The details of Apple’s new iPod line are pouring in and one thing is obvious. It’s all evolutionary, not revolutionary.

The iPod nano does video. The iPod classic holds more. The iPod touch is an iPhone without a phone. So where are the features everyone really wants?

For a little over an hour I received Wil Gomez’s running report and commentary on Apple’s iPod event—The Beat Goes On. That means new paint, new generation, new features, nothing revolutionary at all.

Everybody on the planet who cares was expecting an iPod that looks and feels like an iPhone, though priced less. It’s early in the holiday buying season so we were right to expect upgrades to the iPod nano, iPod classic, even the shuffle got new paint.

Apple has everything priced within dollars so there’s no real excuse not to buy a media player from anyone else but Apple, right? As Apple becomes more of a consumer gadget oriented company, it’s also not as innovative or so quick to move the product line and features into the future.

Other than the $200 price drop, nothing Apple released today was earth-shattering, groundbreaking, or unexpected. Except for what wasn’t introduced.

You gotta like the iPod touch. It’s an iPhone without a phone, still has Safari and WiFi, and now the ability to buy songs from iTunes WiFi Mobile Store. That’s good, but hardly innovative. Do customers really want to do that?

My favorite new feature is ringtones. 99-cents is competitive, and I get to choose my own tone or build one from the iTunes Store, which starts with 500,000 “ringtonable” songs. That ain’t shabby, folks.

What’s missing? Besides a Steve Jobs presentation which ends with somebody putting everyone in the audience to sleep. Will says he heard snores after 30 seconds of Starbucks’ Howard Schultz on stage.

What’s missing? Not the obvious. Apple is treading very carefully into VoIP—voice over IP technology via iChat, or Skype or whatever. Those “must have” features are not included in the iPhone or in the iPod touch, though clearly they were made for such handheld devices.

So, where are they? Apple doesn’t want to upset the cell phone carriers by introducing features that compete with cell phone usage minutes on their networks. So, no iChat, no Skype, no video camera for conferencing. It won’t happen. For now.

Where’s Mail in the iPod touch? Seriously. It has WiFi. It has icon space. But no Mail. Again, Apple wants you to buy an iPod touch just for the music and videos (which they sell to you), and not for much in the way of online connectivity, Safari notwithstanding.

Once Apple has Europe and Asian cell phone markets tied up and a successful launch is completed, and once the US carriers cough up the money (and the exclusive agreement with AT&T ends), then look for Apple to drop in iChat, a video camera, Mail in the iPod, and maybe even Skype.

For now, Apple is not thinking different. They’re thinking like a consumer gadget company with markets to protect, not markets to conquer.

Kate, I agree with some of what you’re saying, but these are features Apple can do without right now and still keep the sales growth and market share very strong. There’s not much competition out there in the iPod space and Apple has already shown it can take a chunk of mind share and market share even in the cell phone industry. Lower iPhone prices will only help the ship continue to move and gain momentum.

As to why Apple isn’t stuffing the products with such features as Mail, iChat, and a movie camera, that’s obvious, too. They don’t need to. Once they’re fully in bed with more mobile carriers in the US, Asia, and Europe, then they can make the iPod/iPhone duo the products we all need—to upgrade to in a year or two.

I may not like it that Apple won’t give me some features I want, but it’s hard to argue with their apparent reasons.

They don’t have to. We’ll buy anyway.

WRT - Skype and VoIP, don’t you thing Cisco put the kibash on that?
I would think at the least they got Apple to offer up an agreement not to do VoIP on the iPhone or provide a Skype client in order to get the right to use the iPhone name.
My guess is that Apple is restricted for maybe 5 years from doing this directly and may just leave it up to the cottage industry to allow that capabilty.

Cheers!

Chimera

Chimera - 05 September 2007 03:39 PM

WRT - Skype and VoIP, don’t you thing Cisco put the kibash on that?
I would think at the least they got Apple to offer up an agreement not to do VoIP on the iPhone or provide a Skype client in order to get the right to use the iPhone name.

From what I’ve heard from people in the industry, Cisco didn’t get much from Apple, and Apple gave up very little to use the iPhone name. Basically, they just took it from Cisco because those dolts didn’t do a good job protecting it.

The VoIP issue probably has more to do with the cell phone carriers than Cisco. BTW - Cisco’s iPhone sucks pond water.

My guess is that Apple is restricted for maybe 5 years from doing this directly and may just leave it up to the cottage industry to allow that capabilty.

5 years is an eternity, but a couple of years is likely, especially for AT&T;. One of the ‘buzz’ topics at the Moscone Center was the reason for the iPhone price cut. IF it’s selling great, why cut it that much? Everyone thinks sales are good, but it’s still at $500-$600 cell phone, so the market is limited. At $399 the market just got bigger, so expect more sales.

“Chimera?“ I recognize that handle from somewhere.

Wil,

From what I’ve heard from people in the industry, Cisco didn’t get much from Apple, and Apple gave up very little to use the iPhone name. Basically, they just took it from Cisco because those dolts didn’t do a good job protecting it.

The VoIP issue probably has more to do with the cell phone carriers than Cisco. BTW - Cisco’s iPhone sucks pond water.

Sucks pond water? Cool. An VoIP phone AND a Wet/Dry VAC

Interesting perspectives Re: AT&T;and Cisco.

Agreed, the new price point opens up the gates for stronger adoption. I’m sure the analysts are groaning on one hand, but not for long. Being an iPhone owner I am a little miffed at the loss of my $200, but in the end if massive adoption make that industry off their greedy arses, so much the better. Just as the iTunes/iPod was a comeuppance to the music industry fatcats.

Its been fun to watch Apple pluck the magic twanger through the acquired power they now wield.

You have to root for brilliance even if they are a little arrogant from time to time.  Surely they have made my 23 year Mac experience much more pleasure than not.

Cheers!

Chimera

My exact thoughts, Kate. No iChat??!? They took the camera off of it?!? I can’t figure a reason for that. It has to be cheaper to manufacture both the iPhone and iPod touch with similar components.

But there’s room to grow. The GREAT COMMUNICATOR we all dream of is still a ways off. Maybe when this NAND ram stuff is bigger and cheaper, it’ll pave the way for all these dream features. 16GB just sounds so 640K.

Why would Apple give us everything at once when they can get us to buy more stuff by doing these incremental updates.  Sure there may not be anything earthshattering here, but they have just reset the bar for their competition and are only really giving us enough to keep us from looking at buying a different product.  I may want all those features, but I don’t think they will give them to us until they feel they need to raise the bar again.

went to apple store to buy my new iPod until I read 16GB are they kidding me I have 80GB on my current iPod so what does apple want me to do with 16GB?????

I stick to my old 80GB Video and apple lost some money on me

I’m pretty sure ATT doesn’t want any cell phone they have to use VoIP.  That’s a competing technology to the cell network they have much money invested in.  Also, those cheap college students would cut their cell plans to a minimum since most places on campus have WiFi.  Since Apple is getting money each month from the iPhone from ATT, ATT’s views are important and Apple has clearly respected their views.

Of course if you use any of the myriad web-based email systems, you have mail on the iTouch.

Dah-veed - 07 September 2007 11:07 AM

I’m pretty sure ATT doesn’t want any cell phone they have to use VoIP.  That’s a competing technology to the cell network they have much money invested in.  Also, those cheap college students would cut their cell plans to a minimum since most places on campus have WiFi.  Since Apple is getting money each month from the iPhone from ATT, ATT’s views are important and Apple has clearly respected their views.

That’s a very polite way to say that Apple doesn’t want to frack the folks that are feeding it a cell phone market. I expect that to change at some point.

We can hope.

Bambi Brannan - 07 September 2007 11:43 AM

That’s a very polite way to say that Apple doesn’t want to frack the folks that are feeding it a cell phone market. I expect that to change at some point.

We can hope.

Apple appears to me to care more about its customers than many other companies, but they’re still a for profit company.  I think their stance on music sales and keeping the price at $0.99 a track was more to do with having a reasonably priced music service and therefore growing the business rather than keeping customers safe from being screwed by the music companies, but I do think some of the later was involved. 

As long as Apple continues to get a piece of the monthly revenue stream from ATT, then its going to continue to work with its carriers to protect that revenue stream.  What I hope for is, in the future, Apple gets out of the monthly revenue stream and just sells unlocked equipment to consumers who then can go to the service provider they wish.  Basically, the same model that the wireline phone service uses in regard to consumer provided equipment (CPE).  You buy what you want and just plug it in and it works.  The Cellular companies won’t like this since who has what handset helps consumers choose cellular providers.

In a sea of companies that are looking for ways to get more from their customers for the same service, Apple remains a lonely company that seems to care about the customer.  Of course when most of the other companies are scum, you don’t have to really care too much for the customer to look golden…

I think they are very aware of the fact that we have choices, and they want us to choose Apple.  Customer support is a great way to get people to want to use your products…I use Apple stuff because I want to not because I have to.