Apple's New iPod Lineup
posted Sunday Sep 5, 2010 by Scott Ertz
This week, Apple, in an attempt to keep their name in the news, announced their newest line of iPods and the response was not quite what they expected. Normally people get all excited and talk about how they have to have the new version. This time that does not seem the be the case. We'll start with the devices they didn't screw up.
Th iPod Classic hasn't been altered. Done. The iPod Shuffle has been restored to its previous glory of the little stamp/clip and has added back the buttons! I know some people were a fan of a device that you could not only not pick the music on but also couldn't control, but the rest of the world will be excited to have the only decently designed Shuffle ever back.
For the rest of the rundown, hit the break.
The iPod Touch has been remastered the way you would hope and expect while fixing some of the things you wouldn't. The body has been kept in its classic design and not updated to look like the iPhone 4, which is a fairly old-looking device compared to previous models. Apple added the Retina display, which means the screen is better than before but still not great, as well as a FaceTime camera with the obvious combination of the FaceTime software.
That isn't the only camera enhancement that the Touch got, however. Like the iPhone 4, the iPod Touch now has the ability to drain your battery faster than ever before by recording and editing HD video on the device. It also runs on the new A4 processor, meaning you have better runtime for high-end gaming. All of this running on the iOS4, so you can also use all of the latest applications.
Now on to the disaster that is the new iPod Nano. Apparently Apple didn't entirely learn its lesson from the last version of the iPod Shuffle and decided this year to remove all of the buttons from the Nano instead. In a device that is too small to hold, you are now expected to use a miniature multi-touch screen to navigate the 8 or 16GB of music and video you carry around with you.
They did take some of the lessons of the Shuffle away and apply them to the Nano, however. You now have a clip so you can clip this tiny little device to your pocket to make it even easier to lose. But it's OK, the device is only $149, so when it falls off your pocket and you lose it between the cracks of the floor, you won't have to feel so bad (massive sarcasm).
All-in-all, Apple did exactly what we have come to expect from an iPod launch - make minor, useless changes to most of the models and ruin one of them. One of these days they're going to screw up too bad and lose their market share and I am betting this Nano could do just that.