Nothing to see here

Gizmodo is running a live blog of the new Apple iPod announcements today. Interesting reading. Quick rundown:

• New iPod Shuffle - price lowered to $79 for 1GB
• New iPod Nano - thinner, slightly wider. $149 and $199 for 4GB and 8GB
• New iPod Classic - basically the same as existing iPods, but thinner and cheaper. $299 and $349 for 80GB and 160GB!
• New iPod Touch - essentially, its an iPhone without the phone part. It has Wi-fi web surfing and iPod capabilities and the same interface as the iPhone. Also can buy songs directly from the iTunes music store. Downside: 8GB and 16GB for $299 and $399. I can’t see paying that much more and giving up all that space just for that somewhat annoying interface.
• iPhone gets ringtones - They’re adding the ability to turn your purchased songs into ringtones… for 99 cents per song. This really sucks, basically you buy the song for 99 cents and then pay an extra 99 cents to turn any 30 second section of it into a ringtone. And it only works with songs you buy from iTunes and even then only 500k of their catalog can do it, not just any song. Really lame and one more reason not to get an iPhone, IMO.
• iPhone also gets ability to buy direct from iTunes music store.
• Starbucks integration - When you get the new iPod Touch or iPhone near a Starbucks, it’ll have a special menu to let you see the last 10 songs played there, and allow you to purchase them from iTunes.
• iPhone price drop - The 4GB version is now gone, the 8GB version drops 200 bucks to $399. The price drop was required, IMO, but anybody who bought early kinda got screwed. Especially if they got the 4GB model, not only are they out $100 extra, but also out 4GB. Bummer for you suckers!

Seems to me that the price drops across the board make sense. Most excellent news, IMO, is the reasonably priced 160GB iPod classic. I really want one of those. The iPhone price drop is likely to try to stave off competition from the upcoming Google Phone. The iPod touch just seems somewhat worthless to me, but then I dislike the iPhone interface concept to begin with. Touchscreens are not my favorite things.

Still, neat stuff. Take a look at the many pictures Gizmodo posted on the live blog, some of them are quite cool.

Edit: Apple now has info about the new iPod’s up on their site: http://www.apple.com/

I made an iPhone post earlier, and Paul pointed to it, which was cool of him and got me a lot more views than I’m used to. But I got some feedback on the topic as well, so I figured I’d go into it a little more.

First off, If you’re getting the thing for free (like through work or something), then go for it. It’s cool looking, the interface is neat, and it’s very blingy. My issue with the thing is that it’s $600 and somewhat “low-tech”. Here’s what it breaks down to: Stuff they can fix, and stuff they can’t.

Stuff they can fix via a future software update:

• No custom ringtones. Period. It doesn’t allow for MP3’s, music tracks, or anything else. What’s in the phone is all you get. Although iTunes 7.3 appears to support selling ringtones. Look forward to rebuying your songs as ringtones.
• The camera is 2 megapixels, but can’t record video.
• The phone cannot send “MMS” messages. These are like text messages with pictures or video or what have you. For some people, this is no big deal. And it can still send email, so that’s something to consider as well.
• There’s no instant messaging in the thing. It can do “iChat”, but it can’t do AIM, MSN, GoogleTalk, any of that.
• The only “push” email it supports is Yahoo Mail. Don’t use Yahoo Mail? Tough luck. It can do IMAP based email, which excludes most email systems and isn’t “push”. Blackberries can do better than this.
• No games. None. Zero. Zilch. Which is annoying, since they sell iPod games on iTunes that, in theory, could work on the thing.
• It’s not user expandable. You can’t put your own apps on it, yet. Even if they fix this, it’ll probably be a purchase mechanism thing.
• The Bluetooth only works with phone calls. So you can’t use your neato Bluetooth stereo headset and have a wireless iPod functionality.

Stuff they *can’t* fix:

• The massive SLOW of the thing. Unless you’re able to find a WiFi access point, you’ll be using AT&T’s “EDGE” network. Which, as you’ll notice very rapidly, is extremely slow. What really irks about this is that HSDPA is available in cheaper phones and is much faster and extremely reliable (albeit only found in big cities). This can NOT be fixed with a future software update, it’s a hardware problem. Who wants to bet that the “iPhone 2″ comes out just as the iPhone price drops down to “free” in a year or so? Who wants to bet that the iPhone 2 will have HSDPA?
• No GPS. If you’ve seen the commercial with the big screen Google Maps giving turn by turn directions, then you’ll be disappointed to discover that a) the iPhone does not have GPS and so it has no idea where you are (you have to tell it) and b) it can’t actually give turn by turn based directions. You have to tell the iPhone when you make each turn. Which makes it pretty useless for this unless you have a buddy using the phone as you go. No software fix for this, the GPS hardware ain’t in the phone.
• The thing works as an iPod Nano, basically. It has 4 or 8 GB of storage. But not all the iPod capable things will work with it. Also, because of the jack plug size, you’ll need to buy a special adapter to make some of your normal headphones work with it.

The software problems are enough to keep me from buying one until they fix them. But these last few hardware issues are enough to make me wait until new iPhone hardware appears in a year or two. Why pay extra for something worse than what I already have?

Gizmodo published a list of things you should know before getting one, so don’t take my word for any of the above.

Kat wrote about wanting an iPhone yesterday, but I’ve known for a long time that I’m really just not interested in the thing. Today I found this story on Gizmodo that really lays out why:

Finally Confirmed: What the iPhone Doesn’t Have

• Songs as Ringtones
• Games
• Any flash support
• Instant Messaging
• Picture messages (MMS)
• Video recording
• Voice recognition or voice dialing
• Wireless Bluetooth Stereo Streaming (A2DP)
• One-size-fits-all headset jack (May have to buy an adapter for certain headphones)

Stuff we already knew it didn’t have

• 3G (EV-DO/HSDPA)
• GPS
• A real keyboard
• Removable battery
• Expandable Storage
• Direct iTunes Music Store Access (Over Wi-Fi or EDGE)

For reference, my existing cheap-as-in-free LG CU-500 phone has all but 3 of the the things above. The iPhone looks to be like it’s a major downgrade. I kinda wonder if it’s even capable of making phone calls.

On the plus side, you’ll soon be able to find out which of your friends has more money than brains, because they’ll be sporting their shiny new useless blingy phone! And that is going to be the most useful feature ever.

Edit: I just noticed that Amazon has several books available for a phone that actually hasn’t even been released yet! Including “iPhone for Dummies“. Amazing.