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Sound like he gets it! Today's line-up is great. Its going to be very hard for the competition to catch up.

Guess I was first....never had that happen!

Sorry I had to say that.

As I said before, maybe they will be introducing the iPhone to Europe at the Paris Expo on September 25. The price drop would be timed just right for that event.

if you're gonna try for first post... you need to write shorter more concise sentences... like : FIRST POST! Then you will get all the haters on your back all about how lame that is.

Now I can just buy a nano for each of my kids instead of a portable DVD and they can watch TV shows, movies etc for cheap. This is great..

I have to admit that the announcement today is huge. I just cannot understand why the stock market is so negative - is there something I have missed?

The world will be awash in video....

Negative stock market move is the typcail "buy the hype, sell the news". It is also worried that the iPhone price cut is a sign of slow sales.

And on a second note, I'm a little irked about the iPhone price cut. I'd take a $100 Apple store credit or iTunes credit or a free copy of Leopard and I will not be upset in the least bit anymore and continue to praise Apple for their great support, and handling of customers.

Hey Scott, early adopters always pay more for less.

Killer products from Apple. AAPL may be down now but its gonna go WAY up when these products are gobbled up by the masses. Wahoo, I want an iPod Touch.

Whew!!
There wasn't a Madonna tie-in!

*breathing normally again...*

Incredilbe new line up for the iPods. I told a few people at work about the HUGE price drop in the iPhone and there was a lot of excitment. This is going to sell a lot of iPhones.

Now if they can just get them to squirt.

And yet the stocked tanked.

My thoughts are the same as the analyst's: The other guys are in trouble. Why buy a crappy Dingle... er... Blackberry that's so last year when I can get an iPhone? And the Nokia iClone is gonna have to be pared down even more to compete (not that they could, given Apple's multi-touch patents). Then there's the added value of Apple's software updates. My iPhone, in just a few days, will have the wonderful new wifi iTMS on it. And I didn't have to pay an extra penny for it. Can the other guys match this?

@BHB: When does Apple stock not tank after a new product announcement? Happens every time. Consider this a buying opportunity.

"And on a second note, I'm a little irked about the iPhone price cut. I'd take a $100 Apple store credit or iTunes credit or a free copy of Leopard and I will not be upset in the least bit anymore and continue to praise Apple for their great support, and handling of customers."

Why waste the money when all you'll do is bitch and complain while remaining perched on Steve Jobs' dick? It's not like you're going anywhere. You'll continue to praise Apple regardless once you're done with the hissy fit.

I thot the nano would be bumped up to 2 gigs and I'm still baffled why the iPod touch doesn't have email.
(Yes, I know that you can access e-mail thru Safari, but it's not the same.)

Otherwise, buh,bye to everyone else in the smartphone, mp3 player market. MS, Creative, Real, etc., they just look so double-knit-polyester-leisure-suitish.

Whoops, i meant the shuffle to 2 gigs…

@R2

"Perched on Steve Jobs' dick"

A classic!

Precariously or firmly?

Regarding the competition, it's like in Tennis when the chair umpire says "game, set, match".

Stock drop today wasn't all about Apple. The entire market dropped on negative economic news in the housing market.

> Whoops, i meant the shuffle to 2 gigs…

Two gigabytes with no screen would not be a good user experience. That's why it says 1GB at $79. If anything, Apple should reduce the price to $69.

160GB of storage in an iPod is unbelievable. Not even the best MacBook Pro has more storage, and that's a 2.5-inch drive. Flash storage is getting bigger at lower cost, but Toshiba is certainly keeping pace with their miniature hard drives.

Question, MDN'ers:

What's your take on why the new iPod Touch doesn't have the aforementioned 160MB hard drive in it, instead of the anemic 16GB flash?

What's Apple's strategy here?

Just think - you can now backup your entire MacBook Pro on an ipod!

Bloody amazing!!

In other news today, M$ dropped the price of its Zune to $50.00!

re: Question, MDN'ers:

What's your take on why the new iPod Touch doesn't have the aforementioned 160MB hard drive in it, instead of the anemic 16GB flash?

What's Apple's strategy here?

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Personaly I think if they had announced an ipod touch with a massive 160gb storage it would have made the ipod classic obsolete straight away.

I also think that it might have impacted iphone sales as the 2 products are visually almost identical (except one isnt a phone ofc).

When SJ announced the ipod touch my first thought was do I need to buy an iphone now?

After an hour I decided that I need the iphone functionality and not just another ipod, however amazing it is.

So if I thought this on the announcement then maybe others did too - considering that people are miffed that the ipod touch does not have an email app on it.

I'm a 'lil upset that waited in line 3 hours and I paid $1000 for two 4Gig iPhones ... the LEAST Apple could have done at this point for its loyal customers is issue a $100 itunes store credit. I will NEVER stand in line to buy another Apple anything...

Maybe we should stop buying MacBooks & Pros for a while so that Apple will price those more reasonably as well.

everyone's stock is going down. The market is reacting to events way beyond the scope of Apple's announcements

Sorry if you feel you were cheated at buying a $600 iPhone, but it goes with the territory. When you buy things that come out first, you have to expect to pay a premium. I didn't cry when I bought a new laser printer in the mid 90's for $1500- my first laser printer only printed 8 pages per minute and cost $2300. More people buy, the better the technology gets and the lower the cost goes- very simple economics. Just be happy that you were one of the first to have an iPhone- there are many people out there that hated you for a few months...now it's their turn to get one too.

Enough already about the iPhone price drop. If you were a little more patient, you would have been spending less for it. Now a mere 8 weeks later, I will walk into an Apple store, without any long lines, pick up an iPhone for $399 and walk out a happy man. You wanted to be first, well you were first. Was that worth the money?

Why would you need the iPod Classic if you had an 80 gig or 160 gig iPod touch? (Even a 30 gig iPod touch would have been cool.)

Maybe they just wanted to cover certain price points.

Apple could simplify it's product lineup that way. You've got to admit that at this point, the iPod line is a little cumbersome. I predict that within a year, the classic and the touch will be merged into one product.

The price of solid state memory is extremely expensive. It would not be feasible to do 80 or 160 g at this point. One thing to do is to follow the pricing for the new SD cards. The price points appear to parallel these.

@newsman: In a word, "yes," it was worth every penny. I have enjoyed my iPhone for two months, and have zero regrets about its cost.

Didn't Apples stock drop when iPhone launched.
Ok, not as big... but it did.

And later - it was mentioned that it dropped due to the use of GLASS covering the product, and cost in choosing the material over plastic.

If so - it drops cos stock holders are SCARED... and jump out quick if they not like the news... BUT good reviews, days later, happy customers, success rolls in... and the stock rebounds.

This tells me a lot of stock holders are not Apple Fans... but ride the wave only because Apple is a GREAT thing right now.

However, the customers are DRIVING this company... to success - as it should be. Apple continues to find a way to innovate and please the crowds and buyers... and that is what is important.

stan

HERE is my EDUCATED GUESS as to why the

iPhone
and iPodTouch
and the soon MacSlate
will NEVER use a miniature
MatchBox size Hard Drive
as used in the iPodClassic.

MiniHardDrives produce much more heat then Flash memory.
When such a structure as the iPhone are slimmed to such thin sizes there is an issue with the Multi-Touch Sensory screen AND placement of the MiniHD. So, the only solution is FLASH memory.

We all would love the new 32 Gb or soon 64 Gb Flash memory that PANASONIC leads with... but they sell at high premiums.
So - Apple has settled to wait, yet give customers the best available solution and experience now with 16 Gb.

Dr. Doolittle

Apple prices their product extremely competitive.

You best LOOK at the spec's harder... I think perhaps you are not a wise consumer.

The only lacking spec Apple has on most computer products is that they do not PUMP up the RAM to their competitions prices... but then the price is typically lower. And equate when factoring that in.

So you may ask why not PROVIDE consumers with more RAM... well an efficient OS as X is requires less then VISTA.
Hmmmmmmm you been MILKED again.

COMPARE apples to apples dude

And when used correctly the new iPods are 99% effective at birth control.

SD Cards are FLASH memory.

I have wondered why APPLE has not decided to add an SD slot to any of these products.

THAT has been done on the competitions models.
RCA, Benq etc. It's nice to have... and has a RETRO feel like inserting a 8-track or a Sony MiniCD.

It also would on the other hand slow consumers to upgrade their products though. I understand the marketing move... but APPLE should do it... specially on iPhone, iPodTouch and the soon MacSlate.

Oooops - I was sworn to never reveal the next product.

Ok - someone at MDN please scrub my text about the un-named device.

dd

Hahahaha

Ok I am agreeing with your HEAT to TOUCH SCREEN reasoning.

Cos, the multi-touch uses locations of your finger tips and the heat they give off.

So sounds reasonable.

I do little (sorry) to test this... cos I not have iPhone.

CAN any iPhone owner TELL me if a PENCIL tip or plastic pointer be used to navigate an iPhone... or only the HEAT or your human flesh.... ugh gross.

j

Yes darlings, I love Apple too.

Hey, a MacSlate that would be a sweet name.
Can they make it at least 17" wide. I would buy a slate... no keyboard, runs on flash memory, hope it gets multi-SD slots also.

kisses

I like the colors of the previous nanos and shuffles better. These colors are cool but they seem a little pastel maybe? the others were more bold and bright. My only other thing is the fact that they still dont make the ipod classic in more colors and the ipod touch come on people lets get a little color on it. black is boring.

anyway just my 2 cents. I do like how they kept the ipod classic for those who need the big hard drive or prefer the look and feel of the ipod now vs ipod touch. Then they got the ipod touch for those who want that. Its cool i got to say that.

MS watch out apple is making you look bad again. Not that you dont do that well on your own

i thought this made sence actually. rather than putting multiple memory modules in a device, they use bigger ones. now theres no 4 gig nanos, they are buying less of the 4gig modules, thererfore the price goes up. with the extra 8gig modules from the ipod touch, they will get cheaper. it makes sence to can 4gig, and its possible they are not even loosing any margin on the 8 gig because of the volume of modules they are buying now.

Well, I suspect the next iPod refresh will launch the iPod touch with hard disk drive. And the next iPhone will have 3G (for $499).

So do I wait until next April (or earlier if sales aren't wicked good) or do I just get iPod touch now?

@Dr Doolittle...

The touch screen is capacitive so wouldn't be adversely affected by a hard disk. However, what I think Apple are doing here is trying to make the Touch iPod as similar to the iPhone as possible to benefit from the economies of scale available through their joint sales volume.

After all, the two units could be made to be close to identical if built to a modular design - swap out the phone PCB, swap in the extra flash PCB, etc... Same chipsets are no doubt used and many of the same external components. Introducing an HDD to the mix would have meant too many component changes and the Touch would have become another unique product line in most respects so costing a lot more per unit (not to mention the design costs...)

I suspect there will be no HDD Touch, instead we'll just see increasing storage models released as memory prices are reduced.

Heres some info I got hold of about the Zune 2.

-----

This infomation was posted on the Zuneinsider blog. It was erased.

That was a mistake for me to do that. I apologize to Ceaser.


My friend works for Microsoft. His position is not important as this information could lead to his termination if it could be traced to him.

He does not work in the Zune department but is privy to bits a pieces.

He gave me this news because he felt there should be something put forward to assuage the frustration of Zune users. He did not wish to risk himself by posting this on his own.

I had wanted to post this closer to the actual announcement date of the Zune, but I feel that now seems to be the best of times as demand is very high for news.

The New Zune(s) as there will be more than 2, WILL have the following:

Greater video codec support (Mpeg, Avi, Wmv) are a given, codec support for DivX is also in the mix.

Audio support for lossless formats.

Wi-Fi store and podcasting support

"net radio "

The ability to stream video and audio to another Zune, to and from the Xbox (wired and wireless) or to and from a PC

Software is "completely redone". There will be a regular and "mini" version.

"Form factors will surprise you"

Homebrew kits may or may not be ready for the announcement date.

There are also "dozens" of updates on the firmware side that "could fill a magazine". I don't know what that means, but I'm sure a clock is in there somewhere.

"They have worked like dogs and have been paying attention to you"


As to why no updates for the past year? He does not say. I wont pry as it may uncover his ID.

The big reveal is in "weeks" and will put the "Steve show to shame".

This is all I could get out of him.


- ZuneNf0 out

-----

Randian -

"What's your take on why the new iPod Touch doesn't have the aforementioned 160MB hard drive in it, instead of the anemic 16GB flash?"

That would be pretty killer, but it would also kill battery life and be pretty thick. Still, I'd love to see one of these with a built-in or optional CompactFlash card reader so I could backup my digital photos in the field. Oh, yeah, don't forget the ability to display RAW files. For the traveling photographer, that would be sweet.

Not holding my breath.

wow... I can now get a Mac mini in my pocket! Welcome to iTouch.
Sure 16GB sounds like nothing compared to 160GB... The difference is although the Classic and Touch are similar form factors, the battery budget had to be spent wisely. Apples choice of WiFi, instead of WiFi and Hard Drive in the iTouch, makes sense, since the battery use would have been too short with both.
MacOS X in this small a package - sure we've seen it in the iPhone... but for the rest of us that either can't get reasonably priced cell phone coverage/data rates, the iTouch with it's more capable OS, integrated keyboard (try typing on a Classic!), WiFi, and ease of use, have a lot of potential.

I would also say that the iPhone price cut would have received less complaints had Apple maintained the 8GB at the reduced price, and brough in the 16GB at the $599 price. It's obvious that will come soon. (see 16GB is already there in the iTouch)

So, with 3 weeks to go before the iTouch ships, lots of things can still happen...

I like Gartenberg's one-word first-take on the new iPod line:

Wow!

http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/archives/2007/09/apple_introduce_2.html