Fortunately today, I had a break in classes while Steve Jobs announced the new iPod lineup for this year. While it’s definite that the new iPods are awesome…I come away from the Engadget live feed a little confused. Here’s why:
Ringtones: Nice feature, but kind of a shame that Apple couldn’t negotiate better prices.
iPod Shuffle: Still just 1GB? The colors are unique (not as bright as previously), but I think maybe a 2GB model would be nice.
iPod nano: I’m not sure how people are going to squint to see the 2 inch screen…my 2.5 inch seems usable if not a little small. The new UI is nice, too.
iPod Classic: I thought this was the last announcement. It was great…160GB!?!? It may be silver instead of white, but that’s something I would be interesting in replacing my 60GB 5G with.
iPod touch: Glad to see that it’s out…but wish it wasn’t the high-end iPod model. To me, it has seemed that Apple always pushed ahead when it came to storage…why go backward to 8/16GB to get premium functionality?
iPhone pricing: I am thrilled to see the price decrease, but why on earth would the iPod Touch and the iPhone cost the same? I feel like I have to make a choice now…phone functionality or extra 8GB of storage.
Just think about that last point for a second…8GB vs. Phone capabilities? Well I can only hope that these two devices share quite a bit in the future in the way of apps and whatever cool utilities that are out there. that would at least give the iPod Touch a little more appeal in my mind. Still though, I would rather have a thicker iPod Touch (w/ hard drive) than the one that was released today. Even if it was a single platter 30GB disk. It may cause trouble when it comes to caching, but at least it would seem more like a high-end product.
Once last thing…I also feel like the iPod is getting out of hand. Apple prides itself on sleekness. Now we have a mess of iPods on the market. The shuffle, nano, classic, touch, and iPhone. I am for customer choice, but I also feel a little confused now. It’s not like, oh, I want a small device so I will pick up the new iPod mini instead of the 3G iPod anymore. Now the consumer is going to have to decide between a ton of capacities, screen sizes, and UIs.
I still love my 60GB 5G iPod and have no issues with it (if I do, then I just use alternative firmware) and think it’s a wonderful device that takes care of all my media. I would be lost without all of the informative podcasts and the availability of music just about anywhere.
All complaining aside, these new devices are pretty cool…I am just a little annoyed to see that the iPod line is flying out of control. Just my 2 cents.
Dis/agreements?
