one application being a tablet. And although the patent presented the use of a stylus, which Apple may or may not implement on an iPod, Apple’s patented wheel does provide the user with enough functionality that negates the use of a stylus for simpler applications. However this plays out, the competition is going to be moaning in agony, scrambling to figure out how the hell they’re going to compete with a chameleon iPod GUI!

PC Core – iPod Pro

Last year the Register ran a story about IBM’s PC Core and here’s a single excerpt: IBM Japan calls the PC Core System a “completely new concept”. IBM’s thinking is that users will carry around their PCs, plugging them into base units (as shown here) located wherever they happen to be working.

The Register’s author went on to state that IBM’s PC Core reminded him of an iPod. A secondary story surfaced shortly thereafter on osViews called, “iPod a Trojan Horse for X86 OSX?” While that may have been an interesting read unto itself, it had taken a view point that was completely contradictory to what IBM’s PC Core’ was: a network computer.

IBM’s unit had nothing to do with running a standard operating system like OS X. So the most important aspect of the news of the PC Core was completely lost in the translation. So if you’re interested in its proper context, you could read IBM’s PDF entitled “On-demand design service innovations.”

So where does the comparison between an iPod and an IBM PC Core really apply? Here are just a few excerpts and or points taken from that PDF, beginning on page 12:

Network environment detection service for an IBM PC core system

The IBM PC core system consists of a core and cradle. The core is portable and contains a CPU, memory, and disk drive. The cradle has external connectors to the power, display, keyboard, mouse, and network. Thus, users can carry their cores with them and, as long as there is an available cradle connected to a display and keyboard, they can plug in their core and work in their familiar computing environment. This system was developed in the IBM Yamato Laboratory on the basis of the modular computer design concept (in the year 2000 – prior to the iPod).

The core system is ideal for an organization in which people share computers installed in many locations, such as large enterprises and universities. There can be several cradles in different locations, each set up with a display, keyboard, mouse, and network. Anyone can use a personalized core at any of these locations. Their computing environment would remain the same, just as if they were transporting their entire computer system. At the same time, cradles can be shared with others. The cradle enables any core to recover its computing environment
.
ANC technology can be used to detect the network environment and supply the core system with a capability for autonomic network configuration. This eliminates network setup frustration and makes the core system more attractive, even to users unfamiliar with the network.

ANC is an important core technology to enable network communication because it autonomically maintains network connectivity….rendering it an important core technology for embedded systems dependent upon network communication.

This provides us with a little perspective to Apple’s initiatives with Universities like Duke, doesn’t it? That particular Duke University link is dated April 2005 and states the following:

“No single technology meets every need right now, although the iPod has been ideal for digital audio applications,” she said. “Next year, as our work with iPods becomes more routine, we’re going to take what we’ve learned and focus on how to better deliver content to iPods. We’re also going to explore other kinds of technology uses that involve things like video and wireless communications.”

One of the avenues that Duke could be exploring fits into IBM’s PC Core scenario to perfection. Ahhh, but the iPod Pro with a processor like the MXC would also fit this scenario – and this could mark the beginning of a completely new market for Apple to win for the iPod Pro. Why was Duke referring to the iPod and wireless communications in the same breath? Yes, of course – a wireless iPod.

Where Xybernaut failed, Apple will succeed. Apple’s unit, unlike others, including IBM’s PC Core, has a functional mini display for versatility and upcoming wireless mobility beyond the classroom itself. Yet within classrooms that are properly set up, the iPod Pro will allow users to plug in their core and work in their familiar computing environment.

Think of this application for the iPod Pro in the enterprise as IBM’s scenario presented itself. Oh my, things get very interesting. Then taking this one step further, this is where Apple’s Genius Bar could play a role in the future by accommodating professionals that require a simple connection to their office conveniently while on the go. Genius Bar’s set up with a display, keyboard and cradle – will make this very convenient and simple. Why carry a notebook from city to city or around the downtown core, when you could be carrying your office in your pocket. If you need a larger workspace, just drop by an Apple Genius Bar or other facility that will support network computing services like Kinko’s (at some point in time), drop in your Core in the cradle and your plugged into your work environment in seconds. Want to keep a copy of that document change you just made, the iPod will handle that for you – thank you very much. Understandably Apple is secretive about future initiatives, so I’ll use Sun’s example to help you visualize this concept further.

Sun iWork: your office anywhere

Sun’s iWork is designed to work the way you do, whether that’s on Solaris, Windows, Mac, Linux or any number of desktop and mobile devices. Sun hardware, software and network intelligence makes it possible to stay connected and be productive anywhere. Sun’s iWork is an employee portal that’s a part of the SunOne platform. The underlying applications on the iWork initiatives are powered by Sun ONE Application Server and J2EE technology. Authorization and authentication are powered by Sun ONE Portal Server, Sun ONE Directory Server, and Sun ONE Identity Server. Remote access is provided via Sun ONE Portal Server: Secure Remote Access Pack. Sun’s iWork initiative includes the Sun ONE StarOffice Suite.

You could pick up a few PDF’s on iWork if you wish to learn more. In relation to the Genius Bar concept, you could view this Reservable drop in program PDF specifically. Of course Apple’s program may be more open than Sun’s – to the general public – yet it provides a great overview of the concept. Apple’s program of course could include the iPod Pro and cradle concept as IBM’s PC Core. While there are other future attributes to this initiative I could bring forward, getting too ahead of the curve would serve no purpose at this juncture.

A new breed of iPods for new mass markets

In chapter two of the Next Wave of the Internet series I purposely emphasized the fact that Apple’s iPod was being a dubbed a specialized computer and made promise of a future chapter that would present you with the architecture for this specialized computer. Today’s chapter fulfills that promise.

The MXC architecture in my opinion is a great example of such a revolutionary architecture that will provide Apple with the ability to offer a wide variety of iPods cost effectively, while advancing their technological foundation so that they could rapidly exploit the network centric business model – that is the very nature of the next wave of the internet as defined by Steve Jobs in 2001.

Building on this network-centric business model, the iPod’s direction as seen through IBM’s PC Core example, provides us with the logical progression and potential of what a network-centric iPod Pro could actually bring to market and the new mass markets beyond the general consumer it will allow Apple to venture into.

Sun Microsystems’s iWork program provides us with an insightful overview of how Apple will be able to drive more business traffic to their retail stores by providing mobile professionals with the convenience of connecting to their business or home office while on the go – be it connecting to a Mac, Windows, Linux or Solaris Server. It’s been rumored for some time now that Apple was going to upgrade their Genius Bars with displays and keyboards, and now we could see the logic behind that move in a new light.

Will Apple be able to handle both the enterprise and educational markets? No. But that’s why they’ve partnered with HP for iPods. The iPod Pro in this scenario would even have the right network-centric business model that HP’s new Adaptive Enterprise grid program (the Darwin based architecture) could take advantage of.

In the end, music is music. The potential for the iPod Pro in new mass markets like the enterprise and educational markets worldwide will certainly be a tune that Wall Street could dance to.

Next Wave of the Internet Series

Part 14: “Tiger’s Real Secret Weapon – To Rock the Market”

Part 13: “Apple’s connections to Wind River, Red Hat and Linux-ITRON”

Part 12: “Apple’s NEW-TRON Bombshell”

Part 11: “Apple and IBM: Rethink the PowerPC Revolution”

Part 10: “Suddenly! The Next Wave of the Broadband Wars”

Part 9: The Next Wave: Apple Patent Reveals QuickTime TV: What the Other Sites Missed

Part 8: A Closer Peek at Sony’s CELL Patent: What’s missing here?

Part 7: The Next Wave: Apple’s Connection to the CELL Processor

Part 6: Next Wave: Motorola, MeshNetworks and In-Car iServices

Part 5: OS X Tiger’s QuickTime Could Reach More than 3 Billion Users a Day!

Part 4: Apple’s QuickTime Leaps to the Silver Screen and Beyond

Part 3: Tiger Revving-up QuickTime TV Live-Network

Part 2: On the Road to iPod-Live! In 2005

Part 1: Apple’s Next Wave of the Internet: Darwin’s leap to MAN

The Next Wave of the Internet Series
By Neo

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