Apple iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, iPod Nano, Classic, and Touch Announced
Today, Apple, a computer and gadgets company based in Cupertino, California, announced new versions of their MP3 player line, the iPod:
• An updated, all-metal iPod nano adds a 2-inch screen that supports video playback and the 3D "Coverflow" album interface, available in 8GB or 16GB of flash memory.
• An updated, all-metal "iPod Classic" model with an internal hard drive with up to 160GB of storage.
• A new "iPod Touch," a touchscreen-based media player with built in Wi-Fi, able to browse the internet with the built-in Safari web browser, as well as purchase DRM music downloads without a computer from the new "iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store."
Apple also announced that downloadable ringtones would be coming to their iPhone smartphone, which has been reduced to a single model: an 8GB iPhone for $400, plus subscription. The new iPod Nano and Classic will be available by the weekend, while the iPod Touch will ship at the end of the month.
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nano is 4gig or 8gig
I don't get why you have to pay extra to play a song you own just because it's triggered by a ring event. The price drop is great, but I still can't accept that they're borrowing that bit of awful usability from the cell phone world.
You have to pay extra because AT&T wants a cut, I'm sure. As stupid as it may seem, selling ringtones is a big business for the cellular carriers, and $2 for a ringtone that includes the entire song for your own listening pleasure is surprisingly inexpensive compared to other (ridiculous) offerings.
Of course, it's easy as hell to get a ringtone of your choice onto the iPhone already using third-party tools.
I'm a huge apple fanboy going way back, and I live/love my 1st gen nano as I lived/loved my 1st gen shuffle. But I gotta say, I hate these things they released today. They lost the grace and elegance and went with "the fat one", a "classic" uglier than the 1st gen ipod, and the fingerprint collector...
And to add insult to injury, they no longer sell the 2nd gen nano in the apple store. I have been longing for a PRODUCT [red] 8 gig for some time, but thought I should see the next great thing from apple before I bought it. Now I can only get it on ebay... Thanks alot, Steve, for ruining my day.
I am hating the new nano's fat little heart so hard!
They also dropped the price of the iPhone by $200--less than 2 weeks after I bought mine, and just over 2 months after it came out. I know prices come down after a while, but usually not this quickly. I'm sure I'm not the only iPhone owner (and long-time Mac enthusiast) who feels a bit ill-used.
If only apple wouldn't get so excited about making things anorexic and given the ipod touch a 160GB harddrive and a decent sized battery, they're wouldn't be the need for the silly "ipod Classic". The ipod nano looks a good update, but ipod touch crippled by small NAND Flash is really really stupid. I guess they're still too worried about losing the call contract cash from the iphone. If the ipod touch had email, it would make it slightly more bearable. If it had been 16GB and 32GB versions, not so bad. I'll wait till "function" catches up with the "cool". Apple always has to cripple great ideas with silly little defects (too little ram here, under powered graphics cards there and now far too little storage space on a device that's obviously needs it for video, podcasts, songs, photos etc).
Remaines: iirc, under Apple policy, you should be able to take it in to where you bought it with a receipt and get your $200 back.
@REMAINS: If you bought your iPhone less than two weeks ago, you can call 1-800-MY-APPLE and get the difference credited to you. I bought two refurbished 8-GB iPhones 12 days ago and they just gave me $300 back. Old price was $500 each, new is $350 for the refurb's.
what, no photos of the new ipods? how are we going to take this new gadget blog seriously? i love boingboing and i love gadgets but i don't love boingboing gadgets (yet?). please improve. thanks.
Uhm, you seriously have trouble finding pics of an Apple product? Is it that hard to hit alt-T, type "Apple," and hit ctrl-enter?
I think it's safe to assume that Joel was doing a "Quick Update" and that the assumption was most borderline savvy people know how to find out what an Apple product looks like.
i'm actually pretty stoked on the non-coverage of the latest round of apple stuff from this particular blog. anyone who cares enough to actually read a few-day-old gadget blog already knows what's up with these things, is probably already either deciding whether to quit smoking or drinking to afford one, and isn't going to find anything new here.
that said, i'm totally bummed about the ipod touch. i have actually been saving for one, assuming they would come out today. however, a 16GB ipod is more or less useless to me, no matter how adorable it is. the whole point of an ipod (or any other comparable mp3 player) to me is that you can carry nearly ALL of that music you've stolen around in your pocket.
also, i'm happy there's wifi, but the wifi itunes store just creeps me the fuck out. i can't quite articulate why, but the idea of buying a super sexy $400 device that i don't need, that is clearly designed primarily to sell me more shit i don't need, really creeps me out. don't get me wrong. from a business standpoint, it is pure effing GENIUS, but as a human being, it's the grossest of the gross.
and the starbucks thing?! GAH!
i'm generally a total apple fanboy, but i think i'll wait for the inevitable onslaught of copies and buy one of those instead.
@Shredphones:
I think the point of the iPod Classic is that you can carry your entire music collection at all times.
The iPod Touch serves a different purpose, although how well it does it depends on the WiFi implementation. Given the display, this product's as much about video as it is about audio, and even a 160GB Touch wouldn't have enough storage to keep you from having to swap out video content. If the iPod can automatically start syncing to iTunes in the background when it's in range of your LAN, and won't wig out when you leave before the sync's finished, smart playlists and 16GB should keep just about anyone happy.
Man, okay - of course the ipod touch is crippled. Do you live in the same world I do? Every time Apple, or any of them, for that matter, release genuinely new tech (or new application of tech, in this instance) they cripple it, so they can as easily sell the less-crippled second gen to all you stupid fat-wallet fanboys. Their goal is to maximize sales, not to maximize value. Jeez.
The lack of Apple updates on the site is by design. I love much of the work they do, but I'm specifically ignoring all the rumors and speculation before launch, partially because it's well covered elsewhere, and partially because I just don't care. There's only so many times you can write "this may or may not be legit, but..." before going insane.
As for adding pictures to the post, the Apple store site was nuking both Safari and Firefox (Mac and Windows), so I just gave up, for the same reasons dculberson stated. I figured if by some trick of fate you still hadn't seen them, you'd get a picture elsewhere.
And "few-day-old gadget blog?" I may be being selective, but I'm not that far behind the curve.
Thanks, Anonymous and Leonb; I did go to the Apple Store and even without my receipt (I couldn't find it, so they just looked it up) I got the $200 + tax back.
The Starbucks thing is, I suppose, meant to facilitate impulse purchases. All the Starbucks locations near me recently got big flat screen monitors that list the name of the song playing, which seems like a poor use of money and tech, so I assume they have something more up their sleeve, and I have to wonder what--like maybe playing trailers and clips so you can be tempted to impulse-buy movies, etc., while you get coffee? Don't know how practical that would be, unless the wifi at Starbucks is faster than I think it is.
sorry, joel. what i meant by "few-day-old gadget blog" was that the blog itself is only a few days old, not the things that you cover. as for whether or not you're "behind the curve," i wouldn't know. this is the really the only gadget blog i actually keep up with, so as far as i know, you're like, super-double-bleeding-edge.
Ah, I got you, shredphones. Sorry for being oversensitive! I get a bit fussy sometimes.
I have to say this new round of "upgrades" is killing me. My personal requirement for a new iPod was a bigger widescreen ... um .. screen. I decided this long before the iPhone ever was announced. Now, I don't expect to be able to carry my entire media collection around on my iPod, however going with a new Touch iPod is actually feels like a downgrade from my 3rd gen one. I don't agree that the Touch serves a different purpose or will necessarily satisfy most people. If I wanted wi-fi, email, and youtube I'd by an iPhone. If I wanted only enough space to put half my music I'd buy a Nano. I think the Touch misses the boat on what an iPod is supposed to be.