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Apple Updates iPhone and iPod Touch
u-bend writes "With little publicity Apple has released new, higher-capacity models of the iPhone and iPod Touch. The new iPhone boasts 16 GB of storage and is priced at $499 (the 8 GB model remains at $399), and the new iPod Touch has 32 GB, also priced at $499. Although the price is still pretty hefty, it indicates that the capacity/price ratio on these wireless flash-based players is starting to move in the right direction."
Dammit, I had said that I didn't want an iPhone, but would like a device that was like the iPhone without the phone part.
Then Apple released the iPod Touch.
So I updated my excuse to be that it didn't have enough storage space, that I wanted at least 30GB of space before I'd make the leap.
And now they've released a 32GB version.
Now I need a new excuse explaining why I'm not going to get one...
(Seriously, though, I do intend to grab one eventually - it sounds like exactly something I'd want - but not quite yet.)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
You know, when you say "$499 for an iPod Touch" it sounds like a lot, but then you realize: manufacturers are charging twice that for 32GB flash hard drives. It's too bad it's not packaged usefully in the Touch; otherwise I'd cannibalize one for my laptop!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Seriously, who fscking cares if Apple is doing a normal product refresh? I bet Dell updates the memory/hdd/etc on serveral of it's products every week, don't see that making frontpage news on Slashdot. It even scrolled across foxnews for God's sake, how insane is that? Has everyone drunk that much of Steve's acid spiked Kool-Aid?
This isn't a new product, it is just a ramp in the flash. Something EVERY flash based product does several times per year as prices and capacity get better. It is like announcing water is still wet.
Democrat delenda est
The iPhone is the same size as a current BlackBerry and millions of BB users don't find the phones bulky or fragile. The only people that think they are fragile are those that freak out on the first scratch. My BlackBerry 8830 has been kicked across the room and dropped on tile numerous times. Is it pristine? Oh no. But it still works just fine. When I get an iPhone it will be the same way. Battered and bruised, but I bet it still works.
My complaint on both products: No A2DP. Why...WHY?!! I'd go get an iTouch today if it had it. I want an A2DP player for the gym but also want an iTouch.
$100 premium for an additional 16 GB of flash on the Touch, but a $100 premium for an additional 8 GB on the iPhone. Ouch.
Although this is an unfair comparison - a decent-but-low-end 8 GB SD memory card retails for about $50; 16 GB for maybe $100. I'm not sure how the speed, power consumption, or reliability of the iPod memory compares with that of stock SD cards.
At the moment, the iPod touch does not function as a hard drive, unlike the other iPods. There is a workaround, you can hack it or use some third party programs to write to the media folder.
What it also indicates is that people are willing to pay extortionate amounts for flashy bits of gadget from Apple. Still.
$500 is ~£250. I'm in the UK and bought a house in October. House prices are high at the moment, and the price of an iPhone is a third of my monthly mortgage! Hmmmm, three iPhones/iPods or one mortgage payment? Oh the tough decisions.
Full Tilt
I care, so just relax already. I think a 32 GB ipod without a price increase also is worth at least looking at. Sure, it's only a normal bump in a product, but so what? I'm interested, I'm sure lots of others are interested too: The New York Times has this up today as well. You Apple haters sure are tedious, not every article needs to be about the end of the world you know.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
i drop my poor iphone all of the time. it has a ton of scratches and marks all over it. it still functions just as well, and has continually been a workhorse.
i've only had one problem, and that's lockup at a pub i visit often. unfortunately, every iphone user locks up there as well.
Even better, you can hack it and then put a file server on it! (i have both AFPd and SSHd installed on my iPhone. I'm waiting for someone to port SAMBA for my windows friends)
You might want to get a DAVE. 60GiB and you can stream video/music to your iPod Touch or iPhone (or a litany of other bluetooth/wifi enabled devices). Should be out sometime this year i think (the press release isn't entirely clear).
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Fragile is one thing the iPhone is not. In fact, it survived falling from a moving car at freeway speeds only to be run over by a semi. Other than a lot of cosmetic damage, it still works in every way.
What were you planning on doing with an iPhone?
And as for bulk, well unless you take your cell phones the way Zoolander does, the iPhone does pretty well in that regard too. From what I can tell, the only smart phone that is thinner is the Moto Q, and that is only *0.1 mm* thinner.
But you must be right that the only reason people buy an iPhone is to show it off to other people. Thanks for pointing out our vanity.
Boom Shanka
I think you got a little confused. The Touch does NOT have a hard drive. It has two flash chips for storage(the iPhone has one chip). What he was saying is that you can't transfer files to an iPod Touch like it is a hard drive, you can only transfer media to it through iTunes.
The iPod Touch does not use a hard drive to store data. It's flash memory based.
Seriously, how nit-picky do you need to get? Do you remind people that they're not really burning a DVD, but merely heating the dye on the disc?
The originating poster was speaking of the USB Mass Storage Device class. Other devices of this class include USB flash memory sticks, iPod Classics, and any plain HDD-only device that interfaces with a computer through USB. Usage of such a device is supported by most computers with USB ports without installation of any special drivers.
The iPod Touch and the iPhone is not a device of this class unless such a workaround is installed for the firmware that is already preinstalled onto the device.
I don't know, the Nokia N800 probably comes closest to an iPod Touch.
There really isn't a good comparison to the iPod Touch or iPhone because "elegant design" doesn't translate very well to a bullet point on a comparison chart (hence the famous Slashdot article about the iPod). It really comes down to whether the Apple touch interface, ease of use, and pretty hardware design are worth the extra cost to you or not.
rm -rf
You mean like this? There have been tests for the glass used and the screen, and they all showed that the iPhone screen is scrath free and can be dropped 1-2 floors. Google it, I'll wait.
Of Code And Men
except that many people spend a lot more than 30 minutes a day in the car. and even if you dont on average; chances are you will take a road trip in it and spend 5+hours in a single sitting. also, if you buy a piece of crap you can easily spend more on fixing it, or buying another piece of crap in the near future. its not an absurd amount of money either.
there is a major difference though. if you dont also pay another seperate subscription fee for the internet and all that crap the iphone is useless. so its not just 400 anymore...
also how often do you really use your cell phone everyday? I use mine in place of a land line, and not counting calls to my girlfriend i doubt i spend 30 minutes on the thing per day. I'm not going to spend 400 on a phone that does crap I don't need it to
do because I have other things that do those things for me. Also the iphone isn't significantly better than many other phones out there now. You are trying to say that the iphone is a bentley to the blackberry curve being an acura and a razr (v3m) being a hyundai. the reality couldnt be further from the truth.
what do you spend so much time on your phone doing anyhow? 'browing the internet?' oh see I have this thing called a computer in the form of a laptop that I use when I'm at work or at home. So i cant check my email while i walk from my office to my car and while i drive home? this is a problem how? "i listen to music" oh see i just listen via my laptop/mp3 player at work and my car stereo when i drive and my home stereo when im at home.
most people Benefit from having a good cell phone more so than a good car? That part is interesting and I might agree; the problem is that you dont define what a good car or a good cell phone is. If you ask me a good cell phone is one that has reasonably good battery life, gets good reception, has plan condusive to my usage patterns, and allows me to use a headset (wired or bluetooth) with it. I don't care if it is color, plays music, makes toast, goes on the internet, plays games, etc. I care that it has good audio quality for phone calls. I would also argue that pretty much every phone out there meets this already. If I didn't have a digital camera, didnt have an mp3 player, and felt like I really needed to engage endlessly in text messages and browsing the net from my phone, sure its a good option. Other than that its just luxury crap. A better analogy would have been comparing someone spending 40K or more on a car. That's the person who should shutup.
Buying a 20K honda accord that will likely last 10+ years wihtout needing a major repair can be a decent investment for someone coming out of college (not that your car is or should be considered as such, its an asset by definition but more often its a liability).
and the difference between a 20K car and a 40k one can be a bit more pronounced. even a 14K car and a 20K car can be significant. you seem to toss those out as trivial and undetectable... i'm pretty sure you will notice the difference between a ford focus and toyota camry/honda accord, and if not today then when the ford dies in 4 years you'll notice the difference.
The other difference is lifetime, the 20K car is expected to live > 6 years, I'd expect it to live more than 8 maybe 10+
the iphone is definately not expected to live that long because a. there is no market for it when you are done with it in 2-4 years and b. because something else will come along and replace it.
I would instead redirect your argument at headphones. You'll pay 400 for iphone, who knows what for your ipod and your music and your stereo, but you wont pay even 50 bucks for a remotely non garbage pair of headphones? (realistically i would say 100$ but I'll start at 50, plus most people are going to want that same pair to be 'bad enough' to be able to use at the gym or running. Or mattresses, you only spend 8 hours a day or more lying on it. But your concern is over a cell phone.
my biggest gripe is "the difference
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
I think it's an important distinction. Our specific language is becoming genericized all the time (q.v. "hacker", "brick", etc). There is no down-side to properly calling the thing "removable storage" or "portable drive" or whatever, as opposed to "hard disk", which is simply wrong. I am all for making the effort to gently help people use accurate and non-misleading terminology.
-b
myselfmusic
... but everybody wants prosthetic iPhones on their real heads!
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
I waited for them to update the software so that it was really an iPhone without the phone, instead of crippled. They did that in January. And as luck would have it, my Palm T|X started acting up last week such that it was hard to use the handwriting recognition.
Bought a 16G Touch, got it Friday. I played with an iPhone and thought it was a great little device (but AT&T -- I think not) and that had me thinking about it, but having actually used the Touch now for four days I am just astounded by how good the interface is.
Some nits when using it as a PDA (primarily: it could use a louder speaker for alarms, and the calendar system's alarm tone is fixed and so soft it's almost impossible to hear if it's in your pocket), and I've crashed several of the applications here or there, but overall it kicks the Palm's butt, and unlike the Palm the WiFi is more than just a checkbox, it is really useful.
Two thumbs up. Stuff like this makes you wonder how come Microsoft couldn't do something even remotely as good despite six major revisions of Windows Mobile.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
It's now been over 6 months and 3+ major firmware revisions, and the damn iPhone still doesn't do some of the most basic functionals of a real PDA phone:
-- No cut and paste
-- No IMAP IDLE support (The best auto-check is every 15 minutes. Gee, thanks Apple. 1995 called and wants their email features back)
-- No task list
-- No way to sync notes
-- No MMS messages.
-- Etc.
OOOO but 1.1.3 added the feature of being able to send SMS to multiple recipients. Yeah. Great. I was really waiting for that feature...so glad that put that higher on the list than any of the above. Now I can spam all my contacts and say generic impersonal things like "Happy New Year!! Best wishes!!". Ugh.
It's such a frustration for me. I want to love this device -- I really do. But until Apple stops prioritizing features for 12-year-old girls over features to make the damn thing usable by a working adult, I will continue to complain and be sad. And the worst part is that EVERYTHING I (and the others like me) want can be done in software -- it's just a matter of someone getting priorities in line.
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
You'll still have to switch, since the iPhone and AT&T are GSM-based devices and networks, while Verizon is CDMA. Different frequencies, technologies, everything. Sprint's also CDMA, while T-Mobile is GSM, making TM your only other option in the US.
"Why Apple would deliberately lock themselves out of a HUGE customer base of other carriers is beyond me..."
Since T-Mobile is about a tenth the size of AT&T in the US, I'm not sure I'd call that customer base "huge".
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.