New (sqatty) Nano

I love the Idea of video in the new Nanos, as does everyone else. However, not to question the brilliant Mr. Ives, but it seems as though this would have been the next logical step.

Granted, the 3rd generatinon Nanos are not as "square" in person as they seem to be in pictures. It just seems a little wrong.

Not so Creative

I appreciate the Zune, the Zen, and the Sansa in the MP3 player marketplace. Although I would never buy one, it forces Apple (and everyone else) to make better products, to innovate ahead of the curve. However, the reason I would never buy one, is the other products offer no real incentive, they are lacking the refinement and development. When you are behind the ball, that's all you have. They don't make a better product, and they don't have anything new.

This point is made loud and clear with Creative Lab's new Zen Stone.
If it’s not completely obvious, it is a weak, tardy attempt to get a piece of the micro MP3 player market that Apple is nearly alone in. Make no mistakes about it, this is an iPod Shuffle replica, it's a knockoff, a hack. They try to throw you off the trail by disguising it in a crazy new material and moving the nearly identical navigation circle to the complete opposite side of the device. In my opinion they’re not much different than cheap Korean knock off’s.

The frustrating thing is, having seven months to replicate the Shuffle, Creative Labs still hasn’t been able to improve on it. They weren’t even able to strip it of it’s “smallest MP3 player” title, and it has 2 hrs less battery life. Aesthetics are relative, but we all know it’s not as pretty. It’s better looking than the previous Shuffle, but alas it’s a year and a half late for that. Not to mention you won’t have the array of Shuffle accessories, to keep you from losing your postage stamp player.

If there where any doubts that it is a cheap copy. Creative’s site states:

Choose how you want to listen to your music! Push the dedicated random button for shuffle playback, play your music in the order you like or repeat your favorite song over and over again?

You mean there is a mode that allows me to randomly SHUFFLE the songs on my micro MP3 player? Creative indeed!

Creative chairman and CEO Sim Wong Hoo says (ha-ha "Hoo says"):

The Creative ZEN Stone, at just $39.99, opens up a huge new market for MP3 players. This is an incredible price for everyone to get a superior quality MP3 player capable of holding up to 250 songs.

First of all, please let me know what makes this a superior quality MP3 player. Second, I appreciate the price of MP3 players, and electronics in general dropping. They might as well movie tickets are nearly $10. However Creative hopes to move these not by offering something cooler or different, but by simply underselling the Shuffle. This doesn’t work.

Update:
I forgot to mention that Mr Hoo made this statement In January of 2005 when the Shuffle Debuted.

So I think the whole industry will just laugh at it, because the flash people – it’s worse than the cheapest Chinese player. Even the cheap, cheap Chinese brand today has display and has FM.

iGrill

Can anyone tell me why this is a good idea? Wouldn't it be a better idea to get a standard portable ipod speaker dock, with undoubtedly better speakers, and take it with me not only when I grill, but everywhere else I choose? With 10 watt speakers and no touch sensative controls, I'm not sold. Aren't there any activities that we engage where we don't need to have some sort of connectivity to an iPod? Do everyday products need to be catered to, or made for MP3 players all of a sudden for some reason? For a premium nonetheless. Just some thoughts.

IPod accessories are getting ridiculous, and I'm not quite sure how most of these companies can afford to make products of which have to contend with hundreds of competitors. Oh well, have a healthy BBQ.

NES iPod

There is general geekery and then there is this sort of thing.

Apple Design

The iPhone and the new Airport Extreme got me thinking about the depth of Apple's design team. Particularly the new iPhone really is a testimite to the design capabilities of Apple Inc. (not Apple Computers Inc. as of yesterday). I thought I'd take a second to give some recognition to Jonathan Ive. He is one of my design heros and is commony overlooked or unknown behind the shadow of Steve Jobs and Apple itself. He is the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple and is the design visionary behind All of the iMacs, the iPod, Powerbook, iSub (awesome product), Cinema Displays, Mac Mini, G4 Cube and others. I read this quote from Philippe Spruch founder of LaCie yesterday and I thought of him specifically.

It's not that Apple design is better or worse than the design of the Sony Vaio. But you feel that it's part of the DNA. They are crazy about every detail, and you feel that. Today, many more companies invest in design, but they do it because they are forced to, not because they like it, and I think you can feel that in their products.

That's what many people can't put their finger on that makes Apple so cool.

iPhone

Well what can I say, it’s awesome! Apple announced the iPhone at yesterdays 2007 Macworld Expo keynote that exceeded nearly everyone’s hopes and predictions. Going to Apples website and watching the quicktime clips is enough to send any geek, well okay, anyone under 40 who’s ever used a phone, into wide-eyed tech shock. So a quick premature synopsis:

A few features.

• 160dpi screen. This is one of the features that truly sets the unit apart visually, and something that will have to be seen in person to truly appreciate.
• OSX. Finally a phone OS that is functional and thought out. This has been the achilles heel of ALL cell phones. They are not intuitive.
• Multitouch technology for even more intuitive navigation.
• Wireless communication (other than cellular network). The iPhone supports both Bluetooth 2.0 and WiFi (802.11 b/g).
• SMS, Photos, Mail, Maps, Widgets.
• Oh yeah, it’s also the most advanced Video iPod yet.
  

The size is amazing as well, its 4.5 x 2.4 inches which is perfect to accommodate the 3.5 inch screen, but the thing is only 11.6mm deep. That’s .01mm slimmer than a Motorola SLVR if your even interested in such a minute difference. The point – it’s very slim body for so much technology.

There are a few things however that I’m not so hyped about. The big one…2 year Cingular contract. I don’t like Cingular and I’m not alone. It makes sense on Apples part to do this. Cingular is the biggest cellular provider in the US and it puts them in a great passion to move into Europe quickly. However for me and anyone else who lives West of Texas, or anyone who has ever received an incorrect bill from them, Cingular, well, isn’t good. This map (which is more flattering than their printed version) shows the situation, and trust me it’s worse than it looks. Can someone tell me why Kansas and Iowa have better coverage than Washington and California. Also Cingular’s data network is significantly slower than the CDMA (Verizon, Sprint) counterparts. Boo.

The other issues are not as big of a deal. 2MP Camera is lackluster, but who cares, it’s a phone. The non removable battery could be terribly inconvenient. Actual life on the battery will obviously only be subject to criticism over time, however I believe it’s inevitable. Stock up on chargers so you can have one everywhere.

On a side point, It’s funny that dates of Macworld haven’t completely overlapped CES for 5 years. The year that it does Apple announces something that will almost surly eclipse anything to come out of CES which is infinitely bigger. Does anyone care how big they can make LCD’s that no one can afford anyway?

This phone is cool enough to make me seriously consider moving to Cingular. It is simply amazing, It also provides a “Mac PDA”, if I may deem it so, that seamlessly syncs and integrates with Macs (this has never been perfect) and I’m sure just as seamlessly with Windows. I also tend to believe that Apple will release a new “Video” iPod before December that will be the iPhone, sans phone. This seems like an inevitable next step, but it won’t happen soon or they would cannibalize iPhone sales. I just can’t see the current iPod (that is a year old) staying around with the only upgrade option being a phone.

Final thoughts: It’s not looking good for the Zune, but then it never was.