The Daily Ping

I purchased my current iPod back in aught-five, before we had things such as a recession and the brilliance of So You Think You Can Dance. It’s served me pretty well in the past four years. I did have to replace the battery once, at a cost of an hour of my time and thirty bucks, but other than that it’s been remarkably good at doing what it does.

Still, I’ve been kind of tempted by Apple’s newer iPods. Apple announced updates to its line yesterday and there are some good and not-as-good things about them. But one thing that’s true, still, is that Apple is really good at positioning these things.

There’s a fair amount of hue and cry over the fact that the iPod touch doesn’t have a camera and yet the iPod nano does. While it only shoots VGA video let’s be honest here: it’s a video camera in a device less than an inch thick. That is pretty amazing, don’t you think?

And yeah, I’d like the iPod touch to have a camera – specifically, a video camera which shoots 720p. But as it stands, and as pointed out by a coworker yesterday, Apple has changed its marketing to the point where each iPod is being sold as a very different device from the other.

You want a futuristic, voice-enabled super tiny player? iPod shuffle. You want a tiny device that has a pedometer, FM radio with pausing, a video camera, and a mess of space for music and media? iPod nano. You want to buy apps and play games? iPod touch. You have as many MP3s as Ryan has albums? iPod classic.

It’s separating out the devices to sell more of them. Will it work? Well, as I said, the consensus on various Mac sites I read is negative – saying that because device x didn’t have feature y, Apple is out of steam. But to be honest they’re going to continue selling a mess of these things. People won’t be buying them strictly because they’re iPods anymore; portable music players are nearing commodity level due to market saturation. Instead, they’ll be buying them for the other things they do… which is exactly what Apple was selling yesterday.

So, will I replace mine? Not yet. There are features I like in the nano, and there are features I like in the touch, and I’m a snob and don’t want to have to choose. I’m sure the device I’m looking for will exist in a few years, if not just one year, so I can hang on.

Posted in Technology