I just saw this rumor that Apple might be teaming up with Sirius to add satellite reception into new iPods.
Now to me, this seems a little strange, since XM Radio already has an iPod-like receiver, and to me seems to be more ‘Apple-like’ than Sirius. XM’s music is a more eclectic mix, while Sirius seems to play more pop music geared towards a younger audience (Eminem even has his own show on Sirius). Apple has in the past aligned themselves with the older geek chic crowd (U2 iPod, anyone?) rather than the young pop loving crowd. Or maybe I’m just giving U2 more credit than they deserve, and they are nothing more than a gateway for Apple to get out of their geek cult status and into the pop culture arena.
There’s also a ton of other reasons why we probably won’t see satellite radio (either flavor) in iPods anytime soon:
- Apple won’t do anything to make the iPod bigger. Have you seen portable satellite radios? They are huge.
- Recording. XM just released a little portable player that has a Tivo-like feature, but right now there is no way to get those recordings off of the player. If you could record radio onto your iPod hackers would surely find a quick and easy way to take those recordings off, which makes the RIAA very angry. Without recording capabilities, why bog down your iPod with a service that most users won’t even pay to use?
- You have to pay for satellite radio. Will Apple really bundle a feature you have to pay for with something like the iPod? Maybe if Apple got a cut of the profits, or owned the service (like .mac)
So unless there is some major announcement from Sirius that includes a very tiny new portable player, I don’t see iPods with satellite reception any time soon.
UPDATE (02-09-2005): Apple says ‘hell no’ to putting a satellite radio in their box.
STFU! You have no idea! I have sold thousands of radios.
#3 (“most users won’t even pay to use”) Uhm Everyone Who buys on does!
#2 (“If you could record radio onto your iPod hackers would surely find a quick and easy way to take those recordings off, which makes the RIAA very angry”) The Sirius radios now record songs straight to the memory of select tuners with a Mini jack output! Aproved by the RIAA, Because of the subscription costs…
#1 (“Have you seen portable satellite radios? They are huge.” ) What are you talking about! The New Xm Myfi is slightly larger than an Ipod, yet thinnner!
#0 That’s You! This pretty much negates everything you just said. You should research Something! You look like an idiot passing your opion with no factual backing!
Wow, why are you so pissed off about my opinions?
Everyone who buys a satellite radio activates them because they want the service, not the hardware. iPod users are buying the iPod because they want a portable music player, not a satellite radio. Very few customers would be buying it just for the satellite radio.
This is news to me, but XM just recently stopped selling their PVR hardware right after someone wrote a program that recorded the songs and packaged them up as MP3s. The RIAA wasn’t happy about that, why would they be happy about Sirius making it easy for people?
Ok, so they are still bigger than an iPod, and you want to fit that AND the hard drive of an iPod into a device the same size as an iPod? That’s not going to happen for a while, and Apple would never make the iPods bigger than they are just to fit in satellite radio because they know a small percentage of iPod users will actually use the radio.
I think you’re right that no one would buy an iPod purely for its ability to play satellite radio, but someone who is already an iPod user who either wants to get into satellite radio or is already a user of satellite radio and wants to combine their usage into one machine would use this machine. I actually stumbled on this forum while looking for substantiation of this rumor, because I’m considering buying a Sirius receiver and don’t want to pay the money is Apple is going to come out with a new ‘Pod in a few months. (Still feeling kind of burned from buying the new iPod in July only to have a *newer* one come out a scant few months later *with* photo display capabilities. Grrr….)
Also, I don’t know where you’re hanging out, but U2 are *very* mainstream these days. They’re just huge.