Today at Apple's "Rock Live" Event in San Fransico, Jobs and Co. took the opportunity to debut the iPod lineup for the holiday selling season, as well as highlight some additional updates and goodies for the juggernaut's existing products like iPhone 3G and iTunes.
Before you take to heart the numerous reports of how "underwhelming" Apple's announcements were, it's important to keep in mind that Apple is held to a much higher standard of expectation. Granted, what Apple had to talk about today hardly justified an entire event. Thank goodness Jack Johnson showed up to play a tune at the end to fill some space. It wasn't underwhelming; it wasn't overwhelming... more just 'whelming.'
At the end of the day, you have a slight refresh of it's two larger iPod products, a redesigned Nano, and a feature of considerable 'genius' value if it works. Pepper in an update or two, make a ridiculous challenge to Nintendo and Sony, and end the event with a music act. Event done.
So what do we have from Apple for the holidays:
iPod Classic - Apple's last remaining mega-capacity player is stripped down to only the skinny version and thrown a storage upgrade to 120GB. They say "one size fits all" - as long as it doesn't need to fit more than 120 GB.
iPod Nano - I'd say this is the only product in the iPod lineup that's gotten a major overhaul since the last iteration. I'd call it "Return of the Original Look" since the 'phatty' style is out in favor of the taller, sleeker design when it first launched. The taller screen (compared to the original) is a nice touch that works well when paired with an accelerometer (the screen will change orientation when tilted on its side). It looks like they also took a queue from Sandisk and added a "Shake to Shuffle" feature, a la the Sansa Shaker. Add in a curved body with curved glass (no doubt to make it harder to snap in two), video support and the rest of the expected iPod feature, a variety of colors, and you've got a player that looks solid... albeit a bit pricy. 8GB for $149 - 16GB for $199.
iPod Touch - A new 'funner' iPod Touch is on the way. It's a little slimmer, comes stock with firmware v2.1, is more useful now that the Apps store has some good stuff, includes the Nike+ receiver built in, and will be advertised with a major emphasis on portable gaming. Jobs went as far as to declare war on Sony and Nintendo, claiming it to be "the best portable device for playing games." Personally, I think there was some major pipe smoking back stage. It comes in small (8GB), medium (16GB), and large (32GB) capacities tagged at $229, $299, and $399 respectively.
iTunes 8 - Apple's cash-cow is getting some a revision update to version 8, announcing the return of NBC programming (SD and HD), a new graphical UI (that's slow from what I hear), plus a new auto-playlist generator called "Genius" that they touted several times during the event. Apple plans to upload library details from every iTunes user (anonymously, or so they say) and perform advanced song matching between what exists in your library and other music you can purchase from the iTunes Store (of course). With that much data onhand, it should work well, but we'll have to see how it goes after users play with it for a while. All the new iPod models support Genius, as well the iPod Touch provided if running the 2.1 firmware.
Firmware 2.1 - Speaking of updates, Apple's bringing the iPhone 3G a bevy of bug fixes and improvements in the 2.1 update, which should help improve battery life and the iPhones ability to hold calls. It also adds Genius to the iPod Touch, but supposedly not the iPhone. The iPhone is free to upgrade, as is Touch units on v2. It's $9.95 for everyone else.
That pretty much does it. Not enough to blow you away, but some solid improvements in the iPod lineup and a new organizational feature that may or may not revolutionize music management.
What do you think of Apple's announcements? What excites you, and what doesn't? Share your comments below.
Comments
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Register me as an underwhelmed Apple fan.
I do think the new iPod nano looks like an awesome product. Accelerometer support is sweet and I like the form factor. iPod classic line expansion is cool as well.
Now for the less than exciting news. We'll kick off with the Genius feature. I don't need to rediscover my library. I already have it organized by genre and already have custom playlists. Apple is merely giving you a second-rate Pandora for your music library... that they will in turn use to their advantage in marketing products (hence why information on your library is stored in Apple's "cloud") and also... this is the worst... "recommend" music in the iTMS based on what you like.
I have stated many times before I do not like the iTMS due to its marraige with DRM. Naughty, naughty Apple. Right now, let's say that I do not have Genius enabled, especially since I think it has been designed to benefit shareholders more than customers.
Second, iTunes 8 is not a big deal. I don't know what's going on under the hood - there could be a lot of improvements that we don't see - but I'll say that it worked just fine before. The new visualizer is pretty sweet, but I'm not exactly going to sit in front of it for hours or anything.
The Grid view is a waste. It's slow, cumbersome, and does not display a whole lot of information. It's not "cool." I still have iTunes in standard, information providing list view.
All in all, what's really disappointing is that the most exciting thing is the iPhone firmware update... which fixes crap that should never have been a problem in the first place... like dropped calls. Maybe it will help enhance my often-poor EDGE connection, which I swear used to be much more reliable than it is now. Sigh.
I love you Apple, but sometimes, you let me down. Here's hoping the next product announcement is more interesting and compelling to devoted Apple users... can you say "Apple netbook?"
Edit: I forgot to mention how absolutely ludicrous the concept of Apple challenging Nintendo et. al. Yes, the iPhone is a compelling platform for gaming, but I'm thinking MMO's or similar types of games that do not require a D-pad or more precise control. Not a replacement for my DS. They'd have to really rally third party support, too. I think they'll have a really hard time following up with this "threat," but if they do, I'll be listening. On a side note, Apple tried gaming before, and they didn't fare so well...