iPod Photo

I might be wrong, but I have the feeling that even if you did transfer your photos from your digital camera to the ipod photo with one of the belkin products, they still wouldn't be available to be viewed on the ipod's colour screen until you synched back to the computer.

If this is true, then I think the iPod Photo could probably be considered next to useless.  It doesn't appear that it can be used as a high capacity image wallet/library for people traveling or working with digital cameras.

There doesn't appear to be any special viewing options, like zooming in on a photo like most digital cameras have, which would be useful on such a small screen.  It doesn't seem to be able to play video so you can't play videos from your digital camera, play music videos from the itunes music store, or share movies that you have made on iMovie on its small screen or on a TV/Projector. It doesn't even have some form of visualiser like iTunes.

It doesn't have bluetooth to swap photos with other ipods and bluetooth phones, stream shared music like iTunes does and perhaps interact with Airtunes.

I'm sure bluetooth would chew up the battery like there's no tomorrow, like it does to my phone. It would be a worthwhile investment researching how to make it more efficient to increase battery life when using it.  The ability to share photos for free with ipod users around you would be a revolution.  There are a minium of 4 ipods in any rail car in Perth these days. Most of my friends and family have one and/or a bluetooth phone with a colour screen. It would seriously enhance the whole "culture" developing around the iPod.

I'm sure they are working on it and I realise that the technology to fit these features into the iPod's form factor may not exist yet, but it makes me wonder why they would release a product like iPod Photo so prematurely. Isn't that what Apple boasted when it released the original iPod? That they waited until the technology was mature enough.  Isn't that one of the main reasons they aren't trying to make a portable video player?  I guess so, they can't even get photos right.  It seems kinda ironic to me. The only benefit I can see from this product at the moment is the larger hard drive and the ability to see the colour of the cards in solitaire, which my mum reckons is the only drawback to the older iPods.