Slashdot Mirror
Apple Releases New Touch Screen iPod
JSM writes to tell us that Apple released a new version of their popular iPod music player today that boasts, among other things, an iPhone-like touch screen and Wi-Fi capabilities. "The iPod Touch will feature the Safari Internet browser and, like the iPhone, play YouTube videos. Apple also announced a new version of its iTunes music store that will allow users to buy songs wirelessly. iTunes will also sell customizable 99-cent ringtones for the iPhone."
Take that Zune!
Now I have something to want (tm) for christmas.
no e-mail client, but I guess web-based e-mail would work too.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
While they're at it, they should build mobile phone capabilities into the thing as well. Then they'd have something!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Checked it and said nothing.
The should have called it the "iPod Newton"
For those that are interested, the 4GB iPhone is on sale for $299 while supplies last: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/A ppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=BC784DCD&nplm=MA501LL/A
The price of the 8GB iPhone dropped as well to $399.
For a device that seems to play video well (and made for it) 8/16 GB doesn't seem like enough. Especially since the "ipod classic" comes in 80/160GB flavors at the same price point( with a small not so good for video screen).
Otherwise it looks nice.
iPhone 8GB price drop from $599 to $399.
At that pricing, they could sell 5M units by the end of the year. That's a very aggressive move for market share.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
An iPod Touch, with almost the same feature set as the iPhone, without the stupid Phone part, at a much cheaper price. Tough choice there... Feel sorry for the people who actually bought the iPhone now :/
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
...it gonna be a tough decision between getting the new iPod Touch, or just swinging for an (unlockable?) iPhone! Either way, I'm dancing around the office like a schoolgirl!!!
Will it be able to run the same 3rd party apps as the iphone?
d00d, u r so rite. BAHHHHH! Bleet mac-haters, bleet!
Interesting that Apple shares are down 3.5% with this news. Was there a financial disclosure, or were investors expecting something different?
So its got wireless, but still less space than a nomad. lame.
I, for one, welcome our new karma-whore sig writing overlords
Phatpod iPod Nano - Like your sleek device for workouts? Too bad, go get a Shuffle - BONED
$.99 ringtone on top of $.99 to buy the song (certain songs only) - BONED
Starbucks "integration" - now my iPhone will spend a few extra seconds every time I hook up to a Wifi access point looking for coffee music - BONED
We managed to fit really nice HDs in iPods, but not the new Touch iPod - but you get a few millimeters back - BONED
$599 to $399 price drop in 2 months - EXTREMELY BONED
iTunes Store wireless - kind of cool. Wish they'd do the same thing with TV shows in music (that's what I'd be inclined to buy in an airport somewhere)
All in all, a particularly boneworthy afternoon.
no wire,....ah fsck. OK, we can retire that one now!
On a more serious note, the ringtone news was the only bad news to come out of this. Ringtones can be made in iTunes, but they charge you an additional 99 cents, even if you've already purchased the song. This is beyond assinine, paying for a feature that, by common sense, one would assume is a simple built-in function of the iphone.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
It seems almost perfect. What other Apps can it run?
The picture shows a Calender Icon. Can it Sync with outlook?
It needs Bluetooth for wireless headphones, but it does not to prevent you from web surfing on a standard phone.
Science is the Real TRUTH!
iPod shuttle
just new colors
1GB, $US79
iPod nano
all new with 320*240 2" screen, can play video, coverflow, brighter display
4GB $149, 8GB $US 199
slighly wider, but much shorter, 20% heavier than previous model
iPod classic
like the old iPod, now with 80GB/160GB instead of 30GB/80GB, coverflow
80GB $249, 160GB $US 349
iPod touch
like the iPhone without the phone
slightly smaller and slimmer: iPhone is 45% thicker
8mm thin
WiFi, Safari
8GB $US 299, 16GB $US 399
iPhone
killed the 4GB version
reduced 8GB version from $US599 to $US 399
11.6mm thin
memomo: free web based language trainer DE-EN-ES-FR-IT
Now we'll start seeing a real mobile web.
How many hands is this new iPod going to go into? How many of them will start really doing mobile web browsing as a day-to-day activity? Mobile facebook is digital crack, that you can't leave at your home or in your laptop now.
Man I wish these things had GPS...
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
IMO, the biggest news is the price drop of the 8GB iPhone to $399. At $599, it wasn't even an option for me. At $399, I'm starting to think about it.
I'm happy (okay, satisfied) with my current AT&T wireless service, so "switching" isn't a big problem for me.
They didn't bring the touch screen to the larger capacity "classic" models. I'm curious as to why they're striving towards dropping actual hard drives in favor of flash memory. Some of us like the large capacity, but would also like some of the nifty features that they're bringing in to the flash models. Why can't they drop the "classic" models and just make them touch screen as well?
Now that it's got WiFi. (Plus there's some sort of deal for free access to the iTunes store if you're at a Starbucks).
It can surf the web, not just the iTunes store or YouTube, which is the killer part for me. Basically, a phone-less iPhone that's thinner and with 2x the storage.
Also note the $200 price drop on the 8GB iPhone (now the same price as the 16GB iPod touch).
The only real question is - is the battery user-replaceable, or will we have to go through the class action lawsuit with every portable device Apple puts out?
Any word on this being released with a pop up keyboard like the iphone? Seems like it would be a killer PDA.
OMG! OMG!! OMG!!! I'm as happy as a little girl!!!!
IANAAFB (I am not an Apple fanboy), but the 160 GB iPod Classic is sweet, even if the Archos 605 was the first to that memory density. Time to upgrade! I looked at the gallery at Apple.com and there were no pics of the op or bottom of the Classic - is the headphone jack on bottom as the rumors claim?
---
You can use any kind of HTML formatting that Slashdot accepts.
Generated by SlashdotRndSig via GreaseMonkey
is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
Any word on how long the battery will last in one of these things?
I like the 24h life of my Creative Zen, and I don't need these battery-draining gizmos!
Way to ruin the Nano Apple. It was in no way a good idea to bloat the Nano so we could have video on it. Honestly, most of us simply don't want to watch video on a 2" screen. We wanted a cheaper Nano with more memory.
Nice job on the other ipods though. Hacked Ipodtouch + Skype = Goodness? Boy would that put a stick in Apple's craw.
Best comment heard so far regarding the Nano: "Does it do the truffle shuffle?"
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Apple released some nice products today, but had some disappointing moments as well. First, the new ipod classic looks nice and the bump to 160gb is nice. The other announcements were not as exciting. The new nano looks ugly and didn't get a storage bump. The ipod touch looks very nice, but they should have used the 160gb hdd from the classic instead of flash.
The iPhone news was the biggest let down. For all the talk of Apple "redefining" the cellphone industry, the event today showed that they have no intentions of being anything other than just another gouger. The write-up was wrong. Ringtones aren't $0.99, they are $0.99 for songs that you purchased already from itunes, so they are $1.98 and you can't use music that you got from other sources.
The other nice move was dropping the price on the iphone. I personally think this is a great move, even if it is a slap in the face to all the early adopters (henceforth referred to as "suckers"). It was also a nice fuck-in-the-ass to all the ebayers who are sitting on $200 losses now.
While I am more of a Rio Karma kind of guy, my ladyfriend has an 80 GB 5th gen iPod...First, the reasons why I like it. I like the sound quality, as well as the screen quality. It is top notch in these areas.
Now, the reasons I hate it.
First off I DESPISE that I cannot change the volume if I am scrolling through the menus...I also hate that unless I navigate back to the song I am listening to, I have to actually wait for the screen to darken and for it to return to the "player" screen in order to adjust the volume/go back to what is playing. Another issue? The mutilated nipple. Yes, I know that this is a major selling point of the iPod, but compare it to the controls of a Karma or a Carbon and you will see just how frustrating it can be to use. iTunes is quite a thorn...then again, I hate the Rio Karma's manager as well and miss the "drag and drop" of my Carbon...
iPod's may sound good and look good, but I just cannot get passed their interface. It's absolutely horrid.
Living With a Nerd
All those people (you know who you are) who kept saying "I'd buy an iPhone without the phone", you better step up.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Now I can pay for 30 seconds of a song I already paid for once! Who needs fair use?!
"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
Now we have a direct competitor to the N800, and the "Touch" is actually cheaper (at least in Canada) than the N800.
I am not suggesting a "Touch" will have an open platform, ready for hacking. But for the regular folk, who just
want Wifi, and an agenda/calendar, the Touch will be enough. Wifi, in my opinion, is the killer app for those who
don't want a cell phone (yes, we exist) but want an agenda. Others will prefer to continue to use a phone as a phone
and get an ipod for its wifi. The greymarket of iphones being shipped overseas (even before the hacks) are evidence
that there is a market for this.
Also, I own a N800 and an Ipod video, and in my opinion the sound quality of the N800 is lower than the ipod. But that is just my opinion.
--dmg
That truly is a steep drop in price. Have their supply and production costs dropped that much, or are they sacrificing margin in the expectation of recovering it in subscription fees? I tend to suspect the latter, which amounts to subsidized pricing.
Of course, it's also possible that they inflated the initial sale price a little to allow for the steep drop. This would seem like a good way to make a little extra money and reinforce the exclusivity of iPhone ownership, but dropping the price now has to piss off existing customers, who must feel like they've been had.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
Living With a Nerd
I don't understand the impetus behind removing all tactile controls from a portable audio player.
The iPod is already harder to use than many other brands with buttons if you're driving, cycling, jogging, or walking and want to be able to adjust volume or start/stop without looking at the device. With a fair amount of practice you can learn to orient the iPod and manipulate the scroll wheel without looking at it. Is this even theoretically feasible with an iTouch? Or am I going to have to dodge imbeciles swerving all over the road while scrolling through their playlist even more than I do already?
It doesnt have email and it doesnt have google maps... :(
for its price id rather buy an iphone...
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
Ok, I love the new iPods (160 gig? Sweet!), but whet _I_ would really like to know is when the iPhone is coming to Canada...
1) Bastard bastard fuck you Apple, for releasing shinies in the same week that I get approved for a credit card and swear to myself that I will only use it for small purchases in emergencies. You fucking, fucking fuckering fuckers.
2) Apple's servers are melting like butter in a nuclear war.
3) Because of point 2), does anyone know if the new iPod Classic will fit in my Universal Dock, because Apple's now molten servers don't want to say.
I write bullshit
An iPod Touch, with almost the same feature set as the iPhone, without the stupid Phone part, at a much cheaper price. Tough choice there... Feel sorry for the people who actually bought the iPhone now :/
Not so much cheaper. The iPhone 8Gig is now just $399. The 4Gig is $299 while supplies last.
-- Boycott Shell
I bet Apple plans on keeping VOIP on the IPodtouch as a threat to keep ATT in line on the iPhone.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Apple really seems to be in a state of flux right now with their iPod/iPhone lines.
The release of the iPhone went well, but it's really pricey and historically first gen Apple products do little more than set the paradigm and show future promise. By the time we get second and third gen iPhones they'll probably be pretty amazing and a lot cheaper. Just comparing my second gen iPod to the advances made in say, the fourth generation (third introduced major changes, but fourth is where it stabilized design, went color, and started to move more heavily into video) are pretty staggering.
At the same time they're trying to reconcile the popularity of the iPhone with their ongoing iPod line and their iPod Nano line, but without dropping the core functionality of the iPod to such a degree that they lose business (i.e. by cutting the space to make room for the new features). As a result we have a mish-mash of product lines going on right now each of them with flaws.
If anyone out there is interested in purchasing a device now is probably the worst time. Give Apple a year or so and we'll start seeing further consolidation into a more stable product line that better integrates the features of each of their currently available products. Eventually I expect we'll be getting an 80 Gig iPhone with wi-fi and third-party apps, probably in only a year or two based on the way things have been moving so far.
When they stop making changes and start introducing only gradual improvements (like when the video iPod simply came out in a model with more storage) that's the time to go grab it. Based on their past performance though, I'd suggest waiting until then.
Cool. I've been wanting a phoneless iPhone to use as a wifi-enabled web browser. I was considering trying to build one, but since I have no idea how to do that that might've taken a while.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Now that they've got built in wireless (and more space than a Nomad) does that mean Taco no longer thinks that they're lame?
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
There's no way they'd otherwise drop the price of it by 33% less than 70 days after launch.
Now you can pay twice as much for a fraction as much music as you paid for the whole song before. And just how is this Apple making things better for the rest of us?
And I'm surprised Apple hasn't learned about the non-replaceable battery issue yet. Or maybe it's just us consumers who have yet to learn our lesson here, as we line up to buy yet again.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
don't forget the brainless iPod/Apple fanbois.
Both groups are obnoxious.
The knowledgeable on both sides however, are tolerable.
Now if the new iPhone-without-the-Phone-part had bluetooth, all my problems would be solved..I could tether it to my Verizon Treo 700WX, and have a good, usable web browser, without the crappy speeds from AT&Tingular. So close..
nipple? Anyway, the new iPod has a completely new interface so your complaints are kindof moot.
Yes I bought an iPhone at launch.
But if you think about it, it's kind of hard to get too upset - I knew what the price was, and willing to pay it for the features offered. Obviously I would have waited had I known, but there's a lot of things in life like that and you can't wait forever for everything.
I think it's hard to really call it "boned" when the rest of the world without iPhones suddenly gets them $200 cheaper. And who knows, Apple may well step up to the plate with some kind of rebate like they did when they dropped the price of Aperture.
The ringtone deal is a little screwy though... I agree it feels odd to pay $.99 for the pleasure of remixing a song you already own and putting it on the device. And the limitation on which songs will work is quite puzzling. Is Apple editing for taste? Perhaps we will all thank them when we see the songs not on the list!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
i want a iPHONE shuffle. no screens, ... weeh, oh wait,
no buttons, voice commands only.
"call bob" and off it goes.
"any new mails?" starts reading them aloud
that would be iiiih then =)
dang, were to put the simcard?
If you are going to feel sorry for iPhone owners, do it because of the price drop today - Apple's way of saying "fuck you" to early adopters.
Don't feel sorry for the million of us that have iPhones, though. They have combined a number of features we have been clamoring for and have done a damn good job of it. Honestly, the phone part of the iPhone is its best part. It is still the best phone I have ever used, even without features I used to rely on - such as the excellent voice dialing of the Motorola E815, Bluetooth synchronization, etc. To be quite honest, the iPod part of the iPhone is where it falls down - not able to manually manage music, not able to create new playlists even though there is a software keyboard, etc. SMS and calling features are pretty awesome.
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
It wasn't clear to me if the iPod Touch (soon to be called the iTouch by everyone and their brother, but I think I'll go with iPoke instead) had full Safari and WiFi for whatever you wanted, or if it was limited to the partner apps and sites?
The other thing that seemed incredibly lame was the idea that it should cost a $0.99 service charge just to turn a four-minute .aac file into a ten-second proprietary file for a ringtone. Pay for MORE bits, I can sorta stomach. Pay for a file conversion that crops out most of the content?
[
I sync both with iCal (at home) and a work calendar (Outlook). Both work fine, iTunes merges calendar data and Outlook calendar entries get backloaded into my home calendar in "Outlook" specific calendar entries (so you can distinguish which is which).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When you say "new iPod", are you refering to the iTouch, or the classic 80 gb/160 gb iPods?
Living With a Nerd
Having been a VERY long-time PalmOS PDA user (since the USR Pilot 1000), the prospect of a decent Apple PDA-like device very much anticipated. Palm PDA's were revolutionary, but their technological drive forward has long been stalled. This "phoneless iPhone" could prove to be a HUGE seller. My main desire for this type of device is simply because it is NOT a phone. Historically, my company has provided a phone to their specifications, and I never had a choice in the matter, so I've had to take a pass on all of the latest and greatest "convergence" devices because of the integrated phones. Now that the phone has been removed, this looks like an EXCELLENT opportunity for a new, more modern replacement to my old PalmOS PDA's. My only question is will there be third-party apps to enhance it?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Both, actually. They changed the interface of the classic iPod as well.
Of Code And Men
I don't understand why there's no Mail application on the new touch. They give us Safari for web browsing, but no email client? It doesn't make sense. Sure there are those that will say that you can use web mail with Safari. But why would you want to use web mail designed for a desktop screen instead of an email app designed specifically for the iPod/iPhone?
Web mail sucks anyway. Besides, you couldn't configure a web mail client to auto check your email - say every time you have WiFi access. I really hope they include Mail at some point very soon in the future. Otherwise I think people will probably try to hack the Mail app on the iPhone to run on the iPod.
Oh, and no Google Maps either!? WTF!
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Where did you see that? I read the article but saw no mention...unless I'm just unobservant, which is entirely possible...
Living With a Nerd
Actually, just some kind of format plug-in support. Almost all my music is Ogg because that's what I rip it as. This makes my choice of portable players quite limited to the few that natively support or those that have been hacked to include Ogg.
I'm not saying Apple need spend time to build support for 20 different formats.. just provide a means for end-users to add their own format plug-ins. The community will surely take it upon themselves to develop their own plug-ins to support their format(s) of choice.
The iPod Touch looks pretty. Inclusion of WiFi is sweet too. I'd have already pre-ordered if not for the whole format support issue, which is a deal breaker for me. Maybe I'll just switch cell providers next year and get an iPhone if the price comes further down.
Most of them are at, or over, 24 hours of music ability - seems to be about five hours of video playtime across most of them.
Heck, the iPhone even lasts 24 hours for audio.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Dropping the price 1/3 in two months, and killing the cheap version translates to: "We're not selling the numbers we need". It's a damage control measure.
The Ipod Touch sounds like an attempt to sell the "coolness" of the iPhone without the crippling contract. The big dealbreaker there is no VoIP, and the device is intentionally crippled to prevent it.
Does anyone know if one can read PDF files on the iPod touch?
Great. - I've always said something like this: one day they'll build cell phones that can do nearly everything except making a phone call, and now they did it. I'm speechless.
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
$1.98 total ($0.99 if you already have bought the song for other purposes) is still WAY cheaper than the carriers charge... or at worst, no more expensive.
-Daniel
The WiFi Store only sells music, not video or games. Any ideas why?
Is the bandwidth really that slow that downloading video is impractical? And if so, why is the YouTube deal still such a big feature?
I assume Apple could add these to the WiFi Store whenever they wanted to, if the technology allowed.
And if so, they'd have a powerful weapon in their hands: an iPod that can be used (if somewhat expensively) without any PC whatsoever.
Games, video, web surfing, music, everything your average teenager uses a computer for -- well, except Flash, internet chat, homework papers.....
The iPhone has physical volume controls on the side of the case, so that's easy enough to do...
The iPhone headphones also allow you to pause music or skip tracks with a small device attached to the headphone wires, and I'm thinking the iPod touch will probably be able to use the same headphones.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With this aggressive drop in iPhone pricing so soon, you wonder if apple is trying to grab as much of the market as possible before a (yes, VERY rumored) gPhone announcement.
TODO - Insert Creative/Witty Signature
Add one then.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
Um. There's a "Now Playing" option that takes you directly back to the current song from the menu. No real need for navigation.
The ringing of the division bell has begun... -PF
Is there anything that any iPod does that the iPhone does not do?
--
make install -not war
And it still won't play ogg. Come on Apple, I love you but it's time for some tough love here!
Anytime Apple announces a new product and omits the anti-gravity feature, the stock takes a hit for the next day or so. That's when I add to my AAPL holdings.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Does anyone know where we can view the special event online?
Apple's web page says 10.4.8 for the iPodClassic and 10.4.10 for the iPodTouch. I'm still very happy w/ 10.3.9 on my old iMac G4 at home, and would rather not have to shell out $$ for 10.4.x .
Can anyone point me to some info as to what functionality I'll lose if I don't upgrade my OS (not to mention upgrading iTunes itself)?
Funny how WindowsXP+SP2 is sufficient for all the new iPods but on Apple's own OS I would have to buy an upgrade. Grrrr....
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
If I am balls-deep in an artist's albums, how exactly would I be able to get back to what is playing with a single button press?
Living With a Nerd
No mail, maps, etc? All that S/W already exists,
Why wouldn't they include them? I was hoping for those
plus iChat.
I wondering if they are going to make you buy those
after the fact?
Holux - GPS, MP3, Video player
http://www.ecost.com/
Apple, you're obsolete !!
No need to miss the drag and drop functionality. It's available on every iPod. You simply have to enable disk mode. It will appear on your desktop as an attached drive, and you can then drag and drop to your heart's content. It's more difficult to manage your music this way, but it works fine.
Your other complaints don't bother me much personally, but I will note that they don't apply to the iPhone. It has a separate volume control that's easily accessible and adjustable by feel, or when navigating the touch screen if you're dexterous enough.
That truly is a steep drop in price. Have their supply and production costs dropped that much, or are they sacrificing margin in the expectation of recovering it in subscription fees? I tend to suspect the latter, which amounts to subsidized pricing.
No, Apple is maximizing revenue. It is called walking down the price curve. Everyone has a different willingness to pay, some much higher than others. If you make a product available to everyone at a widely acceptable price you lose revenue from those who would have paid more. So you introduce a product at a high price point that only a few are willing to pay and slowly reduce the price over time. This way all sales are closer to what the various individuals were willing to pay. Note that there needs to be an absence of substitute products. Sometimes this strategy fits in well with initial production and supply problems. However in this case I expect it is mostly revenue maximization.
See here, though I don't know how much it has changed. It's likely the same feel with a better look, but you might be surprised. I'd check it out at your local store when it starts to receive shipment if you didn't like the classic interface, or wait for a full review from your prefered Microsoft/Apple ****-suckers to make your own opinion. :)
Of Code And Men
Try the open-source, rockbox replacement firmware! http://rockbox.org/
It breathed new life into my iRiver h100, and beats the crap out of the default apple firmware on my girlfriend's iPod video.
It doesn't do everything yet (like play videos), but you dual boot if you need to.
On a related note, one great thing about iPods is the firmware recovery routine...
Impeach THE White House with the middle finger For President-VICE Richard B. Cheney ( The World's Most Dangerous Person).
So... you DON'T like the new iPods?
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
You can get 2 with wireless.
-- Boycott Shell
With WiFi, I naturally assumed that it would stream to an Airport Express. But I haven't found anything about that on Apple's site, or anywhere else. Anyone?
I don't need another web browser or built-in itunes, but streaming would be real nice.
p
Dropping the price 1/3 in two months, and killing the cheap version translates to: "We're not selling the numbers we need".
4 84913.
Not for those who have studied business and economics, they may see revenue maximization. To avoid a redundant thread see: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=289019&cid=20
Yes, 16GB of flash memory isn't enough.
... by creating a huge demand for flash (or other suitable) memory, there's more motivation to produce higher capacity & lower prices thereon.
... but this tact will get you something better sooner.
/. ... but by creating the demand, the supply has appeared.
Yes, they could jam a hard drive in there.
BUT
Yes, you might not have the capacity you want now
Wasn't long ago the idea of a flash-based iPod was seriously scoffed at on
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Now... if someone would create a skype or other VoIP client for this thing, how cool would that be?
Who cares about the touch screen? The iPod classic changes are more interesting to me. More capacity and cheaper price. The 80GB model is dropping to $249 and there will be a new 160GB at the old $349 price point.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
Let me browse Internet from my MacBook through the phone and I'm sold. Put some SIP software on there that will connect to my asterisk box through my home wifi when I'm at home and I'll be super-happy! My current phone (Nokia E70) can do both, but T-Mobile's crappy data plan doesn't allow browsing the internet with my phone. Having my home phone system know when I'm home is neat but not 100% necessary. But I do need at least one of those two things to trade in my E70.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
They took Mail off the iPod Touch?
How long before someone figures out how to put that back on.
If it had shipped with Mail, I would have bought one this weekend.
He should have:
- kept the iPod nano factor (maybe shorter but definitely not wider)
- killed the iPod (video), and put a hard disk in the iPod touch.
Disclaimer: I own Apple stock and obviously I am totally pissed off with these product "improvements". The market seems to agree with me. After any Leopard uptick I will sell everything because my feeling is that Steve Jobs is going to kill his own company. He must have been hit with a hammer or soWe just ended the flux.
The iPhone, and the touch, are completely virtual devices. What in a second generation phone would be "amazing"? Not even GPS or 3G would be "Amazing" because those are just marginal upgrades or an addition of a specific feature.
No, what will make the iPhone 2G and 3G are software updates - that we can get on the iPod/iPhone of today.
Apple has basically finished setting themselves in a great position for the next few years, with a variety of devices that better suit a range of different uses for these devices. I don't think we'll see much of a shift at all in the next few years as to how they are positioned, just incremental improvements in screen and memory.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
True enough, but it's still going to lower their margins - as jcr points out above. One of the reason investors love Apple so much is their unusually high margins.
Of course, it would seem to me that they're making a mistake. High margins in most companies implies a very efficient operation relative to competitors because most firms don't have much price control. Apple's cachet, however, allows them considerable price control, and cachet is a fairly ephemeral asset, no matter how effective Apple has been in recent years in building it.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
A microphone. VOIP with WIFI is kinda useless without a mic...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Don't like macs, apple or Steve Jobs, but I have to admit the itouch looks real nice. But like the original ipod, I'm going to wait until someone does it better, and without the whole itunes/drm crap.
I'll see your hokum and raise you a boondoggle.
Based on that website, the only substantial difference is the inclusion of coverflow, the tech in iTunes 7 that displays the album covers in a sort of rotational field...interesting, but not quite what I was hoping for.
All I really want is just one little itty bitty button on the front (or even on the side) that returns the player from the menu to what is playing...is that really so much to ask?
Living With a Nerd
After they buy a 99 cent (or $1.39) song from iTunes, people accept that they should pay another 99 cents to be able to have that song play when someone calls them? Why do people keep putting up with this kind of crap?
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
I hate that it automatically forgets where it is when you plug it into a computer--even just to charge. Great when you're partway through a 10 hour book on tape or 1 hour podcast.
so how long until someone makes an instructable on how to mod your ipod into an iphone
the 'touch' is pretty cool don't you think? i am wondering if it will support mail, it has safari. anyone know? Sammy wanting a iPod touch along with my iPhone (ok the iPhone is better)
At first, I was impressed with the demos of the new touch ipod. wifi integration? Built-in web browser? Slick touch-screen interface? And then, the nagging little details began to surface: 16 gig max capacity? My current 80 gig ipod is roomy indeed, and while it's not maxed out, any less than that, I'd be cutting it close. But wait--the new ipod is using USB flash drives...so logically, Apple will produce separate drives that you can swap out to easily mitigate the miserly space restrictions....right? Wrong. Let's not forget, people, these are the same devices with which you, the consumer, are not trusted to simply replace the battery. Swapping the drive? In your dreams. Second, since it has wifi, that means I don't need to plug in a USB cable to sync my ipod, right? Wrong. Of course, you can *purchase* new music over the ether, but something as insane as wirelessly syncing your library? You want the Brooklyn Bridge thrown in too? Finally, integration with Starbuck's. I love it when companies team together like this. Waltz into one of the 4 neighborhood Starbuck's and neato! A shiny new icon appears on your ipod! Guess what! It's called forced advertising. The best part is, thousands of people will consider this an indispensable "feature". Because, you know, when you're hopping yourself up on caffeine, you absolutely MUST have access to a music store. Once again I'm reminded of how indulgent we're becoming with our personal technology. As if cellphones weren't bad enough--people just couldn't live without being able to call Johnny up to discuss the latest gossip at any given moment--now we're going to have to tolerate folks who will absolutely *implode* if they can't check on the latest inane video uploaded to YouTube.
Hear, hear. I'm running Rockbox on my 5.5G. Absolutely love it.
The iPod Touch with a microphone as a VoIP WLAN phone would have been sweet.
The ability to modify my calendar and contacts on the fly in an Ipod would be great.If I could also do notes and to dos, better still. Also the size and brightness mean that this could actually be a platform for ebooks. Audiobooks are okay--I've got several hundred of them--but sometimes you just want to read.
Dude, I hear you, but as you no doubt also know, part of business and economics is also reinforcing the sense of value for those who already bought in. Deflating the price 33% is pretty aggressive, and likely to alienate early adopters. It's also a departure from the classic Apple tactic of discontinuing older brands as newer ones come in. In other words, up at that end of the price spectrum, the pickings were pretty slim, so they needed to slide down. The iPod touch is almost an admission that they suspect the AT&T contract was a dealbreaker.
So no, it's damage control, much like your multiple postings.
"I also hate that unless I navigate back to the song I am listening to, I have to actually wait for the screen to darken and for it to return to the "player" screen in order to adjust the volume/go back to what is playing."
You don't. You can hit the "Now Playing" menu item on the front menu.
1... 2... 3...
O-VER-KILL!
160GB of storage? WTF?! I bought a 60GB iPod about 18 months ago. I've got two seasons of LOST, my entire music collection (300+ albums), about 10 feature films, and my entire portfolio of TV advertisements, and I'm still only up to about 45GB. I thought 80GB was unneccessarry (probably simply because 80Gig drives might be cheaper than 60s). But 160Gigs is just silly. Nere, in 2007, a portable device made strictly for playing music/movies, has no need for 80Gigs. I don't think I've ever met someone who was running out of storage on an 80Gig.
My feelings are a bit mixed about the rest. The new Nano looks like shit. I'm sorry, but it does. I think the Nano caught a lot of people's attention because it was sleek with a lot of clean lines/edges. This one looks more like an obese 8-year-old.
Also, the decision to use solid-state for the iPod Touch probably wasn't the greatest. If I get an iPod Touch, its largely to watch movies and do multi-media. THAT'S the one where 160GBs might actually be useful.
Seriously, it's like selling an Apple IIe with 120GB drive, and then selling a MacPro with a 10MB drive. I think they've got their priorities a little confused.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
I'm not really into listening to my music on the move, unless I'm in the car, but this would be ideal as a web browsing tablet for use on my commute to work and around the house. The only thing stopping me from being interested is the apparent lack of Bluetooth. WiFi is great, but if I'm in the house, I'm going to use my iMac. Sure, it would be handy to check things whilst on the couch etc but I can't justify the cost on that basis.
What I feel this really needs is the ability to connect via Bluetooth to internet-enabled mobile phones, so that I can browse the web at 3G and HSDPA speeds while outside WiFi coverage. But I doubt we'll see it, as it would therefore eat into iPhone sales, as people would buy the cheaper option and use it with their existing plan.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
At least with the Apple ringtone deal, you still get a real song instead of paying $1.99 (or more) for JUST a ringtone.
And like they said, it works with songs you already own or would probably want anyway, so the effective cost is still $.99.
That said, I still think it's pretty silly to charge for this at all, or that it can't use any music you like. Truly annoying arrangement.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/07/27/create-iphone-ringt ones-from-itunes-previews/
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/itoner/
I don't have an iPhone for testing, etc
Apple is only of many poster children of this expression.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Buying the touch means throwing away the phone, camera and bluetooth to save a hundred dollars. ... A hundred dollars that you'll now need to spend for even a -crappy- bluetooth camera phone.
... what? A physically large PMP with a proprietary internet platform that lacks the storage to leverage its screen?
So the end monetary result is that, at best, you will have put off your $100 outlay for a crappy bluetooth camera phone until your next contract renewal - or more likely, you're going to wind up spending more.
So you've thrown away the advantage of simplifying down to one device in your pocket, for effectively 0 dollars, in exchange for
It's a gimmick that only makes sense to people for whom AT&T is a non-option -and- are ok with buying a comparatively large and expensive flash PMP.
Apple pretty much guaranteed this thing wouldn't touch iPhone sales when they gimped the features and storage.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Glenn Derene is running a great follow-up to his advanced mourning of the iconic clickwheel, using the Rick Rubin story we talked about earlier—and the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store announcement—as fuel for a call for an all-you-can-eat, flat-rate iTunes store. Feasible? Probably not. User's dream? Definitely.
And without some of the iPhone applications, including the Notepad, if my eyes don't deceive me. Why remove the Notepad from the iPod Touch? That's just bizarre.
Getting stuff straight from itunes is all very clever but I fancy getting my podcasts on it.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
It's a tradition in Silicon Valley to know exactly what you have to do, but not make it and instead focus on weird derivatives until Apple finally does what needs to be done. Then when Apple finally corners the market, say "We had no idea."
Once again, a bare touch screen on a tablet for $300 was what everyone wanted. HP, OQO, Slimdevices, Palm, Blackberry, Nokia knew it but chose to beat around over priced, stupid keyboards, stupid graffiti pads, excessive buttons, and funky plastic pieces.
Now that Apple once again did what needed to be done, the media acts like Steve is a genious.
Yes. This also comes with Safari.
You can't take the sky from me...
Long live the king. The new Newton rises.
People who bought early iPhones probably impressed dates with their wealth and coolness. That was worth the $200 difference.
Hit menu until it stops clicking, scroll down/right/clockwise until it stops clicking, enter (center button). Done. You've just chosen the "Now Playing" menu option at the far bottom of the top-level menu. Sure, it takes a couple of seconds, but the functionality is there, and is in an easy to find (even when not looking at the screen) location.
I am balls-deep in an artist's albums
Uhh... ew? Remind me never to get anywhere near your iPod. I mean, yeah, it's a personal music player, but that's taking it a bit too far.
Anyway, click "up" until you don't hear the iPod clicking anymore. Then scroll down until you don't hear the iPod clicking anymore. Then click the center button. That's the Now Playing menu item. The only caveat is that it's not there when there's nothing playing and you'll end up turning on the backlight instead.
So you might have read that the iPhone and i!Phone will detect when it's near a Starbucks and let you see/buy the songs that have played recently. What happens if you're in range of 4 Starbuckses though? Will it be smart enough to not charge my card 4 times?
sms makes sence, could have added an ichat though.
camera bummer
widget ??
maps ??
weather ??
notes ??
mail ??
notes ??
Perhaps those apps had some type of EDGE tie-in (really unlikely for notes). If so, it should not be hard to isolate and bring those apps to wifi access only. If not... why are they gone?
Would have been nice to keep the camera... oh well.
Imagine this thing with iChat (even sans camera/mic). That would have been world altering, "insanely-great".
music/video split from ipod
itms added (expect it soon on iphone)
If iPhone sold briskly at old price, there'd be no need to cut it anyways. I don't believe in charity in such short timespan.
So, the real reason was that people mostly shunned 4Gb models, and even 8Gb models did not sell as quickly as Apple wanted.
Plus now there's a chance for people that simply want a "touch iPod" to actually buy one (without 2 year contract, with a chance of using the regular good-old-keyboard based phone with Voice Dial and perhaps 3G on their own carrier). So there really has to be a good incentive to switch to an iPhone. Lowered price is supposed to be one.
Hyperom.com
So it's $50 more for one 10th the storage of the regular ipod. Hmmm... nope, I don't think so. You have all this video ability in this device, but not enough space to really make use of it, and it costs MORE than a similar device with 10x the storage. I expect a premium, but not that big a premium.
Then again, this is an apple product, so I guess it's par for the course.
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
Now I have something to want (tm) for christmas. no e-mail client, but I guess web-based e-mail would work too.
I want a replacement for the crappy itunes app which grabs all my stuff from all my nice, neat little folders and throws them willy nilly into a screen which is extremely hard to use for re-organising. I mean, wtf, why not try to preserve the prior organisation? it's not all music of the same genre from the same band all from the same recording session. it's rock, easy, classical, metal, etc, plus a tonne of old radio shows in MP3 format.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
From my best and latest information gathering about the
new Ipod Touch. You will still be tethered to the new
Apple wonder via headphone wires.
How does a company that is so tech savvy and audio rich,
miss this feature? A number of cell phones sport A2DP
Profile. Which basically allows you to use bluetooth
stereo headphones to listen in excellent audio quality
to your music or movies and not have to be strangled
by a cord.
Either someone is making a mint off the little headphones,
Apple is saving such a cool feature for a software update.
(only for the current Iphones.) Or Another still yet to be
released Ipod is coming that has bluetooth and A2DP.
It's also possible that Apple hasn't the money or skills
to bring A2DP to it's products. Who'd a thunk it?
In other words -- get over it already. You're not unique or interesting because you developed a filing system in your head that's less intuitive for 99.9% of the rest of the world.
World's tallest building rises in the desert
Objectivity.
That would be useful if it works, I only know how to pause. How do you skip them?
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I don't understand the impetus behind removing all tactile controls from a portable audio player.
Oh, it makes perfect sense. iPod Touch is like a slut. You watch, and keep watching, and before you know it you want to reach out and touch it for yourself. So finally it's yours, all yours to gaze and touch as much as you want. And it's great at first, when everything is new and fresh. But as you constantly touch and slobber all over it, it gets worn and dirty. You try to protect it or make it look better by putting on some accessories (make up) but it really does the trick. Having lost attention to it, it becomes far easier to lose... and eventually it is lost.
But that's ok, because by then the iPod Rub will have come out and be even more slutty than the iPod Touch.
ID3 tags. Use them. If you don't want iTunes messing with your directory structure, it's a preference away (uncheck "Keep iTunes Music folder organized").
Dude, I hear you, but as you no doubt also know, part of business and economics is also reinforcing the sense of value for those who already bought in. Deflating the price 33% is pretty aggressive, and likely to alienate early adopters.
The flaw with your logic is that your are assuming that these early iPhone buyers are part of a rational market. They are not. Those early adopters already got want they wanted, winning the pissing contest, first on their block, attention, etc. Anyone with half a brain new that these high prices were temporary. Also, may were hard core Apple fans. Some of these people may kick themselves for not waiting, but they will not abandon Apple.
its 7.15am, I'v seen the news, I had the credit card out... and then... 16Gig? huh?
;-) )
If it had been 80Gig then sold. Or even 60Gig. A little thicker/heavier I could understand & live with.
I have 16Gig of movies, 8 gig of music, 12 gig of TV plus a few dozen megs of podcasts at any given time. And this is slowly growing. (from my own purchased DVD's & iTunes content BTW
*sigh* have to wait til next year & hope I guess
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
Steve Jobs invented a phone for calling my mother.
Sig cannot be found.
double click
Once again, a bare touch screen on a tablet for $300 was what everyone wanted.
Is it? The bloody thing isn't even available yet, and you're saying that? Isn't that jumping the gun a bit?
It's an iPhone without the Phone. This is the iPhone's equivalent of the Treo 90. Remember the Treo 90? If you do, you're a rarity.
We'll see. They're hedging their bets with this one, keeping the iPod Classic alive and differentiated by the hard disk.
Lower price point aside, I think the iPhone is even more alluring now that the Touch is around. Before, the iPhone was just an "over hyped, over priced phone for fools drunk on Jobs' Kool Aid." Now, people will be looking at the Touch and think, "hey, for $100 more, I can get a phone (and camera) feature too!"
now THIS is an iPod I would be proud to own. Now if I can just convince myself that iTunes doesn't suck. ;)
Very cool...spendy....but cool.
The whole reason I have no issue with paying the retail price for an Apple product. I bought my Nano the day it came out, and until the 2nd gen version came out it cost $249. I wouldn't have bought the Nano if it was going to come down in price in a few weeks, and I wouldn't ever buy another of their products if it dropped to $166 in 2 months.
I understand that is the way a lot of retail works. I literally expect it from every other company except Apple. Rest assured, if they don't do something about it, it will be the most expensive $200 they ever get from me.
Battery runs flat in about 30 mins with rockbox on my sansa - the default firmware is much better imo.
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
In my experience, the people who care about having songs as ringtones are usually the type to not think much of spending an extra $.99 to get one.
Conversely: the people who bitch about $0.99 for a ringtone probably are just using what came on their phone anyway.
And then there are the people who just keep it on vibrate at all times...God bless those people.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
If you don't think the iPhone 8 GB is worth $600 why did you buy it?
You can only make calls where you have wi-fi service? That's one way to get people to stop bitching about AT+T's lackluster coverage.
2001 called. It wants its whine back. And throw in a little cheese while you're at it. In other words -- get over it already. You're not unique or interesting because you developed a filing system in your head that's less intuitive for 99.9% of the rest of the world.
So what you are saying is you don't have an iPod. Thanks for your not help.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yeh, it's not like you're going to go crazy and load HD movies on it. I mean, 160G is more than my MBP has.
And the new Nano looks like a chiclet. I don't see how they could have avoided that with that sized screen, though. Excepot to go with a touch screen. I suspect this will get replaced by the low end iPod Touch.
The current iPod Touch is really more like the iPhone's equivalent of the Treo 90. I only know one person who got a Treo 90, and it never had any descendants. The iPhone is only $100 more... this really looks like a stopgap until they get their new iPod Classic Touch with hard drive AND touch screen.
I predict the next generation of iPods will all be touch screens but the shuffle. Probably three models: the shuffle with no screen, a new re-streamlined Nano and a couple of hard disk models.
you want to either try a newer daily of rockbox or replace your sansa's battery, because that is not common.
while the power management is indeed better in the original firmware, its far from bad on rockbox, and still being improved upon.
I'm very disappointed in Apple with the iPod Touch. I would have purchased one for myself if the size of the unit had been larger but 8 and 16 GB? I'm not at all impressed. I'll just be buying the iPod Classic 80 GB. I expected more from Apple and if I want a portable widescreen video player I may just buy an Archos or something with a larger screen...
because you developed a filing system in your head that's less intuitive for 99.9% of the rest of the world
99.9% of the world isn't using his ipod, he is. Let us have our own damn folders. I have some soundtracks and compilations that have 50 different artists with one song each. When I scroll through my ipod by artist, I don't even recognize half of them. On my computer, it is quite clear which artists I listen to the most because I have set up the folders in a way that is most convenient to me. Is that so hard to preserve?
iTunes just places them that way for the library (which is configurable). Playlists let you organize your music any way you want.
I don't know why this was modded funny, the iPhone OS has been cracked wide open to run 3rd party apps without hardware modifications, with a complete development toolchain available. Its not even that different from normal OSX programming, from what I have seen. I would love to be able to a nice looking portable device that could run MAME or a terminal emulator at a pinch.
sheep.horse - does not contain information on sheep or horses.
Why hasn't Apple done this in the past then?
They did, with the original iPod. The difference was that the time interval was greater and that they introduced a newer model to occupy the original high price point rather than completely eliminate the price point. Of course, Apple may yet announce a new and improved model for the $5xx price point.
Jobs could announce a cure for cancer, and the stock would still fall.
Jobs is among the 1% of people who have beaten pancreatic cancer.
My guess is the last line of his epitaph will be, "One More Thing..." and a link to the cure.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
With an iPod that has more HD space than my MacBook is apple going to make it possible for you to use the iPod as your backup device for the new Time Machine Feature in Leopard?
iTunes just places them that way for the library (which is configurable). Playlists let you organize your music any way you want.
I've been able to create playlist folders and organise things into them, but the library has been a major headache. Most of the 1,000+ radio shows from the golden age are identified by the file name. ID3 information is spotty and inconsistent, but when you go by the file name it's all pretty straight forward.
I have found I can select a range within the library and sort it, but moving things around is highly problematic. It would be a vast improvement if the library had subfolders where I could organise things off to. Like a desktop, you prefer to keep it clear so you can focus on your current projects, moving things off into files so you don't have to look at the entire list every time you add new mp3 files. Perhaps it does, but I haven't been able to find it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Was one of my first thoughts too...
"Web capable, eh? Bluetooth phone + new iPod... More interesting train trips"
Darnit.
The time interval was 4 1/2 times as long actually. 2 months vs. 9 months.
5GB G1 iPod at launch = $399
5GB G2 at launch 9 months later = $299 (Who remembers how much the G1's sold for just before the G2 launch?)
So, twice the drop in price 4 1/2 times as quickly?
This would be a particularly poor time to sell me a new phone.
My fix was "get a real godsdamned phone".
Seriously, I bought a Nokia 6280 so as to spare my HTC Wizard/Qtek 9100 from a festival, and instead ended up no longer using the Smartphone. R-tard designers. (I'm sure a lot of the problems were due to faulty driver design, but I'm also pretty sure that the incompleteness of the drivers were due to bad documentation from MS).
I still have the handset around, sometimes turning it on to see if someone has sent me an SMS.
The meager 8 & 16 GB capacity is probably due to price limitations on 16GB flash chips. Sure, they could have made it larger by putting a HardDisk in the thing, but then the battery would have needed to be larger also. If you want to use it for sustained web browsing, you need to use flash memory, or the battery life would suck. Are we sure that the headphone jack is not more than the classic headphone jack? Will it support three connector plugs (Left, Right, & Mic)? If that were supported, than VoIP would be a piece of cake. If not, then Skype or Vonage should come out with a bluetooth adapter that fits the Dock Connector. This would allow Stereo Bluetooth and Bluetooth headsets. That would, quite simply, Rule.
Except that music dragged to the ipod in diskmode won't actually be.. you know.. playable on the ipod.
Badly formulated (basically, I was about to say the exact same thing as you ;-p )
There are command-line and GUI tools to edit ID3s in a meaningful way, making it possible to batch-change the ID3s before you import them into iTunes. Google around a bit, and you'll find something that suits your platform and needs :-)
Make them into "compilations" and turn on "group compilations"
Learn things.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Product life, from a producer's point of view, is a bathtub curve.
At first you have low yields, as do your specialty suppliers. Marketing is in overdrive. Once sales start you need to recover your outlays and pay your setup loans. Then your yields go up, your suppliers ramp up and the economies of scale kick in. Now your production costs per unit start to drop. At this point you can choose to go after a bigger market with price cuts on the high turnover/low margin model or keep up the lower turnover/high margins.
Eventually your production equipment starts costing you in repairs. New product time.
I tried to watch one of these when the iphone was announced. I couldn't get it to play and gave up.
/ 2047/1413/1_h264_110/1a1a1ae656c632970267e04ebd319 6c428970e7ce857b81c4aab1677e445aedc3fae1b4a7bafe01 3/63827621b_1_220.mov
I tried again with this new one but still no go.
Vlc gave me audio but no video, mplayer, xine gave me nadda.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/keynote/
And here's the rtsp stream if anyone wants to try:
rtsp://a2047.v1413b.c1413.g.vq.akamaistream.net/5
If you want to get to the top menu in a hurry, hold down the menu key for a second or so, and there you are. Time was that would have turned on the backlight, but that changed with a firmware upgrade. Sensible if you ask me, holding down 'Menu' to take you to the top menu seems fairly reasonable.
Now granted, this makes changing the volume while elewhere in the UI slightly annoying. But you know what? I have had the thing for several years and I have never once had a sudden urge to change the volume on the playing song while browsing looking for a new song to listen to. Perhaps I'd just more easily pleased than the GP?
I can't wait for the "iTouch myself" ad campaign... ;)
Buying all of these music players for so much money and everything.
"Yeah I spent $399 on 3G Ipod in 2003, $250 on an ipod mini 2004, $300 on a 4G ipod in 2005! I also bought like 8 cds, and 25 songs on itunes over the same period!"
Please, do the world a favor and take a bath with a toaster. How do you feel ripped off ? Of course it is totally legal, they can change the price when ever they want.
That's OK, they don't like you either. On top of that, they don't even think you look nice.
I mean, if you're going to have every feature that comes on a cell phone*, why not the camera too? Especially when one of the major selling points of the iPod is the "cool" way you can look at your photo collection, it's a no brainer to want to be able to add to that collection. Right now. On-the-go.
Thanks.
*except microphone
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV...
I've read through a lot of comments and I'm seeing a lot of people discussing the iPhone price drop (which is pretty huge) and how it's a smack in the face to early adopters.
Question: If a company purchases a few million additional components which is used in both the iPhone and ipod touch wouldn't that drive the cost down of the iphone?
To me I see the Ipod touch as an iphone in a different suit. And since the iphone is only available in the US market their new phone (or a lot of the required components) just opened up to a massive market including Japan, UK, Canada, etc.. Also, the early adopters who went out and spent the money only proved the market was ready for such a change in user input.
So to all future buyers of the iphone, you just lucked out. At least Apple appears to be bringing the cost savings back to the consumer. . or this could be an evil scheme to take over the phone market!
There are command-line and GUI tools to edit ID3s in a meaningful way, making it possible to batch-change the ID3s before you import them into iTunes.
Those can be handy, but you can easily do the same in iTunes. Just select the songs you want to change info for en masse hit info (command-I) and change the relevant info. (I'm sure you know that, this is really for the GP.)
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
I don't have that option on my 4G model, but I suppose I am due for an upgrade. Thanks for the info.
As one of the hundreds of thousands of early adopters of the iphone, now infuriated by the price drop, I can now say I will not feel an ounce of remorse when Leopard comes out and I pirate that sucker. If Apple wants to screw its most loyal customers out of $200, then it seems only fair that they in turn screw Apple out of $130. Let's call it a "rebate."
We also know that Joe Average is fully willing to pay $1.98, especially for both song and ringtone. Ringtones at $2, $3, even $4 are a completely proven market - a MASSIVE market. People ARE willing to pay. And you know what? For $0.99 over what I've already paid, I'm not sure I wouldn't either.
-Daniel
I'd suspect that iPhone penetration isn't high enough, or as high as they planned at this point, hence the fairly large drop. Once enough iPhones get out there, then it will spread like wildfire, just like the iPod. The hardware *and* software are just great. Really hard to imagine how it could be much better.
I'm pissed about the same item now being $200 cheaper, but in all honesty, it was worth every penny of the $600 to say 'f* off' to my Razr, which despite the great hardware, had such lousy software, that making a phonecall aggreivated me every single day.
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
A lot MAME games need a joystick and a touch pad would suck at that
Wow. If there's one thing I like better than a good ball rub it's when a moron tries to edumacate another moron. My goodness, how did you get so retarded?
It's not narcissicism if it's true!
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV...
I don't know if you were watching AAPL a few years ago, but there was a time when 5 execs (including then-CFO Fred Anderson) sold a bunch of shares right before a bad quarterly announcement (which precipitated a huge drop). The SEC said the trades were "well timed" but didn't do anything about it. This feels like a repeat.
I almost sold everything this morning while it was still at 144, but I checked the history and saw that the stock went up after last year's Sept. iPod announcement, so I figured this year might be similar and waited. Boy do I feel like a chump now. CFOs are scum, and if you don't sell when they do, you lose big time.
Free Hans!
They might also be getting ready to compete with similar touch-screen offerings from Samsung and Nokia that we all know will be sold at a lower price point with a plan, and will have unlocked offerings to boot.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Apple again leaves its competitors, such as MS Zune, in the dust.
Today I mentioned this to my girlfriend. "Zune?" she said. "Never heard of it."
Penny - plain text accounting
it does seem like limiting the selection would bas based around which companies had agreed songs could be used in that way, and what cut of them the proceeds they should get...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Practice.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
With OSX, Wifi and Safari, is it possible to run iChat or Skype
on the iTouch iPhone? A pseudo-phone capability w/ot ATT?
If so I'll buy one right away!
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
Assuming you're on a Mac, there are quite a few Applescripts that can help with batch editing tags: http://dougscripts.com/
I mean, wasn't Steve Jobs who says when the Zune was released that was easier to share your earphones?
ghostbar page.
But this is also a cell phone, so you have to compare it to that market as well. I think you'll find it's much more in line with high end cell phones. They tend to launch at absurdly high prices, and then bring them down after a few months so carriers can sell them to normal people, and use them to hawk their networks.
Ugh. That's about as bad as: "This court is now in session! How do you please to these charges of, uhhh, of, uhhh..."
... but that's so sweet I want to crap my PANTS! I wouldn't call myself a fanboi, but Apple constantly impressess me with the constant innovation and bar raising going on at Infinite loop. Jolly good show chaps!
this post is now diamonds!
Actually, that's a good point, my rockbox build isn't as recent as it could be...
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
No comments on the freakin' END OF LIFE as we know it? We're about one line of code away from push technology that load my wireless with an AD everytime I walk past Starbucks. Can you imagine what happens when you stroll down 42nd St. or Main St., Karachi?
i P r o d
Reduce, reuse, cycle
No Bluetooth.
Bluetooth would have made this the ultimate geek tool. Not no' mo'.
+++ATH0
Well, no. It isn't. At all, actually.
+++ATH0
"At the expense of functionality?" It simply sacrifices one kind of functionality (storage space) for another (touch interface, OS X). Even a leftist troll should be able to understand that.
+++ATH0
It's a Newton.
+++ATH0
Now that GSM politics is out of iPhone/Touch, can we please have an SDK for it? I mean - it would be a kick-ass PDA. I would've buy that in a beat over anything WinMobile.
They should be selling merch and touring.
Silly newb.
+++ATH0
Well, whatever code NeoOffice uses to read those formats could be ported to the iPhone and iPod Touch.
It's only a matter of time, really.
+++ATH0
There are command-line and GUI tools to edit ID3s in a meaningful way, making it possible to batch-change the ID3s before you import them into iTunes.
Those can be handy, but you can easily do the same in iTunes. Just select the songs you want to change info for en masse hit info (command-I) and change the relevant info. (I'm sure you know that, this is really for the GP.)
I know, but the point of editing the ID3s before importing would be that with the amount of shows he says he'd import, and the condition he describes them as being in, it makes a lot more sense to edit the tags before they're scattered into his iTunes library.Maybe you can browse your music by album instead of by artist which makes more sense for a compilation or soundtrack.
In order for it to be the ultimate geek tool it must run Linux. Shame on you.
I bought the 2nd generation 4gb nano 10 days ago for $199.00, unfortunately I got it engraved! I was kind of pissed off to learn that the new nano's are better; does anybody have any suggestions on returning my current nano and getting the new one? thanks.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
The Motorola Q has the exact same height and width as the ITouch.... .. a little double sided tape...
$1200+ Ebay QED
Battery life with Rockbox is very much dependent on which build you use. The iPod build is not even in the same galaxy with Apple's firmware when it comes to power management. OTOH, on my iRiver H120 Rockbox is actually more efficient than the original. With an upgraded battery and Rockbox, I get about 30 hours of continuous play. The original battery and firmware could only do 16 hours when the thing was new.
Some people prefer the typical tree navigation like WMP10 over the random ass navigation that iTunes uses (aka massive 7000 song list) and don't want to use it like that just because Apple says so.
:(){
Apple has never entered the cell phone market before, under rapidly evolving market conditions which threaten to make one of their core business units obsolete within five years if they don't, as music players get built into cell phones from their competitors. Apple never introduced a product that had such potential for insanely high demand before, either. Perhaps Apple's sales models predicted massive consumer unhappiness at not being able to get an iPhone at the lower price, resulting in tremendous bad publicity and product failure in the market. Deferring some demand with a higher price initially is a reasonable and rational strategy for a product introduction like this. The price drop might simply reflect a rapid ramp up of manufacturing capacity. Apple now believe they can make enough to meet demand at the lower price point. There might also be economies of scale involved. Apple might be getting a better deal on components, or might have a more secure supply of 8GB flash at a lower price than they had last week. Basically, it's not about Apple hating and screwing their customers. Its about Apple working as hard as they can to aggressively move into a new market.
An economist would point out that your iPhone was worth what you were willing to pay for it when you paid for it. Today you might be willing to pay less. Yesterday you were willing to pay more, or you would not have paid. More importantly, to Apple, demand for iPhone will likely increase as the price has dropped. Supply and Demand. I bet you'll see a lot of one-iPhone families convert to two-iPhone families now that price has gone down.
Finally, 69 days isn't ironic unless perhaps you, as a straight guy, gave some dude a hummer for your iPhone (which would be incongruous... iPhone==hummer by itself, nor an random occurrence of the number 69 isn't irony). If you're a straight guy and you gave some chick a mustache ride for your iPhone while she polished your knob, that's also not ironic, even though it was 69 days after the iPhone was released because a mustache ride in that situation is not incongruous, except perhaps that we might not expect some chick to give up her iPhone for something she can get anywhere. See how that works?
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
The Yahoo Music Engine has the best song organization I've used and I've used them all.
There are other ways to display music in iTunes. Try clicking the "eye" icon (on the top or bottom right, depending on your version). Maybe you'd like one of them more.
I listen almost exclusively to classical music, have an iPod nano with 4GB and I have not filled it up.
4GB is roughly 60 CDs, that is more than enough for a sizeable amount of music. Only if you are a paranoid loner you will get around that amount of music in 6 months or one year (I am talking about listening, not to put something as background noise all your waking hours).
No sane person needs the complete works of Bach or Mozart at all times. "Music collections" are synonymous with consumerism, where people filling GBs and GBs with music they never will hear, claim that they "need" a bigger device to host all this "vital" collection.
Any person that actually *listens* to its music, will have more than enough with one of the devices with lowest memory specs and a bit of housekeeping every couple of months.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Hey Steve!!! I still have some loose change in my pocket!!! Please take it from me!!! PLEASE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So at least six years, then?
So, twice the drop in price 4 1/2 times as quickly?
In part because iPods had far less effective competition than the iPhone.
2001 called and it wants it's WHITE back. Only after focusing for a moment did I realize you were not talking about the Ipod and it's color choices. I saw the Nano's are available in color, but I don't remember seeing anything other than Black for the new VIpod.
For the record, I think we all have a little sympathy for the comment regarding the takeover of MP3 file structure, but like you point out, Itunes does have the best sorting/interface bar none and handling stuff manually is so 1950's
Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
Apple has just announced a $100 Apple store credit for all early adopters of the iPhone. See Steve Jobs' open letter on the Apple website.
It's funny because beta hackware isn't a real solution. You're not going to convince many people to risk voiding their warranty and bricking their $600 (Or $400) phone just so they can run MAME or a terminal emulator. Technical competence is another barrier here. What happened to the "It just works" philosophy? Apple's "Web 2.0" solution to third party apps was a slap in the face to developers. If Apple had sold the phone unlocked and open to third parties, not only would they have made a mint selling it worldwide already, but they really would have the potential for a revolutionary product. As it is, there's nothing revolutionary about it. I knew this thing would be another cube from the first announcement of "no third party apps." As predicted, it's a cube. No takers. Completely underwhelming. Road apple.
Think about an iPhone with games, real apps like Photoshop and Office, printer drivers, and more! Take a picture and print it directly to the printer on your wireless network. It's like a Mac mini that fits in your pocket and goes everywhere you go. Get an iPod dock, hook it to your HDTV, break out your Apple Bluetooth keyboard and Mouse, and bam! It would be the digital hub in your pocket. That would be awesome. *THAT* would be revolutionary. Imagine the marketshare numbers when millions of phones started counting in the Mac OS column. It could've been a fucking coup. 20 years of Windows hegemony turned on it's head!!!
Unfortunately, -that- is just a pipe dream, because there are no real third party apps without hacks. Unfortunately, there's no financial incentive for folks like Epson, HP, Adobe, Microsoft, Bungie and zillions of other Mac developers to write iPhone apps, because ... who are they going to sell it to? A handful of amateur hackers who are willing to potentially brick their iPhone just to install apps? Unfortunately, Apple has changed focus from products to profits. Locking the phone to specific service providers in return for a share of the subscription fees is an obvious money grab. It's a real shift from the philosophy that has made Apple successful for the last ten years...
Well... they didn't grab my money with their iPhone scheme and I've been a hardcore Mac-only user/developer for 10 years. I don't buy Apple products because they're pretty. I buy Apple because it's *usually* awesome bleeding edge gear. The iPhone is just a pretty toy designed to fleece consumers. Thanks, but no thanks Apple. I'll stick with a real smartphone like my Nokia N95 for now.
So now Apple are offering $100 vouchers to anyone has already bought the iPhone, before the price reduction! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6982717.stm
The Zune was never competition, it was DOA.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Well, feeling ripped off is a kinda weird feeling, I wouldn't know how to put it in words. But when I buy tech stuff I usually think in terms of marketing value, or how much can I get if I wanna re-sell it. In this sense, there's a market dynamic that clearly was disrespected by apple. That prices wouldn't go down any time soon. I don't mind about price drops, but this one was just too soon. And I can't avoid thinking this was a well planned well calculated move. It's not like "wait until thanksgiving to buy the phone and it will be cheaper".
I was a little pissed the other post, and probably not with my best judgment, but I still think this price drop is not the same thing as a regular price drop. And believe I've gone through a lot of price drops.
And as for the whinnying, I'm really sorry for those that are not able to realize that consumers have a little power and accept every move from corporations without questioning it.
About the toaster, would you happen to have a spare? That's because since my phone is also a toaster I have given my old toaster away (talk about convergence). I even tried to use the phone, but for my surprise the damn thing is watter proof as well!
They had better use "The Touch" by Stan Bush for the first commercials for this. Or heads will roll.
C'mon Steve. You know you want to.
Insert Sig Here
I said the same thing when touch wheel interfaces came in. Maybe I'll be wrong.
You weren't really wrong about the touch wheel. See, even if the touch/click wheel interface works for you, it doesn't work for me. This is a general problem when one product or product line becomes dominant in a market... they can get away with marginal designs because a few people on the margin don't matter to them.
I really think that if they do keep a wheel model around it'll be in the midrange. Touch screens will eventually (if not initially) be cheaper to manufacture than wheels. I'm just hoping they keep the low end, or else I'll have to go back to Korea Incorporated models.
YASA VOB to iPod Converter is an expert and easy-to-used to convert VOB files to iPod converter.It has the ability to convert VOB into iPod Video and other various video formats. www.vob-converter.com
why not just get an iPhone and forget the iPod Touch? many people don't know that you don't have to activate the iPhone on AT&T. here's what you get: everything that is Touch + email access (doesn't look like the touch includes the email app). here's what you lose: memory, you can't get an iphone 16gb yet (and when it does come to market, look for at least a $499 price tag).
I see I've been modded "troll" by some Apple fanatic for expressing a negative opinion about Apple's product offerings. Nice to see Slashdot's moderation system working so well.