Retrophisch logo

Retrophisch

Wi-FiPods

MacMinute notes a report by The Register on open positions within the iPod team for wireless networking engineers. Tony Smith proceeds to pontificate over the possibilities of this, including the use of Wi-Fi to sync data and music with the iPod. Your reasoning for this, Tony, other than a certain coolness factor, would be? The best wireless speeds right now are 54 Mbps, which is great for surfing the web and downloading your e-mail, but I would hesitate to use it to load ripped CDs on to my iPod. Even 100Base-T Ethernet would be faster. With iPod iFireWire connectivity at 400 Mbps, why bother with wireless syncing? The wireless access does make sense for turning the iPod in to a remote control for iTunes and streaming music via Airport Express. However, Smith and The Register have a history for speculation that turns out to be incredibly wrong, so take this one with the usual grains of salt. Obviously, from the Apple job postings, the iPod team is looking at Wi-Fi integration for some reason, but it's too early to tell what that reason might be.