

Steve @ Apple keynote--iTunes 9, new iPods (w/vid camera!), 50M iPhone + iPods - sama
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/09/live-from-apples-rock-and-roll-event/

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unalone
Anybody downloaded iTunes 9 yet? It's grotesque. It feels much snappier, which
I like, but the new non-Leopard theme feels like a satire on Apple product.
Massive overgradients.

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chris24
Let's just hope that Apple doesn't decide to adopt that as a new standard for
the next iteration of OS X, like they did with the iTunes sidebar...

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unalone
God, I know. I lost faith in Apple's taste a little bit when I downloaded
that. I love the new mini-scrollers, I love the playback bar that looks like
Quicktime X, but the gloss is obnoxious.

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unalone
Curious that the nano gets a camera, and a video camera at that, but the touch
doesn't.

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swilliams
My wild guess is that they feel it would cannibalize sales from the phone?

Cramming all the other features (FM, pedometer, camera/video) into the nano
will make menu navigation pretty complicated though.

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e1ven
Possible; My take is that this is what happens when products are developed
without strong leadership.

The Nano team internalized, and asked themselves "What have customers been
asking for", and added a radio and camera. The Radio seems to have come out of
nowhere- So far as I know, the iPhone/touch don't have them.

The iPhone/iPod touch team, on the other hand, continued to not add the
Camera, since it's a differentiating feature, as you suggested.

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rg
"The Radio seems to have come out of nowhere--So far as I know, the
iPhone/touch don't have them"

No, but the Zune player has long had FM radio, so best to dominate the
Microsoft competitor in all dimensions.

BTW, FM is very convenient if you have a dedicated old computer streaming
internet radio and connect it to a small-commercial-type FM transmitter; you
can then get FM reception of internet radio over all of even a large property,
automatically in time-sync, using existing audio equipment and "portable
radios" including the new Nano. (This is legal in the US, but not in all
countries.)

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ComputerGuru
Not really. You don't have any way of tuning to a different channel except
while sitting at the PC.

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avner
The very omission of the camera from the Ipod touch makes me wonder what their
design team was thinking. Sticking a camera on the ipod nano adds no value to
it than the camera on my old samsung cell phone.

A camera on the touch would have probably destroyed the market for some
devices and disrupted Apple's own iphone line.

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pyre
> _The very omission of the camera from the Ipod touch makes me wonder what
> their design team was thinking._

> _A camera on the touch would have probably [...] disrupted Apple's own
> iphone line._

I think that you answered you own question.

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odvious
This was my initial thought as well, but I just can't see myself saying "Hmm..
no camera in the iPod, guess I'll have to get the iPhone instead and just not
use the phone part of it." I doubt the camera functionality would ever be
enough to push people into the cost of a new phone (contracts, initial outlay,
etc.).

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pyre
I'm not saying I agree with the logic or that it makes sense in the real
world... I'm sure there is a lot of RDF in Cupertino. Not necessarily from
Steve Jobs, but just from being too much of a mono-culture.

I don't know if it's still the case, but IIRC the iPod Touch didn't have
Bluetooth support while the iPhone did. I can hardly think that Bluetooth
support would be enough to push someone to the iPhone from the iPod Touch...

Even back in the day, I remember things like Apple limiting the capabilities
of the video card in the iBook so that it would only support mirroring through
the external VGA adapter, even though the video card supported adding an extra
monitor as a separate display. (This was demonstrated when someone hacked
around the limiation in the OpenFirmware or driver, can't remember)

Apple does this stuff all the time in order to draw distinct lines in the sand
between where one product's features end and the other's begins. It's most
apparent between the iBook/MacBook and PowerBook/MacBookPro lines dating back
to the PPC days. There were many features they were excluded from the
'consumer' model (iBook/MacBook) that were present in the 'professional' model
(PowerBook/MacBook Pro) that were not enough for a lot of people to pay the
extra $700+ for the upgrade.

I've never thought that it made too much sense in a lot of cases, but it's an
ingrained philosophy in Apple's marketing/product design dating back years. I
would hardly expect them to end it now.

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dirtyaura
Dropping a feature like Bluetooth from iPod Touch totally makes sense. It has
nothing to do with segmentation.

In case of hardware or software that requires per device licensing, it's about
cost. Let's say that BT chipset costs $3 per device. They sell 30 million
iPods, it's 90 million dollars saved on a feature that very few iPod Touch
users cared about.

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pyre
Really? There are a lot of people with Bluetooth headsets now. I'm sure they
would love to pair that with their iPod Touch to also be able to listen to
music... Don't know what percentage of people that is though.

{edit} I would predict that it's equally possible that there are a lot of
users out there that don't care about Bluetooth on their phones either, but
that didn't stop Apple from cramming it into the iPhone {/edit}

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dirtyaura
Ah, Bluetooth was just an example I picked from previous comment. iPod Touch
actually has Bluetooth nowadays, it seems.

My point was that device manufacturers drop features from cheaper models
because of costs. "This won't make a difference how many units we sell, drop
it and we save $50 million!". Nokia does this all the time with their phones.
From outside, it can appear as an artificial segmentation, but it rarely is.

Now, cameraless iPod Touch? That's definitely deliberate segmentation.

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ujjwalg
I have been messing with genius for music in my iPhone and feel that pandora
does a much better job. It might be because genius has limited options and has
to search for songs within the library you own, but still, I have seen very
weird/not pertinent genius recommendations. I hope the app genius
recommendation is better.

~~~
tvon
I like Pandora for playing music I don't already have, but usually it seems to
end up in a ~20 track loop (I made that number up, but I feel like I hear the
same songs a lot). Granted, I have only made a few Pandora stations, and have
only made a few Genius playlists, and both were used for "gym" music like
Beastie Boys, Eminem, etc., so it's not like I'm pushing any limits here...

I guess I'm saying that the new music from Pandora is a big win. Now imagine
if Genius could mix in streams of music you don't own, while giving you an
option to buy tracks with a click... that would be a killer feature.

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pohl
I had the same problem with Pandora, and ultimately realized that you need to
seed your channel with a large, diverse collection of artists in order to
avoid getting trapped in a small loop like that. I don't want to futz with
setting up channels that much, though. Still, I've discovered some good music
with it.

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potatolicious
Disclaimer: I don't work for these guys.

I've found thesixtyone.com to be AWESOME for discovering good, indie music.
It's got a very social-networky-MMO sort of feel to it and is really well
structured to trying new music.

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pyre
Isn't a disclaimer for when you _do_ 'work for these guys?'

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pohl
That's how one usually sees it, but really a disclaimer is just "a statement
that denies something, especially responsibility". So one could read the
grandparent as 1) denying that he works for them 2) denying that he would know
as much about the service as someone who did, and 3) denying that he has any
conflict of interest that would call his assessment of the service into
question.

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philwelch
Good. A lot of speculation Steve would stop doing these, but it's a good
portion of his job to turn on the charisma for the press and the pubic.

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paulreiners
And the Beatles tomorrow (never knows)?

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phony_identity
Poor Steve is so thin. Can't tell you how sad this makes me.

