I don’t suffer from the illusion that people actually read this blog, but I figured I would take a few minutes and jot down some thoughts on today’s Apple hoopla…although I have to question whether an iPod event really merits the term “hoopla”. To be honest, the first I had heard of this was when I was at lunch today and MSNBC was speculating. I figured it was about time for Apple to update their iPods, but I only get a new one when I get a new Mac, and it will be some time before I get a new Mac…and even though I’ve got one of the newer Touches, I pretty much use it exclusively for Pandora and iTunes media.
Anyways, here’s another knee-jerk reaction to today’s news:
iPods
I wasn’t surprised to see that Apple finally put a camera in an iPod Touch. Adding a second camera was a bit intriguing, but given that FaceTime is a WiFi only app right now, there wasn’t any valid reason to leave it off, other than the slices of revenue Apple gets from every iPhone. Adding an A4 processor would be nice if you had games that have heavy resource demands, but my older third generation Touch seems to do fine and will probably keep running iOS for a long time to come.
What I find more interesting is that Apple didn’t update their iPod Classic. Granted, at this point you’re just slapping bigger hard drives in the same device; even Apple would have a hard time making a “revolutionary, magical” device that relies on a click wheel. Apparently people still buy the things, because Apple still sells them, but I give this model two more years before it’s taken out back behind the shed.
AppleTV
Years after releasing the first AppleTV, Apple has finally updated their little side project. I got an AppleTV as a gift at the end of a summer internship (it was kind of an awesome internship) two years ago, and while it wasn’t an investment I would have considered making on my own at the time, I have really come to appreciate having the AppleTV. It takes couch-potato-ing to a whole new level; now I don’t even have to get up to change DVDs.
That said, I am completely unmoved by the new AppleTV. Some people might jump at the $99 price tag…but I am not one of those people. A 140GB AppleTV cost $229; for a little less than half that price, I could upgrade to a device with 0GB of storage. Doesn’t seem like much of an upgrade to me. I realize streaming is all the rage now, but here’s why removing the hard drive is a deal-killer for me:
1. I have $20/month, 1Mbps Internet. I could get something faster, but it streams Hulu just fine, and I’m a patient man when it’s time to download some TV shows on iTunes. Plus there’s fiber at the office that I could use if I was really in a hurry.
2. Local storage is awesome when you’re moving into a new apartment and don’t have your Internet set up. Yes, you could bring your laptop and set up your wireless network and stream off of that, but I like the thought that my AppleTV can have no network connectivity and still entertain me. iTunes manages to freak out on my AppleTV often enough, but at least when it does that and I can’t stream anymore, I can still go local.
3. Wireless streaming is nice, but how many people really have an ideal wireless setup? Every time I try streaming something in HD from my iMac and I heat something up the microwave, my wireless tanks from the interference. And this is with an AirPort base station, not a $50 Linksys AP. Yes, you could use Ethernet and avoid wireless problems altogether, but running patch cables everywhere is ungainly and it harshes the vibe.
Speaking of Ethernet…what on Earth does Apple have against Gigabit? The only devices I can think of that still have Fast Ethernet ports on them are IP phones and wireless APs, and even those are starting to gigabit because it’s just not that much more expensive. Equally odd is that they stuck an N radio in the device which can get anywhere from 108Mbps to 300Mbps, but their wired adapter can only manage 100Mbps. Figure that one out.
Also gone are the options to connect the AppleTV to anything but an HDMI-equipped set. I realize a lot of TVs have HDMI now…but again, would it have killed them to add a few inches and another 8 ounces and give us the option for component video out?
If my AppleTV died tomorrow, I’d replace it with a Mac Mini. More expensive, yes. Louder, yes (barely). But the Mini has an HDMI port and I can stream Hulu on it without hacking the device. The one nice feature that I hope will make it to the older AppleTV (rather unlikely in reality) in a software update would be the wireless streaming feature from an iPod Touch. I like the thought of being able to download TV shows at the office, sync them to my iPod Touch on my work laptop, leave the laptop at the office, and stream off the iPod Touch. Now if only we can get that whole wireless sync down…
iTunes 10
I realize I’m now pushing 1000 words on this post, so I’ll keep my thoughts on iTunes 10 brief. In short, it looks pretty nice; the TV episode rental option looks like an almost appealing choice for shows I want to watch that are either too short (Family Guy, American Dad, Community, and pretty much anything else 30 minutes long) to justify a $2.99 price tag or not something I’d want to keep around and eating up space on my NAS. I see more value in that feature as a “watch what I can’t see anymore on Hulu” than a “watch what I could find on Hulu but don’t want to wait for and don’t have as part of my cheap cable” option. Given that the average season of TV is approximately 16-24 episodes long, that’s pretty much in line with the cost of buying the DVD of the season; it might be something I’d be willing to try at some point.
AirPlay is the other feature I find somewhat intriguing. I was a big fan of AirTunes from the moment I got my AirPort Express a few years ago, but from day one I had issues with streaming consistently. I sincerely hope Apple has worked out the bugs with that. I just wish that I didn’t need to upgrade my stereo receiver to something wickedly expensive so that I could leverage AirPlay. Suggested workaround for making this feature work on your Sony equipment and old AppleTV at home: plug the AppleTV’s auto out into the receiver and use your remote for that. Problem solved, $500 saved.
Finally, Ping wins the award for most useless feature in iTunes since their Radio option. If Apple wanted to find a way to tie Facebook into iTunes, they should have just bought Facebook. They’ve got enough cash to do it two or three times over at the ridiculously overvalued figure that Microsoft established when they bought a stake a year or two ago. I like Lady GaGa and will even admit after a drink or two that I like Ke$ha, but I have no interest in seeing what kind of music they like. Unless Ke$ha also has a thing for the works of a certain Martin O’Donnell, in which case I might have to go about getting that girl’s number…
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