“I was a $200 iPhone beta tester for Apple.” is what the t-shirt said. Kevin Tofel, a blogger out of Telford was printing this message on t-shirts he was planning to circulate after the price cut came from apple regarding their flagship iPhone. The 8gb iPhone is now available for $399 from Apple while the smaller 4gb seems to have been taken off the shelf. The price drop of $200 or 1/3 the original cost of the phone is just 2 months after the iPhone's were released. This has lead to a huge uproar among the initial purchasers of the iPhone. Apple is taking a lot of flack for what people are saying is a slap in the face to the most loyal of the Apple customer base. Many are feeling quite used by Apple in the sense that they just spent $200 essentially for what has now turned into short-lived bragging rights. There are a few however that bought the phone without regard to its price so this doesn't concern them. In an open letter to all iPhone customers Steve Jobs is offering a $100 rebate to everybody who bought the iPhone before the price cut...... to be spent in the Apple store. “This is life in the technology lane.” Says Steve, “iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to 'go for it' this holiday season.” One writer likened this whole mess to Apple finally collecting its Monopoly money.
What about the redesigned, yet to be released iPods. Apple is releasing new versions of every iPod it's developed. The original iPod now dubbed the “iPod classic” has a slightly redesigned aesthetics with up to 160gb of storage. That doubles the storage of the previous top-dog, the 80gb iPod. Among the aesthetics are slightly increased battery life, new matte finish, new browsing interface and of course what Apple calls “Cover Flow”, which is the much showed off ability to browse your music by album covers. The iPod classic is available in 80gb and 160gb versions with flavors of only the usual black and white. They are priced $249 and $349 respectively.
For most consumers this is too large which is why they are also coming out with the iPod touch. As you may have already guessed, this is basically a trimmed down iPhone.. without the phone part. While losing the features of a normal cell phone, you do still get the calendar, Youtube, Safari web browser, photos, videos, contacts, calculator and the soon to be iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. Sadly though no Google maps channel; but I am sure you can get around that using the Safari browser. The largest iPod touch holds double that of the iPhone at a maximum capacity of 16gb. It also comes in a 8gb version. They are priced at $399 and $299.
For the smallest of the new iPod's we get the nano. Now with a brighter and larger display you can view videos even on a iPod nano. The new nano includes all the usual refinements including increased battery life, brighter display, new matte finish and a lower case 'n' in its name. The nanos' come in 4gb and 8gb versions. Once again the 4gb version is only available in white, while the 8gb version is available in blue, green, black and a special edition red version which if bought will have a portion the purchase price donated to the “Global Fund to fight AIDs in Africa”. Unfortunately it is not said how much of the purchase price is donated. You can also get a “(product) red” iPod classic, Shuffle and iTunes Gift Cards all donating a portion of the money spent.
Apple will soon be introducing two new services available to all those who have a iPhone or iPod touch. The first of which is a new channel on your device to use the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. It will basically be the same store you get through iTunes except a lot thinner and formatted specifically for your device. It's safe to say this store will not be available over the Edge network due to its name. The second project is the iTunes Music Store being integrated into Starbucks wifi. You can connect for free to the Starbucks wi-fi network and see what songs they are playing in the shop and then proceed to buy them from the iTunes music store very smoothly. You can see the current song, the last 10 played songs as well as “featured Starbucks Collections”. If your not interested in coffee shop music then at least you'll get free wifi outside of the current not so free T-Mobile plan. The Starbucks program will be released in 5 major cities worldwide including the San Francisco Bay Area on November 7, 2007. The dates differ however for each city. The release date for the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store has yet to be announced.
You may have noticed that the larger iPod touch and the iPhone are now priced exactly the same. The question that floats into perspective is which do you value more: features or storage? It is hard to believe Apple left out 80gb of storage on the iPhone by accident. You are either going to have to carry around an iPod and an iPhone to retain your entire library or only carry a portion of your music. Either way I hope this article clears up much of the confusion surrounding the new iPods and iPhones and will help you make an informed decision regarding your purchase when the new iPods are released.
***This is my second article submitted but the first to be published in the Star, this article was submitted for Student Life therefore I had to remain objective not inserting my opinions into the article which I nonetheless managed to do without the 'me' or 'I' restriction ; ) Hope you enjoy
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