I think we can say with some amount of certainty that we’ve now got a third Stevenote that we can count on each year. Macworld, WWDC, and now an annual fall Special Event for Apple to unveil their holiday 2008 iPod lineup. However, this year’s keynote really didn’t deliver that much overwhelming or mind-boggling or anything like that, as Apple’s lineup appears to have taken its respective stereotypical roles.
For starters, Apple’s iPod shuffle still looks the same as the one they introduced two years ago, but they’ve refreshed the colors yet again for fun. (Although somewhere along the last two years they must have reduced the prices–I didn’t remember them announcing it being available for only $50.) And at the same time, it’s obvious that they no longer consider the iPod classic to be the true member of the iPod line by isolating it at a 120 GB level; they just haven’t gotten rid of it so that they don’t upset the folks who want to carry more than 16 or 32 GB of music around with them. The nano (and the mini before it) has always outsold the main iPod, and I’m sure Apple would rather have the iPod touch be its “big” iPod more than anything else.
As for the iPod nano, I was somewhat surprised by the details of how Apple’s 4th-generation nano turned out. For one thing, I find it oddly humorous that Apple can’t seem to make up its mind on the form factor of the nano. After last year’s shocking revelation that the nano was moving to a new “squat” shape (one which I hated simply for the fact that it was too small for my big hand to use), then suddenly it goes back to the famous pack of gum shape. I will say that the idea of rotating the screen so that it’s portrait, not landscape, is a clever idea for them to achieve its form factor (and making the now playing screens actually put the album artwork across the full screen is so much nicer), however the idea of using an accelerometer and having to turn the device sideways to watch video seems to me to be quite awkward. Granted, I thought that having videos play on a screen that small was awkward last year, but now to have to hold the thing sideways while the video only takes up half of the space of the device you’re using? Weird. And of course, once you’ve turned the thing sideways, you’ve greatly screwed up how to use the click wheel–it almost seems like Apple would rather have an iPod touch-nano, rather than just an iPod nano with an accelerometer on it.
The iPod touch announcement, however, was the announcement that I was the most interested in, partially because the thought of wanting one has crossed my mind recently. So I was somewhat disappointed with the announcement after having heard rumors of something bigger coming. Granted, Apple’s come a long way since their iPod touch introduction a year ago. In September 2007, the main thing with the iPod touch was taking the iPhone, extracting the iPod features out of it, throwing in Safari just for fun (along with the iTunes Wi-fi Music Store and Starbucks) and selling it. Had it been introduced in January 2007 instead of the iPhone, it would have been considered revolutionary, but next to the iPhone, it felt super-lame. Now, a year and $29.90 worth of upgrades later (along with the handy opening of the App Store), it’s now a very capable PDA-type device that I’d go so far to say should be considered the 21st Century Newton.
Apparently Apple doesn’t see it that way. For starters, they really didn’t do much of anything to it. They made the thing thinner, which at this point, doesn’t really mean much other than giving them something to brag about. You know, they didn’t make the iPhone 3G any thinner, and no one complained about that. They didn’t make the iPod classic any thinner, and I don’t hear anyone complaining. I don’t see why making the touch thinner should be such a big deal. They added a physical volume control (and THAT I will consider a very welcome addition), and they added a rather tinny speaker which I’m told is even worse than the iPhone’s. (Maybe it could have been as good as the iPhone’s if they hadn’t made the touch thinner.) Oh, and they lowered the price, and threw in the Nike+iPod thing for anyone who cares, which doesn’t happen to include me. While that’s fine and all, this is pretty much the same product that was available on September 8th with the same major features.
What I think is most annoying about the new iPod touch is that Apple has chosen to market it as a gaming device more than anything else, and that really makes it hard for someone like me (who really doesn’t care about games) to take it seriously. The iPod touch can still run all of the other “normal” applications that make both it and the iPhone great tools for productivity apps on the go–probably the only main drawback of the iPod touch versus the iPhone is the fact that you can’t rely on a 3G/EDGE backup plan when wifi isn’t available. There are numerous mobile gaming devices out there; a good-quality PDA device, however, is still lacking in our world, and that’s where I think the iPod touch should be promoted. But I guess if those “marketing experts” think they’re so hot, they can go ahead and do what they want to do. All I can say about the iPod touch is that at this point, I think I can get along fine with out it until I spend more of my time at places that actually have wifi. (Maybe some place like college next year.)
The last big announcement was iTunes 8. After over eight years since iTunes was released, you’d think that you couldn’t do any more to it, but then Apple has gone and proved that wrong. However, as usual, the features that got top billing weren’t the features that stuck out the most to me. Genius, in my opinion, has turned out some rather lame choices as for songs that “go well together,” although maybe that’s because my music library, with only 260 songs (many of them not on the iTunes Store) isn’t big enough to get some good matches. As for the Genius Sidebar, that thing just felt intrusive, like having a big banner ad next to my music. That thing didn’t last on my iTunes for longer than five minutes before I got rid of it. The new iPhoto-like album view does seem like a nice way to browse through my whole music library, but it doesn’t seem to be a very good fit elsewhere. Sometimes I like to be able to see everything that I have, and not have to click through a shelf of images first.
The features in iTunes 8 that have grabbed my approval have been the awesome (and much-needed) reorganization of the preferences panel in iTunes, which is now much easier to browse through, as well as the new visualizer. I’ve always liked using the visualizer at times in iTunes, and the new one, though it has its faults, is certainly visually stunning. I really like that iTunes 8 feels really stable now, and very nicely organized and put together.
Nevertheless, I can’t help feeling that something was missing from this special event. I’m not sure what it is, but I get the feeling that it’s not a case of Apple simply running out of tricks–they’re still holding something in, and I’m sure it will come bubbling out at Macworld in January. Until then, I guess I’ll keep holding my breath…
Tags: album artwork, Apple, Genius, iPod nano, iPod touch, iTunes, Keynote, Special Event, Steve Jobs, visualizer
