Personal Bytes

Ok, two things from the event are noteworthy.

Apple managed to pick a concept that had failed (Microsoft Zune) and put it on steroids so it might actually work. That’s what Apple does better, reinvent the wheel with style. Succeed where others failed. So, basically, you have an iPod with the iPhone’s interface, Safari browser and WiFi. The best thing is that you can actually use it as a real device to navigate on the internet, whereas with any other mobile device (except the iPhone itself), you’re stuck to some laggard and rudimentary browser. Due exception to some Nokia devices, but the screen is usually too small.

That’s the good part, now the bad part.

First, selling a ringtone from a song you already own for $0.99 is ludicrous and I’ll mock to death whoever buys it. Come on, you already own the song so you could actually fire up GarageBand and cut the song yourself. Yes, and even add fade in and fade out!

Secondly, the iPod touch only has 8GB and 16GB capacity. That would be fine two years ago. Moreover, considering that the iPod classic now has 80GB/160GB, it’s 10x (ten times!) less. It’s ridiculous putting the buyer into a dilemma of choosing between an iPod with a cool interface and Safari that only has 16GB of storage, and an iPod classic that has 10 times more storage. Make it larger, thicker, I don’t care. 16GB doesn’t cut it for such a device that doesn’t even have the GSM modules.

Finally, a small remark to Steve’s presentation. I think that for the first time I didn’t like it as much as I enjoyed past presentations. First off, Steve was not awaken. He was not feeling what he was doing, at least to the same extent as he does at MacWorld and WWDC. Also, he kept on repeating marketing jargons like “We’re really excited”, “It’s the best thing ever”, “It’s great”. I mean, we know Apple puts out some serious and great stuff (I’m an Apple fan myself) but there’s no need to put so much emphasis on how great they are.

In the end, I think shuffle will still sell pretty well. As for Nano, I need to see it live to see whether it got worst or it’s still a slick device. iPod touch is off the hook but it doesn’t have enough storage. iPod classic will look old age compared to the new iPod touch but it will still attract customers due to its huge storage. Perhaps that’s Apple plan: make people buy the classic now and then shift to the Touch 6 months from now whenever it gets its capacity increased.