And sorry again for getting to the fundas again...
Does Ipod need the best sound quality?
if we all think about one thing, it would be easier to arrive at the move...
How do you define sound quality?
THe frequency response, clarity etc... But, How do you get them? Only by using a high end in ears or headphones.
How much percentage of ipod owners change to atleast M2 or better?
And how much percentage use for the features/user experience of it....
I bet the later is higher (Maybe far higher) than the former.
As a company, to satisfy the majority of the customer base, I would prefer sacrificing small amount of customers.
One thing is Ipod is never claimed to be an audiophile player, It does things better than others and some things are sacrificed to attain the balance or Optimum.
If sound quality is the major choice over user experience, there are lots of players (CD walkman, Hifiman etc...)
Kindly don't come to a conclusion that I'm against sound quality preference in ipod. Even i would like to have the best audio quality in it.
But, the hard fact is its tough to have best of both worlds.
P.s: As an Engineer, If i want my device to have the best user experience, i make sure there are no bottlenecks in the flow of data.
One factor that's important in a ext storage (SD/Micro sd card) is its uncertainity in read write speeds on various brands. Which boils down finally to the user experience. (More RAM is always faster than bigger pagefile).
and Kindly i request people to look device as it is intended / designed for use.
Note: May be OT, But i had a thread which explains something about ipods.
http://www.techenclave.com/general-portables/how-ipod-different-mp3-player-exploration-171110.html
Oh, This has become a long post...
--- Updated Post - Automerged ---
Ok I'm again...
Emphasising on SD/MicroSD storage preference.
If I'm intending to use a MicroSD card in an ipod. How will it be..
1. Load all songs in SD card insert in ipod. Give update library, scan songs again (BTW how much people are familiar with that, Ipods are prefered since they don't need to do these things).
Then, During usage, the list would take few seconds to load (1st -ve in user exp).
2. Else, Load all the database (HTML files for the library) in the main memory and songs in sd card, speeds up the process. But if you load /overwrite songs and access again, either it would search the song for some time (2nd -ve in user Exp) or give a error message "file not found. like to locate it?". (3rd -ve in user exp)
3. Best let us sync ipod with sd card in it.. Then bash apple again for slow transfer speeds (4th -ve for user exp)
and if they are ready to do it, it would be prefered only by 10% of customers by losing 70-80% of them.
If i was steve or an apple employee of any hierchy, i wouldn't do that.