WhiteEyebrows

I was very disappointed this morning when I found out that Apple had not changed the iPhone hardware AT ALL when it launched in the UK. I was sure the recent price drop was to pave the way for a 16GB model with 3G (europe has mostly 3G networks). Instead, O2, the exclusive provider in the UK, is having to roll out the 2.5G EDGE network. Stupid, dumb, stupid.

Whatever…

The longer you make me wait for iPhone 2.0, the more I’ll be tempted to buy this ugly, unusable, cheap, windoze phone:

Apple hosted an iPod event today, revealing a refreshing of it’s iPod line in time for the holiday season.Here are the key takeaways:

• iPod Shuffle
  • Just new colors. Yawn.
• iPod Nano
  • New, fatter, round cornered industrial design
  • It can play videos now!
  • A few small UI enhancement
• iPod
  • Renamed to iPod “Classic
  • New industrial design.. same rounded corners as iPod Nano
  • Bigger hard disks… up to 160gb
• iPod Touch
  • New iPod based on the iPhone form factor
  • Large multi-touch display with similar OS X interface as the iPhone
  • Integrated wi-fi
  • Safari web browser, as in iPhone.
  • iTunes wi-fi store now allows users to purchase music directly to the iPod itself, later syncing with the host computer.

The shocker, though, was that the 8gb iPhone, previously listed at $599, will now be sold at $399. The official reasons were that they wanted “an iPhone in every stocking this Christmas,” but I have my own ideas:

1. The iPhone was overpriced to begin with, targeted at early adopters who would pay any price for the much-hyped system.
2. The iPhone must come down at some point so new, higher-end iPhones can be introduced at the premium price.
3. Sales for September and October were likely to slump since all the early adopters had already purchased their iPhone, and all the wait-and-see people were likely to wait for a iPhone v2.0
4. The number one barrier to most people buying an iPhone was that it’s too expensive. This will start to solve that problem.

Things that weren’t announced that have been in the rumor mill for a long time:

1. iPhone nano: this one might be a reality, might not. Wait for the next iPhone event in January or February.
2. Beatles albums now on iTunes. Nope. Not yet. Go buy the CDs if you like the Beatles that much.

The Apple Rumor Mill has been a-buzz lately with confident speculation that Apple will be announcing a new line of iPods in the next few weeks; as early as September 5.

Here are my summaries/predictions/conclusions:

• The new iPod will feature a widescreen, multi-touch display, and will play video.
• The new iPod will be based on a OS X, like the iPhone. This is a no brainer for Apple. Now they have put the work in to make iPhone an iPod, just leverage all that work in an iPod only form factor.
• The new iPod will look very similar to an iPhone. Same widescreen, multi-touch technology. Same singular home button. However, there will be some kind of design change or color difference. iPhone users will want to maintain their outward iPhone superiority to the less expensive, iPhone looking iPods.
• Many have speculated that the new iPod will be based on NAND flash (the type of memory that is in the iPod nano) rather than a 2.5″ mobile hard disk. The hard disks are the single greatest point of failure in the old iPods, and the NAND flash in iPod nanos is practically indestructible. HOWEVER… I’m not 100% sold on that. NAND flash is much more expensive per gigabyte, and packing enough NAND flash into the iPhone form factor to equate the current largest iPod (80gb) would do it in. Apple can’t make the margins it needs at that price. I don’t see them shrinking the capacity of the largest iPod either. With every iPod release up until this point, they have expanded the storage capacity at the high end. Will we suddenly go crashing back down to 32gb after we have enjoyed 80gb? I doubt it.
• They will certainly refresh the iPod, and likely refresh the iPod Nano (although it will mostly just be the new OS), but i’m not confident they will refresh the iPod Shuffle.

My prediction is that the new iPod will be a HUGE financial success for Apple (much bigger than iPhone), and will drive their holiday sales and 3rd to 4th quarter profits. Apple’s timing and strategy have been perfect.

iPhones were a perfect product for the summer, because a cell phone is not a product that we can all just go grab and use. Most of us have contracts we can’t break and can’t justify over $1000 to switch carriers and handsets. The hype was good. But the MONEY will come now with the new iPod.

Everyone and anyone can use a new iPod. Teens, old people, even babes in arms. It has been almost 2 years since the last iPod refresh, so we’ve all been waiting for this one for a very long time!

It’s that time of year again. School bells are ringing, (well, actually none of the schools I ever went to had bells - they opted for the more annoying alarm-esque steady digital tone) and children are returning to school. The school yards are different, even from my elementary school days less than 15 years ago. The teeter totters and merry-go-rounds have been removed and replaced with environmentally friendly, super safe, rubber rocks. Yes, education has changed in this country.

One thing I vividly remember learning as early as second grade, was about the many explorers and adventurers of Christopher Columbus’ day. There were explorers like Vasco DaGama, who discovered the oversea trade route to India around Africa. There was Columbus, who defied all science and tradition by going west, and discovering the “new world.” There was Magellan, whose voyage ended as the first to circumnavigate the entire earth, exploring the terrible freezing passages of South American straits. The list continues: Leif Erikson, Henry Hudson, Bartholomeu Dias, & Pedro Cabral. While the accuracy of what I learned has been dramatically called into question by today’s historicity, the important thing is, this is what I remember learning when I was in the second grade.

With that in mind, let me brazenly shift gears. Many Americans are afraid of India and China, the world’s largest emerging markets. How can a country as relatively small as America have any chance of competing with countries with such vast human resources?

The answer comes from what I learned in second grade.

Americans are explorers. We are adventurers. We are innovators. We lead the world in technology, and have done so through the 20th centry. We pioneered the digital/information age, and remain at it’s forefront. Even though China and India can manufacture and produce products at much lower cost, the intellectual property and innovation which makes those product possible is still originating from this country.

So as we watch our educational system evolve, as it will inevitably do. Let’s keep talking about the explorers and the adventurers. Lets promote and enhance innovation, creativity, and change in our public and private universities. Therein lies the key to preserving our status as the world’s greatest ideological superpower.

Dear Ben,

My heartfelt condolences on the sudden and inexplicable death of your Microsoft Zune media player.

I hate to say I told you so… but… I told you so. Should have gone with the iPod.

I would absolutely love to buy an iPhone…

-BUT- (there’s always a but)

Here are the top reasons why I have not purchased my iPhone yet. If Apple wants my $600 and at&t wants my wireless business, they will have to address these items first.

1. Voice Navigation/Calling

The most crucial problem facing the user interface of the iphone is its lack of tactile buttons. You can’t use your motor memory to make or even receive calls. For example, using my current cell phone, without even looking I can press Softkey 2 to open my contacts and press the M key will bring up “Mom”, then I press talk… no need to even look at my phone. With the iPhone, I have to look for “Contacts”, flick through the list until I find “Mom” then press her contact, then press to dial her. I had to look at my phone at least 4 times, not including a very prolonged look to flick through the contact list. What this equates to is millions of drivers having to LOOK at their cellphones to actually use them. This will create major safety hazards on roads (as if the current state of the 21 and under crowd txting from their cars wasn’t bad enough). Even when I just had a standard iPod, I found myself distracted by it, trying to switch playlists or genres while driving.

2. 3G EDGE Network

There is no excuse for launching the worlds most anticipated mobile device, promising to unleash the mobile internet in a way that has never been accomplished before, and then (in effect) putting a 14.4kbps modem on it and expecting everyone to love it.

We crave SPEED! Launching iPhone with the 2.5G network is dumb. Maybe it was the excessive power requirements of the 3G chip. Maybe it was the added cost. Maybe it was that at&t hasn’t rolled out the 3G network widely enough. Maybe the iPhone is just ahead of its time…

And don’t try to sell me a line about how the built in wi-fi will satsify me. Unless I am at home or at work, I am not in a hotspot or near a hotspot. I am freakin’ mobile! Public hotspots at coffee shops and airports cost WAY too much money… no way i’m using them!

3. Corporate Discounts/Accounts

Although this one doesn’t affect the public at large, this IS a PRIME segment of your market, and the ones I would argue are the most important to iPhone success: people who work for tech companies… THE EARLY ADOPTERS. Many tech companies pay for their employees phones, and Apple’s/at&t’s absolute refusal to grant them the ability to offer the phone to them is just plain silly.

I would even be OK if they didn’t want to discount the iPhone, but precluding corporate paid users from even purchasing the iPhone is shooting yourself in the foot. If you haven’t guessed by now, I work for a tech company. My co-workers and I would absolutely LOVE to buy iPhones. We would love to recommend them to everyone we see. We would love to show them off and tell everyone how Apple has made our dream device… but you just simply won’t let us.

4. Support Stereo bluetooth headphones and get rid of the proprietary headphone jack.

You can’t advertise an iPod that you can’t plug a set of non-Apple headphones into. People spend BIG bucks on earphones these days, and it’s no secret that Apple does not have the good ones. The white wire sure is stylish, but if I want a good $200-500 set of noise-cancelling earphones that lets me hear the music rather than the plane’s engines, I CERTAINLY want them to work in my $600 iPhone.

Along these same lines, let me utilize the bluetooth capability and go wireless with my headphones! iPhone does not currently support stereo bluetooth headphones. This is a MUST!

5. The Battery

This has been one of the biggest issues for everyone, and simply summed up it is this:

• People can’t live for 3-5 days without their phone while Apple replaces their battery (or actually swaps the handset)
• People want to be able to have spare or extended batteries in case they are using power intensive applications (which on the iPhone is pretty much everything: video, voice, data, wireless technology)

Honestly, it is less of an issue for me. I have owned an iPod for 3 years and still haven’t seen much degradation in the battery, such that I would want to replace it. However, knowing the flawed nature of Lithium Ion batteries, Apple needs a better battery strategy.

That’s it Apple. Fix those 5 things, and I’m on board.