ipod day
I rarely comment on this blog about new Apple product announcements. There are hundreds of sites that do it better than I could, and even though I geek out about this stuff, I don’t find it all that interesting to write about.
This morning, US pacific time was another Apple “special event” dubbed “The Beat Goes On,” obviously focused on the aging iPod product lineup. There were, as usual, thousands of rumors, predictions, and pre-emptive analyses prior to the event. Many turned out to be correct. Others terribly retarded. John and Dan did pretty good on their talk show. I followed Engadget’s and Crunchgear’s liveblogging coverage, both very good. (The latter using reverse chronological order and auto-updating, a far better blogging setup than Engadget’s.)
Anyway, the short if it is that it was an incredible series of announcements. A completely refreshed product line now includes widescreen iPod Nanos that play video and photos, iPod Classics with up to 160GB HDD, a brand new iPod Touch which is basically an iPhone without the phone or camera, but with wi-fi, YouTube, full web browser, etc, and up to 16GB flash memory, and a drastic price cut in the 8GB iPhone, from $599 to $399!!! They also killed the 4GB iPhone completely and announced a mobile iTunes store for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Also, some weird partnership with Starbucks that nobody cares about already. Absolutely crazy day for Apple.
Here’s the pricing, all stunningly low: $79 for the shuffle, 1GB. $149 and $199 for the Nano (4 and 8GB). $249 and $399 for the iPod Classic (80 and 160GB). $299 and $399 for iPod Touch (8 and 16GB). And $399 for the iPhone 8GB, formerly $599. Fucking nuts.
Here’s my opinion of the mistakes in the product line though. I think the iPod Touch should have a thicker, more expensive HDD version with 80GB, maybe at $499. I also think the iPhone should have a 16GB version at $499. To be honest, I would have killed the Classic iPod entirely and opted only for the Touch interface too.
Last opinion, the iPhone has always needed GPS. Steve, please give the iPhone GPS.
Check out Apple.com for much more product info. Engadget always have great coverage, and already has hands-on reviews of each new iPod.
Congratulations Steve.
s e x y.
I disagree with your assessment of killing the traditional iPod entirely and going only with touch screen. That version doesn’t appeal to me at all, but I can see why others would want it. I just cannot really see myself using most of its Web based functionality (because I’m a cheap bastard), and I still like the click wheel and prefer it to “touch-screen” technology.
Although, my girlfriend is evidently in love with the new iPod touchscreen design because it has wifi and you just never know when you might need that. So … I may be getting at least one of them now.
Emperor’s New Clothes. So, Mr Jobs, who should I dump from my current 50gb collection to squeeze it onto my new 16gb iPodtouch? Coltrane? Lennon? Bragg? Even - God forbid - Mika?!
Meh.
Coverflow. Arse. 99.93% percent of the time the thing’s in my pocket. Only my balls can see it.
Web browser? Shitfuck. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on PCs. I’m rarely away from a desktop or laptop. Whenever I am, it’s usually because I want to do somethiing other than browse. Something like, oh, I don’t know…close my eyes and listen to Mika.
Altogther disappointing. If Jobs really wants to change the world, give Ives a brief that says this, and only this:
“Mice have two buttons. Implement.”
I think the Classic and Touch are two different devices with two different groups of users/customers in mind. I’m not in the market for a Touch though, I’ll hold out for the iPhone coming to the Middle East. I want one device for all things, not to carry around several ones.
I can’t help but think that european will be almost double the US price. Which sucks
I love my iPod, however I absolultely despise itunes. I can not for the life of me get Itunes to show the artist and album title of my ripped CD’s. It’s gotten to the point where I’m going to toss a perfectly good iPod simply because I’m tired of having to keep it on shuffle. I can’t create playlists without dedicating HOURS of time into naming the songs, artists, albums and then creating the playlists after all that work!
It’s extremely aggravating to have legally purchased albums ripped onto my computer into categories (windows XP file system) check the tags on them to see clearly the artist name, album, song title, track #, etc… and not have that show up in itunes.
The worst part is that all of these songs were showing up perfectly fine in itunes and it seems like after an itunes update it stopped working properly.
IMO apple is great and innovative, however they are failing big time with itunes encryption based files. Nothing is worse than having a great product that is hampered by (imo) terrible software structure.
I just got the reduced price iPhone, 8GB, and it’s sexy as hell. I “hacked” some ringtones on there, and now it’s broken. No, just kidding, but wouldn’t that be so something I was capable of?! Though I did put on my girl ringtones, ones that you’d say, “Darlin’ get that shit off there, NOWWWW” to. I digress.
A common complaint: you cannot delete several emails at once (no ’select all’ option). The key is using imap not pop mail on there. So you never need to handle the same email twice, with an archive of everything received and sent via google (so once it’s deleted from your desktop or iPhone, it’s still searchable via google). I love tuffmail for imap for this reason. And here you just thought I was a pretty face.