As for the new line of iPods — until someone hacks the touch to allow for 3rd party apps to be installed, I’ve decided not to buy one.

Another related thought is obviously physical — Apple would have to have a thicker, different case for a hard drive iPhone or Touch, which would mean two designs — for flash based and HD storage. Obviously to keep costs down and have high volumes they likely designed one form factor for iPhone and Touch based on RAM.

A pretty good bet because eventually flash RAM will have high capacity and be cheap enough but I guess *today* it’s not at the point where we can get a flash based iPod with 40 GB of storage for the price points of HD storage iPods of old.

And as for iPhone being big in Europe? I have no idea. Both Europe and Asia have some pretty awesome phones so maybe the price drop would really be needed to attract any customers.

Furthermore, I seriously doubt it will generate the same amount of hype here in Europe (I live in Sweden) as it did in the states. I guess we would just have to wait and see.

Remember, the OS for the iPhone is basically in RAM nowadays… this is why you don’t get any BBoD on it, but rather a simple “back to home screen” when any app dumps.

I might be wrong, but if you want multi-touch for now _and_ large capacity, the pricepoint might need to be higher by a few hundred $$$.

prices will definately go down with time

Anyhow — in regards to the iPod Touch I think this was the inevitable direction the iPod line had to go post-iPhone. The iPhone GUI and multi-touch was a no brainer to put on an iPod for music browsing … especially if multitouch is ever to make its way to Macs proper.

But with this slightly odd event, it seems the iPods are in some strange transition period — Apple obviously doesn’t believe in the iPod Touch enough to totally kill the “classic” iPod without a touch screen, and also seems like they didn’t want to add enough storage space to the iPod Touch to have it impact iPhone sales. I was expecting the iPod Touch but not its small amount of storage space or the price drop on the iPhone. Now the iPod product line seems kind of strange, as the iPhone is strangely part of the iPod line. But it definitely shows that Apple really wants the iPhone to be their best seller — it’s the new product that needs to prove itself.

What feels strange to me is they shouldn’t have to make a weaker iPod to get people to buy iPhones.

Now that I’ve had a few hours to think about the products free of the Jobs reality distortion field, I feel the ideal products are missing — an iPod Touch with 40 GB for $499 and an iPhone with 40 GB for $599. Keep selling the flash based Touch and now cheaper Flash iPhones — maybe have them be iPod and iPhone Nanos.

Yeah I’m so nit picky. Ah well there’s always MacWorld I suppose, and I’ll just play with my Mac Mini and Lepoard in the meantime…

If you are into gadgets, and you don’t understand that these things just happen in tech, then there’s something wrong with you.

Having said that, I’m more worried than angry about the price drop. Something tells me that the last few weeks of August’s sales were lower than Apple wanted, prompting the quicker than usual price drop. I hope I’m wrong about that, but I just have a bad feeling.

Of course, the price drop will make the continued success of iPhone a given. Lots of people who didn’t own an iPhone yesterday will have one tomorrow.

On a related note, am I the only one who thinks the iPod touch feels like a cheap, unfinished, watered-down iPhone? It just seems like Apple started with the iPhone and took out a few key elements, rather than designing something innovative and unique. Come to think of it, almost all of the newly announced iPods are a little more “in line with expectations” than “exceeding expectations”. I guess when your competition is as far behind as the Zune, you can get away with coasting for a little while. I just hope Apple isn’t getting lazy.

Just watching Steve demo the touch seemed really stupid. There was almost nothing to show that he hadn’t already showed us back in January.

The way I look at it, there’s no reason for an iPhone owner to get a touch, or even a nano, unless you need something light for jogging, in which case maybe even a shuffle would be better. On the other hand, the 160 GB classic is right up my alley, since it solves the one issue I have with my iPhone—storage.

If I weren’t an iPhone owner (and wasn’t willing to switch from some other cell phone provider) I suppose a touch and a classic would be just as good a solution, although then I’d be carrying around three devices, since I’d still need a mobile phone. With the price drop, it would be harder to resist just going for the iPhone instead of the touch.

Yeah, I don’t see much reason to get a touch, unless you live outside the U.S. I think Steve hopes people will use the touch as a stepping stone to a future iPhone. For all people’s clamoring for it, I’d be surprised if the touch sold nearly as well as the nano.

Wait a few months, make sure the company gets all of the bugs out of the product.…listen for any rumors and then buy the product.

As for the iPhone, it really looks like a great product, but having read about it since it was mere rumor and speculation, I can’t help but notice that a lot of people are way to wrapped up emotionally, way beyond reason, with what essentially amounts to a hunk of metal and plastic. $600 for a phone was ridiculous to begin with.

I’m sure that has something to do with the negative reaction.

As for ridiculous early adopter technology purchases I’m still pissed I ever bought a Zip drive with the click of death — besides overpaying for an external CD burner…