Apple updates iPod family
by Volker Weber
Apple updates the iPod line. This was overdue since the iPod Photo was not selling well. It was simply too expensive and looking at photos on the the tiny screen just was not worth the 100 dollars they were asking for the 40 gig model.
Apple brought the price for the iPod photo 60 down by 149 while maintaining all features. The smaller iPod photo went from 40 gig down to 30 gig. But if you are looking at the current bestseller, the 20 gig b/w model, you will now get a color screen, plus 10 gig, plus photo capabilities for just $50 more, things might finally change for the color iPods.
Apple has an iPod now at almost every price point. Shuffles at 100 and 150, minis at 200 and 250, b/w at 300, and color at 350 and 450. Where is the 40 gig photo at 400? :-)
Comments
I am amazed at Apple's ability to monitor their market and adjust so quickly and accuratley to what their audience is looking for. Bravo to them.
There is still little information about this, but in March there will be a new software update for the iPod photo and a $29 USD "iPod Camera Connector accessory" that will allow you to upload photos directly from your camera to your iPod. That is kind of cool!
The battery of the new mini now runs up to 18 hrs. -- an improvement that's more important than a colour screen, I think.
Joerg, Woodstock has a battery life of ten hours. And I never ran down the battery.
Volker, my mini runs out of battery all the time. Tend to forget charging that thing all the time. Longer battery life therefore would be an improvement to me. Also noticed that the iPods no longer come with a firewire cable -- that'll set set you back additional 19 Euros.
Jörg, where do you buy your cables? The last 1394 cables I bought where about EUR4 including vat…
/k
Karsten, I'm afraid some clever marketing people at Apple came up with the idea of using proprietary connectors. You can't just use any FW cable.
Eh? No firewire device I’ve ever seen from Apple has proprietary connectors. Mini-Firewire sockets, yes, but that’s not an issue, they’re standard. Are iPods really totally different?
@Ben:
The iPod dock connector (the plug at the bottom of the newer iPods) is proprietary AFAIK.
In addition to the standard Firewire interface it includes audio out e.g. The cable which is (which was) included with the iPods has a standard 6-pin FireWire plug at the other end.
