Like many other people who are Apple fans, I spent the past hour and a half reading updates from the new announcements from Apple. The big news: new iPod Nano plays video, iPod (now iPod Classic) has up to 160 GB of storage space, a new iPod Touch, and the iPhone was discounted. New software includes a WiFi iTunes Music Store for downloads.
My initial reaction? I was excited, really excited. The iPod Touch was everything hardware-wise I have been waiting for from Apple, and I really like the new iPod Nano. The discount of the iPhone makes it that much easier for my wife to want one. The hardware looks slick, nice, and easy to use. I'm looking forward to playing with some at the Apple Store.
What I was hoping for, particularly with the imminent release of Leopard and the Calendar Server, is a better Calendar for the iPhone/iPod Touch. To date, the calendar system will sync easily with your iCal on the Mac, but creates a new calendar entry for each new event you add. Why? Because it's poorly designed. If you want to appeal to business people, you need to have a real, functioning calendar that syncs easily. Quite frankly, Pocket Outlook is better in this regard (or I should say ActiveSync).
Other than that, It's a beautiful line up, and will probably sell well this Christmas season. I know a lot of people were hoping for a iPhone Nano, but it's quite frankly too soon for that to happen. They just barely shipped the one millionth iPhone, and still have another year to make ten million. So, they dropped the price. I think that $399.00 is a little easier to justify for an 8GB iPod with a phone.
And for all those that don't want to have to deal with a phone, you have the iPod Touch. This device, in my mind, has the best potential as a PDA than any other, even the iPhone. Why? Because it runs OS X (same as the iPhone), and can be opened up a lot easier for new software. As Steve Jobs said before, he wants to be sure that the phone works as a phone, and not break because of poorly coded software. The iPod Touch is an excellent test bed for any new software to go to the iPhone.
But, new development libraries were not announced. Perhaps it's because they didn't want to distract from the music, perhaps because they didn't expect developers there. Hopefully Apple will announce development tools for the iPod Touch in January (or even better, in October with OS X 10.5), and have them available for developers soon. That will really drive the market, I bet. Imagine, World of Warcraft running on your iPod. ^_^
So, what do we really need? Development tools. That being said, the hardware is exactly what I had hoped for as a replacement for the iPhone. It's going to be hard to justify not getting one when my wife wants her iPhone. ^_^
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