Mar 10
A Virtual iPod
2004 at 03.18 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Apple’s mini iPod isn’t available yet here in Europe (in April) but in the States the little toy is an instant smash hit. When Apple announced the devices were shipping in February, the company said they already had 100,000 iPods on pre-order and now retailers are having trouble keeping the devices in stock.
But if all this is too expensive because you already invested your money in lets say a Pocket PC then this post will brighten your day. Now I got you wondering isn’t? An English company called StarBrite has created a virtual iPod that in most respects is identical to the iPod and costs only $20. The software runs on your Pocket PC operating system and it’s called pPod. If you want this I would make up my mind fast because given Apple’s past tolerance for knockoffs it may not be available for very long.
The application fills the Pocket PC’s entire screen with a faithful facsimile of the iPod, including the player’s distinctive scroll wheel and four buttons for playing, pausing and so on.
Like the iPod, the pPod is controlled by its virtual scroll wheel. Most Pocket PCs have touch-sensitive screens, which allow users to navigate the pPod’s menus with their fingers just like the iPod.
Naturally, the pPod’s interface is also just like the iPod’s. Songs are arranged by a series of nested menus, which can be browsed by artist, album, genre, etc. Of course there are some drawbacks, the pPod software plays only songs encoded as MP3 files. It does not support WMA, nor songs downloaded from Apple’s popular iTunes Music Store, which are encoded as copy-protected AAC files.
A demo that functions for three days is available from the StarBrite’s website. I am pretty sure this isn’t the last knockoff but this one springs out because of the direction it took.
March 11th Update
It seems that StarBrite changed the name to pBop, after Apple suggested that the original name might infringe on Apple’s iPod trademark. The company has also made other tweaks to the software in response to Apple’s concerns, including altering the layout of the software buttons and including a disclaimer on all its marketing material that it has no connection to Apple or the iPod.
5served
1
Hi :-)
first link pointing StarBrite gives me an error: Directory Listing Denied.. bye
2
@bogyit: This morning when I posted this the website was working fine. Maybe Apple has already taken action and demanded that the website was taken off line. Who knows. Let’s say I’m not surprised ;-) I will leave the link there maybe it will work again later in the day. Thanks anyway.
3
Yikes, I would vote for iRiver’s products, anyway. They have much sexier look :-)
4
I guess Steve popped the site of p(oorman’s)Pod ?;-)
:: H(ow) P(athetic) will bring it’s own hPod ! ::
What’s next ...a DellPod ?
5
@Roger: Actually the partnership with HP is very significant for Apple because after all HP is the number 2 of the PC industry. So when HP will get into gear this summer and launch their iPod it will mean big business for Apple.
Apple will make money of the partnership and R&D;will benefit. In terms of market share it could very well mean that Apple will stay the leader in the MP3 player market. So the punch line is I’m all for it. It will make Apple more known by thousands of PC users.