Evan Sims

Apple announces iPod Touch, iTunes Wifi, more.

Today at San Francisco’s Moscone West, Steve Jobs announced a several new iPods, a new iTunes Wifi Store and a new business partnership with Starbucks, among other bits.

iPhone Price Drop

Roughly $200 less. Overdue and very much welcome.

iPod Touch

Apple kind of gave AT&T a kick in the ol’ jewels today by announcing the iPod Touch. Basically, take all the goodness of the iPhone without the phone, and AT&T’s nonsense, and you’ve got the touch. It supports Wifi, has Safari, multi-touch, music playback, video playback, all that fun stuff. Just no phone; and the 8GB model is $100 (USD) less than the 8GB iPhone, after the new price reduction. I was so pleased to see this move, as it gives all of us who don’t need or want to converge their phone with their mp3 player an opportunity to get their grubby hands on the sexy device.

Personally, I think it makes a hell of a lot of sense to keep your cell phone - which, if you’re like me, you undoubtedly upgrade far more often than you do your MP3 player - and just get a very sexy iPod that will last you a long while. Convergence is great, but when you replace your electronics as most of us do, it’s not very financially wise.

(Images courtesy of MacWorld.)

iPod Nano

As many of us had expected, and several sites leaked imagery of in the past week, Apple launched a redesigned iPod Nano, lovingly referred to as the “iPod fatty” - and for good reason. The thing is chunky for a Nano. Honestly, I don’t care much for it. I think it’s pretty fugly. I like the fact that they finally added video playback support, but the design is just hideous. What was so wrong with the 1st gen design, or even the 2nd gen, that Apple felt this direction was worth going?

iTunes Wifi Store

iPod Touch and iPhone owners will be able to browse and buy music right from their palm of their hands using the new iTunes Wifi Store; purchases are delivered straight to the device, and synced up to your PC next time you dock. By far the most exciting them for me at this event.

Starbucks Partnership

Kinda goofy, but worth mentioning; iTunes on the iPod and your PC/Mac will now detect when you’re using Wifi in a Starbucks, and will open access to a new iTunes section that allows you to see what music is currently playing in the store, and purchase it right from your device. This will take a massive infrastructure upgrade for Starbucks, and will not be an immediate launch by any means. From the amount of work that it will take to launch this feature, I’m guessing this is just the beginning of the partnership; these two have got something up their sleeves, mark my words.

iDrops actually work pretty well

So like I was saying, last week I ordered some iDrops from PodShop over on Amazon. I have an iPod nano that I got when I ordered my Mac Pro last year, and a year of use can leave some scars on a device so I thought I’d give it a try. What’s more, my laptop has been around the world and back more than a few times over and it’s surface was also showing some nasty scratches. I figured I’d try it on that too; couldn’t hurt.

Well, I’ve been pretty impressed with the results on both the laptop and the iPod. It took a couple uses on the iPod to get the minor scratches out, and I’m up to ten or so applications on the laptop (it had some very deep scratches) but both devices are really looking good. I can’t see the scratches on the iPod anymore, and the ones the laptop are barely noticeable unless it’s hit with direct sunlight. What’s more, the polishing aspects of it have made the shininess of the surface of the laptop practically like new.

So yeah, I’m super pleased with my purchase. If you’re looking for a quick fix to some device scratches, I’d recommend it.