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PortalPlayer Goes Wireless, WiFiPod Coming in October
comment: 20 | Friday, February 10 (2006) 06:44AM | Posted by Austin Vaughan
There's a PortalPlayer chipset in every iPod (except the Shuffle, which uses Sigmatel). It runs the OS, the GUI, and the audio decoding. When we hear about something new from PortalPlayer, we pay attention, because you know where it's going to end up.

The other day, PortalPlayer announced that they are teaming up with a company called CSR to help with adding WiFi and Bluetooth (wireless) capability to their PP5022 system-on-chip. Together, they expect to deliver the new system by the second half of this year.

Meaning... we can expect to see iPods with wireless connectivity by October, which is the time of year when Apple traditionally releases a new version of the iPod.

"Through seamless integration between PortalPlayer’s PP5022 applications processor family and CSR’s UniFi Wi-Fi chip and BlueCore Bluetooth chip, consumer electronics and other media device manufacturers will gain a significant time-to-market advantage in delivering wire-free media players," the companies said in the announcement. "Wi-Fi will simplify the synchronisation of media players with a PC as well as open up entirely new ways to download and stream content from the Internet. Bluetooth will enable wireless stereo headset connectivity."


PRESS RELEASE (via iLounge)
Comments

Michael
Location: New York City
Comments: 2786
 		Feb 10 (2006) 07:05AM  

Bluetooth is nice in theory, but I wonder what it'll mean for battery life. Of course there'd still be a headphone jack.



Dominic
Location: Ireland.
Comments: 2396
 		Feb 10 (2006) 07:07AM  

i dont mind cables, so i'd stick with them, of course lately ive been tripped, choked and hund by the bloody things



twinsdad

Comments: 129
 		Feb 10 (2006) 09:17AM  

I wonder how many companies will be making bluetooth headsets because of this.



Lighter

Comments: 102
 		Feb 10 (2006) 09:31AM  

I wonder how many companies will be making bluetooth headsets because of this.


Doesn't matter. Only the Apple bluetooth headphone matters to the pod folks.



mysticalpha
Location: NY
Comments: 42
 		Feb 10 (2006) 10:10AM  

Bluetooth and I never got along. It's easier to just place the player into a dock.



Deano

Comments: 123
 		Feb 10 (2006) 10:29AM  

Wondered how long it would take for some WiFi to start appearing in DAP products. Although, I imagine a lot of companies may wait for implementations of Wireless USB to come about before venturing down this road. Still, sounds like a good way to keep your DAP updated/sync'd to me. Wouldn't mind bringing my DAP into the room with the computer and by pressing a button having new music whisked to my player without having to fiddle about with a USB cable or dock.



Donnie

Comments: 247
 		Feb 10 (2006) 10:48AM  

Just out of curiosity, what does that mean to the person driving a bluetooth-enabled car encountering another car with a bluetooth-enabled DAP? (think of the same encounter with someone with a powerful FM transmitter cranking out whatever is played)



zip22

Comments: 1809
 		Feb 10 (2006) 11:12AM  

Deano, one reason i don't foresee this happening is battery life. plugging into the computer serves 2 purposes. charging and syncing. syncing with wifi would be cool, but would kill battery life. the hard drive spinning up like that without an external powersource would be very draining.



koppite1

Comments: 248
 		Feb 10 (2006) 12:47PM  

But it might force Apple to really develop their batt tech or ask more of suppliers
[ edited Feb 10 (2006) 12:48PM ]



Sebhelyesfarku

Comments: 398
 		Feb 10 (2006) 01:26PM  

I prefer gapless on wire to gaps on wireless



Allen
Location: Dub Vee Ooo
Comments: 1511
 		Feb 10 (2006) 02:46PM  

Ill be interested to see how they incorperate this... And to this point... I do prefer wires on my player and headphones...



Dominic
Location: Ireland.
Comments: 2396
 		Feb 10 (2006) 04:47PM  

koppite, from what i gather apple have very good battery technology, they use quite low capacity batteries but have good power management chips



Peacemaker636

Comments: 104
 		Feb 10 (2006) 04:48PM  

Great, so now you can watch movies without wires and get 30 minutes of battery life!
Seriously, all this speculation on Apple's next player, it has to be speculation. Apple would never in a million years add this much stuff to a player over the course of one generation.



Dominic
Location: Ireland.
Comments: 2396
 		Feb 10 (2006) 06:22PM  

what would you say if they did?



erratic

Comments: 10
 		Feb 10 (2006) 06:49PM  

Donnie - Bluetooth works nothing like a simple radio transmitter. Two BT devices need to be 'paired' for them to be able to exchange information (including audio). To enable the pairing you need to initiate the connection on one device, and accept it, usually by entering a four digit code, on the other.

random drive by pairups just can't happen.



Donnie

Comments: 247
 		Feb 11 (2006) 12:10AM  

Thanks for clarifying, now I could see a DIY project somewhere down the line of bluetooth.



Peacemaker636

Comments: 104
 		Feb 11 (2006) 02:34PM  

Dominic, to answer your question, I would ask when they fired Jobs.



Dominic
Location: Ireland.
Comments: 2396
 		Feb 11 (2006) 02:38PM  

damn, i was hoping you'd do something cool, you know like eating a hat.



datdude

Comments: 2
 		Feb 12 (2006) 01:06PM  

Zipp22.

Imagine having your DAP in your car allready charged and then you pull into your garage and it automatically syncs iwth your PC. That would worth it.



Deano

Comments: 123
 		Feb 13 (2006) 08:16AM  

Deano, one reason i don't foresee this happening is battery life. plugging into the computer serves 2 purposes. charging and syncing. syncing with wifi would be cool, but would kill battery life. the hard drive spinning up like that without an external powersource would be very draining.


Yeah, that's certainly very true. I didn't think of the drain on the battery in this particular case. I forget that Wireless has a massive effect on laptop battery life, so of course this will be even more obvious in a smaller powered device such as a DAP.

It is a nice idea though, guess I'll be waiting longer than I expected. Heh.



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