I’m torn. I admit it.
On the one hand, it annoys the hell out of me that one company’s product launches gets so much coverage. But on the other hand, at 6pm last night I was sitting at my desk hitting refresh on Engadget’s excellent live blogging of Apple’s latest launch event.
So much was hoped for. Not quite as much was delivered.
There’s a new Nano which, while smaller and with video, I’m not convinced is actually in a good form factor being just about square. Perhaps if I play with one in an Apple store I’ll think differently, but given that you can watch video on it, how are you supposed to comfortably hold it? It’s also disappointing that the memory size hasn’t increased, with just 4GB and 8GB models available. My current Nano is 8GB already (yes these new ones are cheaper).
I’ll leave Americans to stew about the price cut in the iPhone just a couple of months after launch. I think that’s an implicit acknowledgment that the product’s been overpriced to date. When we hear about European, and particularly British carriers, the pricing will be really interesting. Whoever gets it, will surely give it away pretty cheaply or even free for new customers who switch. Charging upwards of £300 is not something the mass market is prepared to do here.
But I am a bit disappointed in what we must now call the iPod Touch. Certainly it looks cool, and having WiFi and a big screen is great. But it only comes in 8GB or 16GB sizes because the memory’s flash. In the UK I can pay £269 for a 16GB cool looking video player? Or I can pay slightly less for a 160GB iPod Classic. It’s simply not value for money. You’re surely better off getting one of the new slim PSPs and a decent sized memory card. Given that video is a large part of it’s raison d’etre, you’re not going to get many episodes of TV shows or films on it before you run out of memory. My Nano just has music and podcasts and is regularly jam-packed at 8GB.
The 160GB iPod Classic does look interesting since it has a hard disk that might actually take my entire CD collection.
Oh, and there’s no sign of the suggested digital radio (not even an included FM radio which is pathetic really) which doesn’t surprise me, with no formal standard adopted.
Nor is there any sign of any BBC programming on iTunes. I think that was a wild rumour based around the fact that in the UK, Apple used BBC Television Centre to beam back Steve Jobs’ presentation.
And I don’t understand why WiFi isn’t built into all the new iPods. The Zune managed it.
Apple did announce some kind of buy it now service in Starbucks using the iPod Touch, but I’d have thought they’d have the ability to do much more.
How about this? Your WiFi iPod lets you stream radio via Apple’s iTunes service. Apples uses a music matching service much like how Shazam works with mobile phones, that compares the audio you’re hearing with all the tracks they have in their iTunes database. They can then easily identify the track you’re hearing from your favourite radio station, and you can buy it there and then.
I mentioned the NBC/Apple spat about video pricing the other day, and I still stand by the idea that pricing should be variable as it is in nearly every other product or service that you can buy. But I’m not too impressed with NBC’s solution which is to go with Amazon’s (US only) Unbox service, since that just serves DRM’d Windows Media files. No use for an iPod or PSP – surely the two most popular digital video playback devices. I know NBC seems perversely scared about DRM-free content, but they do need to remember that they’re broadcasting this stuff free-to-air in HD. Just make it easy for consumers to buy, and buy it they surely will. Oh, and price it cheaper than DVDs – just like downloads tend to (but not always) cost less than CDs.
Anyway, the device I’m most interested that was announced yesterday is the Sony Alpha 700. Quite pricey though…