Apple released new iPods officially yesterday. New features include multiple on-the-go playlists, the ability to delete songs from those playlists, a revised menu including a “Music” entry as will as shuffle within easy access.
Apple also released a firmware update for all iPods, or so it would seem at first. They actually did not release an update for any iPod other than the new ones.
This has actually left existing users out in the cold. I can understand if certain features simply weren’t possible with existing iPod hardware (the ability to slow or speed up Audible content), but shifting access to the shuffle function into the main menu should be brain dead easy. It’s already implemented and in place on existing iPods, all that remains for Apple is to implant a menu item to access that call.
Surely that is easier to implement than say, adding support for their lossless audio codec to the original iPod. I fear that Apple, fearing decreased iPod sales is purposely keeping even the most superficial features from their existing base. That is, needless to say, a bad precedent.
Giving us a few of these interface enhancements would require little development cost and would pay over time in continued brand loyalty. No person in their right mind is going to buy a whole new iPod just to get shuffle into their main menu. They will, however, remember how they didn’t get it when it’s time to get a new MP3 player. It’s time someone stepped up to the plate and remind us why we should continue buying iPods.
I’ve added pictures to my review of Radtech’s ScreenSavRz as well as my entry about my new futon. I took the pictures a little bit high-res so I’ll have to scale them down. Unfortunately, adding the pictures as part of the extended entry seems to be only a half-way solution as looking at June archived will bring up every entry in its entirity, including those pictures.
I wanted to avoid uploading the pictures using MovableType’s built-in web upload because it’s slow in pretty much every browser, but there seems to be no way to get MovableType to recognize pictures you’ve uploaded manually.
From MacMinute, Newsweek has the new iPod on its cover. Other new sites are saying that Monday will bring the formal announcement on the net.
New features include a clickable scroll-wheel (a la iPod Mini) and smaller size (physically, not storage). It looks to be a rather incremental upgrade.
This is the second time Apple has made public new announcements in a major magazine before announcing them otherwise. The first time was of course when the iMac G4 graced the cover of Time magazine. It was in fact possible to find out about the new iMac in Time before reading it on the net (other than through sites that basically referenced the article in Time).
Apple may need to be more careful if they want to retain the same kind of splash announcements. Unfortunately, the net has made communication so instantaneous and anonymous, it’s nearly impossible to coordinate an announcement when print is involved. Inevitably, either people involved with the magazine will spill the beans first, or the net and radio/television will publicize an announcement before the print announcement reaches its audience.
I believe it’s for this reason Apple has been sticking to Internet announcements mostly. It’s fast becoming the ubiquitous source for news. One can visit any newspaper’s website for free, or even Google News which aggregates news (and even provides email alerts). One can also fire up an RSS client and find out literally minutes after the announcement. It’s a rather rapid evolution in news. It’ll only be a matter of time before RSS (or some kind of successor) is used by the general public.
Now that I have my own domain, it’s time I did something with it. While hosting the OS X Forum FAQ for Macworld and my blog are nice, I feel like I need more.
I could have a forum, but I’m not sure how much I really need one, especially since I wouldn’t host Mac topics.
I could have polls, but I’m not sure if that’s real content on its own.
I could have a semi-news site with RSS feeds, but that’s been done to death.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
Apple announced during a coneference call, that G5 iMacs are on the way. Here’s my spin:
Apple must make the G5 iMac an entirely new form factor. I’m not talking about simply changing how it looks. It has stop being an all-in-one with little upgrade possibilities. The best form factor I think they could adopt would be that of the late G4 Cube. Putting the G4 Cube’s failings aside, I believe we can all agree that it had a large target audience. Those that want moderate expandability, flexibility as far as the display goes, and an inexpensive price. We all know that the G4 Cube’s failing was its price. Nothing else was wrong with the machine. Most of its customers were happy with the level of performance and expandability (the lack of PCI ports, etc. was not troublesome). In fact, many people were crying for a headless iMac. This I can go along with.
What I will not go along with is the little kids who insist that they need a G5 processor in their all-in-one, static video card iMac. It’s simply not necessary. It’s a waste of time and effort to put the G5 into the iMac as is. The only reason one might want a G5 in the iMac as is, would be for gaming, which makes no sense because of the video card included and the hard drive included. While the CPU is important during games, the video card is far more important, as is the amount of RAM. This brings up another point.
The same people screaming the loudest about a G5 in the iMac are the ones that don’t understand enough about their computer to properly diagnose the weak link. G5 is simply a buzzword to them and they have idea of the real advantages it supplies. Apple shouldn’t be catering to them and instead, should be focusing much more on getting the G5 into a Powerbook, whose customers are many fold more likely to require a G5 and know whether it is the source of their problems. Putting the G5 into a consumer machine for people that neither need or really know whether they really want a G5 while neglecting their bread and butter customers (Powerbook customers) will alienate their most loyal and profitable (because the Powerbooks bring in far more profit than iMacs) customers.
