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Apple Updates iPod
TheRaven64 writes "Apple seems to have quietly updated the iPod Photo and iPod Mini lines. The Mini now comes in 4GB and 6GB flavours, priced at $199 and $249 respectively. The iPod Photo now comes in a 30GB flavour for $349 - only $50 more than the 20GB iPod with a mono screen and shorter battery life."
No panache. No wireless. Hard drive smaller than a Dell DJ. Lame.
They dropped the 40GB mono model... and the new 30gb photo is slimmer than the older 40gb photo... :)
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
... my continued holding out for one of these guys is paying off. $350 for the 30 GB iPod Photo is not a bad deal.
But it just makes me want to hold off longer so I really get my money's worth.
Another interesting note is that they only sell the regular iPod in the 20GB flavor now. They got rid of the other sizes. Guess iPod photo for everyone is the plan.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
You mean with a press release?
$100 to $350 in $50 increments. Once you start, you can't stop. "But for $50 more I can get this"
They did. They called the update the iPod Shuffle and it comes in its own separate player.
My main question is: how long before Apple eitehr (a) reintroduce a PDA or (b) morph the iPod into one?
It would, I believe, take the market from PalmSpringSourceOne but also a large chunk of the consumer Windows PDA market (the business market being firmly Outlocked into place).
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Before anybody asks: yes, it does run Linux.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I still have no idea what the purpose of the iPod Photo is. Sure, the better battery life and color screen are nice, but who really cares about carrying their photos around with them for viewing on a 1.5-inch screen? Hell, they could just lug their digital camera with them, and get mostly the same functionality...plus a camera!
Anyone know what the sales figures are like?
This space intentionally left blank.
Yep, silent as the night breeze ;)
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
The Slashdot blurb missed one of the significant upgrades: the battery life in both iPod mini is now a lot better. The original iPod mini only lasted about 8 hours (according to Apple), the new one supposedly lasts 18. And if that turns out to be exaggerated, even 15 hours would be a very good battery lifetime for that kind of device. I wonder how they've done that - the weight hasn't increased, so it's probably not simply a battery twice as big.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
I'm probably in the minority here but I think that the iPod photo is overkill. The iPod is an excellent, simply designed music player. Bolting on photo displaying is a bit pointless. Not only is the screen still too small to be practical, even for "quick viewing", I tend to keep my iPod in my pocket all the time. Colour screens are not necessary.
iPod minis no longer include an AC charger, and the iPod photos no longer include a dock, carrying case, or AV cable. Apparently they'll have USB host support with an accessory though, and you'll be able to download and view photos right from your camera.
But most shocking of all to the "faithful" is the lack of a firewire cable with any iPod. It's optional across the board. Apple sold Macs with USB 1 and Firewire very recently, so they're essentially screwing over their fans. There's already a petition to but the cable back in the box. And you don't want to piss of a Mac fanatic!
I'm kinda disappointed with the lack of Bluetooth, though. It'd be nice to have the music pause when a call comes in on my T616, and maybe allow the headphones to double as a headset. iTunes already pauses the music for me courtesy of Salling Clicker.
In years of watching Apple make moves, this one seems to be one of the most insightful in terms of keeping marketshare. Although the competitors do not have the "cool" factor of the iPod, for once Apple seems fully aware that the competition is there, and they can not get by by merely producing superior technology.
This time, they have realized that in order to keep this technology at the center of the business model, they must continue to innovate.
With storage devices becoming smaller and smaller, they must continue to breakthrough with the bleeding edge technology. The iPod technology is simple enough that staying on the bleeding edge makes perfect sense. I sense that they've got this one nailed and are not letting go.
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
Well, you see, it's ridiculously complicated to add a Shuffle feature to the menu. I mean, it would've required rewriting 2 pointers.
Actually, I was pretty peeved when I bought an iPod, they shipped a new model a month later and didn't think to add this simple hack. And before you say "Just buy another iPod", no. No thank you. This is software.
A good example of what to do is Blizzard. Every time they release new features its gets updated up and down the board. With the Warcraft 3 Expansion they gave similar functionality to the original game in a patch (without the new units). It wouldn't have killed Apple to do the same.
Unfortunately, I can't find this item anywhere on Apple's site. Anyone else have any luck?
Hmmm... mine only comes in a weird plastic flavor. Sort of tastes like my cell phone... a little bit.
maker of cool gadgets for discerning geeks!
So, how much does a front-page advertisement on Slashdot cost these days?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
That was not a troll. He makes a valid point. Today's story seemed to be more of an advertisement than a true story. What's next? "Dell offering great deals on new PC's that you can't find anywhere else!"
PDA's do it.
iRiver's do it.
iPod's running linux seem to be able to do it.
Stupid hardware crippling! It's pathetic!
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257&tid=3
^ "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
I just bought a 20Gig monochrome iPod for my wife. I would have gladly paid the extra $50 for better battery life and color
I have been watching iPods for a few generations, waiting for all the features I wanted to hit a certain price point. For $400CAD (with my educational discount) for 30Gb and a colour screen, I couldn't pass it up.
Well, that's the end of Apple. I guess I'll go throw my free ( thank you eMarketResearchGroup ) 40gig iPod away now.
This post wasn't too far off the mark.
I'm not a coward by any name.
this makes the iPod Photo even more useful. i know the one card adapter exists, but it was expensive........
"The new iPod Camera Connector is an optional accessory that enables customers to connect their digital camera to iPod photo and import their photos into the iPod. By simply connecting the iPod Camera Connector and a digital camera, customers can easily transfer digital images to their iPod photo, providing tremendous storage space so they can take more pictures. Imported photos are immediately viewable on iPod photo's crisp color screen, and can also be brought back to iPhoto(R) on the Mac or various photo applications on the PC. The iPod Camera Connector is expected to be available in late March for $29."
Sort of, except that Apple makes trendsetting hardware and many geeks do care about what apple is elling even if they eventually choose to buy something else.
Nobody cares about dell announcements because they just bolt together commodity hardware. You buy Apple cause you want to, you buy Dell when they give you the best deal on something you could get from a variety of sources.
The 60 GB iPod photo is only $449 now ($419 if you're a student), so for $50 more you get 50% more space, a color screen and better battery life. Seems like a good deal to me. Of course you won't get a firewire cable or a dock, but still...
Just an FYI in case anyone missed it: this latest iPod update delivers some of the small things that owners of the 3G iPods (the ones with the four buttons between the display and the touchwheel) have been waiting for.
Specifically, the 3G iPods now have "Shuffle Songs" on the top-level menu, and the "Browse" and "Playlists" menu items have been consolidated under a "Music" menu.
Lots of people were mad at Apple for not giving 3G owners these small touches that the 4Gs had; it looks like Apple listened to their complaints.
Have a look a the Archos PMA 400. It's a 30M disk-based player with a 320x240 screen, a long battery life, and the ability to record audio and video. It has USB device and master connectivity and WiFi. And it runs Linux and has lots of software available for it. What more do you want?
If they'd put a CF slot in the iPod Photo I'd buy one today. That's a perfect setup. Let me carry my iPod, that I'll have anyway, with me on vacation instead of a notebook to dump pictures.
While Its great that they have set the price down for the mini, they have cut the firewire cable, and the power adaptor at the same time, leaving apple users with older computers stuck with their USB 1.1 connectors...
I guess that they are really looking to get into the windows users' pockets instead of the Zen micro... Its 19 for the firewire cable, and 29 for the power apadtor, so price cut isn't really a pricecut..
For thoose who have USB2 and take their laptop everywhere its a bargain after all..
more interesting is the camera connector:
The new iPod Camera Connector is an optional accessory that enables customers to connect their digital camera to iPod photo and import their photos into the iPod. By simply connecting the iPod Camera Connector and a digital camera*, customers can easily transfer digital images to their iPod photo, providing tremendous storage space so they can take more pictures. Imported photos are immediately viewable on iPod photo's crisp color screen, and can also be brought back to iPhoto(R) on the Mac or various photo applications on the PC. The iPod Camera Connector is expected to be available in late March for $29.
Looks pretty good.
Updated.
http://www.apple.com/ipod/download/
42 MB download.
What's New in iPod Updater 2005-02-22
iPod shuffle Software 1.1 for iPod shuffle
* Support for iPod shuffle Battery Pack
* Increased software stability
iPod mini Software 1.3 for iPod mini
* Support for second-generation iPod mini
* Support for charging and syncing over USB with Mac OS X v10.2.8 or 10.3.4 or later
iPod Software 2.3 for iPod with dock connector
* Shuffle Songs selection in Main Menu
* Music menu item in Main Menu
* Support for iTunes 4.7 and later
iPod Software 1.5 for iPod with touch wheel or scroll wheel
* Shuffle Songs selection in Main Menu
* Music menu item in Main Menu
* Support for iTunes 4.7 and later
It's built into the file format: mp3, et al. Kinda hard to compress it further.
Maybe there is something about drinking the Linux koolaid that I don't understand, but why the hell would you take a 100% functional iPod and load linux on it just to yield a device with "playback capabilities [that] are far from perfect"???
According to the link, CBR MP3 plays the best on the linux iPod, but there is still skipping; VBR MP3 plays at the wrong speeds; AAC support is horrid. So you take a music player, add linux, and are thrilled that you have defeatured the device by 80%... and this is supposed to make sense???
Why don't you linux freaks do something *really* creative like hacking your car's computer and loading linux on it? Sure, "driving capabilities will be far from perfect" but stalling every two miles is worth being the first linux communist on your block to have a linux powered Chevy, right?
Wow, that's one of the more well thought out arguments with rock solid reasoning that I've ever read in a slashdot post for not buying an iPod! Well done, sir, thanks for your enlightenment.
I have solved the "crap articles" on slashdot problem.
/. crew can post what they like without us crossing paths.
Seeing as one mans meat is anothers poison, and whats good for peter isnt necessarily good for paul (enough cliches for now) i have developped a device called:
"Self controlled screening technique"
Basically I look at the conveniently provided summary and using my own personal interest as a guage, I decide whther or not to click on it and read further.
Miracualously I have no problems with articles that I don't like polluting my vision.
I have also adapted this for other entertainment and news media such as the television.
Like Slashdot, this technique is free so I can use it how I like, meaning the
If anyone wants more info on employing my methods in their own workplace you can get in touch with me at quit.whining@thepoweroftheobvious.com
bah!*@%!
Apple is finally getting a clue on making things more affordable... First the main intro of the Mac Mini, next the shuffle starting at $99 and now their flagship mp3 players have all gotten a serious discount. I mean a 30gig iPod photo is now much more attractive at $349 as for 30 gigs is plenty for music and photos and file storage for most. The 599 price for the top of the line model was a joke, but taking $150 off the price tag is a smart move. I think Apple is staring to grow a better smarter brain and is taking a more aggressive approach at putting out cost conscious products and still keeping that legendary ease of use and stability of their computers. I bet over time the Mini will get nice speed boosts and get cheaper,.. slightly and their top of the line models will get a discount.. not huge, but good like 500. This will increase marketshare and will open up a potenially new market if it does for Mac Tech folks, like myself who are far and few between. Fingers crossed baby for a world with less spyware and adbots and rootkit worries. Do not get me wrong... there are many apps written for Windows that are very cool, but has anyone noticed that tons of mainstream and other apps are coming out for OS X... time will tell. :)
I have a Sony digital camera, just an old 3.2 MP model. On my annual 2-week vacation with the kids to our CO cabin, the pictures still pile up at that file size. Sony's proprietary memory format (did I mention this was Sony?) means memory sticks are pricier than flash memory, and while I have a few I'm not really wanting to load up on them any more, especially because I'd like to switch to a Digital Rebel sometime here.
Personally I don't want to lug my laptop on vacation. That's a leash and something else to worry about packing well. The new 30 GB with a direct camera-to-iPod cable would let me dump photos without the to-laptop (and later to-home-box) deal. Along the way I could hook the little thing up to my relations' TVs and show them whatever little set of images I wanted, mostly of shots from home they haven't seen.
For me the high-res monitor seems a little much, that's mostly redundant to the camera, yep. But as a little utility added to my regular iPod, this makes a lot of sense the way Apple did it up. I have a 10 GB iPod, 3rd generation, right now, and it's not pushed for space, so I think the 30 GB model would take my books on tape (for the long drive) and music along with whatever photos I decided to keep, no problem.
So there you go. Maybe I'm the market. And I didn't consider it before, either; I'm betting the price difference was a killer for sales, at first.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Only the 20GB regular iPod remains, does this mean they're phasing out the regular iPod?
... and in the DRM, bind them.
belkin makes a card reader that pops onto your ipod to dump pictures to, and in March Apple will have a $29 (US) accessory that will allow you to connect your ipod to your camera via USB and suck down the images.
You can all thank me. It wouldn't have happenned without me.
You see, I just passed the return period on my new monochrome 40 gig. Therefore, new models are automatically released.
yes, you are. there is the occasional slashdot poster who agrees with you; but maybe this is just you with another ID?
Lack of an AC adapter is not such a big deal: iPods charge over Firewire or USB2 at the same rate they do from an AC adapter. I bought my 3G iPod the day they were released, and have only used the AC adapter once or twice. I don't think you'll be missing it much.
What usability am I sacrificing by buying a Rio Carbon instead of an iPod? To each his own, but what features am I missing? By the way I also get a 24 hours battery life, which iPods can only dream of. Again we all make our own preferences, but I do not see what functionality I am missing and I get a better price and better battery life.
You're absolutely right. Playing around with technology and modifying it to figure out how it works is a total waste of time, because that's no fun at all. Only functionality is worthwhile.
Genius I tell ya. How many people will will go "well hell, for just $50 more I can get the..." or kids adding $50 to the money their parents are putting down to get the next level up?
Genius.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
They dropped the 40GB mono model...
Good thing too. Most of my music is now in stereo.
Bwah? They changed the price of the iPod? But the 40 gig iPod cost $399. That's just how it is.
So I head over to store.apple.com. What else have they changed? iPod photo? 60gb?! Only $449! Sign me up!
So for only $50 more than I'd expected to pay, I get 20 extra GB, and a color screen.
Apple is my new favorite company.
Off topic, does anyone know where the Apple call center is? Cute accent...
Stupid like a fox!
Macobserver quoted the following:
For the third quarter of 2004, the iPod accounted for 92.1% of the market for hard drive-based music players, according to the NPD Group, up from 82.2% a year ago. Players from Creative Technology and Rio were a distant second and third, with 3.7% and 3.2% of the market, respectively. Market share numbers for the fourth quarter have yet to be released.
So for hard drive players (~60% of the portable digital music player market) that is:
- 92.1% Apple iPod (all non-shuffle varieties)
- 3.7% Creative (all HD models)
- 3.2% Rio (all HD models)
- 1% Other HD players
This is a breathtaking dominance of the market space that serves as an indicator for the related on-line music purchase/subscription market. If 7.9% of the hard drive players are non-Apple, and we assume the larger capacity HD player market space is where the most volume from these services is coming from, then that is a small piece of pie for all the players (Napster, Buy, Wal-mart, others?) to carve up into a successful and sustainable (profitable) business.
Further, Apple's iPod Shuffle is targeting the remaining ~40% flash-based player market. Even if the Shuffle is 50% as effective in market penetration as big brother iPod is, that would leave Apple with a (wildly) estimated ~45% of the flash player market. So again, competition would be nosing for larger nibbles, instead of the crumbs of the HD market, but still a far smaller pie to distribute.
All this points (for me anyway) to an impending consolidation of WMA related service offerings. Specifically, I would look for Napster to end it's offerings after Wallstreet destorys an already paltry stock for the failure of a $30M campaign against iTunes Music Store with the "Do the Math" campaign. Also, I would look for Buy.com to further phase out their download music store in favor of higher margin CD sales as they find even offering $0.79 selected tracks isn't creating market traction. The "hope" for WMA may be in Wal-Mart - the icon of the price elastic shopper - who may prefer $0.89 downloads (and $189 players) to Apple's $0.99, $199 combinatons.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I just bought a silver one for my wife as a Valentines present, and not even two weeks later they go and update it.
DAMN YOU STEVE!!!
Artist will always make art.
> Sort of, except that Apple makes trendsetting hardware and many geeks do care about what apple is elling even if they eventually choose to buy something else.
/. isn't bugtraq!
That's why they should be reminded on the front page, so they remember to buy it from Apple. That's the defenition of an advertisment.
If ppl are so interested in Apple's crap, why don't they just look at their website? This is as stupid as those "IE Bug discovered" each time there is a new one,
My bad, I meant to be logged in when I posted this... As I was saying, http://www.dellrumors.com/
Creative uses the same kind of battery, except Apple http//apple.com/support/ipod/service/battery.html has a program to replace the battery for $99. Or you can go out and buy your own high-capacity version for $29.99: http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Page.cfm?Parent= 1225&Title=iPod%20Batteries&Template=1
How much does a new Creative battery cost?
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
Anyone notice on the side of the iPod page it says:
Get the most out of your iPod photo. Coming in March, new software lets you:
I *would* say it's an indication of an iPhoto-like app for the PC, but it made no mention of being Windows- or Mac-specific, so maybe it's just some other program or iTunes enhancement that would be more appropriate for managing photos on an iPod photo.
R.Mo
...with 92.1% of the hard drive player market according to recent reports.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
News for nerds. Stuff that matters.
For instance, to the nerd who has been holding off on a music player purchase, the notion of a better deal on ipod (in the case of the color or mini models or the defunct 40gig) is stuff that matters.
Of course it would be better if the headline read (on say, January 23) "Apple to release new ipods in four weeks" but this is useful too.
One man's advertisement is another man's consumer education.
The full update list follows:
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.