Did I mention we like them?
Apple decided yesterday that it was time for some mildly updated iPods to go along with iTunes 4.9. This wasn’t particularly exciting for me; as a matter of fact it was kind of a disappointment because it all but assured me that the 5th generation iPods are a ways off. I’ve been tempted by the last two refreshes to pick up one of the 60 gig ones (my 3rd gen 15 gig is officially full), but I’ve held off in anticipation of the all-new one, which will supposedly have an aluminum enclosure and other goodies, not to mention the new single platter hard drives.
What really surprised me (although maybe it shouldn’t; not everyone follows Apple) is how many people thought that this was Apple’s idea of a big update. There are so many signs that this is not the case. The first and most obvious is that it looks exactly the same. They just made color standard and dropped “Photo” off of the name. They also neglected to feature it on their homepage, opting instead to make iTunes with Podcasting the feature. You can believe that anything Apple considered to be a serious update to the iPod would never be playing second fiddle to iTunes; if nothing else they would share the limelight. Finally, it hasn’t even been a year since we saw the debut of the 4th generation, if I remember correctly, and that wasn’t even a huge update from the 3rd.
There’s also speculation that there will be a video iPod and an iTunes phone, but to be honest, I could really care less. Very rarely do I consider myself an early adapter, as enthused about technology as I am. What good will a video iPod do for me right now? What will I watch on it and when? Why would I want to listen to music on my phone? Again, these are all questions I find myself asking everytime either of those is brought up, and I’m sure that, given another year or two, Apple will have provided some rock-solid answers.