iPod Update

Huh, except for the new model, I own or have owned every single thing on that WSJ chart! It’s just so easy to fill up whichever one you have, then you need the bigger one, and you give the old one to your friends.

All this goofy talk about zune, archos, whatever is just off track. iPods just work, they are simple to use and there is a complete ecosystem around them. I have a built in dock in my car (control the pod with your steering wheel buttons and you will never go back), a Bose sounddock, an Apple HiFi, the tv cord, everything.

Those who discount the “it just works” part must not have been there when the first Windows iPod came out. It only had MusicMatch or something like that, instead of iTunes. I remember spending two hours to get 10 songs on the pod with that crappy program. It failed 90% of the time. When iTunes came to windows, it was game over for every other player.

I just hope he doesn’t come out with another press release saying it’s all my fault because of interest rates.

Armchair Fed,

At least iJobs was smart enough not to blame it on high gas prices.

Apple fan-boys have overpaid for their overhyped, made in Chinese sweat shops, iPhones.
There’s a sucker born every minute. I have a revolutionary iBrooklyn Bridge for them on sale.

LOL :)

Two weeks ago, my son’s bought an iPod with his hard earned summer money. Yesterday, he was very angry because he paid full price for an obsolete and no longer cool model, and this was before the screen cracked.

Now, he wants a Blackberry.

P.S. What sucker will ever again buy an early version of future Apple products?

Ron, I had one of those first Windows iPods also, and found EphPod, a great program that I still use–it has one feature that iTunes doesn’t have: you can highlight any number of songs on ANY iPod and right-click to “copy to folder” and your songs will go on to disk (don’t forget to set your artist/album/song title preferences for folder naming first).

For me it works great because I have all MP3’s I ripped myself…it is another thing with copy protected crap…

Yer right about filling them up, I have my eye on that new 80Gb classic, which is lower in price than a refurbished 80Gb at a repair site…(http://www.rapidrepair.com)

“Any thoughts about the possibility that they cut the iPhone prices in pursuit of handset-maker quantities”

I think they cut the prices because of the iPod Touch, which even now costs less and has more storage for the price.

If the iPhone were still $599, people could get most of the experience from an iTouch combined with a cheap phone.

” buy an early version of future Apple products”

Oh, and it’s quite a stretch to call any iPod that Apple has sold in 2007 an “early version”.

One thing that drew my attention, in that part of my life which is as a techie, is that the iPod Touches came in with disk capacities of 16 and 8 (Barry predicted 100 and 60).

The original iPod became possible only once Toshiba perfected the first high-capacity 1″ form factor hard drives. Probably the most important single technical criteria for Steve’s need for sleek appeal.

And 1″ has remained the standard (some lower-end iPods have moved to flash memory – but at least for the time being flash won’t produce anywhere near the same capacities as 1″ hard drives).

I assume from the 16/8 that actually appeared that the limitation was not cost (the two costliest parts being the screen and the drive). But rather you can’t fit both the full, iPhone-like touch screen and a 1″ hard drive into the same whats-become-the-standard-sleek (required) form factor.

Should have looked it up before writing this. Not if, but when I go to look up the Tech Spec on the Touch iPods, I find that the ‘persistence’ is flash memory and not 1″ form factor hard drives, then that would draw closer to closing the case (but not fully).

In other words, I could be wrong.

Gee … now that wasn’t so hard was it? Looked up what the 16/8 actually are. Yes flash. Well it could be cost. Or it could simply be: “what fits in a box that size”.

The current iPhone is only 8 GB, not 16 GB (though I would suspect a 16 GB model will appear sooner or later).

I have a question for Ron, how do I become your friend? I’m funny, reasonably intelligent and if we go out cruising for chicks, I’m a great wingman.

Anyway, I’m still rocking my 10G second generation Ipod, it’s been to Europe (everywhere from England to Poland), Australia, China and Southeast Asia. Only had to replace the battery once.

I think the best rule of thumb is to by even number generations of tech gadgets.

1st gen – cutting edge, cool yet lots of flaws.
2nd gen – get rid of all the flaws.
3rd gen – come up with a bunch of worthless features to justify a high price, lots of flaws.
4th gen – ok, we now know why we didn’t have those worthless features in the first two generations, here’s what really works.
5th gen – All the smart guys who worked on the previous stuff are working on other things now (or having sex with 18 year old “actresses”). The product is so successful we are giving this to a VP’s kid.
6th gen – wow, that didn’t work at all, OK, the adults are back in charge. We’re sorry. Don’t leave us.

i have a 30gb vid ipod which i had changed after a week as it stopped but since then no probs. i now have a cracked screen (despite case) so have a large shuffle basically. in the uk it is around £55 to replace but i’m wondering if i would be better off just getting a friend to pick me up a new one -itouch maybe in the states next month. i’ve been happy with ipods since my first 15 gb one(which came with accessories!) and i just don’t know what to do- i don’t use it to full capacity but do need to see the screen. is it worth replacing it?