Thanks to all those who submitted entries to Philoneist's first monthly concept competition. There were a number of great ideas submitted for improving Apple's iPod, and the deliberation process was a difficult one. The winning idea and essay comes from Jon (no relation) who will receive a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate for his entry, The Apple 6G Personal Data Center, which features two screens.

The Apple 6G Personal Data Center

Welcome to the latest prototype for Apple's 6th Generation IPOD. Building upon the legendary status of the IPOD as a music and video entertainment device, we are now including mobile communications as the next staple of the iPod systems.

As you can see a second, context sensitive screen has been added that will adjust to function with the current operation of the system, yet we intend to remain true to the wisdom, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The familiar click wheel is still central to the interface, but now it operates in it's new digital form. Notice the three icons above the wheel. Constantly present, these icons allow quick and easy access to the three major functions; Music, Phone and Messaging.

Music function will remain mostly unchanged, although with the inclusion of new, high-capacity based flash memory, consumers will now be able to carry 30 gigabytes, or more, of their music, photos, videos and other data with them, in our most convenient size/weight combination to date.



Now... Can you hear me?

iTunes has been added to phones in the past, but now digital telephone service is available right through your iPod 6G. Dial either directly from your contacts list, which is still accessible from the click wheel screen, or, hold the phone icon for two seconds and "Presto" dial directly from the touch tone pad. Numbers dialed can also be added to your contacts list, and with the vCard exchange function in the iMessage system you can quickly add contacts of new friends on the fly

Look, Mom, no keyboard!

Need to get quick information to a friend? Nothing is better than an instant message, except maybe not having to type the message. The new multi-tiered database in iTunes lets you build an infinite variety of customizable messages, so now you can not only tell your friend to call you, but where or when, all with just a few turns of the click wheel. Think of it like this... in iTunes iMessenger database, the first level of this message would be Call Me. Under the "Call Me" group, you can now enter further choices, such as "at home", "after class", or even "when you're not grounded anymore!" It's all up to you. Make as many variations as you like, on up to 5 levels, synch up your iPod and in just a few clicks you can tell anyone to "Meet me...after work... at the mall... next to the elevators." It's not just about messaging, it's about communicating! And have no fear, if you need to send a message you don't have "quick-listed", there's a full QWERTY keyboard included that you can enter any message into.

The Apple Ipod 6G, taking personal mobility, entertainment, information and communication to the next level... with style.


Honorable Mentions

Rachel from San Diego would like to see voice recognition implemented:

"If I could make any change to the iPod model currently making it's way around my family circle, I would give it a voice command feature similar to that found in my Verizon Wireless Cell Phone. Wherever I am, whether it be in bed in the dark or driving down the road at any time of day, I find that button pushing and attempting visual recognition of information on a cell phone or iPod can be difficult and (in the case of the car scenario) even dangerous.

With voice command technology, which mostly just involves special software and a microphone receiver so the iPod can "hear" you when you tell it what to do, no light is required at night and no "taking eyes off of the road" is required when driving. As more and more parents, aunts, uncles, and even grandparents turn their sights onto technological advances and find themselves borrowing iPods, inheriting last year's model, and even purchasing iPods for themselves, visual impairment and the unfortunately common phenomenon of night-blindness need not be a problem.

With voice recognition technology, even someone as blind as myself can use the iPod with the same ease reserved for voice command cell phones."


Jordan wants different iPods to communicate with one stereo for controlling a single playlist queue.

The New iQueue for iPod

How many times have you been sitting in a room with your friends listening to your iPod when another person wants to show you a new song from their iPod that you don't have on yours? We all know the hassle that is involved with exchanging iPods from the dock, or even worse; exchanging a 3.5 mm plug. We are all familiar with the strange and awkward silence that arises and do our best to overcome it. But what if there was a
solution to this?

• The new iQueue is a radically different type of accessory that is to be used with next generation iPods.
• The iQueue allows multiple users to queue songs to be played over the stereo system wirelessly.
• This accessory will work with the next generation of iPods which will have the capability to wirelessly transmit the audio signal to the iQueue receiver.
• All iPods within the receiver's vicinity will be able to modify and view the queued list of music for the receiver.
• New Enqueued option on iPod main screen • Ability for multiple iPods to queue songs
• Takes the solitary nature out of the equation and leads to a more robust group experience

To read more honorable mentions, click below.

Nicole supports the addition of a Mighty Mouse scroll wheel and a larger screen:

Regardless of the features within the iPod of the future, the way in which we access these features, along with a larger screen, will be key in order to maintain market dominance for Apple.

This design brings in the Mighty Mouse's Scroll Ball which replaces the Apple Click Wheel and brings forward exciting new possibilities for interacting with your media. Add OS X, Wi-Fi, a microphone, cell phone capabilities (and a speaker), standard ports and you could have the smallest computer on the planet beating out OQO.com's Model 01+.


Nick wants his iPod of the future to dock on a Roomba style robot-servant he calls the iPet:

Currently there have been the iPod, iPod Photo, iPod Video, iPod Mini, iPod Shuffle, and iPod Nano (the most innovative of all thus far). With the iPod, Apple has taken ahold of the way people listen to music. In the upcoming year Apple will be hoping to take over the way we view TV, via a TV/Computer and downloading shows to our iPods. Once they have gone that far, what is to prevent them from going farther?

In the future everyone will have the three "i"s for essential living: the iPod, the iPad, and the iPet. The iPod will slowly turn into more than just a music player. It will soon become our daily planner, digital camera, and mini entertainment player(music/video/photo). However, when we return home from a hard day of work our iPod connects to our iPet, which in turn interacts with our iPad (a wired home or apartment). Place the iPod in its charger on the back of our iPet (take your pick of either an AIBO style or a ROOMBA style) and wireless it downloads our favorite TV shows from the iTV, maintains a list of needed groceries form the iFridge, and archives and sorts our email into our iPod. This is nothing new, the concept of "smart homes" have been around since the dawn of the Internet. The real innovation comes from how the iPet analyses our life.

Our iPet will have a unique look into our lives, inside and outside our home. It will eventually learn how to identify our mood by our life choices. If we had a meeting with our boss earlier in the day, listened to Heavy Metal in the car, and came home with a pint of chocolate ice cream, it can determine we are stressed and will ask if we with to take a bath, suggest a movie, or even send invites to friends to come and visit.

If we are away from our home but with our iPod, our iPet then takes on the role of cleaner, baby sitter, security, and package receiver. Since our iPod is connected wirelessly to the Internet, we can issue commands to our iPet to vacume the floors or order groceries from our we got from the iFridge. Later in the day we get a call from our iPet with a photo, UPS is at our door with a very important package from our Aunt Sally. You can then instruct the iPet to open the door and (using the iPet's speakers and talking into our iPod) we can talk to the UPS deliveryman. Latter the grocery deliveryman comes, and we instruct the iPet to open the door. By this time the grocery deliveryman has gotten used to this and proceeds to place the groceries on the table and bills us electronically. Around 3:30pm little Billy gets home from school. To make sure that he studies for his test tomorrow, we have iPet follow him and reminding him to study until he does. We can also connect to the iPet (like we did with UPS) and talk directly to Billy. When we get home, the iPet greets us and asks, "How did I do today?"

As you can see, the iPod, with the help of the iPet, will change from being an entertainment device to an essential communication tool in the future.


Chris writes about other uses for a high-quality microphone:

"Since the iPod IS about music ( now with video ) there is truly one area that is left out .. recording. Yes, you can buy Griffin's mic / recorder .. but that is not even close to the quality that is needed. Currently, the Marantz PMD670 PMD 670 Digital Recorder is the best available digital recorder .. and very $$$. There is no technological reason why some company can't design a good iPod plug-in recorder ( "iRec" ). If the Marantz can record digital quality to a Compact Flash, and the iPod can read a compact flash ( with adapter ) then why can't it be done?

There are so many live bands out there .. one would think that this type of recorder attachment to the iPod would bring about a flood of new podcasting. The "iRec" unit would also need a "monitor" volume, manual and automatic mic volume, and two little clip-on direction mics to clip on a baseball cap ( or such ) I hope that this gets some attention. I would gladly sacrifice the contest for a company that committed to deliver the "iRec" in a few months."


Karla from the Phillipines thinks the click-wheel should be done away with

In this entry, I have attached three jpeg files. The attached jpeg files is my aesthetic design of my ideal iPod which was done in Autodesk Inventor and was rendered using Inventor Studio. Sensitive devices such as this one should be ergonomic. I applied some curves one the sides so that it won't slip easily when held by hand. The iPod's click wheel is a nice design but then I suddenly thought of the what-if-question is that what if it's damaged. I thought of replacing the click wheel with the four wheel navigation button since it provides a much more accurate control and that the electronic control of buttons are simpler. However, scrolling of music is not only done by pushing it down. You could push it sideways (left or right) which is good especially if you have a lot of music stored. An external speaker is also added so that you could listen to it without the speakers specialized for iPod and the earphones as well. Battery meter is embedded in the interface. Memory meter is included to know how much data you could store which is to be accessed from the Menu. Digital recorder is included which would be very useful for podcasters.


My mother thinks the iPod could help people get around easier:

Okay, I'm probably not eligible, but I'd still like to see GPS and direction capabilities on my iPod. If I ever had one...