Deal breakers
by Volker Weber
Having looked at yesterday's Apple announcement, and thinking over them for a day I conclude that the Motorola ROKR is a dog. Not very capable as a phone, and hampered with a slow and bad interface (His Steveness pressed the wrong button to get out of pause). On top of that it's crippled:
The phone includes a removable 512MB Flash memory chip (found under the battery in the back of the phone). This chip will hold up to 100 tracks but the number of songs it holds isn’t dependant strictly on the size of the chip (though it obviously can’t contain more than 512MB of data). Rather, the 100 track limitation is part of a DRM scheme that prevents the phone from playing more than 100 tracks.
iTunes 5 keeps track of the number of tracks authorized for playback on the phone so even if your 100 tracks have used only 350MB of the card’s capacity, you can’t add more. Similarly, although you can swap in a new card that contains new tracks, those tracks won’t play until they’ve been approved for playback by iTunes.
No 2 gig flash for you. That would hurt iPod sales, eh? Repeat after me: DRM hurts the customer.
The iPod nano in contrast is a hit. No more HD that does not survive a 2 ft drop. My theory is that you will drop everything you operate while walking around. No matter how careful you are, you will eventually drop it. That is why tablet PCs are such a terrible idea. Scoble can peddle them as much as he wants. Forget it. You will eventually drop it, and then it's broken and you are not getting a repair under warranty.
I dropped an iPod and I was lucky that Apple replaced my HD. I dropped it again and magically it did not break. Second time was on a wooden floor. That made all the difference. With the new nano, you no longer need to worry. On top of that it is really gorgeous, does the job and runs for 14 hours on one charge. However, I am not getting one:
According to an Apple representative we spoke with, the new iPod nano can be charged over either a USB 2.0 or FireWire connection, but the nano will sync only over USB 2.0.
Lucy does not have USB 2. And she is the mothership for my iPod. Deal breaker.
Comments
Volker, I won't comment on your by-montly iTunes/DRM rant as we all know where you stay by now.
This week actually, twice in a row :-)
You do like the iPod nano a lot but don't have USB2 on your old iMac?
Look at it this way: Apple just gave you an excellent good reason for upgrading not only your iPod but also your iMac!
It's called "marketing strategy".
(Creating needs we don't have...)
BTW, thanks for pointing out the USB iSync issue.
Have been very close to considering the purchase of an iPod nano myself but may give up for your very same reason.
Wonder why Apple is dropping the Firewire capabilty. Is it that more expensive building a device that uses both USB and FW?
I don't know about cost, but it makes sense. Standard Firewire is rated at 400Mbps, whereas USB 2 is 480, and there's more take-up of USB 2 with both PCs and Macs than there is of Firewire. I can't see how the cost of adding FireWire to modern iPods would stack up for Apple.
USB 2.0 is up to 480 Mbps. ;-) Much slower on my iBook than Firewire.
Another aspect: The battery (AGAIN) is build-in. So no replacement on your own terms, even though we know by now, that lithium-ion is aging!
That is not a deal breaker. My 2nd generation iPod is still doing fine. And I know a company which replaces the battery, and does so with a better one.
