Macenstein

Like most Apple fanboys with no self control, I was unable to wait for Apple’s keynote stream to hit the web, and instead I nearly wore out my “refresh” finger reading the Engadget and Gizmodo feeds.

So, now that it is all done, and I have had 3 minutes to digest it all, how do I feel about the event? Well, let’s find out as we take a tour, via stolen borrowed pictures from Gizmodo‘s and Engadget‘s coverage of the Let’s Rock event.

photo via Gizmodo

Yes, apparently, although I am not sure I would have said “greatly”. Rumors had predicted we would see a much healthier-looking, slightly more plump Steve than we saw at Macworld, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Of course, “skinny” doesn’t mean “dying”, and it’s nice to see Steve acknowledge the reports and poke fun at them. If anything, I think we can take away that whatever health issues Steve may have, HE does not believe them to be life threatening, because if they were, joking about them on stage like that would be pretty tough for his family, and Steve has more class than that. So I’m taking this at face value, and therefore this is my favorite slide of the afternoon.

photo via Engadget

Wow. I take it as a severe sign of mental illness that I want to buy all 9 of these, and just line them up. Anyone thinking of sending me one should send me the orange, and you can contact me here for the mailing address.

Now, as for the nanos themselves, yes, they are very cool, and I like the new design more than the previous fatboy model. Unfortunately, it’s true what they say, and “Once you go Apps, you never go back”, so until I can play app store games on it, I don’t think a nano is is my buying future (but again, feel free to send me one).

photo via Engadget

Well, I don’t really care about the environment – my 6 year old daughter and I are drawing up plans for our own rocket ship and we plan to find a new clean planet to live on in the next couple of years, so while this is nice, it doesn’t really affect my buying decision one way or the other. The only green I care about in the nano is the new metallic green finish.

photo via Engadget

In all, I would say the nano is the perfect media player for my dad. He doesn’t care about the app store and games, his fingers are too big and clumsy to navigate a touch screen, and all he cares about is music. He might use the video feature occasionally, but now that the touch is thinner and has the Nike+, the nano isn’t really even exclusive for the workout crowd.

On a different topic, I would think a clip from Superbad might have been more current. Apple is so living in 2004 with the Napoleon clip.

photo via Engadget

Yeah, I don’t think we’ll be buying those…

photo via Engadget

Nike+ integration is sweet. Now, is there any reason it is not built in to the iPhone as well? Isn’t Nike+ just Bluetooth? Here’s hoping the 2.1 firmware update this Friday enables iPhone Nike+ integration.

photo via Engadget

Hmmm… now, out of all the pictures Engadget could have turned on its side to illustrate just how thin the new iPod touch is, did they have to use this one? Is the idea that the touch is “so thin, it even makes Steve Jobs look fat?” Or am I reading too much into that?

photo via Engadget

OK, well the good news is whatever weight Steve has lost, Phil Schiller has apparently gained. So they’re keeping it in the family.

photo via Engadget

Yeah, it sure looks that way. Although Apple told us all a year ago that the iPhone was the best iPod they ever made, so I think that the iPhone is actually the funnest, followed by the touch as the 2nd funnest.

photo via Engadget

Wow. The 2.1 firmware update. It DOES exist after all! Steve says “This is a big update, it fixes lots of bugs. Fewer dropped calls, big battery life improvements. No crashes with Apps. Backing up is faster“.
Nothing bad about that! Of course, it might be cooler if he had been able to say that about the version 2.0.0 firmware, and that 2.1 had “Nike+ integration, copy/paste, tethering, and more“, but we’ll find out Friday just what this bad boy is packing.

photo via Engadget

Well, that’s one way to end a “Let’s Rock” event. Nothing against Jack Johnson, but there wasn’t all that much “rocking” about this event, and AC/DC or Buckcherry or some band with balls might have been nice. Maybe they wanted to give the journalists some relaxing Starbucks music to blog to.

Conclusion

In all, some nice upgrades, but mainly incremental. It looks like the end of the road for the iPod classic. iTunes 8 seems OK, but nothing ground breaking there. We all knew HD would come to the store one day and NBC would bow to the mighty iTunes. As for the Genius feature, basically they borrowed Pandora’s suggestion feature, but without the ability to wirelessly play media from your home computer, as many had hoped for, it amounts to a nice add on but not the killer feature Apple is trying to tel us it is.

The highlight and lowlight of the day were both shared by the touch. The biggest let down was the lack of price drops and storage bumps in the touch, but the biggest boon is the speaker and volume buttons on the touch, so I guess they even out and I will be buying a couple of those in the future (unless some of you guys want to send me a touch, in which case you can contact me here.