
Is the iPod Touch the New XP? - buckpost
http://www.markevanstech.com/2008/06/12/is-the-ipod-touch-the-new-xp/
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serhei
Here's my count of how well they fixed the "places for improvement" Steve
mentioned in the keynote:

1\. (3G) Done, though the other use of 3G they don't have covered is
multimedia. (Their ad copy for the iTunes store still instructs you to "find a
WiFi hotspot".)

2\. (Enterprise) Done.

3\. (Third Party Apps) More or less done, although there are a few
capabilities missing: scheduled reminders; playing sound in the background
(for music player-type apps).

4\. (More countries) They're doing it at an entirely reasonable pace.

5\. (More affordable) Cutting the down payment by $200 does not "more
affordable" make. With $10 more a month for a 3G plan, you end up forking over
_more_ cash than before over a two year period.

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mechanical_fish
Methinks that someone is jumping the gun. Yes, AT&T has "raised" the price of
their wireless plan... but it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, since the
new plan is 3G and the old one is not.

Now, if you want to argue that 3G isn't enough of an improvement to be worth
the premium price, I'll hear you. I have no experience, myself, so I have no
idea. I will note, though, that Apple has thoughtfully discounted the iPhone
3G to the point where the TCO over two years is within $30-$50 of what it has
been. So even if 3G turns out to be nearly worthless, I'll only be paying
about $3 extra per month over two years.

As for AT&T putting me over a barrel and raising their rates... I wouldn't put
it past them, but it would surely be a very stupid move, calculated to ensure
the loss of a double-digit percentage of their customers. And can they do that
during my contract? Cell phone contracts may be drawn up by Mephistopheles and
signed in blood, but they are _contracts_ , and I'm pretty sure that
threatening to unilaterally raise prices will invalidate them.

~~~
GrandMasterBirt
To make a complete Apples to Apples comparison we need to see if the beefed up
plan pricing applies to ALL AT&T phones using the 3G capabilities or only
iPhone.

What would be nicer is if we could get an iPhone for the sprint network :P

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mcormier
This article is about the iPod touch, not the iPhone guys (serhei , dougp).
The touch is not the new XP. XP was superceded by Vista whereas the touch and
the iPhone are two distinct products.

I expect features from the new iPhone to slowly get rolled into the iPod touch
(i.e. GPS) but not any time soon, so as not to steal the iPhone's thunder. The
usual apple market strategy of changing a product or two slightly every six
months will ensue.

~~~
dougp
Right but the article is comparing the iPhone to vista and the touch to xp.
Basically he is saying that being locked in to a single service provider is an
anti feature similar to all the drm in vista so we should all stick with xp
(the touch)

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dbreunig
This metaphor is stretched to say the least.

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blang
Do we have any numbers on iTouch sales so far? The plan on the iPhone 1.0, was
on the expensive side, but I still assume that its adoption rate was higher
than the iTouch(based on the fact that I know people that have iPhones but no
one that owns an iTouch).

I just don't see the added value of the iTouch if there is no phone, and city
wide(let alone nation wide) free wifi hotspots are still not realized, because
there is no guarantee of connectivity.

~~~
mechanical_fish
If you lived in Vermont, where (last I knew) you still cannot get an AT&T
wireless signal anywhere in the state, you might think differently.

~~~
tom
Facing South (towards Rt 12), standing at the highest point overlooking Silver
Lake in Barnard - I can get 1 bar with my iPhone - barely. Yes, AT&T's
coverage is essentially non-existent in VT. When I'm up there though, this is
a positive ...

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dougp
I would hope that apple has some control over plan price increases. It would
be very bad for apple if the carriers they wed themselves too start behaving
"badly".

~~~
raganwald
Looking at Apple's business with the music labels and now with the carriers,
they seem to have taken "Where there's muck, there's brass" to heart (thanks,
Paul). Their business model seems to be cleaning up the muck, first in music
and now in telephony.

I expect an ongoing struggle between Apple's philosophy (simple,
straightforward products and pricing) and their partners' philosophies (pay
for a song, pay for a ringtone from that song, pay for the bits to move the
song over the air, pay for the bits to move the ringtone over the air, system
acccess fees, &c.)

Oh wait, I forgot: and what you pay differs depending on whether "over the
air" is wifi or 3G. Muck indeed, Apple has an Augean task ahead of itself.

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GrandMasterBirt
500 bucks for a 32GB iPod touch? Damn I can get an EEE PC for that price,
install windows xp on it and have everything the iPhone has, xept I can plug
DVDs into it.

This is pure insanity.

~~~
raganwald
"I can get an EEE PC for that price, install windows xp on it and have
everything the iPhone has"

I hope you realize that you can have everything the iPhone has _that you
perceive you want_ , not everything the iPhone has. I trudge into this thread
wearily, since I have been privy to this debate since the 1980s.

But do you think, just maybe, that while you do not care for it, there are
others who value the design inherent in an iPod's hardware and software that
gives them value compared to Windows XP?

~~~
GrandMasterBirt
Compared to XP yes. No question. I just dislike the fact that having an iPod
or iPhone gives me a great piece of hardware that can't run any software, not
because nobody makes it, but because Apple won't allow it.

With the EEE I am not limited to what Asus states are acceptable programs to
run. Thats pretty much it. The down side of the EEE is that it does not fit in
my pocket.

