Steve Jobs is Not a Nice Person....

I've always felt that Steve Jobs and I don't quite see eye to eye. I've never met Mr. Jobs mind you, but ever since I read the book "Infinite Loop" by Michael Malone a few years ago, I've always felt that he's not the kind of person who's looking out for my best interests... Unless of course my interests were donating the contents of my bank account to Apple Computer Corporation...

Ever since the iPod was first released, I wanted one. For 4 years though I couldn't find a compelling reason to spend the money for one, until last year. We were going on a vacation to England with a transatlantic cruise home on the QM2, which meant lots of time to listen to music, perfect for an iPod. Even better was that the 4g iPods had just come out, we'd be getting the latest ones too... And just weeks later, the first iPod Photos hit the market! Urrggg!

Despite not having an eye catching color screen though, I really did like my monochome screened 4g iPod. I got a ton of use out of it, especially once I discovered podcasts.

Last month when Steve Jobs announced the iTunes Phone (aka the money sucking pile of crap... I played with one the other day) and the iPod Nano, last month I figured it was safe. That was the "big announcement" to lead us into the holidays, that was the announcement that everyone said would bring us the Video iPod, and after the announcement Steve Jobs was still saying that Apple wasn't going to do a video iPod.

I took that to mean that it was safe, we could go down to the Apple Store and pick us up some new big honking color iPods for the move accross country since I couldn't imagine anything else being released before the holidays...

I think Mr. Jobs was watching for my credit card to be processed at the local Apple Store before deciding that it was time send out the invitations for yet ANOTHER product announcement...

This time for the new 5g iPod...

Which can play video...

But it's not a Video iPod...

From what I'm reading, Steve Jobs is still saying that this isn't a video iPod. From what I'm hearing about the new iPod from those who've played with it so far is that he may be right... Yes the new iPod can play video... but that's about all you can do with the video is play it... The reports coming from people who played with the new iPod at the event last week seem to indicate that you can't fast forward or rewind your videos, just play them and pause them... Weird...

But what I want to know is this... Other than the screen and general size, what sets the new 5g iPod apart from my color 4g iPod? What's the difference in the hardware that prevents me from watching video on my color 4g iPod? So my picture would be square instead of rectangular on the 5g... We all grew up watching square TV's...

Since I'm not going to buy a new iPod anytime soon (nevermind that it might trigger yet ANOTHER product release from Apple) I'm wondering how long it will take some bored/adventurous/enterprising geek with too much money to get a new 5g iPod and use it as a base for a hack to play video on a 4g color iPod....

Although, since updating to the latest version of iTunes, I now have a playlist titled "videos" however that playlist doesn't appear on my iPod.... Is that because I don't have any videos in it yet, or because my iPod won't play them.... For all of $1.99 I might buy a video to see what happens....