My daughter has a dilemma!
Should she replace her aging iPod nano with a new generation iPod nano or with an iPod Touch. I’d heard that Apple were producing an iPhone without the phone but I’d not watched the promo until my anxious daughter showed it to me. Watching it you can see Steve Jobs salivating at his second shot at the locker.
That wifi connection – what with WiFi and WiMax grids being laid out all over the place (except in Australia where we’re spending public money piping broadband to homes rather than breaking the bottleneck that sees all those download limits being imposed on our broadband services) – the iPod Touch could be a very handy little device.
And with Moore’s Law working its magic, a world starts to appear in one’s mind in which the computer is the network and the user station isn’t the PC, but the iPod Touch – together with a docking station, keyboard, mouse and screen at home to enable to spread one’s fingers and eyes out over a little more space.
It is easy to salivate over. If you’re going to use all the snazzy features, its great. But I hardly ever buy from iTunes (if they get mobile eMusic downloads, maybe I’m there then) and am not fussed about the colour screen, album art etc.
Being able the check email etc would be a drawcard. I have a refurbished 20gb 4th gen ($149), the only problem is the battery life which is alot less than later models. I take it everywhere with me and couldn’t live without it. But that’s because of the music (and podcasts and audiobooks), not the album art. If I “upgrade” it will probably be to another refubished one, a nano probably.
So, the cool factor is seriously intense and your daughter should go for it, especially if father is paying. All the new iPods have to do really is keep the opposition scrambling and they’ve done their job for Apple.
I’m sure your final paragraph isn’t far away, if not already here.
Your comment about Australia’s apparent fixation with piping broadband is welcome. I have this fear that both the government and opposition are about to commit to spending lots of taxpayer money on a technological fix to broadband that will be out of date, perhaps before it even begins to deliver.
Even worse, having sunk all those dollars into such a venture, either alone or in partnership with some private sector group, there may well be a reluctance to allow emerging technologies to operate in a way that would threaten revenues from the dinosaur they’ve built.
The ipod things do look cool though. Even this old codger is thinking about getting one.
I would hold off on buying the iPod Touch for the moment, there are some batches with faulty display units. Apple has acknowledged the problem, and presumably will be fixing them as they show up, but It might pay to wait until the factories have churned out the next batches.
Also, no native email application on the Touch, you’d be reliant on web mail.
Apparently the iPod Touch is lacking in bluetooth and it’s internet capabilities seem to be somewhat more crippled than those of the iPhone. I was really excited about the iPod Touch, if they built a sligthly more beefed-up version of this I could stop lugging my laptop around with me.
It really bugs me that Apple seem to be holding back on the technological front in order to preserve iTunes and the rest of their iPod line. I want a fully functional computer with wireless that I can put in my pocket, I’m also prepared to pay through the nose for it. Unfortunately I’m not a big enough market for Apple.
My sentiments entirely Mick. Though I can’t see why better capabilities should undermine iTunes. But having just got an iPod (to hear Brad Delong’s lectures which seem to be in Apple proprietory formats) I was surprised at how things are so heavily tied to iTunes. The iPod is a lovely thing. iTunes alas is not.
I thought De Long’s podcasts are in mp4, which is playable by heaps of different programs and iPod-like players (ie. there isn’t an Apple-only audio format, just an Apple-only DRM scheme which presumably does not apply to De Long’s podcasts). Could be wrong, though. Perhaps you are confusing his iTunes Store podcast link, which is really a convenience thing, with the actual underlying format (which isn’t Apple-controlled)?
BBB
Nick,
The different capabilities may undermine iTunes. I have a Nokia N95 with WiFi and a podcast application installed. I have set it to download all my usual podcasts directly – and I can get music straight off the web. No need for iTunes there. Sure, I lose all the advertising that comes through iTunes but I do not see that as a great loss.
Thx BBB,
I wouldn’t find it hard to believe that I’ve stuffed this up and that they’re not proprietory formats. But I’m averse to doing lots of research – as it ends up costing more than just going out and buying the damn hardware.
However fyi the format is mostly m4a. I don’t know if that’s Apple proprietary or not but on a very quick look I couldn’t find a simpler mp3 player that played them.
Brad’s Index of Audio Posts is here.
I’ve listened to quite a few lectures now, and I must say I’ve been surprised at how long winded he is. Takes him ages to get across simple points. Perhaps that’s because he’s trying to take first year undergrads (if they are) through it in an engaging manner. He sure knows a lot, and I don’t mind the excursions into esoteric facts – I rather like them. But he just takes ages to make simple points.
But I digress!
Nick, yeah that type of file is OK in non-Apple players and programs. You know what bugs me about Brad de Long? His morning coffee bit. At the end he takes a sip in this awkward way, just so you don’t forget that you’re watching ‘[his] morning coffee’. Really annoying.
Cheers
BBB
Over the last week or so Engadget and Appleinsider have done reviews of the iPod Touch. I’d check them out. Both are relatively scathing, and given that both of these blogs are generally pro-Apple it’s pretty damning for Apple.
Most critisism is based around Apple’s crippling of the Touch’s software. They seem to be trying to forcibly differentiate the Touch and iPhone product lines. This is dumbness of the highest order. It also seems that Apple is astroturfing the tech-blogs like crazy at the moment saying things like “the iPod touch isn’t a PDA, it’s an iPod so why would you expect more software features”.
It’s all quite dissapointing and I think that Apple will find that, unlike the mp3 market, the mobile devices market is very competitive. I expect that Nokia, Samsung, RIM (they just announced that Blackberry’s will have wifi included from now on) and others (if you follow the rumors Google are about to release a touch-screen phone) will put out phones that will add all the missing features of the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Yes, seems odd for them not to absolutely go for it. I was impressed that the pricing of the iPod IS pretty competitive with most other mp3 players – which makes sense given that unlike so many other mp3 vendors they can make a loss on them and still make money from iTunes. Seems silly not to throw all their resources at the small gadget market as there are iTunes sales to be made, a standard to be entrenched and some sales into markets that are non-traditional for Apple.
Perhaps they know they’re quantity constrained and, if they can ramp up production can come out with a less disabled iTouch.
Nicholas – I think you are right. Also, someone pointed out to me today that Apple isn’t probably making huge quantities of money off iPhone sales. They have only sold 1 million of them. Sure, that probably equates to about 100 million in profit but it’s pretty small potatoes in the consumer electronics industry.
Also, someone also pointed out that the PDA market has been dead for years. I guess that they are trying to develop and control a new PDA+phone market and want room for product development.
Still, it annoys me. Being a science geek it frustrates me that they just don’t go balls to the wall somewhat as it won’t cost them any more money to do so.
The PDA market is dead and Apple is going to develop a new PDA+phone market? What have Research in Motion and O2 XDA been doing then?
Is Apple getting a cut of the monthly subscription fee from the mobile network provider – whose name I have forgotten – in the US? I seem to recollect they are in the UK, but not sure about the US.
Well, I have the new nano and the 2nd gen shuffle.
i love the shuffle because it is great on the go. The new nano is beautiful. I recommend it. I think it beats the ipod touch because of it’s size. It’s picture quality is great and it is my favorite. Nick, I would get ur daughter the knew nano, I dont think any other ipod stands up to it’s size and capability.