I just read today that Apple is now planning an ipod that will be able to playback videos. I want to be excited about it, but my gut is telling me this is where Apple is going to strike out. They have a lot of momentum, but the portable video player market is much different than portable music and my guess is that they'll try to simply add video to the ipod photo and wind up with a misfire for one reason, screen size.

The current ipod photo doesn't have a big enough screen for watching videos. I have one myself and it's perfect for selecting music to play, but watching a two hour movie on a plane or in a car? naw, no thanks. They could try and fix this by making the screen bigger, but then you end up with a portable music player that is too big and clunky to really be considered pocket sized. I think it is this problem that keeps these two markets separate and will continue to do so.

A portable video player is not really meant to be a pocket sized (take it everywhere) type of device. It's meant to be as big and comfortable as possible while still being small enough that it doesn't feel cumbersome to lug it around. On the other hand a portable music player *is* meant to be as small, compact, and as portable as possible because with music people just want to stick the thing in their pocket. Different devices which suit different needs and i think that Apple will find themselves a sore loser if they think they can combine the two.

However, I will note that I could be mistaken about their intentions and perhaps (if they are smart) they will simply try and make new device which is larger than the current ipod photo which will act more like a portable media station that isn't really meant to be a pocket sized device. If Apple is truly smart, they would take the design of the PSP and just hack out the UMD and Flash card stuff and replace it with a hard drive. mmm.