Mac Chick of The Month

Apple’s most ironically named event, ever

September 9, 2009 by Dr. Macenstein
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Cynicism, That's Weird..., Updates, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPod nano, iPod shuffle

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

Well, Apple’s “It’s only Rock ‘n Roll, but I like it” event has come to a close, and it had virtually nothing to do with Rock ‘n Roll, or even music in general. Sure, just about every announcement made today had something to do with the iPod, iPhone, or iTunes, yet it was all about apps, video cameras, price drops, and pedometers.

So, what did Apple announce? Well, new iPod touches with more capacity, faster processors (presumably matching the iPhone 3G S) and bigger storage (even bigger than the iPhone). New iPod nanos – also with video cameras – as well as a built-in pedometer for workouts and an FM radio (what? No AM!?!?!) The shuffle got no love, but did receive a price drop, so maybe someone will buy it now.

But the big news is iTunes 9, which got a major revamp to accommodate ~~music~~ apps. Yes, new Genius features for recommending apps you might like based on your buying preferences, new iPhone/iPod touch application managing from within iTunes, and new application ranking charts to make developers happier. Top it all off with the new iPhone/iPod touch OS 3.1, and you have a music-less announcement rivaling a Mac Pro unveiling. Even the much rumored Beatles announcement was a no-show. Sure, Apple announced they would now offer LP bundles for some albums which will tack on music videos and photos to Album purchases, but since iTunes pretty much single-handedly killed the album format, this two-minute announcement hardly warranted taking over the event poster.

All in all it was a pretty decent (albeit expected) series of nice hardware updates, and a nice update to iTunes (that should have come 2 years ago).

One more thing

But of course to any true Apple fan, the fact that we got to see Steve Jobs back on stage and standing on his own power was the biggest thrill of the afternoon (although I would have personally preferred to see him walk through some sort of hoop or something to prove there were no wires controlling him).

Every time you submit our site, an Angel gets its wings.

Tags:

Comments

6 Comments on Apple’s most ironically named event, ever

Maverick on Wed, 9th Sep 2009 2:51 pm

Doc,

No cameras in the new iPod touches!!

http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/specs.html

-Mav

Dr. Macenstein on Wed, 9th Sep 2009 2:55 pm

@Maverick,
whoops! Thanks Maverick! Gotta work on the comprehension…among other things.
- The Doc

Ifireun on Wed, 9th Sep 2009 3:00 pm

What a major disappointment - I was eager to upgrade my iPod Touch, but the new 32/64 Touches are designed for one thing - to get you to buy more apps, music and video from iTunes. No camera, no built-in microphone, no longer interested.

I won’t even touch that ridiculous 3.1 OS and I have no further interest in an iPod with earbuds with the remote and microphone (which are best tossed into the garbage as Apple earbuds fit poorly and sound bad). I’ll keep my audiophile earbuds and enjoy my music, not slay it…

Gonna wait four more months to see if the finally get the iPod right or release a tablet.

metalman777 on Wed, 9th Sep 2009 4:36 pm

I was hoping for video and mic for the iPod touch as well. I have no interest in buying a nano with video..

Maverick on Wed, 9th Sep 2009 7:24 pm

Agreed, lack of camera is a major loss. Wonder if it’s just because they want something else “new” to introduce next year… or maybe just something else to persuade users into buying an iPhone instead.

Chris on Thu, 10th Sep 2009 9:55 am

I believe with these smaller events they’re going to have to not hype up the reveals as much as prior year’s ginormous public events. With such minor updates it hardly warrants a showing - especially if the updates are trivial… possibly to set the bar a little low for a bigger reveal down the road, but that seems a bit contrived.

Consumers don’t need another lo-res digital camera, and if they do… it should be quite a bit more then that craptastic camera packed in those little things - almost any mobile phone has a decent camera, a shuffle is not going to dent that market - enough with the cameras.

They can genius and datamine all they want, I’ve not purchased any apps beyond what I needed - nothing else out there is really going to do the job any better then the few software apps that I have - all the other apps I have are free demo apps and fill the small bit of time while waiting around for something else to happen - lol.

I think the incremental advances in the iPod Touch is a concentrated effort to push consumers into just getting the iPhone - i.e. the speaker-less design and then oooh, a new built-in speaker… oh now hold them off for another six months and then throw in a camera…

I guess It’s a good test model to see how these smaller cameras fit into such small form factors but I’m not sure how it helps the overall product line when they should test it in the iPod Touch before a public release.

I’m actually surprised they didn’t put a decent HD capable camera in the classic iPod since it has the largest bump in physical storage/hard drive space… I probably would have replaced my old 30GB model with a new one for video storage and immediate playback.

Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!