Apple Let’s Rock: Refreshed iPods
September 10th, 2008
At yesterday’s Apple event, Apple released a redesigned iPod Nano and iPod Touch, iTunes 8, and welcomed NBC back to the iTunes fold. The announcements met expectations. Pricing for the iPod Nano is $149 (8GB), and $199 (16GB), and the new iPod Touch at $229 (8GB), $299 (16GB), and $399 (32 GB).
I have to admit the new iPod Nano design doesn’t wow me. Although the taller form factor makes the “squat” nano look like a mistake (maybe it was?), the desire to have a big enough screen for video is in conflict with the “smaller is better” designs. I look forward to the day when the iPod Nano is a smaller iPod Touch and finally does away with the click wheel.
But yesterday, my spec-focused opinion was essentially shot down by my wife, who was really impressed with the new Nano, in particular, the colors (she likes purple), and the “shake to shuffle a song” feature. She ordered a purple iPod Nano last night. Based on my wife’s reaction who is decidedly non-technical, it’s a safe bet the mainstream masses will really dig the colors.
Apple certainly knows how to design and market a seductive product, and the iPods have reached a point where the technical aspects matter less and less. It’s all about image, design, and marketing. Luckilly for Apple, this is one area where they continue to excel.
Apple’s marketing prowess also explains the grammatically incorrect word “funnest” in the tagline for the new iPod Touch: “The funnest iPod ever.” Grammarians and stuffed shirts will wrankle at this, but the mainstream users that are the focus of the iPod won’t care. The slightly disrespectful word ensures the tagline is remembered and sticks.
So us early adopters and geeks will analyze the specs on the iPod Touch and wonder why it doesn’t have GPS, but Apple will still sell a crap load of iPod Nanos, maybe multiples to one person who wants to match different outfits, and a crap load of iPod Touches when the person who never set foot into an Apple Store before realizes they can now get one for just $229.
And somewhere, I hope a Microsoft product manager is thinking, “Purple… why didn’t we think of that?”
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[...] Original Jason Kaneshiro [...]
I gotta admit…I like the colors. Purdy!
It kills me whenever Apple adds new features in the wrong products for me. I'd kill to have the Genius feature on the Apple TV and on my iPod Classic, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen, at least not on the Classic.
Genius would be perfect in my car, where I could just pick one song and let the iPod figure out my mood from there. But it's useless within 4, 8, or even 32 GB memory constraints. My library is over 60 GB, and that's just for music.
I wouldn't even mind if they gave Genius to just the new Classic, and not last year's. I'd sell my current 160 GB Classic and get the 120 GB, even though I'd be taking a slight hit on the storage. Especially if they put the black scroll wheel on the silver Classic, which looks so cool on the new nano.
It would also be great to have Genius on my Apple TV, which is hooked up to my enormous Terabyte Media drive. I have even more music there, and for a party, it would be great to select one song and let the shuffling be directed in the same vein, rather than completely randomly across the many different types of music in my library. Sure, I could create playlists for this kind of thing, but they need to be manually updated, maintained, etc.
Hmmm, the subject of the Genius feature in iTunes 8 (and its inclusion on
the iPod Nano) is another subject entirely. I just started playing with it
today, and it seems more like the intent is to get people to buy more stuff
in itunes. I noticed if you hit the “atomic” genius button while a song is
selected / playing it generates a “genius playlist” which I assume you would
then push to different iPods or the Apple TV or whatever.
But as a consolation, I did see a rumor that there will be an update to the
classic for Genius :
http://gizmodo.com/5048173/ipod-classic-may-get...
Yeah, the Genius feature is an optimized purchase recommendation engine from what I can see.
I was kinda hoping for something that would come up with cool playlists based on what I already had in my library, but while this isn't something I'd use (the iTunes 8 Genius feature), I can understand why Apple would want to include it. It's a critical component for driving music sales and discovery.